Revisiting the Horror in Sri Lanka

By MANU JOSEPH-February 27, 2013NEW DELHI — In the series of photographs shot in 2009, the bare-chested boy is first shown seated on a bench watching something outside the frame. Then he is seen having a snack. In the third image he is lying on the ground with bullet holes in his chest. The photographs, which were released last week by the British broadcaster Channel 4, appear to document the final moments in the life of 12-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran, the youngest son of the slain founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The images are from the documentary film “No Fire Zone,” which tells the story of Sri Lanka’s violent suppression of Mr. Prabhakaran’s equally violent revolution, which had come very close to securing a separate state for the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. After 26 years of civil war between the Tamils, who are chiefly Hindus, and the Sinhalese majority, who are chiefly Buddhists, the Sri Lankan state won decisively in 2009. Human rights activists say that hundreds of Tamil fighters, political leaders and their families, including Mr. Prabhakaran and his family, did not die in action but were executed. They estimate that more than 40,000 Tamil civilians died in the final months of the war.

Within its borders, the Sri Lankan government appears to wink at its Sinhalese population to accept their congratulations for ending the war, but it maintains a righteous indignation when the world accuses its army of planned genocide.

“No Fire Zone” includes video footage and photographs shot on mobile phones by Tamil survivors and Sinhalese soldiers that were somehow leaked. The film’s director, Callum Macrae, told me that it will be screened at the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, now under way in Geneva, where the United States plans to introduce a resolution asking Sri Lanka to investigate the allegations of war crimes by its army.

It is not clear what such a resolution will achieve because Sri Lanka’s powerful president,Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has a rustic swagger about him and a manly black mustache, is the triumphant face of Sri Lanka’s victory in the war. The Sri Lankan Army is unambiguously under his control. Whatever the worth of the resolution, India is expected to support it more enthusiastically than it did a similar resolution last March.

Over the years, the shape and location of Sri Lanka have inspired several Indian cartoonists to portray the island nation as a tear drop beneath India’s peninsular chin. This is an illogical depiction of Sri Lanka’s trauma because a tear drop is not sorrowful; it is a consequence of someone’s sorrow. Some caricatures that appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, showed the Indian peninsula weeping and Sri Lanka as the consequent tear drop. This imagery had a stronger logic. India’s history with Sri Lanka is, in a way, about a bumbling giant being hurt by a cunning dwarf.

Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the type of strategists who imagine that they are great Machiavellian characters, and love to add the prefix “geo” to “politics” to feel good about their advisory jobs, ensured that India armed and financed the Tamil rebels. In 1984, when she was assassinated and her son Rajiv Gandhi took over as prime minister, Sri Lanka was engaged in a full-fledged civil war. Now, India wanted to play gracious giant in the region and bring peace to Sri Lanka. In 1987, it sent troops to achieve that end. It was a disastrous move, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 Indian soldiers and thousands of Tamil fighters. In an act of vengeance, Mr. Prabhakaran made his greatest strategic blunder: ordering the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

On the early morning of May 22, 1991, as the news spread through Madras (now Chennai) by phone and radio, I saw people run out of their homes in some kind of delirium to pick up the newspapers from their porches. The city had just woken up to the improbable fact that a suicide bomber had killed Mr. Gandhi the previous night in a small town not far from Chennai. Until then, the southern state of Tamil Nadu, whose capital is Chennai, was a haven for the Tamil Tigers. Bound by a common language, the masses of Tamil Nadu felt a deep compassion for the struggle of Sri Lankan Tamils. But Mr. Gandhi’s assassination was seen by them as an act of war against India. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu at the time, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who was accused of being a friend of the Tigers, went around Chennai in an open-roof van, standing with his palms joined in apology. That was not good enough. In the 1991 Tamil Nadu assembly elections, his party won only two seats.

