Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

SLA assaults Human Rights Advisor, SLHRC coordinator receives death threats

The Legal Advisor of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SL-HRC) Jaffna office, Mudiyapu Remedias, an Attorney-at-law, registered a complaint Friday with the Jaffna Commanding Officer of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) that he was assaulted severely by a group of SLA soldiers near Stanley Road in Jaffna Town, Friday morning, when he was on duty. Meanwhile, S. Surenthirarajah, the Co-ordinating Officer of the organisation, also registered a complaint with the Jaffna police that he has been subjected to continuous threats to his life.

What is happening out there is just silly. LTTE are talking for power sharing when they get a big hammering. Is that not clear? They were kicked out from the East and now the tiger cubs need some shelter to relax and this is what we hear. Do you honestly believe that LTTE is any way for sharing power?

The UNP offered
-Federal state
-Sharing of tsunami- billions of rupees
-Stopping other paramilitary activities

What is happening out there is just silly. LTTE are talking for power sharing when they get a big hammering. Is that not clear? They were kicked out from the East and now the tiger cubs need some shelter to relax and this is what we hear. Do you honestly believe that LTTE is any way for sharing power?

LTTE to emulate Baathist tactics in the east
By B.Raman

When the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Baathist Army of Saddam Hussein decided not to engage the US forces in a frontal confrontation. They did not put up much resistance to the coalition troops? advance to Baghdad and its occupation.

Even before the US troops reached Baghdad, the Baathist Army had dispersed into a large number of stay-behind cells, which merged with the population, after having cached their arms, ammunition and explosives in location, where they could be easily found by these cells.

After the Americans occupied Baghdad and President Bush proclaimed 'mission accomplished,' these cells came out of their hiding, took out the cached weapons and explosives and started operating against the US troops in different autonomous groups.

They have since then been keeping the US troops and the forces of the Shia-dominated government bleeding in Baghdad and in the Sunni majority areas of the country. The coalition troops find themselves caught in a bloody quagmire.

A similar tactic has been adopted by the jihadi elements in Somalia. In the face of the Ethiopian invasion, a half of their army, chased by the Ethiopian troops, withdrew towards Kenya. The remaining dispersed in a number of small cells capable of operating autonomously and merged with the population in different parts of the country, including Mogadishu, after having cached their weapons and explosives.

These stay-behind cells have now been taking out the cached weapons and explosives and attacking the government and Ethiopian troops.

It is learnt that after studying the stay-behind tactics of the Baathist forces in Iraq, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has decided to emulate them. Many of the LTTE cadres, who were based in Vaharai, have divided themselves into a number of small, autonomous stay-behind cells after caching their weapons and explosives at suitable places.

Their idea is to make the Sri Lankan forces in the Eastern Province continuously bleed as the Baathists have been making the Americans bleed. Their objective is to turn the Eastern Province into a bleeding quagmire for the Sri Lanka Army. The LTTE, which continues to face a severe shortage of anti-aircraft shells and missiles, has managed to replenish its stock of explosives with the help of its contacts in Lebanon.

The LTTE is also planning to step up attacks on economic targets associated with external trade and tourism. The probing raid in the Colombo harbour on January 27 was the first step in this planned economic war.

A new phase of the so-called war for Tamil Eelam has begun. It remains to be seen whether the LTTE cadres in the east and Colombo will succeed in implementing these new tactics as competently as the resistance fighters in Iraq have been doing against the Americans.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, and presently Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)

Lets go forward than backward. Let the true tamils come to the scene than these buffoons. Let Anandasangarie et al people come to rule the tamils and remove this shackles from wild horn bulls of the LTTE.

By D.B.S. Jeyaraj

An ongoing feature of the Rajapakse regime is the mass arrest of Tamil people in Colombo, suburbs and other areas in the south. Hundreds of innocent Tamils are languishing in police stations and in the Boosa Detention Centre.

