Canadian Tamil film wins award in Norway festival

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 February 2010, 03:43 GMT]
Canadian Tamil film '1999,' which made its debut in Vancouver International film Festival in October last year, won the “Midnight Sun” award Wednesday at the Tamil Film Festival-2010 held at the Filmenshus Kino in Oslo, Norway, cinematic enthusiasts attending the event said. 1999 was directed by Lenin M. Sivam, an Eezham Tamil of Canada and a software professional. The festival also showcased some of the short films that were made by Eezham Tamils. A short film called “Vanni Mouse” by director Tamiliam Subas from Norway received the best short film award.
Full story >>

Proving geopolitical strength, antidote to international injustice to Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 21:20 GMT]
In whatever ways Eezham Tamils may express aspiration for their national liberation, India and Rajapaksa government will quietly go ahead with their agenda of what they understand by ‘reconciliation,’ is the response that comes from the circles of the Indian Establishment. Informed Tamil political circles say there is a ‘high level’ understanding among all powers of geopolitical competition to negate Tamil independence. How to achieve the goal when all are against and what is the point in claiming freedom outside when people are subjugated inside are questions of those who are disillusioned by the psychological war. If crimes against Tamil nation are committed due to geopolitics the antidote is nothing but Tamil uprising to prove geopolitical superiority and the responsibility lies with Tamil Nadu.
Full story >>

International countries should urge Sri Lanka to reveal proposal to solve ethnic issue

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 03:52 GMT]
Civil Society Organizations in Jaffna Peninsula requested Canadian Ambassador Mr. Pruce Levy to urge international countries to exert pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to disclose immediately if it has any proposal to solve the ethnic issue, when the Ambassador met them at several places in the peninsula. President Mahinda Rajapakse who said that he will present the proposal after the presidential election now says that he will reveal it after the announced general election, the representatives told the visiting Canada Ambassador.
Full story >>

Academic exposes habitual collaboration of Chennai in bungling geopolitics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 02:12 GMT]
Writing on the negotiations of 1964 Srimao-Shastri Pact that caused adverse impact on the demography of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Professor V. Suryanarayan says, “The most pathetic member of the Indian team was Ramiah, a Cabinet Minister from Tamil Nadu. According to informed sources, throughout the discussions, Ramiah did not utter a single word on behalf of the Tamil plantation workers, who wanted to remain in Sri Lanka and become Sri Lankan citizens.” Mr. Karunanidhi, for his personal consolidation of power, collaborated with New Delhi in ceding Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974. Had he challenged it in the Supreme Court, the India-Sri Lanka relations might have taken a different turn, the academic said in a paper he read last week.
Full story >>

"Boycott Sri Lanka goods" campaign spreads to more US cities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 01:25 GMT]
While a few U.S. cities, including Washington postponed the planned Sri Lanka Boycott rallies due to the record-breaking snow storm, in most of the 15 cities Tamil activists held protests urging ethical-minded consumers to boycott Sri Lanka products, especially textiles, as the protesters allege that the profits fund State violence against Tamil civilians, organizers of the protest said. Meanwhile, the organizers of the boycott campaign released a third-video in a planned series of video releases highlighting the need to black-label Sri Lanka products across the world, sources close to the boycott campaign said.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka, acid test for International Law

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 23:15 GMT]
The widespread systematic pattern of crimes committed by the Sri Lankan state against Tamil civilians, particularly during the first five months of 2009 in the Northeast province, constitute violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, legal scholars have said. During this period, indifference exhibited by the international community, including the United Nations, led to the deaths of more than 30,000 Tamils. The strong transnational expatriate Tamil community now has the burden (a) to prevent Sri Lanka from erasing the massacres from historical record, (b) to resist attempts by international powers to persuade Tamils for reconciliation without establishing justice and accountability for the crimes, and (c) to seek justice for tens of thousands of Tamil victims by charging Sri Lanka of war crimes and genocide against Tamils in world courts.
Full story >>

Australian MP calls for independent investigations into Sri Lanka violations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 14:48 GMT]
Noting that on Sri Lanka's Independence day "Tamil diaspora around the world mourn as they believe today marks the beginning of national oppression," John Murphy, Australian Member of Parliament, said in a recorded speech in the parliament on 4th February, adding, "[d]espite the Sri Lankan government’s declaration of [military] victory, the international community has expressed its grave concern that this battle will not be won and peace will not prevail until the Sri Lankan government provides essential political reform." The MP called for an independent investigation into the "reports of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Sri Lanka."
Full story >>

