TULF releases election manifesto in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 March 2010, 15:39 GMT]
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader, V. N. Anandasangari, released the election manifesto of TULF Tuesday at the party office in Stanley Veethi in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. He said that the Tamil parliamentarians elected in the last general election in Jaffna district had done nothing for the good of the Tamils and that they should withdraw from contesting so as to pave the way for TULF. Hundreds of TULF supporters were present on the occasion.
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Ex-Somali defense minister in war-crimes trial in US

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 March 2010, 12:09 GMT]
U.S. Supreme Court will hear "war-crimes charges" against former Somali Defense minister and Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Samantar in a civil case this Wednesday, legal sources in Washington said. Samantar, 74, currently lives in Fairfax, Virginia, after fleeing his native country in 1991 to Rome, and then moving to the U.S. to join his wife and children in 1997. Samantar's five accusers say that Samantar bears command responsibility for a "regime of repeated rape, abduction, summary execution, and years long imprisonment in solitiary confinement" of many of their relatives. Samantar's attorneys argue that their client has immunity under Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act.
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Tamil National Peoples Front launched in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 March 2010, 06:26 GMT]
It was announced that a new Tamil national political alliance called ‘Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF)' has been formed, in a press meet held Sunday at the Jaffna office of All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) party. Former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians Gejendrakumar Ponnambalam, S. Kajendren, Ms. Pathmini Sithamparanathan and TNA activists including ACTC chief candidate Sinnathurai Varatharajan for Jaffna electoral district were present at the press briefing. The new Alliance stated that it was based firmly on the concept of Tamil nationalism: Homeland, Tamil nationhood, Tamil sovereignty and Tamils Right to self-determination.
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Denmark silences detractors of Tamil referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 February 2010, 23:52 GMT]
4,147 out of an estimated 6,000 to 6,500 eligible Eezham Tamil voters in Denmark participated in the referendum conducted by a third party professional institute on Sunday and 98.2 percent of them voted yes for the formation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the contiguous north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. Denmark is the eighth country in the West where Eezham Tamils have overwhelmingly demonstrated their aspiration for independence through a series of referenda conducted among the diaspora. Even though the population of Eezham Tamils in Denmark is relatively small, since their number is known with fair accuracy, the turn out and poll results are very significant in silencing detracting campaign against the very democratic process of Tamil referendum, diaspora circles said.
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Denmark goes for Tamil referendum Sunday

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 February 2010, 20:06 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in Denmark will cast their ballot in 32 centres across the country in a referendum on the question of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. The referendum will be conducted by a professional institute TNS Gallup, specialised in sociological and public opinion research services, deploying electronic system for confidential voting, says Dr. Remmon Washington, the spokesperson of the Denmark Tamils Forum formation committee, which has initiated the poll. The total number of eligible Eezham Tamil voters in Denmark is estimated to be ranging around 6,500.
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British Shadow FM calls for political reform, independent war-crime investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 February 2010, 17:21 GMT]
Noting that "there is a natural affinity between Tamils in Britain and our [Conservative] Party," William Hague, the British Shadow Foreign Secretary, in his speech to the inaugural launch of Global Tamil Forum, warned that the "continued confinement [of thousands] will simply sow the seeds of discontent, [and] could lead to renewed conflict in years to come," called for "meaningful political reform," and said that "there should be a full independent inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the final stages of the military conflict."
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'Eezham Tamils to act for themselves'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 February 2010, 04:15 GMT]
Political, social and economic movements, firmly rooted in national aspiration and democratic in structure, but placed above pseudo electoral politics in the island and power machinations outside, are the need of the hour for Eezham Tamils in the homeland and in the diaspora. Specific tasks ahead of them range from infrastructural nation-formation to damage control of the on going ‘development’ onslaught. At least some core movements of Tamils need to keep collaboration, international crisis engineers and aid funds at arms length and hit the bullseye in alternative ways by independent and ingenious handling of the little resources of Tamils, writes Opinion Columnist Chivanadi. The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) that is meeting in London is expected to fill the vacuum Eezham Tamils face in the island and in the diaspora, he says.
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GTF launch well attended by British politicians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 February 2010, 03:13 GMT]
British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Liberal Democrats Shadow Foreign Secretary Ed Davey all addressed the Global Tamil Forum’s inaugural meeting in London on Wednesday, 24 February. The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) launch saw delegates from 14 countries gather in the UK House of Commons to be addressed by speakers from across the political spectrum, including parliamentarians, councilors and prospective parliamentary candidates. Some delegates were also invited in for a private meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
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Myth of Sri Lankan state and the historic responsibility of Tamil leadership

