Colombo committing war crimes attacking hospitals – HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 13:35 GMT]
Sri Lankan armed forces “have repeatedly struck hospitals in the northern Vanni region in indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks”, Human Rights Watch said Saturday, warning that commanders responsible for such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes. "While doctors and nurses struggle to save lives in overcrowded and underequipped facilities, Sri Lankan army attacks have hit one hospital after another," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. HRW again called for the situation in Sri Lanka to be urgently taken up by a formal meeting of the UN Security Council and by a special session of the UN Human Rights Council.
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SLA removes young women to Thellippazhai SLA camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 05:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officers took away nearly a hundred young women from Vanni held in Thenmaraadchchi SLA detention centres in buses to Thellippazhai SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC), claiming that the young women had been given military training by Liberation Tigers, sources in Jaffna said. The young women, however, were brought back to the detention centres following the strong protest and agitation raised by the parents and family members of the young women, the sources added.
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Rains expose callousness of mass imprisonment

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Heavy rains earlier this week flooded the internment camp created in the name of Ananda Coomaraswamy in Vavuniyaa where the last influx of captured civilians of Vanni are held in temporary tents. But, as 'war prisoners' they didn't have the freedom to move to dryer places, said an aid worker in Vavuniyaa, condemning the International Community and the UN for insisting on the capture of civilians but not taking adequate responsibility of them and their freedom of movement even in times of such a situation.
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Family man reported missing with Jaffna HRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 16:43 GMT]
An officer attached to Kodikaamam Agriculture Department is reported missing since 30 April while returning home from Nalloor in Jaffna, according to complaints registered with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna continues to announce over loud speakers that all Vanni civilians not staying in the SLA detention centres should surrender themselves before 31 May and that the failure to do so will have serious consequences, sources in Jaffna said.
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London protesters want international action, not words, over Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
British Tamils demonstrating outside Parliament are demanding the UK government takes concrete action immediately “to end the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Tamils in Vanni and in the military-run concentration camps.” In a statement to media, Tamil students leading the protests said: “What is needed right now is action by the international community, not merely words of sympathy. Humanitarian intervention has taken place in many parts of the world to save people who have been subject to state violence, ethnic cleansing, and starvation by blockade. Powerful liberal states have acted to save populations being brutalized by their own states, despite the objections and obstructions of other powerful states. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are human beings too.”
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US should think of ‘gunboat diplomacy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 03:31 GMT]
It is the last chance for US to strike a political balance in the island, if it is really keen in seeing meaningful ‘post-conflict’ process, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. Neither the present Indian Establishment, which by its role played as a war partner irredeemably lost its positive leverage on the affairs of the island, nor the UN bogged down with Security Council deliberations may able to act swiftly to respond to the emergency, he said. Colombo is on one hand aiming at creating a political and military vacuum for Tamils and on the other hand is aiming at the incarceration of all Tamils either in internment camps or in open prisons. The balance disturbed by US has to be set right by US itself by a timely action such as sending the fleet without waiting for political changes in India, the commentator said.
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Canadian academics support self-determination, ask direct US action

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 19:53 GMT]
Stressing on the recognition of the self-determination of Tamils as the basis for any solution to the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka, Canadian Academics for Tamil Rights in a press conference Wednesday in Toronto said that the proscription of the LTTE had affected the peace initiatives and Canada was a party to be blamed. “As an immediate remedy to the grave situation at the moment, the IC and UN should take food and medicine directly to Vanni and if not possible they should pressure the US to do it. It may look strange, but it is the only option if any one wants to save the lives of the people in Vanni”, was the opinion expressed in the press conference, citing the urgency.
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Deaths of elderly Vanni IDPs increase in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 13:44 GMT]
Death toll of elderly persons displaced from Vanni due to military operations and held in detention centres in Vavuniyaa is on the increase, sources in Vavuniyaa said. On Monday alone ten elderly persons died in detention centers located in Vavuniyaa and their bodies had been handed over to the Vavuniyaa general hospital, the sources added.
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UNP also against Tamils: Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 10:43 GMT]
Mano Ganeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Western People’s Front (WPF) condemned United National Party (UNP) Puththa’lam district parliamentarian, Palitharanga Bandara’s statement that heavy weapons should be used on the ‘safe zone’ to destroy the Liberation Tigers, in a media release Wednesday in Colombo. Palitharanga praised the Sri Lankan Armed Forces for their victories against the war on Tamils besides expressing views revealing racism in the press meet held Monday in the official residence of the Opposition Leader and this shows that UNP too is a political party that is against the Tamils,” Mano Ganeshan said in the press release.
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Minister Chandrasegaran condemns effort to tax plantation workers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 08:59 GMT]
”Efforts to have deducted a day’s pay from innocent Tamil plantation workers to help people affected by war will only assist the government in its war against the Tamils,” Up-country Peoples’ Front (UPF) leader and Sri Lanka Minister, P. Chandrasegaran said in a press report, condemning demands made by certain trade unions and voluntary organizations on the plantation workers to give a day’s wage to help war affected people, sources in Colombo said.
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Injured Vanni children handed over to relatives in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 04:18 GMT]
Mannaar Magistrate Mr. A. Judson Monday ordered six injured children, who lost their parents in Vanni Sri Lanka armed force offensive and being warded in Mannaar general hospital for treatment, to be handed over to their close relatives.
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Slow-motion genocide to exceed horrors of Srebrenica, warns Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 18:52 GMT]
Professor Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law, an international expert on Boznia and crimes of Genocide said Tuesday, "[s]ince the outset of this latest crisis in January, the GOSL has exterminated about 7000 Tamils in Vanni, certainly a "substantial part" of the Tamil population in Vanni and Sri Lanka. If not stopped now, the GOSL's toll of genocide against the Tamils could far exceed the recent horrors of Srebrenica." Prof. Boyle's call for urgent food drop to the civilians close to starvation in the Safe Zone, has gathered momentum, and international media are seeking his comment on the urgency of humanitarian support.
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SLA forcibly removes youths from its detention centres in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 17:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers have forcibly taken away young men and women among the Vanni civilians held in the SLA detention centres in Thenmaraadchi and Vadamaraadchi, according to NGO representatives who visited the detention centres. The family members who raised protest against the abduction of their children in Mirusuvil detention centre have been taken away from the centre for ‘interrogation’ by SLA soldiers, the sources added. SLA officials say that the youths taken away are to be placed in the SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC) located in Thellippazhai High Security Zone (HSZ).
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US responsible, least humanitarian is dropping food: Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 17:07 GMT]
If there is any meaning for the word humanitarian, the minimum humanitarian act right now is to drop food to the civilians of Vanni without wasting a minute, repeatedly appealed health officials in Vanni on Tuesday, as an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe caused by Sri Lankan government enforced starvation engulfs the civilians of Vanni. “The US government and the world should realise that the situation culminating in the most inhuman act of Colombo calculatedly inflicting starvation death on civilians is ultimately a consequence of the lopsided application of a US policy, and the US has every responsibility to remedy it. Failure amounts to connivance to the crime. US has to immediately airdrop food”, said a relief official in Vanni.
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LTTE calls on IC to support Diaspora actions to deliver humanitarian aid

