NPC Minister wants international excavations of war-time SL military camps in North-East

Excavations must be carried out at the direct presence of international monitors wherever the SL military was stationed with camps during the times of war in the North-East, said Ananthy Sasitharan, who is the NPC Minister of Women’s Affairs and Rehabilitation. Thousands of Tamils, subjected to forced disappearance and arrests during the times of war, are still unaccounted for and their trauma and dismay has aggravated at the scale of the recent discovery of mass graves in the North, Ms Sasitharan said. The NPC Minister is one of the thousands of survivors, who are yet to receive a clear answer from the SL State on the whereabouts of their loved ones. Furthermore, Ms Sasithran said international mediation was necessary to achieve a political solution to the conflict and blamed the Colombo government for marring the NPC with a hostile attitude. 



Ananthy's husband, Mr Sasitharan (Elilan), a former district head of LTTE's political wing, was one of the hundreds of Tamils taken away in buses by the occupying SL military from Vadduvaakal, Mullaiththeevu, on 18 May 2009. 

Catholic Priest, Fr. Francis Joseph, a former rector of St. Patrick's College in Jaffna, was coordinating the hand-over of un-armed LTTE members who were with their families when the SL military seized the last coastal stretch of Vanni under the LTTE. 

Ananthy has been demanding international investigations on Tamil genocide and has been addressing various international commissions making reports on the war crimes.

She was visiting Mannaar for arrangements ahead of the protest scheduled on Thursday on the International Day of Enforced Disappeared. 

The NPC Minister also went on record re-iterating the need for international mediated negotiations to achieve a political solution. 

She slammed the central government in Colombo, which was representing the unitary state controlling the affairs, as consistently causing hurdles to the democratically elected provincial council to restore the lives of war-affected and trauma-stricken people in the North-East.

First and foremost, a speedy resolution of the conflict was necessary to designate the current stage as a post-conflict development phase for rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. 

But, the Centre is imposing its own agenda, sidestepping, isolating and discriminating the NPC even in carrying out a proper need assessment of the war-affected people, she said. 

Funds are not allocated as requested by the NPC. Then, the Centre tries to run its own process of so-called ‘development’ through District Secretariat mechanisms coming under the SL State, she said. 

How could any process called ‘development’ when the people and their democratic body is not allowed to be a partaker in the process, she asked. 

Reiterating the stand of NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, she said the political rights should be established and guaranteed before any meaningful delivery of rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. 

The rights and remedies are two sides of the same coin. The responsibility of delivering remedies cannot be construed as a process of begging. The centre wants NPC and our people to behave as a beggar, she said. 

Colombo was also attempting to destabilise the NPC through engineering internal rifts through the political parties, she said without specifying the names of the political parties.