'Coercion is not the beginning for a lasting solution'

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2009, 01:17 GMT]
“Intimidation and coercion of Tamils and their political leaders can never be a good beginning for any lasting solution. The fundamental point is that the powers don’t want to see parity to Tamils in the negotiation. They want to confirm Colombo’s position that there is a post-LTTE phase and the Tamils to negotiate from a post-defeat position. Above all, they don’t want to recognize the national liberation perspectives of the Tamil struggle,” writes an independent commentator in Vanni, who has long been sharing his insight with TamilNet. “What the powers actually expect is TNA disowning the LTTE and joining Rajapaksa club in hoodwinking a solution. The Eezham Tamils were at the receiving end of political deceit for ages and they have a good sense of smelling it out, even if it is international."
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Website launched in Jaffna on Cancer Awareness Day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 18:03 GMT]
Dr. A. Ketheeswaran, Director of Public Health Services Jaffna district, officially opened Tuesday a website located in the Pa’n’nai Cancer Treatment Centre in Jaffna in an event in which hundreds of students, medical experts and others took part. Dr. C. Jamunananthan, who is in charge of Cancer Prevention and Control, presided in the event in which a website to create awareness of cancer and ways of preventing and curing it was launched officially, sources in Jaffna said.
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'Parliament proposes, Rammell dismisses'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 07:47 GMT]
It was the fourth occasion in recent times the British parliament was discussing Sri Lanka. Members cutting across party lines came hard on the Colombo government for nearly one and a half hours on Tuesday, for its attacks on civilians, failure in heeding international calls for ceasefire, humanitarian abuses and blockade of international monitoring. Many members demanded UN action, suspension of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth and pressure on India to act in stopping the war. However, Bill Rammell, the British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs came out only with rhetorical assurances, sounded negative to substantial demands and accused the LTTE for preventing people from leaving.
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19 Tamil civilians arrested in Matara

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 06:43 GMT]
Deniyaya police arrested nineteen Tamil civilians, most of them residents of North and East, in a cordon and search operation conducted Monday in Deniyaya town in Matara district, sources in Matara said.
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Saiva delegation visits IDP detention camps in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 17:39 GMT]
A five member Saiva delegation group led by Nallai Aatheenam Chief Priest, Srila Siri Somansunthara Parmaachchaariya Suvaamika’l, visited the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centres in Koappaay and Kurunakar Tuesday where it gave goods to the detained Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who had fled the war in Vanni to Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. This is the first visit to the SLA detention centres in Jaffna by a Saiva organization and the members of the group expressed concern that many needs of the IDPs remain unfulfilled.
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SL armed forces bar Tamils travelling to Colombo by Yarl Devi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 11:59 GMT]
Complaints have been lodged with human rights organizations that Sri Lanka armed forces are imposing severe restriction on Tamil people from traveling to Colombo and southern parts of the country from Mannaar and Vavuniyaa areas. The Yaldevi express train service is being conducted from Colombo upto Madawachchi due to security reason.
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Sri Lanka guilty of Genocide - Prof. Sornarajah

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 11:20 GMT]
"Every indicia of genocide is satisfied by the conduct of successive Sri Lankan governments, the oppression accentuated in intensity by the present government which has unleashed immense terror through its armed forces on a people in the name of suppression of terrorism. The chauvinism of successive Sri Lankan governments since independence targeted the Tamil people for oppression. These acts supply the objective factors necessary for the satisfaction of the crime of genocide," says Professor Sornarajah, Pierre Genest Visiting Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, in a position statement released this week, adding "there is a duty incumbent on every state to ensure the protection of the Tamil people. It is important that this duty be taken seriously so that such scourges on humanity are not repeated elsewhere."
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Expecting hostile diaspora to buttress a collapsing state

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 02:21 GMT]
"Engaging the diaspora for any solution is possible only when humanitarian assistance and protection reach their brethren, war is called off, Tamil self-determination in the island of Sri Lanka is recognized and the LTTE is de-proscribed. Above all, accepting the reality of the crisis that it is a national liberation struggle and seeking solutions not insisting on a united Sri Lanka will tremendously help to ease the situation and even reconciliation," writes Opinion Columnist Chivanadi.
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Colombo, New Delhi fall back on lure in fighting the diaspora

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2009, 20:23 GMT]
Frustration arising from failure in the military annihilation of the Eezham Tamil struggle led by the LTTE, mounting global opinion in favour of the oppressed, determination of the diaspora and electoral urgency in India are impelling the war partners in Colombo and New Delhi to explore alternative tactics in achieving their goals. While conferences are planned in Singapore and Bangalore to hoodwink the diaspora and Indian public, a member of India’s national security advisory panel wants Colombo and the Tigers to be pressurised to declare a ceasefire. “They must be compelled to accept an international mechanism, so that the civilians are rescued from the war zones. And, what is more, these civilians should be settled in welfare centres, manned by the UN agencies”, he said.
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TRO reports detail struggle for survival

