THE genocidal Sri Lanka military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils is routinely engaged in repeated sexual abuse of the former female members of the LTTE to see them pregnant by the Sinhala soldiers says Tamil Net.
Many former female cadres of the LTTE are repeatedly abused with the aim of making them pregnant either in detention or by ‘summoning’ them after their so-called release.
When they refuse to cooperate with the ‘summons’, their family members are harmed.
Confirming the kind of genocide-intended pregnancies of ex-LTTE cadres, a senior doctor in the North said that he didn’t know what to do about it.
A recent case that had come to him had an eight-month pregnancy. She has now been handed over to the care of some nuns. ‘I don’t know what to do with most of the cases,’ the doctor said.
‘There is no international system to protect them in the island or provide refuge outside,’ the doctor further said, whose statement was also confirmed by a gender social worker in the island.
Sexual abuses are committed at two stages on the ex-cadres, first in the internment camps and then after the so-called release, the feminist social worker said.
The details of 2000 to 3000 female cadres who were captured by the SL military are not yet known. Whether they are alive or still kept in secret camps are not to be found in any local or international records.
The number of those who were captured and released does not tally. Colombo says there are only around 600 left in detention. What has happened to the remaining, asks the social worker.
The condition of senior female cadres is pathetic, the social worker said, citing reports of some released cadres. Many have been seen in the detention camps, but we do not know what had happened to them.
The second category of abuses takes place on those who were released. ‘Summoning’ them for interrogation and repeatedly abusing them has become routine and a past time in the SL military camps now. This happens widely in the SL bases and intelligence camps of Vavuniyaa and Jaffna, and in the camps of Vanni, the social worker told TamilNet.
In another recent incident in Jaffna, a young ex-cadre from Vanni wanted to hand over her 13-month old child to anyone who would take care of it. The child was a result of repeated abuse of the ‘interrogating’ military but she wanted the child to live, the victim said.
Commenting on the situation, TamilNet former war correspondent Mr. Lokeesan said that by the end of the war, young Sinhala soldiers of the genocidal military were given pornographic material to induce them to commit sexual abuses on the captured female LTTE cadres.
A Sinhala military cultivated to act in this way is now in the country of Eezham Tamils to stay, and the results could be imagined, he further commented.
The genocidal war is perhaps perpetuated by a system and not by individuals. But the world needs an international people’s tribunal to identify the ultimate elements of such a system to remedy it.
Meanwhile, those who whitewash the genocidal regime to the world with the hoodwink of Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation, do many times more harm to humanity than any fault they had found with the LTTE, social workers in the island said.
The following are further direct reports to TamilNet by a few among the affected who decided to talk:
‘I don’t like to live here. I may be in peace if I go elsewhere. Otherwise there is no option other than committing suicide with my entire family,’ says a tearful ex-LTTE female cadre. She has become a wreck by continued sexual abuse in the name of summons and interrogations by the occupying Sinhala military.
She was 6-months pregnant when she was released from the SLA internment camp, said her mother with a down-casted face.
We went to an illegal medical facility for abortion, her mother was sorrowful about it.
The ex-LTTE female cadres have come to their worst point of predicament now.
The occupying Sinhala military that summoned them earlier in the name of ‘monitoring and interrogation’, now openly summons them for its sexual needs, comments a social worker of an organisation for the emancipation of women in the North and East.
Many don’t tell the truth about the sexual abuses. This may be due to the cultural stigma. So they keep the sufferings within their mind and sulk secretly. When the situation is perpetuated they are pushed to the end of committing suicide. Many try all possibilities to get out of the island, the feminist social worker said.
The situation is the same for the so-called released female cadres, whether in Jaffna, Vanni or in the East, conceded another human rights worker in the island.
A female ex-LTTE cadre, Pallavi (name changed), told TamilNet of her experience when ‘summoned’ to a local camp.
When ‘summoned,’ one has to first wait for hours in the camp, facing lewd comments coming from the Sinhala soldiers. Then, a low-rank officer would come to carry out a sexual assault in the name of ‘interrogation,’ followed by the higher officer, if he is in the ‘mood’.
They behave totally in a sadistic way and it is very obvious that they get pleasure from our sufferings, Pallavi said.
Some of those ‘summoned’ to the local camps used to be sent to regional camps as well as bases in the towns. The story is the same everywhere.
The SL torture camp at Achchezhu in the Palaali base is a nightmare for former female cadres.
The Achchezhu torture camp is infamous for the ‘disappearances’ of thousands of Tamil youth since 1996. People in Jaffna call the camp the Slaughter House (I’raichchi-kadai). Sexual assault is a simple matter at this camp.
Another female ex-LTTE cadre came out with shocking facts on those who are taken to the Palaali base.
After being ‘summoned’ to the local camp and taken to regional and the Achchezhu camps, some are chosen to ‘meet’ the top officials at Palaali, the ex-cadre said.
When asked how it becomes possible to take them around without being seen by people, the ex-cadre said that they are taken in white vans or mini buses, sitting along with soldiers in civil dress, so that it would look as though they are passenger vehicles.
They have a large fleet of those white vans and such vehicles ply to and fro in the base without any hindrances, she said.
Narrating her experience of meeting higher officers at Palaali, another ex-cadre said that after tiring her by interrogation for three hours, she was given a cool drink. The drink sent her into a faint and she awoke to find that she had been sexually assaulted.
The fate of thousands of female cadres who were captured at the end of the war is not accounted for yet.
‘Many of us are psychological wrecks after release from the internment camps of the SL military. Many do not go out, meet people or even speak to their family members. Many live only for the sake of their children,’ says another female cadre.
‘I feel like fighting again. If I get a gun I would kill a particular lot before losing my life,’ swore another woman fighter who survived a suicide attempt after sexual assaults and harassments in the SL military camps.