UN should refer Sri Lanka to ICC, or setup criminal tribunal, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 January 2016, 02:20 GMT]
Condemning Sri Lanka's President's rejection of any international involvement in investigating alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka's civil war, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, said "Sri Lanka's President Sirisena himself has now driven the proverbial stake through the heart of the genocidal Vampire of a GOSL domestic mechanism dressed up with the fig-leaf of meaningless international participation," and added, "[i]f the reference of the GOSL to the International Criminal Court by the U.N. Security Council is still stymied by a threatened veto...the UN must establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka as a “subsidiary organ” under U.N. Charter article 22."
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Wounds of war cannot be healed without justice - NYT

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 January 2016, 02:03 GMT]
Asserting as unacceptable Sri Lanka's President Sirisena's statement that his government will not act in "haste" to move forward the justice process demanded by the U.N. resolution of last October, the New York Times in today's editorial said, "[t]roubling allegations of torture under Mr. Sirisena’s watch — which his government denies — must be addressed. Military leaders who oversaw the bloody operations that killed as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of the war remain in command, and have even been promoted. A dangerous anti-Muslim campaign by Singhalese nationalists is threatening to further fray Sri Lanka’s ethnic fabric."
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Mark February 04 as Black Day: Families of forced disappeared

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 January 2016, 18:20 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils, who are reported missing after being captured by the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, on Thursday demanded the Tamil politicians, Northern Provincial Council and the Eezham Tamil civil society to publicly denounce genocidal Colombo on February 04 on the so-called independence day of ‘Sri Lanka’ observing the day as a Black Day. Grassroots organisations, including the Citizens’ Committee of Mannaar, condemned the SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and the SL Minister of Health Rajitha Senaratne for their recent attempts to classify thousands of Eezham Tamils missing at the hands of the Sinhala military as dead.
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6-year-old Tamil boy brutally raped and killed near genocidal SL Navy camp in Champoor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2016, 09:14 GMT]
A 6-year-old Tamil boy, reported missing at Champoor on Monday evening at 5:30 p.m., was recovered dead after being brutally raped and dumped into an abandoned well located near the ‘Vidura’ camp of the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka. The resettled Tamil families who went searching for the boy found traces of sexual abuse inside an abandoned house located near the naval camp. Military shoelaces have been used to bind the boy to a stone, the eyewitnesses who were watching the SL police to recover the corpse from the well, told TamilNet. SL President Maithiripala Sirisena is directly responsible for the brutality as he failed to move the Navy camp away from the resettling people as promised, Tamil rights activists in Trincomalee said adding that the West, led by the USA and a host of other countries, is particularly responsible for the continuation of genocidal paradigm after 2009.
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Refusal to use "genocide" indicates male fides - Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 January 2016, 18:11 GMT]
Tamils need an “acid test” in order to dispose of all the international charlatans and hucksters now coming your way. If they will not use the word “genocide,” then they are doing GOSL’s genocidal dirty work for it against the Eelam Tamils," said Professor Francis A. Boyle, and expert in international law who teaches at the University of Illinois, College of Law. A keen observer of the Tamil conflict for the past several years, Prof Boyle said he has been watching with alarming interest the involvement of several countries in the West including the US, UK and many members of the European Union in resolving the conflict, but ultimately ending up whitewashing Sri Lanka's international crimes, and displaying an illogical hesitancy in admitting that the Tamils constitute a nation.
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SL police refuses to register land grab complaint against Buddhist monk in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2016, 23:36 GMT]
The Head of the Sri Mangalaramaya Buddhist vihara in Batticaloa city, Ven. Ampitiye Sumanarathana thero, is refusing to release the lands seized from Tamil villagers in Maalaiyar-kaddu village (GS) division in Vellaa-ve'li administrative division of the district. The SL police under the so-called good-governance of Maithiripala Sirisena are refusing to accept complaints from Tamil villagers against the Buddhist monk, civil sources in Vellaa-ve'li told TamilNet. The occupying Sinhala policemen are deployed to do the farming in the lands seized by the Buddhist monk, the Tamil owners of the lands said.
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Eezham Tamils at Thennai-maravadi face renewed threats from Sinhala military

