Second generation Eezham Tamils in Canada assert Tamil sovereignty at Youth Conference

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 05:38 GMT]
Eezham Tamil youth activists from Canada resolved to continue the struggle for Tamil sovereignty at the ‘Eelam Tamil Youth Conference-Canada 2012’ organized by the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) and the Tamil Youth Organization-Canada (TYO-Canada) at Toronto City Hall, Toronto this Sunday. After three presentations from the organizers and an interactive discussion, nine resolutions were passed in the conference which received unanimous approval from the participants. The resolutions, which welcomed the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration “as a principled approach to resolving the national question of Eelam Tamils”, highlighted the nature of genocide of Eelam Tamils in their homelands. Rejecting the territorial integrity of the unitary Sri Lankan state, the resolutions also called for a boycott of those diaspora organizations that principally lent legitimacy to the same.
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Peace academic denounces US-LLRC formula, urges alternative mechanism for justice

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 February 2012, 10:53 GMT]
“The US support given to UNHRC’s proposal for an accountability mechanism for Sri Lanka would not go beyond requesting GoSL to implement LLRC recommendation which legitimised war to protect the state and reduced human rights violations to the ‘misbehaviour ‘of individual soldiers,” writes Jude Lal Fernando, academic of the Trinity College, Dublin. Establishing what took place was not mere war crimes or crimes against humanity but was intended genocide by Sri Lankan state, and arguing why justice will not come from the powers that conceal the truth and stifle justice and recovery, the academic who was earlier involved in the Dublin Tribunal urges alternative international community to pursue an international independent accountability mechanism.
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TNA plans boycotting UNHRC, requests people to remain ‘calm’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2012, 19:30 GMT]
Reliable sources informed on Saturday that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) plans issuing a statement on Monday about its non-participation in the UNHRC sessions open in Geneva on that day. The sources also said that the TNA genuinely fears that if the present unstable situation continues, violence could recur and the civilian population could again be the victims. According to thinking in the TNA circles, it is imperative that in the present situation calm should be maintained and nothing should be done which could exacerbate tensions. The reason for TNA boycott is its disappointment in expecting any positive commitment of Sri Lanka at the UNHRC towards addressing the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, despite the TNA’s commitment to solutions within a ‘united and undivided’ Sri Lanka, informed sources said.
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US ‘tables’ Rajapaksa formula while pretending pressure

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2012, 02:30 GMT]
Other than the US attempting to ‘steal’ the credit of passing a resolution on Sri Lanka at the March UNHRC sessions in Geneva, there is no difference between what the US ‘proposes’ and what the genocidal Colombo ‘envisages’ for Eezham Tamils, political observers commented on a ‘leaked’ draft of the resolution as well as on statements made by US State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday. Perhaps the only difference the Colombo regime is fussing about is the resolution expecting a time-frame from Sri Lanka to implement the wanting recommendations of the LLRC. The Rajapaksa-regime is not prepared even for that. Despite the US deception on genocide-affected Eezham Tamils, some Tamil politicians in the island, Colombo-based ‘civil society’ and some diaspora lobbyists try to paint a picture that the US ‘pressure’ is bringing in something substantial for Eezham Tamils.
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Halt deportations of Tamils, Sri Lanka tortures Tamil deportees: Human Rights Watch

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2012, 01:26 GMT]
Citing own research and medical verification of rape and torture of recently deported Eezham Tamil asylum seekers from the United Kingdom at the hands of Sri Lankan CID at the airport and at the hands of Sri Lanka Army at various check-posts in the island, the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday urged the British authorities to immediately suspend further deportations from UK to Sri Lanka. The HRW expressed particular concern about the next scheduled deportation from the United Kingdom of about 100 Tamil asylum seekers, scheduled for February 28, 2012. “The Sri Lankan government has a long record of torture and mistreatment that has not ended with the end of the long war with the LTTE,” said Brad Adams, the UK-based Asia director of the HRW.
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UNHRC sessions open on Monday amidst US–Sri Lanka gambits

