Sri Lankan TID declares ‘shadow war’ on Tamil journalists

Sri Lankan TID declares ‘shadow war’ on Tamil journalists in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 09:10 GMT]
“We will not abduct you or take you for 4th floor for interrogations. But, we will make sure you die in the road hit by our encounter teams in natural accidents and dispute-like killings. You will not become heroes among your own people and die like street dogs,” is the message re-iterated by the so-called ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ interrogators, who operate various interrogation-cells in the North chasing the journalists in Jaffna. A Colombo-based media rights activist observing the pattern of the psychological warfare by the TID on journalists in Jaffna described the unfolding scenario as Colombo's latest ‘shadow war’ on Tamils, similar to the one that preceded the 2009 genocidal onslaught.

On Friday, SL military intelligence officers claiming as investigators from the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ appeared at Valampuri Tamil newspaper office in Jaffna at 1:00 p.m. They instructed the Staff Reporter of the paper, Uthayarasa Chalin, to come to the TID station situated at Naavalar Road at the premises of former Namathu Eezhanadu Paper at 3:00 p.m.

The journalist went there after informing to all media watchdogs. The TID interrogators asked some initial questions and instructed Mr Chalin to come for a detailed session the following day.

The journalist was being harassed since he did a story on the collective rights of Tamils to observe remembrance of their war-dead Tamil fighters on Tamil Heroes Day.

In a story, he had interviewed the president of the University Teachers Union Mr I. Rajkumar, who had underlined the resolve to remember the war-dead Tamil fighters on November 27 remembrance, highlighting it as a collective right of Tamils.

On Saturday, when the journalist went for the second session, the interrogators asked him the address of the residences of Mr I Rajkumar and TNA MP S. Sritharan.

The journalist, seeking to avoid controversies, replied in the negative responding that he didn't know the addresses. The interrogators assaulted him as they pointed at a log of date and time when the journalist had, in fact, visited the residences of Mr Rajkumar and Mr Sritharan.

After assaulting the journalist, they placed a document written entirely in Sinhala and asked him to sign it. When he declined, the interrogators attacked him. They said that it was the explanation he had given to them which was recorded in Sinhala and forced him to place his signature on the document.

The interrogators have also questioned the journalist on his educational background, about fellow Tamil reporters in Jaffna. They also questioned him about the activities of the Jaffna Press Club.

The victim journalist has earlier escaped an encounter-like-accident from a killer-squad at Neeraaviyadi.

Another reporter working for Uthayan, Dileep Amuthan, also escaped a similar ‘encounter-accident’ recently, when he was chased and hit by a three-wheeler at Thellippazhai. Mr Dileep narrowly escaped from the accident but had sustained wounds from the accident-encounter.

The SL military intelligence is running killer squads in North and East. These squads are prepared to assassinate the targets in ‘road accidents’ or by creating dispute-like scenarios, the visiting media activist from Colombo said after concluding a fact-finding mission to Jaffna and Vanni on Monday.

Some time back, the TID operatives from Naavalar Road were approaching the Yarl Thinakkural newspaper management to provide personal details such as their residential address of two staff reporters, Punitharoopan Winslow and Tharmapalan Vinojith.

The paper management declined to provide such details to the TID investigators.

However, the SL military intelligence operatives were almost chasing the two staff reporters for a while.

Later, two other reporters of Yarl Thinakkural, Nitharshan and Hamshan, were being harassed by the SL military intelligence, including threats.

The threat, consistently coming from all the anonymous callers claiming to be TID operatives or the visiting interrogators of the TID to the residences of the journalists was to be ‘prepared for death’ like ‘street dogs’ in ‘encounter like’ killings. “We will not make you heroes”, was also a message being passed to the journalists. Such messages are provided after the journalists get assaulted at interrogation sessions. Anonymous callers claiming to be from TID also threaten journalists with the same message.

The TID interrogators usually have detailed translations of the news reports filed by the journalists and a log of their activities with time and places monitored by the intelligence network of the SL military and its agents.

Recently, In Vanni, the regional correspondent of Uthayan paper was attacked at his house. Three relatives of an EPDP operative were behind the incident. An investigation was launched on the incident, but nobody was punished.

The SL military experimented already in 2001 in accident-style assassinations on media activists. Two key media workers of Uthayan paper were subjected to such attacks, and one was killed. Another key worker had sustained injuries.

Apart from harassments of psychological threats seeking to curb the activities of the journalists, the SL military squads are also prepared to commit assassinations on Tamil journalists, the media rights activist who has been interviewing the affected journalists told TamilNet on Tuesday.

Tamil journalists blocked from attending Rajapaksa's meetings in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 February 2012, 12:10 GMT]
The wards of the Chaavakachcheari hospital, renovated with help from Red Cross societies from Finland and Ireland at different stages and that were already declared open, were declared once again opened by SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday. The ‘hijack’ move projected as a part of ‘grand opening’ under Rajapaksa's Vadakkin Vasantham (the spring of the North), was exposed by the local journalists, who discovered that the initial inaugural plaques with the names of foreign donors were hastily removed Sunday night and new plaques were installed. As the local journalists in Jaffna began questioning the episode, the SL establishment blocked the journalists from covering the visit of Mr. Rajapaksa to Jaffna Secretariat where he was scheduled to discuss his ‘development’ of North.

