Tamils need to add Macron’s France to geopolitical watchlist on genocide-abetting regional powers

3RD LEAD (Update)

Pompeo blacklists pro-China Shavendra giving Gotabaya second chance to toe US line

It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who led the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009, giving instructions to the then Major General Shavendra Silva to bomb the hospitals as well as to carry out the brutal white-flag killings. Gotabaya was a US citizen and SL Defence Secretary at that time. Instead of holding the greatest war criminal and genocidaire, liable under US Congress’s War Crimes Act, accountable for the crimes, the Trump administration has opted for a different approach with strategic interests in mind. The US State Department is enticing him offering carrots while pointing its stick selectively against his pro-China Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva. On Friday, US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo designated Silva under Section 7031(c) of US Department of States Appropriations Act, passing a severe message to Gotabaya not to delay toeing the US line. Full story >>

Israel’s balancing act with China ‘inspires’ Colombo

Dr Ron Malka, the ambassador of Israel to India and Sri Lanka, paid a courtesy call on SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday morning. Israel is ready to strengthen bilateral relationships with Colombo, reported SL State-owned newspaper Daily News. Mr Rajapaksa was seeking Israeli assistance to modernize agriculture, the paper said. However, there is more to the re-emerging nexus between Tel Aviv and Colombo. In January, a “think-tanker” of the SL Ministry of Defence was comparing Israel permitting China to operate its Haifa port with SL State’s leasing of Hambantota port to China. In the meantime, China and Israel, after having secret talks for several years, are set to conclude a trade pact in 2020 despite repeated warnings from US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the Foreign Policy reported earlier this month. Full story >>

Trump to visit India, Pentagon clears air defence system for New Delhi

The US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will be visiting New Delhi later this month on February 24-25, 2020, according to a news release issued by the White House on Monday. “The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement,” the news release noted. In the meantime, US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) also issued a statement stating that it had cleared a deal of Integrated Air Defence Weapon System (IADWS) at an estimated cost of $1.867 billion with India, on Monday. Full story >>

‘Sinhala Neighbourhood First’ approach unfolds in New Delhi

SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was not reciprocating Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “confidence” that Colombo would “realize the expectations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace, and respect within a united Sri Lanka.” Both the leaders held a joint media presence in New Delhi on Saturday. Mr Modi said that it would be “necessary to carry forward the process of reconciliation with the implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.” Mr Rajapaksa, who read out a statement after Modi’s speech, was not making any reference to “united” or “13th Amendment”. The same pattern was also witnessed during SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s visit to India in November 2019. It is evident that Mr Modi was making concessions to Colombo in return for its compliance to the maritime security concerns of New Delhi, political observers in Jaffna said. Full story >>

China, Vietnam block joint statement against genocidal Myanmar in UN Security Council

The Republic of China, one of the five UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members and Vietnam, one of the ten nonpermanent members for the 2020-2021 term, were opposing a joint declaration on Myanmar earlier this week. The proposed statement was seeking Myanmar to comply with the recent provisional judgement delivered by the International Court of Justice at a closed-door meeting of the UNSC. Meanwhile, all the permanent members of the UNSC, except China, seem to be backing India on the status of the occupied Kashmir. However, UNSC’s EU member states, France, Estonia, Germany and Belgium issued a joint statement urging Myanmar to “comply with the provisional measures indicated by the ICJ.” Full story >>

Eezham Tamils in North-East mark Feb 04 as Black Day

Eezham Tamils in the occupied Tamil Eelam also this year didn't show interest in the so-called Independence Day on Tuesday. As an occupied nation of people, they not only remained aloof from the celebrations of hoisting the SL national flag or getting involved in the anthem of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka but marked the day as Black Day. Only the occupying SL military was celebrating the day. Grassroots activists, Tamil parliamentarians and political activists joined the Black Day protests staged by the kith and kin of persons subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying SL military. Black Day protests were held in Ki'linochchi, Batticaloa and Trincomalee with significant participation. Full story >>

US-Israeli plan goes against UN resolutions, negates sovereignty of State of Palestine

“A realistic solution would give the Palestinians all the power to govern themselves but not the powers to threaten Israel,” states the so-called Trump peace plan, which was named “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People”. The US-Israeli plan, hatched without Palestinian participation negates Palestinian sovereignty. It proposes the State of Israel to “retain the right to engage in necessary security measures to ensure that the State of Palestine remains demilitarized and non-threatening to the State of Israel”. Furthermore, allowing Israel to annex the territories of occupied Palestine, the plan severely restricts the borders of the State of Palestine to be mostly encapsulated by the State of Israel and refuses East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine. Full story >>

