December 17, 2011, 6:40 pm
by Shamindra Ferdinando
The TNA has sought Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem’s intervention to secure
the release of 30 physically handicapped LTTE cadres now held at Welikada
and Anuradhapura prisons.
TNA MP Suresh Premachandran made the request on behalf of the TNA during a
meeting with an SLMC delegation headed by Minister Hakeem last Thursday
(Dec.15) at the TNA office in the parliamentary complex.
Political sources told The Sunday Island that the TNA had pushed the Justice
Minister over the issue of the war wounded in custody during the meeting to
discuss ways and means for them to cooperate on the political front.
Responding to a query, sources said that Minister Hakeem had promised to
discuss the issue with the Attorney General’s Department and explores the
possibility of having the handicapped LTTE cadres released.
Security and judicial sources emphasized that the government was willing to
discuss the release of not only of those handicapped but all LTTE personnel
held at rehabilitation centres and prisons.
Commenting on those physically handicapped terrorists in custody whose
release was now sought by the TNA, sources said that the Attorney General’s
Department would have to inquire into the circumstances in which they
received injuries in combat.
The TNA shouldn’t forget that the vast majority of those held in detention
at the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009 had been reintegrated into
society following rehabilitation. More terrorists would be released within
the next couple of months, sources said.
Sources said that the TNA never bothered about those children and even
adults, who had been forcibly recruited by the LTTE and thrown into battle
until the group collapsed on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon in May
2009.
Minister Hakeem last week declared that those held for their involvement
with the LTTE weren’t political prisoners. Responding to a query by the
media at a Justice Ministry briefing to discuss his plans for next year, the
SLMC leader insisted that he never categorized terrorists as political
prisoners. A smiling Hakeem alleged that a section of the Opposition was
using attractive words to identify some of those held by the government as
political prisoners.
The minister said that since the war the vast majority of LTTE personnel had
been released as the government decided against them been indicted on
terrorism charges.
According to him, the Justice Ministry, the Attorney General’s department
and the Defence Ministry had been handling the issue of post-war issues
pertaining to suspects and convicts.
Hakeem underscored that the government wasn’t interested in indefinitely
holding ex-LTTE cadres. It was a heavy burden for the State, he said, adding
that every effort would be made to release those held on terrorism charges.
The office of the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation said that with the
gradual release of those detained at the conclusion of the conflict, the
majority of detention facilities were closed.
Sources said that UN agency, the International Organization for Migration
(IOM) had been given access to the detainees to facilitate ongoing
rehabilitation process. Unfortunately those who backed the forced
recruitment of children and youth by the LTTE had ignored government’s calls
for support for the reintegration programme, which would benefit one-time
LTTE cadres.
Winning the hearts and minds of our Tamil brethren
December 17, 2011, 5:15 pm
As DEW Gunasekera once stated "They are also our people" we need to reach
out to them. The ordinary Tamil citizen has gone through real hell since the
LTTE and other militant groups started their campaign in the 70s. The Tamil
people were not an aggressive people they were a God fearing passive people
but Tamil youth who were deprived of opportunity by the Sinhala Only Act and
later by Standardization which limited their opportunity to enter University
which was a dream of every Tamil youth. We threw Dr. Naganathan and other
Tamil leaders in to the Beira Lake when they protested against the Sinhala
Only Bill, we attacked them in 1958, 1960, 1977 and then came the burning of
the Jaffna Library in 1982 ( by persons who were expected, because of their
religion, to place the highest value on learning and the development of the
mind) that was followed by the horrific attack of 1983 July by UNP thugs led
by Minister Matthew.
That may have been the last straw for the Tamil people of our country, for
those who could afford it migrated in their thousands to the West and
Australia. We cannot also forget the fact that President JR in his dotage
sent in the army "to wipe out terrorism" and what a job they did! They had
not the sense to draw a distinction between the ordinary Tamil people and
the terrorists they indiscriminately set upon the people, broke down their
till then entrenched caste system and united the Tamil people. The hate they
still have has led to their diaspora organizations working overtime to harm
our country.
It is vitally important and very much in the interest of the Sinhalese to
study the recent history, the sociology and the psyche of the Tamil people.
They were always a God fearing people who placed the highest value on
education for that was the ticket to liberation as they had no other
resources. Our Sinhala Fascists of the 50s and the 60s never understood the
Tamil people. We must at least now reach out to them for they are indeed our
people too. We boast of being a Buddhist country, but where is our Buddhism
in practice we are as much Buddhists as any other who claims to be a
Buddhist; we do not live our religion. Do we have the unconditional love
which is referred to in the Karaneeya Metta Sutra in the following form
"Just as a mother would protect her only child even at the risk of her own
life, even so may we cultivate boundless love for all beings seen, unseen,
born, yet to be born…." Etc. etc. Yes those were the words of the Buddha,
but do we practice this towards OUR fellow beings leave alone the Tamils?