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 16:21 GMT]
Noting that the UN and the rest of the International Community has a moral obligation to support the initiative launched by the Tamil Diaspora to deliver humanitarian aid direct to the Tamil people in Vanni, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Political Head Quarters in a statement issued on Tuesday urged the International Community to extend "moral, political and logistical support to implement this initiative."
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'Drop food now if the concern is humanitarian': Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 01:01 GMT]
“If the Colombo government is starving us, the world should know who is keeping us hostages. If the world’s concern is ‘purely humanitarian’ it should act this very minute to give us our means to keep the body and soul together”, is the voice of the civilian victims of Colombo’s starvation weapon, reported hospital sources in Vanni. Even the meagre food stock of the hospital staff depleted they said. Last Thursday, UN humanitarian chief, John Holmes, acknowledging the situation, said the food supply was barely enough only for a day. Five days have gone, and none coming with only statements of humanitarian concerns, has acted on it. Meanwhile, no more food shipments to Vanni is said to be the decision in Colombo.
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Colombo SLHRC restricts its Jaffna office functions

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 May 2009, 14:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) Colombo Head Office Secretary, Ms. Chandra Ellawela, has instructed Jaffna office not to admit anyone seeking protection to their lives into the office but to get the assistance of the police to check them and not to take them to Court in HRC vehicles but in private vehicles, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, it has been decided to instruct persons seeking protection to their lives to do so in one of the five Magistrate Courts in Jaffna peninsula, in a high level meeting between Jaffna Additional Magistrate, T. Wicknarajah and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Jaffna Commander, according to directions released by the Additional Magistrate, the sources added.
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Candlelight vigil for Vanni victims held in Mauritius

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 May 2009, 11:41 GMT]
Amnesty International Mauritius Branch held a candlelight vigil adopting the theme “Let’s all light a candle for Vanni” in Rose Hill in Mauritius 30 April in which the Mayor of Rose Hill, many MPs of the Mauritius National Assembly, the leader of the opposition, representatives of the National Movement Against Tamil Genocide (MATG) and other NGOS participated. A petition was circulated, calling the Government of Mauritius to intervene and make official representations in international forums to stop the war, alleviate the suffering of the Tamil civilians caught in the war and lobby for proper humanitarian aid to reach the war-affected zones.
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76 Vanni civilians taken to SLA Thellippazhai Rehabilitation Centre

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 May 2009, 06:10 GMT]
Seventy-six Vanni civilians held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centres in Jaffna peninsula have been forcibly taken by SLA to Thellippazhai SLA Rehabilitation centre, according to complaints made by the persons’ relatives in the detention centres to NGOs in Jaffna. Meanwhile, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh, in a press notification Sunday, said that the 76 Vanni civilans have volunteered to be placed in Thellippazhai SLA Rehabilitation Centre, sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo builds up for imminent massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2009, 13:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) during the weekend has reportedly been engaged in heavy deployment of its troops poised for a major onslaught, reports from Vanni said citing sources close to the LTTE on Sunday. All kinds of heavy weapons, including prohibited ones, are ready for deployment on the 'No Fire Zone', the sources said. Meanwhile, denying the use of heavy weapons Sri Lanka's president and Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa said Saturday that he can't help for the world not believing in him. On Saturday, several artillery shells fired by the SLA on the only remaining makeshift hospital in the 'safety zone' killed at least 64 patients and attendees including a volunteer doctor and wounded 87.
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