White Flags, White Vans and White Lies?
A Closer Look at the Death of Colonel Ramesh

New article by Global Mail examines video record of LTTE commander; but it may have left a stone or two unturned.

Clockwise from top left; Colonel Ramesh, Velupillai Prabhakaran, Duvarika Prabhakaran, and Isaipriya (Shoba).

(SALEM) - A fascinating article, The Death Of Colonel Ramesh, carried by Global Mail, brings forth details in another aspect of Sri Lanka's alleged war crimes, which ended in a tragic culmination of mass bombings and executions of Tamil civilians - the subject of an ethnic cleansing carried by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist government.

The article discusses at length the story of T. Thurairajasingham Devi, who was also known as 'Colonel Ramesh', and the death of this commander with the Tamil Tiger resistance group - officially known as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The end game for Sri Lanka's minority Tamil culture; mostly Hindu, partly Christian, has been one of widespread mass murder. As a long, painful civil war wound to a close, Tamils were spared from death infrequently; civilians were not distinguished from military units. The government of Sri Lanka had what appeared to be an active choice in the matter; they chose to annihilate civilians, according to groups including the United Nations, the United States and Amnesty International.

One aspect of the story that always seems significant, are the large number of journalists and other media professionals, who would have released the real events of this grim period, were gone, disappeared. Many were taken to their deaths in the famous 'white van' incidents which have continued long after the war's supposed end.

These vehicles of terror in all too many cases, are connected with terrible murders, the assailants are never brought to justice, but whether criminal or officials, these white vans seem to operate with impunity and Tamils say they are indeed from the SL government.

The Death Of Colonel Ramesh, seems like a sincere effort to lay out the story; however it reaches too many conclusions and misses strong points associated with this death that are important.

The article states that 'Col Ramesh' was among Tiger militants who were trapped with civilians in one of three so-called 'no fire' zones established by the Sri Lankan government; this was May 2009 - when the Sri Lanka Army had been bombing civilian refugees ferociously for weeks and weeks.

According to the Global Mail article:

A witness statement places Ramesh at the lagoon on May 17, dressed in a white shirt and sarong, crossing with his family, with one of his children in his arms.

Sensibly, knowing the battle lost, he had discarded his weapon and hoped to blend into the civilian columns, in order to preserve the lives of his family as well as his own. Once on the other side, he was recognized by the military and arrested. He was taken like almost 300,000 others to one of the detention camps in the town of Vavuniya.

Another witness saw him in the camp wearing a white shirt and blue-checked sarong, separated off with other Tamil Tigers who had been similarly recognised. As we can now surmise, he was eventually taken from the camp on May 22.

I am not sure if 'witness' is truly sufficient to make this point and conclude that events happened this way. The government of Sri Lanka was extremely critical of the Chsnnel-4 documentary, 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields', because witnesses faces were obscured and real names not used. There is no reason that unnamed witnesses should cast a final word over the fate of this LTTE commander.

The claim, that Colonel Ramesh dressed as a civilian and was identified by the SLA after fleeing the deadly 'no-fire' zone, is in strong contrast to those made by the LTTE officer's wife, who did not die in the war, and has filed a claim against Sri Lanka's Shavendra Silva, commander of the SLA's 58th division, over her husband's death. She claims that he is one of the Tamil Tiger leaders who used a white flag to surrender to government forces, only to be interrogated and executed.

From the 29 September 2012 release: UN Diplomat Sued for Torture of Sri Lankan Tamils - Courthouse News Service

Vathsala Devi claims that her late husband, Thurairajasingham Devi aka Col. Ramesh, belonged to the separatist group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

When the military defeated the Tamil Tigers on May 18, 2009, however, the colonel had negotiated his surrender "by white flag" to Shavendra Silva, who at the time was commander of the Army's 58th division.

"Silva intentionally and fraudulently invoked international humanitarian law protections to induce by deception the surrender of Thurairajasingham Devi, who came into custody of Silva and was then tortured and executed in violation of customary international law," according to the complaint.

To be clear, there are two videos that have been released, the first, a :34 second clip, appears to have been released about a year before the longer version.

The ten-minute video of the interrogation of Col. Ramesh, begins with him laying down in an armored personnel carrier (APC) in the blue and white civilian attire. You can hear the military vehicle's engine idling.

The video was absolutely recorded by a member of the Sri Lanka Army, there is no question about that. It is like so many other similar video clips now on YouTube, that are heavily indicting of war crimes on the part of Sri Lanka. As the video begins, wearing civilian clothing, this veteran military leader is perfectly still, his eyes are open, it seems clear he is being told to lay where he is, it is awkward.

In the next sequence on the video, Thurairajasingham Devi is seen during interrogation, wearing a pair of Tamil Tiger pants with their distinctive tiger stripes.

The article claims the pants are clean, which seems a side note and hard to determine. Generally a commander would surrender in a clean uniform.

He has a dressed wound on his back, it appears to be a fresh bullet hole, and also the scar from another bullet he took in the back many years earlier. 'The Death of Colonel Ramesh' states that the bandages tell a story.

The article assumes, because the video begins with the victim in blue and white civilian clothing, that this has to have come first, when the video could simply have been edited in this order. The articles also draw the conclusion that the bandage proves he emerged from a refugee camp, which would contradict the white flag surrender version of the story.

The dressing also places Ramesh in time and context. The dressing is as clean as he is. His battle wound has been dressed in the detention camp. We know this because after months of siege, there were no more dressings to be had and in the Nandikadal lagoon, if they were available to a senior commander at all, they would have been quickly dirtied in the siege and battle zone.

There is another odd aspect, this Tamil Tiger leader was directed to change into what appears to be an olive drab Sri Lanka Army (SLA) field uniform.

There is an accompanying set of photographs that seem to reflect what is in the video, however recorded from different angles. The photos include shots of Thurairajasingham Devi after he has been violently killed, wearing the SLA uniform. So it is obvious and clear that while he was in custody, Col. Ramesh was made to change clothing, why could they have not also had him slip on the white and blue civilian clothing? There is no clear answer to this that I can see.

I am not saying the article is incorrect, however it conflicts with allegations from the family of Colonel Ramesh:

Devi's widow says she only learned what happened to her husband when interrogation videos surfaced months later, in late fall 2009. "The videos depict uniformed members of the Sri Lankan military interviewing a prisoner who identifies himself as Col. Ramesh, Thurairajasingham Devi's pseudonym," the complaint states.

Before the video ends abruptly in the 34th second, interrogators are threatening to attackj Devi with a baton, according to the complaint.

"A photograph which surfaced on April 27, 2011 depicts the bloodied body of Thurairajasingham Devi, dressed in the same clothes as in the interrogation video," his widow claims, adding that she and her three children had to flee to South Africa.

The referenced video does not tell us exactly how the clothing changes happened, but I stress again that video is easily edited; I have personally been editing video since 1988 and technology has vastly simplified such a process in more recent years.

The video sequences may indeed not be sequential, and may not be as straightforward as some would have it seem.

If indeed this man was involved in a white flag surrender, then many of the assumptions drawn here could not be possible.

There is no existing video that we know of, showing Thurairajasingham Devi's execution; however the photos below which accompanied the two referenced articles, conclusively show that he was executed in the SLA type uniform after his interrogation. They also show his body being burned and disposed of.

There is additional movement in the legal case Vathsala Devi brought against Sri Lanka and Shavendra Silva, over the death of her late husband, Thurairajasingham. The following information was published by TransCurrents:

Involvement of Mauritius legal firm in case against Shavendra Silva was initiated by TNA