But according to Amnesty International, few specific allegations of torture are made because both victims and their relatives are terrified of provoking retribution.Nonetheless, Ms Velautham documents several cases of returned asylum seekers being tortured. Thambirajah Kamalathasan was one of 192 people picked up off the coast of Senegal in February 1998. He was returned to Sri Lanka and arrested by police in Colombo on 15 July 1998 Witnesses saw him being beaten with rods. Chilli powder was rubbed into his eyes and his genitals were squeezed. After two or three days he had difficulty walking.A woman who was deported from France in October 1998, Moothathambi Vanitha, was tortured to induce her to sign a self-incriminating statement. According to her mother she was beaten all over her body with poles and threatened that if she told anyone about her treatment she would be stripped naked, hung upside down and tortured.Seventeen years of vicious civil war have polarised and poisoned communal relations in Sri Lanka to a frightening degree. The brutality inflicted on innocent Sinhalese civilians as well as on moderate Tamil politicians and others by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has evoked lesser but still atrocious barbarism from the Sinhalese security forces.The returned deportees become non-people: prevented from settling in Colombo they cannot go back where they came from, especially if that is in the north, because special Ministry of Defence clearance is required – and is never given.

When this, or worse, is what awaits those who are sent back, it is not surprising that so many risk everything to get away.. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam made their deadly mark on Sri Lanka’s first ever War Heroes’ Day yesterday, with a suicide bombing that killed a government minister as he led a “peace procession” through his constituency, as well as a municipal mayor and 20 other people. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam made their deadly mark on Sri Lanka’s first ever War Heroes’ Day yesterday, with a suicide bombing that killed a government minister as he led a “peace procession” through his constituency, as well as a municipal mayor and 20 other people.
No organisation claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is universally assumed to have been the work of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whose Black Tigers outfit has developed the suicide assassination into a ghastly sort of fine art. The most high-profile victim was Mr CV Gunaratne, minister for industrial development in the Sri Lankan government.It was the first major attack in Colombo since the LTTE’s big offensive started in March, during which they seemed, at one time, to be on the point of seizing the northern city of Jaffna and even over-running the whole Jaffna peninsula, which has always been the heartland of Sri Lanka’s Tamils. From 1990 to 1995, most of the peninsula was under LTTE control.The Tamil Tigers have been fighting the Sri Lankan government for the past 17 years with the aim of creating a Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island to be called Tamil Eelam, a notion dreamed up in the mid-Seventies. Sri Lanka’s Tamils, Hindus originating in south India who have shared the island with the Buddhist Sinhalese for 2,000 years, number about 3.2 million; half a million have fled abroad.

Tamils constitute some 18 per cent of the republic’s 18 million population.In the past three weeks, however, the LTTE’s offensive appears to have run into the sand, as the Sri Lankan forces, bolstered by infusions of men and weapons from Israel and Pakistan, began to fight back. The LTTE is believed to have some 6,000 cadres under arms, and in seizing Elephant Pass, the gateway to the Jaffna Peninsula, they defeated a far more numerous enemy.But analysts believe that, in trying to seize not only Jaffna city but also the strategic air base of Palali and the port of Kankesanturai, they have become drastically overstretched.A Tiger attack in Colombo on War Heroes’ Day was thus widely feared, if only as a way for the LTTE to remind the world that it is still around. And as the Black Tigers, many of them women, have proved over and over again, there is no cast-iron defence against bombers who are prepared to kill themselves, as well as their victims, by detonating explosives strapped to their bodies.President Chandrika Kumaratunga herself lost an eye and narrowly escaped death in December when a Black Tiger detonated herself at a rally shortly before the presidential election.Mr Gunaratne, perhaps lulled into a dangerous sense of security by the fact that he was in his own constituency, an industrial suburb 15km (six miles) south of Colombo, was on foot at 2pm when the bomb went off; he was said to have joined the procession only shortly before. He was the first minister in the present government to have been attacked.A Thai foreign ministry spokesman has denied that a half-built miniature submarine discovered in a shipyard in southern Thailand was destined for the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka..

