SLA conscripted Tamil females admitted at Ki'linochchi hospital in mentally affected state

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 11:59 GMT]
21 of around 100 Tamil girls, who were conscripted to Sri Lankan military in Vanni, were admitted in Ki’linochchi hospital in a mentally affected state on Tuesday night around 11:00 p.m. by the SL military from Paarathipuram in Ki'linochchi, parents of the victims told TamilNet. In the meantime, TNA parliamentarian Sritharan was at the hospital struggling to get permission to witness the plight of the victims. But, around 30 SL military personnel guarding the hospital were not allowing him to independently witness the state of the victims, the parliamentarian told TamilNet.
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TNPF condemns Sampanthan’s statement on SL military, LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 00:58 GMT]
The Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) on Tuesday strongly condemned the SL parliamentary speech made by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan last Friday. Mr. Sampanthan had said that the TNA was not demanding the complete withdrawal of the SL military from the Tamil territory and that the LTTE had had earned its destruction by being a ‘terrorist’ organization not observing human rights and democracy and by engaging in the killing of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala leaders. The statement coming from the leader of the TNA should be taken as the policy stand of the TNA. Neither the constituent parties of the TNA nor its parliamentary members have so far contradicted the statement, said the TNPF press release, signed by its president Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and secretary, Selvarasa Kajendran.
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Top misled EU to err on Tamils: Srinivasan tells Oslo Club session on Nobel peace award

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 18:31 GMT]
The European Union listening to wrong advice from the top and proscribing the Tamil movement was a serious mistake that disrupted peace, said Srinivasa Rao Thangavelu, a grassroot peace ambassador touring world, speaking at a brief session held at Café Nobel in Hotel Opera, by Oslo International Club together with Brussels Alumni, right before the torchlight march honouring Nobel Peace Prize award on Monday. The session was on “Creating lasting peace: top-down and bottom-up.” This time’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to European Union. According to EU Commission President, the EU brings lasting peace among former enemies who fought, among others, two world wars. Usually Norwegians conduct a torchlight parade to honour the Peace Prize winners. But this time there were two: one on Sunday opposing the award going to the EU and the other on Monday honouring the EU.
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Colombo hatches new strategies in genocidal war, sidelines EPDP

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2012, 11:10 GMT]
One of the new strategies of Colombo in waging its on-going genocidal war against Eezham Tamils is tagging spontaneous uprisings resulting from its genocide in the island as linked to ‘diaspora terrorism’. Colombo’s strategy is nothing but a manifestation of the attitude of the guilt-filled International Community of Establishments (ICE) and its groups, outfits etc., that see the diaspora as their enemy and attempt to silence the diaspora opinion by projecting it as ‘linked’ to ‘terrorism,’ political observers in the island said. Meanwhile, Colombo now sidelines the EPDP and cultivates its own collaborators in the North, the observers further said, citing many recent developments. ‘Use and dump’ will not stop with Karuna, Pillaiyaan and Douglas, but would proceed even to those who were long recruited for the agenda of the ICE, the observers further commented.
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UN representatives see fabricated ‘civil society’ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2012, 00:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s permanent representative at the UN, Palitha Kohona, brought resident representatives of the UN in 13 countries, including Japan, Italy and South Africa to Jaffna on Satuday. The team during its visit was shown with a fabricated civil society that praised the ‘development’ of Colombo in Jaffna, news sources in Jaffna said. The team held talks with the occupying SL governor in the North, Maj. Gen G.A. Chandrasri and the supporters of the EPDP collaborating with Colombo, who were presented to the visiting team as the ‘civil society’ of Jaffna. However, the visiting UN representatives, while speaking to the Bishop of Jaffna said that had an impression of the true situation as they had already met the TNA and various others in Colombo.
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Britain locally failing in nation building advises others: The Guardian

