Sri Lanka extends anti-terror laws
Sri Lanka’s government on Tuesday extended tough anti-terror laws, arguing that remnants of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels could still try to stage a comeback.
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament that the government wanted to extend the state of emergency by a month despite last month’s defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the deaths of their leaders.
“There could be fire beneath the embers,” he said. “If there are elements who still support terrorism, we will deal with them.”
The state of emergency allows the government to arrest and detain suspects for indefinite periods without trial.
The military has detained more than 9,200 Tigers, but fear that rebel cells may still be active across the island.
Sri Lanka has been under a state of emergency since 1983 with a few short breaks in between. Parliament must vote on the state of emergency every month.
The United Nations has estimated that up to 100,000 people may have been killed in the island’s decades-long Tamil separatist conflict.
The government declared victory over the undue title of terrorism in sri Lanka..Tamils requested FREEDOM from opression by the majority.
Message by the primeninister says ‘defeated Tiger terrorists’.its hard to believe from all the declaration and the euphoria of victory celebration the country should continue to declare draconian laws and emergency to govern the country.
A record run of governing a democratic country from 1983 under emergany rules and still more rules to be passed for the future governance is surely a ‘failed democracy’.
Instead of the war tactics,draconian rules,more check points in the south too,increasing the numbers of the army why doesn’t this government sit down and correct their past mistakes so that the country will settle down to a peacefull life.
The Tamils Aspirations have to met.
They are all there and has been there for the last 30 yrs.Those aspirations have certainly not gone away.We Tamils are not surprised that the government and the majority singhalsese think that the Tamils have given up their desire or fight for a seperate state after they declared the war is over.
Certainly in the hearts of tamils the war is not over.The wound is deeper and the scars have been freshened by this hieneous crimes of slaughtering the innocent Tamil civilians after asking them to move to the ‘no fire zone’.
This action of eliminating the Tamil race is all the more clearer of the intent of this government.
It is mind boggling to think that the government’s intent was a plan to continue to ‘cover up’ the ‘intent and the action’. by continued lies and deciet.
The transparency of all these willfull actions have surfaced and continuing to surface much to their horror.
It is worse than a horror movie because this is ‘True life on the chopping block unfolding before our very eyes.’
Free media was muzzled to ‘cover up their actions’
We now have living witnesses.The 2000 thousand army officers.Surely we have already heard gruesome stories relayed to family members in the south who are stunned and in desbelief about the governments vicious killings.Someof these soldiers are in a state of mental trauma who have never seen nor expected to see such inhuman slaughter and crimes inflicted on the innocent Tamils.More so they have mentioned that they were brought up in simple rural existance in the Budhist philosophy of one should not inflict pain on a living creature.
The fear of being abducted,totured,and murdered in the south and the stoppage of a pay packet for the poor rural singhala south has muzzled their voices.
Gone are the requests from 1948 – 1983 for peacefull co existance with democratic laws that will govern all citizens of this country as EQUAL citizens.
There has been absolutely no reaching out.
There is more talk of holding Tamils in concentration camps,murders and rapes continue and how the government will fight TERRORISM.The actions of this government contradicts all their explanations in their missions and their ministers talk flying frantically visiting other dignitaries.