Australia should withdraw from CHOGM in Sri Lanka: Lee Rhiannon

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 February 2013, 05:24 GMT]
While Australian Liberal MPs Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop gave a clean chit to the genocide-accused Sri Lankan state after their recent visit to the island, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has called on Australia to end its silence on Sri Lanka and to withdraw from the CHOGM in a statement on Thursday. Referring to the recent report by HRW on Sri Lanka’s systematic sexual violence on Tamils and to an earlier TamilNet’s feature on the genocidal rape of LTTE cadres, she further lamented Australia still not taking a decisive position for the Tamils. Speaking to TamilNet, Ms. Rhiannon said “The international community must no longer fail the people of Sri Lanka. With the UNHCR meeting in Geneva and the mounting evidence of war crimes emerging, this is an ideal moment to support the Tamil diaspora’s call for an international investigation into the charges of war crimes and genocide.”
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‘Sexual violence against Tamils is premeditated, deliberate’: HRW UK Director

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 February 2013, 06:26 GMT]
Responding to a question posed by TamilNet at a Human Rights Watch press meet in London on Tuesday, UK director of the HRW, Mr. David Mepham stated that the sexual violence perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state forces against the Tamils was not random but had a method in it, adding that it was deliberate and premeditated. In an exclusive interview to TamilNet, Mr. Mepham further said that HRW stood for an independent international investigation into human rights abuses committed by the GoSL, terming the LLRC “a bit of a farce”, and opining that the “culture of impunity” in Sri Lanka needs to be addressed by the International Community. However, Mr. Mepham said that HRW “has not taken the view that this is genocide,” but only that systematic human rights abuses were committed by the Sri Lankan government, blaming the LTTE also for human rights violations.
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International investigation essential - Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 February 2013, 21:50 GMT]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navaneetham Pillay, in an e-mail interview with Sunday Times, held steadfastedly to her belief that since the steps Sri Lanka has taken domestically has not inspired confidence, an International investigation into the crimes committed by both adversarial parties was essential for accountability, and to reconciliation. High Commissioner Pillay remained focused on the need to establish the truth of what happened during the final months of war while fending off the journalist's leading questions, and infused a fresh determination to establish accountability to the otherwise stiffling inaction of other International actors, Tamil political observers noted.
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Suspect genocidaire gives U.S. marines lessons in war

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 February 2013, 17:38 GMT]
Tamil activists questioned the bonafides of the U.S. Government in the US attempts to push for accountability in Sri Lanka's war, after the alleged war-criminal, Sri Lanka’s United Nations Deputy Permanent Representative Shavendra Silva, was invited to speak on "defeating terrorism" at the United States Marine Corps University in New York. Sources close to policy makers in Washington said that the approval for the "lecture" would not have been given without the knowledge of the US State Department and Department of Defense.
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Blake, architect of Tamil tragedy, spectator to genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 February 2013, 22:22 GMT]
Blinded by the 9/11 terror and impelled by the perceived need for swift action against "terrorism," the US-led International Community, made two serious miscalculations in Sri Lanka war: By allowing unhindered space for Sri Lanka's final military thrust, they misjudged Sinhala society's willing capacity to inflict bestial, savage crimes on fellow human beings; and the IC's belief that, once the Tigers are eliminated Rajapakses will “fill in the gaps” and provide an acceptable political solution, has been shown as embarrassingly flawed. Now, as the IC savors the dystopian-monster they created, the need to whitewash the atrocities by side-stepping accountability, and to focus on development, appear to be driving IC's actions. Tamils, now left defenseless, hold Ambassador Blake, as the key US official who shaped the US policy on Sri Lanka's war, responsible for the tragedy.
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Washington Post: Sri Lanka's squandered opportunities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 February 2013, 12:08 GMT]
Washington Post, in a main editorial piece Thursday, said that Sri Lanka is on a descent from democracy, and noting that repeated and public protest by the West on Rajapaksa’s retrograde measures "have fallen on deaf ears," advocated that threats to "move or boycott the [Commonwealth] summit and Sri Lanka’s assumption of the Commonwealth chairmanship, [by] governments such as Britain, Canada and Australia could send a clear message to Mr. Rajapaksa that his policies are unacceptable to democratic nations."
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Channel 4 releases documentary evidence on SL war crime

