DRAVIDA PERAVAI COMPLAINT TO INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT OF JUSTICE AGAINST TAMIL GENOCIDE

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON TAMIL GENOCIDE : 2009

Since the security forces regained control over the Jaffna peninsula from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in late 1995 - early 1996, there have been continuing reports of arbitrary arrests and torture, including rape, and 'disappearances' in custody. In particular the number of’ disappearances' reported has been of serious concern. Amnesty International has so far submitted more than 200 cases of people who were seen taken into custody but whose detention was subsequently denied by the security forces to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. It has urged that an independent and impartial investigation be instituted to establish their fate or whereabouts. Local human rights organizations and Tamil members of parliament have also repeatedly brought cases of 'disappearances' to the attention of the President and other authorities.

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=505

 

Human rights agencies say safeguards in the law are being circumscribed

British Refugee Council Publication: Sri Lanka Monitor

"SUPREME COURT Judge ARB Amarasinghe says in a judgment that Sri Lankan authorities often breach laws and regulations relating to arrest and detention. The detention of Jaffna Tamil youth Vijayam Vimalendran for over three years was illegal the Court declared on 20 December and ordered Rs 25,000 compensation. Although Emergency regulations give wide powers to the security forces there must be adequate grounds for arrest. The Court says the Defense Secretary should have sufficient evidence before signing detention orders. Even those detained under Regulation 17 (i) as posing a threat to national security, should be informed of the reasons for arrest...

Human rights agencies say safeguards in the law are being circum- scribed by authorities. In the north-east arrested persons are held for 60 days under Emergency regulations and then under the Prevention of Terror- ism Act (PTA) which provides for 18 months detention without being produced before a court.

In southern areas, including Colombo, suspects are generally detained for seven days under Emergency regulations and then under the PTA on the orders of a magistrate. Agencies say such prolonged detentions are illegal. Twenty three prisoners in Kalutara prison for over two years allege that their detention is illegal and say they will fast unto death if they are not released before 19 January...

There is a fear in Colombo that military death squads have returned. Retired Tamil engineer Mahadeva was abducted in the dreaded "white van" on 25 December from his residence in Bambalapitiya..."

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=506

 

Torture - including electric shock, burning, beating on soles of feet, gasoline soaked bags over head...says US State Department Report

"Torture remained a serious problem... Members of the security forces continued to torture and mistreat detainees and other prisoners, both male and female, particularly during interrogation. Although the number of torture reports was somewhat lower than in previous years in the Colombo area, the situation in Eastern Province did not improve. Torture also emerged as a problem in the newly recaptured Jaffna Peninsula. In November a Supreme Court judge stated publicly that torture continued unabated in police stations in spite of a number of judicial pronouncements against its use. Pro-government Tamil militants in the east and north, directly responsible to the security forces, also engaged in torture...

"Methods of torture included electric shock, beatings (especially on the soles of the feet), suspension by the wrists or feet in contorted positions, burning, near drowning, placing of insecticide, chili powder, or gasoline-soaked bags over the head, and forced positions. Detainees have reported broken bones and other serious injuries as a result of their mistreatment..:' - U.S. Department of State, Sri Lanka Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996

"Sri Lanka's minority Tamil community on Saturday complained of human rights abuses as battles raged between the predominantly Sinhalese forces and Tamil Tiger rebels near a northern guerrilla stronghold. A pro-government Tamil party urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga to intervene and stop alleged human rights abuses against Tamils and make sure those detained by the army in the Tamil- dominated Jaffna area were tried fairly. ... Joseph Pararajasingham, parliamentary leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), wrote in the letter to President Chandrika Kumaratunga that 76 Tamils, mostly youths, were harassed by police after being arrested by the army. "The police have them in their custody for over three months, torture them and obtain confessions under duress," he said in the letter which was made available to journalists." - Reuter Report, 28 September 1996

"Torture of Tamils is now widespread in Sri Lankan-occupied parts of the northeast. In Valigamam district last week, Tamil inmates of the Navaly Pulavar refugee camp were taken away by soldiers to their army base. Witnesses say soldiers forced the young men to hold mouthfuls of stones while they were beaten senseless. A 21-year old, Rasiah Satheeswaran, died during his beating. Half of the refugees who were taken have been released, the other half are still in army custody. Relatives fear the worst.

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=507

Police powers promote torture says Colombo Judge

British Refugee Council Publication

Sri Lanka Monitor, November 1996

"Supreme Court Judge P Ramanathan says despite judicial orders against law-enforcement officers, torture in police stations continues unabated. Police have powers to record statements, investigate and prosecute offenders. The concentration of powers allows the police to take short-cuts by torture in custody, says Mr Ramanathan. Human rights agencies say prolonged detention also leads to ill-treatment. Currently there are over 1,100 Tamils in custody, 300 of whom are held for over two years. MPs who met detainees in Kalutara prison in early November say six Tamil youths are held for over five years and another six above the age of 50 are detained for over 18 months. Seven had been earlier re- leased, arrested again and held for over two years.

Over 100 Tamil prisoners in Kalutara began a fast on 28 November demanding trials or release. Following a fast protest by detainees in June, the De- fence Ministry promised to solve the issue within three months. Prisoners bitterly complain that the Ministry has failed to take any action. Lawyers say the Defense Ministry has failed to act on several recommendations for re- lease made by the Attorney General's Department.

Human rights agencies are concerned about illegal detentions. Some prisoners continue to languish in prison despite court orders for their release. In a habeas corpus application, Meenatchy Chitrasenan alleges that her daughter Thirumagal arrested in September is illegally detained in a police station without being produced before a court."

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=510

150 Tamil women and children raped by law enforcers last year say rights groups

“Human rights activists claim more than 150 women, mostly minority Tamils, were raped by police and armed forces personnel last year.

In the past few months the nation has been outraged by a series of sex offences, followed in some instances by the death or disappearance of victims. Security forces are allegedly behind the incidents, which are widespread in the war-ravaged north and east.

Rights groups and mainstream Tamil political parties are now up in arms over the alleged rape of five women by policemen in Colombo's suburbs. Politicians and rights agencies have made repeated demands for investigations of the large numbers of rapes allegedly committed by officials entrusted with enforcing law and order.

In one of the suburban rape cases, the victim, from the eastern Batticaloa district, had approached a reserve police constable for directions to a relative's home in Colombo.

The policeman accompanied the woman to her destination but then raped her in a lonely suburban thicket. At least 15 soldiers and policemen have been accused of rape since June last year."

- South China Morning Post January 11, 1997

"Amnesty International has documented several cases of rape by members of the security forces. Because many women are reluctant to give testimony about their treatment by the security forces, Amnesty International believes that these testimonies represent only a fraction of a widespread pattern of human rights violations. In those cases reported to Amnesty International, the authorities took some initial action against the alleged perpetrators. However, the organization does not know of any member of the security forces who has been brought to justice on charges of rape.

In January 1995, three women were reportedly raped by soldiers at Poomachcholai and Kayankaddu, Batticaloa district, in reprisal for an attack by the LTTE on the nearby army camp at Thandavanveli. In August 1995 Lakshmi Pillai was raped at her home in Trincomalee by two army informants in front of her two sons. The motive may have been revenge as she had spoken out about being raped before at Plantain Point army camp in August 1993. The informants were arrested but later released on bail pending trial.

On 7 March 1996, a 45-year-old woman was raped by soldiers at Thiyavedduwan checkpoint. Her husband was beaten with rifle butts. Both were admitted to Valaichchenai hospital. Following a complaint by several people of Thiyavedduwan at Valaichchenai army camp, an identification parade was held and the soldiers were identified and taken into custody by the military police. It is not known whether any further action has been taken against them."

