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The panel of experts on war crimes in Sri Lanka, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced in March, is supposed to complete its work within four months of formally beginning. On September 14, Inner City Press (ICP) asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky why the panel had not yet even begun. Nesirky replied that it would be held Thursday afternoon. ICP reported that the meeting was not listed on Ban's schedule while several similar meetings were listed.
“Not everything is on the schedule,” Nesirky replied. What is the purpose of publishing the schedule that, if a meeting about war crimes is not listed?, ICP asked. “There are any number of reasons some things are on the schedule and some things are not,” Nesirky said. “Internal meetings typically are not,” ICP said quoting Nesirky.
The members of the war-crimes advisory panel, Marzuki Darusman, a former Attorney General from Indonesia, Yasmin Sooka, Member of South Africa's Truth Commisssion, and Steven Ratner, Law professor at Michigan University, US, were given 4-month period by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to complete the first report. The panel was announced in March, the panel met for the first time on 20th July, but the official start date has not been announced.
There were also questions on conflict of interest related to Sri Lanka. Ban's son in law, Siddarth Chatterjee served in the Indian Peace Keeping force in Sri Lanka while serving as an Indian Army officer. ICP said it is waiting confirmation on this matter from Nesirky.
The delegation led by Neil Buhne, the UN Resident Representative and Human Coordinator, accompanied by representatives of European Union, met Batticaloa district Government Agent (GA) Suntharam Arumainayagam Wednesday and discussed matters related to the development of Batticaloa district, Batticaloa District Secretariat sources said. Meanwhile, the resettled families in Paduvaankarai complained that though Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, the Sri Lanka Deputy Minister, says that funds have been allocated for the supply of drinking water to them every time he comes to Batticaloa nothing has been done, the sources added. Lack of drinking water is the most serious problem the resettled families in Paduvaankarai face.
The UN and EU representatives were particularly interested in finding whether the funds allocated by UN and other foreign institutions are being utilized for the resettlement and development activities in Paduvaankarai and Vaakarai in Batticaloa district.
The GA had told the visiting team of the immediate need for improvement in the supply of dry food relief ration to the resettled families.
He had also explained to them that housing, education, health, irrigation, electricity, infrastructures and livelihoods in Batticaloa district need development.
Around 62 persons including Sri Lankan policemen, civilians and reportedly four Chinese nationals have been killed in a massive explosion that rocked the Karadiyanaru area, situated 20 km northwest of Batticaloa city, Friday around 12:30 p.m. Containers with explosives parked close the police station exploded destroying the entire police station, initial reports said. The explosion also affected the nearby hospital. There were at least three containers with dynamites intended for road construction which was operated by Chinese workers, the reports further said. Around 100 persons, including engineers from the South, wounded in the blast were being rushed to hospital. STF personnel and Ex LTTE members deployed in the construction work under Colombo's publicized rehabilitation programme were likely among the victims, a local NGO official told reporters in Colombo.
Sri Lankan Police officials ruled out the possibility of sabotage and maintained that it was a tragic accident. Meanwhile, officials at the hospital have been instructed to remain tight-lipped on casualty details.
Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) personnel and police have been rushed to the area.
The Karadiyaana'ru police station was completely destroyed as well as several other buildings in the area.
The injured were being admitted to the Batticoloa Government hospital and they were being treated for burn injuries, police and hospital officials said.
The explosives-laden containers were part of the Eastern Province development programme.
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) have constructed many bases and camps in the properties of uprooted families and on the costal villages of Vadamaraadchi East using the roofing, door and windows plundered from the shops and houses left by the residents, persons who visited the area said. The areas from Naakarkoayil to Kaddaikkaadu are fully occupied by SLA and SLN, they further said. Meanwhile, Jaffna Government Agent Ms. Imelda Sukumar has announced that uprooted families from Vadamaraadchi East will be taken to their own places in the second stage of the resettlement plan and that Jaffna SLA Command had given permission for the resettlement.
