Demand US to provide war crimes evidence to UN Panel, urges Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2010, 20:45 GMT]
Pointing to the recent news stories on UN Sri Lanka Advisory Panel's willingness to review incriminating photographic evidence of graphic scenes with dead bodies blindfolded, hands bound and shot through the head, exposing alleged war crimes of Sri Lanka soldiers, Professor Boyle of University of Illinois, College of Law, said: "there is some precedent here in what happened to Milosevic. The Americans have all the intelligence the Tamils need. Tamil activists have to figure out a strategy to get the US Government to act."
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UN Advisory Panel to include Sri Lanka's war crime photos?

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2010, 05:56 GMT]
Amid recent exposure of photographs showing graphic scenes, with dead bodies blindfolded, hands bound and shot through the head which provide prima facie evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lanka Security Forces, United Nations spokesperson, Farhan Haq, told Inner City Press (ICP) that the panel will determine if the photos can be used as evidentiary material for the panel's investigation.
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War crimes and the responsibility of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2010, 04:04 GMT]
Eezham Tamils have made a strategic blunder two decades back in not internationally indicting the Indian Establishment for the war crimes committed by the IPKF. On one hand they allowed the indictment to sink under the din of Rajiv Gandhi assassination and on the other hand sections of them thought that the Indian Establishment should be spared for future benefits. Yet some others thought that it was not as important as Tamils acquiring military strength. The failure, in two decades of time, resulted in those who were a party to the crimes – from politics to military and from diplomacy to media – to boldly commit further crimes on a massive scale in proxy ways. Tamils should not fail again. Now it should be comprehensive indictment that needs own initiation and institutions coming from Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political comentator in Colombo.
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Al Jazeera staff denied visa over Sri Lanka war crimes broadcast

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 November 2010, 20:29 GMT]
Three journalists from Al Jazeera, the international news network headquartered in Qatar, were denied visa to enter Sri Lanka, after the station broadcast photographs that provided additional prima facie evidence of widespread war crimes committed by Sri Lanka security forces during the final stages of war with Liberation Tigers, media reports from Colombo said.
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STF arrests 5 Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 November 2010, 06:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka police Special Task Force (STF) arrested Thursday around 3:00 a.m five Tamils including a male teacher, two family men and two youths in Peasaalai in Mannaar district, sources in Mannaar said. STF commanders who arrived in a white van dressed in civil clothes took the arrestees to the Prevention of Terrorism office in Vavuniyaa after handing over receipts for the arrests to the family members. They were brought back to Mannaar between 4:30 p.m and 6:00 p.m and a search was conducted in their houses in which their documents and other properties were confiscated by the police, the family members of the arrestees said. They had seen assault injuries on the arrestees, they said.
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Australian Court rules refugee processing violates "procedural fairness"

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 November 2010, 03:06 GMT]
High Court of Australia, in a landmark ruling said that the Australian Government's attempt to keep "unlawful non-citizens" in prolonged detention in Christmas Island while the refugee status was being processed under the Migration Act of 1958, was not proper as the detention had "direct impact on the rights and interests of the plaintiffs to freedom from detention at the behest of the Executive," and ordered the Commonwealth and the Immigration Minister to pay plaintiffs' costs. The plaintiffs' were two Sri Lankan Tamils who were refused refugee status and decided to challenge the legality of Australia's offshore refugee processing system in Christmas Island.
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Al Jazeera spotlights Sri Lanka's alleged War Crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 00:43 GMT]
Al Jazeera, the international news network headquartered in Qatar, published photographs Wednesday "showing graphic scenes, with dead bodies blindfolded, hands bound [and] shot through the head," that appear to provide further believable evidence of alleged massacre of Tamils during final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war. One of the photos shows a line of bodies, including what is believed to be the body of the son of Velupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the news network said.
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24th Anniversary of the massacre of 320 Tamils in Batticaloa remembered