- Amnesty International Report, September 1996

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=509

Para Military Groups torture & execute Tamils

Shadowy Tamil militant death squads are once again on the rise in Batticaloa. The Mohan group aligned to PLOTE has terrorized Batticaloa for several years and has been linked to former intelligence officer Richard Dias alias Captain Munas, implicated in the disappearance of 158 Tamils from the Vantharumoolai refugee camp in 1990. The Raziq group associated with EPRLF has recently surfaced. Observers believe EPRLF, which kept aloof from military activities for several years, has decided to throw in its lot after the fall of Jaffna and the apparent weakening of the LTITE. The Tamil militant cadres ostensibly provide translation service to the military and act as scouts and spotters during security operations. Both EPRLF and PLOTE deny that they have links with death squads. But reports from Batticaloa say these two groups are involved in detention, torture and execution of people suspected of links with the LTTE.

Observers say that at least ten incidents of torture and execution in the last three months are known to human rights groups.

- Sri Lanka Monitor, published by British Refugee Council, June 1996

Article URL: http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?id=511

 

Rapes and Murders in Occupied Jaffna

"Allegations of ill-treatment of women and extra-judicial executions are also being made against the security forces. Reports say that three women were raped by soldiers at their home in Manthuvil on 1 August."

-          British Refugee Council Publication, Sri Lanka Monitor, August 1996

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"Vanni MP S Shanmugnathan says number of women at the Poonthottam school camp have been sexually abused by the police. A woman who was raped has been admitted to the Vavuniya hospital. Pregnant women have been denied access to the hospital and one woman has died in labour"

-British Refugee Council Publication, Sri Lanka Monitor, November 1996

"Of the numerous arrests, rapes and murders of the girls and boys in Jaffna, one comes to light. Most, however, go unreported because the Sri Lankan army bans independent reporters from traveling to the peninsula, and the government censors news about conditions in Jaffna.

On Saturday Sep. 7, 1996, Krishanthi Kumarasamy, an 18 year old student at Chundikuli Girls' High School went missing, soon after she had taken her first paper at the GCE A/L examination. She was seen by a number of witnesses being taken into custody by Sinhalese army personnel at the Kaithady checkpoint, and she disappeared soon after.

According to a report published later in the Sri Lanka Sunday Times (Nov 3, 1996), "She was stopped at the checkpoint and three soldiers allegedly raped her until she fell unconscious. When she revived, according to the confessions, police officers and six soldiers further raped her."

On learning of Krishanthi's detention at the army check-point, her mother, Rasamma (59), who was the vice principal of Kaithady Maha Vithyalayam, accompanied by her son, Pranaban (16), and a neighbor, Kirupakaran Sithamparam (35), went to the army camp, and then they too disappeared. The same Sri Lanka Sunday Times report said, "Her journey was not only futile but she, her son and neighbor were strangled, cut into pieces and buried in a little hut within the gates of the arm camp." y Krishanthi's relatives in Colombo, including her older sister, Prashanthi (21), who was staying in Colombo at that time, took up the matter with authorities in Colombo, including President Kumaratunga, but nothing was done as the army headquarters denied the arrests.

On Sep 20th, Amnesty International published an Urgent Action Appeal (UA 222/96), and even at this stage the government remained silent.

On Oct 23, more than 6 weeks after their disappearances, the Colombo-based Tamil daily Virakesari published the story. Although none of the other newspapers published it, things began to heat up. The matter was raised in Parliament, and all of a sudden the four bodies buried in a shallow grave within the army camp were found.

Tip of an iceberg? Tamil Voice has information that these kinds of atrocities are quite rampant in the Jaffna peninsula, and in other Tamil areas occupied by the Sri Lankan army. This is not an isolated incident... The reason for lack of publicity is the unofficial ban on independent reporters and human rights organizations from visiting these areas... A recent Asia Watch report said, "The army only permits access to the state run media." Foreign humanitarian organizations that are allowed to function in these areas are ones who (by charter) do not publish such crimes. They consider such silence necessary for them to be able to carry out their primary humanitarian work.

News pertaining to large scale violations, such as those in the peninsula, however, is difficult to conceal. A Tamil Voice editor had an opportunity to meet with a number of new refugees who had escaped recently to Tamil Nadu by boat. He reports that, their accounts are "horror stories from hell."

A large number of Tamil men and women are reportedly being held in the Kankesanthurai police premises in the army-held Jaffna peninsula. They are reported to have been arrested between 30 Mar 96 and 29 Aug 96. The Government Agent of the army occupied Jaffna peninsula published a list of names and details of only 135 Tamils, out of the 740 who the armed forces admitted to holding at the Kankesanthurai police station. He has also reported that nearly a hundred Tamil girls are missing. Several incidents of rapes and molestations were also reported.

"On Sep 30 at about 3.20 PM Velauthapillai Rajani, 22, from Urumpirai North was arrested in Kondavil-Urumpirai Road by the Sri Lankan army. This arrest was seen by several people. Rajani, who was planning to leave to Canada, went to see her relatives in Kondavil to say good-bye. On her way she was stopped by the Sri Lankan soldiers manning the

Kondavil checkpoint and was dragged into a house where two elderly people were living. The soldiers chased the two occupants out of the house and Rajani was raped. Her naked body was found later in the compound."

Another report stated, "Vasuki, a young Tamil girl living in Kilner Lane was harassed by Sri Lankan soldiers from the army camp next to her house. On Sep 8, Vasuki was watching TV at her home between 11 PM and 12 PM at night when 4 Sri Lankan soldiers in civil dress and 2 soldiers in army uniform came into her house and tried to take her away by force. She and her neighbors raised cries and the soldiers fled with Vasuki's National Identity card."

"On Saturday morning August 7, a Sri Lankan military truck rammed into a group of school girls who were cycling to the Examination hall for their GCE (A/L) examinations. Nineteen year old, Thayananthi Kananathan from Ariyalai, a student of Chundukuli Girls College was killed on the spot."

"On Sep 10, a 55 year old woman employed in the Thirunelvely Co-operative Milk Society was gang-raped by Sri Lankan Army personnel." "In Kachchai a husband who tried to prevent the rape of his wife was cut to death. His wife was also murdered later."

These are just a few of the hundreds of incidents reported to Tamil Voice. The rape and murder of Krishanthi is just one of them.

(Tamil Voice, published by the US Based llankai Thamil Sangam, Fall 1996, edited by Dr.Rajan Sriskandarajah M.D.)

WE ARE PREPARING A DETAILED COMPLAINT WHICH WILL BE MAILED SHORTLY. THIS COMPLAINT QUOTES UN AGENCIES, MEDIA, JUDGES, VICTIMS, AND OTHER REPORTS. ALL THESE REPORTS MUST BE TRACKED CONSTRUCTING A CLEAR CUT CHARGE SHEET.OUR INTENTION IS ONLY TO DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO THE GRAVITY OF THE CRIME, WE ARE URGING THE OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR TO PROBE FURTHER.

Prof. Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law and an expert in International Law, pointed out that "under Chapter XV of the United Nations Charter, the U.N. Secretariat, headed-up by the U.N. Secretary General, is one of six independent organs of the United Nations Organization itself. As such the U.N. Secretary General is obligated to implement the "Purposes of the United Nations" set forth in Article 1 of the Charter.

"Article 1(3) of the Charter provides that one of these "Purposes of the United Nations" is: "To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."

Boyle added, "In other words, the U.N. Secretary General has a U.N. Charter obligation "in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for" the Tamils in Sri Lanka as required by the preemptory norm of international law set forth in Article I of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, called on India, the United States, Britain and France to fulfill their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and Protocol, and under the Genocide Convention by launching an immediate humanitarian air-drop relief operation for the starving Tamil civilians within the so-called safety zone, who are suffering without adequate humanitarian supplies for weeks.

Starvation of civilians, as a method of warfare, can also constitute an act of genocide as defined by Article II (c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Though timely action in this direction did not arrive at least in post-conflict period International Court of Criminal Justice must charge sheet Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe for starving Tamils to death and stalling UN to rescue Tamils from starvation.

