PLOTE is paid and armed by the government and fights alongside the Army. PLOTE and other Tamil groups play an active role in trying to identify LTTE members among thousands of internally displaced people. Amnesty says the paramilitary groups are not accountable to any authority. Security forces persistently allow members of armed Tamil groups to carry out search operations and screen civilians. This practice often led to a range of human rights violations, including illegal arrest, prolonged detention, torture, disappearance and extra-judicial executions. Some people who were arrested by the Army’s Intelligence Unit have been held at PLOTE camps.
Karuppiah Sunthararajah, 18, and Sivarasa Sasikumar, who went to the PLOTE camp, Malai Maligai, in Rambaikulam, on 9 June have disappeared. Amnesty says many of the disappeared are suspected to have been tortured to death in secret places of detention. After the new Emergency regulations in May 2000, detainees can be held in unauthorized placed of detention.
Amnesty International has accused PLOTE of recruiting children. Fifteen children trained at the group’s Lucky House camp have been transferred to an unknown PLOTE camp. Amnesty has called on the Sri Lankan President to urgently bring all Tamil armed groups under proper command and control systems and ensure that all places of detention are officially recognised and designated as such.
Marambaikulam resident Selvarajah Tharmarajah is missing since 9 June and Balasubramaniam Logeswary disappeared on 18 June. Karuppiah Selvarajah was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on Mannar-Vavuniya road on 6 June and his sister was wounded. Further west in Mannar, two youths were abducted by unidentified gunmen on 24 June.