EPDP accused of post-2006 killings as SLFP-EPDP feud escalates in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 January 2012, 23:58 GMT]
Pandemonium prevailed and Police was called to manage the altercation during a Jaffna Municipal Council meeting Friday when Nishanthan, an ex-member of the Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP), and currently functioning under ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) label, accused EPDP of carrying out abductions, extortions, and gruesome killings that occurred in Jaffna after the breakdown of the peace process in 2006 under Sri Lanka military occupation, sources in Jaffna said. Nishanthan was a key activist within EPDP when EPDP was functioning as an armed-paramilitary unit under the command of Sri Lanka military intelligence. The exposé of EPDP complicity in killings was a manifestation of brewing infighting between the members of the EPDP and SLFP within the Jaffna Municipal Council, political observers in Jaffna said.

Nishanthan said that he has irrefutable evidence that EPDP was responsible for the post-peace process abductions of Tamil youth, and arbitrary killings of women and youth in Jaffna.

Heated verbal exchanges at the Council meetings culminated in members exchanging blows, and Municipal Council President Yogeswary Satkunam summoned the police to restore order, according to attending council members. Close to 30 Police officers visited the council premises and conducted investigations.

Nishanthan and Mangalanesan were both former EPDP members who left the EPDP and is working with Jaffna SLFP organizer, Ankayan who is providing security to the two coucilors. The two disgruntled ex-EPDPers are routinely exposing EPDP's atrocities during the post-2006 period, political observers in Jaffna pointed out.

The expected attendance of current EPDP member Komagan to the Municipal council meeting did not materialize as announced by the EPDP. Komagan was elected under EPDP banner but was arrested by Sri Lanka CID and was kept at the notorious 4-th floor offices of the CID.

Note that in a wikileaks cable of May 2007 U.S. Ambassador admits knowledge of the crimes being committed by EPDP and other paramilitary groups under tacit or direct approval from high-level officials in Colombo.

"Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa has authorized EPDP and Karuna to collect the money from Tamil businessmen. This may account for the sharp rise in lawlessness, especially extortion and kidnapping, that many have documented in Vavuniya and Colombo. Even though EPDP and Karuna are each comprised nearly exclusively of ethnic Tamils, the crimes that they commit are almost always against other," the cable says, among other revelations. Tamils.