Sri Lanka responds to International Commission of Jurists:

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Sri Lanka responds to International Commission of Jurists: Even hardcore Tigers won’t be held indefinitely – DEWOctober 5, 2010, 9:00 pm

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Rehabilitation and Prisons Reforms Minister D. E. W. Gunasekera has assured hardcore LTTE cadres that the government will not detain them indefinitely.
The pledge was given in the presence of Commissioner General of Rehabilitation Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe, the senior officer in charge of the ongoing project to re-integrate them with society.
Minister Gunasekera last week met almost 900 male LTTE cadres comprising members of various fighting units such as intelligence and suicide cadres at a school in Omanthai close on the heels of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) alleging Sri Lanka has failed to adhere to international law in detaining suspected LTTE cadres.
Among the detained are those responsible for major attacks in Northern and Eastern provinces and the South over the past 20 years.
The ICJ alleged the detention of nearly 8,000 LTTE suspects for months without a trial was perhaps "the largest mass detention in the world". It requested Sri Lanka's donors and the UN to urge Colombo to improve its human rights situation.
Minister Gunasekera reminded the detainees that those arrested during 1971 and 1987-1990 JVP-led insurgencies had been detained for a longer period. The Communist Party General Secretary said that the police and the Attorney General's Department had been asked to expedite investigations.
Speaking to The Island yesterday, Minister Gunasekara emphasised that the government was keen to wrap up the rehabilitation project as quickly as possible. Those who expected the government to release detainees immediately weren't pragmatic, he said. According to him, as many as 2,000 detainees could be released within the next two months. Minister Gunasekera said that his assurance had been received with loud applause.
Brigadier Ranasinghe told The Island yesterday that of the 11,696 detainees held at the conclusion of the war in May last year, only 7,001 now remained in his care. He said that over 4,000 LTTE cadres had been released in batches following rehabilitation. Responding to a query, the official said that the government hadn't taken legal action against them. Similarly, 7,001 persons, too, would be released once they completed the rehabilitation process, Brigadier Ranasinghe said. According to him, those undergoing rehabilitation, too, wouldn't face legal action.
An irate Brigadier said that those who criticised the post-war rehabilitation process had conveniently forgotten that of 11,696 terrorists held by the army at the end of the war, only about 900 would face legal action. The Rehabilitation Chief said that those engaged in counter-terrorist operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world had adopted a tougher position on prisoners.
Brigadier Ranasinghe said that there were only a few hardcore female cadres in detention at the moment. He said they were held along with those undergoing rehabilitation as a separate camp couldn't be run for a few hardcore women cadres.
Sri Lanka's post-war rehabilitation process was an example to any country fighting terrorists, Brigadier Ranasinghe said. He recently appeared before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) at the Kadirgamar Centre for International Relations, where he explained the ongoing rehabilitation process. The eight-member LLRC, headed by former Attorney General C. R. de Silva, is investigating the collapse of the Norwegian-led peace process, circumstances leading to the eelam war IV and post-war reconciliation efforts.
Brigadier Ranasinghe told The Island that the rehabilitation process had received the support of a section of the international community as well as the civil society organisations.