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| Udaya Perera Gopi |
Sunanda Deshapriya
On 11th
April 2014, the government of Sri
Lanka announced that three former Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters were killed by the security forces. A
press release of the Ministry of Defence stated that ''in the early
hours of 11 April 2014, three armed suspects who attempted to escape the area
confronted the troops in the cordon. All three were killed and two of the dead
were later identified as Sundaralingam Kajeepan Thevihan, and Selvanayagam
Kajeepan aka Gobi. The third is yet to be
identified, but is believed to be that of Navaratnam Navaneethan aka Appan.''
Further the statement said that ''an
attempt for resurgence of terrorism in Sri Lanka surfaced in general area
Pallai in the Jaffna Peninsula calling for launching another phase of the LTTE
struggle for a separate state. Investigators made several arrests that led
to recovery of arms, ammunitions, explosives and other material that were in
their possession. ''
It is only
through this statement that the country came to know that the new LTTE leader
was Sundaralingam Kajeepan aka Thevihan and not the Selvanayagam Kajeepan aka Gobi. Until the said military confrontation the GoSL
position was that Gopi was leading the LTTE revival within Sri Lanka.
According to the
MoD statement the shooting between the three suspects and the military (2500
solders and 18 armed vehicles) took place on early hours of 11th
April 2014. But on 9th April Jaffna based Uthayan
reported that three suspects including Gopi had been arrested. The Uthayan
quoted the news story from major General Udaya Perera, the present Jaffna commander. So far general Perera has not disowned the
story and MoD site has not published any correction to the Uthayan
story.
GoSL tell us
that it had to deploy 2500 solders and 18 armed vehicles to surround and kill
three suspects, who were already in custody!
What is the reason behind the facade?
The questions do
not end there.
The MoD
statement does not say anything about the mysterious death of Selvaraja Kamala
Raja, a military intelligence officer of Tamil origin. Divaina, a news
paper linked to the government by ownership, reported on 12th April
that 'a soldier called Selvaraja who was attached to the army camp at Kokavil,
Kilinochchi also died from the injuries received during the shooting’. The Sinhala language mouth piece of the
Government, Dinamina in its lead story on 12th
confirmed the same: a Corporal sacrifices his life during the shooting'.
The Lanka e
News quoted the two page entry made by the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the
Puliyankulam police, Mohomed Jamal regarding the incident thus: 'during the confrontation, Selvaraja
Kamalaraja, ordinary soldier No. 776927, who was attached to the army intelligence
division sustained gunshot injuries and was dispatched to the hospital.' The
entry was made in the early hours of the 11th April 2014.
Later Brigadier
Wanigasuriya, media director of the MoD
contradicted the story and said 'Lance Corporal S.K.Raja of the army
intelligence corps met with sudden death during training due to shooting
following the firing of a firearm of another soldier by accident'. No
information was given on the exact location of the 'training'.
Strange enough,
the entry made by ASP R.C.D Senadheera says that 4 haversacks used by the forces,
four long term using food packets of the forces were found. (Lanka e News
quotes form the three and half page entry). If only three suspects were killed,
who owned the remaining haversack? Was
the initial plan to portray all four of them as New Tigers?
The death of
Lance Corporal Selvaraja Kamalaraja remains a mystery. It is clear that authorities
are trying to hide the real reason for his death.
And no entry
made by these police offices speaks of recovery of weapons used by the three
suspects although government propagandists has written minute by minute details of the shoot out.
All the deaths
occurred in Nedunkarni jungle of the Puliyankulamam police division.
Puliyankulamam police division is located in the Vavuniya district and comes
under the Vavuniya Magistrate. But all
the post-mortem inquires were held in Anuradhapura
district by Sinhalese Magistrates. Was
there any valid reason to transfer dead bodies to Sinhala speaking areas for
the inquest?
The bodies were
not handed over to the relatives and the military took them over.
Why weren’t the
bodies handed over to the family members? Even during the war before the last
phase of the war all efforts were made to hand over bodies of either the
solders or the rebels to family members. Was there any thing to hide? What kind of injuries had they received? Shot at close range or long range?
Lastly no media
was allowed to witness the whole operation: Not mere censorship but no access
at all was provided. Not even the post-mortems.
Like the last phase of the war
this operation too is a 'mini war without witness'.
These unanswered
questions and the way the whole story was twisted at every turn debunk the
theories of possibility of credible internal mechanism to investigate past and present
human rights violations in Sri
Lanka. In the name of investigations what Sri Lankan
police is producing is third rate detective stories. The story of Gopi and
others death is one of them.
(Note: this
article is not an attempt to discuss whether the so-called revival of LTTE is
real or not.)