North England Tamils protest at Sri Lanka cricket match

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 July 2011, 07:25 GMT]
Diaspora Eezham Tamils from Manchester and Liverpool demonstrated and handed out leaflets Saturday outside the Old Trafford grounds where Sri Lanka played England in the fifth one-day-international this summer to raise awareness of Sri Lanka’s mass killings of civilians in the final months of the island’s war in 2009. The protest, organised by the leftist Tamil Solidarity (TS), was supported by British trade unions UNISON and UNITE, and local Tamil community organisations.
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Sri Lanka holds Briton over Channel 4 documentary, as Fox meets Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 July 2011, 13:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka has arrested a Briton for allegedly helping Channel 4 television produce a documentary accusing Sri Lanka’s military of mass killings of civilians in the final months of the island’s war. Kandanam Jegadishwaram was arrested on Monday and a Colombo magistrate agreed Friday police can hold Kandanam Jegadishwaram for a month, press reports said Saturday. The British High Commission in Colombo told AFP it had no immediate information on the case. The arrest comes as British Defence Secretary visited Sri Lanka and met with President Mahinda Rajapakasa.
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British MPs support international investigations of Sri Lanka mass killings

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 July 2011, 18:33 GMT]
The need for an international investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sri Lanka’s war was reiterated Tuesday at a Parliamentary reception in Britain, attended by 40 MPs as well as representatives from leading NGOs, embassies and High Commissions in London, British, Tamil, Sinhala and Indian media organisations, and senior Tamil activists. The event was hosted by parliamentarians Lee Scott (Conservative) and Siobhain McDonagh (Labour), Chair and Vice-Chair the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamil (APPG-T) and was facilitated by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF). In a statement Friday, Mr. Scott said: “There will be no hiding place for the senior people in the Government of Sri Lanka. We will not stop until justice for the victims of war crimes is served.”
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External sanctions needed for change in Sri Lanka - TYO

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 July 2011, 11:55 GMT]
Welcoming Sri Lankan star cricketer Kumar Sangakkara’s assertion Monday that “cricketers [have] bigger responsibilities than merely playing on the field,” and that “the spirit of cricket can and should remain a guiding force for good within society,” the Tamil Youth Organisation said Thursday these were the very beliefs that inspired the call for an international boycott of Sri Lanka cricket until Colombo agrees to an independent investigation into mass atrocities in the final months of the war in 2009.
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Norway’s deafening silence on Sri Lanka is wrong: Aftenposten

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2011, 00:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka is in the middle of a power-game played by India, China and the USA. Norway’s interests in Sri Lanka are insignificantly few. There is no reason why Norway should maintain a deafening silence over the need for an international tribunal on the war crimes that took place in the island. The silence is due to a line of thinking in the Norwegian foreign ministry and especially in Mr Erik Solheim, that it would ‘normalise’ Norway’s relationship with Colombo. Rather than being in the driver’s seat in demonstrating how concerned Norway is about human rights, it is wrong on the part of Norway’s government to stand along the roadside with a mouth full of dust, says Kristoffer Rønneberg, a foreign affairs journalist of the prominent newspaper Aftenposten, in a commentary column published on Tuesday.
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War and aftermath raise questions over Tamil strategy of engagement with powers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 05:41 GMT]
LTTE and Tamil nationalism were perceived by some powers as getting into the way of their geo-strategic interests. Therefore ‘peace and stability’ means stabilising the Sinhalese regime by crushing LTTE’s military challenge – that was done – and bringing Tamil nationalism to heel, which process is ongoing both in Sri Lanka and among the Tamil diaspora, writes Dr. S. Sathananthan in an article he sent to TamilNet. The power-abetted genocidal war and the aftermath facilitations given to Colombo to complete the genocide into a structural one, raise serious questions among Tamils over the nature of their strategic engagement with some powers.
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Channel 4 ‘persecuting’ Sri Lanka’s government - Rajiva

