Canadian parties join in screening Channel-4 documentary in Parliament

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2011, 06:47 GMT]
“As a Member of Parliament to Barrie, I was proud to host the screening of the UK Channel 4 - Sri Lanka’s Killing Field documentary in the Canadian Parliament on Wednesday, September 28th,” said Patrick Brown, Conservative MP for Barrie in a statement issued Friday adding that “we can all take this noble cause forward till we see freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Sri Lanka.” The well-attended screening, organised by Human Rights Watch in Toronto, was co-hosted by NDP’s Rathika Sitsabaiesan and Liberal’s John McKay.
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Sri Lanka’s removal from Commonwealth urged in Canadian parliament

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2011, 05:22 GMT]
“Will the Prime Minister take steps today to urge the commonwealth to revoke Sri Lanka’s membership until it holds the perpetrators to account and they are judged in international courts? Will he support calls from the international community for action against the Sri Lankan government, asked Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis in the Canadian parliament Thursday, accusing the government for doing nothing when thousands were butchered. Supporting the line, and criticising the government for idling too long, New Democratic Party MP, Rathika Sitsabaiesan urged the government to commit to a stand with immediate effect in calling for a UN inquiry on Sri Lanka. Replying, the foreign minister of the Conservative government, John Baird said, “The Prime Minister did not sit idly by when he expressed grave concern about attending a future summit of the Commonwealth in Colombo.”
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Politics of Human Rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 08:49 GMT]
“Is it not time for us to realize that these partners in collusion are making us to chase a mirage that is getting further and further away,” asks TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in Asia Pacific, citing Human Rights Council in Geneva giving further time for Rajapaksa to stabilize the genocide. Stressing on the importance of collectivism in ideology to face the situation, the analyst said the lacuna in current human rights activism is that it harps only on individual human rights and not on collective human rights such as the right to self-determination of nations. Individualism carefully promoted by the Establishments leads to inaction, frustration and negativism. The present HR activists hooked to the paradigm should be reminded of the limitations of their activism resulting in negativism capturing the minds of all oppressed peoples, he further writes.
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Armed robberies escalate in SLA-deployed areas of North

