[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2012, 18:07 GMT]Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department (TID) squads roaming
around in Vanni and Jaffna peninsula have detained more than forty
former LTTE members after abducting them from their residences and on
the streets within the last one week alone, legal sources in Jaffna told
TamilNet on Monday. Former LTTE members are also being summoned to the
SLA camps and questioned over their contacts and friends. Relatives,
friends and even employers of those who were summoned to the SL military
camps live in fear. While every civil and social freedom of the
‘released’ former members of the LTTE is severely deprived by the
occupying Sinhala military, the IOM and the UN that ‘certified’ their
rehabilitation and release keep silent.
The stepped-up abductions took place while a 'security analysis' team of
New Delhi was present and was visiting the North and East during the
last week.
In the meantime, the Sri Lankan Human Rights
Commission office in Jaffna confirmed that it had registered at least 30
complaints from the kith and kin of the missing, within the last 4 days
alone.
However, while admitting that there were complaints from
the Vanni mainland as well as from the peninsula, the SL-HRC office in
Jaffna has declined to reveal the pattern of the complaints.
When
the parents of the missing youth approached the nearby SL police
station, the SL police confirmed some of the abductions as TID arrests
and has issued papers documenting their detention by the TID.
Some
of the abducted youth have been taken to the notorious Boosa detention
camp in the Galle town in the southern province, informed sources in
touch with the detainees in Boosa told TamilNet.
The move by the
TID indicates that some of the youths taken by the TID are going to
languish for a prolonged period of time at the prison without any legal
proceedings or they are going to be charged with false accusations and
put behind the bars.
Rights activists in Jaffna expressed
concern on the plight of those subjected to extrajudicial detentions by
the TID squads and blamed the International Organization for Migration
(IOM) and the residential coordinators of the United Nations (UN) for
being silent on the latest wave of abductions after witnessing and
certifying the release of the former LTTE members from the SL military
‘rehabilitation’.
The IOM and the UN offices have earlier
reported to their international headquarters on the release of the SL
military ‘rehabilitated’ ex members of the LTTE by issuing identity
cards and witnessing the release by registering the details in IOM's
international database.
The IOM was also accused of revoking the
identity cards and asking the former LTTE members to hand them back to
it as the IOM found such identity cards were used by the former LTTE
members to document their background when they sought political asylum
elsewhere.
The IOM, when contacted by media, is saying that it has no information on such abductions.
Abductions
and illegal detentions have been reported in Valveddith-thu'rai,
Polika'ndi, Chunnaakam, Punnaalaik-kadduvan, Achchu-veali, Koappaay,
Puththoor and Meesaalai in the Jaffna district. There were similar
reports from Mullaith-theevu and Ki'li-nochchi districts in Vanni.
Questioning of the former LTTE members is taking place throughout the peninsula.
The
SL military takes fingerprints, records statements and questions the
former LTTE members who have been summoned to their camps about their
current social and political connections as well as about their friends
and relatives with whom they are in touch with.
Except the ex
LTTE members who are working with the EPDP and the SLFP, all others
having any contact with other political parties are threatened not to
engage in politics. If they continue such affinities, they would be
subjected to abductions without any trace, they have been warned by the
SL military.
An allegedly India-backed paramilitary called
Sri-TELO is also functioning in collaboration with the SL military in
recent times.
The SLA is particular about former LTTE members having any affinity with the breakaway group of the JVP.
While
‘abductions’ have now become the de-facto method of arrest by Colombo's
TID squads that come from Colombo without any prior notice to the local
police stations, the parents and relatives of the former LTTE members
express fear as hundreds of youth who had been abducted between 2006 and
2009 had gone permanently missing.
The operations of the TID
squads are undertaken under the direct supervision of the SL Defence
Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, informed
police officials in Vavuniyaa said.
Some of the ex LTTE members have gone into hiding.
Many
of the surviving former LTTE combatants had sustained serious injuries
during the war and are struggling without proper livelihood as disabled
persons. Meanwhile, ex female combatants are subjected to particular
harassments by the occupying military that insists on their regular show
up in the military camps.
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