 "Article 54(1) of Additional Protocol I to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth a rule of customary international humanitarian law that obligates every state in the world: "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited." Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime. Every contracting party to the Geneva Conventions and Protocol has the obligation under Common Article 1 thereof "to respect" the Conventions and Protocol themselves and "to ensure respect" for the Conventions and Protocol "in all circumstances" by other contracting parties such as Sri Lanka.

"Furthermore, starvation of civilians as a method of warfare can also constitute an act of genocide as defined by Article II (c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention: "Deliberately inflicting on the group {in this case Tamils} conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." Every contracting state party to the Genocide Convention has the obligation "to prevent" genocide by Sri Lanka against the Tamils as required by Article I thereof.

  

HENCE DRAVIDA PERAVAI URGES THE OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR TO PROBE THE DEATH OF TAMIL CIVILIANS DUE TO STARVATION IN THE WAR ZONE AND FIX SRILANKAN PRESIDENT ON THIS CRIME ALSO.

  

Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative, on the Situation in Sri Lanka, in Security Council Consultations

April 30, 2009

The United States is deeply concerned by the situation in Sri Lanka, where fighting between government forces and the Tamil Tigers has led to a growing and grave humanitarian crisis that has left innocent civilians pinned down and desperate. We are very concerned by the serious allegations against both parties of violations of international humanitarian law.

Despite the Government of Sri Lanka’s promise to suspend combat operations, multiple accounts indicate that shelling into the conflict zone continues. We have also received reports of alarming number of civilian casualties.

On April 28, limited quantities of food were delivered to the conflict zone—the first such delivery in more than three weeks. We welcome the arrival of this sorely needed aid, but we are deeply concerned that critical medicines were not able to reach the conflict area as well.

We share Under-Secretary-General Holmes’ disappointment that the Government of Sri Lanka has not yet allowed a UN humanitarian team into the conflict zone to facilitate relief operations and the safe evacuation of civilians. We urge the Sri Lankan government to reconsider. This Council must also grapple with the sheer scope of the problem. Latest reports indicate that more than 170,000 displaced persons have registered in government-controlled camps. The Government of Sri Lanka must allow the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all sites where newly arrived displaced persons are being registered or being provided shelter.

These reports pertain to the period of war without witness. Now since Srilankan Government had declared war is over immediately UN agencies must step in and Office of the Public Prosecutor starts its investigations before all bodies are exhumed and all people are silenced at gun point.

  

INDEPENDENT MEDIA

INDICTS ARMS SUPPLIERS;

Chinese F7s and Russian MIG fighters fly over the skies of Vanni continuously and they regularly bomb hospitals, schools, churches and orphanages. Cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs are used against innocent Tamil civilians. Children are dying in front of their parents and the parents are dying in front of their children. Many of the dead have nobody to mourn for them. More than eight thousand innocent Tamils have been killed just within the last three months. Tamils are now left with nothing. All their homes and farm lands have been made into grave yards. Many families have lost their loved ones. Thousands of orphans and widows are longing for death than suffering from hunger and untreated wounds in the killing fields of Sri Lanka. They have no more comforters left to comfort the victims.

As part of the so called deceptive humanitarian and rescue operation, Sri Lankan forces surrounded an area that is almost two times bigger than Singapore, bombed and destroyed all the hospitals, schools, orphanages and homes in this prosperous land that was once flowing with milk and honey.

They destroyed farms, fruit trees and the cattle belonging to the people who have lived there for years. They dropped cluster bombs and killed so many thousands of innocent people including children, women and old people.

They have forced people into starvation and made them to live in tents and bunkers for months. All this is according to them for just to catch or kill few hundreds LTTE fighters that were living among more than three hundred thousands of innocent Tamil civilians.

Tamils are persecuted all over Sri Lanka

Tamils who are forced to live in the open fields are bombed and killed in thousands. Those who leave the war zone are sent to barbed wired concentration camps and torture camps. The ones that live in the other parts of the country live in open prisons with the constant fear of abductions, extra-judicial killings, torture and rape.

World very well knows how the Sri Lankan soldiers were asked to leave Haiti after they were blamed for rape, while doing peace keeping operations as part of the UN force.

There are many peace loving Sinhalese people living in Sri Lanka. Several academics, human rights activists, journalists, Christian leaders and professionals from the Sinhalese community are supporting the Tamils in their struggle for freedom. Some Tamils even tend to intermarry with the Sinhalese.

Although the extremists are only a minority among the Sinhalese, they have been successful in influencing politicians, military leaders and ordinary Sinhalese people to incite racial hatred, violence and discrimination against Tamils.

In recent times, China has been actively involved in building ports in the South East Asian countries including Sri Lanka. China is spending 1 billion dollars to construct a port in the south of Sri Lanka.

China is planning use this port as a refueling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tamils, without worrying about the West.

China has so far given six F7 jet fighters free of charge, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Pakistan is also trying to spread its influence in the Indian Ocean and in order to build a launch pad in Sri Lanka.Pakistan has transferred huge amounts of automatic rifles, heavy mortars, multi-barrel rocket launchers, and artillery and tank shells to Sri Lanka in recent years. Sri Lanka is also getting JY-11 3D air surveillance radars, armored personnel carriers, T-56 assault rifles, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, missiles and bombs Iran provides low-interest credit to Sri Lanka to help them to purchase military equipment from Pakistan and China and to train Sri Lankan Army and intelligence officers in Iran.

 India never wanted to supply offensive weapons to Sri Lanka which is the very reason why the Sri Lankan government went after China, Pakistan and Iran in the first place. Having 65 millions Tamils in India, it will be difficult for India to give offensive weapons to kill the Tamils in Sri Lanka. However, India faces a real threat from China and Pakistan in its own backyard. Sri Lanka has always maintained good relations with India.

In order to look after its interests in the region and to deal with the threats from China, India had come up with the clever idea of providing with intelligence and military expertise to Sri Lanka.Many Sri Lankan ministers have recently acknowledged that they wouldn't be winning the war without the help from India.

This is not because India hates the Tamils and loves the Sinhalese but they are not ready to see Sri Lanka going into the hands of China and Pakistan. More than seven hundred Indian fishermen were killed by the Sri Lankan Navy within the last few years but India is willing to sacrifice even their own for a greater gain in the region.

India is a looser. India has made a historical blunder by assisting the Sri Lankan government to commit genocide against Tamils. Once the war is over, Sri Lankan government will go after China and Pakistan as they did before. India has now lost credibility both among the Tamils in Sri Lanka and India. India would have been in a better position if they helped the Tamils to establish a prosperous secular state in order to free them from State oppression and to secure Indian strategic interests in the region. Even now, it is not too late for India to change it's mind.

When the twin towers fell and the innocents died, we declared war on Terror. We have done the right thing and we have been successful in preventing many disasters in our great cities. Unfortunately, some of the countries that have been terrorizing their minorities for a long time have started to use the loop holes in the "War on Terror" strategy to declare war on the vulnerable.

Theory of War on Terror has failed miserably in countries like Sri Lanka because the oppressor has got the freedom to declare war on the innocents who are already going through hell in their hands. Many freedom movements that have been fighting for the freedom of the oppressed are now wrongly branded as Terrorists groups. Some of these countries like Sri Lanka have been spending so much money in doing false propaganda, to convince the world that these freedom movements had links with Al Qaeda. War on Terror is a great idea but the problems come when we wrongly recognize the Terrorists and the ones who are fighting the Terrorists. When the “War on Terror” strategy is used by a Terror government that is already killing its own citizens, alarms should be raised to protect the vulnerable.

Did we permit Saddam Hussain who was a democratically elected president to wipe out all the Kurdish people? Hitler was democratically elected but he was still responsible for killing millions of Jews. Rajapakse government, although it is democratically elected, shouldn't be allowed to use the “War on Terror” agenda to annihilate Tamils.

UK government would never bomb the whole city of Belfast and force people to live in the bunkers without food and medicine for months, if they had to catch few hundreds of IRA rebels. They wouldn't use chemical weapons against innocent women and children unless they had a hidden agenda of killing the people.

