What do we know about what happened in Allaipiddy on 13 August?
On 13 August, there were clashes between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE in Mandaitivu-Allaipiddy area. Scores of Allaipiddy people walked the 8 Kms from Allaipiddy to reach the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to tell the story of the massacre in Allaipiddy by the Sri Lankan military. Among the dead were 15 people who took refuge in the Philip Neri church in Allaipiddy .
Hearing of the massacre, acting Judge for the district, Srinithi Nandasekaran, went with a team in an ambulance to Allaipiddy after obtaining permission from the SLA in Jaffna. In her team was a member of Sri Lankan Red Cross. When this team reached Allaipiddy, they found fifteen dead bodies in the church and 57 injured people. Due to space restriction only four of the bodies were brought back to Jaffna Teaching Hospital in the ambulance. The other bodies were left lying in the church. On 14 August, a further fourteen bodies were buried at Allaipiddy by the Sri Lankan Red Cross. On 18 August, a convey of ICRC vehicles that was moving towards Allaipiddy to provide humanitarian assistance to the people stranded there came under SLA shelling. The ICRC was forced abandon the humanitarian operation. On 20 August, Fr Jim Brown of PhilipNeri church who was displaced with the rest of the people went back to the church to perform Sunday mass. No one knows what he saw when he went there. He has disappeared since then. On 4 September, in front of the new acting judge, K Vignaraja, 7 of the several killed in Sri Lankan military shelling on 13 August was buried after postmortem and inquiry. The bodies were found along the coast. Many more bodies are lying inside houses. Families of 12 more civilian killed in Allaipiddy have appealed to the Jaffna branch of the Human Rights Commission to collect the bodies.
How many more bodies are decaying in Allaipiddy? No body knows. Sri Lankan military it seems has the right to deny the knowledge and deny the bodies to the families. Why?
05 September 2006
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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