News vom 14.09.2005

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Flagrant Violations of International Covenants by the Sri Lankan Government
[ Illangai Thamizh Sangam ] [ 02:54 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

Successive Sinhalese majority Sri Lankan Governments have ruled the country under Emergency Regulations for 39 of the over 57 years since independence. Of these, 29 years under Emergency have related to the ethnic problems with Tamils, according to the Tamil Center for Human Rights based in France with branches in the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland. Numerous major human rights violations have taken place under cover of Emergency Regulations in flagrant violation of several International Covenants and Conventions. Under emergency regulations the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was promulgated. International Jurist Paul Seigart has described the PTA as " the worst regulation in any civilized country, including South Africa."


SLMM visits Sri Lankan Police in Tamil Eelam Police custody
[ LTTE Peace Secretariat ] [ 11:49 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

Helen Olafsdottir, SLMM Spokes woman and Mr. Lars, from SLMM Kilinochchi Liaison Office met the SLA police officers in the Tamil Eelam Police custody in Kilinochchi today 14th of September 2005. These three Sri Lankan police officers including a Sub Inspector have detained by the Tamil Eelam Police after they forcefully entered into LTTE controlled areas in Mannar. Upon the request of police, Kilinochchi magistrate ordered them to detain them for further investigations. These three police officers will be produced in Kilinochchi court magistrate on 27th of September again.


Danger of war at centre of Sri Lankan election campaign
[ WSWS ] [ 11:50 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

Even before the date of the Sri Lankan presidential election has been announced, the issue of war has been put at the centre of the campaign. Mahinda Rajapakse, the candidate for the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and current prime minister, signed a pact with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) last week, which unmistakably sets the course for a resumption of the island's bloody 20-year conflict. The key clauses of the electoral agreement amount to a tearing up of the so-called peace process that began in 2002 when the United National Party (UNP)-led government signed a ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).


TNA Parliamentarians discuss the political situation in Kilinochchi
[ LTTE Peace Secretariat ] [ 11:51 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

The entire group of TNA members of parliament held discussion with the leader of the LTTE political wing S P Tamilselvan on Wednesday in Kilinochchi. Following this meeting the TNA MPs held a press conference where they elaborated on the matters discussed. The main topic of the discussion they said was about how they the parliamentarians are taking forward the district wise 'People's Uprising Events' to draw the attention of the international community to the Tamil people's firmly held hopes for self-determination in their own state within their own homeland. Part of this discussion was about bringing these events and the people's desire to the notice of the international community.


Sri Lanka's prime minister plays down rift with president over peace process
[ AP ] [ 11:52 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

A spokesman for Sri Lanka's prime minister on Wednesday denied there were sharp differences between the premier and the president over proposed handling of the fragile peace process with the Tamil Tiger rebels. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is also the ruling party's candidate for president in elections due by Nov. 22. Last week, President Chandrika Kumaratunga berated Rajapakse for signing an agreement with a powerful Marxist party - in exchange for the Marxists' support in the elections - to scrap government plans to share political power and tsunami aid with the Tigers if Rajapakse is elected.


INTERVIEW - Sri Lanka PM vows new approach with Tigers if elected
[ Reuters ] [ 11:53 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

Sri Lanka's peace bid with the Tamil Tigers needs a fresh approach, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said on Wednesday, vowing if elected president to invite his opponents to join forces to negotiate with the rebels. Left-of-centre Rajapakse, who will face off against right-of-centre predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe in presidential elections in November, says converting a 2002 truce into lasting peace after two decades of civil war and pursuing economic development are his top priorities. While detractors balk at election pacts he has forged with hardline nationalist Marxists and Buddhist monks, who want him to take a tough line with the Tigers, Rajapakse says consensus is crucial to peace hopes and a return to war is not an option.


An open letter to Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat
[ TamilCanadian ] [ 12:20 GMT, Sep. 14, 2005 ]

Dr. Danapala during your visit to Washington you have spoken about the nature of responsibilities of the new Secretary General (SG) to be elected soon, for which you have already expressed your interest. Don't you think that if you had not done this briefing in Capital Hill you could have had a better chance of being elected to that position? Through this briefing, you have demonstrated to the IC that you are no different from any other Sri Lankan politicians in handling any conflicts. You have demonstrated that you are not suitable to fit into any of the criteria the SG's position demands that you have spoken about. Therefore it is better for you to become a politician in Sri Lanka rather than aspiring for the post of SG of the UN. Let the Almighty God guide you in making that choice to save the world from a political disaster like what Sri Lanka has gone through.
 
An open letter to Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala

CC: An open letter to Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat
By: Dr. Victor Rajakulendran
Source: TamilCanadian - September 14, 2005


Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala
Secretary General
Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP)
Level 10, West Tower
World Trade Centre
Bank of Ceylon Mawatha
Colombo 01
Sri Lanka

Dear Dr. Dhanapala

Re: Your briefing on the Sri Lankan Peace process: the Role of the International Community

I am writing this open letter in order to bring to your and the International Community's (IC) attention, my comments and concern on some of the matters you have raised in your briefing to the Sri Lanka Congressional Caucus of the US Congress. I decided to write this open letter because this is the first time after taking up the role of the Secretary General of the SCOPP, you have behaved like a typical Sri Lankan politician, trying to make the US Congressmen believe what the Sri Lankan government wants them to believe.

