US draft ‘positive’ on many counts in making Tamils ‘learn lesson’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 March 2014, 01:26 GMT]
The US draft tabled at the UNHRC has to be recognized for its positive aspects in disguise that make Tamils learn historic lessons, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. The draft opens eyes on the ultimate culprits who actually led Eezham Tamils into Mu’l’livaaykkaal and continue to lead them into accepting structural genocide; on the extent of USA’s confidence in the inherent orientation for subservience and gullibility among Eezham Tamil ‘articulators’; and on the extent of the infiltration the USA has made into various facets of Tamil Nadu – from Brahministic media to ‘original’ Dravidian movements, and from ‘communism’ to various caste politics, the activists in the island said.
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Dormant diaspora rises up against US draft, demands genocide investigation, plebiscite

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 March 2014, 23:33 GMT]
In an unprecedented gathering after May 2009, around 10,000 diaspora Eezham Tamils gathered in Geneva on Monday demanding international investigations on genocide and a UN plebiscite on independent an sovereign Tamil Eelam. Disappointed with the discourse in Geneva and losing their trust in the pro-Establishment lobbyists, the Eezham Tamils have begun to rally behind the network of the grassroots organisations in Europe, that were hitherto silently watching the process. Dr Denis Halliday, the former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, who was one of the judges at the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Sri Lanka (Bremen Session) addressed the gathering.
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USA ignores requests of Mannaar Bishop on UNHRC Resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 March 2014, 14:57 GMT]
Bishop of Mannaar Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph had sent a model resolution to the foreign diplomatic missions, including the Embassy of USA in Colombo, well in advance of the draft resolution by the USA was leaked in Geneva this Monday. The proposal presented by Mannaar Bishop was demanding international investigations on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prepared by the Tamil Civil Society Forum, the proposal also called upon the “UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council to activate procedures that will lead to a UN sponsored international mechanism to assess the democratic aspirations of the Tamil People, both in the homeland and in the diaspora for a permanent political solution.”
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BIMSTEC having Eelam territory gets secretariat in Dhaka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 March 2014, 09:50 GMT]
The Third Summit Meeting of BIMSTEC States held in Myanmar concluded on Tuesday, with its heads of governments deciding on operating a permanent secretariat based in Dhaka in Bangladesh. A career diplomat of Colombo will be its first Secretary General. Originally formed in 1997, as Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation (hence BIMST-EC), and was joined by Nepal and Bhutan in 2004 to become known as Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the BIMSTEC is viewed as India’s alternative for SAARC, to have a regional alliance without Pakistan. It is also viewed as an expression of India’s ‘look to East’ policy to balance China's ‘push to South’.
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Tamils cautioned against word trick of OHCHR

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 February 2014, 23:11 GMT]
Tamils living world over should take a careful note on who is skipping away from including the demand for an ‘international investigation’ in the draft resolution to be placed at the UN Human Rights Council this March, Tamil activists in the island told TamilNet on Tuesday. The diaspora Tamils and Tamils of Tamil Nadu should not be carried away by the ‘media discourse’ in Colombo following the latest recommendations of the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanetham Pillay, the activists warned. The latest phrase ‘international inquiry mechanism’ could also imply a process of questioning or fact-finding mission by UN Special Rapporteurs under the human rights regime of the UNHRC, which would only end up adding just another report to the existing piles of UN reports. Tamil lobbyists abroad should not deceive the masses by their misinterpretations of the terminology, the activists said.
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India and world needs prod to recognize, act on Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 February 2014, 15:36 GMT]
Finding fault with the USA and EU for spoiling negotiated solution by banning the LTTE, the former head of SLMM says that North America and Western Europe lack interest in what is happening in the island as it is not in their backyard, and he points to India to now act on its regional matter. He also implied that effective public and media pressure is a prerequisite for any action in the island in the lines of Bosnia. Tamils in the island, in the diaspora, and especially in Tamil Nadu, will be miserable failures if they show any timidity, or find excuse in diplomacy in not telling the world in no uncertain terms the genocide faced by Eezham Tamils, said Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Diaspora, Tamil Nadu youth organizations endorse TSC declaration