A language dies in India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 23:39 GMT]
With the death of 85 years old Boa Sr in Andaman Islands of India last week, the Bo language of prehistoric antiquity became extinct once and for all, reports, Survival International, a movement for tribal peoples. The Andaman and Nicobar islands, home of several prehistoric tribes of Austroloid, Negroid and Mongoloid origins, is currently a Union Territory directly administered by the Central Government of India. “The Great Andamanese were first massacred, then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of disease, and robbed of their land and independence,” says Survival on the modern history of the tribes since British times. Meanwhile, India launched a show off of ‘naval exercise’ in the Andaman Sea Friday, mobilising 13 countries in the region including Sri Lanka, the new 'colonial power' in South Asia.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka given 6 months to reverse EU GSP+ suspension

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 01:58 GMT]
Ambassadors of the nations of European Union, based on EU Commissions negative assessment of Sri Lanka's human rights record, have decided to suspend the preferential trade status known as GSP+ (Generalised System of Preferences Plus) to Sri Lanka. However, when the European finance ministers announce this decision at a meeting in Brussels on February 16, the announcement will trigger suspension only after 6 months from that date, providing "Colombo a fair opportunity to get the decision reversed," European media reported.
Full story >>

Gotabhaya opens door for UN investigations of Sri Lanka war crimes - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2010, 04:51 GMT]
Referring to Gotabhaya Rajapakse's interview to the BBC Tuesday where Mr Rajapakse said that he would not allow any war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and a professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law said, "Defense Secretary Rajapaksa has now publicly and definitively ruled out any investigation of war crimes by the Government of Sri Lanka. And he is a government official acting within the scope of his official duties so that his statement binds the State of Sri Lanka under international law. Hence the basic requirement of international law mandating "complementarity" has been satisfied.
Full story >>

Ki'linochchi to Mu'rika'ndi: no human beings, ghost buildings, stray cattle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 February 2010, 00:39 GMT]
A video footage taken a few days back, while travelling between Ki'linochchi and Mu'rika'ndi, shows the real situation in the heartland of Vanni in Tamil Eelam. The tract bustling with contended people two years back is virtually a no-man zone with ghost buildings and stray cattle today. The landscape is physical evidence to the genocide committed on a nation. The parties responsible for one of the worst crimes against humanity in the 21st century such as this, refuse to accept it, but hide it, coerce the victims not to talk about it and in various nuanced ways want to finish the genocide to its end, is the feeling of Eezham Tamils, both in the island and in the diaspora.
Full story >>

India plays upon Buddhist emissary while monks colonize Tamil land

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 February 2010, 23:04 GMT]
New Buddhist temples built by armed forces and militant monks mushroom in Tamil land occupied by Colombo, news reports from Eezham said, citing new constructions along A9 highway. Meanwhile, an extremist Buddhist monk with armed support has arrived at Thalai Mannaar Pier area, the nearest point opposite to the Indian coast, to buy 100 acres of land and to start a Sinhala-Buddhist colony there, news sources from Mannaar said. While nearby Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee of the Tamil north and east are never linked for ages, A3 highway in the western coast is going to be extended according to Colombo reports, linking Puththa’lam and Mannaar through Vilpattu forest to facilitate inroads of Sinhala colonies. In the meantime, India is learnt to have gifted to Sri Lanka a replica of Asoka’s rock edict speaking of his Buddhist emissary to the island.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka experts silent, Wijesinha oblivious to forensic evidence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 February 2010, 04:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka's video experts appear unable or unwilling to rebut the body of evidence presented at the Dublin tribunal, UN Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions Philip Alston's report, and findings from other independent forensic analysts that all ruled as flawed the analyses by the Sri Lanka experts of the video broadcast on Channel 4 showing Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers summarily executing Tamil prisoners, stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, continues to advance his efforts to exculpate Colombo and the perpertrators from charges of war crimes by arguing that the video is fake, a spokesperson for US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said.
Full story >>