The pivotal point of your briefing has been centred around, the assassination of the former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar. Your hurried attempt to put the blame for Kadirgamar's assassination on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), well before the investigators have even scratched the surface on this matter indicates that you are on a hasty mission to discredit the LTTE in the eyes of the IC before it is proved otherwise. Such an attempt by you only leaves room for others to suspect as to whether the Sri Lankan Government (SLG) has been waiting for such an unfortunate incident to restart the campaign, after a brief lapse, the late Minister Kadirgamar himself initiated to proscribe the LTTE in western nations.

Let us first look at the evidence so far made public and what you have revealed about Minister Kadirgamar's assassination. The first evidence put out by the investigators and quoted by you is that days prior to the assassination, 2 LTTE cadres were apprehended carrying out surveillance on the late Minister's private residence. If that is true the Sri Lankan security forces have foiled the plan by the LTTE to assassinate the Minister at the initial stages. Then how the investigators and you could give this as one of the evidences to prove that LTTE only has done this assassination?

You also should have given the following sequence of conflicting evidences put out by the investigators from day 1 of this investigation to help the caucus members to make their own judgement. According to the house owner Thalyasingam, from where the fatal shots were alleged to have been fired according to the investigators, the police party raided his house only 2 hours after the incident happened and during the time the house was searched he was not allowed to be present. Therefore anything that is produced as found in the house could have been planted by the raiding party as usually happens in Sri Lanka. The day after the incident the investigators came up with the great break through that they found two cyanide capsules in Thalyasingam's house upstairs room and therefore said that the assassination should have to be the handy work of the LTTE. If the purpose of the LTTE members carrying cyanide capsule in their body is to avoid being captured alive, don't you think they would not have left the cyanide capsule in the room when they decided to flee from the house? The next day the investigators said that they found a cigarette bud and the DNA analysis on this would help to prove that the culprits were LTTE cadres. While it is a well-known fact that LTTE cadres never smoke or drink alcohol, it is ridiculous for the investigators to think the others to believe that the Sri Lankan intelligence agency has every LTTE member's DNA profile or the LTTE cadres to possess a common genetic profile. The investigators produced pictures of a tripod stand they alleged to have found in Tahalyasingam's house suspected to have been used by the assailants to sit on it and shoot through a hole in the bathroom window with a sniper gun. But later the same investigators contradicted this by saying that according to ballistic experts who conducted the forensic examination the shots were not fired from a sniper gun but from a machine gun. Not only this cast doubts on the investigators' stories but also, as this gun was never found the assassins have left the area with the gun. Dr. Danapala, with the 100 or so elite security officers providing security to the late Minister, how on earth this could have happened without the knowledge of late Ministers' security guards? One needs not be a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion, whoever were behind this assassination, has used contract killers with connection to the security forces, which is very common in Colombo now.

Let us examine the political aspect of this assassination and see who could profit by it. What is LTTE to gain by doing this at this time? LTTE knows very well that SLG and people like you will use the incident to re-start your campaign to proscribe the LTTE in Western countries as you have already began. Therefore they loose all what they gained during the last 3 ½ years by patiently observing the cease-fire. On the other hand, any chauvinistic Singhalese terrorist elements like the JVP (the Marxist People Liberation Front party), who is against SLG negotiating with LTTE and against Ranil Wickramasinghe being elected as the next President, could gain by using late Minister as the sacrificial lamb and put the blame on LTTE and use it in the Presidential election campaign against Ranil. They could blame Ranil for creating the Cease-fire Agreement and letting LTTE have access to Colombo, during the Presidential election campaign to win the Nationalistic Singhalese votes to their candidate.

Dr. Danapala, I would like to bring to your notice and the IC that there were 3 political assassinations before in Colombo all were blamed on LTTE and the investigations were conveniently closed without bringing (not even searching for) the culprits to justice. These were two former presidential candidates Gamini Dissanayaake and Lalith Athulathmuthali from the UNP (United National Party) and the veteran Tamil politician, popular human rights lawyer and Tamil nationalist Kumar Ponnambalam. All the three widows of these victims are still asking for independent inquiries about their husbands' assassinations, as they are not satisfied with the police investigators' verdict. None of these assassinations were proved in the courts as LTTE's work. In the case of Kumar Ponnambalam's assassination his son, who himself is a parliamentarian and a lawyer, has accused that his father's assassination was carried out by none other than the Presidential Security Division which is a special elite division of the security force. Therefore it would not be a surprise if one day Mrs. Kadirgamar also ask for an independent inquiry into her husband's assassination. In late Minister Kadirgamar's assassination although several countries have offered their expertise in the investigations it remains a Million $ question that why SLG has not used any yet, to have an inquiry independent in nature?

