Dr Varatharajah |
Dr Varatharajah told NewsX that he and other doctors were able to treat non-life threatening injuries with available medicine, anesthesia, and pain-killers. However, they were not able to perform surgeries on seriously wounded due to lack of medicine. "We would have been able to save many thousands had we had appropriate medicines," the doctor said on the conditions prevailed during last months before the war ended in May 2009.
"I stayed behind to provide a much needed medical service to my people. The State imprisoned me for four months for that," Varatharajah said.
Ananthi Sasitharan, currently a TNA member of parliament, says in the interview that her husband (nom de guerre Ezhilan), a political head of the LTTE in the eastern province, surrendered with Father Francis Joseph on May 18, following an announcement by the Sri Lanka military that they will pardon those surrender, and has not been seen since.
The NewsX interview has additional segments of interviews with US-based leader Rudrakumaran, leader of Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, civil society activist Guruparan, TNA MPs and others.
Doctors V. Shanmugarajah, Thurairaja Varatharajah, Thangamuttu Sathiamurthi, Sivapalan and Ilancheliyan Pallavan |
The detained doctors have been given low level medical posts in the NorthEast, and are working with close monitoring from the Sri Lanka military intelligence, sources in Jaffna said.
Delhi-based journalist Rajesh Sunderam
Rajesh Sunderam, the video documentary maker worked for Al Jazeera, was an Executive Editor at New Delhi-based Alpha Media and recently returned from South Africa after working on a controversial TV Channel startup for three months. Sunderam visited the U.S. to conduct interviews with visiting politicians and civil activists for a Tamil Diaspora event held in New York.
TN