Sri Lanka is doing something what no other governments on this earth would do for their own citizens.

As usual, UN has so far failed to protect the innocents. They failed in Rwanda and they failed in many other countries where millions died of man made disasters. They always waited till it was too late to act. UN had sent it's representatives to Sri Lanka few times in the last few months ,but they couldn't convince the Sri Lankan authorities to stop the war.UK and the US are working really hard to bring the Sri Lankan issue before the security council. China, being a permanent member is not allowing the war in Sri Lanka to be discussed for an obvious reason that they are also partnering with Sri Lanka. They don't want to be blamed for fuelling the war in this tiny island by freely supplying offensive weapons in order look after their own interests in the region.

RichardDixons@googlemail.com

We thank the Journalist Mr.Richard Dixon for above mentioned report

 Sri Lanka acquired ‘banned’ weapons

 Monday, 13 August 2001,

The Sri Lanka Army has acquired an infantry weapon with a chemical warhead whose use has been shunned internationally except by Russia due to the risk to civilians, press reports said this weekend. In an expose, the Sunday Leader said that the SLA had spent several million dollars to acquire 1000 units of the shoulder-fired RPO-A Shmel Rocket Launcher, but that amidst bribes sought by the SLA commander, Lt. General Lionel Ballagalle, the weapons delivered were of old stock and may have exceeded their shelf life. The US Defense Intelligence Agency says the weapon’s chemical warhead is toxic and hence dangerous even if it fails to detonate.

The flamethrower type weapon, which the Sunday Leader says has been banned by the United States is only manufactured by a single firm in Russia and was bought by the SLA via a London-based company, Gladstone Industrial Holdings, whose directors include a retired SLA officer, Lt. Col. Upali Gajanayake. The Sunday Leader interviewed the latter as part of its investigation into the alleged corruption.

“It is an internationally banned weapon,” Lt. Col. Gajanayake told the Sunday Leader, explaining why the SLA needed to go through his firm, rather than directly to sole Russian manufacturer, to acquire the Shmels. “Officially these items cannot be negotiated via an open tender but can only be bought underground; this is a very sophisticated chemical warhead.”

Although usually referred to in descriptive literature as a flame-thrower, the RPO-A Shmel (Bumblebee in Russian) is a rocket-propelled incendiary/blast projectile launcher, according to Janes’ weapons expert Terry Gander. “One projectile fired is described by the Russians as `thermo baric' as it appears to utilize advanced fuel-air explosive techniques which, on detonation, create deflagration as the warhead cloud expands,” says Gander. When utilized against structures the blast effect of the projectile is stated to be equivalent to a 122 mm howitzer shell, he says.

The weapon – along with other fuel air mixture weapons - has been used by Russian troops in Chechnya, where human rights groups have long criticized the indiscriminate nature of the weapon which has resulted in heavy civilian casualties and horrific injuries.

In a statement February 2000 on the use of such weapons in Chechnya, Human Rights Watch said “The use of fuel-air explosives … represents a dangerous escalation in the Chechnya conflict--one with important humanitarian implications.” In urban settings it is very difficult to limit the effect of this weapon to combatants, and the nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter from their destructive effect,” HRW said, adding that “because they are wide-area weapons, military forces must exercise extreme caution and refrain from using them in or near population centers.”

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in a 1993 report says, “The [blast] mechanism against living targets is … unpleasant… If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels are highly toxic, un-detonated FAE should prove as lethal to people caught within the cloud as most chemical agents”

A separate Central Intelligence Agency report says “it is possible that victims of FAE’s are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate.”

One thousand RPO-A Shmels were delivered to the SLA in a single planeload on July 17, the Sunday Leader claimed, adding that the colleague of Gajanayake, Ameer Temour, who negotiated the deal with a Ukrainian arms supplier was fired on July 17. Temour told the paper that Gajanayake had submitted expenses claim of nearly half a million US dollars which were bribes for Ballagalle and other senior SLA officers.

Whilst the SLA had expected to take delivery of 1000 brand new warheads, the paper claims the batch delivered comprised 400 manufactured in 1989 and 600 in 1991. The weapon expires after 10 years. The sole manufacture is KBC Instrument Design Bureau in Tula, Russia.

“The age of the delivered units explains how Gladstone was able to negotiate the supply and export the items without contravening any rights the manufacturing company in Russia held to be the sole authority to supply the brand new item,” the paper said.

Read this

WEAPONS BOUGHT in 2001 used in 2009

Colombo uses chemical weapons

Tuesday, 07 April 2009,

Sri Lanka Army extensively used chemical weapons on LTTE combatants at Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) during the weekend, according to Lawrence, a senior commander of the LTTE, who personally encountered the attack and escaped, LTTE sources told TamilNet Tuesday. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Defense Ministry has claimed that it has killed hundreds of Tiger combatants including senior commanders in PTK last weekend. The use of chemical weapons were the suspicion of many who have seen the photographs released by the SL Defense Ministry, but now the accusation comes from the LTTE. The Tiger sources neither confirmed the type of the chemical weapon nor said anything on the casualties claimed by Colombo.

Not matching with their tall claims, Colombo's websites have released comparatively fewer photographs of LTTE combatants it killed in action this time. Yet, the released photographs were enough for viewers of forensic experience to suspect the use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons such as nerve gas were strictly prohibited by international conventions after world experiencing gruesome mass deaths of combatants during the World War I (1914 - 1919). Colombo government was already on record for clandestine purchase of prohibited chemical weapons and accessories in 2001.

Colombo government, its president Mahinda Rajapaksa as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the defense secretary and Sarath Fonseka, the army chief, may have to face indictment as serious war criminals if the accusation of the use of chemical weapons is proved.

 UN withheld civilian casualty figures – report

Wednesday, 18 March 2009,

Publishing two leaked documents by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN, in an exclusive report on Wednesday revealed that the United Nations office had its own estimates of casualty figures. The UN had internal documentation for 9,924 civilian casualties including 2,683 killings and 7,241 injuries since 20 January to 07 March 2009. "Now it appears that unlike in other conflicts from Darfur to Gaza, the UN withheld the Sri Lanka figures, in effect protecting the Sri Lankan government from criticism," the Inner City Press reported Wednesday

UN document: Civilian casualties in the Vanni (courtesy: Inner City Press)

"Between January and 12 February, the reporting network was spread over a broad area. Since most civilians are now in the small No Fire Zone (NFZ), including the reporting network - the information is better. The assumption is that the casualties were greatly under-reported prior to 12 February," said the UN document which put the total minimum number of documented civilian casualties since 20 January 2009 as of 07 March 2009 in the conflict area of Mullaiththeevu district: 9,924 people including 2,683 deaths and 7,241 injuries.

Between January and February 2009 the combat area was reduced from 100 square km to 45 square km, including the NFZ of 14 square km. As the combat area reduces, the daily average shows an increase in the number of killed (from 33 to 63) and a slight decrease in the number of injured (from 184 to 145). This is due to increased density, the use of heavy weapons which continue to strike the NFZ and inadequate medical treatment.

Two thirds of the documented casualties occurred in the No Fire Zone (NFZ), according to the UN report obtained by the Inner City Press.

It is not humanly possible for the Tamil Diaspora or Indian Tamils to collect each and every detail concerning the genocide; hence there is historical necessity for the Office of the Public Prosecutor to start the probe to establish the guilt of the perpetrators of Tamil Genocide. Hence Dravida Peravai, the Indian political party of socialists, appeals to the International Court of Justice for justice. In pursuit of justice we had earlier made our appeal to the current month’s President of the United Nations Security Council and the General Secretary of the United Nations marking copies to the Representatives of the Member Nations in Security Council. We have urged the Security Council to forward our complaint to you, which we are sending you in the form of a book.

This is our first attempt to reach your office, and we have just tried to give supportive evidences to make your mind arrive at the circumstantial evidences to come to the conclusion to launch a probe against Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe and others for their Tamil genocide.

