Chomsky: West's self-interest reduces R2P to "noble rhetoric"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 20:13 GMT]
During an invited lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University, Noam Chomsky, one of the world's well known intellectual and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, said on Sri Lanka, that although there's "a lot of noble rhetoric about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), there is no particular Western advantage in protecting people who are being slaughtered, and are being thrown into concentration camps. Somehow these didn't make it in the noble rhetoric," and added Sri Lanka was a "horror story, especially towards the end."
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Absurd logic of seeking ‘moderates’ amid a genocide - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 15:20 GMT]
While many international actors are coming to realise that the problem in Sri Lanka is in fact rooted in the character of the Sinhala-dominated state, the London-based policy nexus which theorised, argued for, and solicited international consensus around Colombo’s military slaughter is still insisting that their strategy was essentially right, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. “These handmaidens of Sri Lanka’s bloodbath will be proven disastrously wrong again. But not before the Tamils endure much more suffering and further bloodletting.”
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Cambridge Amnesty calls for release of 250,000 Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 October 2009, 03:13 GMT]
Local Amnesty International (AI) members, at a demonstration in Cambridge Market Square on October 26th, called for the UK government to increase international pressure on Sri Lanka to release the more than 250,000 Tamil detainees from the refugee-turned-detention camps. Richard Howitt, MEP for the East of England, also spoke in support of the Campaign and local MP David Howarth came along to sign the petition, web media in Cambridge reported.
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Tamil protection movement launches Four Directions March in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 13:13 GMT]
Ilangkai Thamizhar Paathukaappu Iyakkam (ITPI) led by Pazha. Nedumaaran and consisting of PMK leader Dr. Ramadoss, MDMK leader Vaiko, CPI leaders in Tamil Nadu, R. Nallakannu and C. Mahendran are engaged in launching awareness marches from the four corners of Tamil Nadu highlighting the plight of Eelam Tamils and demanding the immediate release of more than 250,000 Tamils detained in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in the north of Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka editors receive death threats for Channel-4 video comments

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 03:26 GMT]
Sunday Leader, a weekend broadsheet in Sri Lanka, said in the latest edition that two of the paper's editors, Frederica Jansz, and Munza Mushtaq, received Thursday "hand written death threats by post." The threats relate to Sunday Leader news stories on the authenticity of the August Channel-4 video which showed armed Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamil prisoners stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. "This newspaper has consistently in the entire 15 years of its existence come under attack. We have been burnt, bombed, sealed, harassed and threatened, culminating in January this year with the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge," the paper said.
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5 Tamils including two women arrested in East, West

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 October 2009, 11:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested five Tamils including two women in three separate incidents Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the East and West of the country. Two persons including a third year undergraduate of South Eastern University were taken into custody on Friday in Kalmunai in the East. T. Vinorathan of Thambiluvil was taken into custody along with a woman suspected to be a cadre of LTTE, identified as Inthirarasa Pavarita, 26, at Aalayadiveampu in Ampaa’rai district. Undergrad, Vinorathan was assisting the LTTE woman cadre, police spokesman SSP Nimal Mediwake said.
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Sri Lankan Flag to be hoisted in Jaffna Fort

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 October 2009, 04:42 GMT]
Son of Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa, Namal Rajapakse, who is presently staying in Jaffna along with the 250 youths he brought from the South will be officially hoisting the Sri Lanka Lion Flag Sunday in Jaffna Fort, sources in Jaffna said. In 1996 when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied Jaffna, the then Deputy Defence Minister, Anurathe Rathwathe had ceremoniously hoisted the Sri Lankan Flag in the esplanade in front of Jaffna Fort. Tamils protested vehemently when Sinhala parties adopted the lion flag as the national flag soon after British left the island. Opposition to the flag, since then, has been part of the Tamil national movement.
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Sarath Fonseka’s stand on relations with Tamils, Muslims should be made public – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 18:32 GMT]
“The persons who try to bring in former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Sarath Fonseka as a prospective presidential candidate should first publicize his stand on his relations with the Tamils and Muslims of the country,” Mano Gnaeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Democratic Peoples’ Front (DPF) told media in Colombo after a discussion held with Ranil Wickremasinghe, the leader of the opposition and United National Party Friday evening, sources in Colombo said.. “We will not write ‘blank cheques’ in favour of any major political party candidate in the Presidential election,” he said. “We do not have any personal hard feelings either towards President Mahinda Rajapakse or Sarath Fonseka; whatever difference of opinion that exists is purely political,” he further said.
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Stop settling Sinhalese in Tamil, Muslim owned land - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 17:21 GMT]
Rajavarothaiam Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), speaking on an adjournment submitted by him in Sri Lanka's parliament Friday, said that "encroachment of lands belonging to Tamils and Muslims and State has been on going in the eastern province on large scale with the support of government, and amid intimidation of minority communities by government security forces, and this should be stopped immediately," parliamentary sources in Colombo said.
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Tamil Nadu must recognize and support establishment of Tamil Eelam: Thirumavalavan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 13:38 GMT]
Stating that there was a total violation of human rights in the Sri Lankan Government's camps for Internally Displaced Persons, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi President Thol.Thirumavalavan, told TamilNet Friday in an exclusive interview of the "appalling conditions" prevalent in these "barbed-wire concentration camps" which he witnessed firsthand as one of the ten-member parliamentary delegation from Tamil Nadu. Pointing out that Tamil people could not become a "permanent slave society" and "live as second class citizens in Sri Lanka," Thirumavalavan sought to emphasize that Tamil Eelam was the only solution to a struggle that had claimed the lives of nearly fifteen hundred thousand Tamils civilians and more than thirty thousand Tamil Tiger fighters.
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Tamils hold “Will Break the Obstacles!” rally in Berlin

