HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CHARGES INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND SLMM BECOING ACCOMPLICES TO LTTE’S BRUTAL THREATS
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
March 31, 06.30 AM:A leading human rights group among the Tamils said that Tamil Tigers recent statement threatening to wipe out the group’s dissidents expressed Velupillai Pillai Prabhakaran’s complete disregard for human rights and international law. But, the statement said the international community and Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM)unfortunately reacted to that with total silence.
The group charged, that this silence made the international community and the Norway led monitors passive accomplices of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE), enabling the LTTE to carry out its brutal threats unhindered.
In a statement published March 30, the leading human rights group among Tamils, the University Teachers for Human Rights –Jaffna (UTHRJ) also revealed how for the first time in its history the rebel Tigers were being challenged by the Tamil people and how its backbone had been broken by the recent Karuna crisis and lost its conventional political power among the Tamils through losing control of the important Muttur area of Trincomalee, unless it could take back the Amparai-Batticaloa area now in the hands of Karuna.
The group cited the threat to wipe out Karuna and other dissidents published in the rebel group’s official news website Tamil Net and said the crisis took place at a time when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was being “challenged as never before. Its outmoded reliance on violence to maintain political control over a frightened and beleaguered population has worn thin. Tamil politicians, journalists and ordinary members of the public are openly defying the LTTE’s blatant death threats, and more importantly, many are surviving.”
Citing the very words published in the Tamil Net,“It has been decided to get rid of Karuna from the soil. Our cadres should comprehend Karuna’s treachery and keep away from him.” The human rights group said , “These are particularly chilling words when viewed against the historical backdrop of massacres, vendetta killings of soft targets and mass disappearances that have littered the LTTE’s unfinished journey to sole representative status. The recent assassination attempts on Mr. Thiruchelvam of the Eastern University’s academic staff and Batticaloa’s Government agent Mr. Mounagurusamy evoke the spiralling murders of civilians.”
Charging the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) were more interested in ushering in the peace of the grave among the people of Eastern Province the UTHR(J) statement said , “The SLMM has gone even further. They announced their pullout from Batticaloa saying that their mandate covered LTTE(P) and not LTTE(K). On the other hand, they claim to be acting under terms of the MoU when they escort LTTE reinforcements from the North into Mutur, thus aiding the LTTE(P)’s military measures against LTTE(K) and facilitating the repression of the local population in Mutur (whose sentiments about the Vanni leadership would be similar to those in Batticaloa). Is this monitoring the peace process or ushering in the peace of the grave?”
The report further said , “The international community has abandoned Batticaloa and its people pretending that it is an internal problem in the LTTE because it seems simpler from a policy perspective. In fact it is a recipe for disaster. There is nothing polite or civilised about what the LTTE is doing. What is going on is far from a liberation group dealing with an internal problem through a political process involving democratic debate. Prabhakaran, in his faction’s recent statement, makes it clear that there is no room for such a process in the LTTE. The disciplinary action the statement speaks of is unknown to civilised discourse. How the LTTE is cynically allowed to interpret all agreements and norms to its own advantage, and use everything to its own benefit, is a sad comment on the international community’s role in Sri Lanka.”
The report said, “The LTTE has virtually succeeded in getting the international community to turn a blind eye to what it will do in Batticaloa-Amparai as an exercise in ‘internal self-determination.’ The international community has lost sight of the fact that there are people, including children, there who must be protected.
“One cannot after all blame the LTTE (LTTE(P)) for not being plain about its intentions. The LTTE(P) knows that a military assault on LTTE(K) would be very costly, and it cannot be contemplated without neutralising the Sri Lankan Army which has a major presence in the area. LTTE spokesmen have repeatedly dropped dark hints that they would resort to war if the Government aids Karuna in any way, knowing that no new government would like to be blamed for an outbreak of war. The TamilNet editor’s article in The Daily Mirror (25th March 04) gives further hints of how this line of avoiding war may be pushed to demand Karuna’s head on a platter.
“The TamilNet editor suggests that the Government will be asked to demonstrate its good faith by accommodating the LTTE(P), as the legal party to the MoU, having political offices in Batticaloa-Amparai under government protection. It is now open history that these LTTE political offices and LTTE’s political work meant that scores of political activists were murdered, hundreds of children abducted and no shadow of independent political activity was allowed. Neither the SLMM nor the Government did anything meaningful to stop this. How nice for the SLMM to become active in Batticaloa-Amparai once more to supervise, in terms of its mandate, the Sri Lankan Army’s protection of dens of LTTE(P) hit squads! How much murkier could things get?