 Thanking You

Yours sincerely

  

N.Nandhivarman

General Secretary Dravida Peravai India.

Date: 20.05.2009

  

ANNAIST NANDHIVARMAN TOOK TAMIL GENOCIDE TO INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT OF JUSTICE

IN THE INTERNATIONAL

CRIMINAL COURT OF JUSTICE

AT HAGUE

N.Nandhivarman

General Secretary

Dravida Peravai

9 Ramaraja Street

Puducherry 605001

To

Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo

Public Prosecutor

Office of the Public Prosecutor

International Criminal Court of Justice

Post Office Box; 19519

2500 CM The Hague

THE NETHERLANDS

Respected Sir,

Subject: Complaint against Srilankan President Mahinda Rajapakshe on the genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes throwing all canons of international law to winds.

The petitioner recalls your words at the outset. "I deeply hope that the horrors humanity has suffered during the 20th century will serve us as a painful lesson, and that the creation of the International Criminal Court will help us to prevent those atrocities from being repeated in the future." [Statement made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the occasion of his election as first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the Assembly of States Parties in New York on 22 April 2003.]

International Campaign to End Genocide lists out that 1.5 million Armenians, 3 million Ukrainians, 6 million Jews, 2,50,000 gypsies, 6 million Slavs,1 million Ibos, 200,000 Guatemalans, 1.7 million Cambodians, 500,000 Indonesians, 200,000 East Timorese , 2,50,000 Burundians, 500,000 Ugandans, 2 million Sudanese, 800,000 Rwandans, 2 million North Koreans and 10,000 Kosovo's lost their lives under Genocide during last century.

Awareness on Genocide started in 1944, when a Jewish Refugee from Poland who taught in USA coined the word Genocide in his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”. Tamils of Ceylon, currently known as Srilanka started to learn the bitter truth about Genocide from 1956.

Dravida Peravai encloses you a book titled Tamil Genocide under Neo-Nazism, which is a charge sheet against Srilankan Governments wherein Tamil massacres since 1956 to 2001 are complied by a non-governmental organization. Though the language used is not so fluent with many spelling mistakes on the names of persons and places, we have thanked the first ever effort made, and had attached that report to our complaint made to the President of the Security Council for the month of May, to the General Secretary of the United Nations and to the representatives of the Member Nations of the Security Council. In that letter we have urged the Security Council to direct our complaint to you urging you to begin the probe into the issue of Tamil Genocide since 1956 to till date i.e. 2009. The copy is in the first few pages of the enclosed book. We urge The International Criminal Court of Justice probe using all arms of the United Nations and non governmental organizations and to compile all the crimes of genocide committed by Srilankan governments since independence but with emphasis of the current Government of Mr.Mahinda Rajapakhse.

Winston Churchill called genocide, a crime without name, before the word was coined. Now the Srilankan President is pursuing that crime without witness. The War without witness may be called a war against terrorism by Srilankan Government, but the day when independent observers and non governmental organizations and international media gets free access to the people of Tamil Eelam, you will be getting all the evidences needed to fix the Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe for war crimes and crimes of genocide. Further even after declaring victory in the War, The Executive President of Srilanka who executed Tamils in thousands and thousands, is nor stalling access to UN only to destroy the evidences against the crime, like burning the corpses so that numbers killed could get concealed.

Before we could mail this complaint news from Srilanka once again proves that President wants Peace too to be without witnesses. Boston Globe voices concern.

EU must investigate Sri Lanka war crimes - Boston Globe

Tuesday, 19 May 2009

"The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been claiming a glorious total victory - and denying allegations from doctors on the scene that tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate artillery fire and scorched-earth tactics," said Boston Globe in Tuesday's editorial, adding "the European Union must follow up on its call for an investigation of war crimes against civilians." The editorial also said that "the United Nations adopted a resolution in 2005 on the "responsibility to protect" populations that are not protected by their own governments. The massive killing and wounding of civilians on Sri Lanka represents exactly the sort of case that resolution was meant to address."

Full text of the editorial follows:

Sri Lanka, after the war

ONE OF THE WORLD'S bloodiest conflicts has come to a violent conclusion in the island nation of Sri Lanka. The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been claiming a glorious total victory - and denying allegations from doctors on the scene that tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate artillery fire and scorched-earth tactics.

Rajapaksa must give aid organizations access to hundreds of thousands of uprooted Tamils in the islands northeast. Overwhelmed doctors in overcrowded camps are amputating limbs without sufficient drugs and medical supplies. The people in those camps desperately need medical care, food, and water. And they should be allowed to return to their homes as soon as possible.

Once the humanitarian crisis is addressed, the European Union must follow up on its call for an investigation of war crimes against civilians. The Rajapaksa government has tried to draw a screen around its actions, banning independent journalists and international aid groups from the war zone. But the United Nations adopted a resolution in 2005 on the "responsibility to protect" populations that are not protected by their own governments. The massive killing and wounding of civilians on Sri Lanka represents exactly the sort of case that resolution was meant to address. Ultimately, the only way for Sri Lanka to avoid another Tamil rebellion is to grant the Tamils some form of local autonomy in their region. Now that the Tigers have been crushed, the Sinhalese majority of Sri Lanka has no excuse for not addressing the legitimate grievances of the Tamil minority.

Srilanka won’t heed Boston Globe or even all nations in our globe. The purpose in our reproducing the Boston Globe editorial is to urge you to start investigations into the war crimes in Srilanka.

Lies, deceptions, hallmark of Sri Lanka war- Telegraph

 Monday, 18 May 2009

"Chinese weapons, intelligence, Sinhala Armed personals and racist Sri Lankan leaders came together to perform one of the most cruel war that has cost the lives of many thousands innocents," says Richard Dixon, a columnist in London's Telegraph. While "Tamils all over the world are mourning the death of their loved ones back home," and "birds have now stopped singing in a land called Vanni," Dixon writes, "leaders of Sri Lanka and some responsible officers in the UN, should be questioned in international courts in order to find out if they were responsible for the deaths of innocent Tamils."

Full text of the article follows:

The Real Culprits behind Sri Lankan War

Birds have now stopped singing in a land called Vanni. Sun, moon and the stars in the sky have hidden their faces. Angel of death flew over the skies of Vanni and took the lives of more than twenty five thousand innocent Tamil men, women and children in a single day.

Thousands of wounded are still are crying out for help. They are bleeding to death on the streets. They have touched neither water nor food for days. Nobody has come to rescue them. Those who fight for the rights of the animals and those who preach about Buddha and Mahatma have no compassion for the dying Tamils. Chinese weapons, Indian intelligence, Sinhalese Armed personals and racist Sri Lankan leaders came together to perform one of the most cruel war that has cost the lives of many thousands innocents. While thousands of innocent children and women are facing painful and slow death, Sinhalese Buddhist extremists are celebrating victory with flags and fire crackers in the south of the country. War that was started with hidden agendas of local and international forces went on for months not just with the strength of the weapons but with well organized false propaganda done by the Sri Lankan officials.

This war was orchestrated and staged with lies and deceptions from the beginning till the end.

Sri Lankan leaders are still vomiting out worms of lies

Rulers of Sri Lanka are continuing to vomit out worms of lies to justify their atrocities against innocent lives. They started with “War on Terror” but changed the buzz word to “Humanitarian Operation” in order to deceive the international community. “War on Terror” was an accepted norm during the Bush era but lost its validity now. Therefore they had changed the name of the game to “Humanitarian operation”

Why do they lie?

Because they have many hidden agendas behind this dirty war they want to hide the atrocities that are being committed against innocent civilians. They themselves know, what they are doing is wrong and not acceptable in a civilized world. Above everything they want to protect India who is orchestrating the war in Sri Lanka. Indian intelligent agents and military experts are working closely with the Sri Lankan forces in the war zone.

How do they manage to lie?

