ITAK urges internationally supervised negotiations with GoSL

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 09:20 GMT]
Two veteran Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) politicians, C.V.K Sivagnanam and Mavai Senthirajah, on Sunday urged international supervision of a process that guarantees both a proper negotiation process and the implementation of results in the talks between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). The two officials of ITAK, a key party of the TNA, in their address urged that both the governments of India and Tamil Nadu to play a sincere and constructive role to bring about an international supervision that should include China, USA and other world players. In the meantime, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) condemned the agents of the Sri Lankan state for forcing Tamils from all the districts in the North and East to take part in May Day demonstrations in Colombo, organized by Sinhala extremist elements against the UN Expert panel report.
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Sinhala extremist federation wants Rajapaksa to terminate talks with TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 05:42 GMT]
The Federation of National Organizations, a coalition formed by ten Sinhala extremist groups in the south, has requested the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to terminate its talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in a statement issued on May Day, coinciding with the protest show of Mahinda Rajapaksa against the UN Expert Panel report. Meanwhile, Tamils from several parts of the island were forcefully taken to Colombo by Sri Lankan military, paramilitary and other agents to showcase as people from all ethnicities were united in the protest against the UN. However, a dead silence prevailed in the SL occupied country of Eezham Tamils throughout the whole day on May Day.
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Boyle: Word "Genocide" missing in UN Panel's war crimes report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Pointing out the instances where the criminal allegations on Sri Lanka made in the UN's war crimes report support the charge of genocide on Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "[f]or obvious political reasons, no one wants to use the word “genocide." And that is because it then raises the question why did no one stop the genocide as required by article I of the Genocide Convention. The same phenomenon happened in Bosnia. No one would use the word “genocide” until afterwards, and it was too late to do anyone any good—they were all dead."
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Ban Ki Moon, Accessory After the Fact to Sri Lanka war crimes, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 April 2011, 22:56 GMT]
Faulting UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for his continued "pattern and practice of criminal behavior by rejecting the recommendation of his own Panel that he appoint a Commission of Inquiry into GOSL war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Tamils," Professor Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois School of Law, told TamilNet that "Ban Ki-Moon is an absolute disgrace to the lofty standards of the United Nations Charter and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights," and that Moon should be prevented from being elected for a second term.
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‘Saving a state that refuses to be saved’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 02:40 GMT]
A perusal of the leaked UN report would show that the outlook is to ultimately save the Sri Lankan state by providing it with an escape avenue through a minimum penalty of accepting a ‘concurrent’ international mechanism to investigate the war crimes. But the reactions coming from Colombo only show that such an undue consideration on the part of the UN and the IC towards Sri Lanka is futile as state has never been orientated in the island for peaceful unity or for being genocide-free. Perhaps a chance has now been given especially to the Sinhala masses to demonstrate their choice between supporting a criminal regime that tries to save its skin by citing love to a genocidal `mother country´ and recognizing the love of both the Sinhalese and Eezham Tamils towards their mother countries in order to pave way for true reconciliation, writes A. Vijayshankar of Tamil Nadu who is now in Norway.
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TNA urges GoSL not to miss the opportunity to engage in equality process

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 April 2011, 18:38 GMT]
R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in his response to the leaked recommendations of the UN Panel, on Monday said that the TNA urged the Rajapaksa regime not to miss the opportunity to "constructively engage in a process which would result in all the Peoples of Sri Lanka being the beneficiaries of genuine democracy, equality and justice."
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UN Panel gives Colombo a lesson on "Theory of Justice"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 April 2011, 21:12 GMT]
The three-member UN panel rejected Sri Lanka's two-pronged notion of accountability that focussed on the responsibility of past Governments and of the LTTE, saying that the approach "does not envisage a serious examination of the Government’s decisions and conduct in prosecuting the final stages of the war or the aftermath, nor of the violations of law that may have occurred as a result." International standards mandate that any approach to accountability should "place the rights and dignity of the victims of the conflict at the centre," the panel said, and explained to Colombo that "[a]ccountability for serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law is not a matter of choice or policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law."
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Boyle reacts to UN report: "Creating Tamil Eelam, the only remedy"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2011, 23:25 GMT]
Reacting to the contents of the UN expert panel's report on Sri Lanka's war-crimes, Professor Boyle, expert in International Law, and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "there is absolutely no way the GOSL [Government of Sri L anka] is going to implement any of them [panel's recommendations], and the GOSL has already rejected all of them, according to published reports. Therefore, under these circumstances of longstanding and ongoing genocide against them [the Tamils], the only effective remedy the Tamil People now have is to create the State of Tamil Eelam and move to have the International Community recognize it."
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UN served a ploy to surrender killings

