New York media alerts UN posting of 'War Criminal'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 18:47 GMT]
"A suspected war criminal who allegedly played a key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka has landed a cushy job at the United Nations -- with full diplomatic immunity," said New York Post in the Sunday Edition, adding "Human-rights groups are outraged that Shavendra Silva, 46, a top ex-military commander, was named Sri Lanka's deputy permanent UN representative in August, after which he moved to New York." Innercity Press, referring to NY Post's story, pointed out to ICP's August 25th report where ICP asked the UN spokesperson that if the alleged killings by Mr Silva during the final stages of the war was true, whether the UN Secretary General has the discretion to reject Mr Silva. ICP said the question is no longer a hypothetical and that Ban Ki Moon did nothing.
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American Power in Indian ocean, a book review

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 18:24 GMT]
Greater Indian Ocean, from the Horn of Africa to Indonesia, "may comprise a map as iconic to the new century as Europe was to the last one" and "demographically and strategically be a hub of the twenty-first century world." This makes the Indian Ocean "the essential place to contemplate the future of U.S. power," says Robert D. Kaplan, an influential US writer of foreign policy, in a recent book, Monsoon:The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, a review of which appeared in the weekend edition of Washington Post.
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Demand US to provide war crimes evidence to UN Panel, urges Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2010, 20:45 GMT]
Pointing to the recent news stories on UN Sri Lanka Advisory Panel's willingness to review incriminating photographic evidence of graphic scenes with dead bodies blindfolded, hands bound and shot through the head, exposing alleged war crimes of Sri Lanka soldiers, Professor Boyle of University of Illinois, College of Law, said: "there is some precedent here in what happened to Milosevic. The Americans have all the intelligence the Tamils need. Tamil activists have to figure out a strategy to get the US Government to act."
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US War Crimes Unit receives list of Sri Lanka's missing Tamil surrendees

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 21:32 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, submitted to the War Crimes unit of the U.S. Department of State, a list of persons known to have surrendered to the Government of Sri Lanka forces in the final stages of the war in the first five months of 2009 and who remain missing in custody as of October 2010. The list was compiled from witness statements and interview data collected by Tamil Diaspora groups in the UK.
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HRW discusses Sri Lanka war-crimes in Harvard event

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 October 2010, 12:53 GMT]
In a talk titled "Prosecuting War Crimes in Sri Lanka: “No Reconciliation without Justice” at the Harvard Law School earlier this week, James Ross, Legal and Policy Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), discussed options available for prosecuting war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the war in 2009 in seeking justice to the victims. The event well attended by students and several Boston area Tamils heard Ross describe how HRW exhausted all options to stop the mass killings during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka where more than 300,000 Tamil civilians were holed up along with Tamil Tiger units in a narrow stretch of beach front.
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European Court to review Jagath Dias case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 03:43 GMT]
A. Muller-Elschner, the legal secretary to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said in a letter to the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET), the democratically elected country council of Eezham Tamils in Switzerland, that the European Court will take up the case against the appointment of ex-SLA commander Jagath Dias as a diplomat to the Sri Lanka embassy in Germany. SCET, the Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) and the US based NGO, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), had filed an application to the ECHR in July 2010 charging the German government for violating EU Rights conventions by accepting a Sri Lankan military commander, Major General Jagath Dias, an accused in the war crimes.
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‘Take care of symbols’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 September 2010, 15:12 GMT]
Tamil Information Centre (TIC), London, has called for a Round Table Discussion on “Postwar Challenges Facing ‘Sri Lanka’s Tamil-Speaking Peoples” on 25 and 26th of this month in London. The discussion is a follow-up of the Zurich gathering held last November. Commenting on the programme a Tamil-speaking social activist in Batticaloa said: “While it is appreciable to work for unity and one voice of the Tamils of the island and to find ways of rebuilding society, livelihood, institutions and political structures for them, symbols of identity that are fundamental to all their regeneration with self-respect should not be compromised. The Tamil-speaking peoples of the island have to shun the identity of ‘Sri Lanka’ that has become a symbol of state oppression ever since the constitutionality of the identity in 1972.”
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'LLRC lessons advocate permanent subjugation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
LLRC, the Rajapaksa appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, is created “neither to learn lessons nor to reconcile but to make Tamils accept and tolerate the crime and cruelty of the Sinhalese and live with repression forever,” says a reader, Sam Thambipillai, in sending a comment on Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the LLRC. Colombo’s diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala, who once attempted to contest for the UN Secretary General position, in his submission to the LLRC last month said: “We have learnt a great deal of lessons from the experience of combating one of the most ruthless terrorist groups […] We would be providing something innovative to the international community […] to give some guidance to armies of nation states as to how they should react to such a situation”.
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'Anti-Tamil ideology, international meddling make reconciliation impossible'