They simply hide the truth. When the truth is hidden what comes out is lie. Foreign journalists and aid workers are barred from the war zone and IDP camps. Those who try to enter and report about the war are kicked out of the country if they are critical of the government. Local journalists are intimidated, tortured and sometime killed. Telling the truth is considered a crime in Sri Lanka. Phone lines are tapped. Web sites are blocked. Anybody who talks against the government is considered as Terrorist or Terrorist supporter .In the war front, dead bodies of the civilians is burned to ashes using powerful chemicals. This is to hide the number of innocent civilians that have perished in the wars Lankan government officials very often organize staged visits to the IDP camps and force the refugees to lie to the foreign diplomats.

What did they lie about?

They lied about the objective of the war, weapons used, number of civilian causalities and military operations. Although they initially claimed that the objective of the war was to defeat the LTTE, they have in fact killed and wounded several thousands of innocent Tamil civilians with heavy weapons. They used chemical weapons and cluster bombs on innocents, but they continue to deny the usage of such weapons.

Sri Lankan forces have destroyed Schools, hospitals and farm lands and made the whole place into a graveyard for the Tamils. This is also regularly denied by the Sri Lankan authorities. This war has claimed more than fifty thousands lives just within the last few months but the Sri Lankan government is not going to open their mouth and tell this truth to the world.

Why didn't the UN intervene?

United Nations, who is supposed to be a guardian for the oppressed people in the world turned out to be a silent spectator of a man made disaster that has taken the lives of many thousands. There is a conspiracy behind this whole war game. China was initially blocking every attempt that was made by UK and France to discuss the Sri Lankan issue in the Security Council.

What we are witnessing in Sri Lanka is neither “war on terror” nor a Humanitarian operation. This is simply a racist war against the Tamils conducted with the help of India and China. You wouldn't shoot at the passengers and bomb the whole bus, if you had to rescue the hostages.

Sinhalese extremists are already celebrating and they have also started to intimidate Tamils in the South of the country. India and China have started to work on their hidden agendas in Sri Lanka. Tamils all over the world are mourning the death of their loved ones back home.

What Next?

When the rocket scientists designed highly complex derivatives and greedy traders traded these new emperors cloths, many investment banks collapsed. Pension funds lost money. Bankers committed suicide. The whole financial disaster was caused by greedy and selfish individuals who had short term hidden agendas. We took action. Greedy bankers and traders were taken to courts. New rules and regulations are now in place to prevent this happening again. In the same way, the masters of this war in Sri Lanka should be brought to justice.

Sinhalese government with racist agendas, China and India with their strategic interests and UN with corrupt officers are the evil ingredients of this dirty war that has cost the lives of many thousands innocent Tamils.

Leaders of Sri Lanka and some responsible officers in the UN should be questioned in international courts in order to find out if they were responsible for the deaths of innocent Tamils.

If we didn't, we would end up seeing more of such evil games repeated over and over again.

Richard Dixon

RichardDixons@googlemail.com

Our comments:

[We are baffled at the reporter’s charge about India, and being patriots we are ashamed if such things were happening  and we pray it wont be true, but it is left to International Court of Criminal Justice either to take cognizance of the views or to probe the matter further. India should refute these charges and not bury truth, even if some one had bypassed the Government to engage in such crimes. Since pursuit of truth and justice for Tamils is our goal, amidst biased propaganda blitzkrieg of Srilanka, we don’t want to censor The Telegraph, quoted in above paragraphs. …N.N]

SINHALESE GOVERNMENTS AND TAMIL GENOCIDE

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide adopted by Resolution 260[ iii] A of the UN General Assembly on 9^th December 1048 is a remarkable milestone and this came into effect on 12 th January 1951. The Srilankan Government started its first genocide on 5.6.1956. People thought it is just ethnic clash but never at that point Tamils thought ethnic cleansing had started. We are sending the Charge sheet against Sinhalese Governments listing out the people who were butchered to death in the genocidal agenda consistently pursued by almost all Sinhalese Governments.

The book Journey of Man by Spencer Wells establishes that all men are from common source. All genes of human beings have common genes and gene markers. Science had proven beyond an iota of doubt that race is a myth. But Sinhalese regard Mahavamsam, their sacred book which inculcates in them wrong notion of racial supremacy. Even the legend on the origin of Sinhalese race starts with a lion and a human princess, which itself will shatter the very foundation of the origin of their race, as unscientific fiction. Yet with the same racial superiority which Adolph Hitler proclaimed to be an Aryan, who went to annihilate the inferior Jews according to his mindset, Sinhalese rulers have been indulging in massacres of Tamils from 1956.

Though the world woke up to the horrors of genocide in 1948, the report on The Genocide Convention: First 50 years [1948-1998] by William Schabas available in the online library of the US Institute of Peace fails to mention crimes against Tamils. Tamils are the most peace loving people, whose leaders have failed to highlight or bring to the notice of the UN all these years about the Tamil Genocide in Srilanka since 1956.

We are now starting to knock the International Criminal Court of Justice and the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner.

The Special Report on first 50 years record with anguish “that in 1994 while 800,000 Tutis died in Rwanda State Department debated whether it was genocide and the United Nations Security Council withdrew UN Peace Keeping Force who could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.” But in this century Tamils are placed in a better position because all over the world Tamil Diaspora relentlessly fought to draw the attention of the civilized world and we are grateful for the President of the United States Mr.Barrack Obama and Secretary of State Ms.Hillary Rodham Clinton, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary Mr.Millind, the Norway Minster Mr. Eric Solheim and to European Parliament for echoing the plight of Tamils of Tamil Eelam crushed under the genocidal war machine of Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe.  

The Special Report on first 50 years points out that on 2 nd September 1998 only International Tribunal for Rwanda issued first conviction for genocide condemning Rwandan Mayor Jean Paul Akayesu and justice done to Tutis. Similarly from the theatre of Eelam war obeying the resolution of the UN Security Council, the freedom fighters expressed willingness to surrender arms to a neutral country, they announced that their guns will become silent, they pleaded for ensuring safe passage for 25000 civilians wounded in the combat zone. But unmindful of the conscience of the humanity and comity of nations Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe went ahead in his war of ethnic cleansing and committed the gravest crime of genocide. We hope UN and other bodies will belatedly deliver justice to out Tamil kinsmen. After all wars are essential to test newly invented weaponry and China with its single minded pursuit to encircle India and to teach India a lesson for its involvement in Tibet, provided all the arms of mass destruction and chemical weapons to the blood thirsty war mongers of Srilanka.

India tells UN that it has complied with Weapons Convention : Chemical Arms Destroyed says a news in English Daily :Deccan Chronicle of 15 th May 2009.The news paper says that India has informed the United Nations that it has destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons in compliance with International Chemical Weapons Convention. Though the Government of India had notified on 26^th  of March 2009 on the fulfillment of its obligation to completely destroy its declared chemical weapons stockpile, the news was broken  a day before the counting of votes in recently held Indian elections were to begin. If the news had broken in March 26^th, there would not have arisen doubts in the minds of Indian Tamils. That is internal matter of India. Here the purpose is to urge the Public Prosecutor to find out how come and wherefrom Srilanka obtained its chemical bombs and weapons?

Let me begin my complaint by quoting UN documents itself

Sri Lanka: UN expert on genocide prevention

Calls for end to conflict

Overcrowding remains a problem at the transit/IDP sites in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka

15 May 2009 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide today said that “it is not too late” for Sri Lanka's Government forces and rebels to end their brutal conflict, underscoring the toll the clashes are taking on civilians.

 “This polarizing conflict is identity-related with ethnicity and religion as deeply divisive factors,” he said. “It will not end with winners and losers and it cannot be ended solely through a military victory that may not be sustainable in the long-run unless legitimate grievances are addressed.”

Mr.Deng underscored that women and girls are particularly vulnerable to “excesses of conflict,” stressing that the Government is legally obligated to give them special protection. He called on authorities to allow the UN and other agencies “full and unfettered access to all civilians and detainees.”