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 02:36 GMT]
Speaking on the BBC radio’s ‘Today’, one of Britain’s most popular current affairs programs, Sri Lankan government representative Rajiva Wijesinghe brazenly claimed Monday that Channel 4 had “apologized” for using “doctored” video in its recent hard-hitting documentary on Sri Lanka. His claim immediately drew a swift retort from Channel 4 which categorically denied the accusation and said it “stood by the excellent journalism” of the film. On the BBC programme, referring to international calls for investigations of the allegations, Prof. Wijesinghe said “the people of Sri Lanka are not interested in witch hunts.”
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Why a sports boycott is essential for justice – TYO

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2011, 05:50 GMT]
With Sri Lanka defiantly rejecting international calls for war crimes investigations into the mass killings of over 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009, Britain must go beyond rhetorical support and take concrete action to ensure justice is served, the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) said this week. “As a first step, Britain must support the international isolation of the Sri Lankan regime until it accepts an independent, international investigation into the mass killings,” the group said. “A boycott of Sri Lankan sport will send a clear message to Sri Lanka's regime and in particular to its many supporters at home, of the international community’s abhorrence of these atrocities and its commitment to justice.”
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Tamil protestors abused at Sri Lanka-England cricket match

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 03:47 GMT]
Three dozen Tamils protesting Tuesday evening outside the Oval ground where Sri Lanka played England in the first one day international were taunted by some Sinhala spectators who gloated over the mass killings of Tamil civilians in 2009, until police intervened and moved them on. Earlier in the day a small group of Tamil activists setting up for the protest were spat and sworn at by other Sinhala spectators. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan parliamentarian Sanath Jayasuriya, recalled to his country’s team at the behest of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was dismissed for two runs off four balls, as England won the match.
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Jayasuriya's inclusion in cricket team raises awareness of SL mass killings

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2011, 19:35 GMT]
Several dozen British Tamils leafleted Saturday outside the Bristol grounds where Sri Lanka’s cricketers played a Twenty20 match against England to further raise awareness of the mass killings of civilians at the end of the war in 2009. Their efforts were assisted by critical commentary in the British press of Sri Lanka’s inclusion of all rounder Sanath Jayasuriya, who is also a parliamentarian of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling party, for the remaining one day matches of their tour. Ahead of the match three of Britain’s top broadsheets – The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian - slammed the decision as a ‘scandal’ and urged spectators not to applaud Jayasuriya.
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Work with the ‘other’ International Community: leftist MEP

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 June 2011, 17:56 GMT]
“Tamil diaspora activists are very capable and able to put pressure on governments around the world. But, alongside this work, I would really like to encourage the Tamil diaspora to focus on the 'other' international community – which isn't represented by these governments or institutions,” said Socialist Party and United Left Alliance MEP for Dublin, Paul Murphy MEP, in an e-mail interview to TamilNet on Thursday. The Irish MEP who played a key role in organising a hearing at the EU Parliament earlier this month also said: “For us in the Committee for a Workers' International, the right to self-determination for the Tamil people is vital.” He urged the Eezham Tamil diaspora to join hands with the progressive Sinhala forces in the South.
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Law becomes an ass by inaction on UN report: Miliband, Kouchner

