US-UK responsible for ‘killing field’ war on Eezham Tamils: papers

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 13:52 GMT]
“The war on terror served as a justification for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries which ten years latter are still shattered and fractured, with a rather bleak future. It seems that it has, under the eyes of the International community, also been used as a cover up for a conflict that was nothing more than a racist war,” says Anissa Haddadi writing on Sri Lanka in International Business Times, Friday, asking the question, “Is the US war on terror responsible for Sri Lanka Killing Fields?”
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Buddhist Stupa, Sinhala colony in the making in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 12:27 GMT]
Following a Buddhist stupa complex and Sinhala colony planned in 3000 acres of land in Trincomalee city, depriving Eezham Tamils the territoriality of their country, a similar venture in Mullaiththeevu town is being undertaken by the military governor of genocidal Sri Lanka in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. The stupa complex is planned in a locality where the LTTE earlier had its memorials for combatants laid down their life in fighting for the liberation of Eezham Tamils. Apart from allotting a huge sum from the funds of Colombo’s administration for the north, The SL governor is intimidating NGOs and civil society institutions functioning in the Tamil country to ‘donate’ unspecified amounts of money in ‘unaccounted ways’ for this project of structural genocide schemed by Colombo.
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SL Army brutally attacks public meeting of politicians, journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 16:34 GMT]
In what is seen as retaliation for Channel 4 broadcast Tuesday, the genocidal SL Army occupying Jaffna brutally attacked TNA parliamentarians, journalists and public in Jaffna on Thursday, causing injuries to an unspecified number of people, according to initial reports. The blatant attack by SL Army in uniform took place when the TNA politicians held a meeting at A’laveddi in Jaffna, inaugurating their political campaign for the forthcoming civic elections. Tension prevailed as SL Army was deployed in the area and the public that came for the meeting sought refuge in the nearby houses. “British diplomats satisfied with Army’s role in Jaffna,” said a website of the occupying Army on Tuesday, after the visit of the Deputy High Commissioner of UK, announcing ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants in detention through the occupying Army.
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Amnesty International appeals for halt to deportations to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:12 GMT]
Amnesty International called Thursday for the UK Authorities not to deport Sri Lankans at risk of torture, ahead of a planned deportation in the afternoon from Gatwick Airport in London, echoing a call Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. At least twenty people, mostly Tamil, face forcible return on the flight, the rights watchdog said, adding it was aware of cases of deported asylum seekers being arrested and tortured on arrival in Colombo. At least one of the failed asylum seekers due to be deported tried to commit suicide last night at an airport detention facility, following threats he reportedly received on the telephone to kill him once he returned to Sri Lanka, Amnesty said.
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Colombo: Channel 4 film ‘fake’, made for LTTE supporters

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka denounced a hard hitting Channel 4 documentary aired Tuesday on war crimes committed by both sides during the final months of the armed conflict in 2009 as propaganda by Tami Tiger supporters. Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the film was a ‘fake’ and that LTTE supporters had paid Channel 4 to make it. The External Affairs ministry echoed the charge, saying the film came from “a sinister motive driven by a political agenda against Sri Lanka” and had been made “at the behest of certain parties with vested interests”, for an objective that “caters only to the interests of separatist forces living outside Sri Lanka.”
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HRW urges halt to UK deportations to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 22:30 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized Wednesday the British government’s decision to deport asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, saying they should not be sent back home until the situation improves there. Brad Adams, South Asia director of the New York based human rights organisation, told BBC Sinhala service: "we urge the British government to hold off sending people who could face persecution on return". He was speaking a day before Britain is scheduled to deport a large number of people on a chartered flight to Colombo.
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Gordon Weiss tries to unrelate fire and smoke: Jaffna politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:59 GMT]
“The problem was not that the army of Sri Lanka had decided to regain its sovereign territory and to take on the Tamil Tigers, whose brutality was a matter of record, the problem was the manner in which they carried out the final phase of the war and the sheer number, the sheer proportion, of civilians who were killed during these final assaults,” said Gorden Weiss, former UN spokesperson stationed in Colombo during the war, commenting on a fresh evidence of war crime brought out by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday. By projecting the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in this manner, Gorden Weiss, who was veiling the crimes to the knowledge of the world when they were taking place, now tries to say that fire was not the problem but smoke was the problem, responded an Eezham Tamil politician in Jaffna.
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Sri Lanka Archaeology Dept plans to take Jaffna material to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 06:45 GMT]
Material excavated recently at Kantharoadai in Jaffna, belonging to pre-Buddhist Megalithic period, and could be dated to roughly 3000 years before present, are planned to be taken to Anuradhapura museum in the south, informed sources in Jaffna said. According to news reports, the excavation has been ‘jointly’ conducted by the Sri Lanka Department of Archaeology and the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Jaffna. Even on all earlier occasions, valuable material excavated from important archaeological sites of the Tamil country in the island such as Maanthai in Mannaar and Kantharoadai in Jaffna were taken to Anuradhapura or Colombo and became unavailable for Eezham Tamils to present their heritage in their own land.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister wants Delhi to change course

