Salman Khurshid does not represent India and Indian feelings and PM does?
Classic case of The Remedy Being worse than the Cure!
Who will bell the cat?
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As Commonwealth leaders prepare to meet at a summit in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, allegations of rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces have emerged, some of them occurring four years after the civil war ended.
“When the lady left and that man closed the door, I knew what was going to happen,” says Vasantha. “They raped me.”
One evening earlier this year, Vasantha says, she was going back to her home in northern Sri Lanka when a white van drew up and two men asked for her identity card.
She says she was thrown into the back of the vehicle and blindfolded.
Watch Our World: Sri Lanka’s Unfinished War on BBC World News on Saturday 9 November at 11:30 GMT and on Sunday 10 November at 17:30 GMT and 22:30 GMT or watch it later on the BBCiPlayer.
Vasantha says she realised the authorities had finally caught up with her, four years after the war and just as she was about to leave for Britain on a student visa.
Her story is one of a number given to the BBC, horrific accounts of torture carried out long after hostilities ended.
During the civil war, Vasantha had helped Tamil Tiger rebels pass messages and set up safe houses in the capital, but she says she never took part in the fighting or held a gun.
Like other women I have interviewed, Vasantha never saw the outside of the building where she was held or met another detainee, but she said she did hear female voices, screaming in Tamil.
She describes being photographed and fingerprinted and then kicked, beaten with batons and pipes, burned with hot wires and cigarettes, submerged in a barrel of water until she thought she would drown, suffocated by having a petrol-soaked plastic bag put over her head, before being repeatedly raped by men in army uniform.
Children take aim.Armed Children take oath.Would Be child killer being Blessed.Child turned into a Killer.Child Takes aim with a Telescopic weapon.Children with Shoulder Missile.Child with Knife and Quran
It is worth mentioning that a Supreme Court Justice in Sri Lanka was tossed out by Impeachment (in land acquisition) for blocking an ordinance by the State , a new judge appointed and promptly the decks were cleared for the Bill which was passed .
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Dr. Sunil Cooray is a senior lawyer who is very well known in Sri Lanka. He has been in legal practice for 46 years. He is the author of the two volumes of the authoritative text Principles of Administrative Law in Sri Lanka. Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission interviews Dr. Sunil Cooray on practice of torture in Sri Lanka.
Basil Fernando: You have done several cases in Sri Lanka relating to torture. Could you tell us a bit about your experience?
Sunil Cooray: In torture cases, I have appeared for both the petitioner and, on a few occasions, the respondent police officers. My experience is that the court generally leans in favour of the respondents. That is to say, as far as possible they try to claim that the case for the petitioner has not been proved. If I am for the respondents then I am OK. But I’ve found that for the petitioner it is a slightly uphill task to convince judges that police officers and prison officers have committed torture. That has been my experience.
BF: Why do you think this is? In a courtroom, both sides must be equal and evidence must be assessed accordingly. For example, in Sri Lanka, medical evidence and similar things are used. Is the difficulty you mentioned the result of some kind of psychological bias?
SC: It is, I suppose, something like a psychological situation, because most of our judges in the Supreme Court – and that is where all fundamental rights cases are heard – come from the Attorney General’s Department. Throughout their lives as practicing lawyers in the department they have been in touch with police officers, and they have a tendency to believe what the police say rather than what an ordinary citizen has to say. I think that is part of the problem.
BF: Now you would have seen this book Narrative of Justice In Sri Lanka told through stories of torture victims?
SC: Yes I have seen it.
BF: There are 400 cases and that is a very large number of cases. Why do you think such a widespread practice exists?
SC: I think that there are various reasons, but I also think that there are things that can be put in place to minimise or even eliminate torture. I think there are numerous reasons why torture is committed and one reason might be that some police officers have sadistic tendencies and if they get hold of an innocent man, a defenseless man, they want to satisfy their sadism by beating him up. And it also happens that many police officers drink liquor in the evenings so they are badly under the influence of alcohol and they want to have a little fun with these defenseless people who have no one to turn at that time. Those are mainly poor people, and they are harassed and tortured.
There are other reasons as well. For instance, a person may be caught up in a case, rightly or wrongly, and the police may be under instructions from somebody else that torture should be committed by them on that man. This may be for political reasons or similar. Even a straight police officer may be under some compulsion in those circumstances because he might fear that unless he complies he may face a transfer order or some disciplinary proceedings or similar. They also resort to torture to extort money and that also depends on the wages of the police officers. So those are some aspects to be looked into. Police officers should be paid a living wage so that they can maintain themselves and their families in reasonable comfort, and lack of that may be one reason. And then of course there is a general feeling, and some judges and lawyers agree, that torture is something that should not be totally prohibited because according to them torture is an integral part of investigations. That is a completely wrong view and of course is completely against the law but unfortunately it is an embedded idea in the heads of some of our judges and lawyers. And that is one reason why they tend to side with the police officers who are accused of committing torture rather than siding with the petitioner.
