 Ms. N. Selvy, LTTE's Spokesperson for Humanitarian and Human Rights Affairs, in her report released on Saturday before UN Human Rights Council session, drew attention of international community to the human rights violations committed by the Sri Lanka State on the Tamil people.
She said that more than 1974 Tamil civilians have been killed and 842 Tamil civilians were either arrested or abducted in the 21 months from November 2005 after Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse came to power.
“Sri Lankan State has been engaged in numerous human rights violations and violation of international humanitarian law especially in the territories such as Amparai, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Mannar, Trincomalee and Vavuniya, which are under occupation of the Sri Lankan military. The government tries to cover up the violations by its armed forces and its paramilitaries by blaming the LTTE and others for every incident”.
In her report Ms. Selvy said the international community should recognize the ground reality in the historical Tamil homeland and the gross human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law being committed there by the Sri Lanka State.
The report gave details of "more than 45 humanitarian aid workers, 11 media workers, and 4 Tamil members of parliament" killed by the Sri Lankan Armed forces and its paramilitaries.
Over 69 of those who were killed during the study period were children under the age of 16, the report said listing the details of each of the child killed.
Military offensives are being launched on the Tamil homeland and hundreds of thousands of Tamil people are forced to flee their homes. The displacement, in addition to the hardships caused by large scale forced movement, denies the children their education, causes loss of property, and loss of the produce from their farms which they suddenly have to leave behind.
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in almost all cases languish in welfare centers without basic facilities.
In the east, the IDPs were forced by the Sri Lankan State to resettle in areas chosen by them Sri Lankan State. The IDPs were not allowed to go back to their own houses. They are in fact resettled in plastic tents without drinking water and sanitation facilities. The IDPs of Mutur east and Sampur areas are denied access to go to their own habitats and these areas have been defined by the GoSL as High Security Zones.
The Rights Group called upon the "international and UN representatives who visit Colombo, to also pay a visit to the Tamil homeland and to find out first hand the ground situation."
In her report Ms N Selvy said that she hopes "Ms Louise Arbour, UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mr. Manfred Novak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Mr. Walter Kalin, Representative of UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced People who are scheduled to visit Sri Lanka in October, November and December will not sideline the Tamil areas under our [LTTE's] administration."
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