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 February 2010, 18:49 GMT]
Why Tamil political leadership should never on its own surrender sovereignty, why Tamils are coerced to surrender it by all quarters concerned, what are the historical and legal bases for claims of Tamil sovereignty in the island – these are questions every Eezham Tamil, whether politician or layman has to put to serious perusal at this historic juncture, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Just like the Sinhalese, Tamils also lost their sovereignty to the Portuguese but through a separate legal convention. The Tamils have not regained it like the Sinhalese but proved it de facto. After an unfair war, TNA or any other Eezham Tamil leadership should not make the historic blunder of again surrendering Tamil sovereignty and also proving that surrender in a ballot, he further writes.
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Pasadena firm assists in Alston's execution video analysis

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2010, 20:59 GMT]
Evidence from reputable and established forensic firms on the authenticity of the Channel-4 execution video continues to accumulate, and the latest is a Pasadena, California, forensic firm which disclosed Friday that one of the firm's technical representative, Jeff Spivak, assisted Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in analyzing the video for authenticty. The firm claimed that "[i]n part, due to the image processing results performed with the Cognitech Video Investigator software, UN Rapporteur Professor Phillip Alston, has requested a full scale investigation into the incident," indicating a positive conclusion that video was authentic.
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India to screen academics of Sri Lanka attending conferences

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2010, 20:25 GMT]
Participants from Sri Lanka to conferences in India require advance security clearance from the Home Ministry of India. The restrictions are applicable to peoples of eight countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and to people of Pakistani origin and stateless persons, media reports said Friday, citing instructions sent to all Central Ministries, Departments and Chief Secretaries of all State Governments and Union Territories. India’s foreign policy necessitating six-weeks scrutiny for academics of one half of the countries of South Asia is shocking, political observers said adding that while governments collaborate in state terrorism at higher levels they prevent their peoples uniting against it. Some of the countries now red-flagged for academics were India’s staunch partners in abetting Sri Lanka’s war crimes and defending them at the UNHRC.
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Sri Lanka enters Information dark age?

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2010, 03:28 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka's plans for additional cyber censorship, and the invitations extended to Chinese Information Technology experts for assistance in formulating Sri Lanka's internet policy framework, Prof. Kumar David, in the weekend edition of Lakbima says, "This [Rajapakse Government] is a frightened regime, truth and transparency give it diarrhoea; this country [Sri Lanka] has never before been threatened with despotic thought control replicating Chinese or any other Stalinism as the norm; no not ever before. The worst is that once this rotten lot start it, the next government and the ones thereafter, UNP, SF or whoever, will never roll it back; they too will exploit these despotic powers to the full, till one day the people throw out the whole putrid system."
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Fundamentalism versus totalitarianism in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 February 2010, 03:22 GMT]
Religious fundamentalism and state totalitarianism, which contribute to each other in the island of Sri Lanka is now at loggerheads, when state totalitarianism wants to have complete reins over the other, is the interpretation of a leftist academic in Colombo over the Maha Sangha controversy this week. Meanwhile, BBC Sinhala reported Friday, that "the main opposition in Sri Lanka has accused the government of violating the constitution by trying to destroy the Theravada Buddhism in the island."
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Anniversary of Murugathasan’s death marked in Geneva

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 February 2010, 04:03 GMT]
Tamils from across Europe gathered in Geneva Saturday to commemorate the life Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, who immolated himself in February last year to draw attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Tamils being starved and killed in the Vanni, Sri Lanka. The commemoration coincidentally followed soon after former UN official, Gordon Weiss, admitted that the Sri Lankan government was responsible for the deaths of up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in the last days of the war alone. This is a figure far larger than the 7,000 the UN had previously claimed as being the number killed in the Vanni, but even that figure was disputed by the Sri Lankan government.
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Facilitating transnational government needs to be democratic: NCET

