A Letter to the UNHRC at Geneva, March 2013 Our Lionel- How he disappeared from the face of the Earth
Posted on March 8th, 2013

By Garvin Karunaratne Former Government Agent, Matara District

These days the term Disappearances is one of the main areas where the Sri Lankan Government is held accountable at the UNHCR at Geneva. In Colombo some Tamil families that have lost their dearest kith and kin are parading in the streets of Colombo, behaving as if the Sri Lankan Government is responsible for the disappearance.

I happen to know for definite about one disappearance and that was our Lionel.

Lionel was a young lad fromƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Gonahena, a small village situated between Mawaramandiya and Kadawata. He was the son of a coconut merchant, one Gunatileka who purchased coconuts from our small coconut patch at Mawaramandiya. I have seen him grow because he came off and onƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  for some purpose or other. When he became a lad he was within the bounds of the unemployed in the area. I happened to be the Human Resources Manager in the Department of Agrarian Services at that time and recruited Lionel as a temporary labourer…

Lionel did good work as a Labourer and whenƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  there were vacancies in the cadre of driver I posted him in, a decision of which I am sadder than ever. He was entrusted with a lorry and did move paddy islandwide. In April 1971 when the JVP struck on April 5 th he was moving some paddy and took refuge in the Matara Residency as all roads were blocked.

Later, Lionel was unfortunate to be selected, with around ten or more other lorry drivers to take rice to be delivered to the LTTE. He and other lorry drivers went in a convoy, every lorry laden with stocks of rice, dhallƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  to be delivered to the LTTE that ruled the North. The lorriesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  took the goods for the people that lived in Sri Lanka under the command of Prabhakaran, in his fascist terrorist territory.. The lorries left the area commanded by the Sri lankan Army and on normal occasions the drivers and the cleaners came back with the empty lorries. But not Lionel and the other lorry drivers and cleaners. They never never returned..Neither were the lorries returned.. They were commandeered for LTTE tasks That is all we know of them. I feel sorry that I had given him a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”promotionƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢as a lorry driver.

This is a cold blooded killing. His brother a Police Officer once told me that he tried to find what happened and failed to find anything.

There are many who disappeared at the hands of the LTTE, who are unsung and forgotten.

This was at a time when the Sri Lankan Government sent food supplies to the Sri Lankan people- Tamils who were ruled by Prabhakaran. At that time not tens but hundreds of lorries laden with essential food, were sent to the LTTE for distribution to the Tamil people under them every week.. I gather that the supplies were actually sold to the people while the Sri lankan Government did not charge a red cent.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Once from newspaper reports I did a check and the amount of rice we sent was far in excess of what was required for the people. Perhaps the rice was exported by the LTTE to India. This may appear too far fetched a conclusion but this appears the only conclusion to draw judging from the populace that had to be fed and the number of lorries that were sent in.

Perhaps Sri Lanka is the only country that fed its rebels. Actually the LTTE sold and made money on it. This was the time when the Sri Lankan Government paid the staff in schools in the LTTE held areas. This Sri Lankan staff included Divisional Revenue Officers and Government Agents. This was the time when five Government Agents were murdered by the LTTE for not carrying out their instructions.

These were all cold blooded murders, which did not evoke any response from the United Nations and other Superpowers who are now trying in Geneva to weave cobwebs to prove disappearances and ask for accountability for those that died. To be certain in that grim battle in the last stages we are told that some 6,000 soldiers died in defending our mother country. The soldiers were defending our motherland from a marauding fascist dictator who tried to wrest a part of our country.

It is sheer nonsense to hold such liberators responsible for war crimes and the USA of all countries that has led many a battle in many parts of the world is aware of this fact.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  It is sad that liberators are now being hounded as war criminals by arm chair critics and officers who have never experienced girm warfareƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  other than what they may have gathered readingƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  novels. There was no time for photography or for recording what happened . The UNHRC officialdom and the Country Representatives that sits in judgement in Geneva may please consider the real circumstances.

I feel sorry for dear Lionel and for his wife and children.

