Sri Lanka, acid test for International Law

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 23:15 GMT]
The widespread systematic pattern of crimes committed by the Sri Lankan state against Tamil civilians, particularly during the first five months of 2009 in the Northeast province, constitute violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, legal scholars have said. During this period, indifference exhibited by the international community, including the United Nations, led to the deaths of more than 30,000 Tamils. The strong transnational expatriate Tamil community now has the burden (a) to prevent Sri Lanka from erasing the massacres from historical record, (b) to resist attempts by international powers to persuade Tamils for reconciliation without establishing justice and accountability for the crimes, and (c) to seek justice for tens of thousands of Tamil victims by charging Sri Lanka of war crimes and genocide against Tamils in world courts.
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Australian MP calls for independent investigations into Sri Lanka violations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 14:48 GMT]
Noting that on Sri Lanka's Independence day "Tamil diaspora around the world mourn as they believe today marks the beginning of national oppression," John Murphy, Australian Member of Parliament, said in a recorded speech in the parliament on 4th February, adding, "[d]espite the Sri Lankan government’s declaration of [military] victory, the international community has expressed its grave concern that this battle will not be won and peace will not prevail until the Sri Lankan government provides essential political reform." The MP called for an independent investigation into the "reports of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Sri Lanka."
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SL Parliament to be dissolved this week: Maithiripala Sirisena

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 11:46 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa would be dissolving the parliament this week on his return from Russia, said Maithripala Sirisena, a Senior Minister in the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government Sunday to media. The term of office of the current parliament ends on April 22. He further said his government hopes to have a 'closer understanding' with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the forthcoming general election to 'uplift' the Northern and Eastern provinces. However he said that does not mean that the UPFA government would accept any condition by the TNA.
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Boyle's book added to World Court library

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2010, 03:16 GMT]
The Peace Palace Library (PPL), the main library of the World Court, the popular name for the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has acquired "The Tamil genocide by Sri Lanka," a recent publication by Clarity press authored by Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at University of Illinois College of Law, Marianne Brouwer, principal catalog librarian for the PPL, confirmed. "The book has made it to the World Court. Now we just need to file the lawsuit [against Sri Lanka for Genocide/war-crimes]," commented Boyle.
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A language dies in India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 23:39 GMT]
With the death of 85 years old Boa Sr in Andaman Islands of India last week, the Bo language of prehistoric antiquity became extinct once and for all, reports, Survival International, a movement for tribal peoples. The Andaman and Nicobar islands, home of several prehistoric tribes of Austroloid, Negroid and Mongoloid origins, is currently a Union Territory directly administered by the Central Government of India. “The Great Andamanese were first massacred, then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of disease, and robbed of their land and independence,” says Survival on the modern history of the tribes since British times. Meanwhile, India launched a show off of ‘naval exercise’ in the Andaman Sea Friday, mobilising 13 countries in the region including Sri Lanka, the new 'colonial power' in South Asia.
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27 Saiva temples, monuments affected by planned road widening, ACHC complains

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 12:54 GMT]
All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC) expressed deep concern over Sri Lanka's planned widening of the Jaffna-Kankesanthurai high way from Jaffna town to KKS as the plan would lead to the destruction and desecration of twenty seven Saiva temples and several historical cultural monuments along both sides of the highway, sources in Jaffna said. Officials of ACHC have protested the planned road upgrade to Northern Provincial Governor G.A. Chandrasiri.
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Sri Lanka given 6 months to reverse EU GSP+ suspension

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 01:58 GMT]
Ambassadors of the nations of European Union, based on EU Commissions negative assessment of Sri Lanka's human rights record, have decided to suspend the preferential trade status known as GSP+ (Generalised System of Preferences Plus) to Sri Lanka. However, when the European finance ministers announce this decision at a meeting in Brussels on February 16, the announcement will trigger suspension only after 6 months from that date, providing "Colombo a fair opportunity to get the decision reversed," European media reported.
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SL parliament extends emergency another month

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2010, 16:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s parliament Friday adopted a motion by a majority of eighty seven votes to extend the State of Emergency for another month. One hundred and two MPs of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) voted for the motion and fifteen from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the main opposition United National Party (UNP) voted against. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarians did not participate in the voting.
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Gotabhaya opens door for UN investigations of Sri Lanka war crimes - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2010, 04:51 GMT]
Referring to Gotabhaya Rajapakse's interview to the BBC Tuesday where Mr Rajapakse said that he would not allow any war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and a professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law said, "Defense Secretary Rajapaksa has now publicly and definitively ruled out any investigation of war crimes by the Government of Sri Lanka. And he is a government official acting within the scope of his official duties so that his statement binds the State of Sri Lanka under international law. Hence the basic requirement of international law mandating "complementarity" has been satisfied.
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SL Independence Day observed in low key in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2010, 02:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka Armed Forces occupying Jaffna peninsula which had forced its people to observe "Independence Day" in the past did not engage in any such activity on Thursday, sources in Jaffna said. Less than ten employees took part in the event in Jaffna Secretariat where Jaffna District Government Agent (GA) hoisted the National Flag, the sources added. Meanwhile, 34 persons including 3 Sinhalese serving prison sentence for minor offences were freed on the day.
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Gotabhaya outbursts against UN, International investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 February 2010, 23:01 GMT]
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan defence secretary and the brother of the SL president, in an exclusive interview to the BBC on Tuesday, opposed any international investigation on war crimes during the final stage of the war. Meanwhile, the official news website of the Rajapaksa government in its Sinhala and versions has blamed external forces for rejuvenating the claim of Tamil Eelam by backing Sarath Fonseka, citing the pattern of the results of the recent presidential elections. The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa also warned the politicians not to guide the 'innocent people' in 'wrong path', while he referred to the election participation in North and East in his Tamil version of the February 04 speech.
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Tamil TV journalist attacked in Nuwara Eliya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 February 2010, 03:36 GMT]
An unidentified group of persons Wednesday evening attacked a well known Tamil journalist J.Sri Ranga of Sakthi Television travelling in a vehicle with his police escort in Hatton, a town in Nuwara Eliya district, according to police media spokesman I.M.Karunaratne, Senior Superintendent of Police.
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Ki'linochchi to Mu'rika'ndi: no human beings, ghost buildings, stray cattle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 February 2010, 00:39 GMT]
A video footage taken a few days back, while travelling between Ki'linochchi and Mu'rika'ndi, shows the real situation in the heartland of Vanni in Tamil Eelam. The tract bustling with contended people two years back is virtually a no-man zone with ghost buildings and stray cattle today. The landscape is physical evidence to the genocide committed on a nation. The parties responsible for one of the worst crimes against humanity in the 21st century such as this, refuse to accept it, but hide it, coerce the victims not to talk about it and in various nuanced ways want to finish the genocide to its end, is the feeling of Eezham Tamils, both in the island and in the diaspora.
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India plays upon Buddhist emissary while monks colonize Tamil land

