Sri Lanka: Military Annexation Of Sampur A Complete Collapse Of CFA?

"..Neither party to the CFA has a right to adopt retaliatory measures. The parties must report any violation to the SLMM for appropriate action or give two weeks' notice to withdraw from the agreement. Defying this stipulation, unilaterally commencing a retaliatory attack is a gross breach of the CFA. In addition, the attack by government forces on civilian targets, causing death and extensive damage to civilian property, making people destitute is a humanitarian violation and is a war crime under Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 2 ( c ) and 2(e). International Humanitarian Law does not permit warring parties to attack civilian targets and civilian lives. The "retaliatory action" directed on civilian targets in Trincomalee-Batticaloa areas on 25-26 April are the actions of a terrorist state intent on terrorising the Tamil people into submission..."

"This is the second urgent appeal the IFT, International Federation of Tamils is making to the IC, International Community within a week... In complete contrast to the statement made by the military spokesman on the killing of five teenage boys in Trincomalee that they were LTTE cadres killed accidentally in a blast while assembling an incendiary with an intent to attack a military installation, the autopsy made by the state medical officers on their bodies, has revealed that they were shot through their ears at a very close range....A spokesperson for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Helen Olafsdottir, told BBC Sandesaya, that there was evidence that all five students had been shot in the head in a manner she described as resembling “executions.”...The IFT considers this a war declared by the Sri Lanka Government .. Unarmed civilians need protection against a vindictive armed state." more

"...More than 920 Tamils have been arrested and detained in Colombo alone in one overnight search. Sri Lanka armed forces are descending on Tamil homes in the middle of the night, privacy of the Tamil bedrooms is trespassed, men and women, young and old, in their night-clothes are bundled up in awaiting vehicles and taken away for interrogation and detention. Although the government tells the international media that many are being released after an identity check-up, they are being arrested over and over again, and subjected to an ordeal of being fingerprinted, photographed, and videoed..."

"International Federation of Tamils (IFT) strongly condemns the despicable assassinations of senior political leader and Tamil activist Mr.E.Kouslayan, together with human rights activist Mr.Chandraneru Arianayagam and two other LTTE political workers on 7th of February 2005. Killings of these unarmed political activists is a brutal and dastardly act."

"The Geneva based International Federation of Tamils (IFT) recalling Mr. Kousalyan's address to thousands of Tamils from the Tamil diaspora in front of the United Nations Building last year, said in a press statement issued Thursday that Kausalyan was a symbol of Tamil unity. IFT appealed to International governments and donors to act decisively to prevent escalation of hostilities as it feared that continued "covert operations" will "wane the mutual trust, goodwill and confidence" between the Liberation Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka. IFT called upon the countries giving Sri Lanka military assistance to desist from doing so and instead to pressure them to seek a peaceful solution..."

"In February 2002, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) signed a Cease Fire Agreement (CFA)  with the support of the Royal Norwegian Government and the International Community (IC). As a result, the GoSL and the LTTE were involved in six rounds of negotiations to resolve the long-standing ethnic conflict that claimed more than eighty thousand civilian lives, mainly in the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka. One of the main objectives of the negotiations was to find an effective interim administrative structure to oversee the urgent humanitarian and development projects in the war affected areas of Sri Lanka. The need of an interim administrative structure in the Tamil areas was discussed at great length , and ultimately accepted by the GoSL, LTTE and the IC. Sadly, 30 months after the CFA was signed and $4.5 billion of humanitarian and development aid promised by the IC, there is at present very little progress in the economic, social and administrative conditions of the North and East of Sri Lanka."

"...Torture and extra-judicial killings are widespread....There is a huge internal refugee population of Tamils. These gross and persistent violations cannot be dismissed as just internal matters of the state but should be the concern and responsibility of the internationalcommunity, as they clearly constitute international crimes against humanity..."

