No more Sri Lanka talks if pledges not met
[ Reuters ] [ 10:56 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
A senior leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels has said further negotiations with the government will be pointless if Colombo does not act on pledges made at peace talks in Geneva last week.The government has committed "to ensure that no armed group or person other than government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations", which the Tigers interpret as a vow to disarm a breakaway faction they say are attacking them."If they don't implement what they agreed, there's no reason to talk again and again," S.S. Elilan, the Tamil Tiger political head in the northeastern Trincomalee district, told Reuters outside his headquarters on Monday night."Otherwise, it's no use. Time is running out."
Despite legislation child labour exists
[ Daily Mirror ] [ 12:04 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
The President’s declaration of 2006 as the year devoted to the Child makes us often wonder, how close we are in realizing the rights of the child as stated in the Convention proclaimed by the UN General Assembly resolution of 20th November 1959. Sri Lanka was one of the signatories. In many instances these children are subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Children also are taken on as prostitutes and the trafficking in male children is high with estimates ranging from 2,000 to 30,000 thousand. Despite legislation however child labour still exists. The school dropout rates in areas such as the Uva province, the marginalized areas in the North central province and in the plantation sector is high, mainly due to the level of poverty that exists and this provides a large number of available child labour.
Tamil Children in Bindunuwewa: Sri Lanka’s Auschwitz Revisited
By: Professor Dr. Amuthachandran
Source: TamilCanadian - November 11, 2003
With the judgement reluctantly passed by a politically motivated judiciary, the calculated, cold-blooded and callous murder of 27 Tamil children in Bidunuwewa in Sri Lanka has now become a forgotten reality. It is one more episode of state-sponsored terrorism that has been neatly shelved in the Human rights archives of the well-paid HR activists. Only the parents and siblings of the murdered victims continue to remember their dead who can live only in the memory of the living. A three-judge bench (all Sinhalese) of a Special High Court in Sri Lanka in early July this year, sentenced five defendants—two police officers and three civilians—to death for their part in a vicious premeditated and brutal mob attack at the Bindunuwewa rehabilitation camp on October 25, 2000 resulting in the carnage of 27 Tamil children and young men for the simple reason that were born TAMILS.
Of the 41 Tamil detainees kept incommunicado in this the camp, 27 were hacked or beaten to death and the remaining 14 were injured, in some cases severely. It now appears that Canada unwittingly contributed to this murderous enterprise by pumping Canadian tax dollars into the bloody coffers of Mr. Lukshman Kadirgamar a Tamil of Indian origin in the war cabinet of Chandrika Kumaratunga as her Foreign Minister.
Parents of the 41chidlren who were murdered, maimed or mutilated are crying foul at the organizers of the Winnipeg Conference for allowing Kadirgamar to publicly belittle these children five weeks before their meticulously planned massacre. Following is a full-scale research on this incident carried out by Professor Amuthachandran.
From Winnipeg to Bindunuwewa: The Tragic Canadian Connection
The organizers of the International Conference on War-Affected Children, held in Winnipeg, Canada on September 17, 2000 unwittingly contributed in no small measure toward the premeditated murderous enterprise of Sri Lanka’s ex-Foreign Minister Lukshman Kadirgamar who is reported to have personally involved in the arrest, public exhibition and subsequent torture and massacre of 41 Tamil children and young men in a torture chamber cum military camp in Bindunuwewa on October 25, 2000 --exactly five weeks after the Winnipeg Conference at which Kadirgamar was encouraged to solicit Canadian funds to support this camp comparable to Auschwitz.
It has now come to light that at the Winnipeg Conference Kadirgamar liberally exhibited 257 fully blown photographs of these children who were detained in this Camp dubbed today as “Kadirgamar’s Auschwitz.” Public exhibition of Children arrested under suspicion without any chance of a fair trial is a violation of all international norms governing the imprisonment of underage children.
Particularly Canadian Law strictly prohibits such an exhibition for monetary profits. Kadirgamar is purported to have claimed that these children have been locked up in the camp only to be rehabilitated and according to Sri Lanka’s English daily, The Island, Kadirgamar successfully solicited and received pledges for Canadian funds toward this “rehabilitation” which literally meant a calculated and cold-blooded murder of these children. Parents of some of these children testified to international human rights organizations saying that forced social service to Sinhala villagers (who subsequently became their executioners) was part of the torture inflicted on them in Bidunuwewa. Here one may recall that despite vehement protests from the Tamil Canadian community, the Conference Organizers were obstinate in inviting Kadirgamar as an exhibitionist and speaker at this Confab.
