UN post confers no absolute immunity from war crimes prosecution

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 00:04 GMT]
Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, UN Officials only have “functional” immunity, immunity ratione materiae which confers immunities on those performing acts of state (duties). War crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are not incidental to the duties of a UN accredited diplomat, and therefore, Shavendra Silva, Sri Lanka's official at the UN in New York, can be prosecuted under the 18 USC 2441 of US criminal code for allegedly committing war crimes outside the US. Legal sources also said that the UN Headquarters Agreement on UN officials' Privileges and Immunities concluded with respect to the UN Charter arguably confers functional immunity only as well.
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New Secretaries appointed to ‘Mahinda Chintana’ government

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 12:24 GMT]
55 Secretaries, the highest civil servants of the ministries appointed Tuesday by the President of the Colombo government Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, were advised by him to discharge their duties properly according to the ‘Mahinda Chintana’, reports Daily Mirror. Structuring the ministries in his second term of office, Mr. Rajapasksa handed over new appointment letters to the secretaries of the various ministries. The Mahinda Chintana list of Secretaries has one Tamil and one Muslim among the 55. The lone Tamil secretary is appointed to the Ministry of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development for which Mr. Douglas Devananda is the minister.
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SLA active in grabbing strategic lands in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 14:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Ki’linochchi have threatened 18 Tamil families in Irathinapuram where they were each given 5 acres of land to live in 1994 by Sri Lanka government for which they have the documents proving ownership. SLA now claims that a Sinhala school had been located in the said area and therefore the land belongs to the government. SLA further says that it wants the land to be used as cattle grazing ground, the families said. Similarly, SLA officials in the Achchuveali camp have claimed areas in Puththoor and Vaatharavaththai in Valikaamam East saying that a Sinhala school called Panjaseeva and a Buddhist temple had been functioning in the said area. A military establishment and Sinhala colony at strategic Vaatharavaththai will check free movement of Tamils among the sectors of Valikaamam, Vadamaraadchi and Thenmaraadchi regions of the Jaffna peninsula.
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Genetics and etymology go contrary to myths

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:38 GMT]
Kadugannawa, the Sinhala name of a key mountain pass in the Kandy district of the island of Sri Lanka comes from Dravidian etymology and is related to Kadu-ka’navaay in Tamil, reveals an etymological column in TamilNet. Meanwhile, genetic studies based on DNA conducted on Sinhala expatriates by a British medical institute 10 years ago showed that the Sinhalese predominantly carry M20, the Dravidian marker in them, says Subramaniyam Visahan who recently came out with an outline publication on the peopling of the island of Sri Lanka. Myths that obscure objective history about the peopling of the island could have been shattered had Colombo joined the DNA mapping programme, the Human Genome Project, said the UK-based writer, who formerly worked for the British National Archives.
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Paintings depicting horror of war on Vanni exhibited in Bergen

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 November 2010, 14:50 GMT]
The Tamil students of Bergen University held an exhibition at the Bergen University Student Centre paintings by Tamil Nadu Artist Kuzhanthaivelu Pugazhenthi titled ‘The Faces of War’ Friday and Saturday, depicting the horror suffered by Eezham Tamils in its Fourth War and the heroic sacrifice and valour of Liberation Tigers, sources in Oslo said. The exhibition drew a large number of Norwegian students on the first day while the students of Bergen Tamil School viewed them on the next day.
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Sinhala persons from other districts appointed as minor employees in Batticaloa – MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 November 2010, 06:57 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian P. Selvarasa has sent a letter to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa protesting against the appointment of 17 Sinhala persons from other districts as minor employees in the government departments and in divisional secretariats in Batticaloa district. Meanwhile, Ven. Ampitiya Sumanaratne Thero, the chief monk of the Mangalaramaya in Batticaloa fasted unto death in August demanding Sri Lanka government to appoint Sinhala officers to the government departments in Batticaloa and to appoint a Sinhala person as the SLFP organizer for Batticaloa district besides demanding first preference to Sinhala people and Buddhist temples in Batticaloa district. He gave up the fast on assurances made by SL government that his demands will be met.
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Ramanathan Trust endows land to Upcountry Tamil tenets in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 17:39 GMT]
In a significant move Friday, the president of Sir. P. Ramananthan Trust, former senior professor S.K. Sitrampalam, donated the lands of the Trust in Ki'linochchi to 60 families of Upcountry Tamils who were long-term tenets of those lands. The families uprooted in the recent war were unable to claim housing aid supposed to come through an Indian aid programme in the absence of ownership-documents of the lands, which they were inhabiting for a long time. The Ramanathan Trust was owning 330 acres of productive farmland in Ki'linochchi, which was settled by the Upcountry Tamils for several decades.
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TNA opposes move to appoint a Sinhala Vice-chancellor to Eastern University