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 February 2013, 01:03 GMT]
Releasing photos of LTTE leader Pirapaharan's 12-year-old son Balachandran, who was captured by the occupying Sinhala military in the final hours of the genocidal onslaught on Vanni, the British Channel 4 television on Monday said that the photos, which had been taken before and after the brutal slaying of the boy, stemmed from the same camera within a period of two hours. Releasing the photos in a write up to The Independent, Callum Macrae, the director of “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka,” said “this is proof, beyond reasonable doubt, of the execution of a child – not a battlefield death.” The news was titled “Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son of a Tamil Tiger”.
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UN envoy to Burma laments condition of Kachin, Rohingya refugee camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 February 2013, 23:53 GMT]
Criticizing the Burmese government and Buddhist extremists in Burma for the pathetic conditions of camps for Internally Displaced Persons belonging to the Rohingya and Kachin ethnic communities, the UN Special Rapporteur to Burma Mr. Tomas Ojea Quintana, addressing a press conference on Saturday, compared the refugee camps to prisons, Burmese media reported. The camps are located in the Rakhine state of Burma which house over a 100000 Rohingya IDPs, who were displaced in last year’s ethnic violence, and in the Kachin state in North Burma, where Kachin rebels have been fighting for regional autonomy. Peace talks between the Kachin rebels and Burma have been on since early this February. The current Burmese government ruled by President Thein Sein, a former military commander, is considered by some analysts to be a moderate, pro-reform and pro-US regime.
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UK under secretary gives ‘friendly’ advice to genocidal Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 February 2013, 04:30 GMT]
Stating that the genocide-accused Mahinda Rajapaksa “has banished terrorism from his country and ushered in a new period of prosperity”, Alistair Burt, British Under Secretary of State at the FCO, advised Colombo to learn from the British experience in Northern Ireland and to implement the LLRC recommendations, in an article written for the Canadian news agency The Globe and Mail, on Friday. Mr. Burt was making these comments after a tour of the militarily occupied Tamil homeland earlier this month, which was criticized by civil society activists in the North as a “war picnic”. Grassroots Eezham Tamil activists in the UK came down on the Conservative minister’s article, alleging that it was lending legitimacy to the genocidal Sri Lankan state.
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"Free pass on rights violations, a dangerous precedent"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 February 2013, 15:57 GMT]
"The end of war has not augured a return to normalcy in Sri Lanka’s North and East. Rather, there are clear, indisputable indications that conditions are getting worse. Consequently, international condemnation of the country’s human rights record is not only justified; it is essential. Giving Sri Lanka a free pass on human rights and reconciliation would set a damaging precedent that could take decades to overcome. If the time for more resolute action has not yet arrived, will it ever?" asks an analytical article on Foreign Policy (FP) magazine's website.
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CHOGM boycott calls for renewed action on Sri Lanka judicial independence

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 February 2013, 17:58 GMT]
As Canada continues to voice its call for boycott of Commonwealth summit scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in November this year, Commonwealth officials renewed efforts to nudge Sri Lanka to adhere to principles of judicial independence, after Colombo defied international appeals and sacked its chief justice in January. Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma is holding talks with Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo on the rule of law and the separation of powers, AFP reported.
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Russia celebrates 70th anniversary of Stalingrad

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2013, 02:57 GMT]
Russians commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles waged during World War II, on Saturday. Stalingrad, later named as Volgograd in 1961 under Khrushchev, marked the decisive turning point on the Eastern Front of the War since Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. With over a million civilian and military casualties, the Soviets were able to repulse the Nazi invasion in February 1943 and push forward right into Berlin. While Russians have an obligation to celebrate the monumental event, which is also held in high regard by progressives world over, what moral right does the Russian government, that practices oppression of nations in its territory and extends political and military support to genocidal regimes like Sri Lanka, have to do the same, asks an Eezham Tamil Marxist.
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U.S. Senators call for international probe into Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 January 2013, 02:28 GMT]
U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) called for an independent, international investigation into potential war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE during the civil war in Sri Lanka. In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Senators said such an investigation is needed because the legitimate concerns of the Sri Lankan people have not been answered by the government, Senator Leahy's website reported. “Sri Lankans have legitimate concerns about war crimes committed during the civil war that are not being addressed by the government, and an independent, international investigation is needed to get answers,” the letter said.
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Two rebel leaders reported killed in Chechnya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 January 2013, 23:57 GMT]
Russian security forces claim to have killed two key Chechen rebel leaders, along with nine other rebels, BBC reported on Friday. The two commanders, brothers Khusein and Muslim Gakayev, were considered the regions “most wanted men”, were reportedly killed during a clash with the security forces. The killings follow a “counter-terrorist operation” that has been on in the South of Chechnya since Wednesday, UPI cited Moscow backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is largely considered by Chechen nationalists as a quisling.
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Soul searching in India, Obama wipes out tears