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 13:20 GMT]
“The Tamil Nadu legislative assembly has recently passed a resolution urging the Government of India to initiate action by working with other nations for the imposition of an economic embargo on the Government of Sri Lanka, until the Tamils who are now living in camps are resettled in their own places and are allowed to live with dignity and with equal constitutional rights on par with the Sinhalese,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said in her memorandum to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Tamil Nadu CM, who met the Indian PM on Tuesday told him that Sri Lankan Navy was harassing and torturing the Tamil Nadu fishermen and demanded cancellation of ferry service which was started Monday between Tutucorin in Tamil Nadu and Colombo. The memorandum submitted to Indian PM said on the resumption of ferry service that it “will not be advisable and it will be against the sentiments of the people.”
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UK routeing ex-LTTE ‘reintegration’ through SL Army raises controversy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2011, 22:06 GMT]
Announcing a donation of 5,00,000 pound sterling (90 million SL rupees), and entirely accompanied by the occupying Sri Lanka Army, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, Mark Gooding, visited a detention camp run for ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants by the SL military at the High Security Zone part of Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, on Monday. The British government policy of accepting a genocidal military accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as competent authority for the ‘reintegration’ of the ex-LTTE combatants, and involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of questionable local credibility in the process, raises controversy in Jaffna.
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Colombo continues bilateral ploy to elude international solution

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2011, 01:35 GMT]
The genocidal establishment of Mahinda Rajapaksa continues with its pre-war trick of bilateral dealings to escape comprehensive international action cum solutions to the national question in the island, and some competing powers and their proxies continue to provide space for Rajapaksa juggle, by not collectively calling for the logical solution of liberation of Eezham Tamils but bilaterally harping on unworkable models, accused political circles in Jaffna watching the coming and going of the Indian Troika and new bilateral deals Colombo is hatching with others. While there is immense irritation in Eezham Tamil political circles over New Delhi and Colombo ‘talking’ land and police powers for nearly 25 years, informed sources said anger is mounting in Tamil Nadu over New Delhi ignoring the stand of TN State Assembly and scheduling the visit of Manmohan Singh to Colombo.
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Oil, canal and security cause call for retrieval of Kachcha-theevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2011, 16:34 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution to legally associate the Tamil Nadu government with a case already pending in the Supreme Court of India on Kachchatheevu. The petition in the Supreme Court filed in 2008, by AIADMK General Secretary and present Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha, seeks the Supreme Court to declare India’s ceding of Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka as unconstitutional. According to the CM and some Indian policy planning writers, the ceding of the islet under the 1974 and 1976 bilateral agreements affected fishing rights of the Tamil Nadu fishermen and resulted in the killing of hundreds of them by the Sri Lanka Navy. But oil in the Palk Bay, a canal project and security fears of India count more than the interests of the fishermen, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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War crimes documentary publicity infuriates Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2011, 15:23 GMT]
Media publicity surrounding the forthcoming airing of Channel-4 produced war-crimes video "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields," viewed as probably the most horrific" footage it has ever shown in an investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, evoked complains by Colombo to OFCOM, as Colombo unsuccessfully tried to keep the identity of the complainant from being disclosed. Colombo continues to attempt to discredit the video despite advice from seasoned political experts to persuade Colombo to take a more professional approach to dealing with the mounting crisis related to call for independent international investigation of war-crimes.
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Gotabhaya grooms private army in the north

