Forced Abortions Conducted In Vanni: Who (LTTE) Was The Blacksheep?
Published by editor Australia, News Jun 23, 2009

K. Navam, Australia

It was on 30 October 1995; the Sri Lankan army launched “Operation Sunray” in the Tiger-held Jaffna peninsula and captured it. On the orders of the LTTE, the northern towns were evacuated and about 500,000 people fled to the Vanni from the mainland. The LTTE had succeeded in patronising the Tamil community by a combination of internal terror and narrow nationalist ideology and (Prabaharan) used the civilians as cover to escape from Jaffna.

When the armed forces advanced towards Jaffna, the LTTE had to withdraw from Jaffna to the jungles of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu (Vanni) and protected it from an eminent defeat then. In fact, the LTTE men then went from house to house in Valikamam, Thenmaradchi and Vadamaradchi on this same day and ordered people to evacuate and then used it as a massive international propaganda.

The LTTE has never been reluctant, not then and not now, to use the civilians to its advantage. The truth is that self-claimed saviors of the Tamil civilians became demons for the Tamil population over the years. Moreover, the safety and security of the civilians deteriorated as the Sri Lankan armed forces closing in the LTTE and their leadership in Vanni recently. As the LTTE became more and more desperate for their survival, the Tamils that lived in the LTTE-held areas, lost their freedom, peace of mind, dignity, and the right to live. Their plight had become more compounded now far beyond the completed war.

Of course, as a Tamil and a human being, I always support the equal rights and equality of opportunities for the Tamils. I always advocated for negotiated and mediated peaceful political solutions to the legitimate rights of the Tamils within a federated Sri Lanka. As the ordinary Tamils had evidenced extortions, killings, tortures, harassments, forced conscriptions of children, abductions, and heavy taxations by LTTE; they wished for a total end to the LTTE atrocities under the pretext of the Tamil Eelam. When I was in Sri Lanka recently, I was secretly taken into a LTTE centre for an interrogation and hefty ransom (fine) demand and consequent payment. This has occurred as a result of a request from a LTTE henchmen in (Brisbane) Australia. Like me, there are thousands of Diaspora Tamils who were victimized by the (now) demised LTTE. As I feared for my life and my families in Sri Lanka, I did not open my pen up until now. Now the “LTTE Fear Factor” (LFF) has been buried deep under, my pen is intending to bring the LTTE atrocities in and out of Sri Lanka. This is the only way that the Tamil people in Sri Lanka can create a foundation for peace and reconciliation process.

In May 2009, when pro-LTTE media went on a publicity rampage accusing the Sri Lankan armed forces of “forced abortions” of the young Tamil women inside the camps, I really thought it is only a desperate publicity stunt by the LTTE and their supporters to use it to get the attention of the international community. I did not believe then that such a horrendous thing could take place in any civilized society. But, it has, indeed it happened and I have confirmed it now. Of course, the black sheep was the LTTE.

I am really shocked and ashamed of that the LTTE has conducted these abortions among the displaced young women to prepare them as the “fodders” for their doomed battlegrounds. This is a true incident and only those who (1) experienced and survived, (2) witnessed, and (3) ordered this brutality can corroborate this fact now. I encourage them to tell the whole world the truth.

I happened to listen to a person who witnessed this horrendous scene in Vanni and now recovering from the wounds resulted from the Sri Lankan government shelling recently. There are many people witnessed this atrocity and they are scared of the Sri Lankan government to tell the truth. They do not wish to go through interrogations and intensive questioning process by the armed forces. However, the surrendered LTTE leaderships are also in a better position now to reveal the truths about this inhumane act by Prabaharan and the top level LTTE commanders.

In addition, Diaspora Tamil doctors who are inside the camp now possibly could have done the abortions on the young women. Many reliable sources revealed that there are many Diaspora LTTE Tamils currently inside the camps, including three from (Sydney) Australia. Among them, may be a few doctors and they should reveal the truth without anymore delay. The whole world, the Tamil community and the international community should know the truth about the mad minds of the LTTE. I hope that that Sri Lankan Government should take appropriate actions to bring those responsible to the international court on the crimes against humanity.

Prabaharan and his line commanders had used every available born and unborn life to save their lives and they killed the people in vain during the last days of their efforts to protect them from being killed by the armed forces. LTTE did not allow the displaced to escape from their trap. A majority of the people who escaped were killed by the LTTE. Food and water provided to them were taken away by the LTTE. I read about the atrocities committed by Hitler and Pol Pot, but I do not think that they did anything near to this terrible crime against the unborn and their mothers.

