UN Commissioner's call for war-crimes probe jolts Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 May 2011, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's effort to whitewash the charges of war-crimes during the final stages of war received a set back at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) annual session as Navaneetham Pillai, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she supported special UN panel's recommendations in the war-crimes report made public on 14th April. Meanwhile, despite the theatrics orchestrated by Colombo in questioning the authenticity of the incriminating "Channel-4" video of extra-judicial executions, UN human rights expert, Christof Heyns, said that the shocking footage showed "definitive war crimes," and "[w]hat is reflected in the extended video are crimes of the highest order – definitive war crimes," Associated Press said quoting Heyns.
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SLA suppresses evidence of skeletal remains unearthed during demining

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2011, 17:29 GMT]
Officials of demining NGOs in Vanni allege that the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are taking measures to ensure that evidence regarding the skeletal remains of Tamil civilians discovered during the demining operations do not become exposed or become public information, sources in Kilinochchi said. Sri Lanka officials have issued unofficial directives to the demining organizations to bury the skeletons in a demarcated area, according to the NGOs.
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Genocide recognition of Mu’l’livaaykkaal 2009 gains ground

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2011, 00:03 GMT]
Genocide recognition is a long and politicised process. While the international media has a pivotal role, historically it has failed to publicise genocides as they occur and has delayed in recognition afterwards. Governments on the other hand have been reluctant to recognise genocide as this would impose obligations on them under international law to act to 'prevent and to punish' and these obligations would consume resources and damage diplomatic relations with countries that may be their allies in military and security endeavours.
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SL Navy chases away Tamil fishermen from the seas off Kayts

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 16:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy on Friday chased away hundreds of Tamils fishermen from Vadamaraadchi and Kurunakar North, engaged in fishing in the seas off Melignchi-munai of Ooraath-thu'rai (Kayts), blocking them from engaging in fishing in the seas off the islets. The fishermen said they have been fishing in the seas off Ooraath-thu'rai for many years with the permission from the fishermen association of Kayts. Sri Lanka Navy has chased the Tamil fishermen away to bring in Sinhala fishermen from south to occupy the fishing resources of Tamils, the fishermen alleged.
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Tamil independence, a universal issue going beyond state reformation in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 09:36 GMT]
India could do much better by acknowledging the right to independence of Eezham Tamils, by working for international consensus towards it, by structuring an IC-facilitated transition arrangement for it, and by creating an environment for the diaspora to freely interact through Palaali and Trincomalee, for India’s own reconciliation with Tamils and for relieving the island from endangering the entire region, rather than covertly waging ‘counterinsurgency’ and psy-op wars with people of Tamil Nadu and the diaspora through intelligence operatives to save establishments indicted, writes TamilNet commentator in Colombo. The Frankenstein Monster in Colombo is now difficult for its creators and the UN to handle, but Sinhalese alone may able to bring it down and strike true reconciliation if there is an IC decision that Tamil Eelam is inevitable. That is the only way out now, he further said.
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Rain helps Tamil protesters at Cardiff cricket match

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 03:29 GMT]
Rain that drenched Tamil youth activists conducting a major leafleting effort in support of the ‘Boycott Sri Lankan Cricket’ campaign on Saturday, the third day of Sri Lanka’s first test match against England, proved a blessing in disguise when it stopped play till lunch, allowing them to canvass crowds of spectators milling outside the Swalec Stadium in Wales. Two dozen activists received warm support and encouragement from spectators, including several members of England’s colourful ‘Barmy Army’, as they handed out leaflets and conversed with them over several hours, organizers said.
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Wickremasinghe to meet Indian leaders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP), is to leave for New Delhi on Monday on a two day visit. Wickremasinhe is expected to hold talks with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, leader of the Congress Party Ms Sonia Gandhi, and several ministers in the Indian government, according to UNP sources in Colombo.
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Colombo encourages local politicians to create racial dissention in east

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 02:43 GMT]
A planned move to create dissension between the two communities -Tamils and Muslims- now living with understanidng and in harmony in the Batticaloa district is being orchestrated by the ruling party local politicians with the backing of Colombo authority, sources in the east said. Mr.Ali Zahir Mowlana, Chairman of the Era’voor PS is taking steps to shift the office of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) now located in a building in Ward 5 along Nallathamby Road in Era’voor Chengkaladi DS division to a Muslim suburb in the PS area. Tamil civic groups have urged the Regional Commissioners of Local Government Administrations in Batticaloa and Trincomalee to stop relocating government offices from Tamil areas to Muslim suburbs.
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Amidst renewed SL militarisation, Batticaloa village observes 24th year of massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 12:54 GMT]
The residents of Thoa'ni-thaa'nda-madu, a village situated in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North in Batticaloa district, along the border of Polonnaruwa district, on Friday observed 14th anniversary of massacre of Tamil villagers whom the Sri Lanka Army shot and hacked to death at least 3 women and 8 men with 6 children in the early hours of 27 May 1987 while the victims were asleep. The entire village was burnt together with the bodies of the victims. Last year, following the efforts taken by certain NGOs, around 56 families comprising 102 members had been resettled in the village, according to the Divisional Secretary of the area. However, the SLA has not been willing to hand over the houses it has occupied. Recently, the deployment of the SLA has been further strengthened, threatening the villagers of possible colonisation.
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Gang attacks Tamil journalist in Jaffna city

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 11:30 GMT]
32-year-old Staff Correspondent of Uthayan Daily in Jaffna, S. Kavitharan, was attacked Saturday morning around 6:30 by a gang believed to be operated by a paramilitary group, near the Jaffna Hindu College while the journalist was on his way to work, the officials at the paper said. A camouflaged group, of up to five members, attacked him with cricket bats.
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Challenge Delhi, Convince Paris on investigations: Tamil Nadu journalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 11:01 GMT]
With its influence on UN Security Council and as an elected member of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, the current Indian establishment will secretly put its weight behind Colombo's efforts to block international investigations, K. Aiyanathan, a senior journalist in Tamil Nadu told TamilNet Saturday. Urging the political forces in Tamil Nadu to checkmate New Delhi by calling for war crimes investigations against key Indian personalities if they continue to abet the Rajapaksa regime, the journalist told TamilNet that Diaspora Tamils should convince France, a permanent member in the Security Council and a member state of the Human Rights Council to stay the course of justice as the Council is scheduled to hold its 17th session from 30 May to 17 June at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
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Youth wounded in accidental explosion in Vaazhaichcheanai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 03:28 GMT]
A 26-year-old Tamil youth, Thiyagarasa Kuhan, was wounded in an accidental blast while preparing for a hunt in the nearby jungle, reports from the area said.
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US urged to use UNHRC for Sri Lanka war-crimes accountability

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 03:05 GMT]
Eleven prominent Rights Groups including Carter Center, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and International Crisis Group, in a letter to US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, urged the US to "take advantage of the opportunity of 17th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council to highlight the need for effective accountability in Sri Lanka for war crimes and other abuses committed by both sides." The communication pointed to conclusions of the war-crimes report by the UN panel of experts that "tens of thousands were killed in the final months of the war..." and called for "establishment of an independent international mechanism with a mandate to conduct investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, including war crimes."
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Political truth of Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 May 2011, 05:24 GMT]
The Sinhala nation is aware of the massacres, but they justify it the way the USA argues for its invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel argues for invasion of Palestine. For the UN and IC, it was not a mistake but a deliberate action taken by them to protect the Sri Lankan state. The same IC now says there are war crimes and Tamils are victims. Why? They want a group of helpless victims who begin to depend on them to find answers. Tamils had to face the first genocidal massacre of the 21st century, but this should not lead to a sense of helpless victimhood where the very forces who are responsible are seen to be saviours by the Tamils. It is the Tamil people who should decide what their future course of action should be, said Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, post doctoral scholar on International Peace Studies in Trinity College, Dublin, while delivering a speech on 18 May.
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India alone can’t be trusted, IC should be involved: TNLA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 17:15 GMT]
India can’t be trusted anymore. A solution for the national question of Eezham Tamils in the island has to be reached through wider international participation and guarantee, said former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians and Tamil National Liberation Alliance (TNLA) leaders Sri Kantha and MK Sivajilingam in addressing a press conference in Jaffna on Wednesday. Informed circles say India pressurizes the TNA not to come out with any political proposals. But the TNA should immediately table the political demands of Eezham Tamils, based on their right to self-determination. TNLA has no difference of opinion in conceding that the TNA is currently the predominant political representation of the Eezham Tamils and the TNLA is prepared to give all support to TNA in tabling the Tamil proposal, they further said.
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Colombo defies court request, proceeds with obligatory military course to undergrads