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 February 2010, 23:04 GMT]
New Buddhist temples built by armed forces and militant monks mushroom in Tamil land occupied by Colombo, news reports from Eezham said, citing new constructions along A9 highway. Meanwhile, an extremist Buddhist monk with armed support has arrived at Thalai Mannaar Pier area, the nearest point opposite to the Indian coast, to buy 100 acres of land and to start a Sinhala-Buddhist colony there, news sources from Mannaar said. While nearby Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee of the Tamil north and east are never linked for ages, A3 highway in the western coast is going to be extended according to Colombo reports, linking Puththa’lam and Mannaar through Vilpattu forest to facilitate inroads of Sinhala colonies. In the meantime, India is learnt to have gifted to Sri Lanka a replica of Asoka’s rock edict speaking of his Buddhist emissary to the island.
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Sri Lanka experts silent, Wijesinha oblivious to forensic evidence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 February 2010, 04:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka's video experts appear unable or unwilling to rebut the body of evidence presented at the Dublin tribunal, UN Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions Philip Alston's report, and findings from other independent forensic analysts that all ruled as flawed the analyses by the Sri Lanka experts of the video broadcast on Channel 4 showing Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers summarily executing Tamil prisoners, stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, continues to advance his efforts to exculpate Colombo and the perpertrators from charges of war crimes by arguing that the video is fake, a spokesperson for US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said.
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Eelam is the way for long-term success in political solution: British politician

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 14:04 GMT]
"It is my long-standing view that the only true path to peace in Sri Lanka is with a political settlement, with the creation of Eelam being the only solution that has a strong chance of long-term success," said Dr Rachel Joyce, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Harrow West, who went as an observer to a polling booth in her constituency last weekend.
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Overwhelming Tamil response in referendum hit British media reports

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 13:36 GMT]
"British-based Tamils have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the creation of an independent sovereign state in Sri Lanka, days after the man credited with crushing the Tamil Tigers's 26-year rebellion won a second term as the island's president," reported leading British newspaper Guardian on Monday. Meanwhile, BBC reported that an overwhelming majority among the Tamil disapora in UK has endorsed the call for a separate country for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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Self-polls of Tamils make contrast to State-polls of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 13:16 GMT]
The conduct of the Tamil referendum in UK was exemplary and given that it was achieved entirely with private resources contrasts favourably to the shambles of Sri Lanka's recent Presidential elections, said Graham Williamson, a director of the UK based human rights group ACT NOW, set up by British Humanitarian aid workers to address war in Sri Lanka. The International Community must now call upon Sri Lanka to conduct a UN-Supervised referendum for Tamils living on the island, Mr. Williamson said adding that such an Independence referendum in 1999 put an end to a similar conflict in East Timor and has been successfully followed in recent times in Kosovo and Montenegro. "Democratic referenda is the modern and civilised mechanism to end inter-community conflicts and it's time Sri Lanka joined the modern world," he further said.
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Largest possible turnout, 99.33 percent British Tamils aspire Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 February 2010, 01:09 GMT]
In an unprecedented turnout that brought 64,692 Eezham Tamils to vote in the referendum held last weekend in UK, 64,256 (99.33%) said they aspire to the formation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the contiguous north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. 185 (0.29%) voted against and 251 (0.39%) votes were spoilt. Polling took place in sixty-five booths across London and in major towns and cities throughout UK. Five days after presidential poll proving sharp and clear divide in outlook between Sinhala and Tamil nations in the island of Sri Lanka, the near-total diaspora verdict in UK for Tamil Eelam gains much significance, observers said.
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Tamils undisputed champions of diaspora politics: Scottish writer

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 January 2010, 17:07 GMT]
“Unless there is a sea change in the factional Scottish parliament in the months ahead, it is a vote I will not be able to cast in a Scottish constitutional context,” writes Stuart Cosgrove, a Scot married to an Eezham Tamil, who cast his vote in that capacity in the referendum for Tamil Eelam in Mayhill, Glasgow, Saturday. In his column in Times Online, from the Sunday Times, he recollected the Scottish referendum of 1997 and sounded contentment about his participation in the Tamil referendum which in his view defied the new world order on the epic stage of global politics. Saying Tamils are undisputed champions of diaspora politics today, Cosgrove’s appreciation was that “it was a timely reminder that democracy is a precious gem that neither war nor national circumstances should tarnish.”
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