In a country like Canada where every effort is made to withhold the publication of identities of minors, it is very regrettable that the Winnipeg Conference saw it fit to allow Kadirgamar to publicly exhibit the photographs of Tamil children with their names and age written below without their approval and consent. It is further reported that these 257 photographs were used for the sole purpose of collecting funds thereby violating the Canadian Law on protecting the identity of minors. The conference organizers did this perhaps because Tamil children are an expendable commodity, as they are poor, defenseless and illiterate and have no way of defending themselves against such massive powers. What could be more gruesome than to hold a Conference to protect the Rights of Children and to betray the very right in a platform only to please a murderous regime. I do hope that an organization that is truly dedicated to uphold the Human rights and fundamental rights of children will have the courage to investigate this matter.
It was reported recently that a three-judge bench of a Special High Court in Sri Lanka in early July sentenced five defendants—two police officers and three civilians—to death for their part in a vicious premeditated mob attack at the Bindunuwewa rehabilitation camp on October 25, 2000 resulting in the carnage of 41 Tamil children and young men for the simple reason that were TAMILS. Of the 41 Tamil detainees at the camp, 27 were hacked or beaten to death and the remaining 14 were injured, in some cases severely. Neither Amnesty International nor have any other Human Rights institutions including the one chaired by the so called women rights activist Radhika Coomaraswamy (reportedly a close colleague of the infamous Kadirgamar) hardly ever raised her Human rights voice or even noise about this most gruesome and brutal massacre.
Of the 27 Tamils who were hacked to death in this premeditated murderous venture, twenty two were below the age of nineteen and they were in their early-teens when they were arrested in the streets of Colombo, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Vavuniya. It is no secret that almost all these children were taken into custody because they were poor and that they were Tamils. In my two recent visits to Sri Lanka, I was able to meet some of the parents who said that their children were arrested and kept incommunicado for over two years in spite of the vain efforts made by the International committee of the Red Cross to verify their whereabouts.
A concerted investigation carried out by SEP states that according to eyewitnesses in the early hours of October 25, 2000 a crowd of 2,500 to 3,000 Sinhala thugs and hooligans surrounded the camp. A sizeable contingent of police, armed with automatic weapons, stood by and some did encourage the bloodthirsty mob armed with clubs, knives and machetes as they freely entered the camp and attacked the defenseless detainees who were all Tamils. One of the eyewitnesses stated in courts that the police did not use their weapons to prevent the attack but instead turned their guns on the detainees as some of them fled for their lives.
It must also be noted that that this case was brought to the courts after considerable delays. It transpired later that Kadirgamar ordered the “delay”. Initially 41 police and civilians were charged for their role in the murders. But in the course of the trial, 23 were released due to “lack of evidence”. Of the remaining 18, only five were found guilty and the rest were acquitted of all charges. The High Court used the excuse that 12 of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition to dismiss some of the charges. International Human Rights Advocates not excluding the Winnipeg Conference organizers may continue to debate about the human identity of the murdered victims and therefore the victim’s Human rights.
Three men—Munasinghe Archchige Samy, Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Siripala Dissanayaka and Rajapakse Mudiyanselage Premananda—were found guilty of murder. Inspector Jayampathy Karunasena and Sub-Inspector Vajira Ratnayake were found guilty of not taking action against the criminals and therefore sharing a common motive with the killers.
Having been sentenced to death, Karunasena, an inspector at the Bandarawela police station, accused his immediate superiors—Officer-in-Charge of the Bandarawela police, Jayantha Seneviratne, and Assistant Superintendent of Police A.W. Dayaratne—of being responsible. “I was not involved in the massacre anyway,” he said. “I would not have to face this if I did not go out of my way to do my duty. Those who gave the orders that day have been spared.” A Catholic News agency reported that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Badulla named Winston Fernando who shares the Nationalist philosophy of Sinhala Urumaya commended and congratulated the murderers for destroying terrorism in his diocese. More than anything else, this speaks quite loudly about the Christian witness to justice in peace in this island nation with 8% Christians from the Sinhala and Tamil communities.