But now, the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils has returned as a passionate political issue in Tamil Nadu. Mr. Karunanidhi is too old to stand anymore but even as a patriarch who uses a wheelchair, he is a useful ally of the Indian National Congress Party, which heads the national government. He has often demanded that the accomplices of Mr. Gandhi’s assassin now on death row in India be pardoned, and that President Rajapaksa be tried on war crimes charges. Last year, when the United States introduced a resolution against Sri Lanka, India was reluctant to back it for strategic reasons, including that it has commercial interests in Sri Lanka, which China is fast grabbing. But Mr. Karunanidhi and public sentiment in Tamil Nadu finally persuaded the Indian government to support it.

In a few days, when the United States introduces its new resolution against Sri Lanka, the brute forces of politics and practicality will ensure that the Indian government led by the Congress Party, whose leader is Sonia Gandhi, will join other nations in asking Sri Lanka to explain how exactly it eliminated the organization that made her a widow.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

Sri Lanka Has No Capacity To Hold Any Credible Investigation

By M.A. Sumanthiran -February 28, 2013

M.A. Sumanthiran MP

I count it a privilege and an honour to have been invited to address this assembly this afternoon.

It is said that Truth is the first casualty of war. I want to say today that Truth is also the first step in reconciliation. It is in recognition of this principle that after the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa, the process that united the country was called the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.

In Sri Lanka too, many Truths about the war were hidden and continue to remain hidden. It is time for us in Sri Lanka to uncover the truth, face up to it, and move forward towards reconciliation. The end of the war in May 2009 provided us with a great opportunity for that. Unfortunately, triumphalism and narrow, parochial self interest has prevailed for the last four years resulting in more damage being done to the social fabric and the institutional safeguards in our country than what they suffered even during the years of war. Violations of human rights were rife, as can be expected, whilst the war raged. But sadly, the end of the war did not turn things around. The government, without being magnanimous in victory, continues to behave as though the State is still under siege. The natural popularity that was gained for having brought the fighting to an end is being used to further erode democratic values and to entrench a family-rule. For the people too the line between expressing gratitude and permitting an authoritarian take-over remained thin, with the result, the only constitutional safe-guard protecting the independence of democratic institutions was dismantled within six months of the new Parliament convening in 2010. The 18^th amendment to the Constitution not only abolished the Constitutional Council responsible for appointment to independent offices and institutions, but also removed the two term limit on the very powerful Executive Presidency.

The recent impeachment of the Chief Justice through a process that was declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court demonstrates the extent to which rule of law has broken down in Sri Lanka. The apparent disregard to democratic ideals and to the values and principles of the Commonwealth as regards Latimar House principles, which Sri Lanka is bound by, clearly demonstrates the authoritarian and dictatorial nature of the present regime. The purported appointment of the advisor to the government as the Chief Justice, again lays bare the government’s mindset. The fact that the Chief Justice was impeached hot on the heels of several devolution-friendly determinations that angered the government, again demonstrates its lack of sincerity in actually implementing the 13th amendment to the Constitution, let alone going beyond it to achieve meaningful devolution to which the government paid lip service until the independence day speech of the President earlier this month.

The government continued with the state of emergency for over two years after the end of the war, and allowed it to lapse only in order to face up to the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Setember 2011. However, just a day before the state of emergency lapsed, a set of new regulations was introduced under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. The most obnoxious of these is the regulation that enables the security establishment to incacerate any person under the guise of ‘rehabilitation’ without even producing him/her before a court of law, on the pretext that such person had ‘surrendered’. Many are being so incarcerated now: about 40 from Jaffna, another dozen or so from Trincomalee and a few more from Batticaloa. Four University students who were also among those arrested in Jaffna have been released. The manner in which the President ordered the release of two of them while he was visiting Jaffna demonstrates the height of arbitrariness of these arrests and detentions and removes any doubt as to the illegality of the continuing detention of the others. In addition, there are close to a thousand others who continue to be detained under the PTA, some for longer than 15 years, without proper charges or trial. One glaring example is that of an Irish national who was arrested in 2007. The state claimed that he was an international arms smuggler and kept getting more and more time before the Supreme Court where he had challeged his arrest and detention. After five long years, they indicted him for failure to give information to the Police, the most innocuous of offences under the PTA. He pleaded guilty on legal advice, since he had spent longer than the maximum sentence for this offense and was sentenced to a token term of one month. But on the day of his release, just a few days ago, on the 12th of February, he was remanded again on the application of the State which claimed that they plan to indict him again for another offence!

