On March 22, Socialist Equality Party member Nadarajah Wimaleswaran and his friend Sivanathan Mathivathanan disappeared while traveling between two naval roadblocks in northern Sri Lanka. Two weeks after their disappearance, the Sri Lankan government and military is maintaining a wall of silence on their whereabouts. There is every reason to believe that the Sri Lankan government is responsible for their arrest and possible murder. Last August, SEP supporter Sivapragasam Mariyadas was murdered at his home.
The following resolution was passed unanimously by the International Students for Social Equality/Socialist Equality Party Emergency Conference Against War, held on March 31 and April 1, 2007, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This conference demands that the government of Sri Lanka provide an accounting for the disappearance of Nadarajah Wimaleswaran, a member of the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka, and his friend Sivanathan Mathivathanan in the northern Jaffna islands on March 22. There is every indication that the military is either directly responsible for or complicit in this disappearance, which took place between two navy roadblocks on a long causeway connecting Punguduthivu Island and Kayts Island, where both men live. We hold the Sri Lankan government responsible for the fate of Wimaleswaran and Mathivathanan and demand that it secure their immediate and safe release.
This conference also demands that government conduct a serious investigation into the murder of SEP supporter Sivapragasam Mariyadas at his home in Mullipothana in the eastern Trincomalee district last August 7 and prosecute those who carried out this killing. After eight months, the failure of the police to charge or arrest anyone for this crime strongly suggests that the responsible party is the military—which subsequently spread false rumors that Mariyadas was an LTTE member—or one of its associated paramilitary units.
This conference condemns these disappearances and this murder as political crimes carried out against the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka and these individuals because of their opposition to the war and their struggle to unite the working class on the basis of an international socialist program against all forms of communalist politics.
* * *The World Socialist Web Site calls on its readers to send urgent letters to the Sri Lankan authorities, demanding that they release all the information in their possession relating to the two men.
Letters can be sent to:
Gotabhaya Rajapakse,
Secretary of Ministry of Defence,
15/5 Baladaksha Mawatha,
Colombo 3, Sri Lanka
Fax: 009411 2541529
e-mail: secretary@defence.lk
N. G. Punchihewa
Director of Complaints and Inquiries,
Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission,
No. 36, Kinsey Road,
Colombo 8, Sri Lanka
Fax: 009411 2694924
Copies should be sent to the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) and the World Socialist Web Site.
Socialist Equality Party,
P.O. Box 1270,
Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Email: wswscmb@sltnet.lk
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