Namal Rajapaksa demands 10 acres of Ilmenite-rich land in Kokku'laay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 23:48 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's son Namal Rajapaksa, has been recently demanding the Village Officer of Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu district, to hand over to him 10 acres of land belonging to Tamils to construct a mineral separation plant near the river mouth in Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu district, informed civil sources in Mullaiththeevu district told TamilNet. Mr. Namal Rajapaksa was prepared to give any amount to acquire the lands.
Full story >>

Marie Colvin remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 21:06 GMT]
Tamil journalists from various media organizations came together on Monday in Jaffna with civil society members and student representatives of various faculties of the Jaffna University, to pay tribute to the slain war correspondent in Syria, Marie Colvin, who had been in the island covering the conflict earlier. Paying floral tribute, the event, organized by Nimalarajan Memorial Foundation, remembered the late Marie Colvin as a Journalist Friend of Tamils. Meanwhile, remembering Marie Colvin in the diaspora, the London-based International Association of Tamil Journalists came out with a tribute last Thursday, saluting her courage, discipline and commitment to her work and to humanity.
Full story >>

DDoS attack disrupts TamilNet web traffic

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 23:14 GMT]
Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack (DDoS), identified by the service provider of TamilNet as originating in an orchestrated way from certain affluent parts of the world, has been disrupting web traffic of TamilNet.com since Saturday. The attack on the independent media reporting to the world on Tamil affairs coincides with the opening of the 19th sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in Geneva on Monday, where the USA and Sri Lanka have already pitched positions in hijacking the focus of issues concerning the cause of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils. TamilNet has been forced to seek expert services in regularising the web traffic. As a media arguing for Eezham Tamil public to take up the issues into their hands, TamilNet depends on the support of nobody other than the Tamil masses and the alternative world.
Full story >>

SLA, paramilitary, force Tamils in Batticaloa to take part in anti-UN protests

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 22:26 GMT]
SLA operated paramilitary operatives, dispatched by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa, visited the Village Development Council (VDC) leaders in various villages in the district on Monday instructing the heads of the VDCs to have at least 150 people to get on board the buses they would be bringing to transport civilians against their will to march from Batticaloa Hindu College to the Clock Tower in Batticaloa city. The heads of VDCs were told that they would have to resign their posts if they failed to meet the demand. The people, gathered against their will were then taken to Batticaloa city and were forced to burn the effigy of US President Barack Obama and to chant slogans against the UNHRC session taking place in Geneva.
Full story >>

SL colonial governor coordinates anti-UN demonstration of SLFP, EPDP in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 16:41 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s colonial governor, Maj. Gen. G. A. Chandrasri was seen coordinating the two factions collaborating with the Rajapaksa regime, the Angkayan-led SLFP and Douglas Devananda-led EPDP, in staging a simulated demonstration in Jaffna and Vanni against UNHRC discussing Sri Lanka in Geneva on Monday. The simulation forced in sections and individuals waiting for benefits from the Colombo regime. An attendance register was maintained for the participants. However, a media clip that captured comments of a passing-by youth street vendor, universally encapsulated the game on the island. The youth told the unemployed graduates in the ‘demonstration’: “I am not educated like you to perform this act.” The youth has not said that to the ‘demonstrators’ alone, commented media circles witnessing the scene in Jaffna.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

HRW's Sri Lanka torture report will help UK asylum seekers, says TAG

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 February 2012, 00:35 GMT]
Credible new evidence of Sri Lanka’s torture of recent deportees from Britain, disclosed recently in a report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), a premier Rights group based in New York, will significantly bolster ongoing litigation to halt the UK’s deportations, said Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), in a litigation update released today. HRW said the UK should suspend deportations of ethnic Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka and immediately review its policies and information about the country’s rights situation used to assess their claims." About 100 Tamil asylum seekers are scheduled for deportation from the United Kingdom on February 28, 2012.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa secretly inaugurated China project in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 17:57 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during his last trip to Jaffna on 06 February, ceremonially declared open a renovated hospital and a swimming pool, both of which were criticised by local media, especially the diversion of funds intended to reconstruct schools in Vanni to the completion of modern swimming pool in Jaffna. However, Mr. Rajapaksa had also inaugurated a China backed controversial project in Maathakal under the eyes of Sri Lanka Navy, without any public knowledge, informed sources in Jaffna now reveal. The controversial project to install windmills and solar panels along the coastal stretch from Thiruvadi-nilai to KKS and lease the occupied land of Eezham Tamil families, deprived of resettlement, to a Malaysian corporate of Chinese connections for 20 years was the one secretly inaugurated by the SL President together with the SLN.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

Cambodia analogy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 February 2012, 05:14 GMT]
The UN Secretary General is under attack by international legal experts and the media for a seriously bungled war-crimes prosecution in east asia- Cambodia's war tribunal (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC). Two million civilians were killed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and 35 years later, politics and finance, instead of law and evidence, appear to dictate the course of justice. But, here, now, Tamil political leaders point to the Cambodia model as reflecting the speed of international investigations, and assert that Tamils should not be impatient at the slow progress of international mechanisms. Western States, allegedly complicit in "crime against peace" in Sri Lanka, forward the same argument to avoid their own exposure and to buy the SL Government time so that 30-years into the future, prosecutions become largely irrelevant as is happening in Cambodia.
Full story >>

Court to decide if US can save Rajapakse from war-crime charges

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 February 2012, 02:38 GMT]
The United States Department of State, in its response to three Tamil plaintiffs' opposing arguments to the US's suggestion of immunity for Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse from alleged war-crimes, said that the plaintiffs have asked the Court to "ignore the substantial and unanimous body of authority recognizing the controlling nature" of US's immunity determination, and that US's earlier submission adequately explained why the Court should recognize Rajapakse's immunity from the suit. Plaintiff's attorney said the US Government has failed to adequately address why the Court should pre-empt judicial review when under TVPA "an individual" has allegedly committed "universally repugnant" crimes, and is insolently insisting on the dispositiveness of US's determination on immunity. A ruling is expected from Judge Kotelly soon.
Full story >>