Disappeared
THE University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) (UTHR) says in a June report titled Jaffna: A Vision skewed that government refusal to initiate institutional reforms within the Army and lack of credible investigations into disappearances have encouraged human rights violations by the military and the LTTE in the Jaffna peninsula. The report analyses the plight of civilians caught up between the warring Army and the LTTE. The Army, the reports says, immediately guns down suspects who are pointed out by thalayattis or masked informers, sometimes killing innocent civilians. Beatings in detention and at checkpoints have heightened insecurity among the population. LTTE’s arbitrary execution of civilians often merely for being seen talking to soldiers is designed to terrorise local people. Both the Army and the LTTE, in gruesome warnings to the population, publicly display bodies of victims. The LTTE actively demonstrates its absence of concern for the people, by launching attacks in public places provoking Army reprisals on civilians, says UTHR. The Defence Ministry, which effectively rules Jaffna, has been given too much power. The Ministry’s general approach is to cover-up rather than investigate human rights violations and punish offenders. UTHR emphasises that independent inquiries into questionable deaths of civilians, both during and after battles, are desperately needed if people are to believe that the government is making honest attempts to rebuild Jaffna.
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