The Political Background to the Murders and the Bloodied Hands of Kadirgamar:
The attack on the Bindunuwewa detention camp took place in the highly charged political atmosphere following the general election in early October 2000 at which the Chandrika regime suffered a shameful defeat. In April that year, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had overrun the army’s key strategic base at Elephant Pass and then in May had rapidly taken much of the Jaffna Peninsula to the north and a large terrain to the South of Mankulam. At one point, it appeared that the bulk of the Sri Lankan army trapped on the northern tip of the island might be overrun. Desperate cries were made to India and Pakistan for limitless supply of multi barrel guns, mortars and shells and reported Indian colonels and military personnel were directing the operation at the Palaly military camp to preventing it from falling into the hand of LTTE.
This military debacle provoked a sharp political crisis. While imposing draconian new emergency measures, President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her Peoples Alliance (PA) began to make moves towards a negotiated peace with the LTTE. Kadirgamar was hurriedly dispatched to Oslo for resumption of peace talks with Dr. Anton Balasingam. To safe face, the government desperately needed a bloody sacrifice of an assemblage Tamil lives to appease the Sinhalese. Kadirgamar’s Auschwitz was ready and prepared as an altar of holocaust.
Concealment of the Massacre
Every effort was made in court to present the massacre as a spontaneous communal outburst that in part at least; the Tamils detainees had brought upon themselves. A web of theories were fabricated and floated as rumors. However, the circumstances, and indeed the evidence itself neatly pointed to a different direction —a highly orchestrated mob killing carried out with the complicity, if not the active connivance and involvement of the police and military but not without meticulous planning from high places.
Bindunuwewa was carefully conceived, meticulously planned and executed. Kadirgamar was kept informed at every stage.In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the government and media in Colombo claimed that bad relations between detainees and local villagers were responsible for the attack. Such a claim was repeatedly orchestrated by the State media and the foreign office. The High Court judgment repeated these allegations, stating: “When considering the evidence what became clear is the displeasure of the villagers towards maintaining the rehabilitation camp at Bindunuwewa.” According to the judges, the villagers feared the inmates because they were LTTE suspects and also accused them of “making unnecessary harassment of young girls passing by the camp”. If murder and massacre were the answer to those who harass young girls, then one would really feel sorry for the thousands of young rustics in the streets of Colombo as well as in some of the leading Universities of Sri Lanka.
The SEP in Sri Lanka carried out an extensive independent investigation of the massacre and published several reports. Interviews with local villagers revealed that hostility to the detainees was certainly not uniform. A school principal described them as “very good boys” who carried out forced voluntary work in the area and worked alongside villagers. Several others expressed their appreciation for the detainees’ assistance and explained that there had never been any trouble.
In the weeks prior to the attack, however, Sinhala extremist groups, all of which have close connections to the security forces, had been active in the area. SU had stood in the general elections and several of its candidates lived in villages near the camp. According to local villagers, a petition calling for the removal of the camp had been circulated.
It is further reported that “on the night of October 24, 2000 Captain Y.P. Abeyratna, the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the camp, returned from a few days leave. After the ritual evening meeting, during which the detainees were forced to sing the national anthem, several of the inmates complained to Abeyratna about delays in their release and the way in which their personal letters had been lost. The tension was heightened when a guard fired a gun, but subsequent media and police claims that a riot took place proved to be false. Neither the Tamil media nor any independent media personnel were ever allowed in this camp and the Sinhala press favorably fabricated most of the concocted news in English and Sinhala with cooked reports from the government’s spokespersons.
It was fabricated that this gunshot triggered concern in nearby villages and a crowd of several hundred gathered. Following the confrontation, camp officials telephoned the Bandarawela police and the Officer in Charge Seneviratne appeared at the scene. A contingent of some 70 police and a group of soldiers from the Diyatalawa army base arrived. Seneviratne left, however, apparently satisfied that the situation, inside the camp at least, was secure.
An orchestrated Attack
There were plenty of signs, however that the entire massacre was carefully rehearsed with orders and commands from high places not excluding the foreign ministry. Even the High Court judgment noted that the police outside the camp were engaged in discussions with a group of people arguing for the closure of the camp. In the course of the night, vicious anti-Tamil posters appeared around the camp, including in the vicinity of the police post. Inside the camp, detainees became increasingly concerned about the situation and rang the International Red Cross Office at Batticaloa. The method employed reminded of the planned massacre at Wellikade Prison ordered by the former President Jayawardene, which ended in the carnage of 58 Tamil prisoners of conscience.
