80 killed, 200 wounded, carnage continues inside ’safe zone’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2009, 19:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continued indiscriminate barrage of artillery shelling on the ’safety zone’ killing more than 80 civilians and causing injuries to 200. Most of the casualties were reported along the roads. Every single shell fired by the SLA was exploding in densely populated civilian area and people were forced to stay inside bunkers. However, as people feared ending up in the hands of the SLA which is close to Chuthanthirapuram, they were fleeing in thousands further into LTTE territory amid shelling, facing deaths and injuries on their way, said TamilNet correspondent in Vanni. According to eyewitness reports, 40 dead bodies of civilians, including children and women, were seen along the 2.5 km stretch of Paranthan Puthukkudiyiruppu Road between Chuthanthirapuram and Theavipuram.



20 more bodies were seen along 1.5 km stretch of Vaakeesan Road. At least 20 civilians were killed in Va’l'lipunam.

Thousands were fleeing from Chuthanthirapuram where the SLA mortar and artillery attacks were targeting civilians.

A shell exploded inside a bunker in Va’l'lipuan, killing 3 inside the bunker and causing injuries to 4. The victims, buried inside the bunker, were recovered amid relentless shelling.

It takes more than 7 hours to bring the wounded to makeshift hospitals functioning.

More than 500 houses and huts were damaged on Sunday.



Chronology:

 

Fonseka, Gotabaya Genocide charges filed with US Justice Dept

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 19:39 GMT]
Bruce Fein, counsel for US-based group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), Thursday afternoon 3:00 p.m. submitted to United States Attorney General, Mr Eric Holder, the Model Indictment charging U.S. citizen and U.S. green card holder Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary, and Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka’s Army Commander, respectively for genocide, war crimes and torture against Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Counsel urged the Department to open a grand jury investigation into the crimes, based on evidence amassed in the three volume 1000-page document which the Counsel said “amply satisfies the Department’s threshold for commencing a criminal investigation.”

Full text of the letter submitted with the model indictment follows:
February 5, 2009

Honorable Eric H. Holder
United States Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.


RE: Investigation of U.S. citizen and U.S. green card holder for genocide, war crimes, and torture against Tamils in Sri Lanka

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I represent Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the enforcement against a United States citizen and a United States green card holder of the Genocide Accountability Act of 2007 (GAA), the War Crimes Act, and prohibition of torture. The U.S. citizen and U.S. green card holder are Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary, and Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka’s Army Commander, respectively. I strongly urge the Department to open a grand jury investigation into these crimes based on the enclosed three-volume, 1,000 page proposed indictment that I have prepared. I would submit that the evidence of genocide, war crimes, and torture amassed in the three volumes amply satisfies the Department’s threshold for commencing a criminal investigation.

The following points, among others, demonstrate the urgency of investigating the alleged crimes:

1. The model indictment charges Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka with 12 (twelve) counts of genocide under the GAA. That legislation was spearheaded by Senator Richard Durbin (D. Illinois). It was supported by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The GAA is codified at 18 U.S.C. 1091. The maximum punishment is death. Both proposed defendants are charged with command responsibility for genocidal acts perpetrated by their subordinates in the Sri Lankan security forces.

2. The GAA applies to genocide irrespective of the place of its occurrence and irrespective of whether the accused is a U.S. national. The model indictment, nevertheless, singles out Gotabaya Rajapaksa and General Fonseka as defendants because the former is a U.S. citizen and the latter is a green card holder. These facts strengthen the political justification for the genocide investigation because the United States has been vocal with Serbia, Bosnia and other nations about policing and punishing their own citizens or residents for genocide. The model indictment is not asking the United States to be the genocide policeman of the world.

3. Under the GAA, genocide is defined as an attempt to physically destroy a group in whole or in substantial part because of race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality, as such, by employing the following tactics: extrajudicial killings or disappearances; the infliction of serious bodily harm; or, the creation of conditions of life intended to cause the physical destruction of a racial, religious, ethnical, or national group in whole or in substantial part, for example, by starvation, denial of medical care, and encouraging disease by denial of medicines.

4. The model indictment charges Rajapaksa and Fonseka with genocide of Tamils in twelve discrete geographic areas. The time frame is from December 6, 2005, when both assumed their government positions, to the present. The indictment chronicles more than 3,750 extrajudicial killings, approximately 30,000 Tamils suffering serious bodily injury, and more than 1.3 million displacements (a number far exceeding displacements in Kosovo which lead to genocide counts before the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia).