BF: Would it be correct to say that at no stage, either by the government or the high ranking officers of the police, a sincere message has been given to the police that torture is wrong?
SC: I think that is so. I don’t think that there is any sincerity when higher ranking police officers tell their lower grades not to commit torture; it is taken with a pinch of salt. They think it is just a matter of words that torture should not be committed. I think what you said is quite right.
BF: So, in other words, the use of torture is a matter of accepted unofficial policy?
SC: Some sort of accepted unofficial policy, but I am sure that sort of policy is losing ground. I am sure this idea, which is in the back of the heads of our judges, lawyers, and senior police officers, is losing ground and I hope the day will come when the idea does not exist anymore because it is brutal. By modern standards it is brutal to commit torture and I hope the day will dawn when the idea is eliminated totally from our lawyers and judges.
The LTTE was indicted for the attack, some of the alleged killers had died and some are in the death row in India.
There were questions galore.
The questions.
1.Why did Rajiv Gandhi agree to attend an Election Meeting in remote place a Sriperumbudur,Tamil Nadu, when the place was not even in his agenda?
He was busy in addressing meetings in Delhi and rushed to Sriperumbudur via Orissa and Andhra .
2.Why did Maragatham Chandrasekhar invite him when the top functionaries were reluctant to invite him and what made her take a special interest by traveling to Delhi, in the affair?
3.Why was the Security officer O.P Sagar missing at Chennai in Rajiv’s Security team while he was the shadow of Rajiv in Orissa and Andhra?
4.Why did Sagar miss the flight?
5.The substitute officer Gupta traveled with Rajiv Gandhi without pistol and remained so .
6. Why did the some Congress leaders clear the security cordon to enable the killers have access to Rajiv?
7.Congress leader Maragadham Chandrasekar was at Sriperumbudur. Her daughter Latha Priyakumar was also present at the venue with her husband Magendiran. Her son Lalith Chandrasekar had brought his wife Vinothini to the meeting. Given the fact that Vinothini is the daughter of a Sinhalese, why was she never interrogated? Isn’t it true that Rajiv had become unpopular among many Sinhalese for sending the IPKF?
8. A senior Congress leader, Vazhappadi Ramamurthy, who accompanied Rajiv to the stage in two other street-corner meetings just preceding the Sriperumbudur meeting, kept a safe distance from Rajiv in this meeting alone. Why was that so?
9. Many innocent civilians and security personnel died along Rajiv, but it is too strange to observe that not even a single Congress worker died or even had a minor injury in this incident. Doesn’t it arouse suspicion?
10.Why did the Congress leaders weaken the security protocol?
“The final report, submitted in June 1992, concluded that the security arrangements for the former PM were adequate but that the local Congress party leaders disrupted and broke these arrangements’ _Verma Commission Report.
11.Why was there no opposition to a woman MP from Tamil Nadu, at whose place one of main conspirator Sivarasan stayed before the assassination, when she was made a minister in the UPA government?
12.The interim report of Justice Milap Chand Jain, looking into the conspiracy angle to the assassination, indicted the DMK for colluding with the LTTE. The report concluded that DMK provided sanctuary to the LTTE, which made it easy for the rebels to assassinate Rajiv.
The Commission report stated that the year 1989 signified “the perpetuation of the general political trend of indulging the Tamil militants on Indian soil and tolerance of their wide-ranging criminal and anti-national activities.”
The report also alleged that LTTE leaders in Jaffna were in possession of sensitive coded messages exchanged between the Union government and the state government of DMK.
“There is evidence to show that, during this period, some of the most vital wireless messages were passed between the LTTE operatives based in Tamil Nadu and Jaffna. These messages, which were decoded later, are directly related to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi,” the report stated.
The Congress subsequently brought down the United Front (UF) government of I K Gujral after the report was leaked in November 1998. The party also demanded the removal of DMK from the UF government, arguing that it had a hand in Rajiv’s killing.
13.In the letter dt.2.11.2011, the first question which he raises is as to why the Special investigating team has failed to enquire into the identity of the person who was apparently pushing Thanu forward from behind with his or her palm of hand over her back as could be seen from the last photographs among the photographs said to have been taken by Haribabu ?
The second question posed by the death convict Murugan is that why the scene of offence was not preserved and protected from being disturbed and the escape of real culprits was facilitated as the roll of colour film had been laid hold by a press reporter which was said to have been retrieved later by the Head of the Special Investigation Team Mr.D.R.Karthikeyan?
The third question is the mystery behind the absence of ‘Pottu’( thilak) mark on the forehead of Thanu in the photograph said to have been taken by Haribabu at the scene of blast and another photograph showing a woman said to be Thanu lying dead with Pottu’ mark on her forehead?
Fourth question is why the hand bag found hung on the shoulder of Thanu was not at all recovered from the scene of crime nor any enquiry was made after the missing hand bag ?
Her Press briefing on 31 August , 2012 was candid to such an extent that the Sri Lanka Government was forced to protest that she exceeded her brief.