Garvin Karunaratne

Former Government Agent, Matara District

March 8, 2013

12 Responses to “A Letter to the UNHRC at Geneva, March 2013 Our Lionel- How he disappeared from the face of the Earth”

  1. aloy Says:

    Are we not modayas?. The US, UK, UN etc were here that time and they know what we did- feeding the enemy. Fortunately for us we had a couple of good soldiers and superiority in numbers. If we did not have that superiority in numbers we also would have ended up like Nalanda. After liberation all those ungrateful people voted enmass to TNA.
    They know very well what they are doing in UNHCR- fooling GOSL. We should disregard this nonesence.
    To my mind what they are trying to do is either to break up India or contain China. They contained China to its borders in the 16th century. At that time China was dominating the Indian ocean, but navigational technology of western powers (Spanish and Portugues) were much superior.

  2. Sunil Vijayapala Says:

    amarasiri – nalanda were full of buddhist monks whose only weapon was dhamma. they didn’t have arms to fight muslim moghuls while they burnt down the place. they went for cover or were massacred by muslims. how can you compare the layman sinh+hela people to nalanda monks? we fight and kill enemies, the history is there to prove. we have survived for 2500 years or more if hela factor is taken into equation. we will kill tigers and wahhabis if they attempt to be smart.

    you have been conditioned by this big ben fool who brings up his repetitive rhetoric about silk road, nalanda, impotent buddhists and the eventual disappearance of sinha+hela people.

    we have two option left with big ben fool, who has been labelled by many in this forum by various names, a person with self respect wouldn’t have returned to this forum.
    1. castrate the bastard so that all his ‘desires’ will be gone including his sex and his admiration of unclean indians.
    2. circumcise him so that he becomes automatically a wahaabi, so that we can eliminate him in our next round.

    all muslims should understand that we sinha+hela people have nothing against you, including the contributors in the elite forum (minus big ben) and we will not fight you but wahaabis will be eliminated in the near future, if they attempt to agitate and antagonise the sinha+hela buddhist people, who are the only people who love heladeepa.

  3. Lorenzo Says:

    Wahabis are the modayas to live in SL HOPING BBS will let them live in SL their way.
    Tamil Homeland Believers are the other modays to live in SL. Both have the same fate as in 18 May 2009.

    Just GET OUT of SL and they will be better off.

    Sinhala leaders were fools to the extent ALLOWING these Indians and Arabs to live in SL.

  4. Outspoken Sri Lankan Says:

    This story should be presented to the UNHRC. It is infuriating that all this is one sided. Tamils are made out to be angels. LTTE or not, they think of themselves only and will cheat, deceive, kill or drain the blood of Sinhalese for their gain. They are never satisfied until they get 100% of every job, every bit of land and all the money in the world deceiving western nations and living off their welfare.
    What about the stories of how they drained the blood of all the captured soldiers and used that to give transfusion to their people. What happened to their disabled. Where is the UNHRC when it comes to looking at the disabled LTTE cadres when there are none to be found because they were blown up. They were Sri Lankans first before they were absorbed to the LTTE. Violations against them is not considered violation of Human Rights. Why are people so passive. We should shout from the roof tops about the LTTE atrocities. Even our missions overseas are bending to the Tamils. When the President visited the USA, the Tamils were called two days before asking if they were free to attend a reception but not some of the people who have helped in the struggles as we have come to learn. Too much is demanded by them and too much is being done in the NOrth and East when there are poor people in the south without a roof over their head and that includes soldiers who have given life and limb for the country. Our Government is also a bunch of fools!!!

  5. Christie Says:

    My Indian Myna bird in Melbourne confirms the 40,000 dead were The Truth.
    On the seventh of March 2013 a forum was held by a Human Rights Busness group supposedly sponsored by a a Law firm called King & Mallesons or something. The panelists wereDr Sam Pari, Head of Tamils in OZ, Ms Harrison frtom the BBC (Voice of British and Indian imperialist, Gordon or Weiss who wrote The Cage and a Moderator from the Oz ethnic TV out fit SBS (SBS bit dumb on issues todayas ABC has taken over). A mad man asked the panel to confirm that the Sinhala army ate the dead. This could be what to expect from Chauvanist Sinhalese as the moderator referred to Sinhala chavanism. The three panelists went dumb. It was a Kangarrooo kourt attended many Tamils, Indians, Indians, Some socialists and suckers. It muat have cost the Indian intelligence service the Thid Eye more than $15,000 to stage it @ level 50, of a high rise office building in Melbourne.