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2012, 01:37 GMT]
“Communal rioting in two cities. Bricks and bottles thrown and civic buildings wrecked. Flags torn down and 15 police injured. Local politicians forced to go into hiding. It happens all over the world, but this week it happened in the United Kingdom, evidence of continuing lack of community concord in Northern Ireland,” says an article appeared in The Guardian on Thursday. “The Troubles in Northern Ireland are not on a par with those afflicting states in the Middle East. But they remain unresolved and reflect a real British failure at local "nation-building". Belfast is still the only city outside Israel that must erect walls to keep warring communities apart. The lack of communal accord should evoke modesty from London towards the similar troubles of others. How dare we lecture them on reconciliation,” the article questioned.
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TID interrogators fabricate accusation against 14 students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2012, 01:28 GMT]
The ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department operated by the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry is engaged in fabricating a false accusation against 13 students of the University of Jaffna and a few other students in the peninsula, informed sources close to paramilitary circles in Vavuniyaa said. The TID interrogators were working on a false accusation that ‘instructions’ and ‘money’ were provided by the Tamil diaspora in the West to observe Heroes Day in the homeland. Already, nine students of the University of Jaffna are illegally detained by TID interrogators at Vavuniyaa. According to news sources in Jaffna, two student leaders chose to seek humanitarian protection with the SL Human Rights Commission office in Jaffna on Friday. Two more students from the ‘wanted list’ of the TID are yet to seek protection, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Fein: U.S.'s immunity determinations flout due process

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2012, 14:43 GMT]
In the final legal brief filed with the United States Court of Appeals in the case against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for civil damages on war-crimes charges, appellants, Dr Manoharan et al.'s attorney Bruce Fein asserts that "[n]either the Constitution, nor the Torture Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”), nor customary international law (“CIL”) crowns the Executive with exclusive authority to determine whether a sitting head of state is immune from a TVPA suit founded on the grisly and universally abhorred crimes of torture or extrajudicial killing under color of foreign law," and argues that the Court should reject the U.S. State Department's contention that "when the Executive speaks on immunity, the judiciary is ousted of jurisdiction to interpret the law, [and that the] Adjudication of the case moves from Article III courts to the Article II President."
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Shame on Norway for being silent on Sri Lanka: Red party leader backing Jaffna students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2012, 07:31 GMT]
Addressing the youth demonstrators in front of the Norwegian parliament on Tuesday, protesting the SL military atrocities committed on the Jaffna University students, the leader of the Norwegian Red Party and an elected representative of the Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET), Bjørnar Moxnes, said: “Norway has had a special role as facilitator of the peace process till 2008. This gives us a special responsibility. Unfortunately, the Red-Green government of Norway has chosen to be very silent against Sri Lanka. This is a shame for Norway.” During this week, demonstrations showing solidarity with the Jaffna University students took place in 7 countries, Canada, Norway, UK, Australia, Switzerland, France and Germany.
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Canadian youth mobilises global community in showing solidarity with Jaffna students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2012, 06:34 GMT]
The rally organized in Canada showing solidarity with Jaffna University students by the York University Tamil Students Association was participated by Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), Middle Eastern Students Association (MESA), Indian Cultural Association (ICA), York University Graduate Students Association (YUGSA) and the York Federation of Students (YFS). “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the attack on our brothers and sisters at Jaffna University. What is necessary in order to ensure the safety and democratic rights of the Tamil people is for the IC to immediately recognize the nation, territoriality and right to self-determination of the Tamils,” said Tanya McFadyen, Vice President of the Graduate Students Association of the York University.
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Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminal inspects UN Lebanon mission

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2012, 01:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and ex-Major General in Sri Lankan Army (SLA), Shavendra Silva, under whose command the SLA's 58th division allegedly committed war crimes during the last months of Sri Lanka's civil war, is "visiting and even inspecting the UN Mission in Lebanon UNIFIL from November 28 through December 4, 2012," Inner City Press (ICP) reported. While the recent Petrie report accused the UN of "massive and system wide failure to prevent the slaughter of an estimated 40,000 ethnic Tamils in five short months," the UN continues to allow an alleged criminal to penetrate and to engage in UN's official affairs, ICP said.
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Sri Lanka intensifies terror campaign against Tamil students

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2012, 14:20 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department has officially informed the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jaffna to hand over 10 more students of the university, in addition to the three already in detention. The wanted list includes the leader of the student union, student leaders of the faculties and five students from the Medical Faculty. Meanwhile, following individual threats to the faculty Deans by the occupying SL military, the Dean of the Medical Faculty, along with some lecturers, attempt to take the five Medical Faculty students to the SL police. Colombo’s agents also pressurise the Medical Faculty to abandon the other faculties and to announce cancellation of the student protest through the Sinhala students admitted to the faculty.
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Suresh calls upon diaspora youth to respond to Jaffna University situation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2012, 20:12 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and Eelam People Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader Suresh Premachandran in a video interview to TamilNet this week, called upon the diaspora youth studying in the Western World to take up the matter of SL military oppression of Jaffna University students with the Western governments, in order to push them to prevail upon Colombo’s undemocratic activities. Meanwhile, diaspora circles especially in the UK and in Canada now realize how in the last three years Colombo’s agents have succeeded in hijacking, silencing and deviating the diaspora alumni associations of the leading schools of Eezham Tamils. They also cited at the strange silence of an alumni association started in the UK in the name of the Jaffna University.
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Tamil lands in Ampaa'rai appropriated for army housing schemes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2012, 17:28 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Ampaa'rai district in the Eastern province has been appropriating lands belonging to Eezham Tamils for the construction of so-called housing schemes for their troops while the uprooted Tamil families languish in tents and with their relatives without basic facilities. Such an occupation scheme is under construction by the occupying army under a programme for the families of dead soldiers in war in the lands that belong to Tamils, close to Malwatte and Ka'napathipuram villages in Chammaanthu'rai DS division.
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Jaffna demonstration backing students demands IC action, appeals to Tamil youth outside