The uprooted families who were taken from Raamaavil and Kundaththanai camps are now lodged in Chempianpattu Government Tamil Mixed School, Uduththu'rai Makaaa Viththiyaalayam, Maruthangkea'ni Hindu Makaa Viththiyaalayam and Thaazhaiyadi government hospital which had been under the control of Liberation Tigers before the war.
The families were told that they will be resettled in places excluding some parts in Kaddaikkaadu, Vettilaikkea’ni, Thaazhaiyadi and Naakarkoayil.
Jaffna GA said that nearly 3,500 uprooted families staying with their relatives and friends in Vadamaraadchi will be taken to Vadamraadchi East for resettlement in the second stage of resettlement plan.
The 3,500 families are staying now in places from Valveddiththu’rai to Kattkoava’lam in Vadamaraadchi North and in Ma’nattkaadu, Kudaththanai and Ampan in Vadmaraadchi East which had been under the control of SLA during the war.
Meanwhile, the families lodged in the schools and hospitals say that they will look after themselves if they are allowed to resettle in their own properties and engage in their traditional livelihood of fishing.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman and Jaffna district parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran said that a group of TNA parliamentarians will be visiting Valikaamam North Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied High Security Zone (HSZ) once they get the permission from Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence. Meanwhile, Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka minister and brother of SL President Mahinda Rjapaksa who is in Jaffna has again said that the families uprooted from Valikaamam North by SLA will be allowed to resettle in their places excluding the surroundings of Palaali Airport, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA authorities have already marked places in Palaali to construct housing schemes for the colonization of Sinhala families in the lands of Tamils evicted by SLA, sources in Palaali said.
SL government ministers including Basil Rajapaksa had promised to resettle the uprooted families in Valikaamam North during Presidential and General elections but the promises had been not kept.
SL government plans to colonize the area surrounding Palaali Airport with families of Sinhala SLA personnel and Sinhala prisoners, the sources further said.
Families of Sinhala workers who had been brought to work in Kaangkeasanthu’rai harbour too are to be given houses in the above scheme.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government has given the Sinhala name of ‘Okkalappadduva’ for the road from Keerimalai to the recently erected Buddhist temple in Thiruvadinilai in Maathakal.
Gilberto Jordan, 54, a former Guatemalan soldier was sentenced to 10 years in prison for failing to reveal his participation in the 1982 killings of at least 162 villagers at Dos Erres during the de facto presidency of General Efraín Ríos Montt. Guatemalan Government soldiers allegedly killed nearly 200,000 indigenous and Mayan people as part of the Guatamalan Government's scorched earth policy.
Jordan was arrested in Florida in May, 2010 and charged with immigration offences, and pleaded guilty to lying on his naturalisation forms, which allowed him to become an American citizen in 1999.
Jordan is believed to have entered the US illegally through Mexico in 1985 before settling in Boca Raton, Florida, where he worked as a cook at a country club, BBC reported.
Jordan belonged to a Guatemalan special forces unit, known as the Kaibiles, which the prosecution said murdered the villagers at Dos Erres by shooting them, hitting them on the head with a hammer, or throwing them alive into a well.
In 2000, the Guatemalan government acknowledged responsibility for the killings, and promised to compensate the victims' families. The massacre was one of the most deadly incidents in the 36-year conflict between the Guatemalan army and left-wing guerrillas, which ended with a peace accord in 1996.
Sri Lanka military has been able to remove only 10% of the total area in which mines are suspected to have been buried, state-run Sinhala daily Dinamina reported. According to the article, Sri Lanka military has decided to accelerate the mine removal program.
The move is said to have been given focus due to the plans to resettle nearly 28,000 internally displaced persons in Mullaitivu areas during the three decade old war, the paper said, quoting Sri Lanka Army (SLA) spokesperson Major General Ubhaya Madawala.
