ICC's failure to prosecute Sri Lanka, no shelter to Africa's criminals, says HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 December 2013, 19:42 GMT]
African leaders are raising concern over the actions of the 11-year old court of last resort, the International Criminial Court (ICC), where the eight cases that are currently active and the twenty-one defendents are all from Africa, Washington Post reported Sunday. The article quoted Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch who countered Africa's arguments saying that African nations cannot deny redress to victims (in Darfur or Kenya) just because it is not possible to provide victims in Sri Lanka justice, implying that while ICC has failed to go after war-criminals in Sri Lanka even after the UN's Petrie Report has accused Sri Lanka of killing more than 70,000 Tamil civilians in the no-fire zone, this is not sufficient to deny african victims redress through the Court.
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PPT names panel of judges to hear genocide case against Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
The Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) in Rome has announced the names of 11 judges, who would be hearing the long-awaited case on the accusation of genocide against Eezham Tamils to be heard by an independent panel. “Like in the first session, a respected panel of judges consisting of experts in Genocide studies, former UN-officials, experts in international law and renowned peace and human rights activists will hear the evidence that is presented and make a determination,” a press statement signed by Mr Gianni Tognoni, the secretary general of the PPT, stated. The first session held in January 2010, known as the Dublin Tribunal, was the first independent international undertaking that recognised the need to look into the case of genocide in the island of Sri Lanka. The second session is to take place between December 07 -10, 2013 in Bremen, Germany.
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Cameron reneges on Sri Lanka war-crimes investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:30 GMT]
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, after returning from Colombo Commonwealth meeting, said in an article that appeared in the Arab News, that there should be a transparent, credible investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. But he reneged on the time frame pronounced for the completion of the inquiry. In Colombo, Cameron said, "Let me be very clear, if that investigation is not completed by March then I will use our position on the UN human rights council to work with the UN Human Rights commission and call for a full, credible and independent international inquiry." However, in the Arab News, likely issued to blunt expectations of March completion of investigations, Cameron said, "if those investigations were not begun properly by next March, we would call for an international inquiry through the United Nations."
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Family of Tamil activist threatened in Mannaar after ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 November 2013, 14:05 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Intelligence operatives have threatened the wife of a Tamil activist in Mannaar, while she was at her house with her 2 months old baby and a 5-year-old child on Thursday. Her husband, Jude Bashil Sosai (Sunesh) was at forefront in the demonstration held in Jaffna on 15 November demanding the attention by the visiting British PM David Cameron. The threat by alleged SL military operatives was reported on Thursday when Mr Sunesh was on his way to attend a meeting in Colombo. The president of the Citizens' Committee of Mannaar District, Rev. Fr. E. Sebamalai, in a letter addressed to SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on behalf of the citizens' committee, on Friday said the Committee suspected Sri Lankan armed forces for the threat issued on Mannaar District Coordinator of National Fisheries Society Organization (NAFSO) Mr Sunesh and his family.
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Court in Jaffna dismisses SL military claim on Tamil memorial site at Theeruvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 22:18 GMT]
District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military. Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site, where three significant monuments stood in remembrance of key LTTE leaders and commanders who sacrificed their lives under the occupation of Indian and Sri Lankan militaries and civilians massacred by the Indian military at VVT in 1989.
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Reports of disappearances surface in wake of Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 November 2013, 19:54 GMT]
A 35-year-old Tamil activist, who was actively involved in mobilising support to the victory of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the Provincial Council elections, has been reported missing since Friday in Ki'linochchi. Meanwhile, in Jaffna, an alert public apprehended two culprits, allegedly operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military, when the squad attempted to abduct a 21-year-old Tamil girl in broad daylight on Hospital Road in Jaffna on Monday. When the public caught the two Sinhala-speaking operatives, tens of occupying Sri Lankan soldiers and policemen protected the squad and assaulted the civilians, who had caught the abductors. The fate of another woman recently abducted by a similar squad at Punnaalaik-kadduvan in Jaffna is not known.
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Colombo forced Tamil doctors to lie: Dr. Varatharajah