Overwhelming Tamil response in referendum hit British media reports

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 13:36 GMT]
"British-based Tamils have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the creation of an independent sovereign state in Sri Lanka, days after the man credited with crushing the Tamil Tigers's 26-year rebellion won a second term as the island's president," reported leading British newspaper Guardian on Monday. Meanwhile, BBC reported that an overwhelming majority among the Tamil disapora in UK has endorsed the call for a separate country for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Full story >>

Self-polls of Tamils make contrast to State-polls of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 13:16 GMT]
The conduct of the Tamil referendum in UK was exemplary and given that it was achieved entirely with private resources contrasts favourably to the shambles of Sri Lanka's recent Presidential elections, said Graham Williamson, a director of the UK based human rights group ACT NOW, set up by British Humanitarian aid workers to address war in Sri Lanka. The International Community must now call upon Sri Lanka to conduct a UN-Supervised referendum for Tamils living on the island, Mr. Williamson said adding that such an Independence referendum in 1999 put an end to a similar conflict in East Timor and has been successfully followed in recent times in Kosovo and Montenegro. "Democratic referenda is the modern and civilised mechanism to end inter-community conflicts and it's time Sri Lanka joined the modern world," he further said.
Full story >>

Largest possible turnout, 99.33 percent British Tamils aspire Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 01:09 GMT]
In an unprecedented turnout that brought 64,692 Eezham Tamils to vote in the referendum held last weekend in UK, 64,256 (99.33%) said they aspire to the formation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the contiguous north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. 185 (0.29%) voted against and 251 (0.39%) votes were spoilt. Polling took place in sixty-five booths across London and in major towns and cities throughout UK. Five days after presidential poll proving sharp and clear divide in outlook between Sinhala and Tamil nations in the island of Sri Lanka, the near-total diaspora verdict in UK for Tamil Eelam gains much significance, observers said.
Full story >>

Tamils undisputed champions of diaspora politics: Scottish writer

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 January 2010, 17:07 GMT]
“Unless there is a sea change in the factional Scottish parliament in the months ahead, it is a vote I will not be able to cast in a Scottish constitutional context,” writes Stuart Cosgrove, a Scot married to an Eezham Tamil, who cast his vote in that capacity in the referendum for Tamil Eelam in Mayhill, Glasgow, Saturday. In his column in Times Online, from the Sunday Times, he recollected the Scottish referendum of 1997 and sounded contentment about his participation in the Tamil referendum which in his view defied the new world order on the epic stage of global politics. Saying Tamils are undisputed champions of diaspora politics today, Cosgrove’s appreciation was that “it was a timely reminder that democracy is a precious gem that neither war nor national circumstances should tarnish.”
Full story >>

Voting continues in British Tamil Eelam referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 January 2010, 16:32 GMT]
The second day of the British Tamil referendum on the question of independence for Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka began Sunday. Polling stations opened at 10:00 a.m. across London and report once again an incessant stream of eager voters. Those who had been at work Saturday were keen to partake in the democratic process. Voters accompanied by their small children, elderly ladies dressed in sarees and grandfathers leaning on walking sticks dropped their votes into ballot boxes.
Full story >>

Mother country means Tamil Eelam for 90-year-old Sathyabhama

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 January 2010, 05:52 GMT]
I love my country as I love my mother. That’s why I have come to vote in the referendum, says 90-year-old Sathyabhama Kumaraswamy who came to cast her vote in a booth in London Saturday. For her, who was a teacher for 37 years at Mangkaiyarkkarasi Viththiyaasaalai in Nalloor, Jaffna, country means the country of Tamils in the island. She disassociates her from the country of the Sinhalese. Sathyabhama, who saw the days of the beginnings of democratic struggle of Eezham Tamils, recounted how her mother encouraged her in that and urged all Tamils to do whatever possible for their country. The grand lady, accompanied by her 30-year-old grandson said no one should back out from a venture such as this referendum. Voting continues for the second day in Greater London, Sunday.
Full story >>

SL foreign minister visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 January 2010, 02:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Saturday where he said that he has come to explore the possibility of establishing an office of the Foreign Ministry for expatriate Tamils in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, it is being said in the media circle that Rohitha had been sent to Jaffna by President Mahinda Rajapakse to pacify Minister Douglas Devananda who had announced his resignation of his post of minister for being the cause for Mahinda Rajapakse’s defeat in the president election in Jaffna district.
Full story >>