Sri Lanka: Greasifying state terror

JDS Features
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Introducing a new military phenomenon to instil a chilling fear psychosis among the Tamil and Muslim communities living in and around their traditional homelands of North and East, Sri Lanka’s politico-military leadership has unleashed full-scale State-terror to curtail their collective rights.

Concentrating only on further consolidating a militaristic terror state, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary has apparently reactivated the killing squads of the military and para-military units to further terrorise these war-ravaged people using not so mysterious “grease devils”.

These so-called ‘grease devils’ go out in nights to harass and torture women sexually at home at random.

Terror in Jaffna

If the Muslim people in Puttlam have clashed with the police for harbouring a well identified ‘grease devil’, the military personnel attached to Navanthurai military detachment in the Jaffna peninsula have beaten up virtually the entire village in a pre-dawn attack, for protesting against the military for giving a safe heaven for the “grease devils” who the villagers caught red-handedly.

Angered and humiliated that the tightly-kept military mystery has been badly exposed, the army personnel entered Navanthurai village around 1.15 am on August 23 and dragged out men from the beds and brutally beat them up before detaining over 100 of them.

Despite their serious injuries, these men were held without treatment for several hours until the District Court Judge ordered them to be admitted to the hospital. Jaffna Teaching Hospital sources said that several of them have had suffered fractured bones in their arms and legs, some had head injuries due to torture and severe beating.

This is for the first time after the end of the war in May 2009, that the military has been deployed in a full-scale military operation against the local Tamil populace. Similar incidents have happened in other parts of the Jaffna peninsula, Wanni Puttlam, Amparai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts.

Muslims warned

Openly defending the exposed “grease devils, President’s powerful sibling and Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on August 23, summoned Muslim religious leaders in Amparai, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Puttlam districts to his ministry and gave them a severe warning that the public who choose to protest against the actions of the military would be severely dealt with.

Rubbishing the claims of the presence of “grease devils”, he said that they are nothing but rumours spread by “some terrorist elements to tarnish the image of the government and the military”.

“Surrounding camps of security forces is an act of terrorism. Therefore, please tell your people not to engage in such things and believe rumours,” the Defence Secretary has told the Muslim leaders, warning them not to play with the military.

Predicting the anarchy that is in store to be unleashed, he has warned that he would even deploy the elite police and military commandos to achieve what he wanted.

Commander of the North, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe has also issued similar warning in the peninsula. Sending reinforcements, the government has been quick to establish more military detachments and camps in Kinniya, Puttlam and Mannar areas.

As the Defence Secretary rightly said there was no ‘grease devils’ existing, for all he knows they are none other than the members of the military intelligence and para-military units.

It is rather unfortunate to note that many Colombo-based media also fell to the grease term just like it blindly followed the "terrorist" terminology without being objective.

Having lost their loved ones in thousands during three-decade long war and struggling to cope with the situation in the aftermath of the war, these communities have only a little to lose. Facing a full-scale State military terror is far too much for these helpless people to face, especially with the international community either supporting the hawkish Colombo government or reluctant to ensure justice to the affected people.

Current posture of the international community, including the United Nations, of not pressing for international war crime probe despite the surfacing of credible evidences for war crimes committed during the final months of the war that ended in May 2009, has embolden the Rajapaksa government to do whatever it wants and get away.

Joint military exercises

Instead of bringing in tangible pressure on Sri Lanka until it allows an independent and impartial war-crime probe, the powerful members of the international community seek to hold joint military exercises with the troops who have credibly accused of committing serious war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The intention of the latest modus operandi of the military authority is not just simply arresting and scaring off people using all sorts of devils – but to create and maintain the conditions to justify the State military terror unleashed on the Tamils and Muslims -- and thereby to convince the rest of the population that such a policy is an absolute ‘necessity’.

Although President Mahinda Rajapaksa has proclaimed the non requirement of the extension of Emergency Regulation, the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) is still very much in place which provides sweeping powers to the military in the name of dealing with terrorism.

© JDS

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Sri Lanka to introduce new anti-terrorism rules

By Ranga Sirilal | Reuters
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Sri Lanka plans to bring new anti-terrorism rules into force effective on Wednesday, local media reported, replacing tough wartime emergency powers lifted this month under heavy international pressure.

A nearly three-decade separatist conflict ended in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil separatists. But Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa only moved last week to end wartime emergency powers in force since the August 2005 assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar by the rebels.

However on Wednesday, Sri Lanka Attorney General Mohan Peiris was quoted as saying the government had introduced new regulations to become effective on Aug. 31, under the separate Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows warrantless arrests and searches.

The Daily Mirror, a local English language newspaper, quoted Peiris saying the new regulations are needed to ensure a ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and heavily-armed high security zones remain in place.

"Also, we need these new regulations to deal with LTTE surrenders and detainees. There will not be any respite in this case, though the emergency lapses."

The army, which will help enforce some provisions of any new security rules, said it was awaiting orders on any changes to emergency powers.

A human rights lawyer said the move to have new regulations has sowed confusion.

"It is not clear why they need more regulations when the Prevention of Terrorism Act is in force," said a human rights lawyer who declined to be named.

© Reuters

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Sri Lanka detains suspects despite end to emergency

AFP | Google News
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Sri Lanka on Wednesday used draconian anti-terror laws to detain thousands of Tamil rebel suspects who would have had to be freed when a state of emergency ended after 28 years, an official said.

Attorney General Mohan Peiris said President Mahinda Rajapakse invoked regulations under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to ensure that the authorities continue to hold suspects detained under emergency laws.

Rajapakse last week said the state of emergency would end by midnight Tuesday, but the new regulations mean that detainees will not be freed.

"No suspects will be released and there is no change even though the emergency has been allowed to lapse," Peiris told reporters.

His remarks came as Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem told state media that about 1,200 alleged Tamil Tiger rebels will soon be be released with the end of emergency rule, imposed 28 years ago to deal with the separatist movement.

Peiris said new regulations under the PTA will ensure that a ban imposed on the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a front organisation will also continue indefinitely.

When the guerrillas were crushed in 2009, the Sri Lankan government said it was holding about 12,000 members of the rebel LTTE, some of whom had been freed in the past two years. However, it is not known how many remain in custody.

Emergency laws were first imposed in 1983 when Tamil rebels escalated their violent campaign for an independent state for the island's ethnic Tamil minority.

The laws, which gave security forces sweeping powers of arrest, were renewed on a monthly basis with only brief breaks.

The decision to end emergency rule comes ahead of next month's United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva which is expected to discuss alleged war crimes during the last stages of the ethnic conflict.

The United States has been leading international calls for an investigation into alleged atrocities on both sides as a massive military offensive finally crushed the rebels.

Sri Lanka has so far managed to stave off censure from UN bodies, thanks to the support of allies China and Russia.

Rights groups say tens of thousands of civilians perished in the final months of fighting, while the UN has noted "credible allegations" of war crimes committed by both sides.

Colombo has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and resisted foreign calls for a probe.

© AFP

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No pardon for 'terrorists', despite no emergency - SL Defence Secretary

Sri Lanka Mirror
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Terrorists will not get a pardon just because the state of emergency has been abolished, said defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Those presently under arrest will be dealt with under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, he said.

The president had proposed the abolition of the emergency in consideration of the entire population, to remove various restrictions imposed on them, said the defence secretary.

© Sri Lanka Mirror

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