Govt accused of cruelty to Tamils

Press, 11 September 1986, Page 8

Govt accused of cruelty to Tamils

NZPA-AFP London Amnesty International has accused the Sri Lankan Government of atrocities against the minority Tamil population, and called on it to reveal the whereabouts or fate of several hundred missing persons. The London-based human rights group released an 89-page report yesterday detailing 272 examples of “people reported to have been seized by the country’s security forces over the past 20 months.” It also said many suspected Tamil separatists had been shot or tortured to death, their bodies burned or buried in secret graves. Tortures reported include burning, beatings

with plastic pipes, hanging upside down for long periods, and the application of hot chilli peppers to sensitive parts of the body, including the eyes. It also accuses the Sri Lankan Government of systematic human rights abuses since late 1984 in retaliation for intensified Tamil separatist violence, and says the suspension of safeguards under emergency rule have encouraged security forces to think they can get away with abuses. The report contains several affidavits and international press reports, about alleged atrocities. On May 17, 1985, Sri Lankan security forces are alleged to have rounded up some 60 people from the villages

of Naipattimunai, Thuraineelavenai, and Chenaikudiyiruppu. The report says many were shot on the spot. But 40 18—25-year-olds were taken away to the cemetery at Thambiluvil, where they were ordered to dig their own graves and then shot.

Affidavits by several detainees questioned by Amnesty International tell of the death of a 22-year-old mechanic, Thambimuthu Kamalarajah, who was reportedly taken away by soldiers on November 30, 1984, while he was having dinner at home.

Cell-mates told Amnesty that they had heard him being beaten, and were shown his dead body as a warning of the fate that

would befall them if they did not tell the truth. One detainee said that after Mr Kamalarajah’s death an Army officer had announced that he had been “released.” A witness to three deaths in detention told Amnesty of his own treatment at a security forces camp at Kallady.

He said: “After about half-an-hour we were taken to a small room, macabre and frightening, where ropes hung from the beams. There was blood all over the floor. I was blindfolded, hung upside down (suspended partly) by my thumbs and beaten with a pipe. “On the second day I was again hung upside down and beaten with a pipe, but this time a mix-

ture of chilli powder and salt was rubbed into my wounds.

“Chilli powder was also blown into my eyes, and a burning pot of chilli powder was held below my face, which I was forced to inhale.”

The report also says the headmaster of a Methodist orphanage who reported the disappearance of some 23 young men was charged with spreading false rumours and false statements.

He was subsequently acquitted. The judge said that the evidence had cast serious doubt on the prosecution’s contention that there had been no arrests.

The report says that Amnesty International had already expressed

concern to the country’s President, Mr Junius Jayewardene, about disappearances, but had received no reply. The report calls on Sri Lanka to set up an independent body to determine the fate of those who had disappeared, and calls for an up-to-date register of arrests. /

It acknowledges that Tamil separatists . have also committed outrages against the niajority Sinhalese population in their bid to set up a separate Tamil State in the north and east of the island, but concludes: “Acts of violence by opposition groups can - never justify security forces themselves resorting to violations of /human rights.”