Jars, Black and Red ware pottery and some timber sections were found in 2008 at a depth of 31 metres under sea, at a probable shipwreck site around 3 km off the coast of Godawaya, between Hambantota and Ambalantota in the Southern Province. Earlier, divers retrieved a stone bench having symbols engraved on it from the site. Stone pillars, probably remains of an old maritime structure were excavated and reported in 2001 at Godawaya fishing village, while a stone anchor was found in the sea near the coast in 2003. A late Brahmi inscription of 2nd century CE found on a rock at the Buddhist temple of Godawaya gives the ancient name of the port as Goda-pavata Patana, which is largely Dravidian mixed with Prakrit
He cited the Late Brahmi inscription found at Godawaya, recorded by S. Paranavitana earlier, in which the old name Goda-pavata Patana is found.
The Late Brahmi inscription found on a rock at the Buddhist temple at Godawaya. The marked part in the inscription gives the ancient name of the port, Goda-pavata Patana. [Image courtesy: archaeology.lk. Marking by TamilNet]
“The name Godapawatha, Gota pabbata or Godawaya means, mountain with boulders (Gota – Short and round / Pabbata – Rocky Mountain),” the archaeology.lk article says (see link below).
The interpretation of the place name brought out in the article may need modification and further explanation to understand its significance, an academic comment received by TamilNet said.
The comments follow:
The inscription clearly gives the spelling of the prefix as Goda and not as Gota.
Goda in Sinhala means heap, mass or land at water’s edge. Godæalla in Sinhala is hill, mound or rising ground. Goda is a very popular place name component in Sinhala in the names of places having rocks, hillocks, rocky hills, peaks and banks. In this sense, Goda also means a village or hamlet in Sinhala.
As Goda, in one shade of its meaning stands for land at water’s edge, the verb Godabaanawaa in Sinhala means, to unship, to unload, to land, to disembark etc.
Stone anchor found in the sea near Godawaya. [Image courtesy: archaeology.lk]
Small stone bench found in the seabed at the site of a probable shipwreck, 31 metres deep and 3km off the coast of Godawaya. [Image courtesy: archaeology.lk]
The symbols engraved on the stone bench found at the probable shipwreck site. Keeping the Srivatsa symbol at the centre, Nandipada, fish and ladder are on either side. [Image courtesy: archaeology.lk]
Ruins on the Godawaya hillock. [Image courtesy: Google Earth]
The present stupa at Godawaya hillock. [Image courtesy: Google Earth]
Location of Godawaya at the old mouth of river Walawe Ganga, between Hambantota and Ambalantota. [Image courtesy: Google Earth, Legend: TamilNet]
Koadu was widely used in toponymic context in the Changkam Tamil literature. It is still found in the place names of the extreme south of Tamil Nadu (ex: Vi’lavang-koadu), and more popularly in the Malayalam place names (Ex: Koazhik-koad, Kaasara-goad).
The other component ‘Pavata’ in the name of the ancient port is a Prakrit form of Sanskrit ‘Parvata’, which means a hill or mountain.
The suffix Patana is a cognate of Tamil Paddinam, which means a port, port town, coastal village or small town, and is listed as a Dravidian word (Dravidian Etymological Dictionary 3868).
Goda-pavata Patana, found in the Brahmi inscription as the ancient name for Godawaya, therefore means ‘the port-town of the rock-hill’ or ‘the port-town of the coastal hill’.
It may even simply mean ‘the port of the hillock’ if Goda and Pavata are treated as Dravidian and Prakrit synonyms put together.
The inscription is in Prakrit language and it refers to the donation of the customs duties of the port to the Vihara (Buddhist monastery) at that place by king Gama’ni Abaya.
However, the place name having strong Dravidian elements in it may be suggestive that the substratum was Dravidian and the use of Prakrit in the inscription was the trend of elitism at that time, which was progressing in the replacement of language.
Interestingly, the Prakrit repetition ‘Pavata’ is dropped in the place name today, while the Dravidian ‘Goda’ survives in Godawaya, which means the expanse or stretch of the rocky hillock (Godava-yaaya > Godawaya). Perhaps with the decline of the port the Patana part is also lost.
