Third instance of Australia accepting alleged SL war criminal as ambassador

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 01:21 GMT]
Australia has accepted as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner former Navy commander Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, according to some press reports. Admiral Samarasinghe was commander of the Navy during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s war, including the final months in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were slaughtered. The recently released UN panel’s report states that “[f]rom as early as Feb 6 [2009], the SLA continuously shelled within the area that became the second NFZ from all directions, including air, land and sea.”
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ANC supports UN experts’ recommendations on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 01:19 GMT]
Endorsing the recommendations of the UN expert panel’s report on war crimes in Sri Lanka, the African National Congress (ANC) criticised Colombo’s use of “a military solution of resolving problems [between conflicting parties]” and called on the government “to take immediate steps to address the core grievances of the Tamil population and engage in a genuine reconciliation process.” The ANC noted that one of the UN experts was a prominent South African jurist, Yasmin Sooka, and said it “has consistently condemned any act of violation of human rights in all conflict areas.
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Powers, corporate interests behind personal wars in The Hindu

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2011, 10:53 GMT]
“In a shocking display of bad faith,” N. Ram, who has become the Editor in Chief of The Hindu in 2003, “by stealth,” postpones his retirement agreed upon last year, and “seems bent on taking all the editorial directors—most are in their 50s--into retirement with him with a scorched earth policy to ensure that no one in the family succeeds him,” accuses N. Ravi, who is the Editor of The Hindu since 1991, writing an open letter to media brethren in April in The Hoot, the website of the New Delhi-based Media Foundation. However, Ravi’s long list of accusations that include the projection of Ram as pro-left/ pro-China, has no reference to the role he played against Eezham Tamils, suggesting, Ravi and Ram as well as the forces behind them are the same on the question of the liberation of Eezham Tamils, commented diaspora media circles.
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Canadian Tamils chose to desert Liberals in favour of Leftists

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2011, 06:17 GMT]
Scarborough's Tamil community had chosen this campaign to desert the Liberals. "That community turned against us completely and some of us paid the price," said six-times winning Liberal candidate John Cannis, who lost his seat in the general elections in Canada this week in Scarborough Centre parliamentary constituency. Meanwhile, according to Rathika Sitsabaiesan, who won the Scarborough-Rough River constituency for the leftist New Democratic Party, in the last days of Sri Lanka's civil war in May 2009, Liberal politicians had not appeared to support protestors on Toronto's University Avenue or on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where, she said, only the NDP leader Layton came to address the crowd, reports Mike Adler in Inside Toronto.com, adding that "Liberal MPs at the time said they didn't want to appear because protestors were displaying flags of the banned [LTTE]".
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Blake should not mislead Tamils again: Mano Ganesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:38 GMT]
Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF), who was once named by then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on Wednesday, reminded the Tamils that the visiting US Asst Secretary Robert Blake was instrumental in providing US government's unconditional support to the war waged by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils. The “US government wanted put out a savior impression. But in real it did not bother about the Tamil civilian causalities,” Mr. Mano Ganesan said. “International community should act decisively with the GoSL. It is time that US assistant state secretary for central and south Asia affaires Robert O Blake lives upto his earlier ambassadorial preaching. He should not mislead the Tamils again.”
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‘Colombo holds onto its sinking ship’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:23 GMT]
The visiting US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake accepted the congratulations of Colombo for the death of Osama Bin Laden. At the same time, in the context of the UN panel report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes he has said, “International mechanisms can become appropriate in cases where states are either unable or unwilling to meet their obligations.” But Colombo’s diplomatic community, as seen from what Dayan Jayatilake has written on Tuesday, pins its last hope on making a comparison between its genocide and the imperialism of the USA, thinking that such conflations could save its sinking ship. What the Sinhala polity that is neither prepared to concede nor share sovereignty with Eezham Tamils fails to see is that a precedence has been set in South Asia where powers could supersede sovereignty to implement what they think is right, writes a political analyst in Jaffna.
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Moragoda appointed special foreign policy advisor to Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2011, 12:19 GMT]
Former Sri Lanka Minister Milinda Moragoda has been appointed special advisor on foreign policy matters to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse. Moragoda is to assume duties with immediate effect, according to Presidential Secretariat sources.
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German Rights Group accuses Dias of war-crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2011, 00:08 GMT]
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) Tuesday released a document which the group claimed "sub­s­tan­ti­ates al­le­ga­tions of war crimes com­mitt­ed by the 57 Di­vi­sion of the Sri Lankan Army un­der the com­mand of Ja­gath Dias." ECCHR appealed to the German Government to take the allegations levelled against Major General Dias' 57 Division seriously, and to seriously investigate his [Dias's] individual criminal responsibility. ECCHR also appealed to the German Government to withdraw the diplomatic visa of Major General Dias as well as declare him a persona non grata.
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Rathika becomes the first Eezham Tamil MP in Canada

