Boyle: Tamils safety possible only under separate state

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 December 2011, 23:17 GMT]
Asserting that the "Tamils on the Island known as “Sri Lanka” have been the victims of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," Francis A. Boyle, an expert in International Law, and a professor at the School of Law, University of Illinois, argues using the "remedial sovereignty" doctrine in support, and noting that "[h]istorically the only way a people who have been subjected to genocide like the Tamils on Sri Lanka have been able to protect themselves from further extermination has been the creation of an independent state of their own," and concludes, "[h]ence the need for the Tamils on Sri Lanka to create their own independent state in order to protect themselves from further extermination and total annihilation by Sri Lanka."
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LLRC, a farcical attempt at accountability: paper

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 December 2011, 16:59 GMT]
Noting that the "LLRC has for too long been the international community's fig leaf, used by governments across the world, including the US and the UK, to stall calls for accountability and a credible investigation into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide," the Tamil Guardian in its analysis of the report, points out that the report exposes the lack of mandate and the will to investigate international crimes the world was expecting to see, and asserts that "International law is uncompromising in this regard - responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide goes to the very top. In the case of Sri Lanka, the defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the then head of the army, General Sarath Fonseka, and the commander in chief - the president - Mahinda Rajapaksa are principally answerable."
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Rajapakse case, a legal pioneer, reaches historic milestone, says Fein

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 December 2011, 15:38 GMT]
An historic legal milestone was passed last Friday in the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) lawsuit against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the extra-judicial killings of six Sri Lankan Tamils pending in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, attorney for the plaintiffs, Bruce Fein said. A lawyer representing President Rajapaksa from the mega-law firm Patton Boggs LLC tacitly acknowledged receipt of the complaint and summons filed by the Plaintiffs in a motion to request the District Court to ask the U.S. Department of State for its views about the lawsuit. "The motion filed by President Rajapaksa formally brings him into the case, where for the first time he will be accountable to the rule of law, not the rule of the jungle," Fein added.
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Indo-US competition deprives justice to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 December 2011, 12:12 GMT]
A historical perusal of the long plight of Eezham Tamils would show that a subtle cold war between India and the USA, played over the national question in the island, and their competition to have the dominant nation of Sinhalese on their side, denied justice to the nation of Eezham Tamils at every stage. After leading the matter into an open genocide and on-going structural genocide, the relationship of Tamils with New Delhi or Washington could never be the same again, unless both come to a consensus of delivering justice to Eezham Tamils. Both the powers now pay for their long injustice, as China’s confident entry into Indian Ocean is directly connected to their failure and loss of credibility in the Eezham war. If Tamils siding with India or the USA is vain without delivery of justice, better to collectively opt non-cooperation against both, writes TamilNet political commentator.
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Sri Lanka Court admits as evidence confession taken under torture

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 December 2011, 02:15 GMT]
Ruling on the 1999 case involving the attack on former President Chandrika Kumaratunge, Colombo high court admitted as valid evidence defendant's confession taken under alleged torture and issued a guilty verdict, legal sources in Colombo said. Velayutham Varatharajah, the main suspect in the case, told reporters that despite the presence of medical evidence that he was tortured during Police custody the High Court ruled the confession taken under duress as admissible evidence against him.
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Rajapakse accepts Court summons, asks US to confer immunity

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 December 2011, 19:35 GMT]
After avoiding service for more than 9 months, and despite statements by Colombo that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse is not answerable to US Courts, Rajapakse-appointed counsel from the lobby firm of Patton Boggs filed a motion with the District Court of District of Columbia for "enlargement of time to respond to the complaint" related to the legal action, 11-cv-00235, by three Tamil plaintiffs sponsored by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group. Legal observers expressed surprise at the filing, which, in addition to effecting waiver of service, also attempts to set the time window for response pleading tied to a discretionary act by Judge Kotelly on seeking view of the US State Department.
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LLRC has failed, IC should call for International Investigation: HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 December 2011, 04:19 GMT]
“The serious shortcomings of the 388-page report, which was posted on a government website on December 16, 2011, highlight the need for an international investigative mechanism into the conflict as recommended by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts in April,” said New York based Human Rights Watch Saturday. The LLRC report disregards the worst abuses by the SL government forces, rehashes long-standing recommendations, and fails to advance accountability for victims of Sri Lanka’s civil armed conflict, the HRW further said.
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‘SL military appropriated 30% of land in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 December 2011, 01:40 GMT]
Sri Lankan military occupying the Tamil country had appropriated 30 per cent of the land in Jaffna district alone, under the so-called High Security Zones. What has been given back is only 3 per cent, contrary to what the SL Army wants outsiders to believe. The percentage of SL military appropriated lands still remain 30 per cent or even more with the new lands acquired in the islets off Jaffna, Maathakal and at Ki'laali, says a former senior academic of the University of Jaffna. Speaking to journalists in Jaffna on Friday, the former professor has also warned that the destructive and indiscriminate quarrying of limestone at Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS), which is under the High Security Zone, is going to make the groundwater in the peninsula to become saline.
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Former SC judge sceptical of solution without internal or external pressure

