Holmes, UN's smokescreen to Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings?

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 02:16 GMT]
Public statements made by UN officials during media stakeouts and briefings, Wikileaks exposures, and the testimony of twelve UN field staff reported earlier in TamilNet provide a blue-print to the strategy adopted by the UN to allow Sri Lanka to defeat the Tigers, and to ignore the mounting numbers of civilian casualties. This feature catalogues the statements from UN's former humanitarian chief, John Holmes, as he attempts to provide diplomatic cover to the slaughter taking place in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, repeatedly relying on Colombo's assurances on not using heavy weapons, and hesitating to provide casualty figures, a conduct comport with the "internal" strategy revealed by the then President of the United Nations Security Council, Yukio Takasu, that gave primacy to the need to eliminate the “terrorist LTTE …which had broken several ceasefire agreements."
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10 Saiva temples in Champoor on verge of collapse

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 December 2012, 23:28 GMT]
At least ten historic Saiva temples in Champoor area have become ruins due to military assault and failure of maintenance after the capture of Moothoor East by the Sri Lanka Army since 2006. The occupying SLA is refusing to allow the uprooted Saivites to conduct any religious activities in these temples, civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Sampanthan countered, TELO calls for complete exit of occupying forces

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 December 2012, 22:36 GMT]
The Sri Lanka military, including its three forces that spearheaded the genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan state is viewed by Tamils as a Sinhala military and as an occupation military. The wish of the Tamil people is that such a military should quit completely, said a press release of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), signed by its political head and former TNA parliamentarian, M.K. Shivajilingam, on Monday. TELO is a constituent party in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The press release saying that such a statement on the stand of the TELO became a necessity in the context of current debates on the issue in the Tamil political circles, hinted against a recent statement by TNA leader R. Sampanthan that he was not calling for the complete withdrawal of the SL military.
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40 ex-LTTE members abducted within one week, IOM, UN blamed for silence

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2012, 18:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department (TID) squads roaming around in Vanni and Jaffna peninsula have detained more than forty former LTTE members after abducting them from their residences and on the streets within the last one week alone, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. Former LTTE members are also being summoned to the SLA camps and questioned over their contacts and friends. Relatives, friends and even employers of those who were summoned to the SL military camps live in fear. While every civil and social freedom of the ‘released’ former members of the LTTE is severely deprived by the occupying Sinhala military, the IOM and the UN that ‘certified’ their rehabilitation and release keep silent.
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Tamil Nadu protest calls for investigation on 3 UN officials for complicity in Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2012, 01:47 GMT]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former UN Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar and former UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian affairs Sir John Holmes were in complicity in the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils by Sri Lanka in 2009, declared a protest held by political activists and grassroot movements in Tamil Nadu on Sunday. May 17 Movement, the organisers of the protest, citing the recent report of the Internal Review Panel on UN Action in Sri Lanka led by Charles Petrie, accused the ‘axis of the UN trio’ for shielding the Sri Lankan government during the peak of its genocidal onslaught on the Eezham Tamil nation. The demonstrators, who blamed the UN for denying justice to the victims after the genocidal war, also accused the UN for having failed to provide a just political solution to the national question of Eezham Tamils.
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Colombo punishes Tamil officials with transfer for opposing Sinhala encroachment

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 16:47 GMT]
Tamil civil servants, who take legal action against Sri Lankan State and military run Sinhala encroachment of lands belonging to Tamils in the Batticaloa district, are under threat of transfer by the Colombo government, civil sources in Batticaloa said. Recently, the Divisional Secretary of Koa'raippattu South, Mr M. Thavarasa, who filed cases against illegal encroachers in Vadamunai, Oottuch-cheanai and Kallichchai, is to be transferred from January next year by the Colombo government.
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Kurdish grassroot federation in Germany shows solidarity with Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 12:18 GMT]
YEK-KOM, a German based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, condemned the genocidal policies of the Sri Lankan government and the repression of the Eezham Tamil students in Jaffna, conveying its solidarity with the protesting students in the Tamil homeland. In a statement in German released on Friday, it said “The oppressed Tamil people for over 60 years have been facing the extinction of their culture, language, religion and homeland. Overlooking this oppression means active support to the decades of genocide of the Tamils.” The statement further urged “the international humanitarian and democratic forces to collectively voice and demonstrate their support with the demands of the Tamil people in solidarity.”
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Kandu Palaatha