Mr.Kälin also expressed his concern over the dire living conditions in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) who escaped the conflict, with the influx of an additional 110,000 people during the last 10 days of April posing further challenges for the Government and its humanitarian partners. “Ensuring adequate humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons is first and foremost a Government responsibility, especially since the Government decided to intern them in camps, citing security concerns,” he said, adding that authorities continue to hold nearly 200,000 IDPs in temporary camps.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) today reiterated that the loss of civilian life and the situation of those trapped in the conflict zone are unacceptable, deploring the use of heavy weapons and of civilians as human shields.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said today that it believes that an independent commission of inquiry is needed given the conduct of this war and the number of civilians who have been killed.

Patients, medical staff, aid workers, and other witnesses have provided Human Rights Watch with information about at least 30 attacks on permanent and makeshift hospitals in the combat area since December 2008. One of the deadliest took place on May 2, when artillery shells struck Mullaivaikal hospital in the government-declared "no-fire zone," killing 68 persons and wounding 87.

• HRW: List of attacked hospitals

HRW quoted “several independent sources” as saying that each time a hospital was established in a new location, the doctors transmitted GPS coordinates of the facility to the Sri Lankan government to ensure that the facility would be protected from military attack. Medical staff said that, on several occasions, attacks occurred on the day after the coordinates had been transmitted. “Permanent and makeshift hospitals within LTTE-controlled territory continue to receive hundreds of patients daily. Many arrive wounded from the fighting, while others are sick due to inadequate sanitation, and acute shortages of food and clean water,” HRW said.

"Hospitals are supposed to be sanctuaries from shelling, not targets," Adams said." Repeated Sri Lankan artillery attacks striking known hospitals is evidence of war crimes," he added. "The government cannot hide behind LTTE atrocities to justify their own unlawful acts.”HRW has criticized both the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for numerous violations of the laws of war during the recent fighting.

 UN experts demand international scrutiny in Sri Lanka

Four UN Human Rights Council experts on right to health, food, water, and sanitation, in a statement said that "there is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type," and that "shipments of food and medicine to the "no fire zone" have been grossly insufficient over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as to chlorine tablets," and urged the U.N. to establish a commission to address the critical human rights situation, and demand full respect to human rights.

Philip Alston, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, appointed Special Rapporteur in 2004 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Anand Grover, appointed Special Rapporteur in 2008 by the United Nations Human Rights Council, Mr. Olivier De Schutter was appointed Special Rapporteur in 2008, and Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque began her work as Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation in November 2008, signed the statement. Full text of the statement follows:  current humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka gives cause for deep concern, not only in terms of the number of civilians who have been and continue to be killed, but because of a dramatic lack of transparency and accountability. "There is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type", said Philip Alston, the UN expert on summary executions. The continuing catastrophic situation of civilians in Sri Lanka trapped in the midst of fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE, in an area measuring less than 10 sq km, must be immediately addressed. "These civilians do not have sufficient access to food, essential medical supplies or services and safe water and sanitation. Even if they do escape death or injury at the hands of the hostile parties, their continued presence in this area without access to these basic rights is an effective death sentence," declared the Experts of the UN Human Rights Council. "The safety of civilians, including their safe passage out of the conflict zone, must be prioritized by all actors involved" said the Experts. While many thousands of civilians have now left this area, the Experts maintained their concern about the safety of more than 50,000 estimated by the UN to still remain. Shipments of food and medicine to the "no fire zone" have been grossly insufficient over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as to chlorine tablets. "As a result of the blackout on independent information sources, it is impossible to verify any of the Government's claims as to the number of casualties to date or as to the steps that it says it is taking in order to minimize the further killing of innocent civilians, and ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance", said the Experts. "When people manage to escape, they reportedly continue to face scant supplies, entirely insufficient access to adequate medical treatment and severely overcrowded hospitals, providing no relief to the horrors they had been living," remarked Anand Grover, the UN expert on the right to health. "Access to food has also been hampered by arduous and lengthy registration procedures for the internally displaced persons; the desperation and chaos witnessed in some cases show that the situation is critical," said Olivier De Schutter, the UN expert on the right to food. Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN expert on water and sanitation, also expressed concern about "water shortages reported at Omanthai and at most of the transit sites as well as inadequate sanitation facilities, which put the health and lives of the population at further risk." The Government must take urgent measures with the assistance of the international community to ensure that security concerns do not result in unjustifiable suffering. The Experts called upon the Sri Lankan Government to provide convincing evidence to the international community that it is respecting its obligations under human rights and international humanitarian law. It is also clear that the LTTE, for its part, has acted in flagrant violation of the applicable norms by preventing civilians from leaving the conflict area and having reportedly shot and killed those trying to flee. "There is an urgent need to establish an international commission of inquiry to document the events of recent months and to monitor ongoing developments." The Experts called upon the UN Human Rights Council to establish such a commission, as a matter of urgency, to address the critical situation in Sri Lanka, and demand full respect for all human rights. Any such inquiry should study the conduct of all sides to the conflict.

Sri Lanka in "interminable and intractable crisis"- UN

 Even before the genocidal war was started by Government of Srilanka at the behest of President Mahinda Rajapakshe  i.e. on Monday, 23 October 2006, Prof. Philip Alston, United Nation's Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, Third Committee, 20 October 2006, said that the "dramatic attacks in recent days and spiraling number of extrajudicial executions" indicate that "Sri Lanka is not so much on the brink of a new crisis but, instead, only in the midst of an interminable and intractable crisis that has already exhausted its fair share of international attention," and called upon the United Nations Secretariat to "establish a full-fledged international human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka."

• Prof. Alston's address to UN Assembly

• Prof. Alston's Report on Extra-judicial killings

"Widespread violence during a faltering ceasefire is not the same as an all-out civil war that costs tens of thousands of lives. Real progress has been made over the past four years, and nothing that has happened in these past few months has made achieving a sustainable peace founded on respect for human rights impossible. But there is little reason to think that the opportunity will be available for much longer," Prof. Alston warned.

He said although the "issue was placed squarely before the Human Rights Council last month but the signals are that any action the Council might take in November will do very little to make a difference as this tragic situation swells and threatens to reach bursting point." The following challenges should be immediately addressed, Prof. Alston told the UN assembly:

• To acknowledge the need for significantly more sustained and high-level international involvement
• To accept the fact that there is no national institution capable of monitoring human rights throughout Sri Lanka, and To establish an effective international human rights monitoring presence.

In the report Prof Alston presented, he said: "The Sri Lanka Government should not, however, interpret the widespread proscription of LTTE as a terrorist organization as an endorsement of its own record. Neither its past nor its present conduct would justify great faith in its ability to respect equally the rights of all citizens. Indeed, it is an enduring scandal that there have been virtually no convictions of government officials for killing Tamils, and many Tamils doubt that the rule of law will protect their lives." The warning from Prof.Alston comes in the wake of assurances given by Sri Lanka's President "of his intention to invite an international commission to inquire into recent killings, disappearances and abductions in Sri Lanka." Human Rights bodies have raised serious doubts of the bona fides of Sri Lanka Government's intentions to set up an independent Rights body with international participation.

"Unless the government has announced something new, they have been calling for a Local Commission of Inquiry (COI) with international observers. However that is different from a human rights monitoring mission," Senior Legal Advisor, Human Rights Watch, New York, James Ross told The Sunday Leader." Just having international observers is insufficient as international monitors need to play a more direct role to ensure that the commission is independent and impartial and would report its findings publicly," Ross said, Sunday Leader reported.

The New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) sent a fact-finding mission to Sri Lanka has also denied government claims that they had decided to send observers to the local commission, the paper further said. According to Ross, HRW has not held any discussions with the government on the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry nor had the terms of reference for such a commission been discussed. The government had earlier in the month said that a eight member local commission headed by a Supreme Court judge with international representatives as observers would be set up in order to investigate human rights violations, the Leader reported.

