Sri Lanka torture concerns well founded, says Time

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 April 2013, 06:17 GMT]
The popular biweekly, the Time magazine, commenting on Sri Lanka's deteriorating rights climate, said that amid abuse and fear, Tamils are continuing to flee Sri Lanka, and that torture and sexual violence by Sri Lanka's military against Tamils with alleged separatist ties during the 26-year civil war make credible the threat of torture to a well-known Tamil TV reporter who the UAE is threatening to deport to Sri Lanka. Also pointing to the attack on Uthayan, the Time said, "[t]he tensions revealed in the incident [at Uthayan] are becoming depressingly familiar. The clouds have been darkening over this picturesque island nation in recent years as euphoria over the end of its long-running civil war has ebbed."
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Torture is systemic in Sri Lanka, HK Court sends chilling message

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 April 2013, 10:02 GMT]
Giving additional impetus to world-wide protests of Tamils against the gross rights violations, including torture, on Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka security forces, and reinforcing that torture is endemic to Sri Lanka's oppressive state apparatus, and systemic across successive Sri Lanka governments, Hong Kong's appeals court granted asylum to two Tamil men, declaring that the men face torture and can claim "well-founded fear of persecution" if returned to Sri Lanka, reports from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, reveal. The two Tamils are believed to be the first and the second to win appeal cases since a new appeal process was set in place in 2009 in Hong Kong. The first man arrived in Hong Kong in 2003, at age 20. The names of the two were not made public due to security reasons, reports said.
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NZ Intelligence alleged of monitoring former Green MP for involvement in Tamil question

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 April 2013, 16:50 GMT]
New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service (SIS), which is part of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence network, comprising the intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada, Britain and the USA, was alleged of monitoring former Green party politician Keith Locke, who has been sympathetic to the Tamil cause. Mr Locke believes the SIS began covert operations on him in 2003, when he travelled to Sri Lanka, reports The Dominion Post. The former Green Party politician has demanded apology for illegal spying and that all 88 New Zealanders who were being spied on should be notified if the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) has illegally snooped on them.
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Tamil genocide framework highlighted in Slovenia Conference

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 April 2013, 11:14 GMT]
The framework of genocide carried by Colombo on Eelam Tamils is featured in a poster presentation at the Slovenia conference on R2P being held in the Faculty of Law, University of Lkubljana, Thursday by Tamils Against Genocide [TAG], a US-UK based activist organization, the conference details reveal. More than 80 speakers and poster presenters from almost 40 states and international institutions will discuss issues regarding R2P in 2 parallel panels each day, according to the conference program.
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‘TN student movement opens possibilities of new political futures’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 April 2013, 22:41 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu student movement that has “thrown up a new young leadership” that is unaffiliated to any political party and is challenging the US-sponsored UNHRC resolution on conceptually firm grounds “clearly shows that here is a new generation of Tamils which is imagining new political futures,” write Prof MSS Pandian and PhD scholar A. Kalaiarasan in a commentary published on the April 13 issue of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). In the article titled ‘A Tamil Spring?’ making a concise sociological analysis of the evolution of the student protests, the authors show how the student uprising, besides affecting the mass sentiments of the TN public and effecting greater awareness on the nuances of the Tamil Eelam struggle, is also influencing, challenging and changing the political discourse of parliamentary parties in Tamil Nadu.
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Wild elephants deployed by Colombo's forest department claim lives of Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 April 2013, 09:12 GMT]
Sri Lankan Forest Department, in recent weeks, has brought in a number of wild elephants from Sinhala areas into the jungles adjacent to Koa'ra'laip-pattu South Division of the Batticaloa district, where uprooted Tamil people have resettled after the end of war. The Divisional Secretary of Koa'ra'laippattu South, Mr Thanabalasundaram, when contacted by reporters in Batticaloa, admitted that two Tamil civilians have been killed within the last 30 days by the wild elephants that have gone amok on the villagers and their properties. The lives and the livelihood of 3,000 Tamil villagers are threatened by the presence of more than 50 wild elephants of the Sinhala forest department.
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SL military machinates caste, anti-diaspora violence in Jaffna villages