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 14:42 GMT]
In a recent paper titled "Why National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka Is Not Possible," Brian Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, says although he had realized that ‘national reconciliation’ in Sri Lanka was ‘totally unrealistic’, after witnessing the major human rights violations inflicted upon the Tamil people, what has made the reconciliation really ‘impossible’ was the most serious recent slaughter of Tamils with features of genocide. In addition, what makes reconciliation ‘most unlikely’ is ‘international meddling’ and ‘power play’, he argues. The 78-year-old member of the Bandaranaike family, who is a long-time defender of the Eezham Tamil cause, also argues in his paper that even the real development of the Sinhala areas is not possible if the ‘developmental power’ is left in the hands of those in Colombo.
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Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN job in New York

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) to the United Nation's post in New York, vacant following the recall of previous DPR, Bandula Jayasekera, after an alleged sexual harassment scandal, is reported to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, former 58th Division commander, who has been accused of committing war crimes by his former General Sarath Fonseka, Inner City Press reported. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on this reported UN job said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."
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No peace without justice, says Obama's envoy to Srebrenica

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 July 2010, 03:24 GMT]
On the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, Samantha Power, Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the National Security Council in the Obama administration on her way to deliver message from President Obama in Srebrenica-Potocari memorial said, "as a factual matter, as a historical matter – it is very difficult to see lasting peace and stability without this kind of justice. So the more Serbia recognizes, the Bosnian government recognizes what atrocities were committed by its forces, the Croatian government grapples as well, more progress you will see and the more forward we move."
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JHU ousts pro-Rajapaksa Thera from leader post

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 June 2010, 07:52 GMT]
Power struggle ended in the extreme Sinhala nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) by ousting Venerable Ellawala Medhananda Thera from the post of party leader and electing Ven. Omalpe Sobhitha Thera unanimously at the party’s seventh national convention held Saturday evening at Colombo Town Hall. Ellawala Thera was backing Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa with the idea of prolonging his presidential term through constitutional amendment. The JHU had to elect a new leader as Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera had resigned from the post as he needed more time to devote on his pet subjects of archaeological research in Mullaiththeevu, JHU sources said.
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Akashi visits Ki’linochchi for the first time after war

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 June 2010, 19:06 GMT]
Yasushi Akashi, the special envoy appointed by Japan during the Norwegian facilitated negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), accompanied by Basil Rajapaksa, handed over agricultural implements to some of the resettled Vanni civilians Friday in an event held in Ki’linochchi town. Yasushi Akashi who had held talks with the LTTE in Ki’linochchi was visiting the town for the first time after Sri Lankan military occupied the entire Vanni.
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India was not happy about Norwegian peace: Prof Shanmugaratnam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 June 2010, 10:40 GMT]
India was not happy about Norway being given a role in peace brokering in Sri Lanka. Japan was keen to be the broker, but India was more against Japan than Norway, said Dr. N. Shanmugaratnam, Professor of Development Studies and Head of Research of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, while addressing a session on the failed peace process and Norway’s role in Sri Lanka, at a conference held in Nansen Peace Centre in Norway last Friday. The Norwegian Tamil academic also said that in his view the key challenges to the peace process were internal than international and the internal has always been decisive. Post mortem of the peace process has become a hot topic in Norwegian circles nowadays since the failed envoys of Sri Lankan process have embarked upon fresh peace initiatives elsewhere.
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Obama's Genocide Expert meets Mahinda Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 June 2010, 13:58 GMT]
Samantha Power, Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the National Security Council in the Obama administration, David Pressman, Director for war crimes atrocities and civilian protection of the US National Security Council, and Ms. Patricia A Butenis Ambassador of the US Embassy in Sri Lanka met with Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse Tuesday, reports from Colombo said. “The meeting was cordial and friendly and both sides discussed matters of mutual interest,” Daily mirror said quoting statement from Sri Lanka President’s office.
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Genocidal Colombo gets unlimited chances from US, India