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Night robberies are on the increase in Sri Lanka Army deployed areas of the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni after the ‘grease devil’ episodes, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. On Tuesday night, a group of armed men entered the house of 60-year-old Ponnaiah Balasingam and attacked him and his 24-year-old son Dinesh Balasingam, at Thirvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi district. The attackers later robbed the house. The occupying Sri Lanka Army was heavily deployed in the area while the attack and the robbery were taking place. Meanwhile, medical staff at Jaffna hospital staged a one-hour token strike Wednesday against the recent attack on two doctors of the hospital at their residence in Kokkuvil. Normalcy remains disturbed in Jaffna as armed robberies were escalating in areas with heavy SLA presence.
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Sri Lanka governor demolishes British heritage in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 21:14 GMT]
Part of a landmark heritage complex at the Old Park in Jaffna, the residency buildings of the British Government Agents, dating back to the beginnings of British rule, was demolished overnight on Wednesday at the orders of the occupying Sri Lanka governor in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasri, despite the SL Archaeology Department declaring it a heritage site, preventing any demolitions. The SL governor is already building a mansion for the occupying governors in that location at a cost of 100 million Rs, news sources in Jaffna said. Both SL President Rajapaksa and his governor give utmost importance to the symbolism in showing who are the colonial masters now, by building a mansion for the SL president at the ‘King’s House’ inside the Dutch Fort and by building a governor’s mansion at the complex of the former British Residents.
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UK Appeal Court stays deportation order of Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 03:54 GMT]
An unknown number of Tamils, rumoured to be close to 50, who were to have been on today’s flight and who had appealed for judicial review of their cases have had their High Court removal orders overturned in the Court of Appeal Wednesday, Channel-4 reported. An appeal court judge had overturned one Tamil woman’s removal orders on the grounds that the UK Border Agency had breached British and European law by disclosing potentially sensitive information on the individual to the Sri Lankan authorities, thus placing her at greater risk upon her return, the report added. However, Friday's edition of a Sri Lanka daily said that 50 deported asylum seekers arrived from UK. The true facts behind the conflicting stories is expected to emerge during the day.
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Canada responsible for Tamils becoming refugees: NDP parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 20:38 GMT]
“The Government of Canada refused to act, refused to speak out, refused to demand an end to the atrocities. Canadians of Tamil descent came by the thousands to Ottawa to beg their country, to beg their Prime Minister to do something, to say something in the desperate hope that the slaughter of their families would end. The Prime Minister did nothing. Therefore, in fact, the government helped to create the refugees it denied in 2009 and 2010,” said New Democratic Party MP Irene Mathyssen, speaking on new refugee laws in the Canadian Parliament on last Friday. While the Conservative government of Canada was enacting a draconian law that would affect Eezham Tamils, the decision of the Conservative government in the UK for bulk deportation of Tamil asylum seekers shows orchestrated move of the Establishments across the world without solutions to a situation designed by them.
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Maldives President thinks Sunanda Deshapriya a Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 16:22 GMT]
Responding to SL government-backing media allegations against exiled, Sinhala media rights activist Mr Sunanda Deshapriya at Geneva, involving the name of the President of Maldives, the President’s Office of the Republic of Maldives came out with a press release on Tuesday that sounded as though the President of Maldives had thought Mr Deshapriya a Tamil.
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Regimes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, forge questionable alliance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 06:09 GMT]
Maldivian Vice-President Dr Mohammed Waheed, meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa over the weekend at the UN General Assembly Sessions, assured the latter of the support of Male to Colombo’s stand on its human rights issues, according to Maldivian media Haveeru, Tuesday. “Early this month Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed defended Sri Lanka’s position at the UN Human Rights Council sessions held in Geneva,” Haveeru said in its feature “Maldives assures support for Sri Lanka amidst UN allegations.” The undue extra efforts taken by the present regime in Male to shield Colombo against the struggle of Tamils and Muslims in the island need careful scrutiny by the people in Maldives and peoples movements across South Asia, commented a political observer in Male.
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BASL exemplifies Sri Lanka's legal institutional decay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 01:50 GMT]
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) "express[ed] serious concerns as to diabolic overtures by the West to destabilize Sri Lanka on the instigation of the Tamil Diaspora...," a Sri Lanka weekly said Sunday, and added, BASL is establishing "a high powered" committee to advise the government on matters that should be raised before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The Head of the Committee, de Z. Gunasekera's initial defense of Colombo arguing that delay in Channel-4 video presentation as evidence the video is a fake reflects a serious lack of basic legal reasoning skills from the highest legal institution of practicing lawyers, legal sources in Washington pointed out.
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Inaction on Sri Lanka undermines UN Convention: Canadian foreign minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 01:40 GMT]
Citing objection taken “on petty, procedural or process-based grounds to upholding a report that speaks about credible allegations of war crimes committed in Sri Lanka,” and other examples, the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird speaking at the UN General assembly on Monday, said that “The greatest enemies of United Nations are not those who have publicly repudiated actions, the greatest enemies of the United Nations are those who quietly undermine its principles and, even worse, those who sit idly watching a slow decline. We cannot sit idly. Canada is a vigorous defender of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.” Canada has consistently opposed the debasement of multilateral institutions by conduct that is inconsistent with the values, he further said.
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HRW to screen Channel 4 documentary at Parliament Hill, Canada