5. Count twelve of genocide is indistinguishable from the genocide of 7,000 Bosnian Muslim males in Srebrenica, which had been declared a safe zone by Bosnian Serbs. Count twelve charges Rajapaksa and Fonseka of bombing and shelling 350,000 Tamil civilians into one large “safe area,” and, since January 21, 2009, killing and maiming the Tamils who had amassed there by aerial bombing and artillery. In the month of January, according to the model indictment, 750 Tamils have been massacred and more than 2,250 have been seriously injured. On the BBC, on Feb. 2, Rajapaksa declared that nothing should live or breathe outside the Orwellian “safe area.” Thus, one hospital outside the area has been bombed three times, including by cluster bombs. More than 1,000 Tamils are in detention camps, and reports of rape have already emerged.

6. Other exemplary genocidal events charged in the indictment include the Sinhalese Buddhist slaughter of five Tamil students and seventeen Action Against Hunger aid workers in 2006; mass graves; and, Tamil disappearances into white vans without license plates every five hours.

7. Every member of the Sri Lankan security forces is Sinhalese. There are no Tamils. No member of the security forces since Rajapaksa and Fonseka assumed their respective positions has ever been prosecuted or punished for atrocities against Tamils, including torture or murder. Indeed, in more than 60 years, only one prosecution has been pursued for rape, murder, torture, or other crimes against Tamils, and that one isolated exception was for peculiar reasons.

8. The model indictment relies on evidence obtained from affidavits, court documents, and contemporaneous eye-witness reporting from media sources, for example, the BBC.

9. If Rajapaksa and Fonseka are indicted, Sri Lanka would be obligated to extradite them to the United States under the Genocide Convention of 1948 and implementing legislation.

I am eager to meet with you or your staff to discuss the three-volume enclosure at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein
Attorney for Tamils Against Genocide

 

Memorial for IPKF - Innocent People Killing Force
Friday, 26 December 2008 - 7:42 AM SL Time 

I was shocked, saddened and angered when I read the news item on 17 March 2004 in Sri Lanka Media, that a memorial is to be erected in Colombo for the Indian Peace Keeping Force - IPKF soldiers who died in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 2000. The simple fact of the matter is that a foreign country, with designs of becoming a regional superpower, maneuvered to send its Army here as Peace Keepers but massacred thousands of innocent Tamil civilians, raped the women and plundered valuables.If memorials are to be erected, then it should be for innocent civilians massacred by the IPKF. Let me provide a FEW samples from my personal knowledge. These represent but the tip of an iceberg. I write as an authentic son of Jaffna, born and bred there, educated at Jaffna Hindu College and the only house my wife and I own is in Jaffna.

Civilians Massacred by IPKF

Jaffna Hospital :- Doctors, Nurses and Patients inside the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, numbering 68 in all. .Their names are:- Dr A. Sivapathasuntheram, Dr M.K. Ganesharatnam (St.John`s College,Jaffna), Dr Parimelalahar, Mrs Vadivelu, Matron, Mrs Leelawathie, Nurse, Mrs Sivapakiam, Nurse, Mrs Ramanathan, Nurse, Mr Shanmugalingam, Ambulance Driver, Mr Kanagalingam, Telephone Operator, Mr Krishnarajah, Works Supervisor, Mr Selvarajah, Works Supervisor, Eleven (11) Minor employees and forty six (46) patients

Duraiswamy brothers :- Two sons of late Sir Waithialingam Duraiswamy, Speaker of the State Council, residing in their ancestral home next to the Jaffna Clock Tower. One was R. Duraiswamy (SLAS) Retd. Secretary. Ministry of Local Government and M. Duraiwswamy Retd. Staff Officer Bank of Ceylon.

Retd Director of Irrigation Mr. S. Sivasubramaniam, retired Director of Irrigation, Mrs. Sivasubramaniam, his retired teacher wife and their only son, a brilliant boy who had studied at St. John`s College, Jaffna, scored 4A`s in the GCE(Al) and was in the second year of Medical College.

Other Civilians Killed in Jaffna:- Prof. P. Chandrasekeram, University of Jaffna, Dr R.W. Crossette Thambiah, Dr Selvaratnam Former DMO Maskeliya, Dr S. Pararajasingham J.M.O, L.F.M. Samuel Rtd. Teacher (St. Thomas College, Mt. Lavinia & Royal College), K.J. Sambanthar Retd. DLO & Asst. Land Commissioner, Jaffna, Mrs S. Sivanandaraja (mother), Mohanraj (son) (St.John`s College, Jaffna- 81 Batch) Technical Officer, Irrigation .Dept, Mrs Kishnam, Mrs M. Sebastiampillai, Mrs N.R. Thuriappa, Mrs V. Ruthiralingam, C.S. Aaron .

