| An ethnic Tamil woman stabbed to death by the Sri Lankan Soldiers say witnesses |
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A young ethnic Tamil woman was dragged out from her home and stabbed to death on Saturday 7 July by the Sri Lanka military in the eastern district of Batticallo according to eyewitnesses. “As the young victim’s mother screamed begging the Sri Lankan military soldiers to stop the attack, the soldiers stabbed her 12 times to death” say an eyewitness. The victim is identified as Balasuntharam Thavamany, age 22, from the village of Viduthikal in Paduvankarai area in Batticaloa in the Eastern Sri Lanka.
In a similar incident on 4th of July a father of three children was abducted by the Sri Lankan military that came to a house in the same area according to civilian sources in the area. The abducted man’s where about remain unknown to this date. “This issue, abductions, disappearances, started increasing again from the beginning of last year," says Mano Ganesan, a Tamil member of Parliament, and one of the conveners of the Civil Monitoring Commission, formed early last year to monitor the rise in abductions and murders - he says primarily of Tamils. Earlier last month the brother of President of Sri Lanka, Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and defense secretary to Island nation admitted that the Sri Lanka Military does covert operation to marginalize the Tamil Rebels. "All the militaries do covert operations," Rajapaksa said. "When the US does operations they say covert operations. When something is in Sri Lanka they call abductions. This is playing with the words” Rajapaksa said. Since then the Civil Monitoring Commission has recorded a steady stream of abductions - 103 cases up to the end of April. According to other monitoring groups that number is barely the tip of the iceberg, with thousands of disappearances and murders going unreported in battleground areas such as Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the east, and Jaffna in the north. “Abduction and secret murder have become institutionalized in Sri Lanka” said one senior public servant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We have security forces and police who have done this thing before. They are quite used to that technique. They think it's an easy way. They've improved on it now, they have perfected it - they killed by the thousands and got away with it [in the late 1980s]. And they learnt from their mistakes - now you find bodies without heads or hands [to prevent identification]." One of the oldest human rights organisations in Colombo, Home for Human Rights, which has recorded human rights violations in Sri Lanka since 1977, says even the quantifiable numbers are much higher. In the first four months of this year alone it recorded 270 disappearances and murders. Last year, it says, there were just under 1000. Even the work of the monitoring organisations is not without risk. In November the co-convener of the commission with Ganesan, fellow Tamil politician Nadaraja Raviraj, was shot dead while driving on a busy road in a safe part of Colombo in the middle of the day. Fearing for his life, Ganesan fled to India, and returned only when the Government provided him with security. The irony of being guarded by officers from the very Government he accuses of murdering Raviraj is not lost on him. Asked how he feels about his security cocoon - at least six guards, dressed in subdued colours with bulges at the hip, all wearing sunglasses - he smiles. "Even if I distrust them what can I do? I can't tell them to go away." And while he confesses to carrying a handgun, he's not concerned. "I'm always optimistic," he says, smiling. But the smile quickly disappears. "And it's not going to be easy to assassinate me, or kill me, or take me away. If anybody tries, it will be a tough job for them." The impunity with which Raviraj's killing was carried out is symptomatic of a dark side of Sri Lanka, where rebel and paramilitary groups kill who they want when they want. Many, such as Ganesan, allege the involvement of the police and military. After the late 1980s, when the government crushed a Marxist uprising at a cost of at least 30,000 lives, successive governments promised to never return to those dark days. But now an increasingly cowed society is whispering of a return to the culture of impunity. One senior public servant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said abduction and secret murder have become institutionalised in Sri Lanka. "We have security forces and police who have done this thing before. They are quite used to that technique. They think it's an easy way. They've improved on it now, they have perfected it - they killed by the thousands and got away with it [in the late 1980s]. And they learnt from their mistakes - now you find bodies without heads or hands [to prevent identification]." While the number of murders is nowhere near those of the late 1980s, he says the situation is beginning to resemble the bad old days. "Democratic institutions are being stifled, human rights are being violated and abandoned, and the value to life is low - anybody can disappear or get killed any time. You may find bodies lying here or there. There'll be only a mention that a body was found, and that is all, the investigation won't go beyond that." The public