The Tamils trapped by Prabaharan in Vanni areas are the Prabaharan’s versions of the camps of Adolf Hitler in the 1940s used for Jews in preparation of their annihilation. Just as Hitler massacred the inmates of the camps thereafter, the LTTE massacred at least 25,000 civilians during the months of May 2009. The civilians harbored and controlled by the LTTE in Vanni areas have cried for help and their cry for escape and freedom passed without much help from in and outside Sri Lanka.

The displaced people in the camps want to tell their story to the whole world. The surviving civilians want to tell all about what happened to them and how the LTTE treated them during the past 15 years, including the forced abortions, beating up of the youth, torture of the elders and conscription of young children as child soldiers.

The LTTE liberally used forced abortions to recruit the young females into their forces. In fact, the young females used the pregnancy as a mean to avoid the forced conscription in Vanni areas. During the month of May 2009, the LTTE did not spare even the unborn and their mothers. The abortion is a crime against the unborn babies and their mothers. The unsuspecting mothers were given drugs and they were taken into bunkers to conduct these abortions. The Diaspora Tamils who funded the LTTE should rethink their position in the future. Rather than encouraging the LTTE remnants with monetary and moral support and encouraging them for another new Eelam, they should rally behind rooting out the LTTE from the world forever. This is the only way forward for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The international community worked in the Vanni areas during this time turned a deaf ear to this pathetic and desperate cry from the displaced. The international community very well knew about these atrocities by the LTTE. Many volunteers, including the religious Priests were well aware of this inhuman crime. In the name of the God, they should spell out the truth to the whole world now.

Among the displaced, there were a lot of resentments against the LTTE. However, no one dared to complain to the diplomats and NGO officials visiting the Vanni areas. There is always LTTE moles among the civilian population. In addition, whenever the diplomats and other foreigners visited the camps, they were accompanied by the LTTE personnel in civilian clothes, and therefore they were scared to complain as they would be killed without doubt. Even if they hear from the civilians, they find it convenient to not report to their governments and equally they do not take the trouble to verify the facts or they are also afraid of backlashes from the LTTE.

The Diaspora Tamil community failed to understand the LTTE atrocities during the past three decades. The global Tamil community became short sighted without realizing the life-styles, self-ambitions and aspirations of the LTTE and their acts. Underground palaces, turtle meats, and Tamil Diasporas funded higher education for their children, brand new vehicles, and facilitation to develop impoverished killing devices are the few to name in this series. In fact, the world community failed to understand that those people lost their lives by following Prabaharan’s war.

The Sri Lankan Government should allow the people in the camps to speak out and to unpack the truths on the treatments of civilians in the LTTE-held areas. The LTTE treated the Tamils under their controlled with impunity and without any human respects. They were used as slaves to carry out menial jobs such as building bunds, preparations for under-ground bunkers, and constructing war related infrastructures. Females and elderly, regardless of their age, were forced to do the labor jobs. There were no respects for sick and pregnant females by the LTTE cadres. The people who opposed the commands by the LTTE were taken into isolation, tortured and killed.

Over the decades, the LTTE decimated the Tamil humanity, by losing about 50,000 young boys and girls to the futile war. In addition, they killed more than 10,000 innocent Tamil civilians who opposed them. Not to mention the several thousands Sinhalese civilians, including women, children and elderly were also killed indiscriminately by the LTTE. They continued their war and the brutality against the Tamil population without witness. All these constitute the dehumanization of the Tamil society and human rights violations by the LTTE. The Diaspora LTTE Tamils, who aided, develop and encouraged the LTTE atrocities should take the full responsibility and face the crime against the humanity tribunal. The international community should take appropriate actions on the Diaspora LTTE (Tamils).

The killing spree by LTTE also included Rajiv Gandhi of India, Sinhala politicians, members of other Tamil political organisations, academics, educationalists, members of parliament, mayors, public officers, members of local authorities and ordinary civilians. The arrogant, obsessive, authoritarian, single minded and megalomaniac Prabaharan is a curse for the Tamil community, not only in Sri Lanka, but also overseas.

In 1995, in a single night along a narrow road brimming with water on either side, more than 500,000 people made their exodus from Jaffna carrying only a few urgent possessions. It is nearly two decades later, the 500,000 had been reduced to 300,000 now. They are not having even a single item with them now inside the camps. They are not carrying their children with them now. All their children were lost to the LTTE and killed.

