LTTE mounts legal challenge, says post-Mu’l’livaaykkaal EU ban illegal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 June 2011, 00:20 GMT]
Amsterdam-based Bohler Group's attorney, Victor Koppe, brought an action on behalf of the European wing of the LTTE against the Council of the European Union at the European Court of Justice Thursday for the annulment of the ban on Liberation Tigers, arguing that the LTTE no longer uses military means to achieve its goals, and in post-Mu’l’livaaykkaal context, uses political and non-violent methods to achieve the movement's goals of obtaining Tamil justice and exercising the right to self-determination of the Tamil people. Koppe argues that these rights are protected by the doctrine of fundamental freedoms of speech, association, assembly and movement.
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US Defence Attaché in Colombo ‘embarrasses’ Obama administration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 June 2011, 16:53 GMT]
“Remarks earlier this week by the U.S. Embassy’s Defense Attaché at a conference in Colombo reflected his personal opinions. They do not reflect the policy of the United States Government,” said a spokesman for the U.S. State Department Friday. The comment came in a statement officially distancing the USA from remarks made this week by its own 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. The USA had earlier declined Sri Lanka’s invitation to attend the controversial seminar. The latest US controversy has raised questions whether the US military officials were also playing a ‘personal counter-insurgency’ role in the Sri Lankan State's war against Eezham Tamils.
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SL Army in Jaffna defies judiciary, restarts photo registration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 June 2011, 08:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army occupying Jaffna has restarted its terrorising mission of photo registration of people in Jaffna peninsula. Some times back, when the ‘obligatory’ SL military registration of the people in Jaffna was challenged in the courts by the Tamil National Alliance, the SLA said in the courts that it had stopped the process. But, while the matter is sub-judicial, the registration has restarted and forms to this effect are being distributed by the occupying SL military, accuses TNA parliamentarian Mavai Senathiraja. A few days ago, overlooking the SL Supreme Court's request to postpone the mandatory military training programme to students entering the universities, Colombo went ahead with the programme citing that it had already spent money on the project and students had already started travelling to the military bases.
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Discrimination continues in teachers appointment in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 June 2011, 12:55 GMT]
A group of councilors in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), which already collaborates with Colombo have given a memorandum to the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa complaining about the discrimination shown in the appointment of teachers to ‘national’ and provincial schools disregarding qualified Tamil medium teachers. P. Piyasena, a parliamentarian from Ampaa'rai elected on TNA ticket and later crossed over to the ruling UPFA and the EPC members S.Pushparajah and S.Selvarajah have signed the memorandum.
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330,000 voters ‘missing’ in Jaffna, Ki'linochchi electoral list after 2009 war of genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 June 2011, 12:21 GMT]
In 2009, the number of registered voters in Jaffna electoral district that comprises of the administrative districts of Jaffna and Ki'linochchi was 816,005. This figure has dropped to 481,791 entries in the register of the electoral district of Jaffna. On Thursday, Assistant Commissioner of Elections (ACE) of Jaffna Electoral District S. Karunanithi confirmed that the SL Election Department has removed 331,214 names from the list. “Most of them have fled the country,” was the official explanation by the ACE. The untold story is that the figure also includes the victims of genocide in Vanni from the Ki'linochchi district. Meanwhile, the date for local elections for 16 Piratheasa Chapais (PS) and three Urban Councils is fixed by the department to take place on July 23, the day when Tamils remember the victims of state-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983.
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European United Left upholds Tamil right to self-determination including secession

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 June 2011, 12:52 GMT]
A conference organised by the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) at the EU Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, resolved that it supported “the right to self determination of the Tamil-speaking people, up to and including separation, if that is what they wish, while safeguarding the rights of all minorities” and demanded the SL state to shut down the military bases of the “army of occupation” in North and East and sought a political solution addressing the “national and democratic aspirations” of the Tamil people. Heidi Hautala, Green MEP and Chair of EU Parliament's Human Rights Sub Committee, a key speaker at the event, called for a GUE/NGL fact finding mission to the island of Sri Lanka. Vaiko, the leader of the MDMK in Tamil Nadu and Sinhala and Tamil political activists from the island and the diaspora took part in the event.
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War-crimes film, Heyns report, drown Colombo theatrics on terror

