Leaked documents reveal UK lacking practical approach and India unwilling

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 December 2010, 09:38 GMT]
Though there was recognition for the need of a political solution and intention to stop human tragedy, lack of insight on the nature of the Sri Lankan state, lack of a serious and practical policy in handling a state like Sri Lanka long known for its chauvinism and lack of perspectives in addressing a national question as a national question, paved way for the failure of the Miliband-led British foreign policy on the war in the island, reveals leaked classified documents of British Foreign Office by Wikileaks. The documents also reveal that the British saw India “ambivalent and unwilling to undertake any heavy lifting on Sri Lanka” during the last days of the war. In this regard, a British diplomat confessed that he had trouble in getting meetings with India’s political level.
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Suspect War Criminal flees UK, escapes arrest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 December 2010, 03:43 GMT]
Suspect Sri Lankan war criminal, Major General Chagi Gallage, a member of Mahinda Rajapaksa's entourage to London, escaped arrest by his premature departure from Britain, British daily Guardian reported. "An application [for arrest warrant] was lodged at Horseferry Road magistrates court, central London, but inquiries by Scotland Yard established that he [Chagi Gallage] had left on Thursday night," the paper said. Tamil campaigners sought the arrest warrant claiming that the ex-General who was in-charge of 53 & 59 divisions committed war-crimes by intentionally shelling civilian hospitals while advancing towards Mullaiththeevu area.
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Sri Lanka video contains evidence of war crimes, says ICTY legal expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 December 2010, 04:01 GMT]
"This is a very disturbing video and clearly, on the face of it, shows war crimes have been committed and perhaps crimes against humanity, depending on who the group targeted was," said Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), after reviewing the execution video broadcast by Channel-4, and added ""[t]here is no question that this video is prima facie evidence that these crimes were committed. And therefore there's a responsibility on the part of the international community to push for an investigation and prosecution."
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Rajapakse endures brickbats and snowballs in London

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 December 2010, 02:40 GMT]
Mass demonstrations in London condemning Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse as a war criminal took place Thursday evening in front of his luxury hotel and the Sri Lankan High Commission where he held a glittering reception for some of his supporters in lieu of his abortive address to the Oxford Union. Over seven thousand Tamil expatriates and others braved the snow falls inundating Britain this week to crowd Park Lane, where The Dorchester is located, to demand Sri Lankan officials be prosecuted for war crimes, while hundreds more filled the short street in front of the High Commission. President Rajapakse’s reception began with an organising mix-up that left some of his select guests waiting to be allowed into the mission, and ended with a flurry snowballs thumping into his departing police-escorted motorcade.
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War crime suspect in Rajapaksa entourage plans charted flight escape

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 December 2010, 00:44 GMT]
Sri Lankan Major General Chagi Gallage, a member of Mahinda Rajapaksa's entourage to London, plans to escape war crimes accusation in the courts of London by chartering a flight, informed circles in London said Thursday midnight. Meanwhile, if Mr. Rajapaksa's visit was a private one as claimed by him, why there were senior ministers like G.L.Peiris and military commanders in the entourage, wonder media circles in London. The escape plans of the military commander follows attempts by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) to file a war crimes case against him in London. Valid reasons are suspected behind the escape attempt of Chagi Gallage. Around 7,000 Eezham Tamils in London protested the presence of Rajapaksa entourage in London Thursday.
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Rajapakse, brothers responsible for alleged War Crimes in Sri Lanka, says leaked US cable

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 December 2010, 01:20 GMT]
In a startling setback for the war-crimes concealment agenda of Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse, and his siblings holding high level positions in Sri Lanka's defense and civilian sectors, a January 2010 cable from US Embassy in Sri Lanka, made public by Wikileaks Thursday, acknowledges that U.S. is cognizant of the fact that "responsibility for many alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka." Ambassador Butenis further reasons the lack of progress in internal investigations: "There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power."
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Britain assured Rajapaksa diplomatic immunity: Times of India

