LTTE losing, SL winning was Norway failing: Norway report team leader

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 November 2011, 18:46 GMT]
While releasing the evaluation report on Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka on Friday, the team leader of the evaluation panel, Gunnar M. Sørbø, outlining the main findings of the report said “The collapse of talks and the subsequent military victory were as much a story of the LTTE ‘losing’, as of the government ‘winning’, or the Norwegians ‘failing’. The social anthropologist also came out with a profound reality the nation of Eezham Tamils were encountering for ages but hardly realized by the outsiders, when he said that apart from the other factors that failed the peace facilitation, “there were also patterns and structures and some of them were ‘old tricks in the Sri Lankan book’, so there was no excuse for not anticipating them, or for lacking a strategy to deal with them.”
Full story >>

SLMM tilted balance in favour of Sri Lanka, against LTTE: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 November 2011, 21:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), the peace keeping arm of the Norway facilitated peace process in the island, tilted the balance in favour of the Sri Lankan state and against the LTTE, wrote Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam in 2007, in an unpublished research paper on the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) he submitted to a foundation in the West. The IC could have used the CFA to pursue conflict resolution by maintaining the balance of power between the parties, but to the contrary it had used the CFA as a ‘counterinsurgency’ tool to reinforce the state and weaken the de facto state, so that the state could pursue yet another military solution to the conflict, he further wrote. The unpublished paper that reveals how the very idea of Norway’s peace facilitation was to ‘fail the peace facilitation’ in favour of state, is documented here for historical purposes.
Full story >>

University students in Jaffna still face death threat from SLA intelligence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 November 2011, 18:57 GMT]
Representatives of the Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) are continuously being threatened with death and intimidation by the Sri Lanka Army intelligence operatives. Some members of the JUSU on Tuesday narrowly escaped from the hands of the SLA intelligence division personnel when they were returning from Puththoor in Ki'linochchi district after making arrangements for holding free special classes for G.C.E.O/L students of Vanni who are to sit for the forthcoming examinations scheduled to commence in the first week of December.
Full story >>

Colombo fails bid to host 2018 Commonwealth games

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 November 2011, 00:59 GMT]
Gold Coast, located in the eastern shores of Southern Queensland, Australia, a popular tourist destination, leveraging its experience in hosting large-scale sporting events and the well-developed infrastructure facilities, beat Sri Lanka to host the 2018 Commonwealth games Friday. Colombo furiously pursuing its goal of erasing memory of the massacre of 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009, went after the bid to transform Sri Lankan President's home electorate, Hambantota, as a "sports city," but was voted down 27 to 43 by the voting members of the Commonwealth, according to reports.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka massacre, 5 times Srebrenica, 80 times My Lai, says German paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 November 2011, 11:55 GMT]
Referring to the Channel-4 documentary Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, journalists, Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, in an opinion column that appeared in German newspaper Die Welt said that the massacre of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka by the State military is five times the killings from Srebrenica genocide, and 80 times the numbers killed in the Mai Lai massacre. "Colombo successfully covered up the killings by sending away the UN observers on the grounds that the State will not be able to ensure their safety, and then began the mass murder," Die Welt said on 03 November.
Full story >>

Norway ‘LLRC’ distributes blame, washes hands of victims after ‘victory’

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 November 2011, 11:11 GMT]
A report on Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka, “Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka, 1997-2009” was released in Oslo on Friday. Whether pawns of peace or ploys for genocide, Norway’s report distributed blame among all the actors. A deficiency the report finds in Norway was not its grave failure to warn the world about peace turning into genocide, but that Norway should have escaped from the scene at an earlier stage. The report admits that the peace process has only enhanced obstacles to peace now. But, even after the process facilitating internationally abetted genocide, the report subconsciously sees “victory” in the war and it now harps on “primacy of domestic politics,” to imply ways for solutions. Norway washes hands of its responsibilities to victims and the report now seeks lessons to learn for ’peacebuilding’ elsewhere.
Full story >>

Political power and own state only could address structural genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 November 2011, 07:17 GMT]
Contrary to what certain Tamil politicians who are manipulated by India and/or western powers and intellectuals on the payroll of ‘donors’ may claim, the Eelam Tamils did not fight for individual human rights or equality. The structural genocide they face is not a one-time event but is a process, and that it is not an aberration but is inherent to the system of ‘united’ Sri Lanka. Any genuine politics therefore must start from the position that Eelam Tamils as a people are unequal, and will continue to be, unless they have political power in their hands in their own state, writes R M. Karthick, research scholar in political theory in a British university, citing Slovenian Philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, who upholds a thinking that we need a different notion of ideology to understand today’s politics.
Full story >>