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 00:43 GMT]
Human Rights Watch in Toronto, Canada, is screening “Sri Lanka's Killing Fields”, the Channel 4 documentary in Ottawa on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, the HRW said in an invitation to the press. The event will be hosted by Patrick Brown, Member of Parliament for Barrie and will include a discussion with Elaine Pearson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. The film was recently screened to wide acclaim at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and has fuelled renewed calls for an international response to these crimes, according to the HRW.
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Targeted attacks in Jaffna show war of Establishments against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 23:50 GMT]
The US Asst. Secretary of State visiting the island recently, wanted the ‘Grease Devil’ attacks to be stopped as though the ‘switch’ was in his hand. But targeted attacks taking place in Jaffna after his visit, against the backdrop of dubious manoeuvrings currently engineered in the West, only show a continued and concerted war waged against Eezham Tamils by elements in the Establishments guilty of genocide trying politics of intimidation, commented political circles in Jaffna. A house of a judge, two doctors and a bank official were targeted in the attacks in Jaffna last week taking the life of one and injuring at least seven in localities swamped by occupying SL military. The student community in Jaffna would have performed much better by showing righteous resentment to the visiting US dignitary rather than allowing the EPDP to hijack the show, the political circles further said.
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UK plans bulk deportation of Eezham Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 11:44 GMT]
UK has taken a decision to deport more than 100 Eezham Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on 28 of this month. The Home Ministry of UK has taken this decision as a test case to declare Sri Lanka a country free from human rights violations, said Eezham Tamil diaspora activists protesting the deportation in a meeting convened by Tamil Lawyers Association at Ealing Amman Temple in London on Sunday. Meanwhile, just last Tuesday, delivering a judgement and stopping the deportation of an Eezham Tamil refugee in India, judge Arul Varma said in New Delhi, “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors.” The Indian judge was worrying about the lack of proper refugee laws in India, but UK has striped the rights of its courts to intervene in such matters, the UK lawyers commented.
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‘Politics of Deceit’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2011, 14:51 GMT]
The TNA needs to publicly clarify its position on the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination and how it is proposing to overcome the Politics of Deceit perpetuated on the Tamils for the last 63 years, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. As experience teaches us, any agreement can be torn unilaterally. So it is not the details or fine print that matters but that agreement is built on the base of the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination. The politics of deceit is practised universally by the oppressors, in various forms from diversionary politics to pre-emptive solutions, all aimed at blocking political progress of the peoples. What concern Eezham Tamils mostly are the pre-emptive solutions put forward by various interested parties in the prevailing atmosphere of negativism after the disaster of May 2009, he further writes.
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Tamils protest outside Rajapakse's UN address

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 07:13 GMT]
Nearly one thousand Tamils protested outside the United Nations Friday between 10 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. while Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse was addressing the UN's General Assembly. Protesters held placards criticizing UN's inaction on Sri Lanka, and took the 'Pongku Thamizh' oath promising to continue to non-violent struggle until Tamils' inalienable rights are recognized in a political settlement based on Tamils right to self-determination, attendees to the event said. Several protesters crossed the Canadian border to be present at the rally held amid tight security on the 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue.
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Sitrampalam proves self-determination not a diaspora fantasy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 05:24 GMT]
Prof SK Sitrampalam, Senior Vice President of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), writing in Thinakkural this month on the importance of Eezham Tamils asserting to their right to self-determination, disproved a distorting campaign by Colombo, New Delhi, Washington, international crisis managers and even the UN panel report trying to tell that this right is not an aspiration of the Tamils in the island but only in the diaspora. While the concerted campaigners assert to their audacity without seeking a referendum and while the Eezham Tamils in the island are constitutionally and militarily gagged to open mouth on the issue, the bold voice of Sitrampalam coming from the island was highly appreciated by many. Today, Tamils in the island are left to feel more compellingly for liberation than Tamils in the diaspora, Tamil political circles said.
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Torture case filed against Sri Lanka's ex-General Shavendra Silva

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 00:50 GMT]
American University Washington College of Law's Human Rights Clinic in a press release issued today said that it has filed civil action at the District Court of New York Southern District (SDNY), on behalf of two Tamil plaintiffs against Sri Lanka's ex-Army General and currently Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Shavendra Silva, on charges of torture and wrongful death. The civil action under the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) called for declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages for torts in violation of international and domestic law.
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Tamil name boards removed along Batticaloa - Kalmunai Road

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 September 2011, 18:47 GMT]
Tamil name boards put up by the Batticaloa Municipal Council along the border of Kaaththaakudi have been removed allegedly by the Sri Lankan police, which is engineering dissension between Tamils and Muslims, informed sources in Kaaththaakudi said. The welcome board “Va'nakkam, Batticaloa welcomes you” in Tamil has been removed and the Sri Lankan police was spreading a ‘rumour’ that certain Muslim leaders, including the Batticaloa Urban Council chairman considered “Va'nakkam” in Tamil as harem.
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Sri Lanka relocates uprooted civilians by force in jungles to cover-up war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 15:40 GMT]
Closing down the infamous Manik Farm barbed-wire camp where several thousands of war-displaced Tamil civilians were detained under extremely difficult conditions since early 2009, the genocidal Rajapaksa regime has now decided to relocate them in some strange jungle areas by force, under the name of ‘resettlement’ of internally displaced people (IDPs), mainly to cover up war crimes. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence this week announced that preparations were under way to construct 600 acre new village in Koampaavil in Puthukkudiyiruppu area to resettle the remaining 7,394 IDPs from 2,097 families at the Manik Farm Camp.
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