Sri Lanka war crime victim's spirit seems restless over
involuntary death pose.
(SALEM) - Having your life and dignity ripped away by heartless
militant thugs with orders to kill kill kill... it is enough to make even
the toughest people cringe, and yet that is exactly what happened right
Isaipriya, dead with her hands
tied
|
under the world's nose, to tens of
thousands of minority Tamil Hindus and Christians only three years ago in the
north of Sri Lanka.
A young Tamil woman I have written about in the past, named
Isaipriya Veeravanakkam, (Sometimes spelled Isaipriya, Isaippiriya and also Issa
Pria) suffered this same fate, and I think she dropped by this week to confirm
that we hit the war crime evidence jackpot.
Do the dead sometimes pass along messages to us? Is it really
possible? There is more to Isaipriya's visit and I will expand on that
below.
I would say this much; that if anyone deserves the opportunity to
reach out from the grave and make a point, it is this beautiful young woman who
had nary a chance when the military force she belonged to surrendered to the Sri
Lankan army.
They should have been arrested and held, instead they were abused
with depravity and tortured and violated sexually and then murdered by a
dishonest government intent on eliminating large numbers of people over their
cultural and religious identity.
What needs to be understood by war crime investigators is that
Isaipriya and her comrades were thrown to the dogs; raped and abused by immoral
soldiers who could never have gotten away with so many crimes against both
civilians and Prisoners of War (POW) which Isaipriya, the wife of a senior Tamil
Tiger commander, was - had they not been both allowed and encouraged by
their commanding officers.
It isn't just the behavior of the field soldiers, it is the attitude
of the majority Sinhalese government toward Sri Lankan Tamils.
POW's have many rights under international law and the Geneva
Convention, but Sri Lanka made a mockery of those laws with its treatment of the
captured Tamil Tigers; so many of whom remain missing, their fates unknown. The
story exemplifies the abuse toward humanity that accompanies the designation of
'terrorist' and even a cursory look at Sri Lanka's history shows that the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spent every day of their lives battling
government terrorism.
The terrorist label encourages western funded governments to
commit atrocities. In case after case, the so-called terrorists are simply
minority populations battling heavily funded military organizations. One side
kills from miles away, the other kills by transporting bombs with their
bodies.
I think it is safe to conclude that if the average suicide bombers
could afford jet fighters, they would not give their lives for their cause, at
least not in direct suicide missions.
Isaipriya tamilnet.tv anchor killed
Channel 4 released Srilanka war crime
video
One of the women victims, stripped naked, hands tied
behind back, and shot dead, as seen in the video footage that has recently
reached Channel-4has been identified as 27-year-old Shoba, with nom de
plume Isaippiriya, who worked as media specialist with the LTTE, according to
the TamilNet Vanni correspondent who recently reached a free country in
the West.
“I am able to learn through those who have been at
Mu’l'livaaykkaal in the final days of war, that Shoba remained unarmed and did
not take part in combat,” the Vanni correspondent told TamilNet, adding that
Shoba lost her 4-month-old baby girl, named Akal, in the last stage of the
war.
TamilNet refrains from publishing the cruel
video, but instead publishes a video footage of Isaippiriya as a reporter from
LTTE’s O’liveechchu video magazine.
Isaippiriya was born in 1982, was educated in the
Memorial School until Grade 5. She obtained a scholarship to continue her
education in Veampadi Girls High School in Jaffna until 1996.With her family
displaced by war to Vanni, Isaippiriya continued her studies in Vanni till she
joined the movement’s media division.
It is widely believed by humanitarians around the world that Sri
Lanka is trying to abscond from justice and there is no question that the
government has done everything in its power to discourage and downplay war crime
proceedings in this very serious matter. Its pattern involves accusing reporters
of harboring personal grudges toward Sri Lanka. Their accusations
against Channel-4 softened after their second edition of 'Sri Lanka's
Killing Fields' aired, removing any sign of doubt that the Vanni became a bloody
mess as Rajapakse's forces pounded people in so-called 'safe zones' which were
in reality, pre-made traps.
Civilians in particular areas were eliminated completely. There will
never be a full accounting of Tamils killed in this war because Sri Lanka
destroyed records and in many cases, bodies were burned to prevent the spread of
disease.
As you will agree after seeing the evidence, there is no question
that this particular incident is a war crime and that Isaipriya was staged to
appear as a non combatant. It is my belief that she is not pleased with her role
as a postmortem war crime 'prop' for Sri Lanka's military.
The Evidence
Clearly tied hands
|
Homage To Isaipriya - Poem
- My Sister, My Mother, My
Comrade
By Karthick Ramirez
Many
a disease plagues this world
but none so devastating
as the silence of
those
that can speak.
I speak today,
I cry today,
for you. My
Sister,
My Mother, My Comrade.
My Sister! With music
in your
name.
