Refugees for 20 years, Tamil Catholic families forced to live in the jungle

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Refugees-for-20-years,-Tamil-Catholic-families-forced-to-live-in-the-jungle-25104.html

by Melani Manel Perera
With the Civil War, the community of Mullikulam (Mannar, Northern Province) has lost everything: homes, properties, land. They can't return to their home village because the Navy wants to build a naval base there. Now the government has placed them in a forest: they sleep on the floor, surrounded by elephants and snakes. They need to build new homes, but they have no tools. Catholic priest: "We are witnessing an intolerable and meaningless discrimination."


Mannar (AsiaNews) - They live in the jungle, on the ground without a roof or a tent over their heads, surrounded by elephants, snakes and other wildlife. There are 145 families, 285 Tamil Catholics from the village of Mullikulam in Mannar District (Northern Province, Sri Lanka). In theory, these people would be among the first groups of civil war refugees (IDPs - Internally Displaced People) to enjoy the resettlement programs promoted by the government. In practice, for more than 20 years they have not had a home, or jobs to be able to survive. A group of people - including two Catholic priests, a Buddhist monk and two members of NGOs - visited the community and said they were "shocked" by the conditions in which these people find themselves. "What crime", said Ven. Buddhiyagama Chandrarathana Thero, "could these people have ever committed, to live like animals?".

Mass struggle the answergeneral consensus among radicals

http://www.lakbimanews.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5935:dr-vickramabahu-karunaratne-writes-qmass-struggle-the-answergeneral-consensus-among-radicalsq&catid=46:columns&Itemid=50

Bishop Rayappu Joseph, Bishop of Mannar, his clergy and the set of non-politicians who call themselves “Tamil Civil Society” have gained respect among these radicals for what they have done within the Tamil homeland. It is claimed that in general, the bishop and his group of activists are the people to whom the ordinary masses of Tamil homeland first turn to when they have a problem. That is why some 7,000 of them gathered in St. Sebastian Cathedral on May 27 to support and show solidarity with Bishop Joseph. There is a complaint that the TNA did not defend Bishop Joseph when he was slandered in Parliament by the Muslim cabinet minister, Rishad Bathuideen. Did they ask the minister to produce the evidence to document what he said, or if he did not have the evidence, to withdraw what he said and apologize to the Bishop? “The TNA did raise questions against the Muslim minister Rishad Bathuideen,” answered TNA MPs. According to them the TNA Vanni district MP and TELO president Selvam Adikalanathan raised questions in parliament against MP Rishad Bathuideen, supporting Bishop Joseph and asked the minister to apologize to the bishop for the comments made against him. They also engaged in a fast against Rishad Bathuideen. 
The radical voice says, “Look. This is our problem. If we leave it to the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the parliamentarians or any group, all of whom are “No Action Talk Only,” the Tamils in Lanka will be a dying entity. We have campaigned for the rights of the Tamil people to live with equality, dignity, and now to live in the country of their birth. Past rulers were bad but tyrant Mahinda is worse, much worse – and more is to follow. The guns that were turned on the Tamils will next be turned on the Sinhalese and the Muslims, which is already happening. What is needed is for civil society to rise. Both locally and internationally what is needed is a rise of civil society and mass action. We must record the suffering of the Tamil people and the struggle against it. This is what had to be distributed to the people in the world if  Tamils are to have any hope of international mass support for their entirely justifiable struggle to exist and if there is to be peace with justice in  Lanka.” 

Displaced Tamils protest for access to land

http://www.ucanews.com/2012/06/20/displaced-tamils-protest-for-access-to-land/

Say government must reclassify 'high security zone' so families can return to their homes

ucanews.com reporter, Mannar
Sri Lanka
June 20, 2012

Tamil families displaced by the civil war have taken up shelter in the jungle near their former homes

Dozens of internally displaced Catholic Tamil families in Mannar, northern Sri Lanka have demanded they be allowed to return to their land after the Navy blocked resettlement to what is still labeled a high-security zone.
More than 140 people – who say they have lived in Mannar since 2007 after the designation of the military zone during Sri Lanka’s civil war – have been blocked from entering Mullikulam Village since Saturday.

The Human Rights Situation in Sri Lanka, June 2012 A statement for the June Human Rights Council Session

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA37/009/2012/en/73c354eb-cb79-4236-aeab-55f8bd8f1ffb/asa370092012en.html

(AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 13 June 2012)

Sri Lanka is not fulfilling many of its international human rights obligations. Impunity remains the norm for gross violations of human rights, including alleged war crimes. Gross and systematic human rights violations continue to take place. Sri Lanka’s armed conflict ended in 2009, but its legacy of unlawful detention practices continues; arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment and custodial killings remain hallmarks of Sri Lankan policing. The number of reports of enforced disappearances in the past six months is alarming; political activists critical of the state continue to be victims. Intimidation and smear campaigns against human rights defenders and journalists in government-owned newspapers have included attacks on individuals advocating for human rights accountability before this Council.

Leaked photos reveal fate of Tamil prisoners

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/16/leaked-photos-reveal-fate-of-tamil-prisoners/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29
Stewart Bell  Jun 16, 2012 – National Post 

They are the faces of the vanquished. The captured Tamil rebels are young and barefoot. They are handcuffed to bus seats. Some are bandaged. All have the downcast faces of prisoners awaiting an uncertain fate.

Photos and videos recently smuggled out of Sri Lanka offer a rare glimpse of what happened at the end of the bloody civil war between government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.

Recorded on the cellphone of a Sri Lankan soldier, the images show wounded rebel captives and rows of bodies in paramilitary and civilian clothing. Inexplicably, many of the women’s bodies have been stripped naked.

Captive, Handcuffed and Dying... 'Brutal' and 'Shocking' Describe Newly Released Sri Lanka War Crime Images

http://salem-news.com/articles/june082012/ltte-new-photos-tk.php?message=1

Tim King Salem-News.com

War Crimes, Sex Crimes; photos and videos just released offer more compelling evidence.

The faces of the living are possibly more haunting than the photos of the dead, as horrifying as they may be.

(SALEM) - Each time a new cache of war crime video and photographic imagery is released, further documenting 

the heinous, repulsive acts committed on Sri Lanka's Tamil minority during the last months of the war, it makes the government of President Majinda Rajapakse cringe and so are launched a series of tense meeting and investigations to find damage control strategies.

What will they say this time?

A system of doubt exists at every step along this road when this government starts talking. With a half smile, officials from Sri Lanka dismiss war crime allegations with a swipe of the hand- as if dusting away a nagging issue that somehow keeps re-accumulating.

This new round of shocking evidence will shake more confidence from the regime's supporters.

The same underlying theme is present; sexual abuse of women, rows and rows of dead bodies, many of which quite obviously based on their uniforms, are Tamil Tigers.