This practice of rounding up Tamils and arresting them on a mass scale first began during the times of Chandrika Kumaratunga. The mastermind behind this was then senior DIG, Police, H.M.G.B. Kotakadeniya.

In a purported attempt to cleanse Colombo and suburbs of potential Tigers, Kotakadeniya initiated this notorious practice. Thousands were arrested and detained amidst inhuman conditions in police stations and subsequently in jails.

Criteria

The criteria for being treated as Tiger suspects were two things. Failure to register themselves with the local cop shop and lack of proper identification documents. Many up-country Tamils do not have these documents, so most of those arrested in Colombo were from the plantation areas working or seeking employment in Colombo. Significant numbers of north eastern youth were also detained.

?Plantation patriarch? Saumiyamoorthy Thondaman, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) leader and cabinet minister, began exerting pressure on President Kumaratunga. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) also followed suit. The TULF also met then Attorney General Sarath de Silva and discussed the issue. TULF legal eagle Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam planned a campaign where the courts were to be flooded with writs of habeas corpus and fundamental rights applications.

Discarded

All this plus the personality factor of Kumaratunga saw the Kotakadeniya modus operandi being discredited and discarded. The mass arrests were stopped. Kotakadeniya himself was transferred out of Colombo. Later he was overlooked for promotion as IGP. A disgusted Kotakadeniya opted to retire. He then entered politics and became a senior vice president of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU).

After Mahinda Rajapakse came to power, the ?Jathika? types got ensconced in the seats of power. Kotakadeniya became defence advisor. The return of Kotakadeniya was demonstrated through the resurrection of cordons, searches, mass arrests and detentions in Colombo and in up-country areas.

One again there was an outcry. This time it was the international community, which remonstrated ?quietly? to the government. Former Indian High Commissioner Nirupama Menon Rao played a significant role in persuading Mahinda Rajapakse. Things improved.

Now the nefarious practice has been revived again in the name of national security. Recent events have contributed to this. The assassination attempt on the President?s sibling and Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse was a sharp turning point.

Draconian PTA

The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was re-activated. It had been de-activated after the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) came into force. The Emergency Regulations were amended and enhanced.

Elements of the PTA were incorporated into new provisions known as Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities Regulations (PPTSTAR). The new regulations made explicit reference to the PTA.

When announcing the renewed war on terror, Rajapakse made it a point to emphasise that these were not necessitated by the fact that his own brother escaped a flagrant assassination attempt in Colombo. It is hard to say whether this was a Freudian slip or not.

Reality

The two bus explosions at Nittambuwa and near Hikkaduwa in early January saw several civilians being killed. It also brought home the frightening reality that bombs could target civilians in any part of the Island. Earlier the government thought it had a monopoly of bombarding civilians. While jet bombers were dropping bombs on civilian dwellings in the north east, parcel bombs were going off in buses in the south.

This triggered off the current wave of arrests and detentions. It must be noted that there was no clear evidence of who was responsible for the bombings. Though the state and state-sponsored media were quick to blame the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), others were not so sure. Many countries condemning the bombings lamented the attacks on civilians but refrained from attributing blame on any party.

Given its track record, the LTTE may very well have been responsible, but stories circulating in Colombo also laid suspicions on a ?reformed? political party with a history of anti-people violence and also the dirty tricks department of intelligence outfits. With tales of many Sinhala persons collaborating with the LTTE, it was also possible that the parcel bombs could have been placed in the buses by Sinhala people themselves.

Security operations

But to the Rajapakse regime, the only suspect was the LTTE and by extension the Tamils. Security operations began with Tamils as targets. Colombo, Wattala, Kotte, Gampaha, Minuwangoda, Negombo, Boralesgamuwa, Dehiwela, Ambalangoda, etc., were all areas where searches and arrests were conducted. ?Suspicious? Tamils too were arrested at random. At one point more than 700 Tamils were arrested. They were all taken to police stations.