Dr. Danapala, you have spoken at length about the need for a review of the CFA, because of the several violations of it by the LTTE. You have emphasised the need to review the functioning of the CFA. Why didn' you talk about the SLG's failure to implement the key aspects of the CFA even after 3 ½ years too? According to the CFA, SLG should have disarmed the Tamil paramilitary groups by D-day + 30 at the latest. They are still operating from the security force's camps and this is the cause for all the killings going on in the east of the country all of which is counted as CFA violations by LTTE. Buildings occupied by the security forces in the so-called High Security Zones (HSZ) should have been vacated by D-day + 160 the latest. You should have talked about how many are still being occupied and how many thousand Tamils are still displaced due to this if you are genuinely working in the secretariat for a just peace. As of D-day + 90, all restrictions on day and night fishing in the North-East should have been removed, subject to few exceptions. You have failed to mention that the security forces still insist on passes and harass these Tamil fisherman and prevent them from fishing without restrictions. Therefore more than review the functioning of the CFA it is important to review the government's failure to implement key aspects of the CFA.

You have spoken very high of the SLG's development work and humanitarian assistance to the tsunami victims. It is a pity that you have forgotten that you were talking to a caucus that is well aware that the IC including the UN security council, the US Secretary of State and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and trade, knowing what has happened to the PTOMS (Post-tsunami Operational Management Structure) - supposed to be a joint structure between the SLG and LTTE to utilise the 3 B foreign aid pledged ' have asked for the speedy implementation of it. You also have promised that the SLG would vigorously argue in the courts to remove the injunction when the case is taken up on the 12th of September 2005. Now the Caucus to whom you spoke know that the supreme court judge has postponed this case again to November thereby extending the injunction denying affected Tamil people of any chance of rehabilitation. Your boasting about what the SLG is doing to help these people in the interim could be verified by the caucus if the SLG let the members of the caucus to visit these areas.

You have spoken about involving the UN in monitoring the Human Right violations committed by the LTTE and a separate human rights agreement may be necessary to stem the tide of human rights violations by the LTTE. You have talked about both parties to the CFA agreed to invite Mr. Ian Martin to act as an international human rights adviser. However, you have failed to mention that as a result of Ian Martin's involvement LTTE created a North East Secretariat of Human Rights (NESOHR) and it is headed by Fr. Karunaratnam and monitoring the human rights violations in the LTTE controlled areas. Your suggestion to get UN involved in this aspect will be welcome by all the Tamils including LTTE. However it is with deep regret that I would like to mention here that when Tamil people were killed extrajudicially by the Sri Lankan Security forces and buried in mass graves like the one in Chemmani - which was dug up under Amnesty International supervision - SLG ignored the Tamil people's call for UN involvement. The late Minister Kadirgamar even ridiculed the UN by saying that UN should restrict its activities to 'Malaria control' in Sri Lanka.

Last but not the least, you have complained that the 'IC has been indulgent of the LTTE, subordinating democracy and human rights to keep the peace process alive, rewarding the LTTE with various incentives'. 'This is obviously a reaction to the amount of pressure the IC is putting on the SLG to implement the PTOMS and move ahead with the peace process. Dr. Danapala, you are well aware that the presidential candidate of the party you are working for has agreed to cancel the PTOMS and not to consider devolution of power to the Tamils as a solution to the national crisis, to get the support of the JVP in the elections. You are aware that when the IC come to know this there will be more pressure on the President and the SLG. To counteract this only you have taken this pre-emptive attempt to force the IC to put pressure on the LTTE. Dr. Danapala, do not try to live in a fool's paradise thinking that, as in the past SLG could fool the IC. The IC is well aware of what is going on in Sri Lanka. The IC has exerted pressure on both sides according to their judgement and not because of one party's request, to exert pressure on the other.

Dr. Danapala during your visit to Washington you have spoken about the nature of responsibilities of the new Secretary General (SG) to be elected soon, for which you have already expressed your interest. Don't you think that if you had not done this briefing in Capital Hill you could have had a better chance of being elected to that position? Through this briefing, you have demonstrated to the IC that you are no different from any other Sri Lankan politicians in handling any conflicts. You have demonstrated that you are not suitable to fit into any of the criteria the SG's position demands that you have spoken about. Therefore it is better for you to become a politician in Sri Lanka rather than aspiring for the post of SG of the UN. Let the Almighty God guide you in making that choice to save the world from a political disaster like what Sri Lanka has gone through.

Yours truly

Dr. Victor Rajakulendran
Sydney
Australia

CC:
Madam Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State USA
Hon. Ferrero Waldner, European Union Commissioner
Hon. Jan Peterson, Foreign Minister of Norway
Hon. Yassusi Akashi, Special Japanese Peace Envoy to Sri Lanka
Congressman Frank Pallone
Congressman Jerry Weller
Congressman Danny Davis
Prof. John Richardson
Dr. Teresita Schafer, CSIS, Director South Asia Program
Hon. Chandrika Kumarathunga Bandaranayake, President of Sri Lanka
 
Oben