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 February 2014, 22:59 GMT]
The Tamil Youth Organizations (TYOs) of 12 countries and four Tamil Nadu youth organizations that were active participants in the student uprising of 2013 in a joint statement released on Sunday endorsed the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration. In addition to the TSC declaration, which recognizes the historical, earned and remedial sovereignties of the Eezham Tamil nation, the youth organizations also passed a declaration of principles, calling on the new generation of leaders from Tamil Eelam, Tamil Nadu and the Diaspora to “challenge the international community to re-evaluate its approach to self-determination for unrecognized nations and peoples and to build solidarity with other nations living under occupation to challenge the present geopolitical order.”
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New Delhi bans Channel 4 documentary on ‘killing fields’ of Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 February 2014, 20:32 GMT]
India's Central Bord of Film Certification has refused to allow permission to screen No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, Hindustan Times reported on Sunday. Responding to the censorship imposed by New Delhi, the director of the documentary, Callum Macrae has gone on record stating that the documentary would be freely available on line for the Indian public. Mr Macrae was earlier denied visa to enter India.
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Beware of war crimes investigation leading to ‘reconciliation’ deception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 February 2014, 20:07 GMT]
In the event of a US-tabled resolution at UNHRC calling for “an independent international accountability mechanism to evaluate reports of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations committed by both sides during and after the war in Sri Lanka,” it will have all the potentialities of becoming yet another form of the ‘reconciliation’ deception. It will help to continue harping on ‘reforms’ within a unitary State, will give space and time in a camouflaged way to Colombo to complete genocide, prod Tamils into accepting models as of South Africa that are absurd to them, negotiate escape to culprits, and at maximum, may bring in ‘regime change’, but no political justice or release from genocide to Eezham Tamils, cautioned Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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New Delhi challenges Chief Justice of India over commutation of death sentence

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 February 2014, 19:56 GMT]
The New Delhi Establishment on Thursday challenged the decision of a Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, P. Sathasivam, commuting the death sentences of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, into life imprisonment. In a hurriedly-filed petition, the Centre contended the three-judge bench, also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and SK Singh, did not consider the merits of the case and also ventured into the domain of the government by commuting the death sentence in the case, PTI reported on Thursday.
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Tamil Nadu government decides to release 7 victims in Rajiv assassination case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 February 2014, 08:03 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu Government, in a suo motu statement to the State Assembly on Wednesday said it has decided to release the 7 prisoners, now imprisoned to lifetime in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The decision comes as the Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to commute the death sentence on Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan to life imprisonment. In the meantime, the family of Thilliampalam Suthenthiraraja (Santhan), one of the three victims, thanked the people of Tamil Nadu and the global Tamil community for their struggle for the release of the innocent victims and said their only hope now was the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa. We will never forget the supreme sacrifices of Chengkodi and Muththukkumar seeking justice, the family said from Jaffna.
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UN should deliver remedial justice to Eezham Tamils, say 23 groups from India

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 February 2014, 23:03 GMT]
Following the recommendations of the Internal Review Panel (IRP) on ‘United Nations Action in Sri Lanka’ brought out in November 2012 by the panel led by Charles Petrie, the United Nations has come up with a follow-up initiative in December 2013. The latest report, flagged as ‘Rights Up Front’ initiative, has also failed to focus on delivering remedial justice to the nation of Eezham Tamils, who have now become the abandoned victims exposed to Sri Lanka's accelerated onslaught of structural genocide, said the activists of May 17 Movement, that staged protests at five cities, both outside and inside India, on February 12. Endorsing the May 17 Movement's approach, 23 influential parties, groups and movements from India demanded two key remedial approaches: UN referendum on Tamil Eelam and International Investigations on War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide.
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Wigneswaran pours out heart on ‘reconciliation-development’ deception

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 February 2014, 13:47 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister, C.V. Wigneswaran on Thursday openly came out with his frustration about the ways reconciliation and development is practised in the north and east of the island, and the ways the mandate of the NPC is sabotaged. He was referring to the gravity of militarisation, the conqueror's perspective of ‘reconciliation’ imposed on the conquered, and the conqueror's ‘development’ that is neither victim-specific nor owned by the people of the land. Given his background, his denunciations were confined to the State and government in Colombo. But the entire paradigm that frustrates him originates from elsewhere and the message is for the ultimate culprits, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Colombo sabotages Tamil fishermen understanding across Palk Strait

