Improper Swiss disclosure to Sri Lanka endangered Tamil lives: Swiss TV

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 01:09 GMT]
Switzerland government improperly passing over information of 235 phone numbers to Colombo by the end of 2010 is feared to have contributed to arrests, disappearances or extrajudicial killings of Tamils traced by those numbers in the island, Switzerland National TV, Schweizer Fernsehen said Tuesday. Swiss gave the phone numbers in the island that were contacted by alleged LTTE sympathisers in Switzerland. Commenting, Social Democratic Party’s Luzern Canton parliamentarian Lathan Sudaralingam told TamilNet that accused war-criminal and former SL Ambassador Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias was instrumental in facilitating such transactions. “We have long been raising alarm on such human rights violations, but Swiss Government appeared to have allowed an alleged criminal to engage in more crimes while in Switzerland, and had allowed him to escape from facing prosecution,” Mr. Lathan said.
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War or post-war, Sri Lanka’s explicit genocide is unchecked

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 October 2011, 20:58 GMT]
Whether one shows legal land deeds of heredity or not, to establish the private ownership of land in the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sri Lanka Army would place a signboard that the land is out of reach. Thereafter, if the owner of the land is not prepared to bribe the occupying Army, the land will be given to anyone who collaborates with the occupying Army. This is the reality about fertile cultivation lands especially in Vanni, since genocidal Sri Lanka has embarked upon ‘re-registering’ lands in the country of Eezham Tamils under a programme ‘Bim Saviya’ of Sinhala nomenclature. The explicit land-related structural genocide has made even a Rajapaksa-supporting Tamil politician like Anandasangaree to become more vociferous than the TNA in calling for a non-cooperation movement of Tamils.
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Fox connections with Sri Lanka raises questions on UK national security

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 21:50 GMT]
Shady associations and modus operandi of British Defence Minister Liam Fox in his dealings with the genocidal regime of Sri Lanka endanger the national security of UK, media reports from UK said this week. The revelations, following information through Wikileaks cables on the handling of Sri Lanka by the US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake, show how certain individuals sitting in the world Establishments pervert international relations upholding global order of justice, which particularly affects the case of the Eezham Tamils, said diaspora Tamil circles in London. Politics of Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and in the island need to address the issue in appropriate democratic ways to achieve reconciliation in their engagement with the international community and not to forget similar elements sitting in the Indian Establishment too, the diaspora circles further said.
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Japan's defiance to adhere to UN Convention, leaves Tamil Refugees in limbo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 16:02 GMT]
Several refugees, fleeing repression and threat to life in Sri Lanka, are either being held in Japanese immigration jails, or have been temporarily released on "bail" after paying sums of between $2K to $5K, and these refugees are undergoing severe misery for more than two years, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group contacted by the asylum seekers said. Since becoming a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1981, and until 2008 Japan has admitted only 573 of a total 7,297 applicants under the guidelines set out in the convention while an additional 882 were granted permission to remain for humanitarian reasons, reports indicate.
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Snail pace delivery of houses with Indian assistance, mere 0.1% completed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 14:38 GMT]
Housing scheme for displaced civilians of North and East, announced by India last year, has failed to deliver, according to Tamil NGO and political circles in Jaffna. India had announced last year that it would construct 50,000 houses for the displaced in the North and East. However, only 53 houses have been constructed so far till October 2011, Tamil NGO sources said. Plans were afoot in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna in North to construct houses for the war-displaced people. Earlier this year, when asked on the lack of progress of Indian announcement, Indian officials in the island responded that at least one thousand houses will be constructed before the end of 2011. The officials diluted the commitment further indicating that the numbers also included repair of existing houses.
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Blake wooed genocidal Sri Lanka Army to help Afghan war