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2009, 02:01 GMT]
In a series of reports Lawrence Christy, planning director at the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) details the travails of daily life of the civilians caught in the war, amidst the artillery fire of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). "From the first shell no one knows how to escape. Before second shell falls all will be in the bunkers. Like parent rabbits and their kids scurrying to a hole when they saw a vulture parents dragging and lifting their children and hurry into the bunkers," Christy says in the 11th March report.
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US Group to file court action against US vote on IMF loan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 March 2009, 14:07 GMT]
Bruce Fein, counsel for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, said Sunday that TAG is preparing to file a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction, and a declaratory judgment to prohibit the United States Treasury Secretary from voting to support the request by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) for $1.9 billion in economic assistance from the International Monetary Fund. TAG’s complaint alleges that a United States vote in favor of the assistance would violate a federal statute, 22 USC 262d, intended to prevent United States financial complicity in harrowing human rights abuses by IMF member governments, Fein said.
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US Tamils protest against IMF loan to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 March 2009, 11:16 GMT]
Dozens of American Tamils on Friday staged a protest rally in front of the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, urging the IMF to deny funding to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's request for $1.8 billion in loans is under consideration by the IMF. Tamil community fears that the Sri Lankan government would use the funds to perpetuate Tamil genocide while entrenching mass displacement of Tamils confining them to institutionalized internment camps, organizers of the rally said.
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Civil war generation documents life amidst death in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 March 2009, 04:49 GMT]
The Odour of Death: An Account of People Devoured by War, a collection of narratives and features of personal experience expressed in the form of short stories by 1983-born T. Agiilan, is a significant example of creative writing coming from first hand impressions of a generation of Eezham Tamils that has seen nothing but war ever since birth. Another importance of the book is its documentation of war-torn Vanni of pre 2002 era from the perspectives of a person of that land.
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Ambassador Rice supports UN Council briefing on Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 March 2009, 02:47 GMT]
Speaking at the Security Council Stakeout microphone, March 20, 2009 Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative, said US supports UN Security council briefing on Sri Lanka, and added: "The United States feels strongly about and concerned about Sri Lanka and we support the provision of it to the Council- a full and updated information on the humanitarian situation."
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“SL parliament passes only bills favourable to the Sinhalese” – Ariyanenthiran MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 10:52 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian, P. Ariyanenthiran, participating in the debate on the bill to issue pension to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) home guards, said that there are more than 45,000 Tamil War Widows in the North and East whom the government does not help while it gives compensation and pension to the members of the three armed forces which clearly shows that it discriminates the Tamils. The bill was submitted in the House when it met Thursday around 9:30 a.m.
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20 Tamil youths arrested in Badulla

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 10:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police arrested 20 Tamil youths Friday in a joint cordon and search in Pasa’rai in Badulla district. Eleven of them were produced in Badulla District Court where they were ordered to be placed in remand prison and nine youths were released after interrogation on the intervention of Deputy Health Minister, Vadivel Suresh, sources in Badulla said.
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LTTE urges China to consider Tamils plight at UN

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 07:31 GMT]
Political Head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), B. Nadesan, on Friday urged Chinese government to allow Tamils plight to be discussed at the UN Security Council for a second time. "The Sri Lankan state is not only denying the Tamil sovereignty, but it is waging a genocidal war against them of catastrophic dimensions," said Mr. Nadesan adding that Colombo was engaged in a propaganda campaign saying that the conflict is an internal matter.
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Tamil Eelam flag flown in Toronto protest legal - Canadian Police

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2009, 05:06 GMT]
The use of Eezham Tamil national flag did not contravene any law in Canada, according to a report by CBC News which cited Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash. Citing the ban on the LTTE, some representatives of the Sri Lankan government, who have been over-sensitive to any demonstration of overwhelming Tamil diaspora support to Tamil nationalism, have been demanding a ban on the national flag of the Eezham Tamils, seeing it an opportunity of dismembering Tamil nationalism.
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Socialist Resistance voices for Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2009, 02:17 GMT]
“The socialist and labour movement stand against repression and genocide. We stand in solidarity with the Tamil people in the face of its suffering at the hands of the Sri Lankan government”, said Duncan Chapel, member of the Socialist Resistance steering committee, Tuesday, greeting 25,000 strong Tamil demonstration outside of the European Commission. Supporting the demands for sending food and medicine, withdrawal of Sri Lanka military from Tamil homeland and lifting the ban on LTTE, “the legalization of the LTTE has to be the first step towards Tamil peace, freedom and self-determination”, he said.
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US support to IMF's Sri Lanka loan illegal – Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2009, 00:17 GMT]
“Concerning the proposed loan to Sri Lanka by the International Monetary Fund, United States domestic law makes it quite clear that the Obama Administration is obligated to oppose the loan. And given the weighted voting system for the IMF Board of Directors, a United States vote against the loan would be tantamount to a veto,” said Prof. Boyle, Professor at Illinois College of Law, adding, “for the Obama Administration to violate the Statute [22 USC 262d] and vote in favor of the proposed IMF loan to support the GOSL's "policy goals" would render the United States government "complicit" with Sri Lanka's genocide.”
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