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 April 2013, 07:39 GMT]
An SL Military intelligence backed attack that took place in a Marriage Hall at Aavarangkaal in Puththoor, Jaffna, on last Wednesday and Thursday, shows to what extent the occupying Sinhala military has determined to engineer caste and anti-diaspora violence in select rural areas of Jaffna Peninsula to ultimately make Eezham Tamils weakened as a nation in the island, news sources in Jaffna said. The Marriage Hall that was preparing for a marriage function and its manager who is a retired Village Officer, were brutally attacked by a gang of youth organized by the occupying Sinhala military and its collaborators in Jaffna. The reason for the attack is said to be a publication coming from the diaspora in the UK that was stocked at the Marriage Hall for release. The publication was interpreted as a talk on caste and false accusation against SL military.
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TNA MP cautions on PC elections harped on by Geneva resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 March 2013, 15:05 GMT]
“We are a distinct Nation with historic records in this soil, proving our evolution [as a Nation]. The Sinhala Nation destroyed us. A nation was destroyed by another nation here. But, the international community has handed us over to those who destroyed us to investigate the crimes against us; we have been handed over to those who fired upon us; to those who fired shells on us; to those who fired phosphorus bombs against us; to those who fired cluster munitions on us. How can you expect justice from this country [of the Sinhala Nation],” asked Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan, in a press meet in Jaffna on Wednesday. “Therefore, an intervention by the international community is a must and an urgent one,” failing which the existence of the Tamil nation in the island would be wiped out from the maps of the world, he further said.
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Tamils should resist being taken into current western agenda: N Malathy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2013, 12:36 GMT]
Tamils should be wary of the intentions of the Western Establishments that are pricking Sri Lanka with this or that war crimes evidence released year after year. They hold possession of a lot more hard evidence of Sri Lankan atrocities, but still do not address the question of genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, opines N. Malathy, arguing that, “the best option for the Tamils world all over is to use the insights they have gained in recent years and refuse to be taken into the Western fold. Tamils should firmly stand their ground about the genocide of Eelam Tamils and the necessity of the creation of independent Tamil Eelam.” In an article to TamilNet, Dr. Malathy, a key member of the NESoHR and the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my County’, gives a concise outline of how the West was playing the human rights card to bring both Sri Lanka and the Eezham Tamils into its fold.
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Colombo's land appropriation to be accelerated in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2013, 00:09 GMT]
Aiming to alienate lands from the people of North and East and to enable the colonial governors and SL government agents to abet an accelerated land appropriation, circumventing even the legal challenges posed by Tamil activists and NGOs, the Sri Lankan Minister of Lands and Land Development, Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, has set forth parameters for a land programme with the participation of the Sri Lankan military in the North this month. But, the projection given to the world during the Geneva session was that the SL State was establishing two offices in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi, to hand over thousands of acres of lands back to civilians. When questioned where these lands are situated and under which GS areas they come in, the minister or the military commander had no specific answer to provide, news sources in Ki'linochchi and Jaffna said.
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Geneva resolution will impede progress: NYT

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 March 2013, 20:42 GMT]
The Human Rights Council voted once again to urge the Sri Lankan government to investigate “alleged violations of human rights” for the growing evidence that government soldiers killed tens of thousands of civilians in their bloody campaign to crush the LTTE. "But as with last year’s resolution, this year’s Council vote offers little more than hand-wringing," an opinion column in the New York Times said, adding, "[w]hile they carry symbolic weight, such resolutions may, in fact, be impeding progress rather than facilitating it."
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Unprecedented demonstration in Tamil Nadu denounces empty resolution at Geneva

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 March 2013, 03:29 GMT]
Several hundreds of thousands people across Tamil Nadu took to streets on Wednesday in a students-led demonstration unprecedented in recent decades in Tamil Nadu, denouncing the US-tabled empty resolution further diluted by New Delhi at Geneva, and demanding international investigations and plebiscite on the question of Eezham Tamils. Peaceful demonstrations took place at every part of Tamil Nadu, including all the major cities. Conservative estimates put the total number of participants, mostly students, at a million. The positions taken by Washington and New Delhi, the leading architects and abetters to the genocidal war in the island, in bringing out a deceptive resolution at Geneva have contributed immensely to the confirmed awareness among the people of Tamil Nadu that Tamil Eelam is the only solution to the genocide-affected Eezham Tamils, political observers in Chennai commented.
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Kapila Jeyasekara, alleged killer of Trinco-5 students, appointed Vanni DIG

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 March 2013, 10:16 GMT]
H.D.K.S. Kapila Jeyasekera, who rose in ranks as the Superintendent of Police (SP) from the Special Task Force (STF), and who was alleged to have been responsible for the extra-judicial execution of five Trincomalee students in 2006, and other killings in Trincomalee during 2006, including the ACF-17 killings, has been appointed as the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) to the Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu district, Jaffna Tamil daily Uthayan reported. Mr Jeyasekara is also a close ally of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, and has been kept out of visible public presence after Jeyasekera was accused of a serious security lapse involving India's Prime Minister during his visit to Colombo in 2008.
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U.S. Congressman calls for International Investigation into war-crimes