The Human Rights situation in the North and the East, and indeed in all parts of the country continues to deteriorate. Not holding anyone accountable for the grave crimes committed during the last stages of the war, has its heavy price. Similar incidents are bound to recur and that is what is happening, particularly in the North and East of the country at present. Recently 109 very young Tamil girls were said to have been recruited to the Army from the Districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. No formal procedures were followed and some of them have managed to escape and return home. 16 others were said to have suddenly gone down with ‘mass hysteria’ and admitted to the Kilinochchi hospital one day and no one was allowed to meet them. All this raises grave suspicions as to the actual status of these girls in the Army. My colleague, Hon. Shritharanraised the matter in Parliament and he was promptly subjected to a Criminal Investigation Department inquiry in breach of Parliamentary privilege. Since he raised the question of privilege, now the Terrorist Investigation Division has raided his office in Kilinochchi, claims to have recovered some explosives and astonishingly, condoms and pornographic material! They have also arrested two of his staff and are holding them under the PTA. Handbills were distributed in Kilinochchi with pictures of the alleged pornography saying ‘This is your MP who speaks about young women being abused by the army’. He was also summoned to the TID office and subjected to a three hour inquiry just last week. Human Rights Watch has released a 141 page report two days ago on the sexual abuse of Tamil detainees. The 150,000 strong army presence in the Northern Province – one soldier to every five civilians – says more of what goes on in the open in the Tamil areas. This sense of impunity has been brought about solely due to the fact that no one has had to answer yet for the serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the last stages of the war. The UN Panel of Experts recommended an independent investigation into this with international supervision.

The TNA, as the elected representatives of the Tamil people, welcomed the Panel of Experts’ finding that “credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and peace.” The official position of the TNA is that the truth must be ascertained through an independent international investigation, which should also inquire into the on-going acts of persecution against the Tamil People even four years after the end of the war. Sadly, locally, the country has no capacity to hold any credible investigation, particularly now, with the breakdown of the independence of the judiciary. The government has also now plainly demonstrated what they are in fact capable of. A military tribunal established to inquire into these violations has concluded – hold your breath – that no violations occurred, and worse, that no person has disappeared in Sri Lanka! The LLRC itself has reported that from persons who braved to come and give evidence before it alone, over 3,000 had disappeared and out of this 1018 had disappeared after surrendering to the security forces at the end of the war.

The government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) too recommended that theChannel 4 video footage that was first released should be investigated to ascertain their authenticity. Since then there have been two more releases of such footage. The government of Sri Lanka has challenged the authenticity of this footage as well. This too then must be subject to thorough investigation. Both the charges and the counter-charges that have been made are too serious to be allowed to remain without inquiry.

At the begining of this conference Peter Kellner gave us a sobering thought. I was more encouraged when Suren called it wise words. Option 1 as outlined by him must be pursued before the other options are resorted to. It is true that time is short, but it is important to get the GOSL to deliver.

The TNA today is calling upon the government of Sri Lanka to cooperate with any UNHRC resolution which seeks the implementation of the LLRC recommendations and seeks credible measures to ascertain the Truths that have been hidden. Contesting a reasonable resolution and having it voted on will only result in Sri Lanka losing the vote and facing international embarrassment.

Sri Lanka must now work with the United Nations to ascertain the Truth. It is the Truth that will lead to reconciliation and enable the Tamil People, together with all the Peoples in Sri Lanka to live with equality, dignity and self-respect.

* The speech made by MA Sumanthiran MP at the GTF 3rd Anniversary Conference London.

Sri Lanka: high court blocks Tamil deportations

The high court in London blocks the deportation of a group of failed Tamil asylum seekers who were due to be sent back to Sri Lanka on Thursday despite torture concerns.

