India betrayed Tamils at a crucial moment: CPI in parliament

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 August 2011, 18:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka has two nationalities —Sinhala nationality and the Tamil nationality. What happened to the Tamil nationality is one of the worst tragedies in the history of the world. It is not just killing of one person. It was a full-scale war on one particular nationality - Tamil nationality. In two days, 40,000 people were killed. Where else did such a thing happen? “I waged India’s war, this is what Sri Lankan president claims. What does the SL government tell the world? India was the collaborator in the war against SL Tamils. Did you ever deny the SL claim? India ‘betrayed’ the SL Tamils at a crucial moment. Now, India is trying to become a Permanent Member in the UN Security Council. The SL Tamil issue is a test case for India as to whether India can play a role as a Permanent Member in the UN Security Council or not, said Mr D. Raja of the CPI in the Rajya Sabha Thursday.
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SLA-assaulted Tamil civilian dies in Puththa'lam hospital

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 August 2011, 15:07 GMT]
A 33-year-old Tamil civilian, suffering from heart ailment died last Sunday at hospital after being assaulted by Sri Lanka Army soldiers in Narakkalli village in Puththa'lam, medical sources told TamilNet. The victim, Mr. P. Sivakumar, was the first one to alert the villagers of suspected ‘grease devils’ believed to be Sinhala soldiers.
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SLN, STF arrest 15 Muslims in Kalpiddi, Puththa'lam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 August 2011, 16:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy and Special Task Force personnel launched an attack on civilians irrespective of their sex in Kalpiddi in Puththa'lam district Tuesday morning and arrested over fifteen Muslims. The SLA and STF had forced the closure of all shops in Kalpiddi thereafter. Relatives of the arrested persons are in dark over their kith and kin taken into custody by the Sri Lankan forces. The arrested persons including daily paid workers, fishermen, and traders are said to be detained in Munthal Police Station.
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SLA, STF militarise Puththa'lam following unrest

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 August 2011, 13:07 GMT]
Hundreds of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and elite commandos of the notorious Special Task Force (STF) personnel have been deployed in Puththa'lam following the clashes between the residents and the SL Police on Sunday. The SLA has come to the town with military tanks and armoured vehicles. SLA and STF personnel are manning every 5 meter of the road, the residents said. The residents say the that two armed intruders, who caused injuries to a dog entering the premises of a house in Ma'nal-theevu, 3 km north of Puththa'lam and shot at the Muslim youth who confronted them, were Sinhala policemen.
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Tamils in Mannaar confront SL Navy 'grease devil' at Peasaalai

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 August 2011, 12:34 GMT]
Tamil civilians of Peasaalai, 15 km northwest of Mannaar city, Sunday evening confronted an alleged 'grease devil' attacker around 7:30 p.m. When the attacker was chased by the civilians, the suspect ran into the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) camp at Peasaalai. The villagers who rang the bells of the churches and temples in the area gathered outside the Sri Lanka Navy camp demanding the SLN to handover the suspect to the police and file a case against him. The protesters wanted the process be transparent and demanded to carry on the process in their presence. Violent reactions ensued as the SLN personnel at the camp refused to handover the suspect and chose to opened fire confronting the protesters.
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SLA establishes 224th Brigade in Ki'n'niyaa after ‘grease devil’ episode

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 August 2011, 11:38 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army has established its 224 Brigade in Ki'n'niyaa town where ninety nine percent of the population are Tamil-speaking Muslims. The deployment of Sri Lankan military at Ki'n'niyaa, the most densely populated town in the Trincomalee district, comes in the wake of protests held by Muslim residents of the area against the arrest of twenty four Muslim civilians over an attempted ‘grease devil’ attack by an alleged Sri Lanka Navy man last week. The new SLA Brigade consists two battalions with 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers, informed sources in the East told TamilNet Monday.
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It is not mere corruption, but militarisation of corruption in South Asia

