Sri Lanka: Abductions and arrests by GoSL forces blurs into one

Tuesday, 20 November 2007

A young family man, Thangaratnam Balakrishnana, aged 35, of Selvapuram, Udappu in Mannar, was abducted from his home on Sunday 11 November. Seven armed men arriving in a white-van at midnight dragged him from his house and abducted him in the white-van.

The Inspector of Police for Munthal later said that the abducted man has been transferred to Colombo for investigations.

This demonstrates how the GoSL forces are openly employing abductions at midnight as a legitimate police action.

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KTK said:

http://hotspringspress.blogspo...gn-to.html

Dear Editor, Please make a Siber News page for above link

Thank you

Sri Lanka ratchets campaign to discredit HRW

In a bid to shred off the news of the recent embarrassment from 'smuggling' Karuna, from the island to the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry seems to be on a witch hunt after a recent visit of the Human Rights Group to Colombo.

Karuna, a former Tamil Tiger commander and later the leader of TMVP
paramilitary group has been deployed by the Sri Lankan forces to fight Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE alongside government troops. Relationship between HRW and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) suffered after HRW documented that GoSL is aiding in human rights abuses of the paramilitary group.

A group of Human Rights Watch (HRW) officials visited Colombo last
week for the release of a report on abuses faced by Sri Lankan migrant workers, and now the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry is making inquiries to the effect that the rights group had violated local visa regulations.

A report in the Daily Mirror on Monday Nov 19th said that "the HRW
officials, including its Legal director, James Ross, had reportedly
arrived on a tourist visa and had not sought Foreign Ministry approval to carry out their duties in the country including the holding of a press conference to release the report or carry out any research"

The HRW has well documented human rights abuses by the Karuna group and its link to sections of the Government of Sri Lanka. HRW is also seen in the forefront of pressing for trying Karuna on war crimes charges in Britain.

Fearing a pummeling effect from such a trial, as details will emerge
of kidnapping and killing of Tamil business persons, journalists,
parliamentarians and academics, enforced disappearances, taking
ransom, killing of non governmental organization workers of Action
Faim, Tamils Rehabilitation Organization, Halo Trust and Red Cross the Sri Lanka authorities seem to be gearing on their usual campaign - of discrediting anyone who exposes the graft plagued Rajapakse government in the international arena.

The issuance of diplomatic passport to Karuna will have ripened suspicions in diplomatic circles that several government ministers and ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party members are engaged in human trafficking as official entourages on overseas trips. Even President Mahinda Rajapakse traveled to New York to attend the opening of the annual UN sessions in September with huge delegations. How many of these people actually return to the country? - This is the question that is bound to arise these days in consular offices in Colombo. Several countries will now be examining who else, potentially with alleged human rights violations were smuggled out on diplomatic passports and other means by Sri Lanka.

UN officials Allan Rock and Louise Arbour and several other
international officials are being called 'White Tigers' in the Sri Lankan government controlled press, for seeing Sri Lankan government role in rights violations in the island. Sri Lankan government and its allies, hard-line religious monk party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) continue their accusation of the West for having a "conspiracy to discredit Sri Lanka ". Even the recent alleged misconduct by Sri Lankan soldiers as UN Blue helmets in Haiti, is part of this plot they say.

2007-11-21 03:50:47

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