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 10:19 GMT]
In an impressive show of solidarity on Tuesday, the TNPF-called demonstration in Jaffna condemning the attack on Jaffna university students and the arrest of student leaders by the occupying forces of Sri Lanka, was actively participated by the mainstream TNA, University Teachers Association, University Students Union, Jaffna Chamber of Commerce, Medical Association, Lawyers Association and other civil society organisations, besides progressive leftist party representatives from the South. The demonstrators demanded the IC to immediately recognize the nation, territoriality and right of self-determination of Tamils in order to ensure their safety and democratic rights. Questioning the trustworthiness of the IC, the demonstrators appealed to Tamil youth in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu to take up continued agitations to the edification of the IC.
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Maldives cancels airport agreement with Indian corporate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 00:13 GMT]
The Republic of Maldives announced on Monday that it would take back the operations of the international airport at Male from the Indian corporate GMR Group with effect from Saturday, cancelling its agreement for a US $ 511 million project. According to media reports, New Delhi threatens that it would consider freezing aid to Maldives, especially a US $ 25 million loan immediately needed by the Maldives for the payment of salaries to its civil servants. But the general public and businessmen in the Maldives feel that it is a big victory for their efforts in freeing their airport from the clutches of the Indian corporate. The agreement with GMR Group was signed in the times of the earlier president, Mohamed Nasheed.
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SL military threatens senior faculty members of Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 09:42 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka individually approached the Deans and former Deans of all the faculties of the University of Jaffna to threaten them not to take up the issue of the students arrested following the Heroes Day observations, news sources in Jaffna said. Parallely, the military also went in search of a student leader at Thiruvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi last night. The University remains vacated as student leaders are forced into hiding. A protest demonstration by the Medical Faculty of the university scheduled for Monday was cancelled, as the Administration of the university advised against it, citing ‘secret negotiations’ taking place between the university and the occupying military at the Palaali base. However, the University of Jaffna Teachers Association is firm that all the arrested students have to be released without charges, the news sources further said.
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UNHCR thinks of revising circular on Sri Lanka: Australian representative

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 02:22 GMT]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is in the process of revising its earlier circular of 5th July 2010 that declared normalcy in Sri Lanka, said Mr Richard Towle, Resident Representative of UNHCR in Australia, in a meeting held at Auckland on 19 November. He was responding to a question from Mr. A. Theva Rajan, president of the New Zealand Tamil Senior Citizens Association, at the annual conference of the UNHCR on refugee related matters held at Auckland, which was participated by a representative gathering of refugee welfare organisations including many from Africa.
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Tamil parties missed directing USA on LLRC: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 01:22 GMT]
Had the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) been firm on the stand of Eezham Tamils, the USA couldn’t have ended up with the LLRC solution at Geneva, but the TNA blindly backed the US resolution at Geneva. It is after the Geneva resolution the land grab and the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan state got accelerated, said former TNA parliamentarian and TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in his second part of interview to TamilNet's Palaka'ni, covering current political situation of Eezham Tamils. The US-backed resolution was passed in Geneva essentially to resolve the Tamil issue in the island, but it is not serving the Tamil issue, he further said.
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Sinhala paramilitary attacks Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2012, 18:10 GMT]
Sinhala ‘home guards’ operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military have been attacking Tamil cattle farmers in the border villages of the Batticaloa district. The SL police is ignoring the complaints made by Tamil farmers against such attacks. The Sinhala ‘home guards’, who have appropriated lands of Eezham Tamils are doing cultivation in the occupied lands and are given military training by the SL military to operate as an occupation paramilitary along the borders of Polonnarwa - Batticaloa and Batticaloa - Ampa'rai districts in the East.
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