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 18:30 GMT]
“If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity,” said David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, writing in New York Times Monday and commenting on how Sri Lanka conducted the Vanni War and treated Tamil life as fourth or fifth class in the refugee camps. Both Miliband and Kouchner were foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively during the Vanni War. They said that in April 2009 they tried to stop the war. Now, responding to the UN panel report on war crimes in the island and citing the need of action, both the former foreign ministers said “We therefore call on our governments to set a deadline, soon, for satisfactory response from the Sri Lankan government, and if it is not forthcoming to initiate the international arrangements recommended by the report.
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CPI calls for all India solidarity with Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 12:36 GMT]
The Communist Party of India (CPI) in its National Council Meeting at New Delhi on 18-19 June, passed a resolution, demanding the Indian government to take into account the resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on war crimes investigation and economic sanctions against Sri Lanka. Accusing Sri Lanka Army for violation of human rights, state terrorism and perpetration of mass murder of Tamil population in the island, the CPI demanded India to facilitate open enquiry on war crimes and resettlement of Tamils in their own places as well as media entry to monitor Indian aided rehabilitation. The party’s national council decided to observe July 8 as “All India Solidarity with Sri Lankan Tamils Day” to press for peaceful political settlement to the ethnic conflict and appealed to other left and democratic parties to join.
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Sri Lanka internment camps compared to Nazi gas chambers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2011, 18:42 GMT]
“We saw how the Sri Lankan government created protected zones whose only equivalent that I can think of are the gas chambers of the Nazis who duped their victims into believing they were safe and then killed them. Corralled into an ever-shrinking space, civilians were bombed and shelled. Thousands died. Desperate doctors performed amputations on children without anesthetic. Disease, starvation, infection decimated the population,” says an Israeli blogger in an article titled “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields – what genocide actually looks like” written after viewing the Channel-4 documentary on Sri Lanka’s war.
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British commentator questions suitability of English cricket tour to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 12:18 GMT]
Following the airing of Channel-4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields,” Mike Atherton, cricket correspondent for UK’s The Times, compares Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime to that of Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe and questions the suitability of England’s tour to Sri Lanka, scheduled for this winter. Atherton is a former England captain and Sports Writer of the Year 2010.
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Colombo: Channel 4 film ‘fake’, made for LTTE supporters

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka denounced a hard hitting Channel 4 documentary aired Tuesday on war crimes committed by both sides during the final months of the armed conflict in 2009 as propaganda by Tami Tiger supporters. Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the film was a ‘fake’ and that LTTE supporters had paid Channel 4 to make it. The External Affairs ministry echoed the charge, saying the film came from “a sinister motive driven by a political agenda against Sri Lanka” and had been made “at the behest of certain parties with vested interests”, for an objective that “caters only to the interests of separatist forces living outside Sri Lanka.”
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Sri Lanka offers attack aircraft to UN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka has offered to supply the United Nations with three Mi-24 attack helicopters and a pair of fix wing aircraft for peacekeeping duties, but a decision to accept would not only generate controversy, but potentially trigger a US review of Sri Lanka's human rights conduct, Foreign Policy magazine reported Wednesday. The Sri Lanka pledge appears calculated to improve Sri Lanka's relationship with the United Nations at a time when it is facing mounting UN pressure to hold alleged war criminals within the army's ranks accountable, UN officials told FP magazine.
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Sri Lanka rejects international investigation of war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 22:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka Wednesday again categorically rejected an international inquiry into war crimes carried out by its forces, footage of some of which was aired in a hard-hitting Channel 4 documentary broadcast Tuesday night. Asked by Al-Jazeera (English) if Sri Lanka would accept an international inquiry, government spokesman Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe replied “Absolutely not!” and added such calls were part of a “separatist, terrorist agenda” which, he said, “was extremely sad to find others falling in [with].” He went on to say: “I don’t think we’re going to play to the agendas of other countries.”
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Gordon Weiss tries to unrelate fire and smoke: Jaffna politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:59 GMT]
“The problem was not that the army of Sri Lanka had decided to regain its sovereign territory and to take on the Tamil Tigers, whose brutality was a matter of record, the problem was the manner in which they carried out the final phase of the war and the sheer number, the sheer proportion, of civilians who were killed during these final assaults,” said Gorden Weiss, former UN spokesperson stationed in Colombo during the war, commenting on a fresh evidence of war crime brought out by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday. By projecting the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in this manner, Gorden Weiss, who was veiling the crimes to the knowledge of the world when they were taking place, now tries to say that fire was not the problem but smoke was the problem, responded an Eezham Tamil politician in Jaffna.
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On burying evidence: The Guardian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:43 GMT]
Placing the blame on the International Community and Human Rights Organizations for not preventing the mass murder in Sri Lanka where the Government allegedly killed 40,000 Tamil civilians, and for not documenting the atrocities committed there, The Guardian in an editorial comparing Sri Lanka crimes to the Genocide in Srebrenica, recommends Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother meet the same justice as Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic now face justice in The Hague, and Bashar al-Assad faces UN sanctions for an assault that has killed 1,300 Syrians.
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