Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations, Inc.
P O Box 215 Enfield NSW 2136
Email:
24 August 2004
International Secretariat :
Reporters sans frontières
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris – France
Dear Sir,
We are alarmed and dismayed that the main suspect in the murder of the journalist and BBC correspondent in Northern Sri Lanka Mr Mylvaganam Nimalarajan is about to be granted asylum in the United Kingdom. The suspected killer who goes under the aliases of Napoleon, Sebastian Ramesh and Poopal Raj was released on bail by Vavuniya Magistrate Mr Visanthan on 21st May 2003. He arrived in the UK on 3rd June 2004 travelling under the name of Romankumar Patrick de Silva on a forged Sri Lankan passport.
Mr Nimalarajan was killed on 19 October 2000 when a group of armed men entered his home and having injured his father, mother and 11 year old nephew shot Mr Nimalarajan at close range.
Mr Nimalarajan was well known and respected for his fearless reporting of events from Army occupied Jaffna Peninsula. His reporting of the General Election of 2000 where intimidation and thuggery were widely employed had earned him the enmity of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) which was implicated in the election violence. Mr Nimalarajan was also responsible for organising a protest march against the attack launched on the offices of Uthayan, an independent daily operating in the Jaffna Peninsula. Again, it was widely speculated that the EPDP was behind this attack launched on 31st August 1999.
In a letter dated 21 March 2001, your General Secretary raised the issue with Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him to raise the issue with the visiting Sri Lankan President, Mrs Kumaratunge. In his letter to the British Prime Minister, Mr Robert Menard, the General Secretary of RSF had this to say:
“On October 19, 2000 Mr Nimalarajan, correspondent for a number of Tamil media and the BBC World Service in Jaffna, north of the country, was killed at his home. Unknown assailants machine-gunned the room in which he was working and then threw in a grenade. The journalist was living in a zone “made safe” by the Sri Lankan Army.
The family and colleagues suspect the EPDP, a Tamil militia that is now a member of the government coalition in Colombo and whose leader is a minister in the new cabinet of Chandrika Kumaratunga.
The BBC journalist was known for his courageous reporting on the situation in the Jaffna peninsula, and in particular on the outrages committed by the EPDP, the ravages of war, human rights issues and corruption.
RSF considers it important that any aid that might be forthcoming from Britain should be linked to an improvement in the human rights situation in Sir Lanka and in particular to a genuine effort on the part of the government to end the impunity enjoyed by the killers of Mylvaganam Nimalarajan.
We appeal to you to intervene with the president to see that a full investigation can be held as soon as possible so that the journalist’s killers can be identified.”
Referring to the same incident BBC’s Colombo Correspondent Frances Harrison had this to say: “Reporters Without Borders who championed this case commented that it was now apparent the police were unable or unwilling to conduct an investigation and gather physical evidence……. Impunity is a word that’s often used in Sri Lanka but it’s still astonishing that despite the peace process, the change of government and the international attention given to this case – justice has not been done.”
We call upon Reporters sans frontières to continue their attempts by urging the UK Government to not grant asylum given the horrendous nature of the alleged crime.
Yours sincerely,
Ana Pararajasingham
Chairman
Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations