Law becomes an ass by inaction on UN report: Miliband, Kouchner

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 18:30 GMT]
“If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity,” said David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, writing in New York Times Monday and commenting on how Sri Lanka conducted the Vanni War and treated Tamil life as fourth or fifth class in the refugee camps. Both Miliband and Kouchner were foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively during the Vanni War. They said that in April 2009 they tried to stop the war. Now, responding to the UN panel report on war crimes in the island and citing the need of action, both the former foreign ministers said “We therefore call on our governments to set a deadline, soon, for satisfactory response from the Sri Lankan government, and if it is not forthcoming to initiate the international arrangements recommended by the report.
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CPI calls for all India solidarity with Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 12:36 GMT]
The Communist Party of India (CPI) in its National Council Meeting at New Delhi on 18-19 June, passed a resolution, demanding the Indian government to take into account the resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on war crimes investigation and economic sanctions against Sri Lanka. Accusing Sri Lanka Army for violation of human rights, state terrorism and perpetration of mass murder of Tamil population in the island, the CPI demanded India to facilitate open enquiry on war crimes and resettlement of Tamils in their own places as well as media entry to monitor Indian aided rehabilitation. The party’s national council decided to observe July 8 as “All India Solidarity with Sri Lankan Tamils Day” to press for peaceful political settlement to the ethnic conflict and appealed to other left and democratic parties to join.
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Sinhala GS actions threaten to disenfranchise Ka'n'nakipuram Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 10:13 GMT]
Tamil residents in traditional Tamil village Kannagipuram East in Poratheevupattu Vellave’li DS division in Batticaloa are in the danger of losing their voting rights due to the discriminatory action taken by a Sinhala village officer T.Sugathadasa who is responsible to register their names in voters’ list by visiting each house in the village. The village is located between two Sinhala villages Bakkiella and Nugalanda along the border of the two districts Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai. Instead of visiting each house and register their names the Sinhala GS has asked Tamil people to come to his office located at Paalaiyadiveddai, several miles away from Ka'n'nakipuram.
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Sri Lanka’s “Novel way to kill tens of thousands”: The Times

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 09:54 GMT]
“In a grotesque perversion of humanity, the military had considered the mechanics of human grieving and come up with a novel way to kill tens of thousands: they would drop an initial shell on a village, usually killing those too old, weak or young to take shelter in time. Then they would wait ten minutes — until people had gathered around dead or dying loved ones, trying to save them, or weeping over them — and then shell for a second time; thus wiping out whole families in 11 minutes flat,” says Caitlin Moran, in UK’s The Time’s review of the Channel-4 “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields,” widely believed to be “the most visceral war footage ever broadcast.”
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Sri Lanka internment camps compared to Nazi gas chambers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2011, 18:42 GMT]
“We saw how the Sri Lankan government created protected zones whose only equivalent that I can think of are the gas chambers of the Nazis who duped their victims into believing they were safe and then killed them. Corralled into an ever-shrinking space, civilians were bombed and shelled. Thousands died. Desperate doctors performed amputations on children without anesthetic. Disease, starvation, infection decimated the population,” says an Israeli blogger in an article titled “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields – what genocide actually looks like” written after viewing the Channel-4 documentary on Sri Lanka’s war.
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Tamil Eelam is the solution: Loyola opinion poll in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2011, 16:15 GMT]
65 percent of the participants in an opinion poll conducted in Tamil Nadu this month by Centre for Public Studies of the Loyola College in Chennai said that an independent Tamil Eelam is the appropriate permanent solution for the question of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. 70 percent of them said that the Government of India should declare Mr. Rajapaksa as war criminal in the coming sessions of the parliament. According to 74 percent of the participants, all political parties of Tamil Nadu should jointly lead a struggle on the question of Tamils in the island, after giving an ultimatum to the Centre. An overwhelming 81 percent welcomed the resolution on Sri Lanka in the Tamil Nadu State Assembly. The opinion coming from the effective civil society initiative challenges obsolete views of the intelligence-operated analysis groups in Chennai, political observers in Tamil Nadu said.
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SLA commanders of the assault could be identified: TNA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 June 2011, 09:44 GMT]
Convening a press conference at the Martin Road office on Friday, to brief about the blatant attack on a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) meeting at A’laveddi by the Sri Lanka Army on Thursday, the TNA members said that it was a calculated demonstration by the occupying Army to tell the Tamils of the north and east of the island that they are under military rule. Two of the commanders who led the attack could be identified, said TNA parliamentarian Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran. TNA would seek legal action and would hereafter go for house-to-house campaign, the parliamentarians said. The realities of the military rule by a genocidal Army prevent even the TNA holding public meetings in future, political observers in Jaffna said.
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Hague summons reaches Rajapakse for US Court case

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 June 2011, 06:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s local media reported that the Sri Lanka Justice Department has received the summons filed in connection with the Monoharan et al v. Rajapaksa (Civil Action No. 11-235(CKK) under the Hague Convention. This notification and demonstrated failure of Mr Rajapakse to answer the complaint will allow the Court to proceed to the next step in proposing a last resort attempt at service by publication or to move to consider a default judgment, plaintiffs’ attorney Bruce Fein told TamilNet.
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US-UK responsible for ‘killing field’ war on Eezham Tamils: papers

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 13:52 GMT]
“The war on terror served as a justification for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries which ten years latter are still shattered and fractured, with a rather bleak future. It seems that it has, under the eyes of the International community, also been used as a cover up for a conflict that was nothing more than a racist war,” says Anissa Haddadi writing on Sri Lanka in International Business Times, Friday, asking the question, “Is the US war on terror responsible for Sri Lanka Killing Fields?”
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Buddhist Stupa, Sinhala colony in the making in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 12:27 GMT]
Following a Buddhist stupa complex and Sinhala colony planned in 3000 acres of land in Trincomalee city, depriving Eezham Tamils the territoriality of their country, a similar venture in Mullaiththeevu town is being undertaken by the military governor of genocidal Sri Lanka in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. The stupa complex is planned in a locality where the LTTE earlier had its memorials for combatants laid down their life in fighting for the liberation of Eezham Tamils. Apart from allotting a huge sum from the funds of Colombo’s administration for the north, The SL governor is intimidating NGOs and civil society institutions functioning in the Tamil country to ‘donate’ unspecified amounts of money in ‘unaccounted ways’ for this project of structural genocide schemed by Colombo.
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British commentator questions suitability of English cricket tour to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 12:18 GMT]
Following the airing of Channel-4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields,” Mike Atherton, cricket correspondent for UK’s The Times, compares Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime to that of Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe and questions the suitability of England’s tour to Sri Lanka, scheduled for this winter. Atherton is a former England captain and Sports Writer of the Year 2010.
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SL Army brutally attacks public meeting of politicians, journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 16:34 GMT]
In what is seen as retaliation for Channel 4 broadcast Tuesday, the genocidal SL Army occupying Jaffna brutally attacked TNA parliamentarians, journalists and public in Jaffna on Thursday, causing injuries to an unspecified number of people, according to initial reports. The blatant attack by SL Army in uniform took place when the TNA politicians held a meeting at A’laveddi in Jaffna, inaugurating their political campaign for the forthcoming civic elections. Tension prevailed as SL Army was deployed in the area and the public that came for the meeting sought refuge in the nearby houses. “British diplomats satisfied with Army’s role in Jaffna,” said a website of the occupying Army on Tuesday, after the visit of the Deputy High Commissioner of UK, announcing ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants in detention through the occupying Army.
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Britain: UN must investigate Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:39 GMT]
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron called Wednesday in Parliament for a United Nations inquiry into war crimes committed during the final months of Sri Lanka’s war in 2009. Responding to a question by ruling Conservative Party MP Lee Scott following the previous night’s screening of Channel 4’s documentary, ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’, Mr. Cameron said the film refers to "some very worrying events … The Sri Lankan government does need this to be investigated and the UN needs this to be investigated."
