Mano Ganeshan urges government to publicize details of Vanni detainees

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 07:58 GMT]
“The government of Sri Lanka should release all information about Vanni civilians held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps without trying to keep it a secret,” Mano Ganeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Democratic Peoples’ Front (DPF) said in a press meet held in the residence of the leader of the opposition Friday under the title ‘Forum for Freedom’.

Mangala Samaraweera, the leader of SLFP People’s Party, Rauf Hakeem, the leader of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Ampaa’rai district MP, who participated in the meeting expressed their strong accusations against the government.

Mano Gneshan said that the government is not disclosing the names and locations of the Vanni civilians displaced from Liberation Tigers territory and detained several camps.

Many thousands of young men and women brought to the internment camps in Colombo are being subjected to severe interrogation claiming they had been militarily trained by the Liberation Tigers, he said.

Many youths are detained in prisons in areas like Gampaha and Kandy and their relatives do not know whether the youths are alive or not, he added.

The relatives, not knowing the fate of these youths have complained to us and therefore the government should make public all the relevant information about the detained youths, Mano Ganeshan said.

Rauf Hakeem accused the government for denying the opposition MPs access to the Vanni people detained in the SLA internment camps.

The democratic rights of these elected representatives are being violated while the government has barred the opposition parties to meet the detainees and get to know their needs and problems first hand, he said.

He observed that the Tamil society is being alienated and called upon the government to heed President Obama’s advice not to exploit the problem for political motives.

The International Community including the UN have urged the government and the Liberation Tigers to stop the ongoing human catastrophe, Rauf Hakeem added.

The ethnic issue of the country has taken a new dimension by the racist war waged on the Tamils, Mangala Samaraweera said.