Externally designed silencing of victims to uphold ‘internal political power’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2015, 22:38 GMT]
One of the convicts of the 2012 New Delhi gang rape now makes the world to stand aghast at what he said on the crime. Blaming the victim for the rape and gruesome torture causing her death, the assailant said, a decent girl would not have been out at 9 pm. “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back […] She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then we would have dropped her off.” An article in similar lines appeared in Colombo Telegraph on Friday, written by Rajan Hoole, N. Sivapalan, Ahilan Kadirgamar and K. Sritharan. Blaming 35-years of ‘assassination politics’ by Tamil leadership as responsible for the 2009 culmination, which according to the writers was not genocide, they condemned the NPC Chief Minister Justice Wigneswaran’s call for international investigations on the protracted genocide faced by Eezham Tamils.
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Norwegian Ambassador questions NPC CM on Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2015, 23:56 GMT]
The Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Ms Grete Løchen visited Jaffna on Friday and met Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. Ms Løchen was echoing the UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs as well as a US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, who visited Jaffna earlier this week to convey the message that the deferral of OISL findings was a ‘one-time only’ postponement. Like Mr Feltman, Ms Løchen was also questioning Mr Wigneswaran on whether the NPC resolution on genocide was appropriate at this juncture of cooperation coming from the Colombo regime, news sources in Jaffna said. The CM responded by explaining that the truth of the past was essential for real reconciliation between Tamils and the Sinhalese in the future. If anyone wanted to question the resolution, they should first read it and respond to the established facts in the document, he said.
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ICP asks UN to confirm receiving NPC Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 March 2015, 08:57 GMT]
The Inner City Press on Tuesday questioned the UN Spokesperson in New York whether the UN would confirm receiving the Genocide Resolution passed by the Northern Provincial Council given to the UN Under-Secretary General Jeffrey Feltman who visited Jaffna on Monday. The spokesperson said: “I will”. On Wednesday, the ICP asked again that what would Mr Feltman do with the genocide resolution and the question went unanswered, according to ICP on Thursday. In ‘seeking truth’, when the Colombo government came out with the LLRC report that paves way for a structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, the report was ‘accepted’ by the UN as model for its Geneva deliberations. But, when the NPC came out with the resolution on investigating protracted genocide, the visiting UN official questioned the NPC Chief Minister, why this resolution now.
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Families of missing persons under Kumaratunga regime revive protest in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 March 2015, 23:45 GMT]
Around 800 Tamil youth were forcefully disappeared in Jaffna peninsula by the occupying Sri Lankan military under Chandrika Kumaratunga's rule between 1996 and 1998 when Tamils returned to Jaffna peninsula, which was seized by the SL military in 1995 through Operation Riviressa. The family members, who have been struggling to know the whereabouts of their kith and kin for years and were looking for answers through international investigations, have revived their protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat on Wednesday after learning that the United Nations, under the influence of Washington and New Delhi, is now trying to promote domestic investigation mechanism of Colombo by diluting the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) process from evolving into international investigations.
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Domestic investigations, even with external supervision, will not work: NESoHR

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 March 2015, 23:18 GMT]
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s statement on Monday to the High Level Segment of the 28th UN Human Rights Council Session at Geneva, where he stated that “the content of the Report of OHCHR Investigation too can be taken into account by domestic investigative and judicial mechanisms,” is a point of contention said North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) in a statement issued on Tuesday. None of the recommendations of the internal Commissions of Inquiry held in Sri Lanka has been implemented, the NESoHR said adding that even the international monitors, as in the case of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), had to withdraw from the proceedings in the past. Mr Samaraweera was touching upon absurdity when he claimed that the civil war in the island had to be brought to an end to restore human rights, the statement further said.
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Dadayan-thalaawa