She was earlier abused by the Government and the Sri Lanka Media , calling her ‘Tamil Tigress‘, accusing her of bias, raking her Tamil origins.
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Sri Lanka refutes:
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Issuing a statement, the Govt information department says that she is only an agent of a Civil organization, hence she cannot make such statements regarding Sri Lanka.
Govt has issued this statement with regards to the statements made by Ms. Navi Pillay at the media meeting held on the 31st in Colombo, in conclusion of her week’s tour in Sri Lanka.
The complete statement is as follows..
President Rajapakshe apologised for his minister’s out burst against her earlier.
Her report, as stated by her in the Press Meet , in short, is as under.
1.Developmental activities. post the civil war , is sluggish and definitely not as it had been portrayed by the Government of Sri Lanka.
2.The Missing Persons of Tamil area are not being investigated.
3.Tamil women are being molested and no visible action.
3.The Military, even after four years of the conflict coming to a close, still has an iron grip, on the Tamil areas, hampering return of Normalcy.
The presence of Military in the North East is worrying.
4.The Military is controlling areas where it has no business, like Education, Agriculture.
5.The Military is grabbing private Tamil lands for converting them into barracks, with no compensation.
6.Systematic racist attacks are being carried out against Tamils and Muslims.
As a parting shot, she said,
““I am deeply concerned that Sri Lanka, despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction,” Pillai said, a remark that was to be broadcast around the world in minutes.”
Well, that’s pretty candid and accuses Sri Lanka, in real softer terms, its Genocidal and Ethnic cleansing Policies!
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay was on a week-long visit to Sri Lanka on an invitation extended by the Government of Sri Lanka in April 2011. This invitation is a part of Sri Lanka’s consistent engagement with the UN System.
As is well known, the High Commissioner’s visit to Sri Lanka was extensive, which she herself has described, as the longest ever country visit undertaken in her current position. The GOSL provided unfettered access for the High Commissioner to meet all those whom she sought to engage with, besides providing briefings on the part of the GOSL, on the continuing post conflict developments, a fact that she has acknowledged.
It is significant to note the High Commissioner’s acknowledgement of the true nature of the LTTE, and her call to those in the diaspora, who continue to revere the memory of the LTTE, to recognize that there should be no place for the glorification of such a ruthless Organization.
While noting that the High Commissioner has paid respects “to all Sri Lankans across the country who were killed during those three decades of conflict”, a disturbing fact that emerged during the visit, which had also come up during her media conference, was the surreptitious effort made by the visiting delegation to pay a floral tribute during the visit to Mullivaikkal. It was pointed out by the Sri Lankan side to the OHCHR delegation that if such a gesture needed to be made it should be done at a venue common to all victims of the 30 year terrorist conflict and not on the grounds where the LTTE leader met his death. It is significant that at no point of time during the discussions in formulating the High Commissioner’s programme, that the holding of such an event was indicated. This was brought to the attention of the Government side, only a few hours before the unilaterally scheduled event. On inquiry it became evident that the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, who represents the UN Secretary General, was unaware of this planned event.
With reference to the High Commissioner’s assertion that the new Ministry of Law and Order “is at best a partial separation as both Ministries will remain under the President, rather than under a separate civilian Ministry”
The fact that the remarks were addressed to Pillay while she was on a high level diplomatic mission on the explicit invitation of the Government was extraordinary. But more extraordinary, for the visiting UN Rights Chief was the fact that persons who had made representations during her tours of the former conflict zones had been visited by police and military officials. “This to me is just completely over the top – this kind of thing simply does not happen on my missions,” Pillay charged during the question and answer session. “The UN takes reprisals against those who speak with UN officials very seriously. I will be reporting on any reprisals against those who spoke with me back to the Human Rights Council,” she warned.
On every critical issue falling within her mandate the UN Envoy pulled no punches. She had her own assessment on virtually every current challenge to democracy and freedom in post-war Sri Lanka. “The war may have ended, but in the meantime democracy has been undermined and the rule of law eroded,” she said, reading from one of the more electrifying sections of her statement.
On the hot button issue of religious intolerance, with attacks against the Muslim community intensifying in the last few months, the UN Envoy said the Government had downplayed the issue. “They said it was an isolated incident, but the information pouring into my office indicates otherwise,” she said.
Disappearances being the overarching theme of her visit, Pillay told journalists after her briefing that she had never witnessed such uncontrollable grief as when people begged her to help bring their loved ones home.
“The fighting may be over, the suffering is not,” the UN Human Rights Chief said, as she prepared to leave Sri Lanka.
The High Commissioner took great pains to address repeated questions on alleged UN bias put to her by the state media during the briefing. She urged journalists to “read the published material” to learn how vocal her office was being about human rights issues around the world, including those violations committed by powerful countries. “Sri Lanka is one of 193 states reviewed by the UNHRC. The US in its review had almost 300 recommendations made to them by other states,” Pillay explained.
She added that UN independent experts were currently examining Extraordinary Rendition procedures, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and drone strikes against civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan – all violations Washington has been accused of by human rights activists.
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