Real war is just beginning, get involved: Brian Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 18:47 GMT]
“Despite my involvement over many years, I was taken aback by the result,” writes Brian Senewiratne on the overwhelming mandate for Tamil Eelam in the referenda of the diaspora in several countries. The time for federation has long since gone. Until the Tamil areas are separated from the control in Colombo there will be neither peace nor prosperity in the island. If there is a genuine referendum in the Tamil areas of the island the ‘yes’ vote might be 100 percent and Delhi will have to duck for cover if such a ballot is taken among the 70 million Tamils of Tamil Nadu, he writes. According to him this major crisis of global dimensions, the genesis of which lies in British colonialism, and the global fall-out in resolving it, demands global response. The real war, not in a military sense, is just beginning. Loss of hope has achieved nothing and the ray of hope is the Tamil youth, he says.
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9 injured in head-on collision on A9 road in Chaavakachcheari

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 18:22 GMT]
A vehicle from Colombo carrying passengers to Jaffna along A9 road and another vehicle on its way to Colombo from Jaffna met in a head-on collision, injuring nine persons in Chaavakachcheari , sources in Jaffna said. The injured persons are Tamils who were travelling to Jaffna to attend a funeral. They were first admitted to Chaavakachcheari government hospital and later transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for further treatment.
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Cutting UN ties will earn Sri Lanka rogue status, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 00:28 GMT]
"If the Government of Sri Lanka ruptures relations with the United Nations, then it will turn itself into a pariah state along the lines of apartheid South Africa or the genocidal rump Yugoslavia, both of which the United Nations General Assembly suspended from participation in the activities of the United Nations for their criminal behavior. In fact and in law, the same principles should apply here.," said Professor Boyle, commenting on Colombo's recent warning that "ties with the United Nations (UN) is in danger of going sour if the present conflict with UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon over his move to appoint a panel on Sri Lanka is not resolved."
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‘Vanni Mouse’ wins best fiction award in international film festival

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 March 2010, 18:01 GMT]
A Tamil short film directed by a diaspora Eezham Tamil winning the best award in an international festival is seen as a first with the short film titled ‘Vanni Mouse’, which has won the best film award in the fiction category in the nine-day 11th International Short and Independent Film Festival (ISIFF) at the Shaukat Osman auditorium of Central Public Library in Dhaka on Friday. Commenting on the award, Barrister S. J. Joseph of Eelavar Cine Arts Council, based in London told TamilNet on Monday that this was the first time an Eezham Tamil artist being awarded at an international film festival.
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The Tamil Diaspora

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 March 2010, 13:56 GMT]
Much of the recent commentary on the Tamil Diaspora, both in research and media, not only fails to account for the specific reality of Tamil expatriates in the West, it consciously serves to misrepresent and vilify them, with the explicit objective of denying them their rightful place in the resolution of the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, and limiting their role in the island’s politics, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial.
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Demand US to reveal more inculpatory war crimes evidence, urges Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 March 2010, 18:13 GMT]
While applauding the U.S. Government for revealing significant amount of details that point to complicity of Sri Lanka Government in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, Professor Francis A. Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law, urged American Tamils to "pressure the relevant agencies of the United States government to produce as much evidence in public as they possibly can against the Rajapaksas, Fonseka, the GOSL General Staff, etc." Prof. Boyle noted that "[t]he United States government did this once before against the Serbian genocidaires Milosevic, Karadzic et al. for what they did to the Bosnians and the Kosovars. The United States government can certainly do the same against the GOSL genocidaires against the Tamils," Prof. Boyle said.
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US rights report adds to Colombo's woes over war-crime accusations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 March 2010, 00:08 GMT]
The "2009 Human Rights Report" on Sri Lanka released by the United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, criticized the Sri Lanka Government, paramilitaries working with the Government, and the Liberation Tigers for gross human rights violations. On torture, the report said, "reports of secret government facilities where suspected LTTE sympathizers were taken, tortured, and often killed." The report adds fuel to the recent accusations by high-level officials of the United Nations that Sri Lanka is balking on investigating allegations of war-crimes, and calling for an international investigations.
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TNA releases election manifesto