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 June 2011, 00:22 GMT]
Channel-4's announcement of screening of an hour-long film on Sri Lanka's killing fields at UN on 3rd June, and the presentation of video footage to the UN Human Rights Council by the UN special investigator into extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, spread a gloomy war-crimes cloud over Sri Lanka making the terror-summit in Colombo, a holiday-extravaganza for the military brass of several rogue nations. The terror-summit is widely perceived as an ill-conceived attempt to whitewash the criminal enterprise the Rajapakse brothers took in slaughtering more than 40,000 civilians and incarcerating more than 300,000 Tamils in internment camps in the war to defeat the Tigers.
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UN Commissioner's call for war-crimes probe jolts Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 May 2011, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's effort to whitewash the charges of war-crimes during the final stages of war received a set back at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) annual session as Navaneetham Pillai, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she supported special UN panel's recommendations in the war-crimes report made public on 14th April. Meanwhile, despite the theatrics orchestrated by Colombo in questioning the authenticity of the incriminating "Channel-4" video of extra-judicial executions, UN human rights expert, Christof Heyns, said that the shocking footage showed "definitive war crimes," and "[w]hat is reflected in the extended video are crimes of the highest order – definitive war crimes," Associated Press said quoting Heyns.
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SLA suppresses evidence of skeletal remains unearthed during demining

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2011, 17:29 GMT]
Officials of demining NGOs in Vanni allege that the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are taking measures to ensure that evidence regarding the skeletal remains of Tamil civilians discovered during the demining operations do not become exposed or become public information, sources in Kilinochchi said. Sri Lanka officials have issued unofficial directives to the demining organizations to bury the skeletons in a demarcated area, according to the NGOs.
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Tamil independence, a universal issue going beyond state reformation in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 09:36 GMT]
India could do much better by acknowledging the right to independence of Eezham Tamils, by working for international consensus towards it, by structuring an IC-facilitated transition arrangement for it, and by creating an environment for the diaspora to freely interact through Palaali and Trincomalee, for India’s own reconciliation with Tamils and for relieving the island from endangering the entire region, rather than covertly waging ‘counterinsurgency’ and psy-op wars with people of Tamil Nadu and the diaspora through intelligence operatives to save establishments indicted, writes TamilNet commentator in Colombo. The Frankenstein Monster in Colombo is now difficult for its creators and the UN to handle, but Sinhalese alone may able to bring it down and strike true reconciliation if there is an IC decision that Tamil Eelam is inevitable. That is the only way out now, he further said.
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Wickremasinghe to meet Indian leaders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP), is to leave for New Delhi on Monday on a two day visit. Wickremasinhe is expected to hold talks with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, leader of the Congress Party Ms Sonia Gandhi, and several ministers in the Indian government, according to UNP sources in Colombo.
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Colombo encourages local politicians to create racial dissention in east

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 02:43 GMT]
A planned move to create dissension between the two communities -Tamils and Muslims- now living with understanidng and in harmony in the Batticaloa district is being orchestrated by the ruling party local politicians with the backing of Colombo authority, sources in the east said. Mr.Ali Zahir Mowlana, Chairman of the Era’voor PS is taking steps to shift the office of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) now located in a building in Ward 5 along Nallathamby Road in Era’voor Chengkaladi DS division to a Muslim suburb in the PS area. Tamil civic groups have urged the Regional Commissioners of Local Government Administrations in Batticaloa and Trincomalee to stop relocating government offices from Tamil areas to Muslim suburbs.
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Challenge Delhi, Convince Paris on investigations: Tamil Nadu journalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 11:01 GMT]
With its influence on UN Security Council and as an elected member of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, the current Indian establishment will secretly put its weight behind Colombo's efforts to block international investigations, K. Aiyanathan, a senior journalist in Tamil Nadu told TamilNet Saturday. Urging the political forces in Tamil Nadu to checkmate New Delhi by calling for war crimes investigations against key Indian personalities if they continue to abet the Rajapaksa regime, the journalist told TamilNet that Diaspora Tamils should convince France, a permanent member in the Security Council and a member state of the Human Rights Council to stay the course of justice as the Council is scheduled to hold its 17th session from 30 May to 17 June at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
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India alone can’t be trusted, IC should be involved: TNLA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 17:15 GMT]
India can’t be trusted anymore. A solution for the national question of Eezham Tamils in the island has to be reached through wider international participation and guarantee, said former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians and Tamil National Liberation Alliance (TNLA) leaders Sri Kantha and MK Sivajilingam in addressing a press conference in Jaffna on Wednesday. Informed circles say India pressurizes the TNA not to come out with any political proposals. But the TNA should immediately table the political demands of Eezham Tamils, based on their right to self-determination. TNLA has no difference of opinion in conceding that the TNA is currently the predominant political representation of the Eezham Tamils and the TNLA is prepared to give all support to TNA in tabling the Tamil proposal, they further said.
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Colombo defies court request, proceeds with obligatory military course to undergrads

