Norwegian ambassador in Colombo bares agenda in Oslo

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2013, 00:58 GMT]
Norway, once hoodwinked the nation of Eezham Tamils with an ‘internal self-determination’ formula in the Oslo Declaration, now bares its deceptive face by talking about ‘development’ of Tamils with diaspora ‘partnership’ within a ‘Sri Lankan minority’ formula and the PC model. While the Norwegian ambassador in Colombo Ms Grete Løchen was baring the agenda in Oslo on Monday, the Tamil participants looped in were not only confirmed revisionists, habitual upholders of the Sri Lankan State and tangent-polity activists, but were also the representatives of the NCET, Tamil Women Organisation, a TCC outfit and the TECH-Norway. If the agenda can’t be perceived with its nuances and rejected outright at the face of Norway, the diaspora will prove only its impotence, commented Tamils for alternative politics in the island.
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Tamils stopped at gunpoint, Sinhalese demonstrate during Pillay visit to Trinco

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2013, 04:09 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Trincomalee visited all the camps where uprooted Tamil civilians were staying and threatened them that they would be facing dire consequences if they were to take part in awareness gatherings anywhere in the district during the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navanetham Pillay. The SL police didn’t allow local media reporters to any of the venues where Ms Pillay was interacting with the people and the civil society. Meanwhile, the SL military deployed its paramilitary and intelligence operatives to organize a protest giving placards portraying that LTTE was the main culprit in ‘abducting’ people. The Sinhala extremist JVP and JHU elements were also behind bringing false victims to the stage-managed protest held in front of the District Secretariat.
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SL forces chase out Tamils waiting to see Navi Pillay in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 00:47 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence and SL policemen brutally attacked and chased out a group of 30 families and relatives of missing persons, who had gathered near Paranthan junction in Ki’linochchi district on Tuesday to express their message to the visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Ms Navanetham Pillay. The families had come as they were told that Navi Pillay would be traveling through A9 on a visit to Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal from Jaffna. Commenting on the nature of the public response to Ms Pillai’s visit to the North, observers said that had Ban Ki Moon come, people wouldn’t have cared or even if they had gathered they wouldn’t have shed tears but would have responded differently.
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Fundamentals diluted behind the scene in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 August 2013, 19:09 GMT]
An elitist group of Tamil lawyers and law academics who have become entrenched in the Colombo-centric system, are collaborating with a section of the foreign Establishments in making Tamil demands ‘non-descript’. Removing the notion of Nation, they talk about self-determination that is not self-determination. In their terminology, ‘Nation’ becomes ‘people’ or ‘nationality’; ‘traditional homeland’ becomes ‘historical habitation’; and ‘Tamil homeland’ becomes ‘contiguous and preponderantly Tamil Speaking Northern and Eastern Provinces’. In an anti-thesis to Tamil Sovereignty Cognition approach based on historical sovereignty, earned sovereignty and remedial sovereignty, they talk about ‘shared sovereignty’, writes an informed Tamil activist in Colombo.
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Tamil Nadu students burn 13th Amendment, call for referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 August 2013, 21:17 GMT]
Tamil students burnt symbolic copies of the 13th Amendment at a protest at Va'l'luvar Koaddam, Chennai on Sunday, urging that only an internationally monitored referendum could provide a solution to the national question of the Eezham Tamil nation. The protestors also called for the expulsion of genocidal Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth.
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Vanni teachers ‘ordered’ to back Rajapaksa candidate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Pre-school teachers who come under the so-called Civil Defence Force have been instructed by three UPFA operatives named Ilangko, Sutharsan and Inthiran, who were ex-LTTE members, now operated by the SL military, to woo voters for UPFA candidate Geethanjali Nakulesvaran, news sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Saturday.
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NPC election is no mandate test: Sivagnanam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:11 GMT]
The environment under which the people of the North and East were able to give a mandate [based on Vaddukkoaddai Resolution] in 1977 is not available today or not given to us by the international as well as domestic situation, said Mr CVK Sivagnanam, a candidate for the Northern Provincial Council election held by Colombo in September with the active support of New Delhi and Washington. The NPC election is based on what is already there [in the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka in the last 25 years]. Therefore, outcome of this election could never be interpreted as conveying any mandate, Mr Sivagnanam said, adding that he is personally consistent in the stand, “two nations in one country” and the Tamil right to self-determination. We would take up a people's struggle in the event of Colombo blighting the NPC, he further said, responding to questions put forward by TamilNet on Saturday.
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Theatres in Tamil Nadu unlikely to screen controversial ‘Madras Cafe’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 August 2013, 23:32 GMT]