    Last night I rang the UNHCR and spoke to two people, All mighty Indian colonial parasite Navi Pillai was not availabe unless you speak Tamil or Hindi. The African guy who took the call could not help me and passed me to an Indian woman called Berat. After a bit of discussion she had to go to a meeting. She claime Indians who work for UN are independents.

    BEAWARE OF INDIANS all around the world!!!

  6. Nanda Says:

    A moving storey.
    Lionel or his father was not a terrorist. Balachandran’s father was the worst terrorit ever.
    Yet the death of Balachandran, by torture or not has drawn sympathy and Lionel is a monkey killed by accident Nondi Pillai woman.

  7. Nanda Says:

    Modayas too know how to defend and kill the enemy.
    Fools commit crime without knowing the truth.

  8. aloy Says:

    Sinhalas can fight with the enemies as long as they have the numbers. Sinhala women carry out abortions at the rate of 300,000 a years, more than a million have deserted their families and gone to the middle east (and misbehave). The SLBFE actively encourages this. At the rate others multiply sinhalas will be a minority and will not be able to fight in anout 50 to 60 years time.

  9. Nanda Says:

    Who were the fathers and grandfathers of LTTE terrorism?

    1. Ponnambalam
    2.Chelvanayakam
    3. Amirtha(Andy) Lingam
    4. MGR
    5.Vaiko
    6.Seeman
    7. Jeyaleletha
    8. Karunanidhi
    9. Indira Gandhi
    10. Rajiv Gandhi

    to name a few. Looks like real modayas do not even know this.

  10. Nanda Says:

    Alloy,
    This is the same complain Lee Kuan Yew made some 20 years ago about Chinese. Then he introduced baby bonus to Singaporeans.
    We should intorduce a payment for each baby ( 1 lakh), only to Sinhala people. (The term “Buddhist” has been deleberately taken out as a coutesy to readers).

  11. Christie Says:

    I am concerned about the understanding of contributors and commentators. The Non Indians have to understand that India has an empire to prtect and it does whatever it can do to protect iys empire. Please talk to your Indian friends and see thair reaction.
    LTTE, JVP are Indian terrorist outfits. Both killed only Sinhalese, Moors, Malays and Burghers. This is a fact. There is no point in talking about all these other nonsense. If everyone says this and expose what India is up to India will back off nad no one will haras us.

    Now comes the Bodu Bala Sena, which acts the same as Shiva Sena of India.

  12. Lorenzo Says:

    Well done Pakistan. India getting its OWN medicine. :))

    “Geneva, March 09 (KMS): Kashmiri representative, Mrs Shamim Shwal has apprised the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) about Indian atrocities against the people of occupied Kashmir. Mrs Shamim Shwal addressing the 22nd session of the UNHRC in Geneva on behalf of the International Muslim Women’s Union pointed out that despite accepting the recommendation to put a moratorium on death penalty, during the 2nd cycle of UPR in September 2012, India hanged a Kashmir youth, Mohammad Afzal Guru in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 9, this year.

    She deplored that on one hand an innocent Kashmiri was hanged, while on the other, Indian troops and police personnel involved in gross human rights violation in occupied Kashmir were rooming free because of impunity. She said that the institutional culture of moral, political and juridical impunity in the occupied territory had resulted in enforced and involuntary disappearance of an estimated 8,000 persons, besides more than 94,000 deaths, and disclosures of more than 6,000 unknown, unmarked and mass graves. The last 22 years have also seen regular extra-judicial killings punctuated by massacres, she added.

    She informed the President of the UNHRC that all print and electronic media was under crackdown after Guru’s execution and police and paramilitary forces used brute force on peaceful protesters, who were demanding the handing over of his mortal remains to his family. She said that several person were killed by indiscriminate firing and two person died due the pepper gas used against protesters in old city in Srinagar.

    Shamim Shawl said that all pro-liberation leaders including the All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and other Hurriyet leaders including Syed Ali Gilani, Shabbir Ahmed Shah and Nayeem Ahmed Khan were put under house arrest and behind the bars.”

    – Kashmir news.

    SAME WORDINGS India use against SL.

    sonia sonia sokkavaiykum sonia
    kaathalil nee endhe vaghai kooru!!

    India thought they could get away bashing SL. Now what? Face the music now. I hope there is a vote on KASMIR too at the UNHRC!!

    Didn’t Gotabhaya predict this!!!

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