No more faith in Colombo’s peace and reconciliation: Indian women

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 16:06 GMT]
Prominent women’s rights activists in India in a statement this week said that they had stopped believing in Colombo's periodic pledges to bring about reconciliation in the country, reports Indian Express. "We no longer believe the empty promises of the Sri Lankan government to bring peace and reconciliation, and strongly demand immediate action that will convince us of the seriousness of this intent," the statement of the rights activists said. Saying that women were among the worst hit in the dragging conflict in Sri Lanka that began in 1983, the activists faulted the Sri Lankan government for not acknowledging the range of rights violations committed by its armed forces, even two years after the Tamil Tigers were crushed and condemned the Indian government for its silence and participation.
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Basil inaugurates KKS Harbour project, makes money on Jaffna limestone

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 22:01 GMT]
After the agreement entered between New Delhi and Colombo last week on carrying out a wide-ranging “rehabilitation” project of Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) harbour in the SL Army occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam, Jaffna, Indian engineers have already started to work on removing the wreckage of at least 6 Sri Lanka Navy and government owned ships that were sunk by the LTTE in the war. The wreckage had been blocking access for large vessels to reach the harbour. In the meantime, reports from the Sri Lanka Navy sources in Jaffna said that the SL presidential sibling and “development” minister Basil Rajapaksa has sold tonnes of high quality quarried limestone that has been stored in KKS, to an Indian company, making personal profit from the sales.
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‘Dropping call for justice and independence is worst crime’

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 21:03 GMT]
Voicing on behalf of the present establishment in New Delhi, sections in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) unnecessarily declaring against independence of Eezham Tamils and discouraging war crimes investigations are worst of the crimes committed not merely against Eezham Tamils but against human civilization, said Tamil national as well as Left political circles in the island and in the diaspora to TamilNet on Monday. The comments have come responding to TNA views expressed after its victory and during its campaign in the civic elections. TNA leader Sampanthan interpreted the victory as Tamil wish for solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’ and a confidential document circulated among ‘friends of the TNA’ during the civic elections said that the war crimes investigations were actually directed against India than against Colombo, and hence Tamils should not pin hopes on them.
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Remembering Sri Lanka’s longer history of mass killing of Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 02:40 GMT]
British Tamils held a candle light vigil Saturday evening opposite the Prime Minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street, to remember victims of Sri Lanka’s 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom. Six days of mob violence, organized by ruling politicians and abetted by Sri Lanka’s security forces, which began on July 23 that year killed over three thousand people, and emptied the capital, Colombo, of Tamils. On Saturday, a thousand British Tamils dressed in black and carrying black flags and Eelam national flags, held a vigil between 6 and 9 pm, with lit candles and banners commemorating the pogrom. For several hours before the vigil began, activists and supporters handed out leaflets in the surrounding Whitehall area. The events were organized by the British Tamil Forum.
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Colombo is not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence: New Zealand MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 17:51 GMT]
“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
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TNA wins Thirukkoayil PS in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has secured 72.87% of the votes polled in Thirukkoayil Piratheasa Chapai (PS) in Ampaa'rai district. The ruling UPFA and the UNP received one seat each. The victory of the TNA in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai is an expression of Eezham Tamil unity across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, political observers in Colombo said.
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Protests make India withdraw SLA training in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 14:21 GMT]
A programme of the Indian military to train soldiers of the genocidal Army of Sri Lanka at the Madras Regimental Centre at Wellington in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu was withdrawn after a protest of the people of Tamil Nadu staged by Periyar Dravida Kazhakam (PDK), Naam Thamizhar Party (NTP), Viduthali Chiruththaigal Katchi (VCK) and other activists groups on Friday. 25 soldiers of Sri Lanka’s Army who arrived at Wellington Thursday night for a three months training were sent back in a bus via Chennai, Indian officials said Saturday. About 200 activists participated in the protest demonstration at Wellington on Friday. A wordy quarrel took place between the Tamil Nadu police and a section of the agitators when the latter attempted to squat on road, PTI reported.
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US official foresees elections in the north as way for ‘indigenous leadership’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 12:17 GMT]
While the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton visiting Chennai was looking at “some innovative and creative ideas” to break the impasse over the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday that the US government was looking towards Sri Lanka conducting provincial council elections in the north to facilitate the emergence of indigenous leadership for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, campaigning for Rajapaksa in the intimidated civic elections in the north that is now taking place ‘guided’ by the Rajapaksa regime and its occupying Army, SL minister Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said in Jaffna that Tamils should vote for Rajapaksa to “ensure that there is no foreign interferences.”
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US Congress panel votes to bar aid to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 03:01 GMT]
A US congressional committee voted Thursday to ban aid to Sri Lanka pending "accountability" over atrocities in the final months of the armed conflict in 2009, AFP reported. In a voice vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a measure that would ban all US government funding to Sri Lanka except for humanitarian aid, demining and activities to promote democracy and governance.
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Rajapaksa gives Tamil Nadu trio stage fright

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 02:47 GMT]
Three film singers from Tamil Nadu who had accepted a Sri Lankan government invitation to perform for Tamils in the former warzone town of Kilinochchi pulled out Thursday after finding out the event was to be part of the ruling party’s election campaign and that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa would be attending, Indian press reports said. Mano, Krish and Suchitra (eds: single names only) were “shocked” to discover this whilst at Colombo airport waiting for their special military flight to Kilinochchi, and were hurriedly returning to Tamil Nadu, where their visit had triggered controversy, the reports said.
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India signs MoU with Colombo to ‘rehabilitate’ KKS harbour

