SL military, police protect Sinhala soldier caught by villagers for attempted rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 April 2012, 19:10 GMT]
A 16-year-old Tamil girl narrowly escaped from a Sinhala soldier, who attempted to rape her, while she was on her way from her house in Paalamoaddai to Olumadu in Mullaiththeevu district around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The soldier of the occupying SL military was manning a military check post near the American Mission Tamil Mixed School at Paddadai-pirintha-ku'lam. He threatened the girl and took her to into the school building where he attempted to rape her. The residents who heard the girl shouting gathered at the site and saved the girl from the hands of the soldier of the occupying military.
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Plaintiffs file appeal on war-crimes case against Rajapakse in U.S.

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 April 2012, 02:50 GMT]
Bruce Fein, the attorney for the three Tamil plaintiffs who filed war-crimes charges against Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse, said Sunday that as instructed by his clients he has filed an appeal against the ruling by the District Court of District of Columbia. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in the Court opinion that she had to dismiss the case because the Obama administration had intervened to say Rajapakse was immune from litigation as a foreign head of state. "We intend to ask for an initial en banc hearing by the entire U.S. Court of Appeals in lieu of a three-judge panel," Fein said, adding, "the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Zivotofsky v. Clinton strengthens our appeal immeasurably. There the Court held that the Executive Branch’s foreign policy prerogatives cannot dictate to federal courts the outcome of cases that rest on statutory rights created by Congress."
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Buddhist monks, SL military step up Sinhalicisation of Kuchchave'li in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 April 2012, 23:22 GMT]
Large tracts of lands adjoining in vicinity of an ancient stupa site in Thiriyaay and newly installed Buddist monks in at least three places in Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat division of Trincomalee district are behind grabbing lands of Tamils and blocking Tamils from re-settlement, civil officials in Kuchchave'li division said. A systematic programme of Sinhalicisation has been taking place, begun after the area was captured by the SL military from the LTTE, is now being accelerated by the Colombo establishment, according to Tamil civil officials in the division.
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SL Army threatens to destroy Sivan temple to construct Buddhist Vihara in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 April 2012, 18:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army is said to have planned to demolish the historical Chivanakar Siva temple in Uruththirapuram in Ki'linochchi district and to construct a Buddhist Vihare in that site, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan has said. The Tamil parliamentarian has urged the Colombo government to stop the demolition of the Hindu temple. Around 40 soldiers of the occupying SLA came to the temple on Friday 27 March evening in three vehicles and entered the temple without the permission from the chief priest and desecrated the temple by walking in their military boots and threatened to destroy the temple and construct a Buddhist vihara at the site.
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Conforming to mandate more important than getting offices of position: Suresh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2012, 23:54 GMT]
It was a last resort for the democratic political struggle of Thanthai Chelva to call for the independence of Tamil Eelam in 1976, after a series of political deceits and finally his 6-point demand following the 1972 constitution to resolve the Tamil question within a united Sri Lanka was also rejected, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, while speaking at the 114th birth anniversary of SJV Chelvanayakam in Jaffna on Saturday. But after Tamils paying a heavy price in the armed struggle only the world has now started looking at the issue, which has now become international. TNA has the mandate and responsibility at a crucial time and it should not make even a small slip. Petty offices of position are not the answer to the price paid by our people. We are conscious of the mandate given to us by our people, he further said.
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Abducted youth recovered in Trincomalee: SL Police

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2012, 23:26 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police spokesman Ajith Rohana on Saturday said that the 22-year-old Tamil youth, Ananda Kishore Thanikasalam, abducted in Vaakarai on 28 March, was recovered at Dehiwatte in Serunuwara of Trincomalee district. The youth had been abducted from his house as his parents refused to hand over their 8 acres of palm grove to a Sinhala person from the South. As the abduction was highlighted in the media, the SL police was attempting to project the abduction as a ransom case, informed sources said.
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Norway’s ‘Sinhalicisation of development’ in Tamil country continued in 2011

