Sri Lanka’s terror abductions, arrests, summons mark Christmas Eve in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 22:43 GMT]
28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar, wife of an LTTE member killed in the war, and presently working at SL government’s Uduvil divisional secretariat, was abducted at midnight at her house recently. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) now informally acknowledged to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Jaffna that the ‘arrest’ was their act. Complaints of such abductions and ‘arrests’ of around 45 people have been registered in recent days at the SL human rights office in Jaffna, officials acknowledged on Monday. Many more abductions and arrests in the north have gone unregistered as the family members have been sternly warned by the occupying SL forces, not to register complaints at the SL human rights office. Meanwhile, many girl students of the Jaffna University have been ‘summoned’ over telephone by the TID in Vavuniyaa.

The summoning of the girl students of the University of Jaffna over the phone by the TID in Vavuniyaa now takes place directly, without any intimation to the university authorities.

Direct telephonic summoning of the university students has become an unchallenged and established practice now, following such a summon served to the President of the University Teachers’ Association and Head of English Language Teaching Unit at the university, Mr K. Rajakumaran.

Many girl students have silently gone with their parents to Vavuniyaa to submit themselves to TID investigations.

TID at Vavuniyaa is run directly by SL Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Meanwhile, most of the abductions of Tamil youth in recent days that have gone unregistered, took place in midnights or at dusk times, news sources said.

Occupying Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission’s office in Jaffna nowadays don’t encourage direct complaints of abductions coming to them, news sources in Jaffna further said.

The HR office tells the victim’s family members to lodge complaint at SL police stations.

Since the very SL police is a party to the abductions and arrests, how to lodge the complaint with them, ask the family members of the victims.

Of all the outfits of the occupying Sinhala state, the Human Rights Commission office is the only one for civilians to approach in a civil manner. Even this outfit is now directed to openly play on the side of State’s terrorism, public in Jaffna say. Some days ago, citing weekend, a threatened university student was prevented from surrendering at the HR office.

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After the IC-India-UN abetted genocidal war, the Eezham Tamils are subjected to State terrorism of Sri Lanka, in various ways and at various stages to complete the genocide through structural means and through individual terrorisation of every member of the nation of Eezham Tamils. In fact the process got accelerated after the USA and India enacted a resolution sanctioning the LLRC process at the UNHRC, political observers in Jaffna said.

What’s happening now through the terrorisation process of the public, students, women and the former LTTE activists, and through the political manoeuvring process of the TNA are not two separate phenomena, but are interconnected as preparatory grounds for the next rounds at Geneva in March, aiming at further engineering of the total subjugation and annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils, the observers commented.

All the forces that don’t recognize the genocide, the nation of Eezham Tamils and its right to self-determination in the island are invariably parties to the crime of genocide through State terrorism that takes place now, the observers further said.

The terror campaign currently carried out especially against the released cadres of the LTTE, its former activists and even family members of them, is aimed at prodding them to join for safety with outfits and paramilitaries run by the genocidal government in collaboration with some of its international abetters, political observers in Jaffna suspect.

After the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 and the occupation of the country of Eezham Tamils by the ‘Indian Peace Keeping Force’, all the Tamil militant groups except the LTTE were made to renounce the independence aspiration of Eezham Tamils. The unquestioning support the LTTE gained from the people mainly came from its commitment and stead

US Law allowing legal challenge to LTTE terror listing remains vacuous

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 August 2012, 11:21 GMT]
"The LTTE's military wing does not exist, and as such, there is little rational basis to continue to proscribe the LTTE as terrorist. However, the State Department renewed the ban on the safe presumption that the renewal is essentially immune to challenge, an immunity fortified by the threat of material support charges for an individual purporting to represent the LTTE in American jurisdiction," said legal sources in Washington, pointing out that statute [1189] that allows legal challenge to continued "terrorist" designation is toothless and vacuous when confronting anti-terror statute [2339b] that threatens criminal prosecution on any one who is willing to mount a legal challenge.

8 USC § 1189(c)(1), which appears to provide an avenue to challenge any designation of a Foreign Terrorist Organization[FTO] states: "Not later than 30 days after publication in the Federal Register of a designation, an amended designation, or a determination in response to a petition for revocation, the designated organization may seek judicial review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."

However, interpreting "material support" provision in the statute 2339b, the US Supreme Court, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law project (2010), ruled that "material support," includes peaceful advocacy and peacemaking assistance given to an FTO, and therefore, illegal under 2339b.

Therefore, there is no remedy, legal sources said. Threat of prosecution under the material support statutes render any legal avenue to challenge the ban as form without substance.

"For the United States, continuing the ban on the LTTE appears necessary for the ongoing material support prosecutions and extradition requests. Or else, LTTE deproscription would amount to an intervening change in controlling law which would allow appeal of any outcome determinations which flowed from the ban. Recent extradition request of a Australian resident is a case in point," Tamils Against Genocide [TAG], a US-based activist group, said.

"If the LTTE is de-proscribed, this act will have less to do with whether the LTTE exists in fact, and more to do with whether the Justice Department's silent timetable to prosecute and extradite Tamils with alleged prior affiliation with the organization is complete," TAG added.

The State Department continues the LTTE ban post-Mu'l'livaaykkaal in such a legal context, with no LTTE military wing and no threat of domestic legal challenge. It does so within a foreign policy agenda, architected by current Asst. Secretary of State for South Asia, Robert Blake, that tepidly pressures Sri Lanka for soft accountability without retributive justice for the Tamil killing field at Mu'l'livaaykkaal, while openly supporting armed liberation movements in Syria and Libya, Tamil circles said.

External Links:

Cornell:		18 USC § 2339B - Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations
NYT:		Lawyers Seeking Terror Suspect’s Case Sue U.S.
Cornell:		8 USC § 1189 - Designation of foreign terrorist organizations
CCR:		Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project
Tufts:		Proscription Problems: The Practical Implications of Terrorist Lists on Deplomacy