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 February 2012, 07:16 GMT]
On Tuesday, Genocidal Sri Lanka’s foreign minister GL Peiris and its ‘socialist’ ploy Tamara Kunanayakam, SL permanent representative in Geneva, painted a picture of victimisation by the USA, to the 47 UNHRC member states meeting in Geneva for two weeks from Monday. Sri Lanka that conducted the genocidal war and carries out structural genocide labelled as ‘reconciliation’– both primarily architected by the USA– now says that it has no secret deal with the USA on any resolution in the sessions and urges the member states to vote against even the mildest move of the USA proposing Sri Lanka to conduct its own investigations on the war crimes, recommended by its own LLRC. On the same day, military delegations of Iran, Russia and Bangladesh visited Jaffna, and a few days earlier Rajapaksa secretly inaugurated a China project in Jaffna. India maintains an eerie silence.
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Military officials of Iran, Russia, Bangladesh visit Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 20:05 GMT]
In a show of solidarity to genocidal Sri Lanka, on the eve of UNHRC sessions in Geneva, military officials of Iran, Russia and Bangladesh visited Jaffna exclusively for meeting the occupying military of Sri Lanka in the peninsula, on Tuesday and Wednesday, news sources in Jaffna said. The visiting military delegates didn't meet the public, but were taken to showcase the ‘rehabilitation’ of ex-LTTE cadres and to see the Nalloor temple and the Buddhist Naga Vihara at Nayinaa-theevu. On 05 February, SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, secretly inaugurated China-involved power generation project along the northern coast of Jaffna. The inauguration completely hushed to the knowledge of media, took place in a SL naval base at Maathakal, near the KKS harbour.
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War-crime allegations lead to Shavendra's ouster from UN post

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 04:45 GMT]
Louise Frechette, a Canadian official who chairs the special advisory group (SAG) at the United Nations in New York, said in a statement released at the UN Head Quarters today, that she has advised Major General Shavendra Silva of Sri Lanka, that "his [Silva's] participation is not appropriate or helpful for the purposes of this Group [SAG]. He [Silva] will not participate in its deliberations." Shavendra Silva, who was recently rescued from a civil litigation in a New York court over war-crimes allegations, is the second Sri Lanka Military Commander, after deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, Jegath Dias, to be barred from high level positions outside SriLanka for alleged complicity in war-crimes against Eezham Tamils.
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Gananath review shows nations divided in perception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 01:44 GMT]
“I will confess that, as I write this essay, many do see him [Rajapaksa] as someone who “saved” the nation from the brutal LTTE. Surely such a view is not without its truth. But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflict the nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority,” writes Gananath Obeyesekere, in reviewing a recent book on Sri Lanka. Commenting, a Tamil academic said Gananath’s reference to ‘nation’ in singular confines to the Sinhala nation, for despite differences of opinion on ways and tactics, many Eezham Tamils see the LTTE as something that was checking brutal genocide by the Sinhala state. The divided perception is sign of nations in plural, justifying their separation even for reconciliation in future, the Tamil academic said.
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Veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin killed in Syria

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 11:53 GMT]
Renowned journalist Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times (UK), who is familiar to Eezham Tamils for her coverage on the conflict in the island, has been killed in shelling in Syria together with French photographer Remi Olchlik on Wedensday, agency reports said. The courageous journalist lost one of her eyes in 2001 in Sri Lanka Army shelling while working in the island. She was the only journalist to be present in besieged town of Homs in Syria, covering the conflict there, where she was slain. The shocking news of her death comes a few hours after her coverage on “sickening scenes” from Syria.
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Urging Colombo to rebuild railway to north evokes 143-year-old debate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 February 2012, 00:39 GMT]
A group of politicians, academics and NGO workers in the South including some Tamils and Muslims of southern orientation, while urging implementation of several LLRC recommendations in consultation with the TNA, and at the same time urging demilitarisation and political solution based on devolution, concluded their signed statement on Friday, wondering it was “hard to understand delay in rebuilding the railway to the north – a one time artery of commerce and people movement.” The perception of the model of ‘integration’ with the Colombo-based system, evokes 143-year-old debate on ‘the tale of two cities’, started by the then British Government Agent in Jaffna, Sir William Twynham, whether the railway makes Jaffna independent or dependent of Colombo. Twynham in his time rather preferred to develop the external trade of the ports in Jaffna and land-link them with the rest of the island.
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US Congress tables resolution on Baloch self-determination

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 February 2012, 17:08 GMT]
A resolution has been introduced in the US Congress last week, calling upon Pakistan to recognize the right to self-determination of the Baloch people, whose main territory Balochistan, bordering Iran in the west and Afghanistan in the north, is currently a province in Pakistan. It is the US policy to “oppose aggression and the violation of human rights inherent in the subjugation of national groups as currently being shown in Iran and Pakistan against the aspirations of the Baloch people,” the motion said. The resolution also talks on the distribution of the Baloch in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, their long revolts since 1958 and the need for the world to give them an opportunity to choose their own status among the community of nations. Balochistan is rich in oil and minerals with pipeline access to sea besides its strategic importance to US engagements in West Asia and Afghanistan.
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TNA tries to sell Indo-US pre-emption to Eezham Tamil civil society

