Govt. resorts to “psychological terror”: Dissidents

The Collective against Disappearances and Abductions, a movement led by the JVP Dissidents and other organisations yesterday charged that the government attempted to create “psychological terror” in both the northern and southern parts of the country to suppress the people after an awareness campaign by the dissidents in the north was hindered by police and army officials on Tuesday.

Dissident supporters had organised an awareness campaign in Jaffna and Kilinochchi but were stopped by army and police officers on five occasions and were not permitted to travel to Jaffna, the Movement for People’s Struggle Group Coordinator Duminda Nagamuwa said.

The campaigners who travelled in 12 buses were stopped by the army and police officers in Punnawa, four kilometres before Vavuniya and were informed that they could not proceed further as a bridge on the road had exploded. Nagamuwa said however that they witnessed a number of heavy vehicles travelling on the bridge. “When we questioned them about this they said they were following orders and could only allow us to pass if they had received approval to do so,” he said.

Thereafter they were searched for over an hour at Joseph Camp and the Vavuniya Police Headquarters. After that, buses carrying the campaigners were stopped for three hours at Thaandikulam in Vavuniya and again searched. The buses were again stopped five kilometres after Vavuniya. “We were informed that three bombs were found in a coconut lorry, in addition to another four bombs and a suicide kit. They said we could not proceed any further as our safety was at risk. These were lies just to prevent us from carrying out our campaign and is a blatant violation of human rights,” Nagamuwa said.

He said the Tamil people were further suppressed by these acts and said the government fabricated these events to make them appear responsible for the bombs. A restaurant in the area where they had organised a media briefing was also attacked and the owners of the restaurant had been threatened, MP Ajith Kumara said.

“We gave out leaflets to people to inform them about the existing military dictatorship, the inhuman violation of democratic rights and the disappearances of people such as Lalith Kumara Weeraraju and Kugan Muruganandan who fought for these causes. They are bound by the constitution, by decency and humanity to tell us what happened to these people who have disappeared,” the Maoist Ceylon Communist Party Secretary Surendra Rupasinghe said. (OJ)-(Pix by Nisal Baduge)