Detained SL asylum seekers in Malaysia launch hunger strike

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 15:43 GMT]
Seventy-five political asylum seekers from Sri Lanka arrested on Malaysian seas and held in Malaysia International Airport since 23 April are to go on a peaceful hunger strike Tuesday placing three requests to the Malaysian State and to the International Countries that grant political asylum, organizers of the event said. In the first stage, sixty males will fast until their demands are met and the hunger strike is not at all intended to hurt the Malaysian government or to go against its laws, they further said.
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Rwandans, Kurds join Tamils commemorating massacre anniversary

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 03:38 GMT]
Armenian, Rwandan, Kurdish and the Native American communities joined Northern Californian Tamils in commemorating the first year anniversary of the Mu'l'livaikaal massacre of more than 40,000 Tamils by the Sri Lanka Security forces during the first five months of last year. The event held Saturday between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. in Palo Alto California was attended by more than 150 people, organizers of the event said. The attendees wore a decal depicting the National flower of Tamil Eelam (Gloriosa superba), with the words “We Remember” written underneath, according to attendees to the event.
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Is the U.N. complicit in Sri Lankan war crimes, Arbour asks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:44 GMT]
Asserting that "the organization's [United Nation's] abandonment of national staff in a conflict zone and its failure to speak up more forcefully about abuses made it "close to complicit" in [Sri Lanka] government atrocities," Louis Arbor, president of the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "called for an internal review of the U.N.'s conduct during Sri Lanka's bloody 2009 civil war," the popular Foreign Policy magazine reported.
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Boston Globe: Probe War Crimes in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:35 GMT]
Noting that "outside world has received credible accounts of war crimes perpetrated on a large scale by Sri Lanka security forces as well as by the Tigers," during the military offensives by Colombo in the early months of 2009, Boston Globe, in Monday's editorial said that "President Obama, who has drawn criticism for soft-pedaling human rights concerns in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, should insist that Sri Lanka’s government be held accountable for shelling civilians and hospitals and murdering fighters who surrendered on the battlefield."
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Camouflaged ban on Tamil Eelam by New Delhi, Chennai

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 23:07 GMT]
The Government of Tamil Nadu has gazetted a notification by the Indian Central Government's Ministry of Home Affairs, dated 14 May, banning the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an 'unlawful association'. The announcement falsely linked 'Tamil Eelam' as threatening the 'sovereignty and territorial integrity of a part of the territory of India'. Questioning when Tamil Eelam became part of Indian territory, Eezham Tamil circles in the diaspora said the notification reflected the guilt related paranoia of New Delhi and Chennai and urged the democratic bodies in the diaspora and the legal activists in Tamil Nadu to address the false interpretation, politically and legally.
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Youth activists favoured in TGTE elections of Australia

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 20:11 GMT]
Youth activists Seran Sribalan and Darshan Gunasingham received overwhelming support, tallying 1272 and 1231 respectively out of over 1300 votes registered in the NSW ballot for electing members for Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) held Saturday in the suburbs of Homebush and Wentworthville. Meanwhile, Kulasegaram Sanchayan, a long-time activist of the Tamil Diaspora in Australia, received the highest number of votes for an individual candidate, with 1300 out of 1363.
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SLA plundered vehicle spare parts in Vanni sold in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:57 GMT]
Anuradhapura has turned into the main ‘spare parts sales town’ in Sri Lanka as the spare parts of vehicles abandoned in Mu’l’livaaikkaal in Vanni, plundered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), are being taken to Anuradahapura along A9 road in trucks and vehicles which bring goods to North, according to Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian. He further alleged that the spare parts of the vehicles of Vanni civilians systematically plundered by SLA soldiers immediately after the war are kept hidden in bunkers with the collaboration of their officers and that the parts are gradually passed on to Southern Sinhalese and Muslim traders to be sold in Anuradhapura.
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Wife of victim in Channel-4 photo identifies husband

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 16:28 GMT]
The 7-year-old daughter of a 40-year-old victim of Vanni War identified her father from the photos released by Channel-4 last week and published in local papers in Jaffna. She and her mother, who lost her husband and a 2-year-old son, are now sheltered in an orphanage in Jaffna. A humanitarian activist who met the mother told TamilNet that the victim in the photo, kept naked inside a bunker by the Sri Lanka Army, was Harikrishanan Thuraichamy. He was reported missing since April 2009, when he went to Ananthapuram area promising his family to recover their belongings. He was a former LTTE member, but had left the movement and living with his family, according to his wife. Although some friends of Mr. Harikrishnan had told her that his body was seen among LTTE fighters killed, she has not seen any evidence and she still believes her husband is alive in SLA custody.
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Sky banners display Tamil genocide message during cricket game

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 May 2010, 23:48 GMT]
Banners flown by single engine aircraft displaying "Stop Tamil Genocide; Boycott Sri Lanka" circled the cricket grounds several times during a 20-over cricket tournament held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida during this weekend, attendees to the games said. Indian, Pakistani, English, South African, Sri Lankan and Caribbean supporters dominated the attendees at the stadium. In the meantime Sinhalese dissidents opposed to the Rajapaksa regime flew their own message on another plane which said: Sri Lanka - Free Gen Fonseka - Restore Democracy."
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Congressman's war crimes call to Clinton to dog Peiris's visit

