WOMEN activists and Tamil youth activists of the missing persons’ relatives campaign concluded a three-day fast and a four-day walk from Mu’l’livaaykkaal in Vanni to Nalloor on Monday.
The action, which coincided with International Women’s Day over the weekend, was the latest step in intensifying their protest demanding international investigations into their missing relatives.
They demand that these investigations are held without internal manipulations by Colombo and they also condemn the failure of the new regime in Colombo to issue the details on the whereabouts of their kith and kin who were subjected to enforced disappearance by the occupying Sri Lankan military.
The Sri Lanka military harassed the activists at various places in Vanni as they were walking from Mu’l’livaaykkaal to Nalloor.
A new organisation, named Chilampu (symbolising the epic anklet of the legendary Tamil woman Kannagi’s struggle for justice) has been formed.
Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, speaking on International Women’s Day, said: ‘We seek global support for the demands of international investigations on Tamil genocide and complete de-militarisation of the North-East.
‘We also call upon the global community to demand the Sri Lankan state to release all Tamil political prisoners and to clarify the status of the missing persons without further delay,’ said the statement which was issued on Sunday.
Protests were organised in Ki’linochchi by the families of the victims of enforced disappearances in support of the fasting campaign by mothers at Naloor and the walk by Tamil activists.
The occupying military also harassed the Tamil youth activists on the march. The SL military questioned the activists at several places and refused to allow them to walk during the night.
Patrolling troops repeatedly threatened them with arrest and attempted to prohibit them from using their handheld loudspeaker.
Hundreds of Tamil villagers took to the streets at Paranthan when the SL military was harassing them and trying to prevent them from proceeding further.
The people warned the SL military that they would also join the protest if the youth were not allowed to proceed.
Meanwhile, family members of 800 Tamil youth who were forcefully disappeared in Jaffna peninsula by the occupying Sri Lankan military under Chandrika Kumaratunga’s rule between 1996 and 1998 have resumed their protest.
The youth disappeared when Tamils returned to Jaffna peninsula, which was seized by the SL military in 1995 through Operation Riviressa.
The family members, who have been struggling to know the whereabouts of their kith and kin for years and were looking for answers through international investigations, revived their protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat last Wednesday.
They did so after learning that the United Nations, under the influence of Washington and New Delhi, is now trying to promote the domestic investigation mechanism of Colombo by diluting the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) process from evolving into international investigations.
The protesting family members demanded a direct appointment with SL president Maithiripala Sirisena through the Sri Lankan Government Agent (SLGA) in Jaffna.
After standing out and protesting for one hour from 10.30am last Wednesday, the protesting mothers then forcefully entered the office room of the SLGA and demanded an appointment with SL president.
The mothers said they had no trust in internal investigations. One of the protesting mothers told TamilNet that the families had collected 10,000 signatures in 1998 demanding excavations of Chemma’ni mass graves.
‘We have done all possible protests in the past. Now, we were expecting justice through international mechanisms.
‘We are disturbed by the fact that the UN is also diluting the delivery of international justice by trusting Colombo to conduct domestic investigations,’ the mother said.
In 1998, a Sri Lankan soldier, Lance Corporal Somaratne Rajapaksa, who was convicted for the rape and murder of Tamil girl K Krishanthi, had revealed to the courts that between 300-400 people who disappeared after the Sri Lanka army took control of the Jaffna peninsula were buried in these graves.
Last Wednesday, the protesting mothers in Jaffna said that all internal investigations under Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe have previously failed and that they had no trust in domestic mechanisms.
Some of the activists who were spearheading the protest under the Missing Persons’ Guardian Association (MPGA) in late 1990s have now passed away.
The protesters marched towards SL governor’s office and to the office of the Chief Minister of Northern Province.
NPC (Northern Provincial Council) Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran met the protesting mothers and received their appeal.
The families said most of the missing in 1996-1998 were either arrested by the SL military at Naavatkuzhi entry point to Jaffna or abducted by white-van squads that were roaming the streets of occupied Jaffna.
The protesters condemned TNA politicians for failing to express solidarity with their protest despite their direct invitation to several TNA politicians in Jaffna.
NPC Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan was the only TNA politician to be present and she said she took part in the protest as a victim and not as a politician.
Meanwhile, the Inner City Press (IPC) last Tuesday questioned the UN spokesperson in New York over whether the UN would confirm receiving the Genocide Resolution passed by the Northern Provincial Council given to the UN Under-Secretary General Jeffrey Feltman, who visited Jaffna the previous day. The spokesperson said: ‘I will.’
Last Wednesday, the ICP asked again what Feltman would do with the genocide resolution and the question went unanswered, according to ICP.
In ‘seeking truth,’ when the Colombo government came out with the LLRC report that paves way for a structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, the report was ‘accepted’ by the UN as model for its Geneva deliberations.
But, when the NPC came out with the resolution on investigating protracted genocide, the visiting UN official questioned the NPC Chief Minister as to ‘why this resolution now?’
In 2013, the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navanetham Pillay, visiting the island, claimed that no-one uttered the word ‘genocide’ to her during her visit, despite confirmed reports that she was categorically told about the genocide by people whom she met.
Last Monday, when news reporters in Jaffna asked the NPC Chief Minister, Justice C.V. Wigneswaran whether he had submitted the NPC resolution on genocide to the visiting UN Under-Secretary General, he replied that the resolution was among the documents he submitted to the visiting official.
The highest UN official, who was dealing with the war that had a genocidal end, was Ban Ki-moon’s Chef de Cabinet, Vijay K. Nambiar, an Indian diplomat.
Now the highest UN official, the Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, dealing with the Geneva deliberations, is a US diplomat.
Last Tuesday night, a section of Tamil youth activists in Jaffna, perceiving collaboration with deception by a hierarchical section of the ITAK that was ‘articulating’ in Vavuniyaa in a Central Committee meeting on Sunday, responded by hanging effigies of M.A. Sumanthiran, who has been vocal in recent days in advocating ‘domestic investigation with UN supervision’, instead of an international investigation by the UN.