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 January 2016, 17:20 GMT]
While SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s Mahaweli ‘Development’ Ministry is engaged in appropriating vast tracts of fertile lands along the coastal and interior villages in the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka is being continuously deployed against the resettled Tamil villagers at their traditional village of Thennai-maravadi, situated on the border of Trincomalee district of the Eastern Province and Mullaith-theevu district of the Northern Province. The huts provided by the UNHCR to the resettling people were destroyed by six Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on January 01 around 11:30 p.m. 21 days have passed since the violent act, the SL police has not taken any action against the illegal and violent act by the Sinhala soldiers, Tamil villagers told TamilNet on Thursday.
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Switzerland misleads, terminology counts: Prof Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 January 2016, 09:25 GMT]
"The Swiss have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to Tamil Eelam and the Eelam Tamils. Under the circumstances of ongoing GOSL genocide, ‘terminology’ means everything if we want to survive,” responded Professor Francis Boyle to the current Switzerland involved ‘deliberations’ that have taken place in Jaffna earlier this week. “At the end of the day, the Swiss will sell us out to the GOSL once again," Professor Boyle, who is an expert in International Law and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, warned Eezham Tamils. He also noted the Swiss history of supporting Sri Lanka's crimes, especially pointing out that the Swiss sponsored a UN resolution which "congratulated" Sri Lanka as the State killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final phases of 2009 war.
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“Terminology should not be a key issue,” Swiss-supported seminar tells Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 23:28 GMT]
A series of seminars organised by Jayampathy Wickramaratne's Institute of Constitutional Studies with the support of Switzerland Embassy and attended by a Co-Director of Switzerland-based Institute of Federalism at the invitation of NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran ended up advocating the ‘non-descript’ approach of Jayampathy Wickramaratna and M.A. Sumanthiran, especially when the key academic of the seminar, Professor Eva Maria Belser, was stressing that “terminology should not be a key issue” in the constitutional process. The Foreign Ministry of Switzerland has been backing the so-called ‘Singapore principle’ process and the non-descript approach of Jayamapthy Wickramaratne, for which Mr Sumanthiran has been a strong advocate.
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None among political prisoners are real convicts, says released Tamil prisoner

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 January 2016, 23:25 GMT]
36-year-old Tamil political prisoner Jeneevan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena on January 08 told TamilNet that almost none of the 230 Tamil prisoners currently languishing inside the prisons of Colombo had command responsibilities or even contributed to the ‘crimes’ they had been accused of. Most of those detained for decades and those given prison terms beyond the scope of their lifetimes were all innocent people like A.G. Perarivalan of Tamil Nadu who had no knowledge that the battery he was buying was to be used in an assassination. The act of continued imprisonment of these people itself constitutes a crime against humanity, Jeneevan Sivarasa told TamilNet in a video interview this week.
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Coerced confessions determine Tamil prisoners' fate