The rocky hillock at Godawaya facing the coast, where the Buddhist temple and the inscription are located, is 58 meters high, and is the highest spot in the stretch.
Among the finds of the probable shipwreck, the small stone bench has some interesting symbols engraved on it. At the centre of the panel could be found the symbol of Srivatsa, a stylized form of Sri or Lakshmi seated. This symbol is pan South Asian since protohistoric times.
Immediately on either side of Srivatsa in the panel, there are Nandipada (bull head) symbols, then there are fish symbols on either side and finally symbols of ladder on either side. All these symbols are also known as graffiti marks in the megalithic and early historic pottery.
Near Godawaya, at Ridiyagama in the estuary of the river Walawe Ganga, large quantities of Black and Red pottery incised with megalithic graffiti marks were found in the 1990s by Osmund Bopearchchi and other archaeologists.
Many early coins with Tamil Brahmi legends were found at Tissamaharama in the same Hambantota district and some of them were identified as belonging to the Changkam rulers of the ancient Tamil country.
At Tisamaharama an inscribed Black and Red Ware piece, dateable to c. 200 BCE was found in the excavations. The legend in Tamil Brahmi script and Tamil language found on it infers the presence of ordinary people speaking Tamil in that region at that time. But this significant find was not included in the excavation report and was brought to light only recently, when I. Mahadevan wrote on it in June.
Godawaya located at the old mouth of the river Walawe Ganga. Note the rocky hillock marked by a circular road. The maximum height of the hillock is 58 meters above Mean Sea Level. [Image courtesy: Google Earth]
A Tamil youth was abducted by a group of unidentified persons from his house located in Thiruchchenthoor in Kalladi in Batticaloa district Wednesday night. The victim has been identified Munusamy Narenthiran, 30, according to complaints made to the police.
The gang arrived in a vehicle and took him by force while his relatives started shouting, sources said.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Thursday refused to give consent to the opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint TNA parliamentarian, M. N. Sumanthiran as his nominee to the Parliamentary Council constituted under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. TNA media spokesman and Jaffna district parliamentarian said Ranil Wickremesinghe wanted the party’s consent to appoint Sumanthiran. TNA has informed Ranil Wickremasinghe that it has opposed the 18th amendment and it will boycott the Parliamentary Council.
Under the 18th Amendment, a five member Parliamentary Council comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, a nominee of the Prime Minister and a nominee of the Leader of the Opposition is to be set up.
Non-government Organizations in Jaffna peninsula accuse Sri Lanka government to have abandoned most of the uprooted families resettled in Jaffna peninsula without providing them adequate assistance for rehabilitation. 82,000 uprooted persons had been resettled in Jaffna peninsula so far, according to Jaffna Secretariat statistics. Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 persons uprooted from Valikaamam North High Security Zone of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) twenty years ago continue to stay with their relatives, friends and in camps not allowed by SLA to resettle in their own properties.
Altogether 81,578 persons of 27,401 uprooted families have been resettled in Jaffna peninsula.
The highest number of persons is resettled in the islets of Jaffna – 11,526 persons of 3,669 families while in Thenmaraadchi area 10,543 persons of 3,581 families are resettled.
5,411 persons of 1,732 families have returned to their houses in Thenmaraadchi and 4,128 persons of 1,112 families have been resettled in the villages located on the outskirts of SLA High Security Zone in Valikaamam North.
The most affected among the resettled people are the families uprooted from Vanni during the war as Sri Lanka government had left them on their own after paying them the first payment of Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 25,000 as final payment as assistance to begin their lives.
The uprooted families from Vanni too are temporarily staying with their relatives and friends in Jaffna peninsula.
The NGOs in Jaffna peninsula due to limitations imposed on them by Sri Lanka government in getting funds from abroad are unable to help the abandoned families to help them engage in livelihoods, NGO sources said.
