November 2007 was expected to be the period that would bring out the UN Human Rights Commission’s report on its Ambassador’s visit to Sri Lanka, but it was not to be so. This was disappointing in the context of the numerous disappearances, killings, unlawful arrests and like violations. Still more disappointing however is the reported statement of Sri Lanka’s Army Commander Gen.Sarath Fonseka on 14 November 2007(Quote) “This area is not a normal area (Responding to a question on the Eastern province) So people getting killed and some people going missing will happen as far as the anti-terrorist operations are continuing”. This statement of the military chief of a country that has a proven record of human rights abuses under the cover of a prevention of terrorism law and an unceasing emergency spells doom for a people who have been victims of a genocidal war for over three decades.

The SL military has intensified its operations on an over- ambitious and grandiose road map to annex new territory under its occupation. This is clearly seen in the numerous air attacks that have taken the lives of numerous civilians and destroyed civilian habitats. North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) has painfully compiled its report for the month of November 2007 which is alarming.

The clandestine claymore mine attack of the SL Army’s deep penetration unit on an ambulance that was carrying school children for first aid campaign, killing eleven children on 27 November 2007 is a matter that has to be viewed very seriously. Of similar concern is the attack on a radio station by the side of the A-9 highway killing 3 media persons and seven civilians who happen to be either inhabitants of that area or passers by on the A-9 road. The irony is that the A-9 was the much spoken word during the commencement of the cease fire period and indeed the only peace dividend the Tamil people got out of the CFA and now they can’t even walk safely on A-9.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa completing two years rule on the ‘concept’ of Mahinda Chinthanaya’ may be a matter for rejoice in the south but the Tamil people only saw an ascending pattern of military atrocities and climaxing it was the government’s shameless attempts to bully the Tamil legislators to refrain from voting against the budget. A legislator’s nephew was abducted and thereby the said legislator prevented from attending the parliament.

The Yaalppanam peninsula and parts of Mannar continue to remain closed and the military imposes arbitrary closure of the civilian check point at Omanthai off and on. The fate of the population in the Jaffna peninsula which is invariably an open prison with a perpetual night curfew for more than one year now has still not made any effective human rights body to cause opening of the highway that was opened immediately after the CFA.

By submitting a report every month from a part of the island that is taken for granted by the powers that be in Colombo, NESoHR strongly feels that it is doing its duty to the people and also helping human rights lovers all over the world, though the reports don’t seem to have any immediate effect in bringing an attitudinal change in Colombo.

Presented below in summarized form is a list that contain the numeric relating to killings, abductions, disappearances, unlawful arrests, injured in various ways, aerial bombings and displacements consequent to military operations in North East:

• Killings – 74
• Disappearances – 24
• Unlawful arrests – 640
• Injured – 43
• Sought refuges, HR office, Jaffna – 23
• Eleven killed in Military claymore mine
• Media persons killed in aerial bombing
• SL military claymore mine kills two
• Private Boatyard bombed – one killed
• Five civilians killed in aerial attack at Tharmapuram
• One killed and three including an infant injured in aeria
• Atrocities