Don’t fuse truth seeking with criminal justice, reconciliation: Craig Scott

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 February 2011, 08:51 GMT]
In a paper published recently by Osgoode Hall Law School, York University of Canada on The Transnationalization of truth: A Meditation on Sri Lanka and Honduras, Craig Scott, Professor of Law, said “not to fuse truth-seeking processes with either criminal justice or reconciliation processes with special reference to the Sri Lanka context.” Meanwhile, commenting on the concerted efforts of some sitting and former US diplomats to save the Rajapaksa regime and the unitary character of the genocidal state of Sri Lanka, through vague solutions about which they themselves are not clear, and through continued ‘counterinsurgency approaches of ‘terrorising and tiring’ Eezham Tamils, the TamilNet political commentator in Colombo said that ‘pragmatic’ changes should first come from the US in recognizing the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island.
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TAG, SCET's legal brief asserts ICC obligated to probe Kohona on war-crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 February 2011, 04:31 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, and Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET) said Sunday that both organizations are to jointly file a legal brief requesting the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands, to initiate war crimes investigations leading to the issuance of an article 58 warrant of arrest of dual Australian-Sri lanka National Palitha Kohona. The legal complaint charges joint criminal enterprise liability on Kohona over the extra-judicial killings of three LTTE hors de combat surrendering by waving a white-flag to the Sri Lanka Army on or about May 18 2009. Mr Kohona is currently the Ambassador of the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.
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Seek pragmatic changes, not focus entirely on war-crimes accountability, says Donald Camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 February 2011, 16:39 GMT]
Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Donald Camp, in a seminar held at the US think-tank, American Enterprise Institute, said while everyone was appalled at the events during the final stages of war, focusing entirely on accountability and prosecution will not be pragmatic, as the Rajapakse Government will not allow any investigations to take place. Instead, Camp advocates helping Rajapakse to "do the right thing." Camp, without saying how, mentioned "decentralization of powers," "co-ordinating with the UN Panel," and "reducing security presence in Jaffna," as possible actions that Rajapakse should be assisted to take to capitalize on the post war environment.
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Norway arrests ex LTTE member

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 February 2011, 07:44 GMT]
Crime branch of the Norwegian Police has arrested an ex-LTTE member on January 26 at his work place in Norway. The 31-year-old man, living in Norway for more than 3 years, has been charged for three killings in his home country before coming to Norway, which the lawyer representing the prosecutor said could be acts of war or war-like scenario, reported a local newspaper, Bygdebladet, on 29 January. Per Zimmer, the lawyer representing the Norwegian Police told the paper that the situation prevailing now in the island had enabled them [the Norwegian authorities] to undertake investigations on the ground. While questioning whether any agency of the war crimes accused Sri Lanka would be recognized in such investigations, diaspora Tamils wonder what action would be taken against the individuals suspected in the commitment and facilitation of war crimes in the island.
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Jaffna fishermen urge Tamil Nadu fishermen to investigate SL conspiracy

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 February 2011, 07:41 GMT]
There is a pattern in the attack on Tamil Nadu fishermen by SL Navy and in the destruction of fishing nets belonging to Eezham Tamils by some trawlers that seem to be coming from the Indian coast. Whenever the trawlers come very close to the coast of the country of Eezham Tamils to destroy the nets, nothing happens to them. But, on the other hand, the Tamil Nadu trawlers and even country boats are attacked by SL Navy either in mid sea or sometimes well within the Indian waters. Whether any fleet operates in the Palk Bay in the service of the SL Navy has to be thoroughly investigated by the Tamil Nadu fishermen, urged the fishermen of Jaffna, pointing out that the unfolding developments are accompanied by large scale colonisation of the coasts of Jaffna and Vanni by Sinhala fishermen.
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Colombo exploits Buddhism to consecrate genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 February 2011, 22:49 GMT]
The political and military connotations with which a sapling of the Bo tree at Anuradhapura was paraded in Jaffna on Wednesday, before presenting it to Bodh Gaya in India to mark the 2600th year of the attainment of Buddhahood, alienated Eezham Tamils of the land, smacked of consecration of the genocide against them and involved India as a party, commented a Jaffna university academic. A modern ‘inscription’ erected at Maathakal, Jaffna, to mark the occasion read in corrupt Tamil, that the sapling was brought to Dambapanni (a wrong identification) for peace and to create goodwill among the ‘Buddhists’ of the island, before presenting it to Bodh Gaya in Damba-diva [India], under the guidance of president Mahinda Rajapaksa, of ‘Universal Acclaim,’ Lord of the Three ‘Sinhala’ Countries [the island], who routed out 30 years of ‘terrorism’ and united the island.
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Mahaaweli Sinhala farmers to be settled in Vavuniyaa, Polonnaruwa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 February 2011, 09:20 GMT]
100,000 families under the Mahaaweli scheme don’t have enough land. Steps will be taken to provide them with land in the Vavuniyaa and Polonnaruwa districts, said D. M. C. Dissanayake of Sri Lanka’s Director General of the Mahaweli Authority, according to The Island, Tuesday. The north has become a dumping ground of Sinhalese unwanted in the south so that the double purpose of getting rid of them as well as terrorising and subjugating or chasing away the Tamils from their country could be achieved, says resettlement officials in the north.
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Genocidal Colombo unleashes new war on unarmed Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 February 2011, 07:49 GMT]
Sri Lanka is now waging a new genocidal war on unarmed and demographically weakened Tamils after converting their country imperceptibly into an open concentration camp. The new war is focussed on the Jaffna Peninsula. Many Tamils believe that by stressing on the negation of their independence, India and USA continue to encourage Colombo, smokescreen the current war by projecting it ‘reconciliation’ cum post-war ‘development’ and thus actually play a party to the war and genocide. All these decades India and USA competitively negotiating the national question by upholding the integrity of a fundamentally flawed state has brought in only untold misery. At least now, why shouldn’t they try in unison, a genuine reconciliation by the option of secession? Further delays will convert the island a bleeding spot of the region for ages, cautions a Jaffna university academic.
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HSZ lands in Jaffna sold to Sinhala businessmen