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 2015, 20:54 GMT]
The hunting range of open glade
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Visiting UN official in Jaffna ‘questions’ Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 2015, 19:09 GMT]
The UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, a US diplomat, who was on a visit to Jaffna on Monday met NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and questioned the Chief Minister on the reason for the NPC Resolution on Tamil genocide at this juncture. The resolution was not against peaceful co-existence with Sinhalese. In fact, it is essential that the Sinhalese understand how the Tamils perceive the collective nature of all crimes committed against them both in the past and at the present, Mr Wigneswaran told the UN official. When Mr Wigneswaran questioned Mr Feltman on the possible danger of OISL findings getting watered down at the end of the deferral period, the UN diplomat assured that the findings would be published without any change, Mr Wigneswaran told reporters.
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UN maintains ‘genocide without witnesses paradigm’ with Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 March 2015, 16:37 GMT]
When the genocidal war against the nation of Eezham Tamils took place in the island of Sri Lanka, the UN played a major role in keeping it as ‘war without witnesses’, by not bringing it to the international arena of discussion and action. The UN plays the same role in maintaining and continuing the ‘genocide without witnesses’ paradigm in the case of Eezham Tamils, by sabotaging and denying any international investigation on the matter, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. The deferral of the OISL report is directly connected to the arrangement of the new regime in Colombo conducting a domestic investigation with the ‘label’ of UN supervision, which suits the original agenda of genocide without international scrutiny, designed by the ultimate culprits, the activists further said.
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Tamils boycott Trinco sittings of domestic commission on missing persons

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 February 2015, 17:52 GMT]
The first day sittings of the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons commenced at Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat auditorium Saturday morning. Only four or five Tamil complainants gave evidence as the majority of Tamil complainants boycotted the sitting with the demand of international investigations into the complaints. The Tamils who boycotted the sitting on Saturday were seen in front of the Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat, holding placards written in Tamil. They were demanding that the victims should be heard by a UN team and not by any commission appointed by the government in Colombo.
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Bathiudeen dictates affairs of Palmyra Development Board

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 February 2015, 23:57 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr Rishad Bathiudeen (Rishard Badurdeen), who has been notorious for causing dissension between Tamil-speaking Muslims and Tamils belonging to other religions in Mannaar and Vanni under the rule of former SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, is continuing the same course also under the new regime, sources in Mannaar said. He has virtually hijacked the affairs of the Palmyrah Development Board (PDB), which comes under D.M. Swaminadan, the SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs, reliable sources at the PDB said. Earlier, the PDB came under Douglas Devananda of the EPDP, who was the minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development.
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Key Tamil organisations to boycott domestic hearings by SL Presidential Commission

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 February 2015, 16:41 GMT]
The Tamil Civil Society Forum and the Welfare Organisation for the Forcibly Disappeared Persons have jointly decided not to appear and give evidence before the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons, a statement issued by the TCSF said on Thursday. “We cannot afford to continue to appear before this commission giving it a stamp of legitimacy. We seek a credible inquiry and we are convinced that this can only be made possible through international means,” the statement issued in Jaffna on the 24th of February 2015 said adding that many questions have been raised about the terms of reference and capacity of this commission to act on the issue of enforced disappearances.
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Tamil activists protest in front of US embassy in UK

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 February 2015, 19:49 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil activists gathered outside US embassy on Tuesday to protest against the OISL deferral mooted by the USA, the key actor behind the UNHRC discourse on Sri Lanka. Endorsing the petition drafted by the Tamil Coordinating Committee - UK, the protesters demanded immediate referral of Sri Lanka to the UN Security Council and urgent action to stop ongoing structural genocide of the Eelam Tamil nation. The protesters also burnt the photos of TNA's Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan and the nominated parliamentarian of the alliance M.A. Sumanthiran, blaming the duo for deceiving Tamils from achieving international justice.
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USA, key actor behind deferral of OISL report: Mavai Senathiraja

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 14:00 GMT]
ITAK leader Mavai Senathiraja, who attended the demonstration in Jaffna organised by the University society and the public organisations in Jaffna on Tuesday was questioned by the journalists on ITAK/TNA position on OISL deferral and on the reports of Sumanthiran backing domestic investigation mechanisms with OHCHR/international monitoring. Responding, Mr Mavai Senathiraja said: “The United States of America, who brought the resolution [in the UNHRC] is the key actor involved in the act [of the postponement]. On this matter, our Tamil people have now expressed their feeling. We will reiterate the importance of timely releasing the OISL report, as scheduled, in March. Our leaders have already talked to them [US diplomats]. However, we will convey the feelings of our people to them again.”
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Protesters demand international prosecutions, decry supervision of domestic mechanisms

