Mass-rape alleged in Theavipuram amid civilan slaughter

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, ] Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group that seeks legal redress to Tamil victims of war, said Saturday that the organization is piecing together evidence based on an eye-witness testimony that up to 20 women, separated from nearly 200 civilians who surrendered to the SLA, were alleged to have been raped by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers near the village of Theavipuram, in Mullaiththeevu, in April 2009. While lack of witness protection program in Sri lanka, and threat to life of witnesses who appear against Security Forces have placed TAG's legal effort in UK on hold, TAG said that the current legal action in UK involving Ex-Army Commander, Prasanna de Silva, may provide the momentum required to seek witnesses and to obtain corroborative evidence to identify the perpetrators of the alleged crime.

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=35055

Sri Lanka minister Mervyn Silva threatens journalists

23 March 2012By Charles HavilandBBC News, Colombo,

Mr Silva (left) has been involved in many controversial incidents

Continue reading the main story

A Sri Lankan cabinet minister has threatened violence against journalists and human rights activists who he says have been opposing the government.

Mervyn Silva also admitted forcing a journalist to flee two years ago.

The remarks come one day after the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution critical of the country's rights record.

A police spokesman told the BBC that officers would now investigate Mr Silva's remarks.

'Break the limbs'

Mr Silva's comments also come amid an official campaign to denounce people described as traitors. Many of these include journalists and human rights activists.

Despite being involved in many controversial incidents over the years, Mervyn Silva is public relations minister.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17491832

UN urges Sri Lanka to take ‘credible’ steps to ensure accountability for alleged war crimes

22 March 2012 –

The top United Nations human rights body today called on the Government of Sri Lanka to take “credible” steps to ensure accountability for alleged serious violations committed during the final stages of the country’s civil war.

In a resolution adopted today, the 47-member Human Rights Council called on the Government to take “all necessary additional steps to fulfil its relevant legal obligations and commitment to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans.”

The text, tabled by the United States, was adopted by a vote of 24 in favour to 15 against, with 8 abstentions.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41608&Cr=sri+lanka&Cr1=

The Death Of Colonel Ramesh

[ The Global mail, by-Gordon Weiss]

New evidence of the murder of one man is key to revealing a conspiracy behind mass murder. This evidence, shown and told in The Global Mail’s story, is graphic and confronting. The issue is now being debated by the United Nations. There's an intriguing video that's been available online for a little less than a year. When properly considered, along with fresh pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, it might ensure the passage this week of a resolution being considered by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The resolution is being furiously opposed by the Sri Lankan government.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-death-of-colonel-ramesh/141/

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished

In 2011 Channel 4 exposed damning evidence of atrocities committed in the war in Sri Lanka. Jon Snow presents this powerful follow-up film, revealing new video evidence as well as contemporaneous documents, eye-witness accounts, photographic stills and videos relating to how exactly events unfolded during the final days of the civil war.

The film forensically examines four specific cases and investigates who was responsible.

The four cases include: the deliberate heavy shelling of civilians and a hospital in the 'No Fire Zone'; the strategic denial of food and medicine to hundreds and thousands of trapped civilians - defying the legal obligation to allow humanitarian aid into a war zone; the killing of civilians during the 'rescue mission'; and the systematic execution of naked and bound LTTE prisoners - featuring new chilling video footage of a 12-year-old boy who has been brutally executed.

This painstaking investigation traces ultimate responsibility up to the highest echelons of the chain of command, asking questions of both President Rajapaska and his brother, the Defence Secretary.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sri-lankas-killing-fields/4od#3303398

Sri Lanka’s shameful record on detention without trial

( Amnesty International-MARCH 13, 2012.) -- Hundreds of people languish in arbitrary, illegal and often incommunicado detention in Sri Lanka, vulnerable to torture and extrajudicial execution, despite the end of the country's long conflict, Amnesty International said in a new report, launched today in Geneva.

The new report, Locked away: Sri Lanka's security detainees, reveals that arbitrary and illegal detention and enforced disappearances remain routine in Sri Lanka, where human rights abuses are not investigated nor punished.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/sri-lanka-s-shameful-record-on-detention-without-trial

A Government With Blood On Its Hands

[ Sunday Leader-By Frederica Jansz]

According to a WikiLeaks cable this statement was made by Basil Rajapaksa, brother of and Advisor to the President, to then US Ambassador in Colombo Robert. O. Blake. Jnr.
The cable is classified as “CONFIDENTIAL” and recounts details of a meeting Blake had with Basil Rajapaksa on October 04, 2006. (See Cable)
Rajapaksa was referring to the murder of five Tamil students in Trincomalee on January 2, that year. (Read The Terrible Truth of the Trincomalee Tragedy by D. B. S. Jeyaraj elsewhere on these pages for a detailed account of what took place).

Speaking with remarkable candor to Robert Blake, Rajapaksa had in this instance admitted that members of Sri Lanka’s security forces namely the Special Task Force (STF) carried out an utterly diabolical extrajudicial killing of five young people.

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/03/11/a-government-with-blood-on-its-hands/

NEW WAR CRIMES PICTURES EMERGE!

Posted by fight4tamils on March 7, 2012 ·

Last days of Sri Lankan genocide of Tamils , Sri Lankan military became bunch of animals and staged an ugliest crime against humanity. The president Mahinda and his brother defence Secretary Gottabaya have instructed the military to show all their cruelity on the female Tamil Tiger cadres and Tamil girls. Military staged the horror which could be seen on these pictures and still the United Nations and ICC do not act on the criminals of Sri Lanka. It is shame that the major military commander Shavendra De Silva , who staged this crime is a Sri Lankan envoy to UN and UN secretary Ban Ki Moon keeping him in UN even after knowing the truth.

Do you want to fight for the justice for these women and men? Please send this page to your local MP or any organisations and tell them to support the call for war crimes inquiry.

http://justice4tamil.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/new-war-crimes-pictures-emerge/#comments