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 12:47 GMT]
Around 18 hours before the surrender of the LTTE Political Head B Nadesan and other civil officials of the LTTE that ended in their killing by the Sri Lanka Army, the UN officials served in the island met in Vavuniyaa and made plans to receive them on behalf of the UN. The UN officials were very well aware of who were coming to surrender, said a high-ranking UN worker who was involved in the arrangements to TamilNet on Monday. All the UN officers who served in the island at the time of the war are either no more in UN service or have left the island. The UN was used as a ploy in arranging and enacting the ‘surrender’ and then to kill the LTTE officials, Tamil political observers said. Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, was in Colombo at the time.
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War-crime past to scuttle Sri Lankan envoy's Australia post

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 17:05 GMT]
War-crime controversy over Thisara Samarasinghe, the new Sri Lanka high commissioner to Australia, is likely to derail his appointment, Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday. "Foreign Affairs - which must decide if it will accept the nomination - sees the appointment as ''problematic'' for Australia amid calls for a United Nations investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka, Herald said.
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TAG to file civil case against Rajapakse in Texas Federal Court

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 02:37 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group advocating criminal legal action worldwide against Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminals, said in a press release issued today, that TAG's attorney is filing civil action against visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for damages under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA/TVPA) on behalf of three plaintiffs for the killings of 40,000 civilians in Mullaiththeevu in 2009, killing of 5 Trincomalee students in January 2006, and for the killing of 17 Action contre la faim (ACF) workers in August 2006. As calls to apprehend, investigate and prosecute Mahinda Rajapakse by rights organizations, US Congresspersons and diaspora Tamils have escalated, European Tamil diaspora youth are mobilizing protests in front of US embassies against Rajapakse's visit to the U.S.
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Rajapakse, a war-criminal in hiding

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 January 2011, 00:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse, purportedly on a private visit to the U.S. is likely to remain in hiding with his physical whereabouts kept secret from the public to avoid another embarrassing battle with diaspora Tamils. While, as a matter of jurisprudential fairness, US Ambassador Butenis's acknowledgment that Rajapaksas have committed possible war-crimes in Sri Lanka should trigger a Justice Department investigation, Rajapakse would not have attempted to enter U.S. absent assurance from the State Department that he will not be subjected to any legal procedures. Rajapakse will also be aware that, unlike in the UK, in the US private citizens cannot apply for an arrest warrant.
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Colombo fails to provide resettlement assistance to N-E families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 14:59 GMT]
Majority of resettled families in the North and East have been waiting for the promised resettlement assistance from the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). According to reports compiled by the authorities concerned that not every family has received assistance as promised. Under the resettlement package each family is entitled to a cash grant Rs.5000, Bank of Ceylon grant of Rs.20,000 and agricultural implements, kitchen utensils, bags of cement roofing sheets and tarpaulin. Each family is also promised a set of non-food items.
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Kosovo Ex-Army commanders charged of War Crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 21:46 GMT]
European Union (EU) prosecutors have charged former Kosovo Army Commanders, Sabit Geci, 52, and Riza Alija, 50, of "war crimes against civilian population" committed in two camps in Albania towards the end of Kosovo war, according to the indictment. The two were charged with committing war crimes on Kosavars fleeing the war and who were suspected of collaborating with Serbia or having political views different from the Kosavar Army. The prosecuters belong to the 3000-member EU Rule of Law (EULEX) mission which was launched in December 2008 to enforce the rule of law in the newly declared Kosovo and to supervise Kosovo's police, customs, and judiciary.
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Forced prostitution, sex slavery with GoSL complicity – US cable

