Anonymous ID: 566d8d April 20, 2019, 10:34 p.m. No.6260104   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Sri Lankans Accuse Him of Wartime Atrocities. California May Decide.

 

In light of the Sri Lanka shurcg bombings, perhaps there's a connection. NYT Article from 4.19.2019

 

In the decade since Sri Lanka’s civil war ended, a former wartime defense chief has successfully dodged accusations of crimes against humanity. He may soon run for president.

 

But the accusations, which are supported by United Nations inquiries, recently caught up with him in a California parking lot.

The former official, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, oversaw the final stages of a quarter-century-long conflict with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009. So far he has avoided prosecution at home and abroad over the allegations of crimes against humanity.

 

But in early April, a private investigator tracked Mr. Rajapaksa, now an American citizen, to a Trader Joe’s parking lot in a Los Angeles suburb. He was then personally served with civil court complaints accusing him of a journalist’s murder and the torture of an ethnic Tamil who had Canadian citizenship, court documents show.

 

Supporters of the lawsuits say they were brought in California since opening criminal trials in Sri Lankan courts is politically impossible for now, not least because Mr. Rajapaksa’s family has significant influence over the country’s institutions. They say the California cases are a logical interim step in a long campaign for justice.

 

“There is no doubt that the case has caused enormous interest because Sri Lankans are amazed to see a powerful and feared figure, who still has his people inside the security establishment, being openly challenged,” said Yasmin Sooka, a South African human rights lawyer who specializes in Sri Lanka and worked on the torture complaint.

 

Mr. Rajapaksa’s spokesman, Milinda Rajapaksha, said on Friday that the defendant “does not acknowledge any kind of official delivery of legal documents by any party.” But he said Mr. Rajapaksa’s legal counsel in the United States would take action “if required.”

Separately, Mohammed Ali Sabry, the head of Mr. Rajapaksa’s legal team in Sri Lanka, said that California litigation would be handled from the US.

 

Mr. Rajapaksa was Sri Lanka’s defense chief from 2005 to 2015, when his brother, Mahinda, was president. Thousands of people disappeared or were tortured during the war’s final years, including aid workers, journalists, ethnic Tamil civilians and the Rajapaksa family’s political opponents.

 

Many of them turned up dead, according to United Nations reports, and millions of people in the country are still traumatized by the war’s painful legacy.

Last week in Sri Lanka, Mr. Rajapaksa told reporters that he had started the process of renouncing his American citizenship, a requirement for contesting the presidency, which his brother relinquished after losing a 2015 election.

Harshana Rambukwella, a political scientist at the Open University of Sri Lanka, said that if Mr. Rajapaksa runs for president, he could potentially leverage the California litigation to drum up nationalist sentiment among his base within the country’s Sinhalese ethnic majority.

The essence of the candidate’s argument, Mr. Rambukwella said, would be that human rights campaigners are persecuting leaders who liberated Sri Lanka from civil war.

But rights advocates say that the California cases are important because they focus international scrutiny on the Rajapaksa family’s wartime actions.

The first case concerns the 2009 killing of a prominent Sri Lankan investigative journalist, Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was bludgeoned to death by men on motorcycles who had surrounded his car.

 

In court papers, lawyers for the journalist’s daughter, Ahimsa Wickrematunge, accused Mr. Rajapaksa of instigating, authorizing and covering up the killing as part of a “systematic” targeting of journalists who were perceived to be critical of the government. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

“My family and I have been pushing for justice for my father’s killing for 10 years now,” Ms. Wickrematunge said in an interview. “This pursuit isn’t tied to any election. It is tied to a need for truth.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/asia/sri-lanka-war-crimes-lawsuit.html

Anonymous ID: 566d8d April 20, 2019, 11:35 p.m. No.6260474   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Colombo, Sri Lanka protest to free Assange took this week

 

The picket will oppose the attempts to extradite Assange to the United States, where the Trump administration is seeking to prosecute him for WikiLeaks’ exposure of war crimes, mass surveillance operations and illegal diplomatic intrigues.

It will demand immediate freedom for Chelsea Manning, the courageous whistleblower who has been held in solitary confinement in the US for five weeks for refusing to give perjured testimony against Assange.

Speakers will also explain the enormous role WikiLeaks has played in exposing the predatory military interventions and criminal occupations carried out by the major powers in the oppressed and semi-colonial countries.

 

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/16/pick-a16.html

Anonymous ID: 566d8d April 20, 2019, 11:39 p.m. No.6260509   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0632

Israel accused of denying rights to Sri Lankan asylum seekers

 

Israel has been accused of denying rights to a group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

Asylum seekers have suffered violence at the hands of Israel’s Population Authority inspectors, and in some cases were not allowed to submit an asylum request, or were denied access to a telephone as required by law, according to a new report by the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.

 

The NGO’s 2018 annual report, publicized on Sunday, cites testimonies from four asylum seekers who said they were beaten by the authorities, in addition to testimonies from a group from Sri Lanka who fled that country due to political persecution but were not allowed to submit an asylum request after they arrived in Israel – a violation of international law, Haaretz reported.

 

http://colombogazette.com/2019/04/17/israel-accused-of-denying-rights-to-sri-lankan-asylum-seekers/