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 March 2010, 12:08 GMT]
Federal solution based on shared sovereignty and right to self-determination in a contiguous north and east of Sri Lanka was the highlight of the TNA manifesto released Friday. While irreversibly committing on federal solution, the manifesto is ambiguous on the nature of the sovereignty of Eezham Tamils and their right to self determination, said Tamil political circles in their immediate responses. The term shared sovereignty is used to describe structures such as the European Union as well as federal structures with or without the right to secession. The manifesto refrains from either asserting to Tamils exercising their right to self determination to decide the national question in an internationally monitored arrangement or including the unavoidable diaspora in the political process of reaching a solution, the political circles commented further.
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UN investigation can serve as leverage to establish ICTSL, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 March 2010, 03:28 GMT]
Commenting on the United Nations report that UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon's appointed experts will establish standards for Sri Lanka's accountability concerning "possible breaches of international humanitarian law...," Professor Francis A. Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law said, "[t]his language of "international humanitarian law" means that the United Nations will be getting into investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the GOSL against the Tamils, which is an encouraging sign. In other words, the United Nations will be investigating international criminal responsibility by the Rajapaksas, Fonseka, the General Staff, et al," Boyle added.
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Third Mu'l'livaaykkaal in the name of 'development'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 12:50 GMT]
After abetting a military defeat and subsequently blessing a political defeat, the coterie of countries propping up Sri Lankan state is now bent upon enacting a third Mu’l’livaaykkaal, by bringing in a ‘development defeat’ of Eezham Tamils through handing over development management to the Sinhalese, said a concerned group of diaspora Tamils who recently had an experience of negotiating development in a peace-facilitating European country. Funding agencies of this country, citing their present choice of a Sinhala NGO for implementation of programmes in the island, advise Diaspora Tamils seeking development funds for the North and East to work under the Sinhala NGO.
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Time for International Criminal Tribunal on Sri Lanka, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 March 2010, 22:03 GMT]
Dismissing the response by Colombo that Ban Ki Moon had not appointed panel of experts on other countries where there are "continuing armed conflicts on a large scale, involving major humanitarian catastrophes and causing the deaths of large numbers of civilians due to military action," as "simply untrue nonsense," Francis A. Boyle, professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that during the past year alone UN Human Rights Council had authorized Goldstone Commission investigation into Israel war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. Noting that the "United Nations is just beginning to do the right thing for the Tamils," Prof Boyle urged that "Tamils around the world could do the same thing for establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka (ICTSL)."
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US Supreme Court ruling on "sovereign immunity" key to war crimes litigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 March 2010, 01:55 GMT]
The central issue discussed in the March 4th morning arguments heard by the panel of nine United States Supreme Court judges in the case Samantar v. Yousuf was not if the the former Somali defense minister Samantar was responsible for torture, war-crimes, and rape in his native land but whether Samantar has immunity under the Foreign State Immunity Act (FSIA) preventing alleged victims from bringing him to court in the United States on tort claims. The courts ruling which is expected in June, will set an important legal precedent, and will likely determine if alleged war criminals can use US as a safe-haven, legal sources in Washington D.C. said.
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Experts to advise Ban Ki Moon on Sri Lanka's alleged war-crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 March 2010, 16:00 GMT]
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to ask a panel of experts to advise the world body on "accountability issues" relating to possible human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, Reuters reported quoting spokesperson Martin Nesirky as saying. Ban has said an investigation of war crimes allegations should be handled by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Navi Pillay, who has called on Sri Lanka to investigate the allegations itself -- albeit with outside help, Reuters added. Calling the action "unwarranted" Sri Lanka said, "[n]o such action had been taken about other states with continuing armed conflicts on a large scale, involving major humanitarian catastrophes and causing the deaths of large numbers of civilians due to military action."
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GTF resolution inspires Tamil polity

