By Sudeep Chakravarti | Live Mint
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In 2005, when he became president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa issued a document titled Mahinda Chintana, or Mahinda’s Vision. In it he proclaimed: “I will not permit any separatism.” This he held true to, corralling a brutal rebellion by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The nearly 30-year war ended in May 2009 after the decimation of the LTTE and the death of its chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
(The killing of its protégé-turned-pest stabilized India’s warped policy towards this neighbour. Indian support to Sri Lanka’s government and military for the final push against the LTTE also shored up India’s geopolitical and economic ambitions in this island nation.)
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By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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Three years after the government of Sri Lanka killed 40,000 civilians, nearly all of them ethnic Tamils, the country's former attorney general on June 6 admitted he had mislead the United Nations Committee on Torture when he claimed that he knew that journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda was alive, and not as some press freedom groups assert, disappeared by the government.
Meanwhile a group of Tamil prisoners complained, with little traction with the UN or international media, of illegal transfers "to the notorious Boosa detention camp from various prisons in Vavuniya, Batticaloa and Colombo, where they are currently being held for a long period of time as political detainees without any charges being brought against them."
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R.K. Radhakrishnan | Frontline
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The war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended in an emphatic victory for the Sri Lankan forces in May 2009 at Nandikadal, a narrow stretch of land in north-eastern Sri Lanka. But the main hero of that effort, Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, had to keep on fighting a different battle in various courts in Sri Lanka to reclaim his liberty and rights. He walked out of the high-security Welikada Prison at 5 p.m. on May 21 into a crowd of waiting supporters, but his political future is full of uncertainties.
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By Jerome Taylor | The Independent
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Further evidence has emerged of the brutal treatment of Tamils by Sri Lankan soldiers during the closing stages of the country's civil war. Video footage obtained by The Independent shows soldiers gloating over a pile of more than 100 Tamil corpses, including dozens of women who have been deliberately stripped of their clothes to expose their breasts and genitals.
The videos are part of a growing body of evidence which has emerged over the past two years – much of which was recorded by Sri Lankan soldiers – revealing how many Tamils were tortured, summarily executed and often humiliated after their deaths for the entertainment of their victors.
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