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 23:19 GMT]
29-year-old Canadian Eezham Tamil Rathika Sitsabaiesen, hailing from Achchuveali in Jaffna, has been elected as member of parliament in Canada as a candidate of New Democratic Party (NDP) which has emerged as the leading opposition under the leadership of Jack Layton in the general elections held on May 02. Ms. Rathika now represents the multi-ethnic federal constituency of Scarborough- Rouge River, where Eezham Tamils make a significant section of the population. She is the first Tamil to be elected to the Canadian Parliament. Her successful election by a big margin through the opposition NDP ticket reflects the true feelings of Eezham Tamils in Canada towards establishments that slip in delivering justice to Eezham Tamils, commented Tamil diaspora circles in Canada.
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Robert Blake visits Ki'linochchi, learns the plight of Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 18:08 GMT]
Robert O. Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for the South and Central Asian affairs visited Vanni for the first time on Tuesday and learned the plight of Tamil civilians, affected by the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in 2009 and continue to suffer in the hands of the SL military. The occupying SL military didn't allow journalists to witness the event, which was scheduled as monitoring the ‘development’ activities supported by the USAID, the lead development agency of the US government. However, civilians who had the opportunity to raise their plight with Mr. Blake, who came to witness the programmes for unemployed youth and the farmers, said they got an opportunity to raise their concerns and got a chance to respond to the questions from the visiting US diplomat.
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Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts), Pa'n'naiththu'rai, Matara

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 06:45 GMT]
The port of ships or small ships
The port of large boats or cargo boats
The big port
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NorthEast Tamils still under military rule, says TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Two years after the end of the war, Tamils in the North and East are still living under the yoke of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), said Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Ariyanenthran. "Colombo government and its supporters are saying that the peace has returned with the end of the three decade old war.
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CTTU wants equal status in education to Vanni students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 02:35 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) in its May Day message said that Colombo should take immediate steps to provide equal status in education to affected students in Vanni region, and also to provide relief and other assistance to teachers who were reported killed and disappeared in the conflict.
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Resettled families in Kudumpimalai village suffer without basic facilities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 00:21 GMT]
Resettled Tamil families in Kudumpimalai village in Koa'ralaippattu south DS division in east resettled about two years ago have complained to non-governmental organizations that they are not being provided with basic facilities. NGO representatives who visited the village recently were told that about 150 families were resettled but only 25 houses constructed by NECCDEP had been handed over to the families.
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Rajapaksa's governors blame UN Expert panel report as “irresponsible act”

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 15:40 GMT]
The nine governors appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, including the two ex-military governors of North and East, Maj. Gen (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri and Rear Admiral (red.) Mohan Wijewickrema, have come out with a joint statement accusing the UN Expert panel report as a “biased unilateral report which would bring discredit to the President and the Armed Forces thereby to the people of Sri Lanka.” Mohan Wijewickrema, the colonial SL governor of the Eastern Province has issued the press release in the capacity of the Chairman of 13th Governor’s Conference.
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ITAK urges internationally supervised negotiations with GoSL

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 09:20 GMT]
Two veteran Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) politicians, C.V.K Sivagnanam and Mavai Senthirajah, on Sunday urged international supervision of a process that guarantees both a proper negotiation process and the implementation of results in the talks between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). The two officials of ITAK, a key party of the TNA, in their address urged that both the governments of India and Tamil Nadu to play a sincere and constructive role to bring about an international supervision that should include China, USA and other world players. In the meantime, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) condemned the agents of the Sri Lankan state for forcing Tamils from all the districts in the North and East to take part in May Day demonstrations in Colombo, organized by Sinhala extremist elements against the UN Expert panel report.
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Sinhala extremist federation wants Rajapaksa to terminate talks with TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 05:42 GMT]
The Federation of National Organizations, a coalition formed by ten Sinhala extremist groups in the south, has requested the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to terminate its talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in a statement issued on May Day, coinciding with the protest show of Mahinda Rajapaksa against the UN Expert Panel report. Meanwhile, Tamils from several parts of the island were forcefully taken to Colombo by Sri Lankan military, paramilitary and other agents to showcase as people from all ethnicities were united in the protest against the UN. However, a dead silence prevailed in the SL occupied country of Eezham Tamils throughout the whole day on May Day.
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Boyle: Word "Genocide" missing in UN Panel's war crimes report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Pointing out the instances where the criminal allegations on Sri Lanka made in the UN's war crimes report support the charge of genocide on Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "[f]or obvious political reasons, no one wants to use the word “genocide." And that is because it then raises the question why did no one stop the genocide as required by article I of the Genocide Convention. The same phenomenon happened in Bosnia. No one would use the word “genocide” until afterwards, and it was too late to do anyone any good—they were all dead."
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Ampaa'rai teacher transfer scheme suspended

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 03:06 GMT]
The teacher transfer scheme scheduled to come into effect from May 1 in the Ampaa'rai district in the eastern province has been put off following protests from the teachers’ trade unions, according to education sources. Provincial Director of Education Mr.M.T. Abdul Nizam had earlier ordered that all excess teachers should be transferred from May 1 to schools in other districts that suffer due to shortage of teachers.
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Sri Lanka war-crime alleged over killing of TECH Director

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 00:08 GMT]
Emerging evidence on Sri Lanka military targeting civilian leadership of Eezham Tamil development organizations at the end of Vanni war further reinforces the credible allegation that Sri Lanka's war crimes and crimes against humanity had genocidal intentions. C. Sivalingam Suhunan, alias Thilak, the executive director of TECH (The Economic Consultancy House), the flagship development NGO of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam and a registered NGO in Sri Lanka, was one of the victims, according to a Senior official of TECH, who has identified Thilak's body in a recently leaked photograph taken by Sri Lankan soldiers. Mr. Suhunan had phoned his family last on 18 May, 2009 at 6:15 a.m. local time, informing that he was among a group of persons in civil clothes, going into Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled territory in Mullaiththeevu.
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