servant attributes the current wave of disappearances and murders to an impersonal "they" and says it doesn't matter who is responsible - what matters is that "they" are willing and able to kill. "Everybody is free to dispose of anybody whom they want. And they are sure they are not getting caught." In some cases, there is an almost absurd collusion from both sides. Take the case of a Tamil Hindu priest in the east. According to a report by the international organisation Human Rights Watch, in early February in the town of Varahai, shortly after Government forces had captured the area, soldiers arrived at the home of the priest, Salliah Parameswar, and demanded he go with them. "They took him to a victory ceremony … where the priest was instructed to garland President Mahinda Rajapakse as a sign that Tamils in the area welcomed what the Government called their 'liberation'. The event was widely publicised in the media. Five days later, unknown gunmen came to the priest's house, took him from his family, and shot him dead." One of the worst affected groups are Tamil journalists, who face extreme risks when their reportage is critical of either side. The editor of the Jaffna-based Tamil newspaper Uthayan, Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, recently described to Agence France Presse the kind of threats his staff and he face. "We have lost five staff in the last 18 months," he said. "I have had grenades tossed into my room, but I am ready for anything." While most accept that some abductions are attributable to the Tigers, Tamil politicians accuse the Government of involvement via the military and paramilitaries. "The [Tamil Tigers are] basically considered a guerilla, terrorist organisation … and we have a Government here in Colombo, a legitimate, democratically elected Government that represents [Sri Lanka] to the international community, doing the same thing." For its part the Government says the number of abductions is vastly exaggerated, and accuses its enemies of trying to manufacture a rise in abductions to embarrass it. In an interview on the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera recently, President Rajapakse said some of the alleged abductees were simply overseas. Under pressure from within Sri Lanka and from the diplomatic community, last year the Government set up a commission of inquiry to examine 16 of the more serious allegations of murder and abduction. The commission has been hampered, however, by the lack of witnesses. Only 12 have come forward, with the fear of being murdered or abducted themselves keeping most away. As the August deadline for its report looms, many question whether it will be able to provide anything close to a comprehensive report on even the few cases it is examining. And as the numbers of human rights violations in Sri Lanka rise, the international community is finding itself forced to act. Britain halted debt relief to Sri Lanka in May, in anger at the Government's human rights record, and major donor Japan is reviewing its position. Germany stopped its aid in December. The US is also expressing concerns. During a visit to Sri Lanka in early May the US diplomat Richard Boucher criticised the Government for the prevailing climate of fear. "I feel a lot people are afraid," he said. "We have seen people killed; there are very serious threats, lots of people are very worried about their lives. More needs to be done to create a climate where people feel safe." Australia has also recently joined in the condemnation. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, criticised both sides in a press release in late May. Australia was, he said, concerned by "the growing environment of impunity surrounding human rights violations in Sri Lanka". But all of this international politicking means very little to the families; what matters is the return of their relatives. After the interview with the Herald, Ketheeswaran and her family slowly file out of the small, humid office. They gather several small plastic bags holding shopping and clothes, and walk out into the oppressive heat of the Colombo afternoon. Later, Ganesan suggests there is not much hope for the Ketheeswarans, or for any of the other families of those who have disappeared, though he says he does not tell them this. "All the political kidnappings end up in death, there is no question." The young woman who was stabbed to death was sleeping with several other families in the home. It has become a practice in Batticalao among many families who are fearful of military death squads to gather in one home at night according to civilians in the area. Following the killing of the young woman on 7 July, around 300 families from the surrounding villages of Kuluvinamadu and Viduthikal, have displaced to Munaikadu, Muthalaikuda, and Kokkadicholai according to a Tamil Parliamentarian, P Ariyanenthiran, representing the east. According to the Tamil Parliamentarian the families of the victims could clearly identify the Sri Lankan military personnel who committed both of these crimes. “However, they are not coming forward to give the witness out of fear of reprisal” he said. Meantime, the Sri Lankan government is planning to hold victory celebrations after its troops have seized vast swathes of land in the restive east. TENS |
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