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 January 2016, 19:57 GMT]
While rights groups highlight the continued torture and rapes of Tamils even after Sri Lanka's President Sirisena came to power, the 217 political prisoners languishing in Sri Lanka's high security jails expose another dark side of Sri Lanka's failed criminal justice system. The predicament of Valayuthan Varatharajan from Karava'nai South, Karaveddi who had been in remand for nearly 16 years in the New Magazine Prison, and was hurriedly given a sentence for "conspiring to carry out suicide attack" on the then President Kumaratunge, a verdict given three days before Sri Lanka resolution was passed in the UN on the 25th of September 2015, highlights Sri Lanka's judicial bankruptcy, legal sources in Colombo said. The main evidence the prosecution was able to assemble against Varatharajan was a coerced confession signed in Sinhala language by the defendant, according to these sources.
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Colombo makes mockery of UN endorsed domestic mechanism - Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 January 2016, 23:52 GMT]
Noting Sri Lanka Cabinet spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne's statements that there was no deadline to complete the accountability process on the war, that his Government is in talks with the United Nations with regards to the accountability process, and that the process will be a domestic process and not a “hybrid process” as proposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law, and who teaches at University of Illinois, College of Law, said that by these words "GOSL has publicly stated that it will continue its Crimes against Humanity against the Eelam Tamils. This makes an absolute and total mockery of the so-called “domestic mechanism” that was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council."
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Time is running out for Colombo leaders to prove statesmanship: Shivajilingam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 January 2016, 22:27 GMT]
Colombo regime, which came to power claiming ‘good governance’, has failed to address the urgent demands of releasing 200 Tamil political prisoners, reveal the whereabouts of more than 20,000 people in the past and the genocidal military occupying the Tamil homeland continues to seize lands from Mannaar to Ampaa'rai. “Unless we see any credible move within a few months time this year, the Tamil people will be mobilised to wage a civil disobedience campaign,” said Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who organised a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday. “The few Tamil politicians who are telling Tamils not to protest against the visit of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, have a very short time now to prove their claims,” he further said.
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Sirisena’s promises to Champoor Tamils not fulfilled, SL Navy refuses to vacate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 January 2016, 23:21 GMT]
The uprooted Eezham Tamils from Champoor in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district complain that the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which was supposed to vacate from Champoor Maha Viththiyaalayam School and the adjacent residential areas of 237 acres, has indefinitely postponed the hand over of lands back to the people. The promises made by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena have not been fulfilled, the uprooted Tamils said. The Eastern Provincial Governor Austin Fernando, who is a former defence secretary of occupying Colombo went on record on December 15 that the SL Navy would be handing back the lands before January 05. But, the SL Navy is now telling the people it would not move away for another 6 months, Champoor Tamils told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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‘Home-made’ solution not possible, NPC councillor calls for protest on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2016, 23:05 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam on Monday urged the public to attend a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday expressing their opposition to the deceptive politics being staged by the Colombo regime, particularly its leaders Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who are scheduled to visit Jaffna in just another PR stunt on Friday, when Tamils across the globe mark the secular festival of Thaip-Pongkal. Mr Shivajingam said there has been no progress at all on five important fronts: release of 200 political prisoners, establishing the whereabouts of 20,000 missing persons, de-militarisation and releasing lands seized by the occupying military in the North and East, internationally mediated negotiations to resolve the national question and investigations on crimes against international law including the genocide.
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Eastern Province Governor interferes in teachers’ transfers violating established procedures

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 January 2016, 23:11 GMT]
Colombo's colonial Governor to East, Austin Fernando, who is a former Defence Secretary of the occupying military of the unitary ‘Sri Lanka’, was interfering in processing the applications by Tamil teachers in the Eastern province who have been seeking transfer to schools situated near their villages. Principals and teachers who approached the Provincial Director of Education M.T.A. Nizam were told that their applications were now at the desk of the SL Governor in the East.
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Released Tamil political prisoner pays tribute to Senthuran, vows to stay the course