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Former Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) for Mullaiththeevu, Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah, currently in exile in the U.S, says in video documentary aired in India's NewsX TV station that Colombo, after keeping him and four other doctors in prison at the end of the war, forced the doctors to lie to foreign media and to the Organizations accusing Sri Lanka of allegations of committing war-crimes to neutralize the allegations. Dr Varatharajah said that living under such conditions had become unbearable that he had to seek ways to get out of Sri Lanka with his family. The doctors were accused by Colombo of giving false accounts of civilian deaths during the war, and were forced to recant the figures in a well publicized news conference. Dr Varatharajah, said he is talking voluntarily to set the record straight now that he does not have to fear for his life.
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Sri Lanka's war-crimes culpability raised in Australian Parliament

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 14:21 GMT]
Lee Rhiannon, a Greens Party Senator from New South Wales, during a debate in the Australian parliament following her return from Sri Lanka on the eve of the Commonwealth meeting [CHOGM], said that the situation in the NorthEast under Mahinda Rajapakse regime is dire, that the Sri Lanka army's involvement in civilian life is pervasive and Australia is turning a blind eye to credible allegations of continuing torture, rape and crimes against humanity reported by respected Rights groups and by several video documentaries from Channel-4. Rhiannon pointed out the increasingly voiced broad consensus from several countries for an international investigations into the war-crimes by the Rajapakse regime, and praised the CHOGM boycott of several Prime Ministers in spotlighting the Sri Lanka's continuing dismal rights record and lack of accountabililty for war-crimes.
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India refuses visa to Macrae

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2013, 12:40 GMT]
India has refused visa to Callum Macrae, the Channel-4 documentary maker, who produced a series of video documentaries exposing the war-crimes committed by the Sri Lankan military during the war on the Tamil people in Vanni where, according to UN estimates, the Petrie Report, more than 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in 2009 alone. Macrae was planning to fly out on November 6 for a screening of the latest documentary in Delhi. The video contained footage showing LTTE TV anchor-actor Isaippiriya's capture during the last phase of the Lankan war. Still images released earlier showed Isaippiriya was bound, tortured and shot naked, and experts alleged that she was severely raped in custody before being shot by the Sri Lankan soldiers.
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SL military steps up demolition of houses in Valikaamam North, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 November 2013, 23:41 GMT]
Despite the ‘assurance’ to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan by Sri Lankan president’s secretary Mr Lalith Weerthunga that the demolition of houses inside the former ‘High Security Zone’ would be postponed, the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Palaali continues to bulldoze the houses of Tamil civilians in Va’ruththalai-vi’laan and Kurumpachiddi now being transformed into a permanent Sinhala Military Zone in 6,000 acres land in Valikaamam North in Jaffna. The Civil Military Coordination Office of the SL military in Jaffna told the civilians of Valikaamam that the SL military was free to demolish the houses and clear the area as it has officially been taken over by the military Establishment. Journalists were not allowed to witness the destruction.
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Dias refused of participation in ICRC meet for alleged war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2013, 12:51 GMT]
Major General Jagath Dias, who was previously a deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, and was recalled by Colombo in 2011 "in response to accusations he was involved in war crimes," was refused participation in an ICRC conference to be held in Australia this December, media in Colombo reported. ICRC, while refusing to spell out the reason barring Dias from the meeting, said that "procedural matters, relating to international travel, were beyond the control of the ICRC." Dias was the commander of Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 57th division during the last phase of the Vanni war, where according UN estimate more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed. Another U.N document, the Petrie report, estimated the killings to be more than 70,000.
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Wigneswaran attempts bailing out genocidal military of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2013, 12:21 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, speaking at the inaugural session of the council on Friday, urged Colombo to confine the SL military in Jaffna to the barracks and suggested that Colombo should consider deputing its military to UN peace-keeping missions abroad. NPC will give full support for Colombo getting international assistance for the rehabilitation of the SL military into civilian life, he further said, linking the process with the rehabilitation of the LTTE cadres. In addition to usurping the right of forfeiting the independence claim of Eezham Tamils, Wigneswaran also went on record in vesting the security of the nation of Eezham Tamils with the military of Colombo.
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Jaffna hospital observes 26th year of IPKF massacre

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 15:54 GMT]
Donating modern scanners to the X-ray division of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the Indian government had recently requested the administration of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to do away with the memorial site situated within the hospital, but the employees were firm in refusing to erase the memory of 21 doctors, nurses and other medical staff together with 46 patients were slain by the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in one of the brutal massacres witnessed in Jaffna when the invading Indian military was at war with the LTTE in 1987. The medical staff and the kith and kin of the victims, who remembered their co-workers, patients and family members on Monday, demanded a public apology from the Government of India.
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Catholic peace group in Jaffna details structural genocide to Apostolic Nuncio