Sri Lanka government should take responsibility for the abductions that have taken place after the war in Eastern Province, the propaganda secretary of Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP), a political-cum-paramilitary party led by Eastern Province Chief Minister, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, said in a meeting held in Kommaanththu’rai in Batticaloa district. Meanwhile, Batticaloa district residents said that armed men alleged to be Pillayan group and Karuna group abduct persons and rob houses in the outskirt villages of the district. Karnuna group is also a political-cum-paramilitary party led by Sri Lanka minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna.
TMVP member of Batticaloa Municipal Council, Pragasam Sgayamani alias Killi Master had been abducted on 23rd August 2010 but so far the police had not found him, Jegan, the TMVP secretary said.
Sgayamani’s wife had been threatened to give up demonstrating her protest against the abduction by immolating herself and her two children in front Batticaloa Municipal Council, he said.
She had said in her complaint to police that it was the Intelligence wing men of Sri Lanka Army who had abducted her husband, he added.
Jegan further said that the delay in tracing the abducted member raises suspicion against Sri Lanka government involvement in the abduction of Sagayamani.
The Sri Lankan Government has ordered Daniel Horgan, security coordination officer of Nonviolent Peaceforce, a foreign NGO, to leave Sri Lanka immediately, the Sinhala language Divaina newspaper said in an article. The order was made when Horgan sent in his papers seeking renewal of his visa to continue his work in Sri Lanka.
In July, government also deported a Canadian national who functioned as the director of the Nonviolent Peaceforce organization and Ali Palh Ahamed, a Pakistani national attached to the organization to leave Sri Lanka.
Accordingly, steps were taken to ensure that both the Canadian and Pakistani nationals will not be able to return to Sri Lanka again in future for any matter.
Nonviolent Peaceforce is an unarmed, professional civilian peacekeeping force that is invited to work in conflict zones worldwide. With international headquarters in Brussels, Nonviolent Peaceforce has worked in the conflict areas of Sri Lanka extensively. Among other activities, it works with local groups to foster dialogue among parties in conflict, provide a proactive presence and safe spaces for civilians, and develop local capacity to prevent violence. Its staff includes veterans of conflict zones and experienced peacekeepers.
The Divaina newspaper article claimed that, the Intelligence units has obtained information that the Nonviolent Peaceforce has been involved in certain internal affairs with related to Sri Lanka which has been seen as detrimental against Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
Sri Lanka government which had not contributed to the development of Jaffna district in any significant manner is showing off the development activities in Jaffna peninsula funded by World Bank and Asian Development Bank as if it is spending its own money on them, government officials who participated in SL government’s Jaffna District Development Meeting (DDM) held in Jaffna Secretariat Wednesday said. The meeting was similar to the earlier ones where on going development activities and future plans for development were just ‘explored’ into without any concrete allocation of funds for them. On the whole it was lip service paid to the ‘development of North’ Sri Lanka government claims to be interested in, they added.
Meanwhile, Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka minister and brother of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during the meeting twice thanked the Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians Suresh Premachandran, Saravanabavan and Sumanthiran for attending DDM held in Jaffna Secretariat conference hall from Wednesday morning till evening, sources in Jaffna said.
The TNA parliamentarians later told local media that they had stressed on the immediate need to resettle the families evicted by Sri Lanka Army from its High Security Zone in Valikaamam North and they had discussed the issue deeply in the meeting.
Jaffna district TNA parliamentarians had abstained from attending meetings of the above nature held by Sri Lanka government in the past.
Suresh Premachandran had issued a message to local media earlier on TNA’s intention of attending Sri Lanka government meetings in the future.
Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Sri Lanka Minister Douglas Devananda attended the meeting presided by Basil Rajapaksa.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Wednesday left via London to United States of America (USA). Mr. Rajapaksa left few days in advance for personal reasons, informed sources in Colombo said. He will take part in both the plenary meeting of the General Assembly of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the sessions of UN General Assembly.
Rajapaksa is listed as the seventh speaker to address the UN General Assembly on September 22.
