Emerging logistics blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van operations

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=35396

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2012,]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a non-profit litigation and advocacy group based in the U.S., has pieced together an operational blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van abductions, and the complicity of State Institutions. The blueprint is based on affidavits from surviving abductees, a video deposition from an ex-member of Liberation Tigers who was spared execution at the last moment, information revealed from recent capture of white van abductors in the South, and other circumstantial evidence including open death threats issued by Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse. TAG concludes that the white van phenomenon is not a random occurrence of isolated events, but a systemic well-organized criminal enterprise carried out by independently operating cells consisting of criminal gangs and military personnel and activated by directives from high level State officials.

• TAG Report: Blueprint on Sri Lanka's White Van operations

Abuse by Sri Lanka’s army rubs salt in wounds of war, Tamil women say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/abuse-by-sri-lankas-army-rubs-salt-in-wounds-of-war-tamil-women-say/2012/07/06/gJQADaSiRW_story.html

Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images - Senevirathnam Wasanayagi 63, relative of a detained Tamil Tiger rebel suspect cries as she holds up a photo of her son during a protest outside the main prison on May 29, 2012 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Wasanayagi said, her son was arrested by government military in 2008 at when he was attending a religious ceremony at Hindu temple.

By Simon Denyer, Published: July 6

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — In the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war, as the army closed in for the kill against Tamil Tiger rebels, tens of thousands of civilians cowered in the crossfire.

“The children were crying because they were so hungry, so when we heard congee in coconut soup was being given out, we let them leave the bunker where we were sheltering,” a 35-year-old woman from the northern district of Thunukkai recalled recently. “Then the army bombed the place. Most of the kids were killed on the spot, including my son.

By Simon Denyer,