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 01:13 GMT]
U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to Secretary Kerry on Wednesday, expressed serious concern regarding the deterioration of democracy and the lack of progress on reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka, and added that "now is the time for the State Department to support calls for an Independent International Investigation into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka." The Congressman's call answers those who argue among Tamils that the tabled resolution already has provisions for international investigation.
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Colombo deploys former LTTE members to twist opposition to US resolution

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 March 2013, 07:32 GMT]
While the Tamil Nadu students in an unprecedented international approach have risen up targeting the hollow resolution tabled by the USA at Geneva, and have come out with 9 demands addressed to New Delhi and Tamil Nadu governments, Colombo engineering an ironical twist to the Tamil uprising, organised a simulated anti-resolution demonstration in Vanni on Tuesday directed by the Sinhala military with the forced participation of former LTTE members, who are now kept as farm labourers by the military. The demonstration was scheduled to take place in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu by placing the detained former LTTE members in the forefront, followed by public passers-by who were detained for this purpose by the SL military on Tuesday morning. But, the plan flopped and the SL military had to bring in Sinhalese from Mannaar in 3 buses to stage the demonstration in Ki'linochchi.
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Tutu, Robinson call for shift of CHOGM venue

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 March 2013, 02:12 GMT]
Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu and the first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, both members of The Elders, a group of independent leaders working for peace, justice and human rights, supported the "calls by Sri Lankan civil society, and by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for an independent and credible international investigation into alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law perpetrated by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," and urged "the Commonwealth to seriously reconsider appointing Sri Lanka as its chair for 2013-15, as it currently plans to do. In this role, Sri Lanka would host the biennial meeting of Commonwealth heads of government (CHOGM) in November this year," Times of India reported.
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Colombo attempts to resurrect bogey of suicide terror

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 March 2013, 02:35 GMT]
Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, and the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State University co-sponsored "a dialogue" Friday on suicide bombers in New York, and how the Government of Sri Lanka eliminated the menace and successfully prosecuted the war on terror, sources attending the event told TamilNet. The belated attempt to rekindle the "suicide terror" factor, four years after the Mu'l'livaaykaal massacre and the death of LTTE leadership, was a desperate diversionary measure to shift the increasing focus from Sri Lanka's human rights violations and alleged complicity in mass atrocities, Tamil circles commented.
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US UNHRC inaction not inconsistent with saving Rajapakse in US Courts, says TAG

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 March 2013, 01:03 GMT]
The resolution tabled in the Geneva UNHCR sessions by the USA in concert with India, which sidesteps forcing an independent international investigation into the Mu'l'livaaykaal killings, and misleads the Eezham Tamils into a mirage that international community will seek accountability, appears entirely consistent with the intervention of the U.S. State Department in the legal actions pursued by Tamil plaintiffs against Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse, legal sources in Washington said. U.S. is acting as a proxy to Rajapakses in filing legal briefs and replacing Patton Boggs as "the attorneys" for Rajapakse.
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Colombo reaches ‘understanding’ with USA, claims Sinhala daily

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 March 2013, 07:09 GMT]
Sinhala daily Divaina, which is a sister news paper of The Island, published by Upali Newspapers in Colombo, has stated in a recent news report citing ‘reliable’ sources that Colombo had reached a mutual understanding with Washington on the implementation of LLRC and monitoring its implementation through a Rajapaksa-appointed Commission of Colombo. According to the paper, the USA had promised to Colombo that it would refrain from imposing sanctions on Sri Lanka through UN Security Council until 2016. Last week, the External Affairs Minister of the New Delhi Establishment in the Indian parliament ‘encouraged’ the USA and Sri Lanka “to directly engage on the draft resolution and aim for a mutually acceptable outcome.”
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Nailing genocidaires

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 March 2013, 17:05 GMT]
When Sri Lanka is being hauled naked with alleged international crimes committed against its own Tamil citizens exposed to the rest of the world in the UN's Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva this week, two other stories of genocidaires nabbed and brought to justice in other parts of the world drew media headlines. Yvonne Basebya, 66, becomes first Dutch citizen to be convicted in Denmark for complicity in the Rwandan genocide, and the former Guatemalan president, José Efraín Ríos Montt, was ordered to stand trial in the Guatamalan national court for genocide and crimes against humanity carried out during his seventeen month dictatorship between 1982 and 1983.
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