Prabaharan has gone forever now. The Tamil LTTE Diasporas who funded the war overseas are having a good life and life-styles in the name of Eelam wars. Yes, the money collection, of course, is continuing. However, the Tamil population who believed Prabaharan then is continuing with their plights inside the camps now. They are malnourished, sick, and helpless. The soul of the Tamil humanity is melting inside the camps. There were expectant women, infants, mothers, the elderly, and the sick and injured. This saga is truly an unbelievable and the LTTE left them without food, shelter and clothes and basic human rights. The Tamil Diasporas who supported and funded the LTTE without knowing the direction of the blind wars should also take the full guilt for this current situation. I can only hope that the Diasporas Tamils will not support the Eelam or Eelam Government in exile anymore.

Many moderate Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims strongly believe that the solutions to the legitimate rights of the Tamils should be found by Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims and the Government of the day in Sri Lanka. This solution should be facilitated by the majority of the Sinhalese people. I urge the Sinhalese people to write to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa urging him of their support for finding a peaceful resolution to the long standing national issue quickly.

This is a window of opportunity to the Sri Lankan Government to find a negotiated solution sooner than later. This is the only way that the formation of the “Government of Tamil Eelam in Exile” can be defeated at this “sprouting stage” and a history can be made in terms of finding a lasting political, economic and social solution for all within a federated and united Sri Lanka.

- Asian Tribune -

Why assume a Tamil Eelam government in exile should have anything to do with the LTTE? They diaspora is more complex than you give it credit for.

Without dismissing such serious allegations about the LTTE, lets please put it in perspective. Whatever the brutal excesses of the LTTE may have been (and they need to be corroborated by real evidence, not by people who have been forced against their will through torture to rewrite history), the excesses of the recent brutal military assault are far, far worse.

The extent of the human rights abuse in the recent military offensive by the SL army and the shocking treatment of IDPs in what are effectievly prison camps has destroyed any remnant of goodwill between both ethnic groups on the island. (According to Doctors Without Border in the 1st week of May, at a refugee camp a body of a 16 year old girl was found. According to medical report "Doctors cleaned out 1.8L of Semen from her body, she was raped by the Srilankan Army." This is why the Srilankan government has banned all media personal covering the warzone, to avert attention from their war crimes, most significantly the aerial bombardment and shelling of civilians in areas that were designated 'no-fire zones' & 'safety zones', the firing; the Sri Lankan Government had declared an end to the use of heavy weapons on April 27 - and yet, the medical relief group, Medecins Sans Frontiers reported that the civilians pouring out of the conflict zone included large numbers of people with blast, mine and gunshot wounds; & perhaps most significantly, the final military slaughter in Mullaithivu, where there were witness reports that SLA troops had been digging large holes with mechanical diggers, and where the whereabouts of 25-50 000 civilians said to be left stranded on the enclave of land on the final day of battle there remain unverified). Tamils simply don’t believe what they observe as blatant doublespeak by the Sinhalese state; the depth of the crisis has served to only further entrench both sides from reaching a meaningful political solution. In any case, they remain poles apart in eachothers ultimate desired outcomes. Recent events have only further entrenched Tamil’s desire to independent status.

Tamil's demand for a homeland is based on historical argument (before 1833 when the British took control of the island, the island was divided into 3 kingdoms, one Tamil and two Singhalese), and a post-independence situation whereby discrimination against Tamils has at times reached frightening levels, with an esclating brutalisation (Tamil youth and even families were burned alive in various episodes of mob violence in the 1950s and 1970s, countless episodes of the rape of Tamil women). Since independence, the Tamil people found themselves increasingly excluded from both the governance of the country as well as victims of a wider discrimination. Riots and attacks on the Tamil population and their interests by Sinhalese mobs have consistently been tolerated with impunity. Violence towards Tamils has been fuelled by a holy book called Mahavamsa, a book with controversial writings, full of hatred towards the Tamils. State oppression has had a continuous history of more than half a century since independence by successive Sri Lanka governments, which is what led to the military independence struggle of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), founded in 1976. They attracted negative attention for deploying suicide bombers and has been lambasted for allegedly recruiting children as young as twelve to engage in armed combat against government troops. The USA, UK and international community proscribed the Tigers "terrorist organisation" after 911 in 2001.

However, emphasising the depth of the conflict, the discovery of mass graves in Jaffna between 1999 & 2004, and more recently, a wave of extra-judicial killings including several Tamil MPs elected in 2004, indicated the escalation of state repression that has been increasingly metered out by the SL government as years have gone by. Sri Lankan Air Force bombers destroyed the Ponnampalam Memorial Hospital in the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu in northern Sri Lanka on February 6. According to Tamilnet.com, 61 patients were killed in the attack.