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 05:58 GMT]
Defying SL Supreme Court request to provide one week time for it to consider a case filed by University students associations against a compulsory military training programme for the newly selected undergrads, the Rajapaksa regime proceeded with the programme on Sunday. The excuse of Colombo was that it had already spent money on the programme and students had already started traveling to the military centers announced by the SL government.
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Occupying SL Navy confiscates lands for new HSZ in Ma’ndaitheevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 08:22 GMT]
More than 40 acres of private land, including Saiva temples and their tanks, have been recently confiscated by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in Ma’ndaitheevu island off Jaffna city to build a naval base and to expand the High Security Zone (HSZ) in that island. Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils denies the existence of High Security Zones in the north. Presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa addressing a meeting in Jaffna last month said that there are no High Security Zones, but the entire island is a ‘peace zone’. The creation of a new HSZ in Ma’ndaitheevu contradicts Colombo’s claim that de-mining is the reason why it is not allowing the resettlement of the HSZs in Jaffna by the owners of the lands.
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People in cloth sheds, Buddhist stupas built in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 06:12 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s ‘reconciliation’ in Vanni, abetted by its international partners is building huge Buddhist stupas there, while keeping Eezham Tamil natives in cloth tents. If building Buddhist establishments and new Sinhala-military townships in Vanni is the job of the state and re-building houses for the war-ravaged people and providing them with ‘milk and bread’ are the jobs of others and the diaspora, what is wrong in Eezham Tamils and their diaspora demanding the world for their country to be handed over to them for the true development of its people and to ensure ‘milk and bread’ really reach them, asks a Tamil politician in Jaffna, particularly addressing India and two other South Asian countries Pakistan and Bangladesh that will be attending a Chinese sponsored coaching programme of Colombo by the end of this month on how to conduct genocide with international abetment.
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Amnesty urges NAM countries to act on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 04:43 GMT]
As the foreign ministers of the 118 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meet Wednesday in Jakarta, Amnesty International urged them to support an international investigation into the killings of 40,000 civilians in the final months of Sri Lanka’s war. In an op-ed published in the Jakarta Post, Amnesty’s international advocacy director, Steve Crawshaw, said NAM countries “have a critical part to play in ensuring these terrible abuses never happen again and that survivors of the conflict can seek justice, thus laying the groundwork for reconciliation” and urged them to act on the report on the mass killings by the UN expert panel – led by former Indonesian attorney-general Marzuki Darusman.
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Point Pedro to Mullaiththeevu coast encroached by Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 10:39 GMT]
The northeast coast of the Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu districts of the country of Eezham Tamils, from Kat-koava’lam in Point Pedro to Mullaiththeevu is encroached in recent days by hundreds of Sinhala fishermen supported by occupying Sri Lanka’s Army and fisheries officials. Exploitation of the catch of sea cucumber for the season is said to be the reason and many more Sinhala encroachers are expected soon, news sources in Jaffna said with concern that the encroachment coupled with the use of advanced fishing technology triggers off tension and confrontation between the native and poaching fishing communities. Sea cucumber is a valuable export item. But the real interest of the encroachers is Chank (conch shells), an export item more valuable than the sea cucumber, the news sources further said.
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