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, 16:39 GMT]
Recent revelations on Norwegian foreign ministry’s deployment of funds have shown that Norway had allocated major funds to Sinhala institutions in Sri Lanka even in the year 2011 to carryout activities in the country of Eezham Tamils, which Tamils see as ‘Sinhalicisation of development’. Following a controversy about handling of funds by Norway’s foreign minister allegedly favouring one of his friend’s foundations, Mr. Torry Pedersen, the chief editor of VG, Norway’s largest newspaper, came out with an open call to the public on Thursday to assist journalists in the investigation on the spending of all ministries. It was unusual for Norwegian media to investigate the country’s ‘foreign spending’, but when it happened this time it also exposed Norway’s controversial role played on the affairs of Eezham Tamils facing structural genocide.
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Mass-rape alleged in Theavipuram amid civilan slaughter

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, 04:34 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group that seeks legal redress to Tamil victims of war, said Saturday that the organization is piecing together evidence based on an eye-witness testimony that up to 20 women, separated from nearly 200 civilians who surrendered to the SLA, were alleged to have been raped by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers near the village of Theavipuram, in Mullaiththeevu, in April 2009. While lack of witness protection programs in Sri lanka, and threat to life of witnesses who appear against Sri Lanka military have placed TAG's legal effort in UK on hold, TAG said that the recent legal action in UK involving Ex-Army Commander, Prasanna de Silva, may provide the momentum required to seek witnesses and to obtain corroborative evidence to identify the perpetrators of the alleged crime.
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Occupying SL Army operates behind narcotics trade in Tamil country

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2012, 22:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence is allegedly behind a systematic programme of narcotics trade in the North and East of Eezham Tamils homeland, aiming the Tamil students as the target group, reliable sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Friday. On Thursday, three narcotics traders, including the distributors from South, were arrested on Somasundaram Road near the District Secretariat of Jaffna, while they were distributing narcotics. Narcotics dealers sent from South engage in the trade involving former members of Tamil paramilitary groups, news sources further said. However, the Sri Lankan police remained tight-lipped on the arrest of southern narcotics drug dealers on Thursday in the area having leading Tamil schools.
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Post-UNHRC needs show of Fourth World solidarity

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2012, 06:03 GMT]
Pointing out that the UNHRC resolution is not the First Step to liberation but a Closing Step conceived by Globalized Establishments to conclude the process of Tamil subjugation started by the 2002 CFA, mere exposure of the collusion games of the Establishments is not enough, but action is needed rather than the euphoric diaspora chasing mirages, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. Being in the Fourth World of nations without state, Tamils paid the price for not building solidarity with fellow peoples of the world. We paid the highest price and should take the initiative otherwise even our future struggle will be organized only by our enemy in a reactionary way. Our alliance with Tamil Nadu is of great importance. As Globalized Establishments cannot survive without consumption and consumers, they will certainly respect the strength of numbers.
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Sinhala land-grabbers trigger abduction of Tamil youth in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 March 2012, 07:22 GMT]
Armed men of allegedly Sri Lanka Army operated white-van squad Wednesday night have abducted a 22-year-old Tamil youth, Ananda Kishore Thanikaasalam, while the youth was at sleep at his house at mid-night. The abduction comes following threats to the Tamil family at Paalcheanai in Kathirave'li of Vaakarai region in Batticaloa district by Sinhalese to hand over their 8 acres of palm grove with more than 1,500 trees, owned by the family for more than 40 years. On 19 March, a police team claiming as investigative officers from 4th floor CID branch in Colombo came to their house and took away a copy of the land deed. Following the involvement of the CID on the land grab issue, the family lodged a complaint with Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in Batticaloa. After the abduction, the family has lodged a complaint with the SL Police.
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Headline Today's “I witnessed Genocide” wins journalism award in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 March 2012, 06:01 GMT]
Indian television Headlines Today journalist Priyamvatha's investigative reports from Vanni last year titled "I Witnessed Genocide: Inside Sri Lanka's killing fields," has won the prestigious "Best Investigative Report" award at the 2012 News Television Award in New Delhi, media sources in Chennai said.
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Norway plays with words on investigation, sees failed 13 Amendment as solution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 12:48 GMT]
During a parliamentary interpolation seeking to know Norway’s stand on independent international investigations of Sri Lanka’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, when Conservative MP Peter Skovholt Gitmark asked the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr-Støre on Monday, whether Norway would back such an investigation, the minister answering a clear “yes,” later stopped at only “independent investigations,” dropping the international part. On political solutions, the foreign minister was harping on the 13 Amendment failed for 25 years, backtracking even from the constitutional experiments envisaged by the so-called Oslo Declaration. After playing with the lives of thousands, Norway now plays with words escaping from spelling out international investigations and leaves Eezham Tamils subjugated by unitary and genocidal Sri Lanka, commented diaspora activists.
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India to wage documentary war countering West’s exposure of Sri Lanka crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 18:48 GMT]
The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi has embarked on deploying India’s expertise in cinematography to campaign against recent exposures of Sri Lanka’s war crimes by Western documentaries and to defend the partnership efforts of the two Establishments in the island. Leading film makers in India have been hired by the ministry to produce a documentary that will be showing an interview with Rajapaksa, de-mining work by Indian teams and footages of Tamils ‘praising’ India, news sources in Colombo told TamilNet on Tuesday. Meanwhile, India’s Bollywood is set to produce a ‘politically charged’ commercial film, “Jaffna,” directed by Shoojit Sircar carrying the theme of ‘extremism’ to another level compared to his earlier film on Kashmir, and the actor John Abraham is going to visit the island often to get a hang of the milieu, IANS reported early this month.
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Hindu Council objects Buddhist Vihara replacing Saiva temple in Kokku'laay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 16:24 GMT]
The construction of a Buddhist Vihara in the site after the destruction of several decade old Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Kokku'laay in Mullaith-theevu district cannot be allowed, said C.Yogeswaran, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian in a memorandum to Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister D.M.Jayatrena who also hold the post of Ministry of Buddha Sasana. Mr Yogeswaran has sent the memorandum in the capacity of vice president of All Ceylon Hindu Council.
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Eezham Tamil youth in Canada challenge connivance with LLRC-based resolution