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2012, 14:45 GMT]
Accepting the implementation of the 13th Amendment that is already in Sri Lanka’s constitution and failed to meet Tamil aspirations, was the subject matter the TNA was trying to impress upon the representatives of the Eezham Tamil civil society, in a meeting that took place in Vavuniyaa for five hours on Saturday. Eezham Tamils should not ‘hang on’ to their right to self-determination was the argument of a Colombo-based lawyer backing the stand of TNA leader R. Sampanthan, while this right was the very basis of the struggle of Eezham Tamils in the last sixty years, democratically as well as militarily, civil society circles told TamilNet. Many of the civil society representatives, especially from the East and Mannaar requested the TNA to conceive better ideas to bring in an interim administration for the North and East to face the current situation.
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Self-denial of heritage in Maldives sends message to Establishments

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 23:49 GMT]
A group of Maldivians who stormed into the National Museum at Male on the day Mr. Mohamed Nasheed resigned from the office of president, destroyed artefacts of pre-Islamic heritage on display. The whole pre-Islamic history is gone and the loss to the nation’s archaeological legacy can never be recouped, The Economic Times said Tuesday, citing Maldivian officials. Most of the artefacts, including statues smashed, belong to Maldivian Buddhism dating between c. 6 – 12 century CE. The vandals destroyed not only the religious heritage but also the literacy heritage as well, because many of the 30 odd coral-stone artefacts destroyed were inscribed with the earliest written records of the country. While media is busy on comparison with Afghanistan, the question arises why the situation deteriorated in Nasheed’s time, when the heritage had found no qualms during Gayoom’s long rule.
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Sumanthiran comes forward to save Rajapaksa from international investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 01:47 GMT]
A few days left to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the Colombo-based nominated parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran, has come out with a statement to BBC Sinhala Service on Tuesday, bailing out the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. “TNA backs a domestic process to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of that,” Sumanthiran said. “It is a step-by-step process. It will take time. They took 30 years in Cambodia,” the BBC further cited the MP, who welcomed the ‘US pressure’ on the SL government. Meanwhile, the visiting US Under Secretary General of State, Maria Otero, told reporters in Colombo on Monday that the US will support a resolution at the UNHRC providing an opportunity for Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations.
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Build capacity when regime tries to take away all capacity: Prof Gene Sharp

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 17:26 GMT]
In an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Friday in Oslo, Dr. Gene Sharp, Emeritus Professor of Political Science of the University of Massachusetts, provided some insights on non-violent strategies to be pursued by nations against states and powers that deny them their legitimate rights. “They have to build up some capacity for strength when the regime is trying to take away all capacity for strength from the oppressed people,” he said, adding, “We need to have a wise strategy – not something where you express anger but which achieves smaller victories and finally a big victory.” However, the leading theoretician of non-violent struggle who was not specifically addressing on any of the current struggles, conceded that “The situations are very different for different people of different countries.”
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Occupying SL Army, Police jointly attack Tamil youth in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 February 2012, 18:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka's occupying Sinhala army and police brutally attacked a number of Tamil youth below the age of 25, who were passing by the road in Nedung-kea'ni in Mullaiththeevu district on Tuesday night. The unprovoked and random attack followed some complaints of Sinhala road workers from the South, news sources in Vanni told TamilNet. Sometimes back a similar attack took place in Vanni after a confrontation between some Sinhala visitors from the South and the local people. Such attacks by the colonial forces were to remind the Eezham Tamils in Vanni of their subjugated status, the sources further said.
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Colombo-backed group attacks Muslim journalist in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 February 2012, 01:24 GMT]
Puvi Rahumathulla, the chief editor of a weekly magazine “Vaara Uraikal” published from Kaaththaankudi in Batticaloa district was attacked by a group of persons Friday while he was distributing copies of his magazine, according to complaints lodged with the Kaaththaankudi Police.
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Pakistan seeks Colombo’s help in deploying genocidal model

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 February 2012, 11:38 GMT]
A high level team of Sri Lankan officials who visited Pakistan were actually on a mission to help Pakistan combat and crush the Baloch freedom fighters or Sarmachars demanding independence from the failing state in South Asia, said an Examiner feature by Ahmar Mustikhan on Monday. Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa was on a two-day visit to Islamabad and signed three MoUs with Pakistan. But secret talks held during the visit were on Pakistan getting Colombo’s ‘expertise’ in crushing Tamil Tigers for deployment against the Balochistan movement, and this matter should be immediately reported to the International Criminal Court, the feature further said.
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SLAF fighter jet crashes in North Western Province

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 February 2012, 11:19 GMT]
A Russian-built MiG-27 fighter jet used by the Sri Lanka Air Force against civilian targets in the country of Eezham Tamils during the war, crashed Monday in the North Western Province. The SLAF deployed Russian built fighters to carry cluster bombs on LTTE and civilian targets in Vanni, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout the war.
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