“The hit squads are already active. Their purpose is to terrorise people from having any association with Karuna’s administration, by targeting persons with a consciousness of regional identity, who have articulated a need for the region’s upliftment. Acting university dean Thiruchelvam had worked many years for the protection of the region’s environment and cultural identity. The two assassins, who came home after dark on 24th March, asked if his dog would bite. He bent down to hold his dog when the assassins fired. He was injured in the middle part of his body, but survived.
“The GA Mounagurusamy, the first Eastern Tamil to become GA Batticaloa, had been associated with Karuna in development projects and is known to have expressed strong feelings about northerners keeping the region deprived. He was returning on the evening of 27th March after supervising voting arrangements for Vaharai, when two men on a motorcycle slowed down his car by coming in front of it at Sathurukondan and then drew parallel to the front passenger side. The pillion rider fired at Mounagurusamy. The GA’s driver who had saved former GA Pathmanathan from a similar situation, quickly grabbed the injured man, thrust his head on his lap and drove at speed to Batticaloa Hospital. The GA, who had a bullet in his head and was bleeding from the nose and an ear, was soon airlifted to Colombo.
“We learn that that targets are picked and the assassinations directed by LTTE intelligence men Ram, Yogaraja and Keerthi who fled from Batticaloa and are now with the LTTE(P) in the Vanni. They act through hit men who have been posted to urban locations including Batticaloa town, Chenkalady and Valaichenai.
“These targeted assassinations also make the LTTE(P)’s scare tactics more effective in pushing parents to demand that the LTTE(K) release their children. The LTTE(P)’s calculation is that LTTE(K) would be weakened sufficiently for them to stage a bloody return reminiscent of 1989 when they were aided and abetted by the Sri Lankan forces. Another looming tragedy of Easterners killing Easterners for Northern bosses.
“Is this what the international community came to accomplish? The LTTE is further making a mockery of the Tamil cause as it was long understood by targeting persons who feel for their region, culture and identity. Is this not what the Tamil cause was originally all about?
“The LTTE(P) has made an open declaration of death threats that promises a bloodbath. Are the international community and the Sri Lankan government simply waiting for it to happen?”
“ The LTTE is in crisis and knows it well. It cannot politically control the important Mutur sector in Trincomalee, unless it can take back Batticaloa-Amparai. What Karuna says is true; the LTTE cannot be a conventional force again unless it has a large supply of military slaves from the East. For the first time the LTTE is being challenged politically as never before. Anandasangary leading an independent group in Jaffna at elections has placed LTTE(P) in a quandary. There finally seem to be some democratic openings within the Tamil community. For the first time anywhere, Tamil institutions have defied the LTTE’s threats and survived. The London-based Tamil Broadcasting Corporation continued against many dire threats to close down and is now being widely heard in Sri Lanka through its link with the SLBC. For the first time, dissident voices and opinions are being heard throughout the North-East. There are renewed hopes of a democratic awakening for the Tamil people that must be preserved.
“However one looks at it, engaging with Karuna as someone who controls a large fighting force cannot be avoided. Karuna does have a violent past, and one should have no illusions about him as an individual. The problems facing the people of Batticaloa-Amparai cannot however be resolved without engaging with him. It is true that children carrying arms under Karuna must go home. Not only these children, but also the children under LTTE(P). The parents never entrusted their children to Veluppillai Prabhakaran as his statement claims, rather they have always wanted their children at home both in the East and the North. Our reports have clearly documented the utterly repugnant abduction of children by LTTE gangs in the East as well as the North and the UNICEF recently confirmed that it is still going on in the North. The current situation could result in a huge bloodbath of innocent children. In order to avoid this, the international community must step in and ensure that the differences within the LTTE should not be resolved by force.
“Despite Karuna’s past, he does not have the same ideological baggage as Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran cannot change, as seen in his most recent statement. All those trips and VIP tours given to LTTE leaders to European capitals to learn about democracy and federalism have only resulted in this recent horrendous statement. Karuna has a vested interest in showing that he could give the people of Batticaloa-Amparai a better deal than the Northern bosses. If the international community will take this opportunity to push him in that direction and see that the child soldiers are released, political killings cease and violence against Muslims is brought to an end, it will lead to major repercussions holding out hope for human rights in the North.
“On the other hand, the present indifference of the international community cannot do any good. The LTTE(P)’s political killings open the way to the dreadful scenario we witnessed during the Indian Army’s presence. People with political alignments and their families were targeted by all sides. The simple, but illusory, justification was that this is the only way they could protect their own families. This is a tragedy we cannot afford to repeat.”