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 05:58 GMT]
Defying SL Supreme Court request to provide one week time for it to consider a case filed by University students associations against a compulsory military training programme for the newly selected undergrads, the Rajapaksa regime proceeded with the programme on Sunday. The excuse of Colombo was that it had already spent money on the programme and students had already started traveling to the military centers announced by the SL government.
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SL Militarization demonstrates extracting 1 million signatures in 10 days

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 05:21 GMT]
The genocidal army and militarized infrastructure of Rajapaksa regime proves its ‘capability’ in intimidating people in the island to put 1 million signatures within 10 days against the UN Expert Panel report. According to Sri Lankan state-owned media on Wednesday the vehicles, which are transporting the petition with letters against the UN report are now returning to Colombo, after which, the government will hand over the petition to the UN.
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Occupying SL Navy confiscates lands for new HSZ in Ma’ndaitheevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 08:22 GMT]
More than 40 acres of private land, including Saiva temples and their tanks, have been recently confiscated by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in Ma’ndaitheevu island off Jaffna city to build a naval base and to expand the High Security Zone (HSZ) in that island. Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils denies the existence of High Security Zones in the north. Presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa addressing a meeting in Jaffna last month said that there are no High Security Zones, but the entire island is a ‘peace zone’. The creation of a new HSZ in Ma’ndaitheevu contradicts Colombo’s claim that de-mining is the reason why it is not allowing the resettlement of the HSZs in Jaffna by the owners of the lands.
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People in cloth sheds, Buddhist stupas built in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 06:12 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s ‘reconciliation’ in Vanni, abetted by its international partners is building huge Buddhist stupas there, while keeping Eezham Tamil natives in cloth tents. If building Buddhist establishments and new Sinhala-military townships in Vanni is the job of the state and re-building houses for the war-ravaged people and providing them with ‘milk and bread’ are the jobs of others and the diaspora, what is wrong in Eezham Tamils and their diaspora demanding the world for their country to be handed over to them for the true development of its people and to ensure ‘milk and bread’ really reach them, asks a Tamil politician in Jaffna, particularly addressing India and two other South Asian countries Pakistan and Bangladesh that will be attending a Chinese sponsored coaching programme of Colombo by the end of this month on how to conduct genocide with international abetment.
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HRW: governments should shun Sri Lanka’s whitewash of mass killings

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 01:50 GMT]
Governments should decline Sri Lanka’s invitation to attend a Sri Lankan military conference that seeks to legitimize the unlawful killing of thousands of civilians during the armed conflict with the LTTE, Human Rights Watch said Monday. "This conference is nothing more than a public relations exercise to whitewash abuses. No professional, law-abiding military should take part in this farce," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. Sri Lanka’s army chief admitted several Western states and Japan had declined the invitation, but India was sending three Colonels whilst Pakistan and Bangladesh are each sending a General, and Russia is sending six officers. The seminar is being sponsored by two Chinese defence companies.
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Uprooted Champoor Tamils show resolution to get back their land

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 May 2011, 06:48 GMT]
Uprooted Tamils in Champoor, whose lands were taken away by the Sri Lankan government for India's thermal power project, de-populating the Tamil villages and declaring the area as High Security Zone, managed to secure permission from the occupiers to to hold Vaikaasi Pongkal in several centuries old Champoor Paththirakaa'li Koayil on Sunday. The uprooted Tamils prayed for the blessing of Kaa'i goddess that they should be allowed to resettle without further delay in their home villages and in their houses in Champoor area.
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