                     

The high court decision was described as "unprecedented and precedent-setting" by a legal source.

The group of failed Tamil asylum seekers was due to be sent back to Sri Lanka on Thursday, on a flight leaving the UK at around 4pm, but now they will be able to remain in the UK while their situations are considered further.

The landmark decision has wider implications because it also applies to all other failed Tamil asylum seekers, and those in detention, meaning none can be removed at present. New claimants will still have to make claims in the normal way.

The failed Tamil asylum seekers, represented by Renaissance Chambers, were due to be deported on Thursday despite the government's admission earlier this month that at least 15 Tamils previously sent back to Sri Lanka were tortured.

Sri Lanka has an alarmingly persistent record of serious human rights abuse, particularly for those who oppose the regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Most of the victims are ethnic Tamils.

In 2009, a 27-year-long Tamil insurgency was crushed by the Sri Lankan government, at the loss of tens of thousands of civilian lives. Although the war is over, human rights groups say many Tamils continue to live in fear.

A UK Border Agency spokesman told Channel 4 News: "We are disappointed with the outcome of this hearing and we will appeal. The ruling does not represent a blanket ban on returns to Sri Lanka."

A question of timing

The judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, described the situation as "virtually unique", due to the timing of the case.

At the same time as this particular case was under consideration, an immigration tribunal has been hearing evidence on the wider question of the situation in Sri Lanka. Its deliberations will be used to update Home Office guidance on the risks of returning people to the country.

Mr Justice Wilkie said that because the guidance on Sri Lanka was being considered "virtually afresh" and it was clear that "the existing country guidance will have to change", the failed Tamil asylum seekers could not be deported as planned.

"That position is one which this court cannot simply blind itself to," he said.

Keith Best, chief executive of Freedom from Torture, told Channel 4 News: "In the face of such overwhelming evidence, it is a sad indictment of our political masters that it has taken a court to impose the precautions that we have repeatedly called for.

"The UKBA's removals policy for Sri Lankan Tamils remains deeply flawed. Until this is remedied many in need of the UK's protection still live with the risk of forced return to torture."

Sri Lankan High Commission statement on allegations of torture of Tamils "We regret that once again, Channel 4 has asked us to comment pre-facto, even before its programme is aired, and without being told precise details of what is due to be broadcast. Going by your past record it is highly likely to be another spurious piece of theatre. "In addition, the timing of your release appears to be a continuation of your sinister campaign to attempt to discredit Sri Lanka."

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Systematic rape of Tamils violates Genocide convention, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 February 2013, 00:51 GMT]
Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law and who represented nearly 40,000 raped Women of Bosnia and argued their case for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, commenting on the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "Sri Lanka: Rape of Tamil detainees," said, "[c]learly, this continuing Campaign of widespread and systematic rape by the Government of Sri Lanka against the Tamils violates Article II(b) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting party."

The relevant part of article II states:

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
…
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;….”

Professor Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois

According to Article I of the Genocide Convention, all of the Contracting Parties thereto (which includes most of the civilized word) “undertake to prevent and to punish” these acts of genocide against the Tamils by the GOSL, Professor Boyle said, and asked, "Where is the United Nations Security Council? Its Permanent Members? The United States, Britain, France, Europe and India? The U.N. Human Rights Council?

"The United Nations Secretary General? And his Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide?

"They are all derelict in their duties under the Genocide Convention and the jus cogens customary international law obligations “to prevent and to punish” the ongoing GOSL genocide against the Tamils. They have all become Accessories After The Fact to the GOSL genocide against the Tamils in violation of Article III(e) of the Genocide Convention that criminalizes their “(e) Complicity in genocide,"" Professor Boyle said.

As the Lawyer for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during Yugoslavia’s War of Extermination against the Bosnians, Professor Boyle represented raped Women of Bosnia, and won two World Court Orders of Provisional Measures of Protection overwhelmingly on their behalf on 8 April 1993 and 13 September 1993 against Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against them and against all the other Bosnians on the basis of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Details can be found in Professor Boyle's book “The Bosnian People Charge Genocide!” (1996), (Amazon.com).