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 October 2011, 09:30 GMT]
Within months of a war masterminded to end in the genocide of Eezham Tamils, the US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake wooed the genocidal Sri Lanka Army’s help in the US-led war in Afghanistan, reveals a Wikileaks document. In a meeting that took place in Colombo on 8th December 2009 with SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, “Blake raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to U.S.-led coalition operations in Afghanistan, noting that would be a significant step in support of improving military-to-military engagement,” briefs a classified cable of the US embassy in Colombo. Citing Muslim sentiments and ire of Islamic organizations, Gotabhaya avoided committing on any direct involvement, but he came out with an alternative for Sri Lanka providing covert training assistance in Afghanistan through NGOs and Private Military Companies.
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SL military collects details on ex-LTTE members in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2011, 13:22 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka Army soldiers in Jaffna and Vanni have again started collecting details of former LTTE members. The SLA, using new forms from Colombo, is registering details of ex-Tiger members who had left the movement several years ago and of those who were detained and released by the SLA after the genocidal onslaught on Vanni in 2009. The SLA has been registering the details of former LTTE members since it seized the control of Jaffna peninsula from the Tigers in 1996. The SL military also registered the details of the LTTE members whom it took into its custody in 2009. The SLA is now collecting data on the whereabouts and details on what the former LTTE members are doing now. Even the identities of the dead ones are being verified, sources in Jaffna said.
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"Sri Lanka's Killing Fields" to be screened at EU Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 October 2011, 03:35 GMT]
Three international Human Rights watchdogs, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group (ICG), and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are jointly organizing the screening of Channel-4 documentary "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields," at the European Union Parliament Wednesday (12th), invitation sent to decision makers said. The documentary has been shown at the legislative bodies of western capitals including Washington, Ottawa, London, Wellington (NZ), and Oslo, and United Nations in Geneva and New York, and has triggered calls for international investigation on war crimes in Sri Lanka.
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SLA encroaches 100 acres of farmland in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2011, 17:20 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni has forcibly taken over about one hundred acres of farmland situated between the villages Shanthapuram and Kanakaampikaik-ku'lam 5 km southeast of Ki'linochchi town. Earlier, the farmland was the livelihood of hundreds of people under a poverty alleviation scheme under the civil administration of the LTTE. A church and a well used by the residents of Shaanthapuram and Ira'naimaduk-ku'lam are also located in the land militarised by the occupying SL military. The SL military says it wants to exhibit military hardware seized from the Tigers in the farmland, which is situated near Ira'naimadu.
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‘Misplaced Loyalties’

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2011, 05:17 GMT]
Genuine anti-imperialism does not lie in mere abstract anti-American/anti-west sloganeering, writes RM Karthick, a freelance writer based in Chennai. “In the wake of a ‘post-national world’ discourse framed by apologists of multi-national capitalism and equally regressive capitalist-bureaucratic models as upheld by states like Turkey, China and Russia - both aiding the logic of genocidal states like Sri Lanka, anti-imperialism in concrete requires solidarity with national liberation struggles and their progressive representatives,” he further writes in an article that appeared in West Bengal based Sanhati online journal on Saturday. The regimes in Cuba and Venezuela end up as political opportunists by supporting mass murderers and despots like Rajapaksa who virulently implement neo-liberal policies in deed, but put up a sham ‘anti-Americanism’ in words, the writer from Tamil Nadu says.
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‘Reconciliation comes by accepting nations are different’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 October 2011, 10:15 GMT]
The South and its Sinhala polity talked of themselves as Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. Those who opposed the war, but still wanted to be part of the warring Sinhala ideology, thus said the common meeting point of all Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people is the ‘Sri Lankan’ identity. But this ‘Sri Lankan’ identity is essentially a Southern Sinhala identity, points out veteran Sinhala journalist Kusal Perera. Sinhala political parties in the opposition cannot and does not want to leave their Sinhala identity in challenging this regime [of Rajapaksa]. Challenging this regime with a Sinhala identity is impossible, with a State that is now wholly Sinhalised and is firmly controlled with the defence establishment entrenched in politics and economics, he further said, writing in The Sunday Leader, last Sunday.
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Armed robberies escalate in SLA-deployed areas of North

