When gunmen killed the Changkaanai temple priest in 2010, the commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, first accused former LTTE cadres, later said SL Army gun borrowed from corrupt troops was used by former LTTE carders, and subsequently all the arrested – two SLA personnel and two alleged former militants were released by the courts.
A pattern is now seen in producing cases in the courts related to the murder of two Eezham Tamils, a UK deportee and a Canadian citizen in Trincomalee and in Ki’linochchi. Media in Colombo is busy in highlighting the SL prosecution version of personal motivation, once again involving SL military personnel in one case and former militants in the other, to exclude the responsibility of top SL military command.
The anxiety seen in the SL prosecution to come out with a bundle of contradicting evidence and the agitation seen in the SL government-run or regime-supporting Colombo media in attacking alternative media that comes out with ground facts, are just because the cases involve two Western countries with the presence of a large Tamil diaspora.
It became important that the genocidal military establishment of Sri Lanka and the abetting establishments have to be exonerated.
Just a few days before the Ki’linochchi murder of the Canadian citizen, 28-year-old Sivarooban Sivagnanam, returning from Qatar was brutally slayed by a squad at Vathiri junction in Jaffna, very near to a SL military camp. May be because he was a West Asian returnee, no ‘international’ or Colombo media took any notice. The victim posthumously escaped from some woman coming into his case and some ‘former LTTE cadres’ also escaped from getting arrested.
Former SL Attorney General and current advisor to the regime, Mohan Peiris totally personalises the killings and other crimes and says that they are just signs of the return of ‘normalcy’ in a territory where for the last 29 years “there was no room for criminal activity by civilians.”
In the given context, the larger picture of what is achieved by the killings, terrorisation and other crimes only could lead to trace the culprits responsible.
The Changkaanai priest was killed at a time when the Saiva temples were terrorised not to toll bells or remember the heroes laid down their lives to the cause of Eezham Tamils. Later, a series of killings took place related to singing ‘national’ anthem in Sinhala, students’ movements, land grabs etc., besides simply for the purpose of terrorisation and silencing the masses. Now, the diaspora-returnee killings and their case-handling have deep purposes and messages.
Three weeks back TamilNet reported on the arrests made on the killing of the Canadian Tamil and on the efforts of the SL prosecution in ‘fixing’ the case.
SL Ministry of Defence and Colombo media last week attacked TamilNet for blaming the SL government and its security forces for the murder and said that the murder was carried out by an ex-LTTE cadre at the instance of his ‘illicit lover’ having the ambition of stealing the victim’s money.
On the UK deportee’s murder in Trincomalee, the SL defence website, once again attacking TamilNet, said that the wife of the victim [in UK] arranged the murder through her ‘illicit lover’ in Trincomalee who is a pilot.
There must be something wrong, if such killings bringing in larger results are carried out by former LTTE or corrupt SL military personnel as alleged, especially when the ‘rehabilitation’ of the former LTTE cadres is entirely left in the hands of the occupying SL military with the full blessings of the so-called international community and India.
In that case, the foremost action needed is liberating the former LTTE cadres from the clutches of the occupying Sinhala military and leaving their rehabilitation in the hands of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
But a careful pattern of the prosecution of the cases would show that while on one hand the occupying military and those who direct it achieve larger purposes of terrorisation, subjugation, land grab, structural genocide and total annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils through such crimes, on the other hand they demonstrate their ability of getting impunity and demonstrate with ridicule the futility of Tamils thinking of judicial remedy.
Last week, the occupying Sinhala military that has appropriated a Tamil village of 183 families in Ki’linochchi to build houses and settle ex-Sinhala military personnel and their families, has gone to intimidate all the Tamil families individually, to withdraw their case against appropriation.
TamilNet has always been pointing out top-level Sri Lanka military hands in the happenings of the North and East fully occupied by the military. The Sunday Observer of the Daily News group run by SL government and The Island supporting the genocidal Sinhala regime in Colombo, tried to discredit TamilNet last week, citing the SL prosecution in the murder cases and the version of the SL defence website.
Colombo is capable of twisting and denying even a whole genocide in which 150,000 Tamils went unaccounted. The world has seen how the Tamil doctors who served in the killing fields were made to give false evidence. The present murder cases are nothing for such a regime.
The impunity enjoyed by the top level of Sri Lanka military begins from the top echelons of the world establishments.
The US has led a resolution passed in the UNHRC for domestic investigation of war crimes in the island and India is one of the three countries elected by the UNHRC to monitor and report progress.
Last week, the top commander of the US military, Martin Dempsey and the Indian Defence Minister AK Anthony chose to privately meet the known war-crimes-accused Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in Singapore to militarily aid the naval project of the shark-petting SL defence secretary.
Guided by strategic interests, if impunity to the war crimes accused is implied at such a high level, how to expect justice in the judicial proceedings of seemingly petty but strategically calculated crimes, is the question of Eezham Tamils.