US unaware of numbers killed in Lanka’s war

February 27, 2013, 10:12 pm

by Shamindra Ferdinando

Denise Rollins

A senior US official yesterday admitted that the US could not, on its own, estimate the number of persons killed during the final phase of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

Visiting Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Asia Bureau, USAID, Denise Rollins said so, addressing the media at the United States Information Service (USIS), Colombo before leaving for Jaffna to inspect a USIAD supported project to expand operations of an ice making factory at Point Pedro.

Rollins said that the US hadn’t estimated the number of victims, though various other organizations, which had access to war affected areas made allegations against the Sri Lankan government. She was responding to a query by The Island whether the US could provide some approximate figure as regards the number of people killed in the war because different parties were giving varying numbers, with the UK-based Global Tamil Forum (GTF), US-based LTTE activists and a British MP bandying about 40,000, over 70,000 and 100,000, respectively.

UNSG Ban Ki-moon’s Panel of Experts (PoE) estimated the number of dead at 40,000.

However, Rollins said that the US wanted the Sri Lankan government to investigate allegations.

Asked whether Rollins could clarify the basis for allegations made against the Sri Lankan military, as regards accountability issues and credible allegations of human rights violations, the official asserted that there were a spate of allegations made by those having access to the Northern region. She didn’t identify them.

Collins alleged that Tamil women living in the Northern region were facing what she termed as serious security issues. She didn’t specify what the serious issues were.

In her opening statement, Rollins emphasized that economic development was not enough, while insisting on the need for rapid progress in the national reconciliation process leading to enduring peace.

Rollins said that lasting peace would depend on transparent governance and addressing accountability issues during the final phase of the conflict, including civilian casualties and credible allegations of human rights violations.

While reiterating concerns over the impeachment of Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, Rollins said that the USAID would implement a $ 4.5 million project to assist the local judiciary. The proposed project would include technical assistance as well as training of judges and court administrators, she added.  

Police media spokesman was ousted from his post is receiving death threats from Defense Ministry

Country under Rajapkses on the road to perdition

(Lanka-e-News -28.Feb.2013, 5.30PM) The former police media spokesman , SSP Prishantha Jayakody who was ousted from his post is receiving death threats , according to reports reaching Lanka e news. Jayakody was dismissed from his post directly and immediately on orders from Gotabaya , the defense secretary for allegedly releasing a press release that is unsavory to the Rajapakse regime. The communiqué dated 13th February is : the exposure of the obstrictions and impediments the Uva province DIG M K Latheef faced in the performance of his duites due to the political henchmen and stooges of the MaRa regime of the province When a three wheeler containing ganja (cannabis) was being transported by the brother of Moneragala district Mayor it was halted . Consequent upon this police action , the murderous brother had brutally assaulted two police officers until they bled. The MaRa regime had then issued orders not to enforce the law on these assailants . DIG Latheef had ignoring the illegal orders had taken steps legally and got the Mayor’s brother produced before the court and remanded. Following this , when the regime’s political vengeance began to reach dangerous proportions , the police media spokesman on the instructions of the IGP had released the controversial media communiqué on the 13th. The content in the communiqué hereunder had provoked the Rajapakses. Those held as suspects in this criminal assault were individuals who were associated closely in politics in the Moneragala district . Immense pressures were applied to get them released according to reports . No matter what , the police officers have duly executed their duties without kowtowing to any pressures. The attempts to get the suspects freed without the law enforcement duly through the Moneragala DIG had failed. It is to be noted that it is the duty of the police officers to perform their duties duly and enforce the law against those wrongdoers who are acting in violation of the constitution and rule of law. These officers had carried out their duties duly and honestly without yielding to pressures from whatever side. Following the communiqué which was signed by the police media spokesman Jayakody on the direct instructions of the IGP , with effect from 26th , Jayakody had been removed from his present position by the Rajapakse regime and transferred to the examinations division as Director, and P M H B Siriwardena SP has been appointed as the new police media spokesman Gotabaya had given instructions to the defense Ministry and the State intelligence service to conduct an investigation against Jayakody . The defense Ministry had commenced its investigations. The worst part of this drama and the most dangerous signals were given out when Jayakody received a phone call from an individual holding out death threats to him. The caller had told Jayakody to wipe out his love for his life. The caller’s phone number is 0712 126126. When Lanka e news did an investigation into this phone number, it became known that this phone number is what had been allocated to the defense Ministry by the Mobitel Co. The threatening call had originated therefore from the defense Ministry under the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother Gotabaya Rajapakse against the police media spokesman who performed his duties duly and lawfully. In that event if such a threatening call has emerged from the very defense Ministry in charge of the lawful affairs and the national security of the country against a police officer who acted lawfully , the most crucial question is , whom do you complain to , when there is a death threat? From whom can we expect security protection ? Besides , if those in the opposition are also ‘double game’ crooks , isn’t the situation even most perilous and grave ? Following the series of threats and intimidations that were directed against the judiciary , and now with these threats ominously rearing its head against the police , one can imagine in which direction the Rajapakses are heading , and which hellhole the country is being led into.