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 August 2011, 05:02 GMT]
“Military forces across South Asia are flexing their commercial muscles to create ventures that rival private firms and threaten to militarise civil society,” says a New Zealand Herald article, Saturday. “In Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, defence chiefs have interests in everything from airlines to sugar factories, banks to bakeries, from power plants to ports. Investments worth billions of dollars are controlled by a military elite that is eclipsing civilian bureaucracies and, in some cases, corrupting the services,” the article by Rahul Bedi said. TamilNet commentator responded by saying that as militaries in South Asia don’t hesitate now to commit even genocide to protect corrupt states, the current anti-corruption uprising in India needs to be more inclusive and Tamil Nadu should enlighten peoples of India on the need to integrate the struggle of Eezham Tamils with it.
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SL Army begins registering Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 August 2011, 03:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army soldiers have been engaged in registering Tamil youths of both sexes who are staying Colombo with their relatives and friends and lodges in Colombo city and its suburbs. This has caused fear among Tamils living in the South. But the SLA says that this ethnic and selective registration is a ‘routine affair’ and not an especially implemented assignment, a new kind of explanation aimed at escaping criticism. In Mayoorapathi area in Wellawatte, the SLA personnel even photographed members of each family residing there, civil sources in Colombo said. The sudden registration of Tamils residing in Wellawatte has caused fear that the Rajapaksa government is contemplating to acquire several flats now being occupied by Tamil civilians.
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SLA increases its control in Ki'n'niyaa town after ‘grease devil’ episode

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 August 2011, 09:50 GMT]
Ki'n'niya with a population of over one hundred thousand people, ninety nine percent of them are Muslims has been reeling under the repression of the Sri Lankan armed forces since they successfully got the release of civilians arrested by the Sri Lanka Army last week over the ‘grease devil’ scare. Hundreds of people held hostage the District Government Agent Ranjith de Silva and SLA Commander of East, Maj. Gen. Boniface Perera, inside the Ki'n'niyaa Divisional Secretariat building till they obtained the release of 24 civilians.
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Sri Lanka to purchase 14 Mi-17 military helicopters from Russia

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 August 2011, 21:04 GMT]
Further bolstering its military ties with Russia and expanding its own military machine beyond its local needs, Sri Lanka has entered into yet another contract with Russia’s state-run arms enterprise, Rosoboronexport, to purchase different modifications of Mi-17 military helicopters, reports from Colombo and Moscow said. While Rajapasa-critics in Colombo said the purchase is ‘managed’ by SL Presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa through a so-called State-owned company, which is neither controlled by the SL Auditor General nor listed on the Stock Exchange, the Eezham Tamil circles said the military transport gunships are to be deployed in the ongoing SL militarisation of the country of Eezham Tamils.
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‘Grease Devil’ attacks aim at frightening resettlement in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 August 2011, 12:59 GMT]
While attacks especially on Tamil women carried out by unidentified men in camouflage called ‘Grease Devils’ terrorise Tamil civilians in the East and the hill country, such attacks particularly aim at crippling resettlement in the Vanni districts. On Wednesday evening, three men emerging from the thickets in black dress and grease on their face chased three women of Ki’linochchi 8th milepost engaged in removing landmines. Following similar incidents and attacks on women in Vanni, people resettling in their houses and lands that are dispersed as typical to the settlement pattern of Vanni are now forced to gather into clusters. Occupying SL military’s officials now ‘advice’ resettled people in Vanni to live in clusters to avoid terrorising attacks.
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Belated realisation finds fault with ‘brother’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 August 2011, 06:11 GMT]
President Rajapaksa would be well advised to distance himself swiftly from his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, said The Hindu in its editorial on Tuesday. The problem is not the brother but the confidence the Colombo regime gets from the stand of the big brother in New Delhi, is the opinion of political observers and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha. The Hindu now scapegoats ‘Gotabhaya brother’ as a last resort to bail out Rajapaksa, New Delhi establishment and all those who contributed to genocide in the island, political observers in Chennai said. The Hindu could have contributed to pre-empt genocide had its journalism confuted the big brothers in New Delhi and Washington and appealed to the masses in India and outside by telling the truth about the intentions of state in the island, the political observers further said.
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Ki'n'niyaa Muslims attack SLN camp over “grease devil” scare

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 August 2011, 10:32 GMT]
The Sri Army and the Police at last yielded to the demand of the protesting residents of Ki'n'niyaa and released all twenty four Muslim civilians including three students who are sitting for the G.C.E. advanced level examination. They were arrested following a group of Muslim civilians attacked a camp of the Sri Lanka Navy Sunday night suspecting that an alleged ‘grease devil” roaming in the area had entered the navy camp located in Ki'n'niyaa. Residents said they had witnessed a ‘grease devil” that had entered the navy camp located at Faisal Nagar in Ki'n'niyaa town in a car. ‘Grease devil’ is kind of attack on women reported in the island in which the culprit comes after applying grease on his body so that he could not be caught.
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Devil reading from scriptures, Jayalalitha derides Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 August 2011, 04:18 GMT]
Verbal feud between Jayalalithaa Jayaram, Tamil Naadu chief minister, and Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse escalated as Jayalalithaa hit back at Gotabhaya after the latter had asked Jayalalithaa to "mind her own business and not interfere in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka," saying, "Gotabaya claims that there were no war crimes and the reports are false and misleading. The Tamil Nadu resolution on Lankan Tamils is beyond politics," India Today reported. Jayalalithaa said that Lankan defence secretary's statement is like the Devil quoting from scriptures, and added that her government will not rest till the issue of atrocities on Lankan Tamils has got a permanent solution.
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Mayilanthanai massacre of Tamils remembered