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 January 2016, 11:58 GMT]
36-year-old Tamil political prisoner Jeneepan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, paid a visit to the family of 18-year-old Senthuran Rajeswaran, who sacrificed himself jumping in front of a speeding ‘Sri Lankan’ train on 26 November demanding the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena to release all the Tamil political prisoners. In the meantime, Jeneepan's father 62-year-old Nagamuttu Sivarasa condemned the Colombo-based correspondents of international news agencies, who didn't see ‘news value’ in giving coverage to the struggle waged inside the prison by his son and others. “It was only because of the supreme sacrifice of Senthuran and the efforts of Tamil journalists operating from Jaffna, Jeneevan's case got focus,” Mr Nagamuttu told TamilNet.
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Aided by UN, US, genocide continues under Sirisena, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 January 2016, 02:02 GMT]
Noting recent rights groups reports that Tamils continue to face torture and gang rapes a year after President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in Sri Lanka promising reform, Professor Boyle, an expert in international law, who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that it is obvious that the "Sinhala Genocide against the Eelam Tamils continues apace under Sirisena," and that the GoSL, the U.S. Government and the UNHRC "perpetrated..a fraud upon the Eelam Tamils by calling for the establishment of nothing more than a so-called “domestic mechanism” by the GOSL Genocidaires that will give them the legal cover and fig-leaf to continue their campaign of outright genocide against the Eelam Tamils."
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IC-backed Colombo hurriedly erases evidences of Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2016, 00:15 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has hurriedly burnt and destroyed the remaining traces of a newly discovered makeshift torture chamber within the recently released lands in Valikaamam North in Jaffna at a locality known as Pazhai-Veemankaamam. Tamil journalists filmed the locality a few days ago. After the video evidence was published, the SL Defence Ministry in Colombo instructed its military at Palaali to remove the traces of the torture chamber, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Wednesday. In the meantime, former TNA Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran and Valikaamam North Deputy Chairman of Divisional Council S. Shageevan, have blamed Maithiripala - Ranil regime in Colombo for removing the crucial evidences instead of protecting the alleged traces that need to be investigated.
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Pakistan joins global warmongers, furthering genocidal Sri Lanka militarisation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 January 2016, 07:28 GMT]
Pakistan’s entry into genocidal Sri Lanka through the supply of ‘fighter jets’, frequent port calls, participation and training of military personnel and combating ‘terror financing’ raises serious questions that against whom and at whose behest Islamabad and Colombo embark on the military programme; for what world war the preparations are being made and who are the ultimate facilitators of the paradigm of bartering genocide and geopolitics, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. So far, only Washington, New Delhi and Beijing were the ones that were openly and significantly involved in the genocidal military paradigm in the island. Pakistan’s entry and Colombo’s reception are not without the blessing of some, the activists further said.
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Uprooted Tamils demand occupying SL military to vacate from Keappaa-pulavu

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 January 2016, 19:32 GMT]
More than one hundred families, languishing at a jungle pocket named Sooriyapuram a few kilometres away from their fertile village Keappaa-pulavu, which has been occupied by the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Colombo, staged a protest on the first working day of 2016 demanding Colombo to fully de-militarize their village and hand over their village back to them for resettlement. The occupying SL military was harassing the protesters by posing intelligence wing soldiers to take photos and videos of those participated in the protest. Despite the intimidation by the occupying SL military, the protesting people remained firm in demanding the SL military to vacate from their ancient village.
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10th Anniversary of STF murder of Trincomalee Tamil students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 January 2016, 02:36 GMT]
Dr Kasippillai Manoharan and four other families will be commemorating the tenth anniversary of the murder of their sons extra-judicially executed by the Special Task force (STF) of the Sri Lanka Government on the 2nd January 2006. The high school students, all then nearly 20-years old, were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee when the allegedly planned crime took place. Dr Manoharan told TamilNet that while he is disappointed with the Western powers who are acquiescing with Colombo to impose 'victor's justice' in SriLanka, he will continue to fight to seek justice for his son, and expressed his appreciation to the support he has received from individuals and organizations for his work.
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De-militarize Mu’l’likku’lam in 2016: Uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 January 2016, 00:31 GMT]
Rt Rev Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and the civil organisations in Mannaar district should demand the Sri Lankan State to fully de-militarize Mu’l’lik-ku’lam GS division of Musali division in the district in 2016 and enable more than 1,200 Eezham Tamils, who were uprooted from their village in September 2007 to resettle in their village, said the representatives of the uprooted Tamils, who have not received any response for their repeated appeals in 2015. The villagers talking to TamilNet in December 2015 urged the concerned stakeholders to come forward in demanding full de-militarization of Mu'l'likku'lam in 2016. The villagers managed to mark the dawn of 2016 at their own church in Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on January 01.
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