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 15:28 GMT]
The Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah, has written a detailed letter on Friday to the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Colombo, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Spiteri, elucidating the structural genocide being carried out by occupying Sri Lanka on the country of Eezham Tamils. The letter comes following the move by the Colombo's colonial regime handing over a report to the Apostolic Nuncio, detailing the so-called development activities carried out in North and East. The JPC Chairman was categoric in his letter that external ‘development’ cannot substitute the settling of the political solution and urged the Vatican to exert political pressure on Sri Lanka to put forward a political solution framework. The detailed letter summarises the genocidal programme of the Sri Lankan State under 10 topics.
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Malaysia should drop charges for film screening - HRW

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 11:18 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based rights organization said in a press release that the Malaysian authorities should immediately drop charges against Malaysia's Lena Hendry of the Pusat KOMAS human rights group accused of showing Channel-4's No Fire Zone depicting Sri Lanka's massacre of Tamils. The charges alleged that the the film was screened without the approval of Malaysia's censorship board. "Malaysian authorities are flipping the switch off on basic freedoms by threatening to jail someone for showing a documentary,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, adding, “[t]hey should immediately drop the charges against Lena Hendry and find a way to undo the damage to Malaysia’s cultural reputation.”
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UK deployed 2 top police officials to assist SL Police in 2009: Corporate Watch

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 22:08 GMT]
A Director of Operations at Ineqe Group Ltd., a Belfast-based Security Agency and a Non Executive Director of the same security outfit, which has project links to British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British International Development Ministry, were seconded from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and deployed to Sri Lanka by the FCO to act as “critical friends” to the Sri Lankan Police and to provide “hands-on assistance” during the final phase of the war, Corporate Watch has discovered through a Freedom of Information request to the PSNI, news reports in UK said on Tuesday.
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Canada says Indian diplomat acting as Sri Lanka's stooge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 01:39 GMT]
Following Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's public announcement of his boycotting Commonwealth meeting in Sri Lanka after accusing Colombo of "intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings," Hugh Segal, Canada's special envoy to the Commonwealth, launched a direct assault on the authority of Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma accusing him of "acting as a shill [a stooge] for the Sri Lankan leadership, defending their every mistake," the British broadsheet the Guardian reported Tuesday.
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Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united, sovereign, devolved and connected’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:12 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who visited Jaffna on Tuesday, ceremonially opened two houses of the controversial ‘50,000 House Project’, by visiting Thanthai Chelvapuram village at Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, after landing in Palaali, meeting SL military officials and paying tribute to slain Indian soldiers in the war 23 years ago. Mr Khurshid then proceeded to lunch with the war-crimes accused Sri Lankan colonial governor in North and thereafter met the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council. Salman Khurshid, addressing the beneficiaries of financial asssistance and the journalists at Tilko hotel was talking of devolved Sri Lanka under the 13 Amendment, for a happy, prosperous and tri-lingual Sri Lanka which is sovereign and united and connected with India.
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Sri Lanka fails to stop screening of Channel-4's Killing Fields in Nepal

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2013, 11:53 GMT]
"The producers of the feature documentary No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka have condemned an unsuccessful attempt by the Sri Lankan government to prevent the screening of the film as part of the Film Southasia film festival in Nepal. The film’s director Callum Macrae accused the government of attempting to suppress the truth about their complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity," a press release posted in a website affiliated with Channel-4 said.
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SL police on rampage at Maanippaay, Aanaikkoaddai in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2013, 07:09 GMT]
Following an accidental explosion inside the Sri Lankan police station at Maanippaay on Wednesday, Sinhala policemen assaulted the Tamil civilians in the vicinity of the police station blaming that Tamils had attacked them. Amidst the violence let loose by the Sinhala police at Maanippaay, unidentified men who came in a motorbike assaulted two Sinhala policemen who were on patrol at Aaanaikkoaddai situated 5 km off Jaffna city on the road to Maanippaay. One of the SL police constables, 37-year-old Vasantha Abeyaratne, has been admitted at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Tamil civilians were brutally attacked by the SL Police also at Aanaikkoaddai Wednesday night.
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