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 12:02 GMT]
The hill-district
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ICG silently withdraws mischief on TamilNet

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2012, 16:50 GMT]
The International Crisis Group (ICG) silently removed a mischievous part of a statement on TamilNet that appeared in its latest report on Sri Lanka, No. 239, dated 20 November 2012. TamilNet on 23 November, in a news item “ICG plays mischief with TamilNet,” challenged the ICG to prove its credibility on the concerned part of the statement and said, “If an open apology is not forthcoming from the ICG, TamilNet may have to seek justice from the law of the countries where the ICG is registered.” TamilNet, on Monday, has noted the removal of the part along with its implicating footnotes in the online version of the ICG report.
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Chain of protests in London against repression of students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2012, 11:07 GMT]
A series of protests have been organized outside the British Prime Minister’s Office in 10 Downing Street, London since Monday to condemn the repression of the Jaffna University students by the occupying Sinhala military. Condemning the arrests and detentions of the students and the Sinhala military’s systematic assaults on the civil rights of the Eezham Tamils as a part of the genocide of the Tamil nation, the protestors urged UK and the International Community to ensure the immediate release of the arrested students and to safeguard the democratic rights of the Eezham Tamil nation in the island.
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Sri Lanka Defence coerces parents or fabricates statements on conscripted Tamil girls

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2012, 22:19 GMT]
The helpless parents of the Tamil girls conscripted by the occupying Sinhala military in Vanni are now either coerced by the military or are left to accept fabricated statements coming in their names supporting the conscription. The official website of genocidal Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence and Urban Development run by presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, came out with a reporting on Friday that by slip showed coercion or fabrication. The SL defence report follows Tuesday’s news about 21 out of around 100 Tamil girls coerced to join the Sinhala military ending up in hospital in a mentally affected state, allegedly due to the sexual agenda of the military of genocidal intent.
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HR Day event in Toronto brings Tamils closer to global progressive networks

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2012, 00:03 GMT]
More than twenty social, economic, and environmental justice groups in Canada that joined together in Toronto on the eve of International Human Rights Day to forge a common forum against military occupation, apartheid, genocide and political imprisonment, have voiced against the SL military detention of the students of the University of Jaffna. The event gains significance as the recently formed Coalition for Tamil Rights was invited to represent the perspectives of Eezham Tamils along with other progressive forces. On the occasion of the event, activists of socio-political organizations in Canada condemned the arrests and detentions of Tamil students of the University of Jaffna in the SL military occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The activists demanded immediate release of the students and called for an end to the Sri Lankan military occupation of the Tamil homeland.
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SLA summons 4 girl students, house-by-house intimidation to resume university

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2012, 20:31 GMT]
The occupying genocidal military of Sri Lanka now engages in entering each and every house of the Jaffna University students to individually intimidate them to drop the protest and to return to the university or face dire consequences. The Vice Chancellor Prof Vasanthi Arasaratnam installed by colonial Colombo, most of the council members appointed by the regime or planted by collaborating paramilitary and some external intelligence agencies, and the threatened Deans are forced to connive with the new paradigm of occupying military running the university, news sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in addition to the key student leaders of the university detained for ‘rehabilitation,’ the SL military has freshly demanded the submission of four girl students by their parents.
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New Zealand politicians, Peoples Forum mean action on Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2012, 10:13 GMT]
UN internal review report is clear on the failure of the UN. We will not lie low. We will press for full inquiry and suitable action on those who connived at the human disaster–a blot on the civilized world in the 21st century, said New Zealand’s Green Party parliamentarian, Ms Jan Logie, at the Universal Human Rights Day observations organized by Peoples Forum in Auckland. What is happening in Sri Lanka is akin to what is happening in Palestine. On CHOGM, we will do everything possible to see that countries respecting democracy do not attend, the MP further said adding that she would draw the attention of the NZ government through an adjournment motion in the parliament on the new wave of oppression on Tamil university students and youth.
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HR group alerts on plight of Tamil women coerced by SL military