Remember that powers need Tamils too: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 November 2011, 12:58 GMT]
Just as Eezham Tamils need international recognition for their cause, the powers that make moves in the island for a world order also need Tamils. What the Tamil politicians should keep in mind is that there is no reason for them to compromise on the fundamentals of the cause upheld by the people, said Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) in writing to Colombo-based Tamil Daily, Thinakkural, Sunday. In the changing current context, even if one of the competing powers take up the national question of Eezham Tamils as means for its leverage, the others can’t refuse it but have to follow suit. Tamil leadership shouldn’t miss the opportunity by abandoning the cause to pre-emptive tactics of any single power and thus excluding other international possibilities, he further said.
Full story >>

TNA relays US-India paradigm for ‘nondescript’ model of solutions

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 November 2011, 07:21 GMT]
Addressing a diaspora gathering in London on Sunday, The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politicians elucidated on trying a ‘nondescript’ model of solution for the national question of Eezham Tamils. The TNA relay on the paradigm comes after conditioned for long by New Delhi and after conferring with ‘creative thinking’ in the US State Department on the models for solutions. The TNA leaders didn’t hide the fact, but said it is worth trying, as the UN, EU, India and the USA are watching and any failures could be suitably addressed. Commenting on the nondescript nature of the model, Tamil political observers said that it is ideal for imperialism to get leverage and time for ‘development’ inroads and would provide more legitimacy, time and bartering power for genocidal Colombo to complete the annihilation of Eezham Tamils as a nation, while engaging them in a prolonged day-to-day struggle.
Full story >>

Media opinion urges Philippines to follow genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 November 2011, 12:15 GMT]
Philippines should follow Sri Lanka’s model in getting Chinese assistance and annihilate the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) fighting for the nation of Muslims in Philippines, urges an Outlook column appeared in Philippine Daily Inquirer, Thursday. A similar outlook in Burma’s military government against the Karen nationalists has been pointed out in many media reports after the genocidal war against the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. The US and India, by setting the stage, by finishing a national war to genocidal end and by continue sitting on political and criminal justice, have inspired a host of rogue States to follow the genocidal path, but ironically the ill-gotten gains of the ‘inspiration’ goes to China, commented a political science academic in the Tamil diaspora.
Full story >>

Sinhalese forcibly take over paddy lands of Tamils in Thennaimaravadi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 November 2011, 03:38 GMT]
Some resettled Tamil farmers in Thennaimaravadi village were taken aback in the weekend to see their paddy lands they prepared for sowing for the forthcoming Maha cultivation had been sown by Sinhalese encroachers at the instance of the Sri Lanka Army stationed in the area. They fear this is a part of a covert plan by Colombo government to forcibly take over paddy lands in the traditional Tamil village Thennaimaravadi, located at the narrow boundary between Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee districts that links the Northern and Eastern territories of the country of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

US Congressman’s ‘Sri Lanka interest’ surpasses care for own constituency

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 November 2011, 20:13 GMT]
US Congressman of the Democratic Party, Heath Shuler, ‘sacrificed’ the interests of his own constituency in order to visit Sri Lanka last month and give a clean chit to the genocidal regime of Rajapaksa. He was absent at his own city Asheville in North Carolina, when Obama visited the city on October 17. He stands for re-election in the constituency next year. This was Shuler’s second visit to Sri Lanka since the end of war in 2009 and both his visits were paid by the Colombo regime. According to the US media reports, Shuler believes that the US could learn a lot from the diligence and triumph of Sri Lanka and he was cited saying “Sri Lanka is a long-time ally of ours and is accomplishing some incredible things right now.” Shuler, a businessman by profession, finds progress “tremendous” in the island. “I didn’t see any current evidence of human rights issues,” Shuler has told media.
Full story >>

Indian military tourists visit Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 November 2011, 16:24 GMT]
A 16-member delegation of the Indian military, led by Air Commodore P R Navalkar visited Vanni this week as part of its six-day tour programme in the island. The delegation toured around a number of places of “archaeological, religious, cultural and tourist interest” in the war-torn Vanni, apart from visiting SL military and ‘resettlement’ installations in the region, a PTI report said Wednesday. The Indian military has ‘Army to Army’ relationship, a special bondage, with the genocidal military of Sri Lanka. India’s refusal to acknowledge genocide and war crimes in the island, and the vanguard protection it volunteers to Sri Lanka in the international arena in shielding the latter’s war crimes are widely interpreted as India’s indirect admission of complicity or even a main role in the conduct of genocide and war crimes against Eezham Tamils in the island.
Full story >>