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 March 2010, 05:13 GMT]
Whereas the Tamils democratically gave the mandate for the independence of their own country Tamil Eelam by endorsing the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976, in the 1977 general elections, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) calls upon the international community, governments, leaders and the UN to conduct a UN monitored referendum in the North-East region of Sri Lanka and among the displaced Tamils living in other countries, to determine if they wish independence or to be part of a united Sri Lanka, says a crucial part of the GTF resolution passed unanimously in London last week. The GTF resolution, not voluntarily surrendering the cause of Eezham Tamils but leaving it to the democratic choice of the concerned people, should inspire polity in the name of Tamil nationalism in the island and in the diaspora, Tamil circles commented.
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French UN comments wrong, misleading, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 March 2010, 00:12 GMT]
Responding to United Nation's France Ambassador, Gerard Araud's, comment on UN inaction on Sri Lanka's civilian slaughter that the UN Secretary General cannot intervene against the wishes of a UN member state, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law and a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet that the French statement is "simply wrong and deliberately misleading," and explained that "article 100 of the UN charter made it quite clear that UN Secretariat, including the Secretary General, was completely independent of the Member States of the United Nations."
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Police collect information of Vanni IDPs living out of refugee camps in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 March 2010, 18:37 GMT]
Tamil Nadu police and its intelligence unit personnel are actively engaged in collecting details of the persons internally displaced from Vanni during the later stages of war who had gone to Tamil Nadu in South India from the detention centres in Vavuniyaa, sources in Tamil Nadu said. Information is being gathered particularly of those who are living with their relatives and friends in Tamil Nadu. Involvement of Sri Lanka intelligence in this investigation is suspected as many Vanni IDPs from Vavuniyaa detention centres were abducted by SL intelligence department and forced into turning informers, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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Police arrest Udappu residents in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 March 2010, 09:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police Thursday claimed that they had taken into custody twenty-five persons at Naavaladi in Batticaloa in an attempt to flee by boat to seek asylum in a foreign country, probably Australia. Twenty Tamils and five Sinhalese were in the group.
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Swiss Tamils set benchmark in political organisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 March 2010, 01:32 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in Switzerland will democratically elect their representatives to form Swiss Council of Eezham Tamils on March 28, announced Tamil Election Switzerland (TES) it its official website. The constitution of the council will be based on the democratic mandate given by the diaspora Tamils of Switzerland in a referendum held in January this year, the announcement further said. The democratic moves of Swiss Tamils for their political organisation have already received widespread appreciation from the Swiss media, political parties and from the members of the National Parliament. The council will follow Switzerland's federal model of cantons for its structure, said Thayatharan Deivendran, the spokesman of the election committee.
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China, India, compete helping Colombo’s demographic onslaught of Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 March 2010, 01:30 GMT]
While Colombo plans allotting lands for ‘retired’ Sinhala army personnel in the so-called 'resettlement' schemes of Tamil North and East of the island of Sri Lanka, China and India compete in proving who is the best facilitator of Colombo in its demographic onslaught, Eezham Tamils circles said. China has emerged as Sri Lanka’s biggest single lender in 2009, revealed Colombo sources adding that China’s top aid to the North was spent particularly on creating conducive environment for Colombo’s occupying armed forces there. India is already helping Colombo’s communication strategies disrupting Tamil demographic contiguity. In the meantime, relieving Colombo from Western pressure, Indian envoy in Colombo said Sri Lanka could export more garments to India under Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
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Government engaged in setting up Sinhalese colonies in Vanni – Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 March 2010, 15:34 GMT]
“Sri Lanka government is actively engaged in colonizing the Vanni districts of Mannaar, Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi with the families of armed force personnel and Sinhalese people,” Suresh Premachandran, former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and one of the TNA candidates contesting Jaffna electoral district, said in a press briefing held Wednesday at his Jaffna office.
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