{"id":12853,"date":"2012-11-30T20:25:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T01:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=12853"},"modified":"2012-11-30T20:42:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-01T01:42:15","slug":"sinhala-army-capt-testifies-in-canada-about-order-to-plant-explosives-at-tna-ex-mp-sivajilingams-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=12853","title":{"rendered":"Sinhala Army Capt Testifies in Canada About Order to Plant Explosives at TNA Ex-MP Sivajilingam’s House"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stewart Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>n officer in the Sri Lanka Army, who fled to Canada and claimed he was ordered to plant explosives at the home of an outspoken opposition politician, is raising new questions about military abuses committed during the island nation\u2019s long civil war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Passport photo of Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, who was a captain in the Sri Lanka Army until he fled to Canada and deserted. He has told immigration officials the army ordered him to place a bomb in the home of a Tamil Member of parliament in Sri Lanka. \/ Federal Court of Canada<\/p><\/div>\n

Captain Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, 38, deserted after flying to Toronto in October 2009.
\n
\nHe has since told Canadian immigration officials he was aware of torture and other crimes carried out by government forces against minority Tamils.<\/p>\n

Testifying at his refugee hearing, he said a colonel ordered him to place bomb materials in the home of a member of parliament named \u201cSilva Jilingam,\u201d an apparent reference to M.K. Sivajilingam, a controversial Sri Lankan MP then aligned with the Tamil National Alliance party.<\/p>\n

But the captain said he refused and was transferred to Colombo, where he helped with search and cordon operations that rounded up ethnic Tamils. He said he knew the army was torturing, beating and raping civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cI admit that it is a harassment of these people,\u201d he said. \u201cI admit that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there has been mounting evidence both sides in the Sri Lankan conflict committed atrocities, the testimony is noteworthy because it comes from a veteran former commissioned officer.<\/p>\n

Frances Harrison, a British journalist and author of Still Counting the Dead, a new book that tells the stories of survivors of the brutal end of the civil war, agreed it was unusual to hear such allegations from an ex-soldier and member of the country\u2019s ethnic Sinhalese majority.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Passport photo of Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, who was a captain in the Sri Lanka Army until he fled to Canada and deserted. He has told immigration officials the army ordered him to place a bomb in the home of a Tamil Member of parliament in Sri Lanka. \/ Federal Court of Canada<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cA few Sinhalese have helped bring out war crimes evidence from Sri Lanka but, assuming this testimony is truthful, it\u2019s unheard of for a Sinhalese soldier to speak out openly about human rights violations. It would be a huge blow to the Sri Lankan government,\u201d the former BBC correspondent said.<\/p>\n

Both the Tamil Tigers rebels and the government forces have been widely accused of conducting themselves with reckless disregard for the welfare of civilians. While the rebels forced children to fight and used civilians as human shields, the army shelled populated areas and executed captives, according to several international investigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain tremendously concerned about the lack of accountability for the actions taken by both parties at the end of the war,\u201d Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told the National Post in an interview Friday. \u201cWe are deeply concerned about the lack of reconciliation and the authoritarian trend we\u2019ve seen in many government actions in recent months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The captain\u2019s allegations come amid growing international pressure for an independent investigation into the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war. Two weeks ago, a UN review concluded the international body had failed to protect civilians despite verified evidence of atrocities.<\/p>\n

A kung fu champion who joined the army in 1993, Mr. Watudura Bandanage told the Immigration & Refugee Board he had been trained in counterinsurgency.<\/p>\n

While he denied taking part in combat, the IRB did not believe him.<\/p>\n

He recounted how, in 2008, a colonel had asked him \u201cto do something which was not right\u2026. He said there is an order in regards to this MP, there\u2019s an order from the Defence Ministry\u2026. I was asked to go to this MP\u2019s residence and place some explosive material and detonator, and maybe they had planned to blame him for something and make him leave that area and to do something in that area that way or maybe they wanted to get rid of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A tank drives its to Puthukudiyiruppu during 2009 fighting between the Sri Lanka army the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Nir Elias \/ Reuters \/ Files<\/p><\/div>\n

The Sri Lankan forces routinely framed government opponents during the war to discredit them and justify their arrests, said Gary Anandasangaree, a Toronto lawyer who has been making presentations about human rights violations in Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. But he said it was \u201crare\u201d to hear such an account from a former soldier.<\/p>\n

In his refugee claim, Mr. Watudura Bandanage said he spent 16 years in the army, but feared for his life because he had complained to police about a prominent politician and his connection to drugs and prostitution.<\/p>\n

He said he had also leaked sensitive information to a Sri Lankan newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know my life is at risk if I go back to Sri Lanka,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the board ruled in February he was not eligible for refugee protection because he was complicit in crimes against humanity. It said the fact he was asked to place a bomb at an elected official\u2019s home showed he was a trusted officer and aware of the \u201crelentless brutality\u201d of the Sri Lanka Army toward Tamil civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find that during the last few years of the civil war in Sri Lanka, which includes the entire period that the claimant was a captain in the Sri Lankan army, military forces conducted ongoing widespread and systematic attacks on the civilian population in Sri Lanka. I find that the military forces of Sri Lanka committed countless crimes against humanity,\u201d IRB member Michal Mivasair wrote.<\/p>\n

Mr. Watudura Bandanage\u2019s appeal to the Federal Court of Canada was dismissed last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very significant,\u201d John Argue, Amnesty International Canada\u2019s co-ordinator for Sri Lanka, said of the ex-soldier\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it gets discussed publicly because then we get closer to what really happened in the last stages of the armed conflict and could have a serious discussion about accountability.\u201d courtesy: National Post<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stewart Bell An officer in the Sri Lanka Army, who fled to Canada and claimed he was ordered to plant explosives at the home of an outspoken opposition politician, is raising new questions about military abuses committed during the island nation\u2019s long civil war. Captain Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, 38, deserted after flying to Toronto …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Sinhala Army Capt Testifies in Canada About Order to Plant Explosives at TNA Ex-MP Sivajilingam’s House’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12853"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12861,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12853\/revisions\/12861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}