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 13:22 GMT]
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Tuesday forwarded a statement coming from the Women’s Action Network, expressing concern on the plight of Tamil women coerced into joining the SL military, The AHRC-forwarded statement for immediate release said that the Women’s Action Network (WAN), as a collective of 11 groups from the North and East, is deeply concerned by the recent efforts to recruit women into the SL military in the districts of Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu. The statement details how the women were deceived and were taken by the SL military and thereafter intimidated not to leave.
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SLA conscripted Tamil females admitted at Ki'linochchi hospital in mentally affected state

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 11:59 GMT]
21 of around 100 Tamil girls, who were conscripted to Sri Lankan military in Vanni, were admitted in Ki’linochchi hospital in a mentally affected state on Tuesday night around 11:00 p.m. by the SL military from Paarathipuram in Ki'linochchi, parents of the victims told TamilNet. In the meantime, TNA parliamentarian Sritharan was at the hospital struggling to get permission to witness the plight of the victims. But, around 30 SL military personnel guarding the hospital were not allowing him to independently witness the state of the victims, the parliamentarian told TamilNet.
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TNPF condemns Sampanthan’s statement on SL military, LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 00:58 GMT]
The Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) on Tuesday strongly condemned the SL parliamentary speech made by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan last Friday. Mr. Sampanthan had said that the TNA was not demanding the complete withdrawal of the SL military from the Tamil territory and that the LTTE had had earned its destruction by being a ‘terrorist’ organization not observing human rights and democracy and by engaging in the killing of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala leaders. The statement coming from the leader of the TNA should be taken as the policy stand of the TNA. Neither the constituent parties of the TNA nor its parliamentary members have so far contradicted the statement, said the TNPF press release, signed by its president Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and secretary, Selvarasa Kajendran.
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SL military ‘rehabilitation’ for detained University student leaders

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 22:50 GMT]
After releasing 7 of 13 students of the University of Jaffna, the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department has handed over detained students, comprising President of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) V Pavaananthan, Secretary of the JUSU P. Tharshananth, President of the Arts Faculty Students Union K. Jenemajeyamenan and S. Solomon of the Science Faculty, to the headquarters of the SL military in Vanni, which placed the students at the torture chamber of the notorious Joint Services Special Operations (JOSSOP) camp in Vavuniyaa and later transferred them to Sri Lankan military ‘rehabilitation’ detention at Welikanda in Polonnaruwa - Batticaloa border, where ex LTTE cadres and members are detained under a brutal ‘rehabilitation’ programme. In the meantime, SL military has stepped up threats against civil protests in the North.
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Grenade attack targets TNA's youth politician from Jaffna islet

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 22:13 GMT]
A motorbike squad, allegedly operated by the SL military intelligence, on Monday, lobbed a grenade on the house of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) youth wing coordinator of Jaffna islets Mr Nishanthan. The attack took place around 9:00 p.m. targeting Nishanthan's house situated on Vyman Road, near Nalloor Kanthasaami temple in Jaffna. The attack on Nishanthan comes after the occupying SL navy entered the house of TNA politician Anaimukan, accusing him for tolling bells on the Heroes Day coinciding with the Kaarthikai festival in the temples of Kaarainakar.
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Top misled EU to err on Tamils: Srinivasan tells Oslo Club session on Nobel peace award

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 18:31 GMT]
The European Union listening to wrong advice from the top and proscribing the Tamil movement was a serious mistake that disrupted peace, said Srinivasa Rao Thangavelu, a grassroot peace ambassador touring world, speaking at a brief session held at Café Nobel in Hotel Opera, by Oslo International Club together with Brussels Alumni, right before the torchlight march honouring Nobel Peace Prize award on Monday. The session was on “Creating lasting peace: top-down and bottom-up.” This time’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to European Union. According to EU Commission President, the EU brings lasting peace among former enemies who fought, among others, two world wars. Usually Norwegians conduct a torchlight parade to honour the Peace Prize winners. But this time there were two: one on Sunday opposing the award going to the EU and the other on Monday honouring the EU.
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