Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa called on lawmakers “regardless of party affiliation” to block moves to pass new legislation to prosecute for war crimes in Sri Lanka.

In a statement delivered at a press conference, Mr Rajapaksa said “the people of this country should be aware of the challenge confronting the country as a result of the government co-sponsoring the Geneva resolution against Sri Lanka”.  

“This is nothing but a project to persecute our war heroes,” he said, adding that “no self-respecting citizen should allow this to happen”.

A UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka calls for the “reform its domestic law” to allow for “the trial and punishment of those most responsible for the full range of crimes under the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations relevant to violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law”.

“Parliament has the power to thwart all these plans being made to victimise our war heroes who sacrificed so much in the war against terror,” said Mr Rajapaksa.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena paid tribute to the late UNP minister Gamini Dissanayake on Saturday, stating that he hoped to complete the much colonisation projects that were started decades ago.

Speaking at the 21st death anniversary commemoration ceremony, Mr Sirisena said he admired the late minister, who headed the controversial Mahaweli Development project.
The project, which began under the UNP government of 1977, was one of many state-sponsored colonisation projects that took place in the Tamil North-East.

“I like the Mahaweli Development Ministry for several reason,” said Mr Sirisena. “On one hand, I admire the Mahaweli civilisation and culture Minister Dissanayake made, and on the other, I want to complete the Moragahakanda-Kaluganga project he hoped to do.”

Speaking on the colonisation projects at the time, Mr Dissanayake had said “We have decided to colonise four districts including Mannar with Sinhalese people by destroying forests. A majority of Sinhalese will be settled there. If you like you also can migrate there.” (See more on state sponsored colonisation here.)

Mr Sirisena also praised Mr Dissanayake, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 1994. The minister is infamous for his statement weeks after the Black July riots in 1983, where he warned that “in 14 minutes, the blood of every Tamil in the country can be sacrificed to the land by us [the Sinhalese]”.

Police officers who were convicted but then released on appeal for the massacre of Tamil political detainees in 2000 (Virakesari)

Fifteen years ago an armed mob of Sinhala villagers stormed a rehabilitation centre and killed at least 28 Tamil youths, as security forces stood by and even joined in.

The centre in the southern town of Bindunuwewa was jointly run by several bodies, including the Presidential Secretariat, under then-president Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Child Protection Authority, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction.

Dozens of Tamil youths in their late teens and early twenties were held here on suspicion of supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, supposedly undergoing rehabilitation for a few months before their release. A few days before the massacre, detainees protested against prolonged detention, sometimes over a year, and the deliberate withholding of letters from relatives by the authorities.

The next morning a mob of local Sinhalese, reported by UTHR to be 2,000 strong, had formed outside the detention facility. They entered the centre and attacked the inmates with knives, machetes, clubs and iron rods, and set fire to the residence halls. Police officers stood by and in at least one instance opened fire on the inmates. A military detachment in the area was also withdrawn the previous day, indicating a premeditated attack.

The Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) spokesperson, whilst speaking on the findings of Sri Lanka’s Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Complaints of Abductions and Disappearances, called on Sri Lanka’s government to take the reconciliation process forward by telling the truth about the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on accountability in Sri Lanka.

Noting that the government was downplaying the international component of the criminal investigation that it signed up to at the UNHRC, Guruparan Kumaravadivel said,

“The new government cosponsored the UN resolution on accountability in Sri Lanka which called for foreign judges and prosecutor participation but they have been playing down the foreign involvement part of the resolution and suggesting merely involvement of experts.…They are not speaking truth about the resolution let alone being prepared to speak about what really happened in Sri Lanka, not just in the last phases of the war but over the last 30 years. And this is where the problem is. If even this government is not willing to talk to the Sinhalese on the need for an honest recounting of what happened. They should start by honestly telling the Sinhalese the honest purpose of the resolution.”

The Sri Lankan police force has rejected a report by Human Rights Watch, which said that detainees were regularly tortured in custody.

The New York-based organisation found that police frequently use torture to try to obtain confessions rather than undertaking the more difficult and time-consuming process of gathering evidence through investigations.

Cases detailed in the report are only from the south of the island, as access to the Tamil-dominated North-East was restricted to human rights organisations.

The report named 'We Live in Constant Fear': Lack of Accountability for Police Abuse in Sri Lanka, detailed severe beatings, electric shocks, rubbing chili paste on genitals and suspension from ropes in stress positions, amongst various methods used by the Sri Lankan police.

Photograph: @uthayashalin

Mr Nimalarajan, a senior journalist who contributed to the BBC Tamil and Sinhala services, the Tamil daily Virakesari and Sinhala weekly Ravaya, was murdered on October 19th 2000.

The Committee to Protect Journalists stated shortly after his death:

“The assailants shot the journalist through the window of his study, where he was working on an article, and threw a grenade into the home before fleeing the premises. The attack occurred during curfew hours in a high-security zone in central Jaffna town.”

“Local journalists suspect that Nimalarajan's reporting on vote-rigging and intimidation in Jaffna during the recent parliamentary elections may have led to his murder.”

The government aligned paramilitary group the EPDP are suspected of carrying out the killing.