Urumpirai:- A. Subramanium Attorney at Law, Mr & Mrs Pancharatnam, Rtd. Teachers, K. Navaratnam Rtd. Divisional Supdt. of Post Offices, S. Nadarajah, Formerly SLBC, Tamil Service, P. Arooran , M. Nadaraja, S. Rasanayagam Rtd. Credit Controller CCC Ltd.

Anaikoddai :- Mrs M. Weerasegaram Pillai, (Mother), Pillai Yasotha Weerasegaram (Daughter), Mrs S. Thanapalasingham (Mother) Miss N. Thanapalasingham (Daughter) S. Kulasegerampillai, Retd. Station Master, Mrs M. Arumugam .Mrs R. Gnanamuttu , A. Candappu Rtd. State Officer, S. Selvaranee

Pirampadi, Kokuvil etc:- A large number of civilians were killed in Pirampadi and Kokuvil and buried in mass graves. The whole matter requires a book to do full justice.

Ariyalai (my village)

Ariyalai is at the eastern end of Jaffna town and the A9 highway passes through it. This was one of the four routes the Indian Army took to enter and capture Jaffna. From Oct 10, 1987, we, living in Dehiwala, lost all contact with our relatives who lived in Ariyalai, among them my wife`s 71 year old mother, her sisters and their children, my close friends from my boyhood days in Jaffna. For twenty one (21) days, there was a continuous curfew imposed by the IPKF with half an hours notice. The local and foreign media were completely cut off from the scene of operations and terrible things yes, I use words carefully, TERRIBLE THINGS, were done to the Tamils in Jaffna. Rumours were rife. The militants said 30,000 civilians were killed. But I searched for reliable evidence, and these started trickling in, from late October 1987.

One reliable class of evidence is the number of persons known to me personally, quite a number are blood relatives, who were killed. Among those killed were a 45 year old cousin brother, S. Shanmugasuntharam, Electrician, Jaffna Municipal Council, married, with two children, shot while going to his paddy field in East Ariyalai. No one could reach the body jackals and dogs ate the flesh and his brother Sinnathurai told me that the limbs and other parts were in different part of the paddy field and he gathered them and buried them in the paddy field. Sinnathurai had wept tears of a different sort in 1981 when he told me what he found on the day following the burning of the Jaffna Library, where he worked as an Assistant Librarian. But let us remain focussed on the IPKF in this article.

An 84 year old uncle, S. Thambiah, father of the well known Journalist T. Sabaratnam, was killed inside his home by an Indian artillery shell. His daughter Pathma and grandchildren had taken refuge inside Ariyalai Sri Sithivinayagar temple and were unaware of what had happened. One of my childhood classmates, Poologasingam, who lived nearby and had also not gone to the temple as a refugee, discovered what had happened, cut a pit in the garden, put my uncle in a sack and buried him there. No last rites no cremation. Poologasingam went near the temple and shouted, `Pillai Pathma, Appah Vaikundam poddar naan thevai yathanich seythu poddan` (Child Pathma, your father has gone to heaven I have done what was necessary).

My cousin Sabaratnam`s loss did not stop with his father. His mother in law, 80 year old Mrs. Thambimuttu was a refugee inside the temple. But an old lady cannot easily adjust to conditions inside a tightly packed temple and Hindu temples do not have toilet facilities, as devotees are expected to come in a `clean` state. So she went to her home within 250 metres of the temple for her morning ablutions. She was walking back feebly, with the aid of a walking stick and holding a flickering lamp, and was within 50 metres of the temple when she was shot dead by the Indian soldiers, from Sri Parwathi Vidyasalai which they were occupying. They discovered who they had killed and set fire to the body where it lay, using a tyre. She and my late mother Mrs. Saraswathy Thamotharam had been classmates in Chundikuli Girls`s College, Jaffna. She had been a source of comfort to my mother when we lost our father when mother was 28 years old and had to face the grim prospect of feeding, clothing and educating my brother (7 yrs) and myself (2 yrs), with not even a pension as father had served for less than 10 years. I felt so deeply about her loss that I ventured into blank verse.

The Gentle Old Aachi

The gentle old aachi,

Weak and wobbly with age,

Walking with her pollu,

Slowly to the temple.