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 00:27 GMT]
The government of India entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Rajapaksa regime of Sri Lanka on Thursday to carry out a “complex and wide-ranging project” to “rehabilitate” the Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) harbour in the SL Army occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam, Jaffna.
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Clinton’s analogue contradicts political reality

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 11:26 GMT]
Visiting Chennai and appreciating the Tamil Nadu state in India, the US Secretary of State Ms. Hilary Clinton on Wednesday said, "Every Sri Lankan deserves the same hope and opportunity." If Ms. Clinton implies an Indian-modeled federal solution to the chronic national crisis in the island then she is making a historic mistake in her analogy, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Federalism in India had an altogether different origin beginning from the days of the English East India Company compared to the vicious experiment of the British ‘Crown Colony’ in the island. Ms. Clinton should now delete the word ‘Sri Lanka’ if she means talking about Eezham Tamils or about ‘reconciliation’ in the island, he further writes.
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Clinton meets Jayalalithaa in Chennai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 17:00 GMT]
The United States is “looking at some innovative and creative ideas to break the impasse over the Sri Lankan Tamils issue,” PTI quoted visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in Chennai Wednesday. The report did not elaborate. Meanwhile, in a public address Ms. Clinton said that India's example of multicultural democracy should serve as a model for Sri Lanka. Commenting on Clinton's remarks, Eezham Tamil political circles said Indian-modelled political solution will not work in the island when the military is Sinhalese. Centuries of political experience in the island shows that equal status of Tamils and Sinhalese is possible only when they have equal States, the political circles further commented.
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Australia’s cricketers should shun repressive Sri Lanka - TYO

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 01:30 GMT]
Australia’s cricketers should take a principled stand in defence of human rights and justice, and boycott Sri Lankan cricket until the Colombo government heeds international calls for an independent investigation into the mass killings of Tamil civilians in 2009, the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) urged Monday. “Sport is inseparable from politics. Nothing gives a repressive regime greater legitimacy, and makes light of its brutal conduct, than continuing sporting links,” the TYO said in a statement.
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Civic elections question solutions within ‘united’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 17:32 GMT]
The way civic elections take place in the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka and its genocidal Army is an open challenge invalidating the stand taken by some powers that political models within a united Sri Lanka could resolve the national question in the island, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. In recent times political pundits in the US are busy in thinking how to inspire the people of China to become ‘Liberal Democratic’ in order to avoid an impending East-West conflict. But in its desire to woo ‘pivotal’ Sri Lanka into its fold, to what extent the West is going to uphold its credibility by structuring a military and genocidal Sri Lanka that makes a mockery of democracy, he asks.
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Colombo's "Road Show" on $1Billion, Ten-Year Bond

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2011, 17:22 GMT]
AFP reported last week that Sri Lankan officials have been visiting several international financial centers, including New York and Los Angeles this week to promote Sri Lanka's 10 year one billion dollar bond sale. The lead banks approached by the Sri Lanka officials include HSBC, Bank of America, Merryl Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays Bank, according to the AFP report.
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Paramilitary groups clash in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2011, 09:37 GMT]
Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, a paramilitary leader and “resettlement” deputy minister in Rajapaksa regime, has attacked a leading supporter of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilliayan, another para military group leader and chief minister of the Eastern Provincial Council at a public event held in Kiraan, Batticaloa, on Friday.
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Prime Minister criticized in New Zealand’s parliament over Tamil refugees

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 July 2011, 08:38 GMT]
Green Party MP, Keith Locke was furious at New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key in the parliament on Thursday, over the latter’s recent remarks on Eezham Tamil boat refugees. On the question of the 87 asylum seekers, the New Zealand Prime Minister on Monday had said, "Our very simple message to them is they are not welcome here." Citing the PM’s statement, Keith Locke said, “Good-hearted New Zealanders were shocked when their Prime Minister so bluntly rejected the appeals of Tamil boat people who had arrived in Indonesia on the Elysia to come to New Zealand.” Locke pointed out that John Key's own mother was an asylum seeker, who fled from Nazi Germany to Britain in 1939.
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US Congressman: "Gruesome example of Humans at their worst"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 July 2011, 03:52 GMT]
Congressman James McGovern, co-chair of a US Congress human rights commission named in honor of late lawmaker Tom Lantos, described the Channel-4 documentary, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, as "a gruesome example of humans at their worst," AFP reported after the 50-minute documentary was shown at the U.S. Capitol Complex Friday as US lawmakers and rights advocates stepped up calls for an international probe into Sri Lanka's civil war. Nearly 300 people including several senior and influential Congressional staff, diplomats from different countries and State Department officials, and members of the public attended the screening in the auditorium with a seating capacity of 450.
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International Criminal Court, Commonwealth Secretariat sign MoU

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 20:08 GMT]
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, on Wednesday signed an MoU with the International Criminal Court, to strengthen and develop co-operation between the two organizations to jointly support States implementing International Criminal Law. Legal circles in Colombo opined that Sri Lanka not being a signatory to the Rome Statute, the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka, would not be a beneficiary of this MoU. However, they said that it is a good sign to see the Commonwealth Secretary General Sharma, who once stated that he had no mandate to question Sri Lanka on its human rights violations perpetrated on Tamil people, has started to move in the right direction with the signing of this MoU.
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