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Amnesty International appeals for halt to deportations to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:12 GMT]
Amnesty International called Thursday for the UK Authorities not to deport Sri Lankans at risk of torture, ahead of a planned deportation in the afternoon from Gatwick Airport in London, echoing a call Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. At least twenty people, mostly Tamil, face forcible return on the flight, the rights watchdog said, adding it was aware of cases of deported asylum seekers being arrested and tortured on arrival in Colombo. At least one of the failed asylum seekers due to be deported tried to commit suicide last night at an airport detention facility, following threats he reportedly received on the telephone to kill him once he returned to Sri Lanka, Amnesty said.
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Sri Lanka offers attack aircraft to UN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka has offered to supply the United Nations with three Mi-24 attack helicopters and a pair of fix wing aircraft for peacekeeping duties, but a decision to accept would not only generate controversy, but potentially trigger a US review of Sri Lanka's human rights conduct, Foreign Policy magazine reported Wednesday. The Sri Lanka pledge appears calculated to improve Sri Lanka's relationship with the United Nations at a time when it is facing mounting UN pressure to hold alleged war criminals within the army's ranks accountable, UN officials told FP magazine.
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HRW urges halt to UK deportations to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 22:30 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized Wednesday the British government’s decision to deport asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, saying they should not be sent back home until the situation improves there. Brad Adams, South Asia director of the New York based human rights organisation, told BBC Sinhala service: "we urge the British government to hold off sending people who could face persecution on return". He was speaking a day before Britain is scheduled to deport a large number of people on a chartered flight to Colombo.
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Gordon Weiss tries to unrelate fire and smoke: Jaffna politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:59 GMT]
“The problem was not that the army of Sri Lanka had decided to regain its sovereign territory and to take on the Tamil Tigers, whose brutality was a matter of record, the problem was the manner in which they carried out the final phase of the war and the sheer number, the sheer proportion, of civilians who were killed during these final assaults,” said Gorden Weiss, former UN spokesperson stationed in Colombo during the war, commenting on a fresh evidence of war crime brought out by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday. By projecting the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in this manner, Gorden Weiss, who was veiling the crimes to the knowledge of the world when they were taking place, now tries to say that fire was not the problem but smoke was the problem, responded an Eezham Tamil politician in Jaffna.
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On burying evidence: The Guardian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:43 GMT]
Placing the blame on the International Community and Human Rights Organizations for not preventing the mass murder in Sri Lanka where the Government allegedly killed 40,000 Tamil civilians, and for not documenting the atrocities committed there, The Guardian in an editorial comparing Sri Lanka crimes to the Genocide in Srebrenica, recommends Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother meet the same justice as Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic now face justice in The Hague, and Bashar al-Assad faces UN sanctions for an assault that has killed 1,300 Syrians.
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Tamil famers denied irrigation facility in East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 10:52 GMT]
Irrigation facility from Inginiyagala tank has been denied to more than 2000 acres of paddy cultivated in the Yala season in Tamil areas in 13th and 14th colony located on the border of the Batticaloa district for the last one month. One month old crops are facing destruction due to lack of water, according to complaints made by farmers at the coordinating meeting of the Vellaave'li Divisional Secretariat.
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Sri Lanka Archaeology Dept plans to take Jaffna material to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 06:45 GMT]
Material excavated recently at Kantharoadai in Jaffna, belonging to pre-Buddhist Megalithic period, and could be dated to roughly 3000 years before present, are planned to be taken to Anuradhapura museum in the south, informed sources in Jaffna said. According to news reports, the excavation has been ‘jointly’ conducted by the Sri Lanka Department of Archaeology and the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Jaffna. Even on all earlier occasions, valuable material excavated from important archaeological sites of the Tamil country in the island such as Maanthai in Mannaar and Kantharoadai in Jaffna were taken to Anuradhapura or Colombo and became unavailable for Eezham Tamils to present their heritage in their own land.
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