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 February 2010, 15:55 GMT]
For the successful formation of Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), the idea should be strongly rooted in the people and there should be consensus in the transnational diaspora on the model, says Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET) responding to the call for comments by the TGTE formation committee on a model proposed by its advisory panel. A grass root based transnational government having federal units and inter-locking mechanism is a better democratic option than a monolithic and high-powered structure conceived in the proposed model, the NCET said, adding that sectarianism and singly led formation process diminish chances of consensus on the model. In a public videoconference recently held in Oslo, Mr V. Rudrakumaran admitted that he alone was the Formation Committee of the TGTE, the observations of the NCET said.
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TNA shouldn't fail representing hearts of Tamils: Fr. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 February 2010, 13:26 GMT]
At a time when Colombo and its collaborators try their best to erase out the national aspirations of Tamils, the Tamil National Alliance has the noble responsibility to maintain its unity in being the true voice and champions of Tamil aspirations, says Rev. Prof. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, the former Vicar General of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna in an open letter addressed to TNA leaders Sampanthan, Mavai Senathirajah, Suresh Premachandran, Selvam Adaikalanathan and Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam. Eezham Tamils have been consistent in expressing their genuine desire for independence ever since 1976 and even now it remains the underlying goal despite constitutional sanction on speaking it out openly in the island of Sri Lanka. But, their kith and kin in the free diaspora have voiced on their behalf, overwhelmingly re-confirming that desire as the standing-aspiration, he said in the appeal.
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Perception on ex-LTTE members must be revised: former Aussie diplomat

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 February 2010, 10:55 GMT]
Australian authorities must cease bowing to influence and pressure from the Sri Lankan Government in its handling of asylum seekers said former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh in a letter to the editor appearing in the Australian Financial Review and Canberra Times. Condemning the Rajapaksa administrations slaughter of “anywhere between 10-40,000 civilians”, its censoring of the media and rapid descent into dictatorship, Haigh described the Sri Lanka Government “corrupt” and “tarnished”, before urging a review on the assessment of LTTE members who were merely ”soldiers on one side in a particularly brutal and nasty civil war, a war in which both sides employed terrorism as a weapon” and who do not represent a security threat to Australia as stated by intelligence organisations.
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UN rights chief says lack of progress in Sri Lanka investigations

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 03:43 GMT]
Recent statement in Dublin by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navaneetham Pillai, that national investigations in Sri Lanka "have not worked so far," and Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse's interview to the BBC, where Mr Rajapakse said that "he would not allow any war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka," are two forceful statements with enough legal weight to satisfy the basic requirement of international law mandating "complementarity," legal sources in Washington said. International law permits International bodies to step-in to conduct investigations on war-crimes in Sri Lanka, as the opportunities given to Sri Lanka to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed by its armed forces have been exhausted, legal sources added.
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Three-pronged Sinhala colonization in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 February 2010, 04:52 GMT]
Ko’ndachchi-Chilaavaththu’rai, Thalaimannaar Pier and Madu in Mannaar district are being particularly targeted for Sinhala-Buddhist colonies by the colonial government in Colombo, news reports from Mannaar said Sunday. Everyday, colonizers with shelter-making facilities and boats are brought through Vilpattu from Puththa’lam district and from Medawachchiya of Anuradhapura district, news sources said adding that even this Sinhalicisation is carefully planned for Buddhicisation of the Tamil Muslim and Christian dominated district. The long-term impact of the process is sure to be felt in coastal Tamil Nadu and in Tamil relationship across the seas, whatever equation imperial India may have with Colombo, Tamil circles said. Meanwhile, diplomats and agencies of Establishments who try to con Tamils need serious education on what is genocide – the Sri Lankan model, diaspora circles commented.
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'Sri Lanka Navy responsible for abductions in Mannaar'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 February 2010, 12:00 GMT]
Relatives of most of the disappeared persons in Mannaar district, who attended a discussion organised by Vavuniyaa Non-Violent Peace Organisation at Mannaar Divisional Secretariat on Friday have said that most of the disappeared were taken into 'custody' by the Sri Lanka Navy for 'interrogation'. The meeting was organised to collect details of the missing persons in the district. More than one hundred fifty civilians, majority of them were Tamils, had disappeared in the district during the last two years.
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