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 August 2011, 18:06 GMT]
Nineteenth death anniversary of 39 Tamil civilians who were massacred by on 9th August 1992 at Punaanai Maiyilanthanai village, 50 km off north of Batticaloa city, was commemorated on Tuesday. The victims, including pregnant women, children and elders, were shot and hacked to death by a group of soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army from a camp located at Punaanai railway station.
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Vanni survivors recount mass killings, rape in Headlines Today documentary

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 August 2011, 04:05 GMT]
In a world exclusive report aired Tuesday, India’s Headlines Today (HT) television broadcast eyewitness accounts of mass slaughter, the use of chemical weapons and cluster bombs, and torture, rape and sexual humiliation in internment camps by Sri Lanka’s military. The accounts were gathered inside Vanni from survivors of the catastrophic violence of 2009 by one of HT’s investigative reporters, P. Priyamvatha, who traveled undercover into the region – described by the channel as “the most densely militarized place in the world.” She conducted her interviews in Tamil. Responding to the documentary, titled ‘I witnessed genocide’, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India condemned it as “tendentious, unsubstantiated, inflammatory” and questioned Priyamvatha’s bona fides.
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Headlines Today to air new documentary: Inside Lanka's Killing Fields

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 August 2011, 17:28 GMT]
New Delhi-based news channel, Headlines Today, which has brought wide media focus in India on Sri Lankan war crimes after broadcasting the Channel 4 documentary, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, followed with a debate recently, on Monday said it was to broadcast an exclusive documentary of its own on Tuesday, titled "I witnessed Genocide: Inside Lanka's Killing Fields". The new documentary to be aired on Tuesday will feature eyewitness accounts of shelling and aerial bombardment of designated safe zones, hospitals and other civilian targets, rape, sexual harassment at IDP camps, use of chemical bombs, use of cluster munition, denial of food and medicines to civilians etc., media sources in New Delhi said.
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S.M. Krishna and his suo motu statement

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 August 2011, 01:09 GMT]
The Suo Motu statement of Indian foreign minister SM Krishna on Sri Lanka in the Indian parliament has led him into a controversy of filing a defamation case against the Press Trust of India (PTI), because the latter reported him reading the statement ‘absent minded’. The minister "appeared absent-minded and had to be prodded to make a statement," PTI reported. On Krishna’s response through a defamation case the PTI said on Friday: "This is perhaps the first time a minister has threatened a news organisation with... action for reporting [House] proceedings despite the Parliamentary Proceedings [Protection of Publication] Act." Meanwhile, Krishna’s statement was meant to mislead the parliament and to hoodwink Tamil Nadu, writes, a leading legal practitioner and human rights activist of Trincomalee.
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21st anniversary of Thiraayk-kea'ni massacre commemorated

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 August 2011, 14:36 GMT]
Twenty first death anniversary of 47 Tamil civilians massacred by Muslim goons with the support of Special Task Force (STF) of Sri Lanka Police in Thiraayk-kea'ni village in Ampaa'rai district on the 6th August, 1990, was observed Saturday. Thiraayk-kea'ni village is located 70 km away south from Batticaloa in Ampaa'rai district. Tamils were massacred as retaliation to the killing of 13 Muslim labourers that took place on August 5, 1990 by the STF at Digavapi village.
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Russell, Foucault on Truth, Lies in Sri Lanka context

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 August 2011, 13:49 GMT]
"While the LTTE’s propaganda machine continues to spin its lies, and such lax standards of journalism continue to prevail in the west, the narrative on Sri Lanka may continue to be obscured by vicious falsehoods," says Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary in a media briefing convened in Colombo in a frontal assault on confronting the damage inflicted on Sri Lanka by the Channel-4 video, UN war-crimes report, and the Rights NGOs calling for International Investigations into war-crimes. The underlying moral question in discerning the truth of what happened in the final months of the war is laid by British philosopher Bertrand Russell in his advice to the future generations: "...never let yourself be diverted either by what you would wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts...."
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