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“Military should quit from our habitats”

“Living under military subjugation makes life miserable for us and we request of you to pull back the occupying military from civilian habitats and more importantly from places where there are educational institutions” appeals the Jaffna University Students Union in a memorandum addressed to the President of Sri Lanka, Mr.Mahinda Rajapaksa with copies to the Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Human Rights Commission, Government Agent – Jaffna, SL Military Commander – Jaffna and Head of the LTTE Political Wing.

Excerpts:

“We anticipated a healthy change from a war situation consequent to the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) between the Government of Sri Lanka and the sole representatives of the Tamil people, the LTTE. In spite of all what CFA speaks as normalcy and alleviation of hardship caused by war, the passage of nearly four years had not seen fulfilment of anything that could bring normalcy and confidence building. The displaced population is denied unfettered access to their habitats and is still languishing in refugee camps and welfare centres.

The occupying military has not yet moved away from densely populated habitats, schools and places of worship in terms of the CFA. Totally against what is enshrined in the CFA, the military is expanding its presence by designating residential areas as High Security Zones, Security Zones and fortifying its complexes and continue to impact civilian life through harassment and coercion.

We are in fact tired of relentlessly pursuing non-violent and peaceful means of protest against this major violation of the CFA, but successive governments have not responded to any of our protests. Inaction on the part of the governments is only exacerbating the sense of frustration.

It is disappointing to find that the military has let loose violence on civilians and us students at an unprecedented level after you assumed power as Head of State. Tamil youths continue to be the targets of assassinations by the military and its appendages, the armed groups.

It appears to us that the current acceleration of military violence against academics, university lecturers, state employees school students and us university students is on the orders of the new Army Commander with his hard line background. The military is adopting a very hard line indicative of the above in its round ups, arbitrary arrests, assaults on civilians and students in public thoroughfares with clubs and bayonets, sexual molestation and brutal murder of Tamil women. In the context of the CFA and general respect to human dignity, we fear that these acts tend to create an adverse environment, not at all conducive to peace and normalcy.

The last few weeks have seen the military engaging in establishing new fortifications in school premises, heavily armed men menacingly roaming around with black clothes covering their faces threatening civilians and seriously hampering their activities and livelihood. As a cruel act in this series, a twenty year old young lady has been abducted, raped reportedly by several SL Navy personnel who have killed her thereafter and dumped her body into a well in Madathuveli, Pungudutivu, a well fortified High Security Zone in the Jaffna peninsula’s island region. When the university students were on their way to console the relatives of the deceased and provide them with necessary assistance during bereavement on 18 December 2005 around 1530, over twenty of them have been subject to brutal military attack at the Parameshwara Junction. This is a serious violation of the CFA. Military personnel harassing undergraduates in the university premises and around is on the increase and very often identity papers of students are snatched from them and torn into pieces making them vulnerable in check points.

We earnestly request of you to cause immediate removal of the occupying military from residential areas around the university, stop round ups of undergraduate residential units, destroying students’ identity papers and setting up check points near schools and thus provide us with the freedom that we are entitled to as students elsewhere in the island.

If our request for normalcy is not heeded to, we regretfully submit that we would be reluctantly compelled to take the law into our own hands, a very unpleasant option at that.”

Copies of this statement also sent to:
1. Head of SLMM
2. Head of Human Rights Commission
3. Government Agent of Jaffna district
4. Sri Lankan Army Military Commander, Jaffna district
5. Political Head of LTTE

The Jaffna University students also sent a separate letter of complaint about this incident to the Head of SLMM.

21 December 2005

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