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 February 2014, 22:23 GMT]
Amidst an existing understanding between the fishermen societies of Eezham Tamils and Tamil Nadu fishermen, who met recently in Tamil Nadu, that Indian fishermen could engage in fishing in the Palk Strait till March 15 without hindrance, the navy of the occupying Sri Lanka has arrested 116 Tamil Nadu fishermen in the territorial waters of the Eezham Tamils within the past 12 days, news sources in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the Indian coast guard has detained 25 fishermen from the island, 20 Sinhalese from South and 5 Eezham Tamils, who were engaged in day and night fishing in the deep waters of the strait, sources in Tamil Nadu said.
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USA softer than UK in wooing genocidal Colombo: Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 February 2014, 10:14 GMT]
"Everyone must redouble their pressure on the Obama administration directly at the White House and the Cameron government directly at No. 10 Downing Street in order to get that international commission of investigation at the UNHCR in March. With elections coming up in India, everyone must redouble their pressure on the Tamil Nadu government to get them to pressure the Indian government to support that international commission of investigation at the UNHRC in March. The one hope we have is that the GOSL continues to be so obstinate, stubborn, pig-headed and genocidal that they will do nothing," said Professor Boyle, an expert in International law and a keen observer of Sri Lanka's genocidal politics said in a comment sent to TamilNet.
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London conference explores nature of land grabs in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 February 2014, 10:50 GMT]
Academics, legal experts, activists, journalists, and Eezham Tamil politicians gathered in London to discuss Sri Lankan state facilitated land grabs in the Eezham Tamils homeland, its nature, its effects, and possible solutions, at a conference on Saturday. While all of the presenters were in consensus that land grabs in the Tamil homeland was a phenomena that was a genuine and pressing issue, many expressed their support for a strong international campaign to put a halt to this. Likewise, some of the participants also criticised the international community’s silence and complicity in the process. There was also heated debate on whether the process could be termed “genocide”, with former UN official and Bremen-PPT judge Dr. Denis Halliday along with Tamil activists from both the presenters and the audience arguing in its favour.
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Tamil Nadu should be welcomed to give jolt to Indian foreign policy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 February 2014, 00:44 GMT]
“The running of foreign policy by federal units is not advocated, but they can and should make benign inputs into its making. Think-tanks specialising in foreign relations and Area Studies Departments in Universities can play a meaningful role in this direction,” writes Chennai-based former South and Southeast Asian Studies Professor V. Suryanarayan, who was also a member of the National Security Advisory Board of India during the Vanni War. Claiming that his “essay is a perspective from Chennai,” Suryanarayan was particularly elucidating and detracting the moves of Tamil Nadu on the cause of Eezham Tamils in his foreign policy discourse that appeared in the website of New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), on Friday.
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Peasaalai villagers mobilize against genocidal land grab in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 January 2014, 07:52 GMT]
The Tamil Catholic people of the coastal village of Peasaalai in the north-west of the Mannaar island on Thursday took to the streets in protest against the genocidal land grab by the occupying Sinhala military. The protest took place when the SL Navy brought land surveyors to measure a land belonging to the 600-year-old church in their village. The occupying Navy, which is already stationed in the one-acre coconut palm grove, is now trying to permanently seize the land from the church. The people of the village mobilized against the move and blocked the surveyors from measuring the land despite the harassment by the occupying navy video-filming the people amidst the deployment of a large number of SL navy sailors at the site.
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Wigneswaran confuses court and legislature in naming genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 January 2014, 06:32 GMT]
However flimsy it is, if the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is a legislative body exercising the power of the people, it need not have any inhibition over calling a spade a spade, or qualms over presenting a case to the world with a nomenclature it decides as righteous. But, the NPC Chief Minister Mr C.V. Wigneswaran, a former justice, who was for long interpreting and ensuring the implementation of the laws enacted by the Colombo legislature of the genocidal State of Sri Lanka, confused court and the legislative powers of the NPC in diluting the word genocide into ‘equivalent to genocide’, in passing a crucial resolution on Monday calling for international investigations, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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SL military robs IDP registry from Thellippazhai DS Secretariat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2014, 16:56 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Monday evening entered the Divisional Secretariat of Valikaamam North, situated at Thellippazhai, and robbed the registries containing the details of uprooted civilians from the civil officials at gunpoint. The SL military officers then instructed the DS and his officials not to talk about the incident. Informed sources told TamilNet that the robbery was carried out on the instruction by the new Jaffna commander of the occupying Sinhala military, Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, who is trying to manipulate the statistics of uprooted people of Valikaamam North, the area where former ‘High Security Zone’ is being transformed into a Sinhala Military Zone by the SL military permanently seizing the fertile lands and properties of the Eezham Tamils.
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