No action was taken to reinforce the police presence outside the camp. In fact, the soldiers were withdrawn in the early hours of the morning. And Red Cross officials who rang the local police were told that everything was “under control”.
Early on the morning of October 25, a large crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 gathered outside the camp. It was anything but a spontaneous affair. There was every mark of a premeditated and carefully calculated and neatly rehearsed drama of butchery and mass slaughter. The assassins had been trucked in and were armed with clubs and knives. Local villagers who spoke to SEP reporters following the massacre angrily denied any involvement and pointed out that none of them owned a vehicle.
It has now become very clear that this was cold-blooded mass murder. The police made no attempt to stop the mob as it entered the camp and set about killing all of its inmates. According to some eyewitnesses, the attackers did not even have to force the gate—it had been left open. Inmates were hacked or beaten to death, their corpses were set alight and the buildings were ransacked. Police shot those who escaped the mob at. Neither the police nor the soldiers who later reappeared on the scene made any attempt to arrest those involved in the killings.
In its investigation of the attack, the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (HRC) concluded that the murders were not “an unpremeditated eruption of mob violence caused by the provocation of the inmates,” but were “more consistent with a premeditated and planned attack”. Lord Buddha’s Satya has at least some space in Sri Lanka. Yet the Attorney General’s prosecutors and the High Court judgment continue to perpetuate the myth that the massacre was spontaneous.
As a result, the most obvious questions have been ignored. Who planned the attack on the night of October 24-25? Which Sinhala extremist groups were involved in agitating against the Bindunuwewa camp and putting up posters? Who in the chain of command in the police and military had been alerted to the menacing situation developing there? And who in the government knew of what was taking place?None of these issues has been raised, let alone investigated, because they may lead directly into the upper echelons of the police, the military, the state bureaucracy and the political establishment, all of which are deeply mired in Sinhala chauvinism and have in solidum joined in this brutal venture. At the time, the SU, JVP and other extremists groups were allied to the United National Party, which currently holds power. Now these same organizations are gathered around Kumaratunga and the PA.
No one in the ruling elite wants a proper accounting of who was responsible. In fact, the court proceedings into the killings only began after widespread strikes and protests by Tamil speaking plantation workers outraged at what had taken place in the heartland of the tea plantations. When a presidential inquiry commission was set up in 2001, the SEP submitted a written offer to provide evidence from its investigation but was never called upon to testify. The commission’s findings have never been released and remain under tight lock and key.
“In the wake of the High Court ruling, the issue has been all but dropped. Apart from a feeble attempt by the most chauvinist sections of the media to call for the defense of the convicted killers, the press has been completely silent. Likewise the left parties and middle class radical outfits have said nothing about the sentences or the killings. No one has been prepared to call the legal decision by its right name: a politically motivated whitewash aimed at blocking a serious investigation of this horrific crime”.
The Canadian Connection
Having described this cold-blooded slaughter virtually presided over by none other than Kadirgamar let us analyze the Canadian connection. At least two ministers of the Liberal government became unwilling partners to this vicious villainy. I am quoting here verbatim the report that appeared in the Sinhala Daily the Island. Here are the excerpts:
“Foreign Minister Lukshman Kadirgamar, during his discussions with Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy on Tuesday has stated that the LTTE which is intransigent has outright rejected peace moves of the Sri Lankan government.
Following is the full text of the outcome of Minister Kadirgamar’s meeting with his Canadian counterpart. Foreign Minister Lukshman Kadirgamar currently attending the International Conference on War-Affected Children being held in Winnipeg, Canada, had bilateral meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Lloyd Axworthy and the Minister for International Co-operation, Mrs. Maria Minna who are also the Co-hosts of the Conference.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister briefed his Canadian counterpart on current political developments in Sri Lanka. In the context of war-affected children in Sri Lanka the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister emphasized the problem encountered by the fund raising of the LTTE abroad which provided arms and ammunition for the conflict situation in Sri Lanka to continue, resulting in the deaths of Tamil child soldiers. Considering the fact that there is a large Sri Lankan Tamil expatriate community in Canada, Minister Kadirgamar requested Minister Axworthy to tighten the Canadian regulations on fund raising as a means of ending the traumatic situation faced by children conscripted as soldiers by the LTTE.
