Boyle reacts to UN report: "Creating Tamil Eelam, the only remedy"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2011, 23:25 GMT]
Reacting to the contents of the UN expert panel's report on Sri Lanka's war-crimes, Professor Boyle, expert in International Law, and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "there is absolutely no way the GOSL [Government of Sri L anka] is going to implement any of them [panel's recommendations], and the GOSL has already rejected all of them, according to published reports. Therefore, under these circumstances of longstanding and ongoing genocide against them [the Tamils], the only effective remedy the Tamil People now have is to create the State of Tamil Eelam and move to have the International Community recognize it."
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UN panel admits international failure in Vanni war, calls for investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2011, 08:22 GMT]
"During the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians," said the United Nations Panel on Sri Lanka in its final report to Secretary General Ban-ki Moon. The report has also admitted that the UN system knowingly failed to release the casualty figures of the civilians. Although the report didn't touch the hot topic of serious allegations against the role the UN officials and certain responsible personalities associated with world powers, it said: The Secretary-General should conduct a comprehensive review of actions by the United Nations system during the war in Sri Lanka and the aftermath, regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates.
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Canada orders deportation of Mrs. Parajasingham

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2011, 03:41 GMT]
Canada has ordered the deportation of the widow of Joseph Pararajasingham, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian shot dead during at Christmas Mass in 2005 at packed church in the then Sri Lankan government-controlled Batticaloa town, the Toronto Star reported. Canada says 74 year old grandmother, Mrs. Sugunm Joseph, is a member “by association” of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), because her husband was a member of the TNA, the largest Tamil political party of Eezham Tamils in the island. Mr. Parajasingham was killed just weeks after President Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed office after the elections in November 2005.
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58 Tamils languish in Magazine prison for more than 12 years

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2011, 10:52 GMT]
Information smuggled out of the notorious Magazine Prison in Borella, Colombo, reveal that 58 Tamil prisoners, 44 of them with no charges filed or charged without any viable court case or witnesses to prove guilt, are being held under the Island's Emergency Regulations in the prison for more than 12 years. One of the inmates told TamilNet that except two of the Tamil inmates who have relatives visiting them, most of the others have no visitor and are inflicted with illnesses arising from torture.
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SLA killed my son - Dr. Manoharan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2011, 01:19 GMT]
In a video released by Amnesty International in the wake of the submission of a Sri Lanka war-crimes report by a UN-panel to Ban Ki Moon, Dr Manoharan, father of one of the 5 Trincomalee students extra-judicially executed on 2nd January 2006, tells Amnesty that he will continue to challenge the Sri Lanka Government until he receives justice for the "criminal political murder" of his son. The video was shot during Dr. Manoharan's visit to New York during the last week of February 2011 to present the more than 55,000 signatures Amnesty received as part of Amnesty's campaign to urge the UN to begin investigations into the murder of the five Trincomalee students.
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British PM extends greetings on Tamil New Year

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 13:14 GMT]
Extending his warmest greetings to everyone celebrating the Tamil New Year, the British Prime Minister and the Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameroon, on Wednesday said he acknowledged the significant contribution the Tamil diaspora makes to many aspects of British society.
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Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal to focus on injustice of powers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 05:16 GMT]
With all recent revelations, the most crucial question the Eezham Tamils have to now openly ask Washington and New Delhi is that like their understanding on the elimination of the LTTE, whether they have already decided that dismemberment of the Eezham Tamil nation is the ‘lasting solution’ for the national crisis in the island – whether they have already entered into an agreement with the Rajapaksa regime on this. It is folly on the part of a section of Tamil political circles to think that they should not confront the powers on this crucial question of life and death of their nation. Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal in the month of May should mobilise Eezham Tamils of all political shades to rise up in unison and boldly ask justice for what Washington and New Delhi had done to them. Tamils have seen enough of the ‘reconciliation and development’ hoodwink.
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World Bank helps Colombo’s colonialism of Tamil country