Mike Pompeo: Chinese Communist Party ‘Central threat of our times’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting London this week to discuss US-UK bilateral ties at the height of Brexit and the British decision on involving the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei in the deployment of UK's 5G mobile network amidst repeated US warnings. The former CIA director said the Chinese Communist Party was the “central threat of our times” after 20 years of post 9/11 counterterrorism problem. On the British decision on Huawei, Mr Pompeo said: “This isn’t about any one company. This is about a model that the Chinese Communist Party has where they place requirements on these businesses that say thou shalt do, and there’s not only a legal requirement but there’s deep financial investment. You have senior leaders in these companies that are tied to the Chinese Communist Party. We think that – it’s not about a technical back door. They have the front door.” Full story >>

New Delhi mulls upgrading Malabar naval drills into Quad war games

New Delhi is considering to upgrade the trilateral naval exercise it annually conducts with the navies of the US and Japan to also include Australia this year, Times of India reported citing undisclosed sources on Wednesday. If Australia is involved, Malabar Exercise will mark the first time the “Quad” will come together for the “high-voltage combat manoeuvers on the high seas after a gap of 13 years,” Rajat Pandit of the TOI reported. China has been highly critical of Australia and India staging naval war games in the Indo-Pacific. Full story >>

Gotabaya's “non-alignment” talk temporary, tactically aimed at consolidating genocidal state

The Sino-Russian global alliance wants New Delhi to subscribe to the Nehruvian tradition of non-alignment of the Atlanticist Cold War period, which in effect meant alignment with the USSR in the past. However, if New Delhi were to continue the non-alignment policy in the modern-day, especially after the start of the Indo-Pacific Cold War, the choice would block any “in-depth techno-security partnership” with the US. Therefore, pursuing “non-alignment” in practice means choosing Sino-Russian side, wrote M.D. Nalapat, the editor of The Sunday Guardian in a piece titled “Time to choose sides in Indo-Pacific Cold War” on Saturday. Similarly, Colombo would also be under pressure to make the choices as determined by the New Delhi (by extension the US) establishment, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. Full story >>

Washington synchronises geographic conception of “Indo-Pacific” with New Delhi

Two high-ranking US national-security and State Department diplomats who attended the Raisina Dialogue conference held in New Delhi 14-16 January 2020 have gone on record stating that the US had expanded the territorial scope of the geopolitical notion “Indo-Pacific” to be more or less the same as what was being defined by the New Delhi Establishment. US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger said the American conception of “Indo-Pacific” was now “roughly aligned with the Indian conception” and that it included East Africa and the Gulf. “More than Hollywood to Bollywood, it is really now California to Kilimanjaro,” he said at the session titled “Coalitions and Consensus: In Defense of Values that Matter” on 19 January. Full story >>

ICJ imposes preliminary measures to prevent Rohingya genocide

In a historic preliminary ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday found it had prima facie jurisdiction over the Rohingya genocide case filed by the Gambia. The ICJ, also known as the World Court, instructed Myanmar to take a series of provisional measures to prevent the crimes within the scope of the definition set out in the Genocide Convention and to take effective measures to prevent the destruction of any evidence while the case is pending the final decision. The Theravada-Buddhist Establishments in Myanmar and elsewhere, complicit a prolonged genocide, have to now contend that the genocidal intent of the ideology is going to be scrutinised at the World Court. This is welcome news for Eezham Tamils. Full story >>


2ND LEAD (Adds SL Hansard record)

IC accountable for Gotabaya reneging on justice commitments: TNA MP

Several countries in the International Community (IC) supported the Sri Lankan State that waged a genocidal war against the Tamils. The Tamil national liberation struggle and its taproot [the LTTE] were wiped out through a genocidal war by the SL State with the backing of other states in the IC. It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who commanded the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009. Now, what are these countries going to do to enforce international justice, especially after Mr Rajapaksa pronouncing all the missing as dead, asked Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian S Shritharan at the SL Parliament on Tuesday. Today, we are voicing for justice as a nation subjected to genocide. We are not merely speaking from a suppressed situation or a coated environment of so-called development, Mr Shritharan said adding that Tamils were no longer begging for justice, but demanding international justice. Full story >>