FLASHBACK: Sex Abuse and Murder in Sri Lanka- New Photos Emerge
Tim King Salem-News.com-Mar-08-2012

Be forewarned, that the photos of war crime and sex abuse victims shown below, are shocking and gruesome.Please hit the Facebook 'share' button- Help Get This Story Out There!

One of many Tamil female rape/murder victims who died in mid-2009 at the hands of the Sri Lanka Army, in a Genocide.

(SALEM) - (Follow hundreds of stories about Sri Lanka on Salem-News.com)

It has been a little more than a year since I wrote this shocking story about the horrible acts against Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka that took place during the end years of the country's nearly three-decade long civil war between the separatist Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. Sri Lanka's actions are back in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council and UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, says Sri Lanka has broken its promise to improve human rights in the island nation.

Pillay has also issued a stern warning to the Sri Lankan Government not to repeat last year’s intimidation and threats against human rights defenders at next week’s UN Human Rights Council meeting to examine Sri Lanka’s progress on human rights and post-war reconciliation with Tamils.

This article, in spite of being almost a year old, is one of our top viewed and commented upon stories month after month consistently in 2013. As hard as it is to take in, this fact means a great deal. Exposing atrocities vividly online is one of the most powerful, underutilized options we Human Rights journalists have at our disposal. We make sure that the memories of Sri Lanka's war crimes follows their officials around like a bad smell.

Here is the article from March 2013:

I have written several articles examining the terrible crimes against innocent women and girls that occurred during the Sri Lanka civil war and the ensuing Genocide that enveloped the Tamil population in the island country's northern region.

The conflict wiped out most of the resistance force, the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - aka 'Tamil Tigers'), and tens of thousands of innocent defenseless civilians who were directly targeted.

Along with the carnage came a barrage of sex crimes against Tamil women and girls that defy real description.

Be forewarned, that the photos of war crime and sex abuse victims shown below, are shocking and tragic moments captured in time, of female rape victims who were viciously killed.

The shocking images are bloody and horrible and yet very important, as Sri Lanka stands accused of war crimes and is the subject of a resolution calling for several measures of atonement and clarity, not that anything could ever ever be enough.

Humiliation, torture, children murdered in obscene ways, military leaders with white flags gunned down while they surrendered, white van disappearances that strike horror into the heart Tamil people.

The images attest to human cruelty that is simply beyond the imagination of western people whose governments when united, most of all, have a chance of forcing change on nations like this that by policy, practice deadly, mass murder against their own citizens.

Sri Lanka's actions against its own people stand as a textbook example of state terrorism. There was nothing rational or reasonable or justifiable about directing people into safe zones and then bombing them, or killing old men and old women, chasing families down, one atrocity after another. They are all photos of war crimes that took place in 2009, the photos have been authenticated, there are different versions of the photos and video, the SLA did a good job documenting their deeds.

At the bottom of this article is a quote from a man claiming to be a former Sri Lanka soldier; that confirms in my opinion, our worst suspicions, that it was even worse than we can imagine.