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 June 2010, 23:38 GMT]
"The US and India have a very similar view of the situation in Sri Lanka and the steps that need to be taken,” said US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake Monday to rediff.com, acknowledging, "We have worked very closely throughout the last several years on the situation in Sri Lanka, and again we have a real convergence of view on how that situation has evolved." Commenting, Tamil circles said the US policy compelled by the geopolitics of the Afghan war is tagged with New Delhi’s perception of the crisis in the island and unless the diaspora and the people of Tamil Nadu are not vigilant Colombo is likely to be encouraged with chances after chances to blunt the national struggle of Eezham Tamils and to complete the genocide. Tamil circles anticipate a long orchestrated plan soon unfolding to hoodwink their national cause as well as to make them economic slaves in their own land.
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Japanese envoy Akashi to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 June 2010, 13:54 GMT]
Yasushi Akashi, the special envoy appointed by Japan during the Norwegian facilitated negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is to commence a five day visit to the island of Sri Lanka on Tuesday June 15. Japan was the largest donor besides Europe and the United States, before Rajapaksa government turned towards China, India and Iran in its war against Tamils. Japan, together with the USA, the EU and Norway constituted the Tokyo Co-Chairs, which formally represented the role of the 'International Community' in the disastrous peace process that altered the balance of power in favour of Colombo, enabling the Sri Lankan state to wage a genocidal war on Tamils.
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Alston: Domestic inquiries into extrajudicial killings insufficient

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 June 2010, 00:08 GMT]
United Nations special envoy, Prof. Philip Alston, stressed the need for international inquiries into serious allegations of extrajudicial executions in cases where national probes have been insufficient, citing Sri Lanka, among other nations. Mr. Alston also referred to the allegations that as many as 30,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka last year in the closing months of the conflict between Government forces and Tamil rebels and that grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law were committed. “In this case also there is a need for an independent international inquiry,” UN News Center reported, quoting Alston. Professor Francis A Boyle commented after Alston's statement that "U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon no longer has any excuse to delay appointing an International War Crimes Committee on Sri Lanka, which has been within his powers to do for the past year now."
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Peiris to head Sri Lankan military officials in Security Summit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 June 2010, 09:51 GMT]
Former Chief Negotiator of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the incumbent Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris, who recently left a scheduled meeting with journalists at the National Press Club without speaking, is heading a delegation to attend the 9th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit, which is taking place in Singapore Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Peiris is scheduled to attend the Shangri-La dialogue to address defence ministers, defence secretaries, intelligence chiefs and national security and defence officials from 28 countries on Sri Lankan 'Counter-Insurgency' and the challenges of "reasserting control and governance in formerly LTTE held areas."
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‘Era of impunity is over’, ICC to go beyond African cases – Ban Ki-Moon

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 June 2010, 08:48 GMT]
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has said with the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), those who commit the worst human crimes will be held responsible. Speaking at the opening of the ICC review conference at Speke Resort Munyonyo Monday, Ki-moon said no government or justice system complicit in international crimes can shield criminals from justice. “Whether they are rank or military commanders, civil servants following orders, or top political leaders, they will be held to account,” he said, in comments published on Uganda’s ‘New Vision’ website. “The old era of impunity is over. In its place, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the birth of a new age of accountability.” The UN chief added that the ICC will soon be handling cases beyond Africa.
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