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 December 2010, 12:44 GMT]
The Times of India on Wednesday reported that the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was visiting UK on an assurance that he has diplomatic immunity against any attempt to arrest him in UK. In the meantime a Tamil diaspora activist spearheading legal suits against Tamil genocide urged Tamil organisations and media not to give false hopes to the diaspora Tamils as if Rajapaksa's arrest was something imminent urging all concerned to concentrate on credible action on legal front.
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Australian MP calls for Independent Inquiry into Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 December 2010, 11:23 GMT]
"I am calling on the Australian Government to support other governments, including Britain, the United States of America and France, in writing to the United Nations declaring support for an independent inquiry into: alleged war crimes committed particularly in the last phase of the war; the treatment of more than 11,000 Tamil youth detained be in accordance with the Geneva Convention; ending planned West Bank style settlements in the Tamil homeland," said Minister of Fair Trading and Australian Member of Parliament for Strathfield, New South Wales, Ms Virginia Judge, during the parliamentary session Wednesday.
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Properties, temples of uprooted Tamils robbed in Valikaamam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 December 2010, 00:09 GMT]
How the number of Tamils in Valikaamam in Jaffna district has dwindled during the last 20-years due to Sri Lankan genocidal onslaught on Tamil homeland became evident when only 970 families registered for resettlement in the three villages of I'lavaalai and Viththakapuram in Valikaamam North, bordering the Sri Lanka Army declared High Security Zone, civil sources in Jaffna said. 1746 families were registered in the same area in 1990, according to the statistics by Thellippazhai divisional secretariat. The uprooted civilians, who were allowed to visit their villages last weekend and later denied of proper access-route to their villages, also complained that even the few properties that remained in their houses and temples have been robbed away after they were allowed access to the villages.
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Veteran journalist Sivanayagam passes away

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 12:42 GMT]
Veteran journalist S. Sivanayagam whose contributions were part of the history of the liberation struggle of Eezham Tamils, passed away on Monday in Colombo at the age of 80. The funeral will take place on Thursday. Joining The Daily News in 1953, he became the founder editor of Saturday Review started in Jaffna in 1982. The weekly that made a name in the early stages of the Tamil militant struggle had an abrupt end with the 1983 pogrom. He was later in charge of the Tamil Information Centre in Chennai. In 1990, he was editing a new journal Tamil Nation. Following the assassination of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, he was arrested without any charges, harassed, insulted and was ill treated by the Indian intelligence. He left India in 1993 to get asylum in France. He was also residing in London. Ailing from bone cancer, a few years ago he went back to Colombo and was remaining silent.
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More than 50,000 determined Tamils in Toronto pay homage to heroes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 11:14 GMT]
The temperature was freezing. Permission was half-hearted. Venue arrangement was last minute due to anticipated obstacles. Yet, a determined mass of 50,000 Eezham Tamils in Toronto, Canada, congregated on Saturday in four sessions in a temporarily built hall for the purpose, to pay homage to the heroes who laid down their lives for the cause of the liberation of Tamil Eelam. The hall was built on an open terrain where permission to congregate was granted, and the floor was paved with wooden planks to bear with the cold. The event was marked with heart-touching cultural programmes. Meanwhile, the resolution seen in the diaspora now makes Colombo think tanks to question their present strategy of countering the diaspora through hired Public Relations firms and lobbyists. The Tamil diaspora would out-bid the Colombo government they are afraid.
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Icy reception for Rajapaksa at Heathrow

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 November 2010, 22:36 GMT]
More than five hundred Tamils gathered at London’s Heathrow airport to protest as Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa landed from Colombo. As Sri Lankan Airlines flight UL509 carrying Mr. Rajapaksa, who is on a private visit, landed at about 9:50 p.m. UK time, protestors braved Britain’s unusually cold weather to call attention to his government’s war crimes. Meanwhile, a senior Norwegian expert on the conflict in Sri Lanka advised Tamil activists to concentrate on country-level legal moves, rather than waiting for any global or governmental actors to take the lead. Tamils should forge alliances with legal, alternative, and human rights groups to fight the legal battle, the expert told Norwegian Country Council representatives, who welcomed the British demonstration.
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TNA to abstain from voting on 2nd reading of Sri Lankan budget

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 November 2010, 13:13 GMT]
Rajapaksa's government, which proclaims that it's priority is resettlement of displaced Tamil people, has not translated the words into deeds in its budget for 2011, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said in a press statement Monday. The TNA statement further noted that the allocation made for defence expenditure has continued to increase year by year even after the conclusion of the war and said that the TNA members have unanimously decided not to participate in the voting on second reading of budget on Monday. The TNA said its position was that Colombo should negotiate with the TNA, which is the elected representatives of the Tamils.
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Ken Livingstone vows unwavering support for Tamils’ struggle