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 05:06 GMT]
When the effective link between northern and eastern parts of the country of Eezham Tamils are systematically neglected to disrupt the contiguity and to prevent the integration of Eezham Tamils, the World Bank on Tuesday has approved 100 million US dollar additional financing for road link of the east with the west to strengthen Colombo’s colonialism and the Colombo-centric subordination of Eezham Tamils. “Connecting people to prosperity between the East and West will be critical for Sri Lanka to realize its ambitious development goals,” said Diarietou Gaye, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka.
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‘Colombo’s ‘genocide’ of Tamil even in the nomenclature of New Year’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 11:54 GMT]
The traditionally known nomenclature, Tamil-Sinhala New Year or Sinhala-Tamil New Year, for the festival that falls on 14 April, has been in recent years twisted in a scheming way as Sinhala-Hindu New Year by genocidal Colombo and by chauvinistic sections of Sinhalese, to get rid of the word Tamil even in the secular festival of New Year, says a Tamil academic in Colombo. A festival has to be recognized in the way the people celebrate call it. Otherwise it is an insult. No one can deny that Eezham Tamils traditionally call the New Year that falls on April 14 as Thamizh Varudam, the months of it as Thamizh Maatham and the dates of it as Thamizh Thikathi. No one has ever used the word ‘Hindu’ and the word Hindu itself is only of roughly 125 years old in Eezham Tamil usage, the academic further said.
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Reformulating Kooththu theatre for Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 06:53 GMT]
Contemporary humans alienated from their own environment by an education system are isolated even within their families by the electronic media. Reformulating the Kooththu theatre of Eezham Tamils is not to show it to somebody else or to carry it to somewhere else, but to effectively make the owners of the form of art to gather and enjoy it for themselves in the open air. The reformulation aims at reinstating the Kooththu theatre as a social institution, by giving importance to its inherent features such as participation, social function and memory; by bringing in traditional values to contemporary discourse and by providing space for the grassroot performers to perform in their own environment, says S. Jeyasankar of the Eastern University, Batticaloa, in his new book in Tamil on “Reformulating Kooththu: New Dimensions of the Kooththu of Eezham.”
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Tamil temple consecrated in Myanmar

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 21:10 GMT]
Around 200, 000 devotees of all religions gathered at the Peelikan village near Yankon in Myanmar on Sunday to participate in the consecration ceremonies (Kudamuzhukku) of the Angkaa’la Parameasvari – Muneesvarar temple, which is popularly known as Aiyaa Koayil, reports Thiyagarajan Solai from Myanmar. The anthropological significance of this temple that was built 150 years ago is that it is revered as a kind of a ‘court of justice’ not only by the Tamil diaspora but also by the natives.
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Bay Area Walk highlights "Tamil Genocide" in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 11:11 GMT]
For the first annual Bay Area Walk Against Genocide which involved a 3-mile walk conducted in Oakland, California on Sunday April 10th, 2011, nearly 500 protesters turned up, organizers of the event said. "Activities providing a unique opportunity to meet local genocide survivors and their families, hearing their stories, and learning to make a difference by getting involved," participants in the protest campaign said. Several groups including the Darfur Coalition, Enough Project and Coalition of Tamils Against Genocide took part.
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Buddhist monk threatens Moothoor Tamil farmers

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 06:45 GMT]
A group of Sinhala hoodlum led by a Buddhist monk had chased away a group of Tamil famers who have been doing paddy cultivation in the fields in Muthalai-madu and Padukaadu in Seruwila division in Trincomalee district for the last four decades. Tamil farmers are from villages Paddiththidal, Ma'natcheanai and Ki'liveddi, who possess deeds for their paddy fields in Muthalai-madu and Padukaadu and have been doing cultivation since 1963.
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Seine-net beaches in Mullaiththeevu distributed to Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 April 2011, 15:27 GMT]
Traditional seine-net beaches (Karaivalai-paadu) of Eezham Tamils in the coastal tracts of Mullaiththeevu district are grabbed and distributed among Sinhala fishermen from the south by a team of SL fisheries officials from the south. The excuse is that the local Tamil fishermen in the LTTE controlled areas did not register their seine-net stretches with the SL fisheries ministry. 12 stretches in A’lampil, 8 stretches in Thoo’ndaavil and 5 stretches in Chemmalai are thus grabbed and given to the Sinhalese. The Mullaiththeevu Government Agent as well as the district fisheries director had no knowledge of what the Sinhala officials from the south were doing. Meanwhile, Sinhala fishermen in Kalpiddi in the south, after seeing Tamil Nadu trawlers in their waters, are meeting on Monday to mobilise ‘Jaffna-Sinhala’ corporation against ‘Indian poaching.’
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Robert Blake’s ‘reconciliation’ is farming in Tamil land for SL military