Rajapaksa with his minister Douglas Devananda and military governor of North Maj. Gen. (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri at the opening ceremony of swimming pool at Jaffna Central College

Rajapaksa and his son came to the opening ceremony of the swimming pool with a team of swimmers from South

Kokku'laay school in Mullaiththeevu district

Many of the schools in Vanni function without basic facilities and lack of teachers

The renovated hospital at Chaavakachcheari

During his visit, Mr. Rajapaksa and his son Namal Rajapaksa also declared open a swimming pool at Jaffna Central College. The swimming pool project, initially launched by the ‘Blue Brigade’ of Namal Rajapaksa five years ago, was completed at last by diverting the funds allocated to reconstruct the schools in Vanni this year, civil sources in Jaffna complained.

At the hospital re-opening, Mr. Rajapaksa condemned media for functioning as they did during the times of the war. He said journalists were creating ‘ethnic divisions’.

Sri Lanka Army shelling and SLAF bombardment destroyed Chavakachcheari hospital in year 2000. After 11 years, basic facilities and various sections of the hospital have been reconstructed with the help of foreign donors. Japan had also shown interest in reconstructing the hospital, but the authorities in Colombo had dropped the move.

The completion of the much publicized swimming pool project at the Jaffna Central College had been struck by corruption and was dragged on for five years by Namal Rajapaksa who didn't manage to complete it. The project was completed after diverting five million rupees of funds allocated to reconstruct the schools in Vanni by the Northern provincial ministry of education. The schools in Vanni are languishing without proper shelter and teachers.

During his address at the opening ceremony of the swimming pool at Jaffna Central College, Mr. Rajapaksa warned Tamil students not to get distracted by the elusive forces [from South] that seek to divert their attention from studies [to anti-government activities]. He insisted that Tamil students should learn Sinhala language in addition to English and said all in the island should learn the three languages.

Mr. Rajapaksa attempted to address the students briefly in Tamil. When the SL president was making a lot of pronunciation errors, the students started shouting.

As part of its ongoing structural genocide being committed on Eezham Tamils, the Sri Lankan government under Rajapaksa aims to complete the Sinhalicisation of the Tamil country before year 2020.

The reporters of a leading Tamil daily were blocked from covering the swimming pool opening.

Later, Mr. Rajapaksa attended a meeting at Jaffna district secretariat. Tamil journalists, except the EPDP operated media men belonging to Dan TV, Thinamuarsu and EPDP website, were blocked from covering Rajapaksa's ‘development’ meeting at the Jaffna District Secretariat. Tamil journalists who had gathered at the District Secretariat, including those who had come from Colombo, were chased away.

In the meantime journalists in Jaffna blamed that the visiting Sri Lankan President has proclaimed a war against them in Jaffna on Monday.

The SL authorities had instructed administrative officials of the five districts of Northern province to be present at Rajapaksa's meeting at Jaffna Kachcheari. Some of the female officials complained that they were forced to wear blue cloths and carry Sri Lankan lion flag to welcome the SL president.

TNA parliamentarians and the elected TNA representatives of the civic bodies in the North were not present at the ‘development’ meeting.

Suresh Premachandran of the TNA has said that the TNA was systematically excluded and that only a last minute invitation was given making it impossible for TNA to make a proper representation at the meeting.

The SL president, in his address at Chaavakachcheari hospital also claimed that there was no division such as ‘North, East, West, South and Up-country’ in the island. Mr. Rajapaksa further said that he had once asked Mr. Devananda why the Tamil parties and groups had put forward ‘unrealistic’ demands at Thimphu. Rajapaksa said that Devananda had responded by saying that Tamil parties and groups were intentionally putting forward ‘unrealistic’ frameworks to make it impossible for the SL government to agree upon anything.

Without mentioning the name of the TNA, the visiting SL president said the Tamil parties were still coming with ‘unrealistic’ demands as they did in Thimphu in 1985.

SL military-led administration in North harasses Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 January 2012, 09:48 GMT]
After two years of war and claims that Colombo has resettled civilians in Vanni, remote areas of the mainland still remain prohibited for Tamil journalists. Sri Lankan military intelligence officers and operatives systematically harass the journalists who visit the areas beyond the ‘A9 comfort zone’ of the occupying SL military. Meanwhile, harassment by SL military-led administration has increased in the Jaffna peninsula. On Friday, a 28-year-old reporter in Jaffna, A. Daniel, was taken to SL police station in Jaffna and questioned for 3 hours by the SL police, allegedly for exposing SL military governor not allowing the Jaffna GA for a separate meeting as scheduled with the British Conservative MP James Wharton, who was taken on a guided tour to Jaffna with the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London.

Althoguh the visiting British parliamentarian, who attempted to freely converse with and greet the people of Jaffna, there was no space for the civil society or Tamil officials to interact with him independently, civil sources in Jaffna said.

The reports that even the Sri Lankan Government Agent in Jaffna with ‘high-ranking alignment’ with SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa, was not ‘trusted’ by the military governor of the North, have irked several quarters, also making the SLGA in Jaffna uncomfortable with the public exposure of the trend.

Meanwhile, media circles in Jaffna said that the journalists visiting Vanni are harassed by the SL military intelligence operatives who question the journalists why they have come there and whom they are contacting. Confronted with such harassments, the reporters often drop the idea of exposing anything from the places they visit fearing reprisals to their contacts or themselves, the media sources further said.

No independent reporters or journalists are able to station themselves inside Vanni where structural genocide continues unabated the same way the genocidal war without witnesses was waged by Colombo in 2009.

Chronology:

07.01.12  SL military-led administration in North harasses T..

05.01.12  SL Military governor sabotages Jaffna GA meeting B..