With regard to practical measures to help the children affected by war Minister Kadirgamar informed the Canadian Foreign Minister of the special project that has been launched in Sri Lanka to rehabilitate child soldiers in Sri Lanka, Foreign Minister Axworthy was much interested in this project and offered to consider providing assistance. In his discussions with International Co-operation Minister Maria Minna Foreign Minister Kadirgamar sought the assistance of the Ministry of International Co-operation for the rehabilitation program of child soldiers. Minister Minna also agreed to consider this proposal. Mr. Kadirgamar also updated her on the developments in Sri Lanka, particularly in relation to the ethnic situation.The Ministers expressed their desire to continue with the dialogue which commenced in Winnipeg during the International Conference on War Affected Children.
The million dollar questions: How much did Lloyd Axworthy and Maria Minna contributes toward this project through Mr. Kadirgamar? There is an old Tamil saying that the Ultimate judgment is always reserved to God. Let us derive some consolation that where conscience is not allowed to prevail God will prevail. It appears that Canadian Tamil Human Rights activists will take up this issue with the Foreign office, with CIDA and with the organizers of the Winnipeg Conference. If it were established that Canadian funds were channeled by Kadirgamar to pay the police and army who perpetrated this mass murder then it would leave a permanent bloodstain in the national pride of Canada as a peace-loving nation. To the two hundred thousand Tamil Canadians this would be a sad betrayal of trust by a country that they look upon as their new home and refuge.
( I wish to thank all the Sri Lankan news papers and the SEP on whose investigative reports I have relied heavily -ACK.)
Renegade rebel worries pull S.Lanka stocks down
[ Reuters ] [ 12:57 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
Sri Lankan stocks closed weaker on Tuesday, with investors jumpy and waiting to see if the government fulfils a Tamil Tiger rebel demand to rein in other armed groups, seen as central to the island's peace process. The Colombo All-share index fell a provisional 0.68 percent to close at 2,212.68 points. Turnover was at 184 million rupees ($1.8 million). The government agreed at talks in Geneva last week to ensure no armed groups operate in military-held areas. The Tigers say they have been attacked by government-backed paramilitaries and say disarming them is key to continuing the process.
UN tsunami envoy hails talks between Sri Lanka warring parties
[ AFP ] [ 12:58 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
Breakthrough talks last week between Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lanka government could help speed the delivery of aid to tsunami survivors on the island, a senior United Nations envoy said. "I think that any time the parties to a conflict are talking to one another it enhances the prospects of the kind of reconciliation that permits the delivery of assistance," UN deputy special envoy for tsunami recovery, Eric Schwartz, said in an interview late Monday. "There is no question that peace and reconciliation will provide a much better environment for significant progress in recovery," said Schwartz, who is deputy to the UN's chief envoy for tsunami recovery, former US president Bill Clinton.
The Ceasefire Handicap
[ Sunday Leader ] [ 14:51 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
In its talks with the Liberation Tigers last week, the government delegation that departed for Switzerland promising to return with a drastically modified Cease Fire Agreement (CFA), was apparently overcome by the crisp Helvetian weather and cheesy Swiss food. The hellfire and brimstone hoped for by sections of the media were conspicuously lacking. Team Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva made sure he was photographed beaming cordially at a scowling Anton Balasingham, whose hand he was shaking.Where then, do the Geneva talks leave Mahinda Rajapakse? Not only has he now fully endorsed the UNP’s CFA of 2002 (which he claimed led the way to separation), but failed to extract a single concession from the Tigers. At the end of round one of this season’s ceasefire handicap, then, we have Prabha: 1, Mahinda: 0, and Ranil: did not finish.
20 under-age youth handed over to parents by LTTE in Kilinochchi
[ LTTE Peace Secretariat ] [ 14:56 GMT, Feb. 28, 2006 ]
On Tuesday, 28 February a group of 20 under-age youth who voluntarily joined the LTTE were handed over to their parents through NESOHR. Names and other details of the 20 youth were passed on to UNICEF and ICRC. These 20 youth voluntarily joined LTTE within the last month. Mr.Thiyakarajah, Director of the INGO coordinating office of the LTTE formally handed over these youths who joined with the LTTE giving false information. INGO coordinating office of the LTTE and the LTTE Peace Secretariat have been jointly working hard to identify these underage recruits and hand them over to their parents.