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 January 2013, 17:55 GMT]
If peoples of the USA and India care to scrutinize what their governments are doing to the country of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, they will realize that from which system certain disorders they face in their own countries originate. Both the Establishments that were in complicity in the genocide, and have tacitly approved a structural genocide to take place in the island, are engaged in another round of their machinations at Geneva in March. Once again, the USA is architecting a formula for the completion of the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils – this time with specific steps of instructions to be fulfilled by the agent state in Colombo – and India, the Strategic Partner, is given with the task of designing and managing the implementation infrastructure, informed sources say.
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Sri Lanka ex-Military Commander barred from visiting U.S for training

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2013, 12:29 GMT]
United States Department of State rejected the application for militiary training in the U.S. for Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe alleging that Ranasinghe was likely complicit in commanding one of the military divisions, speculated to be the notorious 53rd, which is alleged to have been responsible for killing Tamil civilians numbering more than 80,000 according to the Petrie report, during the last phases of war in Sri Lanka. The paper did not say if other Sri Lanka military personnel have been admitted to undergo training in the U.S. Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary said that "nothing could be as foolish as rejecting an officer on the basis of him being in command of the 53 Division or any other fighting formation during the conflict," according to a report in the Island.
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Accountability delayed by Politics, ill-prepared institutions, says Prof. Ratner

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2013, 01:10 GMT]
Professor Steven Ratner, a member of the Panel of Experts appointed to advice United Nations Secretary General (UNSG), Ban Ki Moon, on the issue of accountability with regard to alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka, in a recent U.S. Law journal, writes that, in the case of Sri Lanka, "despite an impressive set of legal norms in place to deal with atrocities such as those committed in this conflict, the infusion of politics and the limitations of unprepared institutions can seriously delay prospects for accountability."
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Australian civil society should be outraged by Sri Lankan cricket: Trevor Grant

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2013, 23:58 GMT]
Civil society in Australia should be outraged once they are exposed to the on going persecution faced by Eezham Tamils was the opinion of Trevor Grant speaking to TamilNet following the latest protest on Sunday organized by BSLCC and TYO. The protest was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground and has been the latest in a string of demonstrations focused on exposing Sri Lanka for its protracted genocide against Eezham Tamils and demanding the Australian Government and Cricket Australia to boycott all matches with the Sri Lankan team. Mr. Grant, former chief sports writer at The Age with over 40 years of experience in journalism, further commented that the Australian civil society should be “spearheading the unrelenting demands to their government and sporting bodies to enforce such boycott.”
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US Court to hear oral argument on war-crime case against Rajapakase

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 January 2013, 02:35 GMT]
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit has scheduled March 8th, 9:30 am for the oral argument in the appeal case against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for civil damages on war-crimes charges filed by three Tamil plaintiffs whose relatives were extra-judicially executed or unlawfully killed under the "command responsibility" of Rajapakse. "The key legal issue in this case is whether the U.S.'s Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) deputed the Executive Branch with authority to extinguish TVPA claims against sitting heads of state based on professed foreign policy concerns," plaintiff-appellants' attorney, Bruce Fein, said. Judges Merrick Garland, Janice Brown, and Brett Kavanaugh have been assigned to hear the case, according to Court papers.
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SLA ex-officer testifies on orders to plant bomb at TNA MP's house in 2008

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 January 2013, 20:27 GMT]
A former commissioned officer of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), testifying to the Canadian Immigration officials after fleeing to Toronto from Sri Lanka, said that a Colonel of the SLA had ordered him to plant bomb materials in the home of Mr M K Sivajilingam, a Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian in 2008, reports a Canadian newspaper, the National Post, on Sunday. The revelation gains significance in the context of alleged ‘recovery’ of explosives at the office of a current TNA parliamentarian Mr S Sritharan last week.
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