Plotting Genocide

Before making strident moves to ethnically cleanse the civilian population, Sri Lanka wiped out and silenced all journalists who were sympathetic to the Hindu and Christian Tamils.

Then, the United Nations observers were asked to leave by Sri Lanka's government; the UN ordered them to clear out, and this left the Tamils at the hands of the Sinhalese Buddhist regime of Sri Lanka President Majinda Rajapaksa, to die without witness... but not completely.

As these terrible photos testify, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers like to photograph their handiwork. They rape and abuse women, murder them, and then abuse their corpses, for the camera.

Many Tamils recorded the attacks they suffered, and a great deal of media was preserved somehow, even though so many of the people who took the pictures and video died.

Where their images of suffering and death end, the SLA soldier's videos and photos begin. There have been officers of the Sri Lankan Army who have stepped forward to corroborate some of the darkest claims. Sri Lanka denies journalists access to the war zone, many disappeared people remain missing, stories of secret camps are rife, torture is commonplace.

New Images of Isaippiriya

I have written at length about the tragic loss of a young, highly talented journalist name Shoba, who was more commonly known by the name Isaippiriya. The images on the right show her in two vastly different settings; murdered in a Sri Lanka killing field where soldiers stripped the dignity of women before terminating their lives, and holding a small child (see:Two of Sri Lanka's Foulest War Crimes).

She was a reporter for TamilNet and other sources, and also worked as an actress, she sang and she danced. She also had a young child who died in the war a short time before she was molested and tortured and killed.

The group of women represented here in death are, Sri Lanka wants you to believe... terrorists.

Isaippiriya's story is moving because she is an example of who the Tamil Tigers in so many cases are and were; versus what they are portrayed to be by the Sri Lankan government and media.

People do not choose the place of their birth, they don't ask for their particular station in life, or what family or economic setting they are born into; what we do know is that all human beings have the same basic needs, and under the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and by the simple basis of common sense, people need to have both religious freedom, and a number of pre-established Human Rights.

A gentle soul by all accounts of people who knew her, the SLA would later report that she was a high ranking military officer in the LTTE, she was no such thing.

In fact Isaippiriya had health-related issues that prevented her from even wearing a uniform for the Tigers.

LTTE Still Active

In her honor, and the members of the LTTE who fought the SLA in the Vanni and held out against tremendous odds, it is important to say that the LTTE is not inactive, and we have had recent contact from members of the military group and we are assured they are in fact, not a 'defeated' organization in any respect.

Some of the people who choose to leave comments on this story will charge that the LTTE was a 'terrorist' organization and the United States, which recently Murdered 1.5 million in Iraq, is who helped achieve this dubious designation for the Tamil Tigers.

What that same of group of people will not talk about, is how the LTTE had not only backed off on its insistence for the independent state of Tamil Eelam in north Sri Lanka, but also that a cease fire was in effect when Rajapaksa and his forces launched the deadly war's final state, in 2005.

The EU and UN all followed suit in adding the LTTE to the terrorist list; of course it wouldn't be surprising to learn that those two groups recently killed more people in Libya taking out Gaddafi and arming the new band of U.S. friendly rogue Muslim extremists, than all of the LTTE victims combined.

And on the subject of honor and the military and war crimes, the LTTE was formed to fight the SLA, and in 1983, after a battle left 13 SLA soldiers dead, a radical Buddhist monk led a band of Sinhalese Lankans into Tamil neighborhoods to murder hundreds and hundreds in retribution for the 13 dead SLA soldiers.

The history, when closely examined, almost always shoots down the excuses for this apartheid, Genocidal government. It tells a tale that began with greedy British colonization and a division of the native Sinhala and Tamil people.

Tamils were given preference under British rule, and have paid the price for this ever since Ceylon, as it was called then, finally gained independence from the British in 1948.

The racist policies forced onto these people by the British is the formula for lingering hatred and violence.