No reasonable person would expect that Tamils are going to be able to live harmoniously alongside Sinhalese people who have displayed consistent contempt for Tamil people. Why are Sinhalese paramilitary groups perfectly allowed to flourish in the country? Why is the burning and looting of Tami homes allowed to escape criminal investigation? Why has there been countless rapes and abduction of Tamilgirls now in the camps? It is because Tamil people are viewed as subhuman by the Sinhalese. A long standing culture of impunity from prosecution and tolerance of the worst excesses of mob violence reveal a deeply ingrained racism against Tamils in a country which increasingly resorts to extreme pro-statist propaganda and a sophisticated, extensive governmental institutional apparatus well skilled within international diplomacy through the use of sophistry and chicanery of the highest order. Ongoing repression of independent media & of government critics continues by President Rajapaksa's ultra-nationalist Sri Lankan coalition government alliance with the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Jathika Hela Urumaya.
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/432637.html

The government of Sri Lanka has been consistently able over the years to deflect criticism and further investigation into allegations of brutal subjugation because it does not hesitate to conflate Tamil civilians with the LTTE, and has cynically presented any independent agent - including NGOs, aid agencies or even UN negotiators in international mediation efforts - as tantamount to support for the Tigers. This conflation conveniently averts attention from the excesses of discrimination which the government exacts on those who the government seek to subjugate.

 http://asiantribune.com/06/14/sri-lanka-president-arrives-in-myanmar/
( an uncommented article to date where there is a picture and news of president of Sri Lanka is warmly received by the Burmese Junta adjacent to a photo appeal to Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi) sums it up.

Asian Tribune is run by a Tamil with a remit to 're-educate' the Tamil Diaspora with Sri Lankan Government funding.
Notably the illegal internment of Tamils in camps are also to 're-educate' them!
It became no secret with meetings between the president and Website editor and what was discussed getting published on the Sunday Leader. The animosity between the Sunday Leader editor's wife Sonali samarasinghe (author of damning article) and Asian Tribune reached such levels that blood was called for by Asian Tribune editor. Eventually Sonali's husband Lasantha Wickramatunghe got assassinated in day broadlight in a busy Colombo street by the government resulting in Sonali fleeing the country and yet another newspaper group being literally taken over by the goverment.

It is an insult to media freedom to link to Asian Tribune.
For news on the relief ship sent by the Tamil Diaspora ask on the Facebook group of Act Now
 http://act-now.info
or browse news wires with correct keywords.

After the excuse that Daya Master is telling it all the defence ministry is clamping down on media freedom more than before. Now the threat is leveled on any journalist even reporting harassment. People just keep quiet about it all especially after what happened to Poddala Jayantha.

 http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/English/

How to make srilanka.indymedia.org?

God who answers to all names by which called protect
the Tamils and all from govt. corporate and private violence.

The first comment was written by a Sri Lankan government propaganda agent scum, who has been writing under every Tamil related post on indymedia during last few months. On one occasion he even copied the article from a Sri Lankan defense ministry website. Every time he tries to come up with sick and ridiculous propaganda lies on how the Sri Lankan government saved the Tamils from LTTE. There is long history of terror, abductions, rapes and murders done by Sri Lankan armed forces and Sinhalese mobs. And "nazi style concentration camps" were created by Sri Lankan government, not LTTE. We all heard Sri Lankan government attempts to justify it's atrocities by blaming LTTE and "war on terror", but knowing well documented facts, no one in a right mind would believe it.
Even though LTTE has a history of human right violations, it would never compare to Sri Lankan state sponsored terror against Tamils, and resisting it was the reason why LTTE was formed.

How about Sri Lankan government releasing more than 200 thousand Tamils from concentration camps, where they starve, get raped and dissapear from, accept humanitarian aid, stop killing journalists and let in foreign media instead of covering up their state terror with made-up articles from journalists they pay to.


Government agents posts should not be tolerated on indymedia and should be deleted.

Israel's Ties in Sri Lanka

Pakistan Daily
Friday, 15 May 2009
Ref:
 http://www.daily.pk/world/asia/10087-read-it-to-believe-it-israels-ties-in-sri-lanka.html

The current offensive by the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil Tigers or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel movement has trapped tens of thousands of refugees in a coastal strip still held by the rebels - with no place to go and no impending hope in site.

Sri Lanka’s military has been accused by human rights organizations of using massive firepower against the guerrillas that is resulting in civilian casualties. The comparison can be made between Israel’s brutal attack on the Gaza Strip, its killing of over 1,000 civilians and the wounding of many thousands of others and the Sri Lankan assault on a 3 mile coastal strip controlled by the Tamil Tigers have been made by a number of observers, including Australia’s Green-Left Online in a May 2 article by Sean O Floinn & Emma Clancy:

“A largely defenseless people struggling to survive and hemmed in on a narrow strip of land, facing indiscriminate air strikes, assault from gun boats and cluster bombs by a well-equipped army, conjures up the image of the recent Israeli invasion of Palestine’s Gaza Strip.”

