Total rejection of SL Constitution should be the demand - Sachithananthan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 December 2009, 01:22 GMT]
Mere removal of Sixth Amendment as an election agenda of any Tamil candidate will not do justice to the Tamil cause. It will be tacitly approving the rest of the Constitution. Therefore, a total rejection of the Constitution should be the demand, writes academic and former UN consultant Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan, responding to a TamilNet feature appeared on 28 November 2009.
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Facing offensive presidential election with self-respect

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 December 2009, 23:04 GMT]
The Tamil parties thinking of fielding a common candidate should rise above outside diktats, should do justice to the Tamil cause at this formative stage of new Tamil polity and should come out with an election agenda that doesn’t harm the cause of Tamils in the long run. Any mistake made now will be irreversible, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Australians slam 'Indonesian Solution'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 December 2009, 15:08 GMT]
Over a 150 people marched through the streets of Sydney on Sunday calling upon the federal government to abolish its harsh stance on refugees and grant asylum to hundreds of Tamil refugees currently being detained in Indonesia at Australia’s request. Citing persecution faced by Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan Government, protestors labelled Prime Minister Rudd’s “Indonesian Solution” as “racist” and called for the closure of the Christmas Island offshore detention centre, currently housing hundreds of Tamils.
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Resilience marks Maveerar Day in Sydney

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 December 2009, 09:03 GMT]
Thousands gathered on Saturday to commemorate Heroes Day 2009 in an outpouring of grief in Sydney. A series of artistic and visual tributes, including a spectacular centre piece display carrying the symbols of Tamil Eelam set behind commemorative tombstones, illuminated Parramatta Park amid an atmosphere of reflection and resolve as over 2000 members of the Diaspora paid tribute to the fallen soldiers of the liberation movement and reaffirmed their commitment to the establishment of Tamil Eelam. The sister of LTTE Political head B. Nadesan, along with family of Colonel Amuthap lit the flame of sacrifice to mark the event, which featured songs, poetry and a series of provocative dramas portraying the horrors of Mullivaiykal and the sacrifices made by the fallen soldiers throughout the struggle.
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Grabbing land for wrecking contiguity of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2009, 10:22 GMT]
‘Investors’ may see the eastern coastal tract of the island of Sri Lanka, from Kokku’laay to Kuchchave’li, potential for minerals, tourism and fisheries. But the tract is of utmost importance to Eezham Tamils in linking the north and east of their historic homeland. Tamils wouldn’t have been averse to the idea of anyone coming and investing in this tract had there been a guarantee to the territorial integrity of their nation. It would have even been welcomed. But the genocidal Sinhala State and powers of greed have chosen the cruel way to achieve ambitions by crushing the Tamil nation – killing, maiming, chasing, incarcerating and weakening the historical inhabitants. If India that has a particular eye on this tract wants its gratification peaceful and long lasting it should take the responsibility of not altering the demography, writes a university academic of the Eastern Province.
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4 youths arrested in Katunayake HSZ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2009, 08:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force and Sri Lanka Police Saturday took four youths- two Tamils and two Sinhalese into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted covering the high security zone of the Katunayake International airport complex. The Katunayake Police said they are being detained and interrogated as they failed to prove their identity and justify their stay at that time.
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Florida protest targets Mall shoppers

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 November 2009, 12:23 GMT]
More than twenty Fort Lauderdale Tamils protested in front of the Sawgrass Mills shopping center Saturday drawing attention to the shoppers of the boycott campaign to shun "Made in Sri Lanka" goods, especially garments. The Florida mall is one of the biggest in South East of USA, and visited by most tourists from Caribbean and South American countries. Leaflets distributed said that trade in garments by US big label stores with Sri Lanka promotes a Government that has allegedly killed thousands of Tamil civilians, committing possible war-crimes in the process, according to a recent US State Department report.
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'Resettled' by forced labour, without food or freedom to move

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 November 2009, 02:30 GMT]
The few thousands who have been resettled in selected divisions of Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi districts, are reportedly affected by the lack of food supply, news reports reaching Vavuniyaa said. The 'resettled' are actually kept in schools in those areas and are extracted of forced labour to clear the locations of resettlement. Their freedom of movement is restricted. The whole operation doesn't look like resettlement of 'citizens' but of slaves, said a Tamil official on conditions of anonymity.
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SLA abductions of Tamil youth continue unabated in camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 November 2009, 02:19 GMT]
Several Tamil boys and girls including teenagers interned in the camps are called by name through announcing system by the Sri Lanka Army intelligence officers and are taken to unknown destinations, reports reaching from Vavuniyaa camps said. At least 10 young men and boys were thus 'abducted' on 21 November and around 30 youth, including girls, were taken on 27 November from Zone-0 IDP internment camp in Cheddiku'lam alone last week. They were taken in SLA vehicles and their family members lost all contacts with them since then, sources in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet Sunday.
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Book Review: The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 November 2009, 13:01 GMT]
The engagement of Professor Francis A. Boyle, an eminent American expert in international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, during the last years of Sri Lanka's conflict is traced in a forthcoming book published by Clarity Press of Atlanta. Titled "The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka: The Global Failure to Protect Tamil Rights Under International Law,” it is the first book to develop an authoritative case for genocide against the Government of Sri Lanka under international law.
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Big GAP in ethics, US shoppers told