The screening of contraversial film ‘Madras Cafe’, which has been declared as ‘anti-Tamil’ film by Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu, is facing protests across Tamil Nadu State and in Mumbai, Indian media reports said Thursday on the eve of the release of the film adding that the theatres in Tamil Nadu are unlikely to screen the film as the Theatre Owners' Association had left the decision of screening the film to individual theatre owners. In the guise of a fiction story and dubbed a thriller, the film portrays the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as terrorists, the Tamil activists opposing the screening of the film said.
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SL military aims to mar Ananthi meeting Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence in Jaffna on Wednesday staged a ‘protest’ against Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the representative of thousands of Eezham Tamil women, who are demanding the Sri Lankan State to reveal the whereabouts of their husbands who were filtered away from the civilians in the final hours of the Vanni war by the SL military that had announced ‘general amnesty’ through the loudspeakers. Sinhala workers, intelligence operatives and some ex-LTTE members brought from elsewhere, were holding placards written in broken Tamil against Ananthi Sasitharan in front of the Jaffna Bus Stand. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo said that the SL State was seeking to ‘influence’ certain foreign missions in Colombo to avoid UN Human Commissioner for Human Rights Navanetham Pillay meeting Ananthi, who is also contesting in the Provincial Council election on behalf of the TNA.
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TNA’s woman candidate in NPC elections seeks appointment with Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 01:17 GMT]
“As a representative of the kith and kin who have been struggling for four years without knowing the whereabouts of thousands of family members who had surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in the final hours after the Sri Lanka Army had promised a general amnesty, and as the only woman taking part in the provincial council elections in Jaffna district representing the interests of war widows, I am looking forward for an appointment with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay, who is scheduled to visit the island soon,” said Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Ezhilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE and a mother of three girls, when addressing the press at Jaffna Press Club on Friday on her participation at the forthcoming Provincial Council elections in the Jaffna district.
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Sinhala soldiers brutally rape Tamil mother in Poonakari, Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 August 2013, 14:10 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on Tuesday evening brutally raped a Tamil woman, who had gone to the nearby shrub to collect firewood in Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi district. The 38-year-old mother of two was rushed to Poonakari hospital by the neighbours after her children discovered her at unconscious state. The victim has told the medical staff at Poonakari hospital that two Sinhala soldiers had forced her into a bush and brutally raped her after binding her legs with her hands using their belts. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heaviliy garrsoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed, committing all kinds of abuses on them. The latest rape victim is from Vinaasiyoadai village. Her husband is reportedly a former LTTE-member who is still in SL military custody.
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New mass-grave site found in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna has warned the original house-owners of a recently released former SLA camp-site at Pallappai at the heart of Vadamaraadchi, not to dig the wells at the site where 52 houses had been seized by the SL military for more than 14 years since 1999. The main camp of the SLA 524 was situated at Pallappai. A few days ago, SL military personnel who blocked the owners of a house from renovating their well, recovered human skeletons of 16 to 18 victims and instructed the owners not to reveal the details to media or human rights groups. More than 100 victims have been buried inside another public well that has been filled up by the SL military, the villagers say.
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SL military bans devotional song at ancient Saiva temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 23:44 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in the East has banned Saiva devotional songs authored by popular poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts are still not known after the occupying Sri Lankan military had him into custody during the final hours of the Vanni war in May 2009. The SL military personnel have warned the temple administration of the historic Siva temple Thaan-thoan'ri-eesvarar at Kokkaddichchoalai not to play the popular devotional song "Piddukku ma'n chumantha perumaanaar” on the temple loud-speakers or on at any occasion. Together with the popular song on Kokkaddich-choalai, TamilNet also releases a few other songs for the wider Tamil audience throughout the world.
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Tamil activist group condemns British FCO’s Sri Lanka deception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 August 2013, 23:55 GMT]
Criticising the UK government for providing legitimacy to Sri Lanka through the CHOGM, the activist group Tamil Solidarity in a statement on Thursday condemned a deceptive response provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to a leading British trade union who had questioned the morality of Britain participating in the CHOGM. Responding to the protest by UNISON, Britain’s largest trade union, the FCO had in a letter dated 26 July defended UK’s participation in the CHOGM, while making token remarks on peace and human rights. “We believe that CHOGM will either highlight progress and respect for Commonwealth values in Sri Lanka, or draw attention to the absence of such progress.” Tamil Solidarity condemned this “shoddy explanation” of the FCO and argued that UK was participating in CHOGM only for its own interests, calling on British Tamils to boycott the Conservatives.
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Wigneswaran seeks mandate for ‘IC-facilitated’ Northern Provincial Council