Boosa, in the deep south, was a notorious detention centre for Tamils arrested under the PTA in the ?80s and ?90s. Once again Tamils were taken to Boosa. The current official position is that 116 persons are being held in Boosa. Of these eight are women.

On-going phenomenon

Inquiries are over for many and 33 persons found ?innocent? were scheduled to be released by Friday, January 26. Another 41 regarded as ?innocent? are expected to be released before February 8, it is said. But Boosa figures are fluid because arrests and detentions are an on-going phenomenon.

Many of those arrested were released after prolonged detention and interrogation in police stations. Currently it is estimated that around 300 are held in police stations in Colombo, suburbs and outstations. There is much confusion about the criteria for arrests and the procedures adopted. It is also unclear as to which category of detainees is taken to Boosa and which category is released after interrogation in police stations.

Right connections

Our khakied fraternity is well-known for its honesty and incorruptible integrity. There are instances of arrested Tamils being released quickly if the right connections are made and the correct ?santhosams? paid. I am personally aware of two employees at a hotel being arrested and then released after the concerned proprietor gave Rs. 200,000 to the local guardians of law and order. The long arm of the law has an outstretched palm!

Not all are so lucky because they have neither the connections nor the resources. A final year undergraduate from Peradeniya University came down to Colombo for a day to celebrate Thai Pongal. She had not been ?registered? with the police when a raid occurred. She was taken in as a ?suspect? in spite of showing her NIC and university documents. She was arrested on January 14 and is yet to be released.

Another disturbing incident was on Tuesday, January 23. The Galle-bound evening train from Colombo was stopped suddenly at Ratmalana. There had been a tip-off that a suicide bomber was travelling in it with the intention of blowing it up.

Nearly 2,000 passengers were on the train and all were checked. Those who did not fit the ?racial profile? were let off easily. One Tamil woman was arrested. Apparently the passengers were all remaining in the train while the checking was on. If there had been a suicide bomber on the train, it would have been so easy to self-explode. That?s our security!

Latest reports

Among the latest reports of arrests were the round-up and detention of some Tamils in Mt. Lavinia and Dehiwala on the night of Wednesday, January 24. Eleven were taken to Mount Lavinia police station and nine to Dehiwala. According to police sources, those detained in Dehiwala comprise six young Tamil women, an old Tamil woman of 70, and two men.

Their ?offense? was not following proper registration procedures, said police sources. They were all from the north and had not registered with the Dehiwala police. Some of those arrested were gainfully employed in Colombo.

What is puzzling is that the Dehiwala police had not given out forms to residents to fill out and register those from the north east. Only the Wellawatte police seems to have done this. Even many Bambalapitiya and Colpetty residents have not been given relevant forms.

The confusion is compounded further because of the criteria adopted in arresting people. People are treated as ?suspects? for not having proper identification documents, it is said. According to an up-country Tamil MP, a senior superintendent of police had told him that documents such as NICs, birth certificates, certificates of proof from grama sevakas and principals of educational institutions or employers were required. However, many of those arrested were in possession of these documents but were detained.

Finger-printing

The Pettah police detained some people from the up-country recently. When Up-Country People?s Front MP and Deputy Minister Radhakrishnan made inquiries, he was told that they were detained only to be finger-printed and that they would be released in due course. If only fingerprinting was needed, why take and lock them up for days at a stretch?

The police cells and rooms are overcrowded. Most detainees sleep in a sitting position. Many of those detained are from the plantation areas without the necessary documents. They are not ?bigshots,? but those employed in menial jobs.

Keheliya Rambukwella, the ebullient cabinet spokesperson on defence affairs, was interviewed by the BBC Tamil Service Thamilosai on this matter. He said that people were being detained because they had not registered themselves.

When asked why they were being taken to Boosa, Rambukwella said that they needed a place to be rehabilitated. Why on earth do people who failed to register themselves need rehabilitation in Boosa? That was a question the interviewer failed to ask of Keheliya.