Shavendra raises immunity defense to escape torture charges

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 November 2011, 01:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and ex-Major General in Sri Lankan Army (SLA), Shavendra Silva, has invoked Article-31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity as his defense to war-crimes charges leveled against him by two Tamil plaintiffs in the District Court of Southern District of New York (Case 11 Civ. 6645), court records show. With no declared formal intervention by the U.S. State Department, and despite earlier pronouncements that Silva will defend his actions in the Court of law, the ex-General appears to have thought it prudent to hide behind "absolute" immunity defense his counsel claims the General is legally entitled to.
Full story >>

Mano Ganeshan condemns decapitation of Chelva’s statue

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 November 2011, 19:38 GMT]
Mano Ganeshan, leader of the Democratic People’s Front (DPF) has condemned the decapitation of the late Tamil leader Thanthai SJV Chelvanayakam as an act of barbarism by chauvinist elements. Mr. Mano Ganeshan has reminded the services of Thanthai Chelva by launching a non-violent struggle against the subjugation of Tamils not only in North and East but also in the Upcountry at a time when the Sri Lankan government disenfranchised the Upcountry Tamils.
Full story >>

Canadian civil activists vow support to Tamil struggle for national liberation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 November 2011, 00:05 GMT]
In a significant move after Canada's largest peace organisation, the Canadian Peace Alliance and Canada’s largest trade union, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, recently resolving to support Eezham Tamils Right to Self-Determination, hundreds of non-Tamil activists in Canada have taken part in the Pongku Thamizh rally, the biggest politico-cultural event held Saturday afternoon by Canadian Tamils after 2009 Mu'l'livaaykkaal genocide. “The struggle for Tamil Eelam is legitimate and represents the essence of human dignity and justice. We will continue to unequivocally support Tamil student organizers as the struggle for national liberation moves into the international sphere,” said James Clark, the organizer of the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War while addressing the thousands who thronged the Queen's Park in Toronto.
Full story >>

Britain echoes Canada’s warning to Sri Lanka on CHOGM 2013

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 October 2011, 16:40 GMT]
British Prime Minister David Cameron urged Sri Lanka on Sunday to make progress on human rights before it hosts the next Commonwealth leaders meeting in 2013 to prevent the likelihood of boycotts, AFP reports. Mr. Cameron also said he pressed President Mahinda Rajapaske during this year's summit in Australia to show that Colombo did not "have things to hide" following the end of the island’s civil war. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared last month he would not attend the CHOGM meeting in Sri Lanka “if we do not see progress in Sri Lanka in terms of human rights and … political reconciliation, democratic values and accountability.”
Full story >>

SLA constructs cantonment in Mannaar causing fear among residents

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 October 2011, 16:37 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Maanaar is constructing a cantonment at Chelveari area situated along Mannaar - Thalai Mannaar Road. For the last four days heavy vehicles such as armoured cars and tanks had been seen transporting materials for the construction, thus creating fear and tension among residents. This area is under the control of the Sri Lanka Navy for the last several years. The Sri Lanka Army has now moved into the area for the construction of a big new camp and repairing existing small camps.
Full story >>

Scars of genocide to serve culture of imperialism

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 October 2011, 12:42 GMT]
“When the emissary of India, a country that backed Sri Lanka in its genocidal campaign against the Tamil people, marks out an artist to promote ‘cultural revival’ in their homelands, can this act and the performance be devoid of politics,” asks Mr. RM Karthick, a social science researcher from Tamil Nadu working in a British university, commenting on the recent ‘cultural tour’ of Chennai based Carnatic singer T M Krishna in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The Hindu on October 23 carried an article by Krishna on his visit to Jaffna, saying the performance went ‘beyond the scars’. “Artistes don't stand for elections, don't fight on the battlefield but we offer to everyone the very breath of life —happiness,” Krishna said in The Hindu article.
Full story >>

Australia’s detention frustrates Eezham Tamil to kill himself

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 13:44 GMT]
An Eezham Tamil asylum seeker, already accepted as a refugee in Australia, but waiting for long to get ‘security clearance’ from the Australian intelligence to come out of his ‘detention,’ killed himself Tuesday night. Earlier on that day, which was also the Deepaavali festival day, his request to go out to visit a friend for the festival was turned down by the authorities. When asked by the media, whether the government takes any responsibility, the Australian Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen said “We take responsibility for ensuring that people have the chance to make their claims and for ensuring that national security is taken into account. We cannot and will not compromise on matters of national security.” Twice, Australia readily accepted Sri Lanka’s military commanders accused in the genocide of Eezham Tamils as ‘Ambassadors’.
Full story >>