No subject

on
camps, from the isolated Jaffna peninsula and paramilitary-dominated Easter=
n
Province to Colombo, nowhere is safe for the Tamil minority on this island.

As the case of 25-year-old Tamil man Sampanthan (name changed) shows, peopl=
e
have just disappeared without a trace.

Sampanthan was arrested by police in Colombo in early 2008. He was preparin=
g
to go to Malaysia for work.

But he didn=92t have his passport with him when questioned by police, who
suspected him of involvement with the LTTE. He was held for three months
without charge.

He was released by court order when his family had submitted all relevant
documents, including his passport.

But police didn=92t return his passport when he was released.

Sampanthan's brother Eehai (name changed) said: =93My brother went to the
police station twice to ask his passport back, but failed.

=93On May 10, 2008, minutes after I spoke to him on the phone, witnesses sa=
id
he was taken into a white van by three people in civil clothes who
introduced themselves as CID officers.=94

The following day, CID men took all of his brother=92s documents from his
home.

Asked if he ever tried to approach a CID office about his brother, Eehai
exclaimed: =93You know I am a Tamil youth. How can I?=94

As the government ruthlessly crushes the Tamil Tigers, who had been
appealing for a ceasefire, Tamils in Colombo are uneasy, feeling they will
be more marganalised than ever.

One Tamil activist in Colombo observed: =93What a defeat of the LTTE in thi=
s
circumstance means is that a political solution, which is fundamentally
needed to solve the conflict, will be further away.

A Sinhalese activist in Colombo pointed out: =93The LTTE is about 30 years
old. The roots of the conflict go back 60 years. We need to address roots
and causes. Yet a military solution is being attempted to solve a political
problem.=94

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue
#796<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2009/796>27 May 2009.

--=20
"The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?" =97 Jarvis Cocker

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" =97 Oscar Wilde