Husband gone long before,

Children retired or about to,

Grandchildren in their prime,

Great grandchildren by the dozen.

Weak of eye, weak of limb,

Fond memories of yester year,

Longing to meet her God,

Slowly walking to his abode.

Om Ganesha!, What hit me?

What burning pain,

What great thirst,

She writhed briefly on the road,

And then lay still,

White saree bathed in blood.

The gentle old aachi,

Felled by an alien bullet,

Fired by an alien hand,

In this our free land,

The gentle old aachi,

Shot like a dog and burnt at the spot.

More than our relatives, we mourn the death of the elder son of the chief priest of our temple, Subramaniya Kurukkal. Young Kannan Iyer, 24 years old, very fair, very handsome, well versed in Hindu neethi and also a fully qualified Accountant, was managing his own Accounting firm in Jaffna and assisting his father in carrying out the temple duties. He told his father on Deepavali Day in Oct 1987, when the father was getting ready to go to the temple to open the inner sanctum and light the lamps inside, to stay at home and that he would go by bicycle by a circuitous route to the temple to light the lamps. The inner sanctum had not been opened or lit after the influx of refugees. Only Brahmin priests can enter the inner sanctum. Instead of going to the temple, he went to heaven.

If anyone is interested, I shall take him or her to speak to Kannan Iyer`s mother. His father, the chief priest of our temple, performed the ancient Hindu marriage ceremony for me and my wife in 1962. He repeated it for our elder daughter and son-in-law in 1982. He is a learned and pious man and he has the spiritual resources to withstand the loss of his elder son. But tears flowed down the cheeks of his wife for the entire 45 minutes we spent with them in March 1988, five months after the joy of their life was snuffed out by the Indian army. To me, this is the worst crime of the IPKF assault on Jaffna. The life of a young and brilliant Brahmin priest, who would have risen to great heights promoting Saivaism, was snuffed out wantonly and this on Deepavali day when he set out to open the sanctum sanctorum and light a lamp inside the temple.

Twenty six persons lost their lives in my village alone, during the Indian army`s campaign to gain control of Jaffna Peninsula in October-November 1987.

Rape

The IPKF Operation in Jaffna did not stop with massacres of civilians. A large number of women were raped. The following quotation is taken from Prof Daya Somasundaram`s book Scarred Minds The Psychological Impact of War on Sri Lankan Tamils. Prof Daya Somasundaram is the Professor of Psychiatry in the University of Jaffna and concurrently Consultant Psychiatrist, General (Teaching Hospital) Jaffna. He was one of the four authors of the book, Broken Palmyrah, which was critical of the LTTE, a co-author of Mental Health in Cambodia, where he served as a Consultant Psychiatrist and Manavadu in Tamil