Let us not denigrate the Buddha and Buddhism by claiming that we are a
Buddhist country.
We could still make amends for the past, forgive the wretched misguided
terrorists rehabilitate them change their mind set show them by deed that
hatred is not conquered by hatred but by compassion and by compassion alone
as the Buddha has stated. We do now have an opportunity -teach a hundred
monks Tamil for a start and tell the Sangha to show the world that we are
indeed a civilized people by reaching out to the Tamil people and living the
message of the Buddha, yes task them to reach out to the misguided Tamil
youth and make them shed their hate. We must show kindness and understanding
to these misguided youth. Just imagine how they would have been feeling when
they were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the cause.
Let us be honest with ourselves and admit that we contributed very much
towards creating this tragic situation. We may be allergic to federalism and
devolution but let us administratively empower the Tamil people look after
their interests in the areas of their habitation; let us decentralize to
enable individuals and localities to participate in decision making and
implementation and let us also have Tamil ministers in the central
administration in important ministries so that they also become stakeholders
in every sense of that word and feel for this country as we do.
Let us remember that there is NO conflict of values between us and the Tamil
people, we do indeed have much in common; let us ensure good governance, the
rule of law and justice and we would then be giving back to them their
dignity. The real challenge just now, as I see it, is how we can, without
upsetting the armed forces, who achieved for us this great victory and saved
the country from separation, loosen the military’s involvement with power
and management in the North and, what MP Sumanthiran recently highlighted,
its growing involvement in lucrative economic activity which the MP claims
is denying the ordinary people their accustomed livelihoods. By finishing
off the terrorist LTTE and also saving the lives of over 300,000 people, we
accomplished a huge humanitarian operation and now in this second stage of
this operation we must match our words with deeds and reach out to the
hearts and minds of the ordinary Tamil people, not their wretched
politicians.
Hope the government or the civil society groups prepare a strategy paper to
win the hearts and minds of these unfortunate people, we must not look at
every Tamil with prejudice as if they were Tigers or Tiger sympathizers. We
must win them over in our own interest and do so sincerely. Do hope our
civil society will start a mass movement a peoples’ movement for
rehabilitation and reconciliation. Do hope the media supports such an
initiative.
Sinhala Citizen G
Secret Accounts of Iraq Massacre Found in Junk Yard
December 17, 2011, 5:13 pm
by: Michael S. Schmidt,
The New York Times News Service |
Baghdad – One by one, the Marines sat down, swore to tell the truth and
began to give secret interviews discussing one of the most horrific episodes
of America’s time in Iraq: the 2005 massacre by Marines of Iraqi civilians
in the town of Haditha.
"I mean, whether it’s a result of our action or other action, you know,
discovering 20 bodies, throats slit, 20 bodies, you know, beheaded, 20
bodies here, 20 bodies there," Col. Thomas Cariker, a commander in Anbar
Province at the time, told investigators as he described the chaos of Iraq.
At times, he said, deaths were caused by "grenade attacks on a checkpoint
and, you know, collateral with civilians."
The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war,
were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to
leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other
classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and
radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard
outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of
smoked carp.
The documents – many marked secret – form part of the military’s internal
investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates
River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a
wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers.
Haditha became a defining moment of the war, helping cement an enduring
Iraqi distrust of the United States and a resentment that not one Marine has
been convicted.
But the accounts are just as striking for what they reveal about the
extraordinary strains on the soldiers who were assigned here, their
frustrations and their frequently painful encounters with a population they
did not understand. In their own words, the report documents the
dehumanizing nature of this war, where Marines came to view 20 dead
civilians as not "remarkable," but as routine.
Iraqi civilians were being killed all the time. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the
commander of American forces in Anbar, in his own testimony, described it as
"a cost of doing business."
The stress of combat left some soldiers paralyzed, the testimony shows.
Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under
siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in
accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the
killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow
soldiers snapped pictures, and were court-martialed. The bodies piled up at
a time when the war had gone horribly wrong.
Charges were dropped against six of the accused Marines in the Haditha
episode, one was acquitted and the last remaining case against one Marine is
scheduled to go to trial next year.
That sense of American impunity ultimately poisoned any chance for American
forces to remain in Iraq, because the Iraqis would not let them stay without
being subject to Iraqi laws and courts, a condition the White House could
not accept.
Told about the documents that had been found, Col. Barry Johnson, a
spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, said that many of the
documents remained classified and should have been destroyed. "Despite the
way in which they were improperly discarded and came into your possession,
we are not at liberty to discuss classified information," he said.