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 February 2011, 01:56 GMT]
Large stretches of lands in Jaffna Peninsula in the so-called High Security Zones and in other areas where people are not permitted to resettle in the guise of landmines are hurriedly sold to Sinhala businessmen ostensibly to start ‘industrial estates’. 100 acres of land near Ezhuthumadduvaa’l railway station along the A9 Highway has been recently sold to an influential Sinhala businessman. Another Sinhalese attempted buying 80 acres between Ki’laali and Puloappazhai. Occupying military officials are also said to be interested in buying lands. Industrial estates are a smokescreen, but Sinhala colonisation in that stretch to completely seal off the people of Jaffna within their own peninsula is the strategy, political circles in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in Valikaamam HSZ, a Sinhalese is said to be running a farm at Vasaavi’laan and another indiscriminately quarry limestone near Keerimalai.
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Another former US envoy goes to Chennai to save Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 February 2011, 17:42 GMT]
Former US envoy to Sri Lanka Teresita Schaffer, speaking at a forum on ‘US perspective on security in South Asian region with special emphasis on Nepal and Sri Lanka’ in Chennai on Monday, ruled out American backing for Tamil Eelam, reported Express News Service, Tuesday. The ex envoy was harping on genuine reconciliation, focus on war crimes investigation and shared her apprehension that “If the reconciliation process is allowed to slide, then some new internal conflict may spring up,” but conceded that she had no idea of how to approach. “I don’t have any clear sense on how one can persuade the Sri Lankan leader on reconciliation,” the ex envoy said. Obviously the helplessness comes by refusing to recognize long-existing realities, commented a political observer in Chennai, long familiar with the competitive Indo-US deceit on Eezham Tamils.
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Resist to the end: US envoy tells Egyptian dictator

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 19:07 GMT]
‘Resist to the end,’ advised Obama-Clinton administration’s envoy to the Egyptian dictator Mubarak who is currently facing democracy uprising from the people of Egypt. "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy,” said Frank Wisner, a retired diplomat of the US State Department, now sent as an envoy by Obama to meet Mubarak, reports Robert Fisk writing in The Independent, Monday. In February 2009, when Eezham Tamils and their fighters were surrounded by the genocidal military of Sri Lanka, another former US State Department official Bennett Ramberg wanted the war to be ‘finished to the end.’ “Ethnic civil wars end more durably when there is a decisive military victory,” he said. Yet another former US diplomat Armitage recently went to Colombo reportedly to bail out Rajapaksa.
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Flood challenges ‘development’ theories applied to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 08:42 GMT]
The helpless situation caused by floods in the country of Eezham Tamils challenges the ‘development’ theories of the West and India in approaching the post-war national question in the island of Sri Lanka with ‘development sans political solution.’ Neither the ‘corporate philanthropy’ nor the international infrastructure pouring money for ‘stability’ of Colombo could help the repeatedly affected people to face even natural disasters and manage their rehabilitation. When the genocidal State and its occupying military are busy in scheming subjugation and demographic changes, the flood exposes the bankruptcy of the ‘development imperialists’ who neither recognize national political organisation of Eezham Tamils nor arrange independent space for diaspora help, nor intervene directly, but leaves everything in the hands of genocidal Colombo, commented an academic of the Eastern University.
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Litigation threat forces Bush to cancel Swiss trip