Rape by Indian Soldiers

`From time immemorial, plunde…

Source(s)
Dr. T. Somasekaram, Retd. Surveyor General

–

Tamils In Sri Lanka Jews Under Nazis? - Tehelka story, by PC VINOJ KUMAR

“..Fein, associated with a US-based group, Tamils Against Genocide, was on a private visit to Chennai last week. Speaking to TEHELKA, Fein says he has prepared a 1,000-page model indictment against Gotabaya and Fonseka for submission to the US Department of Justice. “Since Gotabaya and Fonseka assumed office (in 2005), there have been virtually one to three extra-judicial killings daily in Sri Lanka,” states Fein. These, he clarifies, do not include LTTE casualties. “My work has nothing to do with the LTTE,” Fein says…”   A former US diplomat makes serious charges of genocide against Lankan officials, which could go all the way to US courts, reports PC VINOJ KUMAR Crying out Protests over the assassination of senior Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga Photo: AFP THE SRI LANKAN government is claiming an all-out victory in its recent campaign against the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Even as the United Nations voiced concern over the increasing number of civilian Tamil casualties in the war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army, pressure is building on the nation’s hardline Sinhala leadership over its allegedly genocidal acts against the Tamil minority. Former US Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein has compiled evidence he believes is sufficient to prosecute Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and army chief Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka under the United States Genocide Accountability Act. Gotabaya, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a US citizen and Fonseka is a US Green Card holder. Fein, associated with a US-based group, Tamils Against Genocide, was on a private visit to Chennai last week. Speaking to TEHELKA, Fein says he has prepared a 1,000-page model indictment against Gotabaya and Fonseka for submission to the US Department of Justice. “Since Gotabaya and Fonseka assumed office (in 2005), there have been virtually one to three extra-judicial killings daily in Sri Lanka,” states Fein. These, he clarifies, do not include LTTE casualties. “My work has nothing to do with the LTTE,” Fein says. THE CHARGES ‘The national identity cards help identify Tamils easily, so the government knows whom to kill’ ‘People are abducted in mysterious white vans, with no license plates. They are never heard of again’ ‘The government has complete authority over the perpetrators of genocide: army, police, thugs, army deserters’ The model document, if accepted in the US would make Gotabaya the first US citizen to be tried for genocide Comparing the present conditions of Tamils in Sri Lanka to the sufferings of the Jews under the Nazis and of the blacks during the apartheid era in South Africa, Fein says: “The national identity cards given to the Tamils are almost like the Star of David badges the Jews had to wear during the Nazi era.” He alleges that the cards are meant to identify Tamils easily so the government knows “whom to kill”. Conditions have allegedly worsened over the last three years. People are abducted in “mysterious white vans” that have no license plates, Fein says. The abducted are never heard of again and are counted among the thousands of ‘disappeared’ persons. The genocidal intent of the Rajapaksa regime can be established through its various discriminatory policies against the Tamils. “The government has been creating conditions intended to promote their physical destruction,” claims Fein, arguing that many Rajapaksa policies constitute genocidal acts under US law. The blockade on transporting essential commodities to Tamil areas is one example, Fein says, for the starvation it has caused to the north Lankan civilian population. GOTABAYA RETIRED from the Sri Lankan army in 1992, having served in it for 20 years. He then moved to the US and worked as a computer systems administrator at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2005 to assist Rajapaksa during his presidential campaign. Ever since his brother became President, Gotabaya has been part of his core group and is urging Rajapaksa to pursue a military solution to the 25- year-old ethnic conflict. Sri Lanka’s Tamils have suffered repression at the hands of the Sinhalese since the 1940s. Soon after achieving independence from British colonialism in 1948, the Lankan government passed the Citizenship Act by which about a million Tamils lost their citizenship and voting rights. Later, Sinhala was made the country’s only official language, placing Tamils at a disadvantage, particularly for government jobs. Moderate Tamil politicians failed to impact the government to change its policies. Finally, in the 1970s, Tamil youths took to an armed struggle. In 2002, Rajapaksa’s predecessor, Ranil Wickremasinghe, entered into a ceasefire agreement with the LTTE. Rajapaksa withdrew from the ceasefire in January 2008. Since then, the country has been plunged into bloodshed. Accuser Bruce Fein is concerned about the systemic violence against the Tamils under Rajapaksa Photo: PRABHU K In his model indictment document, Fein seeks to establish the motivational context and the processes of the genocide under the Rajapaksa regime. Detailing the charges against Gotabaya and Fonseka, the document notes that “the alleged acts or omissions were committed with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such, under the pretext of counter-insurgency warfare”. The document describes the victims of the alleged genocide as “Hindu-Christian Northeast Sri Lankan Tamils (HCNSLTs)”. Different forms of genocidal tactics against the HCNSLT have been recorded, among them large-scale abduction, indiscriminate aerial bombardment, artillery shell attacks and systematic deprivation of essential foods, and medicines. The army’s powers to enforce ad hoc restrictions on “who and what goods can and cannot pass” over arterial roads to reach the HCNSLTs, media censorship on the happenings in Tamil areas, and the ban on petrol are part of Fein’s genocide charges against Fonseka and Gotabaya. Tamils face “complex bureaucratic procedure” to travel abroad or within the country, especially in government-controlled Jaffna peninsula. “The process takes two to three months, whereby the application may be rejected. The army or government-sponsored paramilitaries are known to have murdered the applicants, the majority of whom were male.” Fein’s priority now is to satisfy the US Department of Justice that a prima facie case has been made out and get the US Government’s support for forming a grand jury to prosecute Gotabaya and Fonseka. “I hope to have a grand jury set up in about three to four months time,” he says. If the jury indicts the accused, then the stage would be set for bringing Fonseka and Gotabaya to stand trial in the US. Meanwhile, the situation of journalists in Sri Lanka is turning worse. Media sources in Colombo said at least 10 Sri Lankan journalists have fled the country. Senior journalist Lasantha Wikramatunga was assassinated by unknown persons in Colombo earlier this month — government hit-men are suspected. Senior Sinhalese journalist Sunanda Deshapriya has taken refuge in Chennai, where media persons have formed a forum called Journalists Against War to protest the violence on the Press under the Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka. WRITER’S EMAIL vinoj@tehelka.com Source: From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 5, Dated Feb 07, 2009

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