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 December 2011, 23:32 GMT]
“I do not see any possible solution to the ethnic conflict immediately, unless extraneous pressure, inland or foreign, compels the powers that be to relent,” said former Supreme Court Judge CV Wigneswaran in giving an interview to Colombo-based Daily Mirror, Thursday. Justice Wigneswaran’s interview gains significance in the light of Sri Lanka’s ‘leaked’ LLRC report, coming out with a blue print for completing structural genocide by 2020, accuses Tamils seeking international remedy as counterproductive. Justice Wigneswaran’s interview, dealing in detail with the past deceits of Sinhala polity, also corresponds with Prof. Sitrampalam’s concerns over Colombo-centric elements in Tamil polity once again leading Tamils into a trap and with the recent Tamil civil society admonition to the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
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UK Courts refuse stay on deportation, TAG appeals to European Court

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 December 2011, 03:54 GMT]
Ruling on the case filed at the Queens Bench Administrative Court by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG-UK) Tuesday challenging the British deportation policy on the grounds that the policy has not been reviewed in light of recent evidence that asylum returnees to Sri Lanka face imminent torture at the hands of Sri Lanka Government, Mr Justice Mitting refused stay and refused permission for judicial review of deportation policy reasoning that the claim can only succeed on "individualized applications," and not on the grounds of a challenge to the failure to review policy, legal sources in London said. The Appeals Court agreed with the lower court decision. TAG said that the case is being appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which has jurisdiction over such asylum cases.
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Death threat issued to 8 student activists, 3 lecturers of Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 December 2011, 14:10 GMT]
“There will be ‘maximum punishment’ [assassination] for those who disturb the ‘freedom’ that we gave to Tamil people by shedding our blood,” say posters and notices distributed by helmet-wearing unknown operatives who entered the premises of the University of Jaffna Thursday. The poster, titled “last warning” and issued in the name of “Naam Ilangkaiyar Security Force” (We Sri Lankans Security Force), names 8 students from 4 districts and 3 lectures of the University of Jaffna. The elected leadership of the student union this year and the newly elected leaders for the coming year are named in the list. One of the students is Mr. S.Thavapalasingham who was recently attacked by a group of men believed to be SL military intelligence operatives and one of the lecturers is Mr. S. Raveendran, who was abducted in Colombo in March 2009 and released after two weeks.
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Colombo-backed drug traffic destroys future of Tamil students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 December 2011, 21:51 GMT]
Religious leaders and civil society groups have joined hands to work against Colombo's planned distribution of drugs among Tamil youth in Jaffna. It has been revealed in a recent survey that around 28 students of both sexes in a leading mixed school in the peninsula were engaged in distributing drugs. The shocking information came to light following the detection of a student who was responsible for the distribution of drugs, and that led to the identification of persons who are engaged in trafficking drugs into the peninsula.
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TAG files legal challenge to UK deportation policy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 December 2011, 03:27 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG-UK), an activist group that assists in obtaining legal redress to war-affected Tamil civilians, filed a legal action in the British Queens Bench Administrative Court Tuesday claiming that UK government’s policy to proceed with the deportation of failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka was a breach of legitimate expectation of policy review following serious concerns of returnee safety revealed in the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) report and the submissions by independent NGOs including Freedom From Torture (FfT) and Amnesty International to UNCAT, legal sources in London said. The British Government has reportedly organized a chartered flight to return nearly fifty failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on 15th December.
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TNA leadership faces admonition from civil society of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 23:50 GMT]
Prominent members of the Tamil civil society of all walks of life presented a memorandum to the Tamil National Alliance leadership on Tuesday, strongly condemning deception and deviatory polity of the leadership while times demand well-defined solutions to a long struggle. The civil society members urged firmness of leadership in political stand in convincing India and the US of the indispensability of addressing fundamentals of the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, i.e., nation and the right to self-determination. Tamils are not a ‘minority’ requesting concessions, but a nation demanding self-rule, the memorandum said. The impressive list of signatories included prominent religious leaders, academics, educationalists, professionals, trade unionists and community leaders. For the first time the TNA leadership faces such an open challenge of the first magnitude from the civil society.
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China announces Indian Ocean naval base in Seychelles

