New Delhi’s insensitive defence approach triggers off trouble in Palk Strait

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 22:13 GMT]
New Delhi’s approach of safeguarding its defence interests by protecting a flawed state and regime in Sri Lanka is the root cause for recent escalation of trouble in either side of the Palk Strait, following defence agreements and secret protocols between Indian Defence Secretary and Colombo’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. New Delhi and Colombo, having strategic partnership in safeguarding establishments and in economic interests of corporations, were totally insensitive to the defence of the people living on either side of the Palk Strait, the historic shareholders of the waters. Instead of working for international recognition and justice to the national question of Eezham Tamils, New Delhi sitting on it and defending genocidal Colombo will invite further trouble in the coming days, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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IFRC President to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 15:37 GMT]
The President of the International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Tadateru Konoé is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Colombo to support the much needed flood operations and to celebrate volunteerism in the island. Mr. Konoé is scheduled to travel to the north, the east and the south of the island to assess the aftermath of floods and also to witness the work of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and the IFRC, according to a statement by the IFRC.
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Angry public burns cut-outs, banners of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 07:52 GMT]
Angered by the politics and by an extravagant ritual, ‘Yaakam,’ by a Tamil Nadu chaamiyaar (Hindu religious person) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, at a time when genocide and floods cause desperation, the Eezham Tamil public in Ka’luvaagnchikkudi in Batticaloa on Saturday burnt his cut-out images and banners. He went back to India the following day. Last Thursday, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar honoured the ‘social service’ of the SL president’s son Namal Rajapaksa at a function in Colombo, jointly organized by his outfit to observe the 2600-year of the birth of Buddha. On Saturday, at the ‘Mahaa Rudra Yaakam’ ritual, he honoured the paramilitary politicians S. Chandrakanthan, chief minister for the East and SL deputy minister V. Muralitharan by placing shawls on them.
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HRW: Sri Lanka stonewalls on wartime abuses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 05:37 GMT]
In a press release issued today with the 649-page World Report for 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that “Sri Lanka’s aggressive rejection of accountability for war crimes is an affront to the victims’ of the country’s long civil war,” and Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director warns that “[t]here is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka will return to a rights-respecting government any time in the near future. Until wartime abuses are prosecuted, minority grievances are addressed, and repression against the press and civil society ends, only the president and his family members in power have reason to feel secure in Sri Lanka.”
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White House protest calls for arrest of visiting Sri Lanka President

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 04:49 GMT]
Nearly one hundred Tamils in unfriendly weather conditions called upon the US President to investigate and arrest the visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse widely accused of committing war-crimes against Tamils during the end of Sri Lanka's war in May 2009. Protesters pointed out that US Ambassador in Colombo, Ambassador Butenis, has herself acknowledged possible complicity by the Rajapakse brothers of the said crimes. The protest took place at the Washington D.C. Lafayette park in front of the White House along the closed Pennsylvania avenue between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday. Another group of protesters assembled in front of the US State Department located at the C Street NW in Washington D.C.
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USA opens American Corner in Jaffna, welcomes writers festival in Galle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 01:22 GMT]
The US ambassador in Colombo Patricia A Butenis on Monday opened American Corner, a US outfit in Jaffna city, to function at the premises of a local NGO, Jaffna Social Action Centre. The Deputy High Commissioner of the Indian High Commission in Jaffna, SL colonial commander in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, the Sri Lanka Government Agent in Jaffna and the mayor participated the diplomatic event that follows the opening of the Deputy High Commission of India in last November. Meanwhile, on the same day the US embassy in Colombo has also welcomed the controversial ‘Literary Festival’ in Galle and has donated money to bring students and teachers to the meet.
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Teachers Union condemns one-day pay cut in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 23:50 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) has cut one-day pay of teachers in the province from their wages for January. The chairman of Ceylon Teachers' Union, Joseph Stalin, has condemned the act as political bankruptcy of the EPC that has bypassed the regulations for such wage cut. While the people of the other provinces and the larger international community have come forward to help the flood victims, the EPC has been engaged in cutting the wages of the victims themselves in the name of flood relief, the union said.
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Forced recruitment of traders by Colombo to contest elections in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Colombo’s terror campaign and abductions in Jaffna and Vanni now aim at forced recruitment of traders to contest local bodies elections under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLFP ticket, sources in Jaffna said. In recent days, many leaders of traders associations in Jaffna were abducted by SL Army officers coming to their houses and were taken to Colombo. They were not told why were they abducted and where were they being taken. They were later released in Colombo after forcefully getting signatures from them to contest elections in Jaffna and Vanni, under the SLFP. The traders said they didn’t want to contest but were afraid of their lives. Meanwhile, R. Ankajan, SLFP coordinator in Jaffna, is ‘recruiting’ university students to campaign in the elections.
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Riot in Anuradhapura jail, several prisoners feared killed

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 15:41 GMT]
One woman prisoner had been killed and several injured in a clash between jail guards and prisoners inside the Anuradhapura prison Monday evening following a fast by a group of prisoners demanding better facilities. But unconfirmed reports reached Colombo media that several more prisoners were feared killed when jail guards opened fire against rioting prisoners to bring the tense situation under control. Tamil sources said that the fate of Tamil detainees in the prison was not known as no one was allowed to enter the prison till Monday night.
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Colombo extends emergency without debate