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Night robberies are on the increase in Sri Lanka Army deployed areas of the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni after the ‘grease devil’ episodes, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. On Tuesday night, a group of armed men entered the house of 60-year-old Ponnaiah Balasingam and attacked him and his 24-year-old son Dinesh Balasingam, at Thirvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi district. The attackers later robbed the house. The occupying Sri Lanka Army was heavily deployed in the area while the attack and the robbery were taking place. Meanwhile, medical staff at Jaffna hospital staged a one-hour token strike Wednesday against the recent attack on two doctors of the hospital at their residence in Kokkuvil. Normalcy remains disturbed in Jaffna as armed robberies were escalating in areas with heavy SLA presence.
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Sri Lanka governor demolishes British heritage in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 21:14 GMT]
Part of a landmark heritage complex at the Old Park in Jaffna, the residency buildings of the British Government Agents, dating back to the beginnings of British rule, was demolished overnight on Wednesday at the orders of the occupying Sri Lanka governor in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasri, despite the SL Archaeology Department declaring it a heritage site, preventing any demolitions. The SL governor is already building a mansion for the occupying governors in that location at a cost of 100 million Rs, news sources in Jaffna said. Both SL President Rajapaksa and his governor give utmost importance to the symbolism in showing who are the colonial masters now, by building a mansion for the SL president at the ‘King’s House’ inside the Dutch Fort and by building a governor’s mansion at the complex of the former British Residents.
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UK Appeal Court stays deportation order of Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 03:54 GMT]
An unknown number of Tamils, rumoured to be close to 50, who were to have been on today’s flight and who had appealed for judicial review of their cases have had their High Court removal orders overturned in the Court of Appeal Wednesday, Channel-4 reported. An appeal court judge had overturned one Tamil woman’s removal orders on the grounds that the UK Border Agency had breached British and European law by disclosing potentially sensitive information on the individual to the Sri Lankan authorities, thus placing her at greater risk upon her return, the report added. However, Friday's edition of a Sri Lanka daily said that 50 deported asylum seekers arrived from UK. The true facts behind the conflicting stories is expected to emerge during the day.
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Canada responsible for Tamils becoming refugees: NDP parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 20:38 GMT]
“The Government of Canada refused to act, refused to speak out, refused to demand an end to the atrocities. Canadians of Tamil descent came by the thousands to Ottawa to beg their country, to beg their Prime Minister to do something, to say something in the desperate hope that the slaughter of their families would end. The Prime Minister did nothing. Therefore, in fact, the government helped to create the refugees it denied in 2009 and 2010,” said New Democratic Party MP Irene Mathyssen, speaking on new refugee laws in the Canadian Parliament on last Friday. While the Conservative government of Canada was enacting a draconian law that would affect Eezham Tamils, the decision of the Conservative government in the UK for bulk deportation of Tamil asylum seekers shows orchestrated move of the Establishments across the world without solutions to a situation designed by them.
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Regimes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, forge questionable alliance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 06:09 GMT]
Maldivian Vice-President Dr Mohammed Waheed, meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa over the weekend at the UN General Assembly Sessions, assured the latter of the support of Male to Colombo’s stand on its human rights issues, according to Maldivian media Haveeru, Tuesday. “Early this month Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed defended Sri Lanka’s position at the UN Human Rights Council sessions held in Geneva,” Haveeru said in its feature “Maldives assures support for Sri Lanka amidst UN allegations.” The undue extra efforts taken by the present regime in Male to shield Colombo against the struggle of Tamils and Muslims in the island need careful scrutiny by the people in Maldives and peoples movements across South Asia, commented a political observer in Male.
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BASL exemplifies Sri Lanka's legal institutional decay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 01:50 GMT]
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) "express[ed] serious concerns as to diabolic overtures by the West to destabilize Sri Lanka on the instigation of the Tamil Diaspora...," a Sri Lanka weekly said Sunday, and added, BASL is establishing "a high powered" committee to advise the government on matters that should be raised before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The Head of the Committee, de Z. Gunasekera's initial defense of Colombo arguing that delay in Channel-4 video presentation as evidence the video is a fake reflects a serious lack of basic legal reasoning skills from the highest legal institution of practicing lawyers, legal sources in Washington pointed out.
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Inaction on Sri Lanka undermines UN Convention: Canadian foreign minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 01:40 GMT]
Citing objection taken “on petty, procedural or process-based grounds to upholding a report that speaks about credible allegations of war crimes committed in Sri Lanka,” and other examples, the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird speaking at the UN General assembly on Monday, said that “The greatest enemies of United Nations are not those who have publicly repudiated actions, the greatest enemies of the United Nations are those who quietly undermine its principles and, even worse, those who sit idly watching a slow decline. We cannot sit idly. Canada is a vigorous defender of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.” Canada has consistently opposed the debasement of multilateral institutions by conduct that is inconsistent with the values, he further said.
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Targeted attacks in Jaffna show war of Establishments against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 23:50 GMT]
The US Asst. Secretary of State visiting the island recently, wanted the ‘Grease Devil’ attacks to be stopped as though the ‘switch’ was in his hand. But targeted attacks taking place in Jaffna after his visit, against the backdrop of dubious manoeuvrings currently engineered in the West, only show a continued and concerted war waged against Eezham Tamils by elements in the Establishments guilty of genocide trying politics of intimidation, commented political circles in Jaffna. A house of a judge, two doctors and a bank official were targeted in the attacks in Jaffna last week taking the life of one and injuring at least seven in localities swamped by occupying SL military. The student community in Jaffna would have performed much better by showing righteous resentment to the visiting US dignitary rather than allowing the EPDP to hijack the show, the political circles further said.
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UK plans bulk deportation of Eezham Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 11:44 GMT]
UK has taken a decision to deport more than 100 Eezham Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on 28 of this month. The Home Ministry of UK has taken this decision as a test case to declare Sri Lanka a country free from human rights violations, said Eezham Tamil diaspora activists protesting the deportation in a meeting convened by Tamil Lawyers Association at Ealing Amman Temple in London on Sunday. Meanwhile, just last Tuesday, delivering a judgement and stopping the deportation of an Eezham Tamil refugee in India, judge Arul Varma said in New Delhi, “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors.” The Indian judge was worrying about the lack of proper refugee laws in India, but UK has striped the rights of its courts to intervene in such matters, the UK lawyers commented.
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