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 16:41 GMT]
US's former President George Bush cancelled his intended visit to Switzerland to talk in Geneva, after Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York based non-profit group and other human rights organizations threatened to bring a complaint in Switzerland under the Convention Against Torture for sanctioning torture of terrorism suspects. Rights activists were also organizing a rally outside the Hotel Wilson, where the speech was scheduled to take place, Washington Post said.
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‘Nazi-style registration of civilians in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 12:08 GMT]
The occupying SL military in Jaffna is directly engaged in registration of individuals and families in the Jaffna peninsula in recent times. Everyday, covering area by area, the SL military is distributing forms to collect information and is insisting of family photographs along with children to be given to them. The activity of the SL military, reminding the Nazi practice before the Holocaust, creates terror in the minds of the people in Jaffna, said a human rights activist in Jaffna. Meanwhile, undeclared curfew is imposed in Jaffna by the SL military and police, who have brought the street movement of people almost to an end after 6:00 p.m. by harassing them through numerous checkpoints after dusk.
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Thalaiyaa'li-veddai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 16:35 GMT]
The open land of the deity Vairavar holding a head on his hand
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Hague's WikiLeaks admission spells legal danger to Sri Lanka war-criminals

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 12:11 GMT]
The Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal in The Hague has granted Charles G. Taylor, 62, the former Liberian president, who has been on trial charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the right to use two leaked American diplomatic cables as evidence to challenge the court’s impartiality. While the leaked information in the Taylor case was used by Taylor's lawyer to raise doubts on the courts independence and suggested the prosecution was political, Sri Lanka's leaked cables from the US Embassy contain incriminating information on the complicity of Rajapakse family, Ex-SLA Commander Sarath Fonseka, and Tamil paramilitaries in war-crimes and crimes against humanity on Tamil civilians, legal sources in Washington said.
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'Wish and reality of Sri Lanka's Independence'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 03:08 GMT]
“I wish all Sri Lankans around the world a happy celebration and continued peace and prosperity in the coming year," said a statement harping on "post-war reconciliation" released from the office of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on the eve of the independence day of Sri Lanka on 4th February. But the imposed celebration was largely ignored inside the island and outside, the day drew protests across the world by Eezham Tamils. “Sri Lankan High Commission has invited the Sri Lankan community for a reception to celebrate their independence. We will assemble outside the embassy to condemn the Sri Lankans celebrating while denying the Tamils their right to independence,” the call for protest in London said. Demonstrations were held in London, Toronto and in Oslo. Addressing protesters in Oslo, Conservative Party (Høyre) leader Erna Solberg called for war-crimes investigations.
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Colombo ignores uprooted Tamils of Champoor in IDP camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 February 2011, 13:17 GMT]
Uprooted Tamil families from Champoor village in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district during military offensive launched by the Sri Lanka Army in April 2006 and sheltered in welfare centres at Ki'liveddi, Ma'natcheanai and Paddiththidal have not been supplied with dry ration relief for the last two months by government. On Thursday activists of the Canada-Moothoor Development Association distributed some relief to them that could enough for their one day need.
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US State Department plays ‘ultimate saviour of genocidal Colombo’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 February 2011, 08:34 GMT]
Those who are guilty of war crimes naturally would try to blame others and would do everything to save their skins. If at all the LTTE was responsible of any war crimes, it is not there now. But the others responsible are roaming free. The US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake often calls for ‘some’ accountability. Some accountability comes only when some of those internationally responsible for the crimes bow down first taking responsibility, and desist from further contribution to genocide and denial of independence to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo, responding to Mr. Blake passing “large part of the responsibility” for the civilian casualty in the Vanni war on the LTTE. In a way Blake in his recent interview concedes that he and his government were a party to the war and thus a party to the war crimes, the writer points out.
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TNA MP protests against ethnic subjugation of Eastern University

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 00:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently appointed a Sinhala officer with powers above the rank of Vice Chancellor in the Eastern University under the pretext of eliminating irregularities and corruption. “The real agenda of the move is subjecting the overwhelmingly Tamil-speaking Eastern University to the insinuations of Mahinda Chintana based ethnic subjugation,” blamed Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Batticaloa District C. Yogeswaran, talking to Tamil journalists.
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