Legal basis

An important question is the legal basis for these arrests. Lawyers retained by a human rights organisation were surprised to find some police officers saying the suspects were being held under a CDO. This was something new to them.

A CDO is apparently a Criminal Detention Order under the newly passed PPTSTAR of enhanced Emergency Regulations. So the up-country Tamil MPs concerned about mass arrests of plantation youth are helping to perpetuate this state of affairs by regularly voting to extend the emergency.

Another shocking revelation was that many police stations had been given bundles of CDO forms in advance. All CDO forms have been ?assang karala? on a mass scale by the Defence Secretary. All that the police officers had to do was fill out the necessary personal particulars of the detainees and hold them in captivity in the police stations or send them to Boosa. The valid period for detention was one month. Thereafter further extensions were required but there was no problem as they were readily available in bulk.

The purpose of requiring the Defence Secretary to sign detention orders under the PTA or PPTSTAR is to ensure that police officials are not guilty of abuses and excesses. In a delicate exercise of checks and balances, civilian authority is necessary to restrain the security forces from running amok.

Bonanza

The Defence Secretary or his delegated civilian deputies are expected to examine each case and approve of detention or extension of detention only where it is felt to be warranted.

This procedure is not always followed in practice. Defence secretaries have signed orders mechanically without going into the merits in detail. But in this case the current Defence Secretary has ?devolved? authority and responsibility by providing police officers with signed, blank detention forms in bulk beforehand. With such a bonanza, the local cops are having a field day by detaining a ?suspect? for some, any or no reason at all.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse being a retired army officer is conducting himself with a military mindset but what he seems to have forgotten is that he is now a civilian official with clear-cut duties and responsibilities. An axiom of the rule of law is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty Here the suspects are deemed guilty first and have to prove their innocence

No one questions. By his actions the younger Rajapakse can be deemed of abusing his duties. He may not know why a particular person has been arrested but he bears the responsibility by virtue of his position and powers. Rajapakse should consult former Defence Secretary Chandrananda de Silva who was ?rejected? by Canada when appointed as envoy to Ottawa. Gotabhaya, who is a US citizen, should ask himself why that happened to Chandrananda.

When the PTA was re-activated in its new form, the Free Media Movement (FMM) called on the government of Sri Lanka to 'clarify the precise implications of its decision to reactivate the PTA.'

'We note that the latest proclamation is at pains to posit itself within the nature and scope of legitimate anti-terrorism measures as set out in the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1373 of 2001. Nevertheless, given the long history of emergency-related abuse of power in Sri Lanka, there are several points of serious concern with regard to the new regulations,' the FMM release said.

The FMM misgivings are proving to be very relevant in the present context. The government must come out with a detailed explanation. The people, particularly the racially-profiled Tamil people, must be told specifically of their obligations and rights.

Anti-Tamil stance

People must know why they are being arrested and what crime they have committed. All those genuinely concerned about the inherent rights of a human being should question the regime as to whether people need to be detained in Boosa and elsewhere under inhuman conditions for not having proper ID or failing to register.

Meanwhile, Tamils continue to suffer arrests and detentions for flimsy and garbled reasons. The Rajapakse regime is becoming noted for its pronounced anti-Tamil stance under the pretext of combating terrorism. No one questions the government?s right to adopt security measures to combat terrorism. But are these methods, like arresting people for not registering or not having adequate documentations, justifiable or workable?

The LTTE has excellent ID documents. They seldom get caught for things like this. Only the innocent, poor and powerless fail in these matters. Poor souls! Sadly there is no powerful political voice to protest this racial profiling and mass detentions.

LTTE welcome to share power like the Maoists in Nepal - Bogollagama

However, the Minister made it clear that, to be able to do this, the Tamil Tigers must
give up terrorism first and become stake-holders in order to share power.