 British Parliamentarians call for UK to rein in Sri Lanka

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

A group of Parliamentarians from all of Britain’s main political parties  condemned the assassination last week of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP K Sivanesan and, lamenting the recent exit of the international panel overseeing rights abuses probes in Sri Lanka, called on the UK government to take all possible steps to ensure that Government of Sri Lanka plays by accepted international rules.

 The British All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Tamils expressed its serious concern at the decision of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) - headed by former Indian Chief Justice P N Bhagwati to terminate its operations in Sri Lanka. “Violence in Sri Lanka remains terribly and unacceptably high.

The British APPG for Tamils deplores all killings and assassinations including the assassination of K. Sivanesan, a democratically elected member of the Sri Lankan parliament,” the MPs, said. “The decision by the IIGEP to terminate operations raises serious questions about the claims made by the Government of Sri Lanka that it is taking all efforts to uphold human rights. “It is extremely worrying that a reputable body such as the IIGEP has now concluded that there is no further use for it in probing the abductions, disappearances and extra-judicial killings which the Group was invited to investigate in September 2006” The APPG welcomed comments by British Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown at the UN Human Rights Council in which he criticized the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapakse. “We will now be asking the British Foreign Secretary to consider what other action is available to the British government and to take all possible steps to ensure that Government of Sri Lanka plays by accepted international rules,” the APPG said.

“A political solution to the continuing conflict in Sri Lanka is as vital now as ever. There must be an end to the spiral of violence if the seventh decade of an independent Sri Lanka is to be one of justice, peace and prosperity.” The APPG for Tamils includes Parliamentarians from the ruling Labour party and the main opposition parties, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as the Scottish National Party.

SRILANKAN GOVERNMENT LACKS WILL

TO BRING JUSTICE– IIGEP

08 March 2008

A lack of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka was one factor in the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) terminating its operations in Sri Lanka, Prof. Sir. Nigel Rodley, representing Britain in the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), told BBC Tamil service in an interview.

Sir Nigel Rodley (Photo: BBC)

“It was I think a lack of will ... they certainly didn’t have the money in order to have full servicing from the private bar,” Sir Nigel Rodley said on being asked by the BBC Tamil service correspondent whether it was administrative problems or the lack of determination to maintain law and justice, or disinterest on the part of GoSL which ended in the termination of the operations of IIGEP in Sri Lanka.

"We felt that there were shortcomings in the structure of the Commission of Inquiry and the duty of IIGEP was to find what was wrong in the investigations of Commission and the reason for the perpetrators of the crimes involved escaping the arms of the law.” The Attorney General’s presence in the Commission and the participation of his office in the commission was a factor that reduced the credibility of commission," Sir Nigel Rodley said in his interview."Sri Lanka was accused yesterday of widespread abductions in its counter-insurgency operations against the Tamil Tigers, making the country one of the worst in the world for 'disappearances,'" said The Guardian, a British daily, in its Friday edition.

"The Presidential Commission was so obviously an eye-wash and the IIGEP was only called upon to give respectability to a very deliberate design to subvert the process of law for which purpose alone this Commission was appointed," said Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a Hong Kong-based Rights watchdog, in a press release issued Friday. Meanwhile, Dr. Manohar, the father of Rajivar, one of the five university students killed in Trincomalee in January 2006, told BBC Tamil service Thursday,

 “Sri Lanka Government realized the danger of being exposed if IIGEP continued to monitor the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) investigating into the killings and was worried of the repercussions on the IIGEP's move to take the issue to levels of international standards.”  “Now that I am out of Sri Lanka I am no longer afraid to state that it was the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops who killed my son,” Dr. Manohar added.

“The IIGEP monitored the investigation of the Commission of Inquiry and was moving it to international standards which were something the Government of Srilanka could not put up with and that is why it applied pressure on the IIGET forcing it to terminate its service,” Dr. Manohar said. GoSL says that it is unable to continue investigations because witnesses do not turn up at the trials, the BBC correspondent told Dr. Manohar and sought his response in the interview. “No one will come forward to bear witness because whoever who dared to so had been killed,” Dr. Mahohar replied. “It was very dangerous to speak the truth and I admit that I too was scared to bear witness that it was the SLA troops who killed my son and other four youths in Trincomalee,” he said. “Two of the students in the group, seriously injured in the grenade attack which killed the others, had testified in the inquest into deaths that it was the SLA troops that killed their five colleagues. ”“Even though the two are now in countries away from Sri Lanka they will not come forward to bear witness because of the danger to the lives of their parents and siblings who still are in Sri Lanka,” Dr. Manohar told.

 “There have been many commissions of inquiry appointed to investigate into the human rights violation in Sri Lanka but none of them had been of any use because Sri Lanka government will do what it wants,” he told BBC. The only way to find justice is to take these cases of gross human rights violations to the International Courts of Justice and international agencies like UN should intervene to offer direction and help to Sri Lanka and the commissions to bring justice to the Tamils in Sri Lanka

The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), headed by P N Bhagwati, former Indian Chief Justice, decided to terminate its operations in Sri Lanka, according to a statement issued by the IIGEP on Thursday. "The IIGEP is of the opinion that there has not been the minimum level of trust necessary for the success of the work of the commission and the IIGEP," an AFP report has quoted a statement by the IIGEP. Trincomalee residents were shocked and angered over the killing of five old students of Trincomalee Sri Koneswara Hindu College in a grenade attack alleged by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on 2 January at about 7.50 p.m. Two old students, one from Sri Koneswara Hindu College and another from St.Joseph’s College in Trincomalee were warded in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Trincomalee general hospital. All the dead and injured were identified as Tamils and below the age of 20 years. Two of the dead students have gained university admission for the current academic year, police sources said.

IIGEP faults Commission of lacking Independence, Timeliness

Monday, 11 June 2007, International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), in a report released to the President of Sri Lanka on 1st June on the President’s Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Alleged Serious Violations of Human Rights, said: "We have identified and raised a number of concerns with the Commission and the Government of Sri Lanka. We remain concerned that current measures taken by the Government of Sri Lanka and the Commission to address issues such as the independence of the Commission, timeliness and witness protection are not adequate and do not satisfy international norms and standards."

Justice P.N. Bhagwati

IIGEP Report and SL Govt. Response

On the issue on independence, the report signed by P N Bhagwati Chairman, IIGEP, said" "The Attorney General’s Department is the Chief Legal Adviser to the Government of Sri Lanka. Members of the Attorney General’s Department have been involved in the original investigations into those cases subject to further investigation by the Commission itself. As such, members of the Attorney General’s Department may find that they are investigating themselves. Furthermore, it is possible that they be called as material witnesses before the Commission. We consider these to be serious conflicts of interest, which lack transparency and compromise national and international standards of independence and impartiality that are central to the credibility and public confidence of the Commission. "The IIGEP accused the Commission of not executing the expected investigations in a timely manner.”We are concerned that the Commission did not commence even preliminary investigations and inquiries until May 2007, despite being constituted six months earlier in November 2006. To date, internal processes have not been transparent; no detailed work plan has been announced; essential staff have not yet been fully recruited; investigative and witness protection units are not functioning; and significantly, evidence already known to be in the possession of Governmental bodies relating to the cases has not been gathered and transmitted to us. Such unnecessary delays undermine public confidence in the ability of the Commission to carry out its mandate in a timely manner," the report said. The report also criticized the CoI for not enacting appropriate "legislation that accords with international norms and standards" to protect victims and witnesses.

"The public statements from State officials are creating the misleading impression that the Commission and IIGEP have wide mandates and powers and the resources to address ongoing alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka. This is not the case. In the current context, in particular, the apparent renewed systematic practice of enforced disappearance and the killings of Red Cross workers, it is critical that the Commission and IIGEP not be portrayed as a substitute for robust, effective measures including national and international human rights monitoring," the report said. According to an announcement made on 6 September 2006, Sri Lanka's President invited an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) to act as observers of the activities of the Commission [consisting of Sri Lanka nationals] which was mandated to investigate alleged abductions, disappearances and extra judicial killings. 

                                                                                   TO BE CONTINUED..........