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 08:44 GMT]
Tamil Diaspora in Germany gathered Thursday in Berlin to stage a protest march in an effort to draw the attention of the international community to the pathetic plight of Tamils interned in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps. Two youths, representing students in Tamil Nadu, T. Sreenivasa Rao and Iraa. Gnanasekaran, on their journey in Europe to take part in the UN conference on Global Warming Awareness in Denmark on 7 December, took part in the march and rally. They have made it their duty to raise their voices for the interned Tamils, in all the countries they pass through, sources in Berlin said.
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Mercy Mission relief goods released by SL government nearing expiry dates

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 07:58 GMT]
Government of Sri Lanka which had turned away the Mercy Mission ship, ‘Captain Ali’, loaded with relief items donated by expatriate Tamils in Europe to help Tamils caught up in the war in Vanni in June has now, after purposely delaying for nearly five months, released 27 containers of the total 88 to the ICRC in Colombo Thursday, sources in Colombo said. Subsequently, the entire cargo was released and ICRC had to obtain a certificate from the Sri Lanka Standards Institute as most of the goods were nearing expiry dates, the sources added.
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5 Tamils arrested in Vavuniyaa, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 04:52 GMT]
Five Tamils including two women were taken into custody by the police in two separate incidents Friday morning. In the first incident, four Tamils including a woman were arrested in Vavuniyaa by the Police Special Investigations Division. In the second incident a team of the Special Task Force (STF) of Police took into custody a Tamil woman in Ampaa’rai, according to police spokesman Nimal Mediwake.
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Army colonel, wife arrested for plotting to kill Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 04:04 GMT]
Five suspects, including an Army Colonel, held under detention orders for their alleged involvement in plotting to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapakse, were handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Friday for further investigations on the orders of Mount Lavinia Additional Magistrate Ruchira Weliwatte. The court made the order on an application by the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD).
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HRW: US report ignites call for war crimes investigations against Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 October 2009, 04:05 GMT]
The US State Department war crimes report to the Senate submitted as mandated by the explanatory statement to the US Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009, detailed day-by-day account in a format similar to a "model indictment," and said the alleged incidents in the final stages of war may constitute "violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) or crimes against humanity and related harms." Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said, "[g]iven Sri Lanka's complete failure to investigate possible war crimes, the only hope for justice is an independent, international investigation," and added, "concerned governments should use the US State Department report as a clarion call for an international investigation. There are no more excuses for inaction."
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U.S. forfeits international responsibility to Sri Lankan state

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 October 2009, 10:59 GMT]
"The United States looks to the Government of Sri Lanka to identify an appropriate and credible mechanism and initiate a process for accountability," read a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo on Thursday, announcing that U.S. Department of State delivered a Congressional report Wednesday detailing the incidents that allegedly occurred during the final months of the war in Vanni that may constitute violations of international humanitarian law or crimes against humanity. While Eezham Tamils are expecting justice from international mechanisms on the genocidal war carried out by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamil nation, the U.S. statement attempts to make Colombo responsible for initiating a process for accountability within the anti-Tamil Sri Lankan system itself, commented Tamil circles blaming the statement as attempting to abet Colombo’s agenda of structural genocide.
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Time to support the Tamils, say British Conservatives

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 October 2009, 09:01 GMT]
Increasing involvement in British politics and reciprocal openness of the British political parties was marked by a part-televised event held in Essex Sunday where several incumbent and prospective parliamentarians from the British Conservative party reached out to their Tamil constituencies and articulated their positions on the conflict and its consequences in Sri Lanka .The event was the first one in a series planned by the recently formed British Tamil Conservative Association (BTCA). Members of Parliament from the British party were keen to stress both their sense of fairness as well as their orientation towards action over rhetoric, according to a BTCA attendee. Conservative candidate, Robert Halfon, echoed in his website, the sentiments expressed Sunday stressing the need for autonomy for the Tamils saying they deserved nothing less.
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29 Tamil youths arrested in Katunayake in two incidents

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 October 2009, 11:26 GMT]
Twenty nine Tamil youths were taken into custody by the State Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Police at Katunayake International Airport in two separate incidents Thursday and Friday, sources in Colombo said. The arrested youths are now detained in the Katunayake Police and are being interrogated.
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30,000 Tamils march in London over Sri Lanka's internment camps

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 October 2009, 20:37 GMT]
More than 30,000 British Tamils marched to draw attention to the Sri Lankan government's continued incarceration of over 280,000 Tamils in military supervised camps despite earlier pledges to release within 180 days from the end of war in May. Protesters, young and old, carried banners and chanted slogans expressing that 150 days have passed with no concrete steps taken to resettle the Tamils held in the “concentration camps" in Vavuniyaa.
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Forensic analysis confirms execution-video authentic, says US-group

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 October 2009, 02:25 GMT]
A notarized report of preliminary findings from a US-based forensic company that took nearly three weeks to analyze the Channel-4 broadcast video allegedly showing Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers extra-judicially executing Tamil captives stripped naked and hands tied behind their back, said "[t]he video and audio of the events depicted in the Video, were continuous without any evidence of start/stops, insertions, deletions, over recordings, editing or tampering of any kind." US pressure group, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) which sponsored the study, placed an embargo on revealing the details of the forensic company, until the final report is complete early November.
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