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 16:32 GMT]
The massacre of 320 innocent Tamils of Pullumalai in Batticaloa district on 10.11.1986 by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sinhala thugs was remembered Wednesday by the people of Batticaloa district. The SLA soldiers and the Sinhala thugs who brutally massacred the 320 Tamils were not arrested during the United National Party (UNP) government then and the present United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) too has failed to take action on them or to pay compensation for the affected or find the disappeared persons, sources in Batticaloa said. Complaints made by the victims’ family members to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) recently in Chengkaladi Secretariat were not registered, the sources added.
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32 Sinhala families allowed to settled in Naavatkuzhi in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 13:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka government authorities hurriedly took 32 Sinhala families claiming resettlement in Jaffna Tuesday night to the housing scheme in Naavatkuzhi area where they were allowed to erect temporary dwellings in lands claimed as government property, sources Jaffna said. The Tamils who inhabit these areas since ancient times say the said lands belong to them. The Tamil families living in the housing scheme expressed fear that the Sinhala families may encroach into their houses in the future, as they are provided with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police protection.
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Treating Tamil Script from Tamil point of view

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 03:59 GMT]
Encoding an ‘Extended Tamil Script’ and encoding the Grantha script added with some Tamil characters in the Unicode Standard have become matters of controversy currently raging in Tamil Nadu. The very concept of having an ‘Extended Tamil Script’ only to present Sanskrit in Tamil is fundamentally flawed. Having the rare distinction as a classical as well as a globally living language, the Tamil need for an extended script to present other languages through its script is larger: Sister Dravidian languages such as the Brahui of Pakistan, related languages like ancient Sumer or Japanese and the languages the diaspora interacts from Latin America to Africa and Europe to Southeast Asia are some examples the ETS is expected to handle. India and Tamil Nadu alone shouldn’t decide a matter of universal Tamil interest, writes opinion columnist Akazhaan.
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No development in Jaffna worthy of mention – German delegation

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 05:44 GMT]
A delegation of German MPs led by Ms. Petra Ernstberger visited Jaffna accompanied by German Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Mr. Jens Ploetner and Mr. Guido Baumann, officer in charge of press affairs. Mr. Guido Bauman, at the end of the visit Thursday, told local press that the delegation saw no development worthy of mention in Jaffna. He added that the main intention of the delegation was to find out how the German tax payers’ money given as donation is being used in Jaffna peninsula. Mr. Holger Ortel, Mr. Jurgen Kilmke and Dr. Birgit Reinemund were the three German other parliamentarians besides Ms. Petra Ernstberger visiting Jaffna.
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Rajapaksa fears arrest in UK: Times of India

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 01:06 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's scheduled visit to UK has been called off by him fearing arrest in UK for his alleged war crimes under British law, the Times of India reported Friday. SL Foreign Minister G L Peiris was despatched to reconnoitre last month, the paper said, adding that certain Tamil organisations were planning to move court for Mr. Rajapaksa's arrest. Mahinda Rajapaksa is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Meanwhile, Eezham Tamil political activists allege that the war crimes in the island took place with the full blessings of the Indian Establishment.
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TamilNet wartime correspondent from Vanni reaches a free country

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 22:13 GMT]
Living incognito since May 2009, the TamilNet chief correspondent who reported from Vanni during the war, reached a free country this week. He was just 24 when he joined TamilNet. His knowledge in English was just basic. He was neither a member nor an associate of the LTTE. The free working space he had in Vanni was based only on an understanding about the political outlook of TamilNet towards the national cause of Eezham Tamils. But what he achieved goes into history of war journalism. He did a marvellous job on the ‘war without witnesses’, which major international media establishments couldn’t do or didn’t want to do. His safe passage to a free country was achieved by international civil society infrastructure. Many organisations, individuals and progressive Sinhalese helped him in his passage.
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Colombo schemes Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 02:13 GMT]
Following the end of war in Vanni last year, the Colombo government has taken over three thousand acres private land in Eastern Province in seven Tamil Divisional Secretariat areas for the purpose of setting up new Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps, colonizing the traditional Tamil homeland with Sinhala people and for contracting the land to external actors for commercial exploitation, civil society circles in Batticaloa said. Some of the private lands taken over, rich with resources, are to be given on long term lease to entrepreneurs from South involving Chinese and Iranian assistance, the sources added.
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UN event in Jaffna evokes controversy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 01:55 GMT]
Sri Lankan Lion flag was hoisted at the UN office of Jaffna on the occasion of UN Day this year unlike ever before and the guests of honour invited for the celebration event were Sri Lankan military officials, triggering controversy on the sudden change of practice by the UN office in Jaffna, the city which has been under the control of the Sri Lanka Army for the last 15 years. Civil society circles, expressing displeasure on attitudinal changes within the UN office in Jaffna wondered whether it was a bureaucratic practice adopted by a biased-section of UN officials or the event signalled that the apex body of global humanity has gone further in adopting a 'post-war' change in its attitude towards Eezham Tamils after failing them during the final stages of the genocidal war last year.
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Sinhala families to be settled in Jaffna with Chinese assistance