The ‘isai’ of your sacrifice
like that of my other
sisters
Manorama, Nilofar, Phulmoni
will be sung for ages to come
in
songs of our resistance
This I
promise,
your brother, a sorry being
whose only weapons
are his
words.
My Mother! I was born
as your son the day
the child of your
womb
was killed. Mother,
I am your son.
As I am the son of the
mothers
of Eelam, Kurdistan, Palestine.
A son who seeks justice
for
unheard voices,
for untold horrors,
for unspoken miseries.
A sorry
being, your son,
whose
only weapons
are his words.
My Comrade! I claim to live
(rather
shamelessly)
for the cause you died for,
a people longing for
freedom,
a soil aching for peace,
a love for life,
now facing
despair,
now facing death.
As my eyes see
what has been done to
you
tears pour – as words.
Words. The only weapons of
a sorry being,
your comrade.
Oh dove of freedom
torn apart by vultures of lust!
Oh lamb
of peace
prey to jackals of power!
Oh angel of justice!
Oh goddess of
liberty!
She lies there, naked
and ravaged
by creatures called
‘men’.
Disrobed was not your body,
but the farce called Lanka.
Violated
was not you,
but the notion of humanity.
Raped, again and again,
was
the silence
of those that can speak,
but who chose not to.
But I
speak today,
I cry today.
Your sibling, your son,
your comrade.
Now
a man.
Now a walking corpse.
Whose only weapons
are his words.
As of
now…
|
Images of her poor body stripped and murdered, with her hands tied
behind her back, have been around for months. (We have only carried them in
the past out of necessity. Those who want to see the graphic images can follow
the links below.)
They obviously tell us she was bound, her pants are pulled down and
her shirt is lifted to expose her breasts. She was clearly a victim of sex
abuse; she almost certainly was raped, yet the trail ended there with the first
images, and as hideous as the images were, they did not demonstrate conclusively
that she was a war crime victim.
Now nobody can dispute it.
The key point is that the young woman's hands were tied behind her
back when she was initially located and her remains recorded with a video camera
and a still camera. The photos are separate items that arrived after the video.
Both video and stills clearly confirm her tied hands.
The conclusive evidence surfaced several days ago: previously unseen
video shot by the Sri Lankan army showing dead LTTE soldiers laid out in rows,
and Isaipriya's body is among them with her hands untied.
The video clips contain dates and the new video with her hands
untied is shot after the initial recordings of her dead body.
Isaipriya was a pawn both alive and dead in a political killing
game, and she was not killed as a combatant, which Sri Lanka claimed, but as a
captive prisoner of war.
It is slightly ironic that Sri Lankan officials accused Channel
4, our group and others, of doctoring photos and videos and misrepresenting
them to falsely vilify their military in our accusations of war crimes. Sri
Lanka's claims were all proven false; the UN confirmed that the images indeed
tell a story of war crimes against Tamils. It looks like the Government of Sri
Lanka is the only group doctoring evidence.
London Attorney Vasuki Muruhathas, made the clips available
toSalem-News.com and other media, and it has blown the doors off Sri
Lanka's attempt to cover up these heinous and very serious barbaric
crimes.
Her hands have been untied and yet they are clearly tied in
the tragic photos we first published several months ago. It is also clear in the
early photos that she has not been dead for very long.
Hands untied
|
The new video unfortunately is in black and white, however there is
no question that Isaipriya's body is among the others, and to erase any possible
doubt, the person recording the video states in Sinhalese, "Tamil Tiger
announcer" while taping her body, which shows that her status as a journalist
with the LTTE, not a combatant, was well established.
Isaipriya, who was also known as Shoba, was tied up and murdered and
then posed to appear as a combatant, this can now be proven beyond a shadow of a
doubt.
And while this evidence has worked its way forward, we find odd
collaboration to silence these war crimes. Google Earth, YouTube; others are
working apparently on behalf of the Sri Lankan government to ban images and
videos that show the world what happened to the Tamils, it is nothing short of
amazing that these organizations would be complicit in helping hide war crimes
from the public.
In the video below, K.P. Marikumar, Director of Spark Trust, says
Isaipriya was a mother and a freedom fighter.
"When this particular incident was aired by British TV Channel 4,
people hear the army in the Sinhalese force speaking in native Sinhala language,
making remarks on the naked dead body of this woman. They are making filthy
sexual remarks."
Geneva Convention
The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) is one of the four treaties of
the Geneva Conventions. Sri Lanka became a signer of the Geneva Convention in
1959.
Adopted ten years earlier, GCIV defines humanitarian protections for
civilians in a war zone, and outlaws the practice of 'total war' (see
sidebar).
There are currently 194 countries party to the 1949 Geneva
Conventions, including this fourth treaty but also including the other
three.
