US satellite snaps could implicate Sri Lanka

US military satellites secretly monitored Sri Lanka's conflict zone through the latter stages of the war against the Tamil Tigers, and American officials are examining images for evidence of war crimes.

The images are of a higher resolution than any that are available commercially and could bolster the case for an international war-crimes inquiry when the UN Human Rights Council holds a session on Sri Lanka next week.

They were acquired by the National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency, based in Bethesda, Maryland, which is part of the Department of Defence but provides services for other government agencies.

NGA spokesman Marshall Hudson said the agency had been monitoring the conflict zone and had provided images to the State Department, some of which were released to the media last month.

"It's a safe assumption that we didn't release everything that we have," he said. He declined to give further details.

Other US officials said the Office of War Crimes Issues was investigating Sri Lanka and that satellite images were a crucial part of the investigation because of the lack of access on the ground.

Sri Lanka declared victory in its 26-year civil war on Tuesday after killing or capturing the last of the Tigers.

Britain, the EU and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have called for an investigation into allegations that both sides committed war crimes repeatedly, including firing on civilians.

EU states are struggling to raise more than 17 votes on the 47-member Human Rights Council, dominated by a bloc led by China and Russia that has frequently prevented inquiries into human rights.

The US, which was elected to the council last week after ending its boycott of the body, does not become a voting member until next month but is expected to speak at the meeting and could share its evidence with undecided members, diplomats said.

If the UN fails to back a war-crimes inquiry Washington could use the images and others from commercial sources as evidence in its investigation, according to human rights activists.

This is the latest example of how satellite technology is being used to monitor conflicts and hold governments to account for their actions. Satellite imagery is valuable in the case of Sri Lanka because the Government has banned almost all independent aid workers and journalists from the front line, blocking examination of alleged war-crime scenes.

The State Department has already used NGA satellite images to put pressure on the Sri Lankan Government. It released two pictures to the media last month that it said showed 100,000 civilians crammed on to a beach in the conflict zone.

In the same month, the UN leaked satellite images from multiple sources that appeared to prove that the Sri Lankan air force had bombed civilians there, despite having established it as a no-fire zone for them to shelter in.

Sri Lanka admitted bombing the area but said it was attacking Tiger artillery positions and that there were no civilians in the immediate area at the time. It accused the UN of spying.

Human Rights Watch has used satellite images of Sri Lanka from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has helped to expose rights abuses in Burma, Zimbabwe, Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan.

The resolution of the images does not exceed half a metre per pixel, and most do not allow night vision.

"We can do a little better than that," Mr Hudson said. The NGA uses software to recognise and analyse differences between images that could indicate damages from bombs or heavy artillery.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...6-25837,00.html

Cause remains for Tamil Tiger in our midst

THE guns have been silenced and peace has returned to her homeland, but the celebrations have been muted this week for Sri Lankan expatriate Niromi de Soyza.

The Sydney mother of two was once a member of the Tamil Tigers, the feared guerilla insurgency that has finally been crushed after a bloody 37-year campaign to create an independent Tamil state.

Trained in combat and armed with a rifle and cyanide capsules, de Soyza took the fight to Sri Lanka's military for a year in the jungles of Vanni and the Jaffna Peninsula.

It was, she maintains, a "quest for equality"; the defence of the Tamil minority against an oppressive Sinhalese government that had discriminated against them for too long.

But while she still believes in the cause, de Soyza now disavows the violence and suicide bombings that resulted in 70,000 deaths since the civil war began.

"I am relieved the fighting is over. Violence resolves nothing, I know that now. But nothing has changed for the Tamils," de Soyza, 39, told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

"We don't have independence. Look at the way the Tamils are treated in the (refugee) camps. The cause is not over."

Having migrated to Australia in 1990, she says she was horrified to see the violence reach these shores last Sunday when Tamil and Sinhalese supporters clashed in Sydney's west, a conflict that culminated with two Sinhalese students being stabbed and burnt with acid. "It's so sad. It's so futile. It solves nothing - and it's not the Australian way," said de Soyza, who recounts her year with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in today's Inquirer.

Now living in an affluent Sydney suburb with her husband and their two daughters, such attacks have also made her fear for her own safety.

The former guerilla has assumed the nom de plume Niromi de Soyza for the purposes of publication. The choice is no accident: she is honouring Sri Lankan journalist and newsreader Richard de Soyza who was murdered in 1990, allegedly by a government death squad.

With the UN confirming the LTTE has forcibly recruited child-soldiers in recent times, de Soyza is insistent such tactics weren't used when she signed up.

Born into an educated, middle-class family in the Sinhalese city of Kandy, she is of mixed Sinhalese-Tamil heritage and from the age of nine she lived in the northern Tamil town of Jaffna. By 1987, with the civil war raging, she says she was swept up in the ideals of the struggle.

"I was 17, idealistic, and I thought if I was going to be killed anyway (in the civil war) I may as well fight," she explained. She told her mother in a note she was running away to join the Tigers.

LTTE leaders were so sceptical about recruiting a petite, pretty and intelligent girl that they tried to convince her not to join.

She was accommodated in an uncomfortable fisherman's hut, away from the regular barracks, to dissuade her. De Soyza's mother was even allowed to visit to beg her to return. Neither tactic worked.

After being sent to the Tigers' female political wing, The Freedom Birds, she was selected in the first intake of female cadres to receive military training.

In combat operations she would witness many of her friends being killed; their blood even soaked her fatigues.

With such sacrifices bringing sovereignty no closer, de Soyza decided to walk away after one year. She says she was let go without acrimony. "I think I'd dehumanised the enemy. Unfortunately it was only when I saw my own friends being killed that I realised how wrong I'd been."

Having been trained to shoot only in the "general direction" of the enemy, not at individuals, she does not know whether her bullets ever claimed a life.

She came on a student visa in 1990, aged 20, to Sydney, where several relatives already lived. Her parents and sister have since joined her.

De Soyza says she never associated with the local Tamil community, and her husband is not Sri Lankan. She has only returned to her homeland once, in 1996, using her married name.

"The Tamil cause is associated with the Tigers, and it shouldn't be. Unfortunately those who support the Tigers have the loudest voice. So I have kept my distance," she said.

But her dream for an independent Tamil state remains. She wants her two daughters "to be strong and stay true to their beliefs, but also to know violence and destruction doesn't work."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...90-2702,00.html