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 November 2010, 05:33 GMT]
Colombo government has decided to settle the Sinhala families claiming they were IDPS and demading resettlement in Jaffna on the coastal areas of Jaffna Fort and Ma’niyam-thoaddam in Kozhumpuththu’rai, sources in Jaffna said. Parts of prefabricated houses donated by China to construct 12,000 houses in the areas from Mu'rika'ndi to Mullaiththeevu to settle Sinhala families have been brought to Jaffna to construct houses for the Sinhala families. The Sinhala families claiming resettlement are lodged in the Old Jaffna Railway Station where they had arrived in early October and are looked after by the Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna.
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UN reforms and nations without state

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 November 2010, 21:59 GMT]
Indian media campaigns for permanent membership to India in the UN Security Council. But another opinion appearing in the Indian media show how far the Indian state, riding on the masses for the benefit of a few, is different from the peoples of India. Permanent membership to such an India or to any others in the already vicious and outdated Security Council is not the answer to the current global turmoil. It will further aggravate subservience of humanity to the Establishments. The UN and particularly Indian behaviour on Eezham Tamils is a lesson to humanity. Nations and the oppressed inside India should be the first to oppose India’s permanent seat as they would be the first to face the brunt of it. Meanwhile, nations without state all over the world should work for veto-powered collective say in UN to achieve balance for peace, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Policemen, thugs attack Tamil Village Officer in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 November 2010, 07:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka policemen in civil dress attached to Ea’raavoor police with two thugs assaulted the Tamil Village Officer K. Jeganathan Saturday evening for having produced documents in Tha’lavaay police station that the lands encroached by Muslims in Tha’lavaay legally belong to Tamils, sources in Batticaloa said. They had also destroyed the said documents in possession of the Village Officer.
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War affected women in North exploited by SL ministry agents

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 October 2010, 06:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka government ministries affected by the slump in garment exports due to the loss of GSP Plus face an acute shortage of workers in the garment industries in the South. The workers, mostly women, have left due to drastic pay cuts. The ministries now attempt to lure war affected young women in the North to work in the garment factories in the South at much lower salary. In this context, two groups of young women from Thellippazhai and Uduvil Divisional Secretariat areas in Jaffna have been taken to Colombo Thursday by the agents of some ministries, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an attempt to entice some war affected young women in Ki’linochchi in Vanni with employment by a company in Kandy with the intention of misusing them had been stopped with the timely intervention of local social activists.
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Eelam war damaged India’s reputation: Pinang Deputy Chief Minister

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 October 2010, 17:42 GMT]
India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Malaysian visit to inaugurate ‘Little India’ didn’t go well with Tamils, the predominant Indian community in Malaysia, said Prof. Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister of the Pinang State of Malaysia. The Indian High Commission and other agents of India tried to control the damage. India does not understand that the pernicious actions of India in Eelam have damaged the reputation of the government of India and the entire Indian establishment in the eyes of global Tamils. Before the mass murder in Eelam, Malaysian Tamils looked upon India as their saviour. Today, there is little or no respect for India in general and for the politicians in Tamil Nadu or in the Congress Party, Prof Ramasamy said.
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