SL military arrests husbands, sexually harasses wives in Trinco

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2013, 23:51 GMT]
The military intelligence officers of the occupying Sri Lanka Army frequent the houses of former LTTE members and combatants under the pretext of investigations and are attempting to sexually harass the wives while keeping their husbands in prolonged detention, reliable sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet on Monday. The Sri Lankan military officers who came from Kaddai-pa’richchaan camp had arrested 16 men in Moothoor, after the so-called Independence Day celebrations staged by Colombo in Trincomalee on 04 February 2013. All of the victims, except one, are married and have at least two children. They have all been former LTTE members and some of them have married ex-LTTE females. The SL military intelligence operatives from the Kaddai-pa’richchaan camp have been harassing the wives of the detained husbands. 

None of the NGOs that showed interest in registering the particulars of their detained husbands have taken any effort in voicing for the release of their husbands or with assisting the families with any humanitarian assistance, the affected families complain. 

Ms Kanthapodi, an ex-LTTE fighter who hails from Kumaarapuram in Moothoor, says that the SL military intelligence men, visiting her with claims of investigation, have been attempting to sexually harass her. 

Even Sinhala men from nearby villages harass the former LTTE members, she says. 

Before she joined the movement, Ms Kanthapodi was living alone with her mother. In 1996, her mother was brutally slain by the SL military inside her house. 

After her release from the 2-year-long SL military custody of so-called rehabilitation in 2011, she is now living alone in a hut, which she has put up with the help of the villagers. 

Two weeks ago, a person claiming himself as a military intelligence officer arrived at her hut one midnight. When she shouted for help and alerted the neighbours, the villagers caught him red-handed. Later, the Police has said that the so called ‘inquiry officer’ was none other than an ordinary Sinhala person from an adjoining village.

The wives of the 16 ex-LTTE members, who have been taken into custody by the Sri Lankan military, say they have not heard anything about the whereabouts of their husbands. 

Many of them in detention have already gone through the so-called rehabilitation and were allowed to reintegrate with their families. But, they have again been arrested this year and it is not known when they would return again. 

“Some say they are being kept in Boosa, but we are not allowed to visit them,” a mother of two children said complaining that there have been no response for their complaints with the SL Human Rights Commission, the ICRC and the Sri Lankan Police. 

Those taken by the military men include Punniamoorthy Sureskumar (29) of Thangkanakar, Navasivayam Senthuran (28) of Cheanaiyoor, Nadarajah Shanmugalingam (35), Konalingam Chandramohan (34) of Paddiththidal, Tharmathas Thavachelvan (36), Tharmalingam Jeyakaanthan (30), Yogarajah Uthayakumar (32) of Ka'neasapuram, Vadivel Ramu (34) of Ki'liveddi, Rasanayagam Ganesh Ramachandran (28) of Amman-nakar, Subramaniam Mahendran(43) of Ki'liveddi , Vyramuthu Vasanthan (34) of Aathiyamman-kea'ni and four others.

Navi Pillay to visit Sri Lanka to access the progress of human rights

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay (Reuters)

Tue May 28 2013,

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay would visit Colombo in August on an invitation extended to her by the Sri Lankan government in April 2011.

Sri Lanka's Ambassador in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha informed this to the UNHRC's 23rd council sessions yesterday.

Sri Lankan officials said they had kept open the invitation for Pillay to visit the island to assess the progress of Human Rights in the country in spite of adverse propaganda carried out by the pro-LTTE diaspora in the West.

The UN Human Rights Council in 2012 and 2013 adopted two resolutions against Sri Lanka's alleged lack of rights accountability.

Pillay's office, OHCHR, maintained that Sri Lanka was not willing to accommodate visits by the UN Special Rapporteurs on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, as a prelude to her Sri Lanka visit.

Aryasinha lamented what he termed the lack of financial independence of the OHCHR which he said leads to disproportionate attention being paid to country-specific action.

He said the UNHRC "which selectively targets some countries, while situations, human rights violations and restrictive practices in other parts of the world that warrant more urgent and immediate attention and action remain conveniently ignored".

"As we have already informed the Council during past sessions, the ill-conceived resolution on Sri Lanka resulting from politicized action, diaspora compulsions and reports not mandated by the inter-governmental process and therefore lacking in legitimacy and credibility, is completely unwarranted and is for that reason rejected by the Government of Sri Lanka".

The two UNHRC resolutions bind Sri Lanka for early implementation of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommendations. Pillay would check progress of it during her visit.