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 11:31 GMT]
“While it is true that the Tamil people voted in large numbers for President Sirisena, we wish to emphasise that this was merely an anti-Rajapksa vote. We did not vote with the hope of any substantive change resulting from regime change,” said the appeal by the organisers of the massive protest in Jaffna on Tuesday. More than 5,000 students and people from all walks of life in Jaffna took part in the first largest demonstration after the end of genocidal war in Vanni on Tuesday. “International supervision of any domestic mechanism will only serve to waste time,” the appeal by the Jaffna University society said. The procession, which started at the University of Jaffna ended at the remains of the foundation of Thileepan monument at Nalloor.
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4,000 poverty-stricken Tamil families deprived of Samurdhi assistance in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 February 2015, 18:45 GMT]
3,898 families of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils from 11 Tamil villages in the Moothoor division of Trincomalee district have been completely deprived of Samurdhi poverty alleviation food stamps for 106 months under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, civil sources in Trincomalee said. The distribution of food stamps and other poverty alleviation benefits were stopped since March 2006, before the SL military launched military onslaught destroying the Tamil villages.
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OISL deferral has dashed Tamils' hope on permanent settlement: NPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 February 2015, 23:22 GMT]
The international community has opted for the deferral of the OISL findings without understanding the grave impact of the act of postponement, said Northern Province Councillor K. Saraweswaran in a video interview to TamilNet this week. More than its findings on the war crimes, the timely release of the report itself was anticipated to open the door for a sustainable and permanent political solution to the Tamil national question in the island. The deferral has dashed that particular hope that prevailed among the Tamil people in the North-East, he said.
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Protesters condemning OISL delay burn effigy of Sumanthiran

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2015, 15:06 GMT]
Condemning the recently announced deferral of the OISL investigative report by the OHCHR in Geneva, voicing against the talk of UN converting the international investigation into a domestic one, and demanding immediate response on the fate of the thousands of missing persons, Women’s Organisation of Missing Persons' Families in Jaffna staged a protest on Saturday in front of the Bus Stand in the city. The protestors, numbering more than 250, blamed New Delhi and Washington for buying time and space for the Sri Lankan State, with the intention of shielding the crime of genocide. At the end of the protest, an effigy of nominated TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran was burnt by a section of youth from the ITAK, who blamed the Colombo-centric elements within the TNA for collaborating with the global actors discarding the fundamental principles of the Tamil cause.
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Whereabouts of 700 Tamil prisoners detained in Trincomalee questioned in SL Parliament

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2015, 14:05 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Thursday questioned the SL Minister for Public Security at the Sri Lankan Parliament on the fate of 700 Tamils, who were alleged to have been kept in a detention camp inside the Trincomalee Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) complex under the past regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Around 35 families were also detained in that camp known as ‘Gota camp’ the TNA parliamentarian said.
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Tamil civil society seeks clarification from Zeid on reasons cited for OISL deferral

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2015, 13:07 GMT]
The High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein needs to clarify as to how he envisages OISL receiving new information, given the fact that the Sri Lankan Government does not promise cooperation with the OISL inquiry. The possibility of the OISL inquiry receiving important new information will only be credible if the OISL team is given access to Sri Lanka and given full freedom and access to engage in evidence gathering. But, SL Foreign Minister’s letter to the High Commissioner dated 13 February 2015 does not promise engagement with OISL specifically, Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) said in a statement issued on Friday. “Why should the SL Government's willingness to act on present day human rights issues be a bar to releasing a report on accountability for the past,” the TSCF has further asked in the statement.
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Victims not convinced by reasons cited for postponement of OISL findings: JUTA

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2015, 05:35 GMT]
We were expecting at least some justice through the release of OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) report, originally scheduled to be released this March. The people on the ground, especially the victims, are dismayed to learn the news of the postponement of the OISL report. The reasons cited for the postponement of the report do not seem to be victim-centric and the people on the ground feel betrayed, said Lecturer A. Rajakumaran, the head of Jaffna University Teachers Association (JUTA) in an interview to TamilNet on Thursday. The JUTA has called for protests on 24th February against the postponement of the OISL report.
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