Will the UNHRC Head meet Tamil Victims of LTTE Terror or only Tamils who defend LTTE?
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is currently in Sri Lanka inspite of the devastation taking place in Israel, Iran & Gaza. He is scheduled to tour the Northern Province. His visit will put him to the test. Will he meet Tamil families who lost their loved ones to LTTE cruelty or will he like all previous UNHRC Heads give audience only to those who promote the same narratives the LTTE used to justify mass murder?
Thunukkai: The Camp of Horror the UN refused to see
While UN & its entities continue to desperately defend the narrative of “40,000” dead which it is being challenged to prove, the UN is happy to ignore the sites of torture, detention & even executions committed by LTTE.
According to multiple testimonies, backed by research from University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR-Jaffna):
- The LTTE operated a brutal torture and detention facility in Thunukkai, Mullaitivu.
- Between 3,000 and 6,000 Tamil civilians were abducted and held without trial.
- Many were executed, others died under torture, and the rest were never seen again.
- Child soldiers, forcibly conscripted, were made to guard and torture their own community.
- Victims included:
- Tamil youth who resisted recruitment
- Journalists, teachers, clergy
- Ordinary civilians accused of being “traitors”
So much for claiming to carve a separate state for “their own”.
UTHR’s reports describe underground bunkers, hidden camps, and systematic torture run by LTTE’s intelligence wing (Kittu/Thuraiappa Group).
These reports were available to the UN from the early 1990s. What did the UN do about them?
https://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport34part8.htm
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/a-monstrosity/?tztc=1 (write up on Thunnukkai LTTE detention camp by Prof. Hoole)
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16hz4inEA5/?mibextid=wwXIfr (Arun Siddharth)
“LTTE killed my beloved father” – Arun Siddarths wife Thangathurai Thayani’s heartbreaking story https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2023/02/23/ltte-killed-my-beloved-father-arun-siddarths-wife-thangathurai-thayanis-heartbreaking-story/
Yet not a single OHCHR report—including the Darusman, OISL, or Petrie reports—has cited UTHR’s primary Tamil testimony on these crimes committed by LTTE. Why the omission?
Families Plead for a Meeting — Will Volker Türk Give them a hearing?
The Jaffna Civil Society Center (JCSC) has sent a formal request to Mr. Türk’s delegation:
- Survivors of Thunukkai are alive.
- Families of those tortured and killed are ready to testify.
- Documents have been compiled.
- They have waited 16 years for the UN to acknowledge their pain.
They are not state agents. They are not Sinhalese. They are not Muslims. They are Tamils, wrongfully branded “traitors” by the LTTE, and then forgotten by the world.
We know the UN is little bothered about Sinhalese or Muslim victims of LTTE. But why omit Tamil victims of LTTE too?
Questions to the UNHRC to Answer
- Will the High Commissioner meet these Tamil survivors of LTTE atrocities?
- Why has no UN report mentioned Thunukkai, despite UTHR and other Tamil sources providing credible documentation?
- Why are only LTTE-aligned or diaspora-linked groups invited to speak at UNHRC sessions?
- How can justice be served when half the victims — those killed by the LTTE — are erased from UN records?
- What kind of human rights system refuses to even meet the victims of terrorism, while legitimising the grievances of its perpetrators?
Truth, silenced by the UN
UTHR’s reports confirm:
- LTTE ran secret prison networks across the Vanni.
- Thunukkai, Kilinochchi, and Visvamadu housed thousands of civilians.
- Mass killings of Tamil dissenters occurred as early as the late 1980s.
- Civilians who tried to escape LTTE areas were shot, sometimes in front of their families.
These are well-documented, Tamil-sourced, and independent.
So why did the OHCHR ignore UTHR in every war crimes narrative it built & happy to accuse the Sri Lanka Armed Forces of “war crimes” instead?
Selecting “victims” is not justice
Volker Türk’s itinerary, so far, reportedly excludes meetings with Sinhalese and Muslim victims of LTTE terror. That is understandable & nothing to be surprised about. It was a foregone conclusion. However, why is the itinerary ignoring a segment of Tamils who were victims of LTTE?
If that is politically convenient, it would be morally indefensible if he ignores Tamil victims of the LTTE — especially those with documented evidence, survivor testimony, and decades of silence behind them.
A Tamil Mother’s Appeal
“They took my son in 2005. We found his name in a UTHR report.
No one came to ask us. Not the media. Not the UN.
We are Tamil too. Why won’t Mr. Türk speak to us?”
We saw how speeches only spoke of LTTE mothers bewailing their dead terror sons/daughters. It’s a pity the victims of LTTE get shoddy treatment.
Time to be Heard.
The Tamil people were not all with the LTTE. That’s why we have continued to say “All Tamils are not LTTE though ALL LTTE were Tamils”.
Many Tamils were LTTE’s first victims.
Alfred Duraiappah – the Tamil Mayor of Jaffna.
Tamil Policemen on duty in Jaffna – all killed by LTTE before they turned guns on Sinhalese.
If the UNHRC Head is in Sri Lanka for truth, it must face all of it.
If Mr. Volker Türk refuses to meet these survivors, his visit will be remembered as another performance — not a step toward justice.
The ball is in Volker Turks court – we are all watching
Shenali D Waduge