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 June 2011, 06:13 GMT]
In order to absolve the Sri Lanka Army occupying the Tamil country from international accusations, but at the same time to continue terrorisation and subjugation of Tamils, genocidal Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has formed a private army in the north consisting of military intelligence personal and some members of the paramilitaries who had gone astray, news sources in Jaffna said. This new outfit headquartered in Vanni but operates mainly in Jaffna as groups of thugs, is responsible for many recent acts terrorising civil society movements, public protests and university student activities, the news sources further said.
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Eezham liberation is geopolitical priority for Tamil Nadu: Thirumurukan

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 June 2011, 00:40 GMT]
If the people of Tamil Nadu are vigilant enough of the nature and aims of the geopolitical forces operate in the region, then they will realise that call for independence of Eezham Tamils should get priority over war crimes investigation and indictment of Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Mr. Thirumurukan Gandhi of the May 17 Movement of Tamil Nadu, while discussing the UN report in Chennai last month. The whole world, except Tamil Nadu, knows that the power to change the paradigm lies in Tamil Nadu, he further said. Thirumurukan’s analysis coming from grassroot thinking in Tamil Nadu was refreshing, while ‘analysis groups’ in Chennai and some international organizations backed by establishments aiming to capitalize the war crimes to their interests truncate the ultimate justice of liberation to the affected, said political observers in the island and in the diaspora.
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TNA MP blames Ampaa'rai politicians for allowing land grab

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 June 2011, 00:19 GMT]
All ministers and parliamentarians from the Ampaa'rai district seem to collaborate with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and they have no backbones to challenge the injustice done to Tamil and Muslim people based on ethnic, religious and language basis by the Colombo government, said Mr. P. Selvarajah, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian representing the Batticaloa district, addressing a meeting in Kalmunai last week.
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Abducted Tamil child found deployed in slave labour in Sinhala district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 June 2011, 21:22 GMT]
The grandfather of an abducted 11-year-old Tamil boy from Batticaloa has been threatened by paramilitary for having braved to rescue his grandson from the grips of ‘treasure hunters’ who had deployed the abducted boy for slave labour in Dambulla. Mr. Velmurugu Sivalingam, the grandfather, upon receiving information on the whereabouts of his grandson, had rushed to Dambulla to rescue his grandson, Athisayarajah Soundararajah.
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TN Assembly passes resolution to indict Sri Lanka, impose economic sanctions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 June 2011, 08:44 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Wednesday mid noon unanimously passed a resolution requesting the Indian government to indict Sri Lanka for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the UN, and to work along with world countries to impose economic sanctions on Sri Lanka until Tamils in the island are rehabilitated and get equal rights. The resolution accused Sri Lanka on five counts based on the UN panel report. The DMK was absent at that time as it was boycotting the house on some other issue. The resolution was passed unanimously when more than two third were present in the house.
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US attaché clarification, a linguistic legerdemain, accuses Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 June 2011, 00:03 GMT]
Response from the US State Department on the comments made this week by US defence attaché Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith in Colombo at the controversial 3-day seminar organised by the Sri Lankan military to expound on its defeat of the LTTE earlier this week that the remarks "reflected his personal opinions," and that "[t]hey [the comments] do not reflect the policy of the United States Government,” was "all linguistic legerdemain by the United States Government," accused Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and a professor at the University of Illinois School of Law.
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Tamils protest at Lords over allegations of Sri Lanka war-crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 June 2011, 04:47 GMT]
Tamil youth activists in Britain took their ‘Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket’ campaign to the Lords cricket grounds on Saturday, the third day of the second Sri Lanka v England test match this summer. Several dozen Tamil activists and supporters handed out leaflets to arriving spectators and cricket officials and staged a noisy demonstration opposite the famous grounds in the latest in a series of events organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) to raise awareness of the mass killings of Tamil civilians during the final months of Sri Lanka’s war in 2009, and call for a boycott of Sri Lankan cricket until Colombo agrees to an independent international investigation.
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