He will be away till September 29. He is expected to make private visits to Mexico and Germany, the sources further said.
More than 100 Upcountry Tamil families were displaced after Sinhalese estate workers burnt their houses and properties in Kiribatgala rubber plantation in Nivithigala in Ratnapura district Monday night. The attack on Tamils comes following the killing of a Sinhala estate watcher who was found dead Monday after being abducted by unidentified persons Sunday night. Tension prevails between in the district following the outbreak of the violence. Tamils in the district complain that they have been increasingly targeted by Sinhala mobs in recent times.
Over 200 persons belonging to the Tamil families living in Dela division in the Kiribatgala estate has taken refuge in the neighbouring estates.
Tamils in the area have been subjected to threats for a long time.
Sinhala hoodlums in Rakwana town in the district have been targeting Tamil women who return home after work in garment factories, and rob them of their gold jewelry and other valuable articles. At least ten such incidents were reported throughout the past 4 years.
Three years ago, in February 2007, seven houses of Tamils were allegedly burnt down by a Sinhala mob.
Tamil passengers in a bus were severely assaulted by a group of Sinhalese in December 2006 in the Sinhala town of Nivitigala.
In April 2006, Sinhala attackers destroyed 84 housing units of Tamil plantation workers in Bambegama Estate in the district.
In mid 2006, Tamil workers in Depidin estate in Rakwana were intimidated and warned.
A. Muller-Elschner, the legal secretary to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said in a letter to the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET), the democratically elected country council of Eezham Tamils in Switzerland, that the European Court will take up the case against the appointment of ex-SLA commander Jagath Dias as a diplomat to the Sri Lanka embassy in Germany. SCET, the Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) and the US based NGO, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), had filed an application to the ECHR in July 2010 charging the German government for violating EU Rights conventions by accepting a Sri Lankan military commander, Major General Jagath Dias, an accused in the war crimes.
Arulnithila Deivendran of Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils who signed the charging papers sent to the ECHR told TamilNet: "The acknowledgement by the European Court of the acceptance of our pleading document (No. 45279/10) and the impending proceedings represent a substantial victory for the Swiss and Norwegian Tamils. This is likely to spur other active Tamil groups to pursue legal efforts until all ex-SLA commanders who are alleged to have committed war crimes are brought to justice in Courts outside Sri Lanka."
Sri Lanka has recently announced its desire to send several ex-SLA commanders with alleged complicity in war-crimes to different diplomatic posts outside Sri Lanka. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on Colombo's effort said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."
While similar legal efforts are underway in Norway and Denmark, spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group key to the legal efforts, said: "TAG is preparing a legal brief for submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which argues that Vienna convention allows interpretation of the ICC-governing Rome Statute to provide discretionary powers to the ICC prosecutor to investigate non-signatory countries that alleged to have committed torture, war-crimes, and crimes against humanity. This legal argument, if successful, would remove the remaining hurdle to haul countries such as Sri Lanka before the ICC."
Following the filing of a complaint against the Federal Republic of Germany for violating the ‘European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’ in accepting Maj. Gen. (retd.) Jegath, Hon. Von Schubert, met with a delegation of the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET) led by Tharsika Pakeerathan, the president of SCET, on the 28th July in Bern, Switzerland.
Some influential Sri Lanka government politicians and Sinhala traders from South are exploiting the fishermen of Jaffna peninsula not allowing them to take their catches South for sale, Fisheries Societies in Jaffna peninsula accuse. Fish now being caught in large quantity exceed local consumption and the fishermen are forced to dry them as the export to South is a monopoly of SL government politicians like SL Minister Douglas Devananda and his supporters, they said.
The persons close to Douglas Devananda make millions of rupees buying fish and dried fish at a much cheaper rate from local fishermen and selling them at a higher price in the South.
The profit thus made is enormous in exporting delicacies like lobsters caught in large quantity particularly in the islets of Jaffna occupied and controlled by Sri Lanka Navy.