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 15:57 GMT]
Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran in a letter to Sri Lanka Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake has brought to his notice that steps are being taken to appoint a Sinhala person to the post of the Vice-chancellor of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka replacing the Tamil Vice-chancellor. Tamil academics in the East are perturbed over the alleged move by the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka to appoint a Sinhala person as the Vice-chancellor of the Eastern University that is located in Vantharumoolai in Batticaloa district.
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China urged to respect Tamil place names

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 09:13 GMT]
The thermal power plant China builds in the Puththa’lam district is located at a Tamil village called Nuraichchoalai that simply means the grove of Nurai fruit trees (Nephelium longanum). But a corrupted and Sinhalicised form Norocholai is the one followed by Chinese official records. Even the media in India, including the media in Tamil Nadu, mutilate the name joining with Sinhalese and Chinese. Norocholai has no meaning in Sinhala or Tamil. Sri Lanka comes out with a new set of colonial names for places in the land of Tamil nation. China and India, which have cared to bring back the names of their cities such as Beijing and Mumbai from the colonial renderings Peking and Bombay should be sensitive enough for the sentiments of Eezham Tamils, urged a Tamil academic in Colombo.
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Wickramabahu to meet Diaspora Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 08:39 GMT]
Dr Wickramabahu Karunaratne, the leader of New Left Front and General Secretary of New Sama Samaja party, would be meeting diaspora Tamils in UK, British Tamil Forum (BTF) officials told TamilNet Friday. The meeting, scheduled to take place on 25 November in South Harrow, comes at a time when forces operating against solidarity among progressive leftist forces, were engaged in spreading false propaganda, Tamil political circles in UK said.
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UN must produce a Congo-type war crimes report on Sri Lanka, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 05:12 GMT]
Reviewing the recently released 550-page United Nations Report of the Mapping Exercise Documenting the Most Serious Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Committed Within the Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an article in the American Society of International Law (ASIL) said, "[t]he report detailing killings, rapes, destruction, and other violent attacks is alarming, not least because similar crimes continue to be committed in the DRC, where impunity still reigns large." Professor Boyle of Illinois College of Law, an expert in international law, commenting on the UN report said, "Tamils worldwide must demand the same “UN Mapping Report” of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by the Government of Sri Lanka against the Tamils."
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UK billboard announces Tamil Eelam National Remembrance Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 04:26 GMT]
As part of the global Tamil Eelam community’s events to mark National Remembrance Day on November 27, expatriate Tamils in London have sponsored a public billboard. The Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), an activist group comprising Tamil students and young professionals, coordinated the effort. “We wanted to express the significance of this day for Eelam Tamils, when all of us across the globe are united in remembering the sacrifices made so that the Tamil people could one day live in peace and dignity in their own homeland,” Nisha Mariyathas, TYO spokesperson told TamilNet.
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Swiss Tamil council arranges safe custody for war crimes evidence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 November 2010, 22:53 GMT]
The Swiss branch of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), a human rights organisation that speaks up for voiceless peoples and communities, has come forward to act as an independent custodian of evidence material and in working out submissions on behalf of individuals and organisations, who need assistance in making submissions to the UN Panel, Tharsika Pakeerathan, the president of Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET), told TamilNet Wednesday. The GfbV will begin by conducting interviews on 28 November, 2010 in Bern, aiming for submission to UN Panel before 15 December.
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Military fortresses and colonisation in Jaffna choke Tamils, threaten India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 November 2010, 10:26 GMT]
The selection of locations for building new military fortresses and for colonising Sinhalese in the Jaffna peninsula is sinisterly schemed by colonial Sri Lanka to permanently squeeze the Tamil heartland. Casual visitors don’t perceive it. Tamils of collaborative politics helplessly defend it. Indian policy planners of habitual bungling compare it with what they do in Kashmir, tribal belt and northeast India and agree with it. They think that if the nation of Eezham Tamils is permanently erased and if they get one or two harbours there that is enough for the security of India. The military cum colonisation complexes come up with the full blessings of India and with Chinese material help. But eventually they are going to be trained on India, said an academic in Jaffna, citing the complexes that squeeze the peninsula at strategic locations.
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ENDLF wants another IPKF to implement 13th Amendment