Hundreds of foreigners – mostly women and children – boarded an Australian navy ship Thursday docked off the Solomon Islands, escaping rebels battling in the jungles and capital of the South Pacific nation. Hundreds of foreigners – mostly women and children – boarded an Australian navy ship Thursday docked off the Solomon Islands, escaping rebels battling in the jungles and capital of the South Pacific nation.
During the 2 1/2-hour evacuation, 250 people were ferried in dinghies and landing craft to the HMAS Tobruk, which was to spend the night anchored in the harbor of the capital, Honiara, said Australian Defense Minister John Moore.The ship, which can carry 800 people, would take on more who want to leave Friday morning, he said. There are 700 Australians and 220 New Zealanders in the islands.Witnesses said the evacuation seemed relaxed and generally free of panic.”We expected there to be a hassle, possibly arguments and disruptions, but it’s (the evacuation) all calm and orderly,” said Russell Byfield of New Zealand.Radio Australia Honiara correspondent Dorothy Wickham said those leaving also included Canadians and New Zealanders that work in Honiara.Honiara was calm Thursday, despite the turmoil that has gripped the Solomon Islands since armed rebels seized the prime minister on Monday and rival groups from two islands then escalated a conflict that has gone on for 18 months.The Solomon Islands, slightly smaller than Maryland, are 2,230 miles northwest of Wellington.The airport east of Honiara has been the scene of the heaviest fighting this week between indigenous Isatabu rebels who want to force their Malaitan foes off the main island of Guadalcanal.New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said that despite an agreement on Wednesday to resolve the Solomon Islands government crisis, the nation’s prime minister, Bartholomew Ulufa’alu, was under house arrest Thursday.Goff, who has been closely watching the situation, said it was unclear whether a rebel negotiator, lawyer Andrew Nori, had reneged on the deal signed a day earlier, or whether rebel leaders had lost control of their gunmen.The New Zealand official said he and other ministers from Commonwealth countries hoped to visit the Solomon Islands soon for a firsthand look at the situation, although the airport remains closed.Nori’s rebels claimed they used a stolen police gunboat, armed with a machine gun, to kill about 100 of their rivals Wednesday on beaches near the capital’s airport. But on Thursday, the report was still unconfirmed.Solomon Islands radio said a reporter could not get close enough to the scene to determine if there were any bodies. Goff had said Wednesday that Nori’s claims seemed exaggerated.In the last few months about 50 people have been killed or gone missing while 20,000 had to abandon their homes.Guadalcanal was the scene of a bloody and drawn-out World War II battle, when U.S. Marines began their island-hopping Pacific assault on Japanese forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor.Whether to leave the Solomon Islands was a difficult decision for Ian Judson, an accountant from Brisbane, Australia.”At the moment we don’t feel our personal safety is as much at risk for us to leave right at this very moment,” he said, “and we’re both trying to tidy up a few of our things at work before we finally leave the country.”. A new magnitude 6.2 offshore earthquake rocked Sumatra today as angry victims of a massive temblor five days ago protested the government’s slow response to the disaster that killed about 100 people and left thousands homeless.

A new magnitude 6.2 offshore earthquake rocked Sumatra today as angry victims of a massive temblor five days ago protested the government’s slow response to the disaster that killed about 100 people and left thousands homeless.
Residents ran screaming from buildings in the devastated town of Bengkulu, but there were no immediate reports of new damage or injuries.The quake hit at 6.45 a.m. at a new epicenter beneath the Indian Ocean, about 125 miles southeast of Bengkulu, the Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysical Service reported.Soon after, a mob of about 100, left homeless by Sunday’s magnitude 7.9 temblor, blocked a key road near the town, about 300 miles northwest of Jakarta.They complained that the government was neglecting them even as foreign aid was pouring into the quake zone.The protesters carried sticks and rocks as weapons and used rubble from their damaged homes to barricade the road.”The government is no good No aid has reached here yet. We need tents food and medicine,” said Yudi, 40, one of the protesters. His 5-year-old son was injured and his home flattened in Sunday’s quake.”There are many here who are injured and many houses have been destroyed. We have to take action to make the government understand that we need help,” he said.About 30 armed police struggled to diffuse tensions as protesters scuffled with annoyed motorists. Only a car of Singaporean military aid workers was allowed through the road blocks.”We are hungry, we are sick.