However, there is more to the comparisons between Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and Sri Lanka’s attack on the narrow strip of the Jaffna peninsula. In May 2000, just one day after India refused to give Sri Lanka any military assistance in its war against the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka and
Israel resumed diplomatic relations. Although the corporate media are focusing on Sri Lanka’s military assistance from China, little mention is being made of the nation’s military links with Israel.

After the establishment of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Colombo, Israeli military technicians arrived to maintain Sri Lanka’s Israeli-made Kfir fighter-bombers and Russian MiG-27 aircraft and provided Sri Lanka with Dvora fast naval attack craft. Israeli arms and ammunition also began flooding into Sri Lanka, with still no mention of the Israeli-Sri Lankan ties in the media.

Soon, Israeli military advisers and “consultants” were regular visitors to Colombo’s new Access Lanka Building, owned by relatives of Sri Lanka’s top military officers. Among Israel’s security exports to Sri Lanka was state of the art electronic and imagery surveillance equipment. Israeli Air
Force pilots reportedly flew Sri Lankan attack aircraft against Tamil Tiger targets on the Jaffna peninsula. Israeli military personnel were also reported to have taken part in Sri Lankan military attacks on Tamil units.

Due to Israel’s military assistance to Sri Lanka, India reportedly began aiding the Tamils in the 1980s. It is also believed (and not that hard to believe either) that Israel’s Mossad recruited agents among Sri Lanka’s large contingent of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf Arab states. There
were also reports that Israelis were also providing weapons and training to Tamil guerrillas in order to maintain a “market” for Israeli arms suppliers in the civil war-wracked island nation.

On March 2, 2007:

Cambodia discovered that the Mossad and Cambodian criminal syndicate allies continue to obtain bought-back Cambodian weapons from Cambodian government warehouses and are selling them to guerrilla groups throughout Asia, including Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, anti-Laotian
Hmongs, the small anti-communist Free Vietnam Movement, and Burmese tribal guerrilla groups. WMR photographed a number of Zim shipping containers portside along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh. From this and other port facilities, including the port of Sihanoukville, bought-back Cambodian weapons, some originally provided to the Khmer Rouge by Israeli tycoon Shaul Eisenberg and the Chinese, are making their way to insurgent groups around Asia, possibly including Iraqi guerrillas battling U.S. forces in Iraq.”

Tamil guerrillas have claimed to have destroyed an Israeli-made Sri Lankan fast naval attack craft,” which was deployed off the Lebanese coast during the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, with a C-802 Iranian-made Noor missile.”

Although Sri Lanka suspended diplomatic ties with Israel in 1970 over the failure of the Israelis to withdraw from illegally occupied Palestinian territory, however, operating an Interests Section within the U.S. embassy in Colombo, Israeli-Sri Lankan ties began to grow closer in the mid to
late 1980s. Israel provided Sri Lanka with military advisers and established a special commando unit for the Sri Lankan police.

In 1990, Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa ordered the Israeli Interests Section at the U.S. embassy to close and two Israeli diplomats in Colombo were ordered to leave. In 1990, Premadasa also ordered a government investigation of charges that Mossad was training both Sri
Lankan and Tamil guerrilla forces.

On September 25, 1991, Reuters reported from Colombo: “Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, fighting against a campaign to have him impeached, yesterday accused the Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad of plotting against him because he closed the Israeli interests section in the U.S. embassy. He spoke at the opening session of parliament.”

On May 1, 1993, Premadasa was assassinated in Colombo during May Day festivities by a suicide bomber said to be a Tamil guerrilla. Twenty-three other people were killed in the blast. On May 28, 1993, Abdul Hameed Mohammed Azwer, Sri Lankan minister of state for Muslim affairs, said in Jeddah, “Israel was enraged by when they were expelled from Sri Lanka by
Premadasa and I suspect the Mossad was behind the dastardly murder of this respected leader.”

Premadasa’s assassination remains an Asian “cold case.”and On September 23, 1997, Attorney General Sarath Silva released 18 Tamil suspects in the assassination of the president, citing lack of evidence - leaving the Attorney General with an ‘unsolved case’.

During a March 2009 trip to Israel by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, talks were held with Israel’s leading arms suppliers on increased military aid by the Israelis to Sri Lanka.

Israel continues to supply Sri Lanka with arms and excessive military training even after the United States and Britain stop endowing military supplies to Sri Lanka over the government’s human rights violations.