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 08:38 GMT]
Second generation Eezham Tamil youth in Canada strongly criticized the support lent to the pro-LLRC US resolution by some diaspora organizations at a panel discussion organized by the National Council of Canadian Tamils on Saturday about the recent United Nations Human Rights Council meeting. While the older generation on the panel were welcoming the US resolution as a “step in the right direction”, the youth activists criticized it for being a “step backward”. Urging the diaspora leadership to have a “slightly longer memory than the last four weeks,” Krisna Saravanamuttu of the NCCT said that the US resolution was “fundamentally flawed” because it used the LLRC as a basis for achieving accountability and a political solution from the Sri Lankan government guilty of genocide.
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LLRC centered resolution, an albatross around Tamils neck

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 March 2012, 09:26 GMT]
While the passage of the US-tabled LLRC-based resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC sessions has renewed expectation in some quarters of the Tamil diaspora that the resolution will be the first step towards exposing the culpability of Colombo in committing war-crimes, Tamil circles expressed the need to exercise caution, pointing out that the history of failed Commissions in Sri Lanka during the last 30 years, and the futility of UN-approved domestic transitional justice mechanisms where alleged perpetrators will be allowed to direct and control internal criminal investigations, will result in the resolution turning into an albatross around Tamils' neck, providing political space to Rajapakses to whitewash war crimes and the on-going structural genocide.
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Eezham Tamils in Sydney protest against SL ‘reconciliation’ propaganda

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 March 2012, 01:42 GMT]
The High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Australia, Admiral (retd) Tissara Samarasinghe, who was the former SL Navy commander during the times of the genocidal war, was confronted at Epping, a suburb of Sydney in Australia, by Eezham Tamil protestors on Sunday, when the commander alleged of war-crimes came to Epping Leisure Centre to attend a question-and-answer session organized by the so-called Sri Lankan Reconciliation Forum (SLRF).
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Indian ‘cooperation’ stalls OHCHR acting on UNHRC resolution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2012, 23:41 GMT]
The Indian cooperation in passing the resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC has in fact facilitated possibilities of stalemate in acting on the resolution. It is well known that India was behind the change in the tabled resolution that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has to function “in consultation with and with the concurrence” of the SL government in implementing the LLRC recommendations and also in addressing alleged violations on international law. Writing on the resolution on Saturday, Prof V. Suryanarayan says, “What will be the consequence, if the Government of Sri Lanka refuses to accept the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner? A political stalemate will follow. How will this stalemate be resolved? The resolution is silent on the subject.”
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Colombo censors BBC Tamil, Sinhala services

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2012, 22:33 GMT]
Sri Lankan state-run Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), which relays BBC's Tamil and Sinhala services in the island, avoided airing Sandeshya, the BBC Sinhala service on Sunday. In the meantime, BBC's Tamil language service 'Thamizhoasai' was jammed on Friday and Saturday.
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