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 November 2009, 22:44 GMT]
Several dozen protesters carried placards in front of the Gap and Banana Republic stores on Wisconsin Avenue, Maryland, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday, urging ethical U.S. shoppers to boycott garments produced in Sri Lanka, while another group of Tamil activists assembled in front of Victoria's Secret Stores in midtown Manhattan in New York to protest against the Store's textile trade with Sri Lanka, sources in Washington D.C. said. Protests were also held in Miami, Boston, Atlanta, San Franciso and Dallas. Leaflets distributed said that trade in garments by US big label stores with Sri Lanka promotes a Government that has allegedly killed thousands of Tamil civilians, committing possible war-crimes in the process, according to a recent US State Department report.
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Resettle IDPs in Jaffna before Presidential Election – IDP Welfare General Committee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 November 2009, 19:09 GMT]
The Welfare General Committee (WGC) of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Jaffna demands the speedy resettlement of IGPs in their own places occupied by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in its High Security Zones (HSZs) in Jaffna peninsula before the Presidential elections, WGC sources said. WGC has decided to present its request directly to Sri Lanka President, Mahinda Rajapakse when he visits Jaffna 8 December. Meanwhile, WGC strongly condemns Minister Douglas Devananda’s recent announcement that resettlement in HSZs in Jaffna peninsula will take place only in July 2010 after the presidential election.
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Locking Tamil nationalism through presidential candidature

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 November 2009, 12:27 GMT]
A Tamil candidature in the presidential elections, proposing a political solution deviating from the goals of Tamil nationalism, is a tactic to bind and nullify the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. In the current circumstances, Tamils naturally boiling with anger about both the main candidates are most likely to cast their votes en masse to any respectable Tamil candidate. But it is an artful move to get a mandate by stealth from the surviving people of the North and East for dropping the fundamentals of Tamil nationalism set earlier in 1977 and for locking them with political subjugation within a single state in the island. Therefore the election proposal of any potential Tamil candidate should be the removal of the 6th Amendment to the constitution and not any half-backed formula, the commentator further said.
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Carter, Tutu: continued detention, clear violation of international law

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 November 2009, 01:29 GMT]
A group of eminent global leaders, whose members include former US President, Jimmy Carter, and South African Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, has written to Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa to say they are “deeply worried” about the humanitarian situation faced by the largely Tamil civilian population who fled fighting in the north of the country, and warn that this could squander hopes for national reconciliation. The leaders add that the continued confinement of approximately 135, 000 internally displaced people is a “clear violation of international law” and that these people are being denied basic human rights, including the right to liberty and freedom of movement.
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Thousands attend Heroes day remembrance at Excel Centre, London

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 15:42 GMT]
Over 50,000 British Tamils gathered at the Tamil National Remembrance Day held in the Excel exhibition centre. Specially designed interior props and the lighting resembled the “Maveerar Thuyilum Illam” Graves of fallen heroes. British Tamils carrying red roses, Gloriosa lilies (Kaarthikaippoo: Tamil Eelam national flower) and lamps, are filing into the main venue, at the Excel Centre in East London, where large cut-outs of Tamil Eelam were displayed on either side of the stage.
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Heroes’ Day address highlights political formation for liberation

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 11:58 GMT]
Heroes’ Day Address 2009, released from the headquarters of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Friday, stressed the importance of people evolving elected political bodies in the diaspora for the liberation of their home country and to mobilise international support for the liberation. “We are aware that Tamil people will not accept or forgive structures already formed for achieving the goal of Tamil Eelam and activists of them deviating at anytime from the goal,” the address said, citing in the meantime that “the way ‘Sinhala chauvinism’ behaved even after causing grave human catastrophe has brought in permanent rift between Tamils and Sinhalese.” The address came hard on Colombo for serious human rights violations it is committing on interned LTTE cadres, especially women and mothers, and urged the silent IC to act immediately.
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Eezham Tamil refugees in Thailand in dire straits – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 11:41 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Chandraneru Chandrakanthan who had spent three days in Thailand meeting Eezham Tamils who had sought refugee with Thailand UNCHR authorities said that nearly 4000 of them are facing insurmountable difficulties. The MP has requested the UN and the UNCHR to do the needful to these refugees. Tamils living in various parts of the world should pay attention to the sufferings of these refugees in Thailand remembering that there are Eezham Tamil refugees even out of Sri Lanka who need immediate attention and support, Chandrakanthan said.
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Vikramabahu Karunaratne invokes support among Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 10:17 GMT]
After supporting the federal aspiration of Eezham Tamils in the 1956 elections, now for the first time left political parties led by Sinhala leaders have come forward to field a common presidential candidate, Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne, with a main programme recognising Tamil Nation, its homeland in the north and east, its right to self-determination and autonomy as solution for the unity of the island. When agenda-setting powers harping on chauvinistic elements keep mum on recognising the fundamentals, and when Tamil political parties including some Tamil left leaders locked in agendas don’t have guts to spell out the fundamentals, why not voice-deprived Tamils and peace-loving Sinhalese register opinion and explore co-existence through support to the Left Front, is a topic widely discussed in the Tamil circles.
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Police arrest Tamil civilian in Akuressa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 November 2009, 08:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested a Tamil civilian in Akuressa in Matara district Wednesday. Police sources said he was taken into custody on receipt of information that he was involved in several terrorist activities in the south including the bomb attack that took place on March 10 this year. Several persons were killed in the blast. Minister of Posts Mahinda Wijesekara was seriously injured.
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Sri Lanka fully intends to destroy Tamil Homeland, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 November 2009, 02:17 GMT]
Responding to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse's statement to heads of media Tuesday ruling out the re-merger of Northern and Eastern provinces, Professor Boyle said, "[o]bviously, the Government of Sri Lanka fully intends to carve-up, destroy, and dismantle the Tamil Homeland on the Island of Sri Lanka for all time, and towards that end inflict even more acts of genocide against the Tamils living there. Historically, the only way for this to be counteracted is to establish an Independent State for the Tamils on Sri Lanka."
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