"Sri Lanka’s gross violations of international humanitarian law have now been rendered justiciable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Significantly, Sri Lanka refused to vote in favour of its adoption - a refusal that is not surprising, given Sri Lanka’s chilling record of crimes against humanity during the past two decades and more.Fifteen years ago, in 1983, the Sub-Commission expressed its ‘deep concern’ about the violence against the Tamil people and requested ‘the Secretary General to invite the Government of Sri Lanka to submit information on the recent communal violence in Sri Lanka, including its efforts to investigate the incidents and to promote national harmony’, and recommended ‘to the Commission on Human rights that it should examine the situation in Sri Lanka in the light of all available information.’"

'...இருபத்தியோராவது நூற்றாண்டில் உலக அரங்கில் இந்தியா வகிக்கப்போகும் பங்கு அளப்பரியது..'

"On 9 April this year, at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, a record number of 53 non governmental organisations, concerned with ending the Sri Lanka-Tamil Eelam war, called for the withdrawal of Sri Lanka's occupying forces from the Tamil homeland and for the recognition of 'the right of the Tamil people to choose their own political and national status'. We urge the Commonwealth Heads of Government to extend their influential support to the call made by these non governmental organisations at the UN Commission on Human Rights."

"We thank you for the recent concerns that your Government has expressed and the interest that you have taken in the ongoing conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. We are particularly encouraged by the statement made by your Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs, on 6 November that the United Kingdom continues "to believe that a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka can be achieved only through a sustainable political settlement, reached through peaceful negotiation."  We are also mindful that as long ago as 9 August 1993, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office writing, on your behalf, to the Secretary of the International Federation of Tamils, declared:

"It is tragic that the fighting continues after so long. It is clearly the people of the North and East who are hardest hit. Their conditions are undoubtedly difficult. The British Government's policy is quite clear. We along with our European partners, believe the only way to achieve a lasting peace in Sri Lanka is through a negotiated, political settlement reached by all parties to the conflict. We have long urged this course of action as the only way forward to a lasting solution which recognises the rights of all the peoples of Sri Lanka. You will be aware that we have regularly said that our good offices are available to help talks start. Unfortunately negotiations are no closer.''

However, the unfortunate political reality is that during the past several years, the Sri Lanka government has consistently rejected third party involvement to help bring about a negotiated political settlement between the two parties to the armed conflict in the island. "

"..During the past eleven years the Sub-Commission has heard hundreds of statements raising grave concern at the failure to resolve the armed conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. Yet the conflict continues and innocent lives continue to be lost. The International Federation of Tamils (with constituent membership in Great Britain, United States of America, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Malaysia, Tamil Nadu, Africa and the Middle East) appeals to the Chairperson and Delegates to the 46th Sessions of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to encourage and support the path of negotiation between the parties to the armed conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, as the only way towards reconciliation and a just peace..."

"The action of the Tamil asylum seeker in Sweden in preferring death, even by fire, to a forced deportation to Sri Lanka shows in stark terms the oppressive ground reality in Colombo and elsewhere."

"I have read your analysis of the background to the conflict in Sri Lanka carefully. It is tragic that the fighting continues after so long. It is clearly the people of the North and East who are hardest hit. Their conditions are undoubtedly difficult. The British Government's policy is quite clear. We, along with our European partners, believe the only way to achieve a lasting peace in Sri Lanka is through a negotiated, political settlement reached by all parties to the conflict. We have long urged this course of action as the only way forward to a lasting solution which recognises the rights of all the peoples of Sri Lanka.You will be aware that we have regularly said that our good offices are available to help talks start. Unfortunately negotiations are no closer."

" The military claims that it only bombs known Tamil Tiger targets but admits it uses aircraft - Sia Marchetti single engine training planes, adapted to carry two bombs underneath, Chinese Y-8s and Y-12s and British Avros, small cargo planes from which home made bombs are pushed out of the back - which do not permit accuracy. The bombs - oil drums filled with gelignite or flammable gas and rubber tubes, which stick to the skin like napalm - have no ballistic stability. 'Sometimes we ourselves are mortally afraid of where they are going to land' said an army colonel..."