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 December 2010, 02:39 GMT]
Forced prostitution and trafficking abroad for sex of Tamil children are amongst the organized criminal activities being undertaken with the knowledge of the Sri Lankan government by its troops and allied Tamil paramilitary groups, according to another Wikileaked US embassy cable from May 2007. The cable says these practices, which constitute war crimes, were raised “repeatedly” with Sri Lanka’s top leadership, including the President and top ministers. “The preponderance of [accounts] and the extent to which they independently corroborate each other points to a pattern of GSL complicity with paramilitary groups on multiple levels,” the then US Ambassador Robert Blake wrote.
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Canadian Tamil submission to UN focuses on international investigation

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 14:54 GMT]
From Nuremburg to Rwanda, precedents have been set to indict those who were individually responsible for war crimes. The precedent of individual accountability is a guiding principle in upholding international law, says the war crimes submission of the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) to the UN advisory panel on Sri Lanka. 26 organizations and parliamentarians, ranging from trade unions and university students associations to Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic parliamentarians, including the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, Jack Layton, have endorsed the NCCT submission. The submission, extensively dealing with intentional targeting of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan state and arguing for an international inquiry, pointed out that there would be no lasting peace without justice.
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WikiLeaks: Gotabaya sanctioned extra-judicial killings by Paramilitaries

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010, 01:08 GMT]
A WikiLeaks cable, dated 18th May 2007 from US embassy in Colombo, accuses Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse of giving orders to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commanders in Jaffna not to interfere with Tamil paramilitaries who are "doing "work" that the military cannot do because of international scrutiny. The work referred to in the cable includes extra-judicial killings, extortion, abduction and prostitution by the Tamil paramilitary groups EPDP and Karuna Group. Both groups are led by Ministers in the present ruling Government in Sri Lanka.
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'Post-Tsunami failure of Co-Chairs promoted Colombo on genocidal war path'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 December 2010, 12:02 GMT]
The main event of remembering the victims of 26 December 2004 that claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island, most of the victims from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland, is to be held at Veerasingkam Hall in Jaffna. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the Tsunami. Most of the victims along the coastal belts of Vanni and elsewhere have been denied of proper resettlement as Colombo waged a genocidal war on them, killing and maiming thousands of the Tsunami victims. The West, which had equal humanitarian access to North-East as well as to the South, failed to course correct the Sri Lankan state in addressing the post-Tsunami reconstruction. Instead, it relied upon appeasement tactics towards Colombo at that time and is still harping on the same string, said TamilNet commentator in Colombo responding to the latest comment by US spokesman, P J Crowley.
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Astonishingly powerful, rare category of War Crime evidence, says Legal expert

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 December 2010, 02:42 GMT]
"On the question of whether there should be an inquiry, this is astonishingly powerful evidence of a type I've only seen in a handful of times – there's some footage from Yugoslavia about mass killings – and this is up there. It's within a very, very rare category of evidence where killings are actually captured on tape and the idea that there can be a debate about whether there should be an investigation in the face of evidence like this is very surprising. So this evidence should lead to only one conclusion which plainly is there needs to be a full investigation and there needs to be prosecution of the people responsible," a leading war crimes lawyer Julian Knowles of Matrix Chambers told Channel-4 after watching the video obtained by Channel-4 on the extra-judicial execution of Tamils by Sri Lanka soldiers.
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Sri Lanka video contains evidence of war crimes, says ICTY legal expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 December 2010, 04:01 GMT]
"This is a very disturbing video and clearly, on the face of it, shows war crimes have been committed and perhaps crimes against humanity, depending on who the group targeted was," said Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), after reviewing the execution video broadcast by Channel-4, and added ""[t]here is no question that this video is prima facie evidence that these crimes were committed. And therefore there's a responsibility on the part of the international community to push for an investigation and prosecution."
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