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 01:04 GMT]
China on Monday announced setting up its first naval base abroad at Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.  The former British colony, Seychelles, lies in parallel to the Maldives and the US-British base Diego Garcia in the East, the Somalian coast of Africa in the West, Gulf of Aden/ entrance to the Red Sea in the north, and Indian dominated Mauritius as well as the French colony Reunion in the South. While the Chinese defence ministry announced that its Navy would seek supplies and recuperate facilities through the base, the Seychelles foreign minister said that his country had invited China to set the base to fight against piracy. The base gains significance, as China is about to launch its first aircraft carrier, Hindustan Times said. Tamils are one of the peoples of Seychelles, locally known by the name Malba (from Malabar, a term common to Tamils and Malayalis in colonial vocabulary).
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SLGA in Jaffna blamed for manipulating statistics of uprooted people from HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 December 2011, 21:51 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government Agent in Jaffna, Imelda Sugumar, has gone on record last week drastically reducing the number of uprooted persons from the SL military-occupied High Security Zone in the district, from 66,905 persons of 14,004 families as reported by her secretariat last year, to 36,442 persons of 10,170 families this year. Ms. Sugumar was citing ‘latest figures’ from December 06, 2011. In reality, the resettlement has gone at a snail's pace and there are still around 60,000 people waiting to resettle in their lands still occupied in the name of High Security Zones. The GA and Jaffna SL military commander Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe, in December 2010, went on record arguing that mine-clearance in HSZ area would take another 10 years. One month ago, Mahinda Hathurusinghe was giving the figure of people remaining to be resettled as numbering only around 18,000.
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Criticism mounts on Indian HR record, US media policy

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 December 2011, 06:11 GMT]
“Nothing but a radical shift in economic, security and social policy is needed to meet India's national and international human rights commitments,” said Miloon Kothari, the convenor of Working Group on Human Rights (WGHR) in India, commenting on the latest WGHR review report that presents a very bleak scenario of the actual state of human rights across India, according to The Hindu, Sunday. Meanwhile, several media and rights organisations are currently engaged in a campaign against the US Congress considering a law on censoring the world’s Internet. The US, long criticising China and Iran over Internet, now embarks upon discussing a law far worse that could target You Tube and WikiLeaks, the rights groups said. The rights groups and media in India and the US were virtually silent when the policies of the powers killed a hundred thousand Tamils in a war that kept witnesses away.
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Abducted JVP organiser in Jaffna feared killed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 December 2011, 18:02 GMT]
Lalith Veeraraj, the Jaffna district organiser of the Movement for People’s Struggle, a JVP dissident group and his friend Kugan Murugananthan, who were reported missing in Achchuveali on Friday are feared killed, according to the MPS faction of the JVP which staged a press conference in Jaffna on Saturday. Lalith Veeraraj has been involved in bringing out the news regarding the missing persons, political prisoners and abductions in Jaffna, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Mannaar and Vavuniyaa during the past months and had been warned several times by the SL intelligence operatives not to get involved in the missing persons issue.
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UK Tamil groups to campaign jointly for Sri Lanka's war crimes probe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 December 2011, 00:33 GMT]
Several Tamil activist groups, Tamil affiliates of British political parties, and Tamil journalists confederation in the UK in a meeting held at the British Parliament building at 7:00 p .m. Thursday organized by the British Tamil Forum (BTF) to mark the forth coming Human Rights Day, resolved to combined forces to pressure the international community to conduct an dependent investigation into war-crimes committed during the Sri Lanka's civil war, sources in UK said.
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UK to return refused Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 December 2011, 17:44 GMT]
Despite ongoing concerns over risks of torture in Sri Lanka, including to Tamils returning to Sri Lanka, the UK government continues to remove refused Sri Lankan asylum seekers, with a charter flight planned for 15 December, a UK-based activist group, Freedom from Torture (FfT) said. The group has recently launched a public action calling on the UK government to take urgent steps to ensure that they are not returning anyone to a serious risk of torture in Sri Lanka following its publication of forensically-documented evidence of ongoing torture in Sri Lanka.
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