Tamils forced Muslims out in the 1980's when tensions heightened, cruelty was dealt out by both sides, but the LTTE would have never even formed if a population accounting for 18% of a country is threatened.

While wishing for a peaceful future, I strongly respect the Tamil minority culture, who first labored for thirty years in peace to maintain and preserve their culture, and then spent another thirty years as an armed resistance with the only goal really being the autonomy of Tamil people and the preservation of their language and culture.

Tamil View

In an article titled: New War crimes Pictures emerge!, Fight4tamils compares the actions of Sri Lanka's soldiers in the last days of the war and Genocide, to a bunch of animals who staged one of the ugliest crime against humanity.

The president Mahinda and his brother defence Secretary Gottabaya have instructed the military to show all their cruelity on the female Tamil Tiger cadres and Tamil girls. Military staged the horror which could be seen on these pictures and still the United Nations and ICC do not act on the criminals of Sri Lanka.

It is shame that the major military commander Shavendra De Silva, who staged this crime is a Sri Lankan envoy to UN and UN secretary Ban Ki Moon keeping him in UN even after knowing the truth.

Do you want to fight for the justice for these women and men? Please send this page to your local MP or any organisations and tell them to support the call for war crimes inquiry.

Support the two major Tamil organisations who continue to fight for the justice, Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam via tgte.org
Global Tamil Forum via globaltamilforum.org

I wish I could tell you the name of each of these young women, or even if they are definitely LTTE, I can't tell you about their families, talents and educations, much of the information died when they did.

There is one victim thankfully, Shoba, who we are very familiar with, perhaps at some point more information on the identity of the other victims will be gained.

I was moved by the following comments that have been posted online in regard to these photos:

“

Even the barbarians never did this type of crimes against a woman. Only the Sinhalese extremist can do this. The perpetrators must be brought to the international criminal court.Our women are not deserved to these crimes. - Kana

”

“

We have thousands of people rallying and campaigning to protect nature and trees, and yet the crimes again the tamils in SL are ignored…..what kind of world do we live in?? If we dont punish the people that did this, then these kind of attrocities will continue both in SL and worldwide!! - JFK

”

“

That rapist regime must answer to all women of the world and the men appreciate the sacredness of women. - Mike

”

A comment previously listed as originating from Colombo Telegraph, was listed out of context. The person that was attributed to, contacted Salem-News.com, advising that we had only included part of a comment he had left on aTranscurrent article. The comment was not made in regard to these images or this article, this was a mistake on our part, we sincerely apologize for the error.

It is never our intention to misconstrue a comment in this way; context is extremely important. We have retracted the comment and owe the individual a strong apology for this oversight, stating for the record that the mistake was ours and we regret the fact that it occurred.

Story from 08 March 2012 concludes.

The ethnic cleansing that culminated in May 2009 took place under the watch of Major General Shavendra Silva, who headed the 58th Division, the same group that shot dead the Tigers surrendering with white flags. Navi Pillay, we know you want to do the right thing, use all your power and do everything you can to make this government accountable for its war crimes, bring our Tamil brothers and sisters their long-deserved justice, please.

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As I continued researching the story of Isaippiriya, or 'Shoba', more information continued to emerge and I take her story personally because she was a journalist and because she lost a child before being abused and killed by the SLA. She like other Tamils, LTTE or not, lived in peace until the Rajapaksa regime decided to blatantly and illegally violate a standing, successful peace treaty. That is when the crimes against the Tamil people accelerated and escalated into a full-scale Genocide.

The photos above clearly demonstrate that Isaippriyia's hands were tied behind her back. She plainly appears to be both a sex abuse and/or rape and murder victim, who was executed after being captured. This is obvious. I was greatly surprised in June of last year when I received a video clip from London, recorded by the SLA itself, that showed her body with her hands untied being counted among dead Tamil Tiger militants. This clip of video is rock solid conclusive proof that Isaippriya's murdered corpse was staged by the Sri Lankan government under the direction of for a body count of 'enemy dead'. I owe great thanks to Donald Gnanakone and Vasuki Muruhathas for getting that videotape to our newsroom.
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