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 November 2010, 21:11 GMT]
In an ‘extraordinary meeting’ convened in Bangalore, Saturday and Sunday, Eezham National Democratic Front (ENDLF), a paramilitary group based in India, passed a resolution urging India to send a ‘new peace making force’ to fulfil the promise made by Rajiv Gandhi on the North-East Provincial Council. If India can’t help it should constitute a higher level international committee of countries that accommodated the refugees to bring in justice, the resolution further said. ENDLF, mainly having former members of PLOTE and led by Paranthan Rajan, is a pro-Indian militant outfit created by the Indian intelligence agencies to defend the Indian agenda in the late 1980s. The ENDLF sacrificed 1700 of its cadres pinning faith on the promise made by Rajiv Gandhi, the resolution said.
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Sri Lankan military operatives disperse JVP-backed protestors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 November 2010, 11:05 GMT]
Hundreds of helpless parents and relatives of missing persons in Jaffna, who took part in a hastily organised protest by the extremist JVP were attacked by Sri Lankan military-backed operatives Monday within 30 minutes of the commencement of the protest. The attackers threw eggs and tomatoes on JVP leaders Somawanse Amarasinghe, Tilvin Silva, Sunil Handuneththi and Jaffa district organiser of the outfit Lalith Kumar, forcing the JVP leaders to flee from the protest site which was heavily guarded by Sri Lankan police and monitored by military officers.
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JVP accused of attempts to deceive Tamils in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 November 2010, 06:31 GMT]
The extremist anti-Tamil Jantha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party that had vehemently opposed the Liberation Struggle of the Tamils earlier is now assuming a false role in an attempt to deceive them by pretending to give voice for the silenced Tamils, political observers in Jaffna said. JVP, in the recent past had been gradually attempting to infiltrate into North with its various false fronts claiming to be genuinely interested in the Tamils, they added. The real motive of JVP is to rally support against Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is expected to be the chief contestant in the next presidential election, the observers said. The SL government stalwarts in Jaffna peninsula are equally keen in effectively killing the efforts of JVP in North, they said.
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Unidentified operatives attack JVP engaged in wooing Tamil support in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 15:02 GMT]
A gang of ten men arriving on five motor cycles to the residence of former Tamil parliamentarian, Pathmini Sithamparanathan Sunday around 6:30 p.m, assaulted the visiting Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party members, causing serious injuries to the group members including parliamentarian Sunil Handunneththi, who were engaged in talks with Ms. Pathmini Sithamparanathan. The injured were rushed to Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The extremist anti-Tamil JVP, which is now locked in waging a campaign against Rajapaksa family-rule in South, is attempting to woo Tamil support in Jaffna by highlighting the plight of the disappeared Tamils arrested by Rajapaksa's military. The attack by unidentified operatives on JVP has taken place a few hours after Namal Rajapaksa visited Jaffna to attend an opening ceremony.
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Indian intelligence think-tank studying China to meet in Chennai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 08:31 GMT]
“China’s relations with neighbouring countries having territorial disputes including India have somewhat come under strain. It has become important for the latter to factor the reasons behind China’s apparent assertiveness in their formulations of policies towards Beijing,” says the concept paper of a national seminar “Rise of China: Implications for Asian Neighbours,” convened on 17 December at Hotel Savera by three academic-intelligence outfits of India based in Chennai. One of them was founded a year ago to ‘sensitise the people of South India to the complex political, economic and security problems facing India and its South Asian neighbours’. Many of the participants of the seminar, addressed as renowned Sinologists, were actively involved in blunting the national question of Eezham Tamils.
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North, East already established as Tamils’ Homeland – Prof. K. Sitrampalam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 06:08 GMT]
“Banda-Chelva pact and Indo-Sri Lanka pact were based on the acceptance of North and East as the homeland of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. This concept should be first accepted and a constitutional reform based on it be brought to find a lasting solution for the ethnic issue,” Prof. S.K. Sitrampalam said Friday giving witness before the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Jaffna Secretariat.
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