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 20:39 GMT]
Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-OH), a senior member of the United States National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, asked her to "urge the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to conduct an investigation into reported human rights violations," in Sri Lanka. The Congressman points out in the letter that "[t]he pain assoicated with this [Sri Lanka's] conflict was further exacerbated as a result of alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes committed during the final phase of the Sri Lanka's civil war." Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris is expected to visit the US this week, and his visit and his meeting with State Department officials are widely believed to be on accountability issues of Sri Lanka's war crimes, according to knowledgeable sources in Washington.
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NP Governor orders priority to Southern contractors in Northern development tenders

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 20:20 GMT]
Northern Province Governor and former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, has directed Government Secretaries in the North to prioritize contactors from South in allocating tenders to all development work in the North, sources in Jaffna said. In the context of North being invaded by Southern Sinhalese businessmen and traders Governor’s directive effectively further denies all opportunities to local contractors in the development works in North, the sources added.
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Government planning to bring Sinhalese colonists again to Ma’nalaa’ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is accelerating its plans to colonize Ma’nalaa’ru area in Vanni with Sinhalese people and also to bring back the Sinhalese people who had been earlier brought to this area as colonists, some government officers who had visited Ma’nalaa’ru area said. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and other de-mining organizations are now at work in the above Ma’nalaa’ru area which includes Janakapura, Parakrampura and the traditional Tamil village Othiyamalai. The government has no plans to resettle the ancient Tamil inhabitants of Othiyamalai, the officers said.
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Taking stock on the first anniversary of Internationally abetted genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 14:07 GMT]
The Tamil struggle for independence, one of the longest running struggles of Asia, which has progressed through the Colonial phase and the World Wars, through Cold-War era and through the period of War on Terrorism and the times of economic conquest, now stands at the juncture of a paradigm shift, one-year after the end of asymmetric, but largely conventional Eezham War IV. If Eezham Tamil Nation is to advance successfully forward from where it stands, it needs to adopt its own set of paradigms, capable of not only defeating opposing maneuvers of the Sri Lankan state and the abettors from outside, but also powerful in addressing the future from a broad perspective, rising above the classical dialectic approach.
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SLA refuses to permit TNA parliamentarians into Menik Farm camp in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 12:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials in Menik Farm Camp in Vavuniyaa did not permit Saturday a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to visit the said detention centre and see the Vanni civilians held, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The SLA officials insisted on prior permission from Ministry of Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapakse and stood firm in their decision though the MPP tried to argue their way into the centre, the sources added.
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Peiris US bound amid war crime calls in US Congress

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 23:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris is to visit the United States next week for talks with the US government, and is expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his stay in US, Colombo electronic media reported quoting External Affairs Ministry sources. The hurriedly arranged visit occurs in the wake of a week of concerted calls by several human rights organizations for independent investigations into Sri Lanka war crimes. Congressmen David Price (D-4th District North Carolina) and Danny K Davis (D-7th District Illinois) added their voices for expeditious action by the international community to probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka. Three more Congresspersons made floor statements referring to traditional Tamil homeland and Tamils as a community under threat, and on the condition of Tamil refugees.
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Tamil Nadu Film society to shun IIFA Festival in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 11:06 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Film society in its joint statement to media Wednesday said that it has decided to shun the India International Film Awards (IIFA) Weekend Festival to be held in Colombo in June first week for three days. “The death wails of the Tamils killed in the massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka last year still echoes in the hearts of the Tamils in the world and Sri Lanka should not conduct the film festival while the Tamils mourn,” the statement said.
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Citing photo evidence, HRW calls for UN war crimes probes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 22:22 GMT]
Citing photographic evidence in its possession of war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in early 2009, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Thursday joined a chorus of calls this week for an independent international investigation into violations of the laws of war during the closing months of Sri Lanka’s campaign against the Tamil Tigers. Calling on the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to promptly establish an international investigation to examine allegations of wartime abuse by both sides to the conflict, HRW said it has examined more than 200 photos taken on the front lines in early 2009 by a soldier from the Sri Lankan Army’s Air Mobile Brigade. The pictures include a series showing a captured long-standing LTTE Political Wing cadre being executed by Sri Lankan troops, probably after torture, as well as the possible rape or mutilation of LTTE women cadres.
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TGTE constitution to be drafted within 3 months

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 18:39 GMT]
The elected representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) who met in three spots of the world on a 3-day session since 17 May to 19 May resolved to draft the constitution of the TGTE within 3 months and set up an Interim Executive Committee (IEC) Wednesday constituting 8 members, 2 from USA, 2 from UK, 1 from Australia, 1 from Canada and 2 representing the other countries of Europe. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran from USA was appointed as the Interim Chief Executive of the IEC, TGTE members who attended the inauguration told TamilNet Thursday.
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Diaspora cine artists initiate web project to promote Eezham Cinema

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 12:21 GMT]
A web-based project to launch a bilingual database and news services related to Eezham Cinema has been initiated by some Tamil diaspora film artists. The move was launched on 18 May, the Gencidal War Crimes Day against Eezham Tamils, and the first phase of the project lasts till 25 July, the Black July Day, according to the initiators behind the project eelamcinema.com.
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British MPs call for war crimes probes at Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 09:36 GMT]
Parliamentarians from all three main British political parties addressed a rally Tuesday at Westminster to commemorate the forty thousand Tamil civilians massacred last year by the Sri Lankan government forces during the closing months of the island’s civil war. Addressing 10,000 people who filled the permitted space in Parliament Square, MPs from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, which comprise Britain’s new ruling coalition, and the main opposition Labour party were united in their condemnation of the war crimes and the need for international action on Sri Lanka’s war crimes.
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