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:25 GMT]
The SL parliament Friday evening adopted the motion to extend the state of emergency for another month by a majority of 118 votes without a debate. This was the first time in the history of Sri Lanka parliament the state of emergency was extended without a debate. The debate on the motion is to be held on February 8, according to a decision taken at the leaders of political parties represented in SL parliament.
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People turn against paramilitary groups in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:22 GMT]
Batticaloa residents have shown their anger against Karuna, Pillayan paramilitary groups by organizing demonstrations against the factions of the groups, one led by a deputy minister of Rajapaksa-government Muralitharan (Karuna) and the other by Colombo-installed chief minister S. Chandrakanthan (Pillayan). On Tuesday, an spontaneous street-demonstration condemned attacks by Pillayan group on divisional secretary and village officer attached to Ma'nmunaippattu DS office.
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TAG to file civil case against Rajapakse in Texas Federal Court

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 02:37 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group advocating criminal legal action worldwide against Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminals, said in a press release issued today, that TAG's attorney is filing civil action against visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for damages under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA/TVPA) on behalf of three plaintiffs for the killings of 40,000 civilians in Mullaiththeevu in 2009, killing of 5 Trincomalee students in January 2006, and for the killing of 17 Action contre la faim (ACF) workers in August 2006. As calls to apprehend, investigate and prosecute Mahinda Rajapakse by rights organizations, US Congresspersons and diaspora Tamils have escalated, European Tamil diaspora youth are mobilizing protests in front of US embassies against Rajapakse's visit to the U.S.
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Sri Lanka's commission to conclude "sittings"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 14:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the mandate of which was deliberately designed to whitewash Sri Lanka's war-crimes, and invitation to three leading premier human rights watchdogs Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and International Crisis Group (ICG) to attend LLRC's sittings was rejected due to LLRC "lacking the ability to advance accountability for war crimes," announced that the LLRC will "conclude its public sittings after the completion of sittings in the Ampara District in mid February" and would then would prepare its "final report that would be submitted to [Sri Lanka's] President Mahinda Rajapaksa in May," local media reported.
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Militarization of policing announced in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 13:33 GMT]
Mounted on bicycles, the SL military in Jaffna will be ‘patrolling’ the streets. They may not enter houses but will be engaged in street checks. They will act in the same way they were functioning during war times. The military cannot be confined to barracks, announced the colonial commander of the occupying SL military, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe in a meeting held in the district secretariat Saturday. The military has to be in alert as crimes may escalate in the wake of elections expected soon, he envisaged. Political observers in Jaffna said that the premeditated step aims to bring civil administration and civilians in Jaffna completely under the control of the occupying military. Colombo’s plan was mouthed through the Sri Lanka Government Agent (SLGA) Mrs Imelda Sugumar a few weeks ago, when she urged the Army to police Jaffna.
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Terror in Jaffna is only a hair in elephant’s tail: SL prime minister

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 09:20 GMT]
“Crimes are taking place everywhere in the world. […] If you compare the crimes in the whole country to an elephant, what is happening in Jaffna is only a hair of that elephant’s tail,” said Sri Lanka Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne in the SL parliament Thursday, answering accusations brought out by Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Dismissing allegations, and explaining that alleged killings and abductions are suicides and elopements, Leader of the House, Nimal Siripala de Silva charged TNA that it was deliberately trying to draw a grim picture of the situation in Jaffna, to fulfil the vested interests of the Tamil Diaspora, Daily Mirror in Colombo reported Friday.
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Amitabh Bachchan hurt by IIFA awards in Sri Lanka: Times of India

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 09:19 GMT]
Amitabh Bachchan’s recent exclusion from the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) was because he was hurt by the IIFA decision to hold awards last year in Sri Lanka, Times of India said Thursday. Amitabh was the founder-initiator of the IIFA. Without taking Bachchan's opinion, they not only held the event in Sri Lanka but also signed up Salman Khan to host it. These awards were Bachchan's baby, and hence he was terribly hurt, Times of India said. At the height of arrogance, establishments in strategic partnership abuse art and peoples media, but the boomerang will come when the creative world rises against those who were responsible for it, commented a Tamil writer in Colombo, who was also hurt not only by the Indian show but also by the so-called international writers meets in the island held to boost the image of the genocidal regime.
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Admitting Rajapakse into US criminally similar to allowing-in genocidaire Karadzic, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 02:30 GMT]
Comparing alleged war-criminal and Sri Lanka's current President Rajapakse's reported admission into the United States to the Clinton administration's providing entry visa to genocidaire Radovan Karadzic to enter the U.S in order to attend the Vance-Owen Peace Negotiations in New York City, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in international law at the College of Law, University of Illinois, told TamilNet that Obama administration is obligated to apprehend, investigate and prosecute alleged genocidares for violating Geneva Convention and Genocide convention. Obama administration giving Rajapakse visa to enter US and allowing him free movement is "Machiavellian Realpolitik at its worst," said Boyle.
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Chomsky, Arundhati, lead protest to writers meet in Galle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:37 GMT]
“This is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country,” said an appeal made by leading intellectuals, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka and Reporters without Borders, against writers participating the ‘Fifth Galle Literary Festival’ scheduled to take place in the southern city Galle in the island of Sri Lanka, 26 - 30 January 2011. Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy were the leading signatories of the appeal. In the great tradition of solidarity that binds writers together everywhere, the appeal urged them to send a clear message by their actions that until there is a real improvement in the climate for free expression in Sri Lanka, one cannot celebrate writing and the arts in Galle.
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Amnesty: US should investigate Rajapaksa during his visit

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:23 GMT]
The United States should investigate Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapksa, when he arrives on a surprise visit to the US this week, for his alleged role in perpetrating torture and war crimes, Amnesty International said Wednesday. President Rajapaksa left Sri Lanka for the US early Wednesday, taking a delegation of 20 on a supposedly private visit.
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Rajapaksa leaves to USA after meeting Armitage

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 15:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa Wednesday morning left Colombo to United States of America on a 'private' trip , according to Ada Derana, an electronic media that cited Bandula Jayasekara, the director general of the SL President Media. On Tuesday, Mr.Mahinda Rajapaksa held discussion with the former United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.
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