Douglas Devananda, general secretary of the Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP) and a Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister, says he cannot be hauled up before any court in India or Sri Lanka for crimes allegedly committed during the armed struggle for an independent Tamil Eelam because he, along with other militants, had been pardoned by the Sri Lankan and Indian governments under the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987.

 

 

Speaking to Express here on Monday on the ongoing case in a Chennai court seeking his arrest on the grounds that he was a “proclaimed offender” in the 1986 Choolaimedu shooting case, Devananda said he had been pardoned by the President of Sri Lanka under sections 2.11 and 2.12 of the India-Lanka Accord.

 

 

“I had signed a document in this regard when I came to Sri Lanka from exile in India in May 1990,” Devananda said.

 

 

Devananda, who is the only Sri Lankan Tamil Cabinet Minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, pointed out that the India-Lanka Accord had explicitly stated that in the matter of pardoning and rehabilitating former militants, the Government of India would cooperate with Sri Lanka.

 

 

“The relevant clauses were read out to me by my lawyer, M T Vanamamalai, when the Choolaimedu case was in court in Chennai in 1989-90. Vanamamalai told me very clearly that there was no case against me following the India-Lanka Accord,” Devananda said.

 

 

“It was because of the general amnesty given to all militants that no one raised the Choolaimedu issue in Tamil Nadu or elsewhere all this while, and I was able to go to India several times on personal and political work,” he added.

 

 

Sections 2.11 and 2.12 of the India-Lanka Accord signed in Colombo by Sri Lankan President J R Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandi said, “The President of Sri Lanka will grant a general amnesty to political and other prisoners now held in custody under The Prevention of Terrorism Act and other emergency laws, and to combatants, as well as to those persons accused, charged and/or convicted under these laws. The Government of Sri Lanka will make special efforts to rehabilitate militant youth with a view to bringing them back into the mainstream of national life. India will cooperate in the process.”

 

 

Section 2.12 said the government of Sri Lanka would accept and abide by the above provisions and expected all others to do likewise.

 

 

“The provision that India will cooperate in the process is critical to the case in the Chennai court,” Devananda said.

 

 

NOT PRESENT AT SCENE OF CRIME: Devananda said the case against him was weak because he was not present when the shooting, in which a middle-aged man was killed, took place.

 

 

“I came to the scene after the incident had taken place to investigate and settle the matter. It was a factional fight within the EPRLF (the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front), the organisation to which I then belonged,” Devananda said. “And at any rate, I was only the fifth or the sixth accused,” he added.

 

 

Devananda contended that the then Tamil Nadu DGP, P Dorai, had a habit of accusing him of being responsible for every crime committed by Sri Lankan militants at that time.

“Immediately after Padmanabha and other EPRLF leaders were massacred in 1990, Dorai told the media that I had done the deed, only to be contradicted by the then Chief Minister, Kalaignar Karunanidhi, in two days,” he recalled.

 

 

POLITICAL VENDETTA: According to the moderate, pro-government Tamil politician, pro-LTTE Tamil parties and groups in Sri Lankaand Tamil Nadu have raked up the 24-year-old issue now only to discredit him politically.