By 1993, The Geneva Conventions passed into the body of customary
international law, and it became binding on non-signatories to the Conventions
whenever they engage in armed conflicts.
Article 3 states that even where there is not a conflict of
international character the parties must as a minimum adhere to minimal
protections described as: noncombatants, members of armed forces who have laid
down their arms, and combatants who are hors de combat (out of the fight)
due to wounds, detention, or any other cause shall in all circumstances be
treated humanely, with the following prohibitions:
The illegal concept of 'Total War'
Total war is a war
in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available
resources and population.
In the mid-19th
century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare.
In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians
than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly
every human resource, civilians and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part
of the belligerent effort. - Total war -
From Wikipedia |
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,
mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading
treatment
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without
previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the
judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized
peoples.
- Fourth Geneva Convention - From Wikipedia
According to International Humanitarian Law - Treaties &
Documents Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time
of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949:
Art. 147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates
shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons
or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or
inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great
suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer
or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to
serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected
person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present
Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of
property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and
wantonly.
-
International
Humanitarian Law - Treaties & Documents
Sri Lanka and World Conscience
The Sri Lankan government has consistently denied absolutely
everything to do with war crimes against the Tamils, and was only drug to Geneva
for war crimes charges several months ago under great protest.
They murdered journalists friendly to the wrong 'cause' like
Isaipriya, trying desperately to prevent the outside world from seeing their
deeds, and for a while it looked like they would get away with it, but
then Channel 4 in London released 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' and
the government of Majinda Rajapakse began watching the world slowly begin to
realize what they had done.
The pogrom against Tamils dates back to the late 1940's when the
British occupiers finally left. For 30 years the Tamils attempted to live in
peace with the Sinhala Buddhist majority but all efforts failed and legislation
spelled the end of the Tamil culture and language in Sri Lanka.
This is when the Tamil Tigers were born and the war was on.
The LTTE would eventually be dubbed as a 'terrorist' group under the
Bush and Blair timeframe and this is what Rajapakse used to commit what truly is
a Genocide against these people. The government's war on Tamils is ethnic
cleansing and terrorism measured in blood trails and body counts.
But this new revelation marks a turning point for the Tamil Diaspora
and the evidence is in the proper hands; we are reporting it but I think it is
safe to say the U.S. government is very much up to speed and paying increasing
attention to this abomination of the Rajapakse regime.
Unanticipated Showing
Three nights ago I was working late. I generally work what I call
the vampire shift and often write and publish until the sun comes up in the
morning. It gets quiet during these hours and I am often very productive.
Sometimes, depending on what I'm writing about, I get this odd sort
of feeling that is like a wave of electricity passing through my chest, and a
slight chill. It isn't always scary, more like solemn and I do not doubt that it
is connected to the constant death reporting, death photos, video clips; the
friends we have lost in this fight.
If we are the journalists and human activists that we claim to be,
the first thing we have to know is that shielding the public from these images
of death does no service to anyone. Sure, it is offensive, now that we are clear
on that... you get the idea; truth comes in harsh doses, that is why we have to
clean this world up.
On this occasion I didn't feel that ominous little chill, nor did I
sense that anything was 'wrong'. I minimized my Internet browser to look for an
item in a desktop file, and the photo of Isaipriya was filling the entire
background. It is the image from video, in black and white with her hands
untied.
Somehow, a photo in a file that had not been looked at or used for
several days, had replaced a gorgeous sunset image I had on my desktop for the
last several weeks. Was it a message from Isaipriya, letting me know that the
image staring back at me would represent the tipping point for justice for the
people of Tamil Eelam?
I asked long time Tamil activist Donald Gnanakone what he thought of
the strange appearance of Isaipriya on my computer screen. He said it certainly
was a spiritual message, without question. It is true that the pain from this
event, called Genocide in many circles, is a powerful commodity. Other people I
have discussed it with tend to agree, that the odds of it just happening from a
computer malfunction or glitch didn't seem as likely, as something else.
I like the 'something else' theory, and it doesn't matter how, who
or why... because I am already in the ring for this fight and need no
convincing. But it makes me believe more than ever that paying attention to the
details is the only thing one has to do and in time, the real evidence will show
itself, and it has.
Tim
King's previous Salem-News.com reports on Sri Lanka:
Sri Lanka’s current development tagline has been to make it “The Emerging Wonder of Asia” as originally enunciated in Mahinda Chinthana: Vision for the Future and reaffirmed in both the Development Policy Framework of the Government issued in 2010 and the Annual Report of the Ministry of Finance and Planning for 2011 released in 2012.
Sri Lanka’s current development tagline has been to make it “The Emerging Wonder of Asia” as originally enunciated in Mahinda Chinthana: Vision for the Future and reaffirmed in both the Development Policy Framework of the Government issued in 2010 and the Annual Report of the Ministry of Finance and Planning for 2011 released in 2012.
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