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 01:12 GMT]
People's participation in the polls to Northern Provincial Council will be significant to the implementation of the 13th Amendment. Since Colombo has agreed to conduct the election merely because of international pressure, people have to be prepared to resist any sabotage. The elected PC will help to end the governor’s rule and interferences in civil administration, said Tamil National Alliance's Chief Minister candidate for Northern Province and retired Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Monday in Jaffna, after fielding TNA's list of candidates for Northern PC elections. Meanwhile, Colombo President Mahinda Rajapaksa implied ‘understanding’ with the candidature of Wigneswaran, when he said on Tuesday that he would be willing to meet Wigneswaran to discuss land and police powers to provinces.
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‘Habitual British treachery played on Eezham Tamils continues unabated’

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 July 2013, 14:35 GMT]
British Conservative Parliamentarian Eleanor Laing, who led a 6-member all-party parliamentary delegation from UK to Sri Lanka last week, has ‘hailed the progress in the country following the end of the war’. The British parliamentarian from Epping Forest has expressed “hope for Sri Lanka's future, saying that one cannot compare human rights in Britain to human rights in Sri Lanka as the island suffered 30 years of war,” a report filed by Xinhua said quoting her as saying: "There is a lot of hope for the future. We are very positive about Sri Lanka. I believe reconciliation is important. We should not rake back the past." While the genocide was being committed on Eezham Tamils in the war, the British representative at the UNSC and later the MI6 chief has gone on record for defending the war by saying that the LTTE was long blighting the SL government.
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Albright-Williamson report paves way for further injustice to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 July 2013, 15:44 GMT]
The “United States and R2P” report authored by Madeleine K. Albright, former US Secretary of State, and Richard S. Williamson, former US presidential special envoy to Sudan, paves way for further injustice to the genocide-affected nation of Eezham Tamils, by harping on “national reconciliation” of the genocidal State of Sri Lanka and by harping on helping the genocidal government to respond to the needs of “all communities” in the so-called country, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. The deliberate flaw in the report stems from the stand of not recognising the genocide in the war and the genocidal intent of the Sinhala State decades before the war and the years following the war, the activists said.
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‘IC neglected responsibility to take timely action in Sri Lanka’: Report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 July 2013, 19:02 GMT]
In face of the mounting civilian casualties between January and May 2009 in the island of Sri Lanka, the international community “did little beyond issuing statements of concern” and “neglected its responsibility to take timely action when it was apparent that violations of humanitarian law were taking place”, states a report authored by Madeleine K. Albright, former US Secretary of State and Richard S. Williamson, former US presidential special envoy to Sudan. For Sri Lanka, the report lays emphasis on the IC supporting a “national reconciliation” process. The report titled “The United States and R2P: From Words to Action” released on Tuesday, analysing cases of Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Syria, Sudan and South Sudan, Congo, and Sri Lanka, provides general recommendations for US policy vis-a-vis R2P. Tamil activists have taken a different perspective on R2P’s role in Sri Lanka.
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Hezbollah military wing added to EU terror list

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 July 2013, 23:26 GMT]
Foreign ministers of the European Union have reached a consensus to classify the military wing of the Lebanese based militant-political group Hezbollah as a terrorist group. This decision was arrived at on Monday after Foreign Ministers of the EU met at Brussels and moved to place Hezbollah’s military arm under the EU terror list. Hezbollah, which functions as a legitimate political party in Lebanon, as such was not banned. In a statement they condemned the EU's "aggressive and unjust decision which is not based on any proof or evidence", Reuters reported, the group further alleging that the US and Israel were behind this move. Hezbollah’s active support to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is also claimed to be a factor influencing EU’s move.
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Precedence setting determination by British court on SL Country guidance: legal activist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 July 2013, 23:19 GMT]
In an interview to TamilNet, Mr. Geetharthanan Kulasegaram, a Tamil legal activist based in the UK who assisted one of the solicitor firms in preparing material for UK’s Sri Lanka country guidance case, elaborated on the significance of the determination by the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal in UK. Initially, the Home Office in the UK had tried to paint a picture of normalcy in Sri Lanka, basing on the findings of the report by Norway based Landinfo report. This was challenged and the recent ruling takes note of the ongoing oppression of Tamils in the island, especially ex-LTTE cadres.
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