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 April 2011, 12:02 GMT]
While the US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake testified before the US Foreign Affairs Committee on the “reduction of the reach of High Security Zones” (HSZ) in the island to support his vision of progress that is taking place towards the US State Department-conceived paradigm of ‘reconciliation,’ evidences that come from Jaffna show that the occupying genocidal SL military is engaged in full-fledged farming and horticulture in the largest HSZ in Jaffna Peninsula, reportedly by using slave labour of the captured LTTE cadres. The Valikaamam HSZ, created after uprooting villages, is in the best of the fertile lands and the occupying military has already leased out large tracts of them to Sinhala businessmen. If farming could take place why mines are an excuse to hand over the lands to the owners, ask Tamils.
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Blake sets wrong precedence in committing against democratic wishes of Tamil nation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 April 2011, 19:19 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake has set a wrong precedence by choosing to respond to a chauvinistic Sinhala perspective appeared in The Island editorial that “the United States does not support separatism but rather a united, peaceful and democratic Sri Lanka.” In doing so, Blake insults the democratic mandate of the nation of Eezham Tamils and encourages a terrorist state that openly commits genocide on one hand and blatantly denies even an iota of its human rights abuses on the other. The rhetoric of Blake, ‘peace, democracy and united Sri Lanka’, is a historically proven bundle of contradictions that always went against the nation of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Blake sees ‘people to people’ ties through militaries

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 April 2011, 13:36 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake, giving testimony before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday said that the value of the skyrocketing US arms sales to India over the last decade “is not just the dollar figure – they both represent and strengthen deeper levels of cooperation between our two militaries and facilitate building people-to-people ties.” On Sri Lanka Blake said: “Positioned directly on the shipping routes that carry petroleum products and other trade from the Gulf to East Asia, Sri Lanka remains of strategic interest to the U.S. An important contributor to global peacekeeping operations, Sri Lanka stands poised to be a capable and willing partner to effectively combat violent extremism, trafficking and piracy, and thereby help to ensure the maritime security of the region.”
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Tamil national activist attacked in London

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 April 2011, 19:09 GMT]
Two unidentified men attacked Eezham Tamil nationalist R. Soosaipillai, known as Thanam, in front of his house in London Monday night. Mr. Thanam, a veteran activist, was one of the key persons who supported the successful re-mandate of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution in UK that democratically reaffirmed the Eezham Tamil aspiration for an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in January 2010. He served as a mobilisation coordinator in the British Tamil Forum (BTF) during the crucial time 2008 – 2010. Thanam, who once served the infrastructure of the Tamil national cause for 21 years, is also one who grasped the transition of the times with perception. The 47-year-old activist has been a force behind major Tamil public events in UK including the Heroes Day remembrances. In his capacity, he has always been in touch with the law and order agencies of UK.
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Australia soft on prosecuting Kohona's alleged war-crimes - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 April 2011, 03:01 GMT]
Professor Gideon Boas of Monash University School of Law, in an article appearing in Sydney Morning Herald, criticized the Australian Government for its reluctance to prosecute war criminals, and pointed to the recent filing by two Tamil organizations of war-crime charges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Dr Palitha Kohona who is an Australian citizen and formerly a senior official with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. While Prof Boas said the factual case has problems and complexities, the Tamil organizations that filed the case said that new key witnesses to the Kohona's alleged crimes have come forward and that a "superceding complaint" will likely be filed with ICC once a legally admissible deposition is obtained from the new witnesses.
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Security for resettling Tamils in Batticaloa's border villages abysmal

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 April 2011, 21:18 GMT]
28 Tamils, most of them family men with many children, have been reported disappeared since 2008 in Batticaloa's border villages with the Sinhala districts, human rights activists in Batticaloa say. Tamil women who have lost their husbands are subjected to sexual harassments under the highly militarised condition prevailing in these villages. I'rakkaka'di villagers in Ea'raavoor-pattu in Chengkaladi division have refused to resettle without proper security to them.
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