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 November 2010, 09:22 GMT]
Addressing the Tamil National Remembrance Day gathering in London Saturday, veteran British politician Ken Livingstone slammed the Sri Lankan state for “the terror [it] has waged against the Tamil community”, and vowed his unrelenting support for the Tamil people’s struggle. “The government of Sri Lanka is a disgrace to the international community,” Mr. Livingstone, a prominent figure of the Left in British politics said. “Behind the façade of voting there is no longer a democracy in Sri Lanka. I look forward to the day once again when Sri Lanka once again can become a real democracy, and get rid of the current war criminal who occupies the office of president,” he said of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
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This is a struggle for all of us: Vikramabahu tells Heroes Day congregation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 November 2010, 12:57 GMT]
Tamils were killed by successive Sinhala chauvinistic governments and at last but not the least by the Mahinda regime. Not only Tamils but also thousands of Sinhala youth who were sent for aggression in the Tamil homeland and attack Tamils died in an alien land. The misery created among the Sinhalese will also show its reaction in future. This is a struggle for all of us. Yes, we have gone through defeat. Now we have to get up and fight to overthrow this chauvinistic military regime to have democracy in the land, said Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne, Secretary of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), who was a star speaker at the Maaveerar (Heroes) Day gathering in London, Saturday. The event attended by more than 50, 000 diaspora Tamils paid homage to the heroes who laid down their lives fighting for the liberation of Tamil Eelam.
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50,000 gather in London to remember Tamil Eelam Heroes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 19:14 GMT]
Around 50,000 Eezham Tamils congregated on Saturday in London to pay homage to the Maaveerar (heroes) who laid down their lives in fighting for the liberation of Tamil Eelam. Similar gatherings proportionate to the population of Eezham Tamil diaspora were noticed in the other European capitals. 9,000 congregated in one of 8 localities in France and 9,000 at Fribourg in Switzerland, where local organisers noticed a new vigour of uprising. Meanwhile, the BBC in London cut a pathetic figure by featuring a report of a BBC Tamil Service staff, titled “Why Sri Lankan Tamils won’t remember war dead this year”. The BBC Tamil Service in recent years has become a mouthpiece of war crimes accused Colombo and the establishment abetting it from New Delhi, observers said. The subversive game is played by manipulating the unjustified continuation of the tag of ‘terrorism’ in UK, they further said.
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Indian FM harps on failed 13th Amendment in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 09:16 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, who ceremoniously opened an Indian Mission near Kantharmadam junction in Jaffna, failed to deliver any positive message to Eezham Tamils on India's position in resolving the national question. Mr. S.M. Krishna harped on the failed 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution, a model Tamils have rejected as inadequate in guaranteeing their rights and he also failed to touch the territorial integrity of the North-Eastern Province which was de-merged by Rajapaksa government that disregarded the earlier arrangement that has been in practice for several years following the Indo Lanka Accord.
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Poet Kasi Anandan speaks to Palaka'ni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 05:03 GMT]
Mu'l'livaaykkaal is only a turning point in the Tamil Eelam struggle, says veteran national poet of Eezham Tamils Kasi Anandan to the audience of Palaka'ni, the TamilNet window for cross-views that features its inaugural programme on Saturday. “The Tigers have silenced their guns. To what extent the chauvinism of the Sinhala state could go, the international community has yet another opportunity to understand now. But, has it ever accepted that what is being committed is a genocide," he questioned. Any struggle that is based on righteous principles will win. Eelam Tamils should understand this and proceed, said the 72-year-old Batticaloa-born poet, who has been associated with Periyar E.V.Ramasamy Nayakkar, S.J.V Chelvanayakam and Velupillai Pirapaharan.
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Heroes Day - 2010

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 00:01 GMT]
At the height of the Vanni war, a representative of the Biafra struggle sent a message to TamilNet. He wanted the Eezham Tamils to remember that they were fighting not merely for them, but for the cause of many peoples like them all over the world. If the Eezham Tamils fail they fail the world of liberation, he said. He wanted the message and his best wishes to be conveyed to Vanni. That is the international dimension of the heroes of Tamil Eelam. They fought for the liberation of their nation and at the same time fought for a missing point in contemporary human civilisation. Many thought that Biafra could never be repeated in contemporary times and that too in ‘civilized’ South Asia. But there were people who adamantly wanted to prove that it is possible. Remembering the heroes in 2010 should remind us of the duty ahead of us towards ourselves and towards human civilisation.
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Sri Lanka will reject any political settlement with Tamils - editorial

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 12:27 GMT]
“If [India's External Affairs Minister S M] Krishna is intending to take up the issue of a political settlement during his visit to Sri Lanka, he will get short shrift in Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapakse has already made his response clear in an interview with The Hindu newspaper this week: there will be no such thing,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said in its editorial this week. “It is in this way that a long-standing contradiction between the Sinhala establishment and the international community, which had been masked by Indian and Western hostility to the Tamil armed struggle, is now coming clearly to the fore.”
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