Campaign for Channel-4 programme gains momentum in UK

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 17:33 GMT]
Human rights and media activists in UK have published advertisements on TV channels, full page ads on Sunday and Tuesday papers and have distributed over two million leaflets urging the public in UK to view ‘Sri Lanka's Killings Fields’, a documentary produced by Channel 4 that has won awards for exposing Sri Lanka's war crimes. The show follows a group of Sinhala journalists, the Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) exiled from the island initially, chose the channel to release a gruesome execution video they had acquired from their sources on the ground in 2009. "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields" would be globally viewable from the website of Channel-4 as the station has removed 'geo blocking' software from this programme for 7 days, to facilitate those outside the UK and Ireland to view the documentary after its broadcast Tuesday night.
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SLA extorts money from Batticaloa milk producers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 11:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit personnel camped in Tharavai in Batticaloa district are demanding money from Tamil civilians under threat, sources in Batticaloa said. Intelligent unit personnel are alleged to be using an individual known as ‘Maniam’ for ‘collecting’ money from owners of dairy farms, persons employed for milk collection and farmers through intimidation. SLA intelligence personnel also visit houses where Tamils returned from abroad reside in Kiraan, Chiththaa'ndi and Vanthaa'rumoolai, demanding money from them under threat. Victims fear to lodge complaints with the police due to retaliation by the army soldiers.
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UK routeing ex-LTTE ‘reintegration’ through SL Army raises controversy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2011, 22:06 GMT]
Announcing a donation of 5,00,000 pound sterling (90 million SL rupees), and entirely accompanied by the occupying Sri Lanka Army, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, Mark Gooding, visited a detention camp run for ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants by the SL military at the High Security Zone part of Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, on Monday. The British government policy of accepting a genocidal military accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as competent authority for the ‘reintegration’ of the ex-LTTE combatants, and involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of questionable local credibility in the process, raises controversy in Jaffna.
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Sinhala policeman found slain in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2011, 15:21 GMT]
A 41-year-old Sinhala policeman from Ki'linochchi police station was found beaten to death at Umaiyaa'lpuram in Paranthan in Vanni Sunday morning. The dead body in civil, with beaten injuries on face and chest, was first believed to be a civilian and was taken to the mortuary at Ki'linochchil hospital. Later, the body was identified as that of Sinhala policeman, Ananada Samarakoon, sources in Ki'linochchi said.
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Koppe: Tamil demand for retributive justice justifiable

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2011, 21:16 GMT]
Victor Koppe, the Amsterdam-based Bohler advocaten attorney, acting on the recent decision by European Court of Justice that he can legally represent the Europe-based political wing of the Liberation Tigers, said in an interview to the Sunday Leader, that his demand for annulment of the inclusion of LTTE in the EU's terrorism list is partly to stop the prosecution of Tamils in The Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other member countries. Legal sources in Amsterdam said that the Court's decision to allow the LTTE to grant power of attorney to Victor Koppe, may also establish the standing of the EU-based political wing of the Liberation Tigers to file other claims in the EU Court of justice, including possibly complaint against EU-members regarding international law violations arising from imposition of the ban during peace process.
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War crimes documentary publicity infuriates Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2011, 15:23 GMT]
Media publicity surrounding the forthcoming airing of Channel-4 produced war-crimes video "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields," viewed as probably the most horrific" footage it has ever shown in an investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, evoked complains by Colombo to OFCOM, as Colombo unsuccessfully tried to keep the identity of the complainant from being disclosed. Colombo continues to attempt to discredit the video despite advice from seasoned political experts to persuade Colombo to take a more professional approach to dealing with the mounting crisis related to call for independent international investigation of war-crimes.
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Channel-4: airing horrific images necessary to obtain justice for 40,000 killed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 June 2011, 02:23 GMT]
In a radio discussion on ethics of airing the documentary on "Sri Lanka's killing fields" which contains what Channel-4 calls "probably the most horrific images it has ever shown" Channel-4's Head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, explains that the absolute justification for showing the program is that nothing has yet happened after the UN expert panel's report revealed that there was credible evidence that massive war-crimes were allegedly committed by the Sri Lanka military on Tamil civilians. "People, and ambassadors to UN have to see the documentary and can decide for themselves if they are prepared to do nothing," Byrne adds.
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Tamils protest at Lords over allegations of Sri Lanka war-crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 June 2011, 04:47 GMT]
Tamil youth activists in Britain took their ‘Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket’ campaign to the Lords cricket grounds on Saturday, the third day of the second Sri Lanka v England test match this summer. Several dozen Tamil activists and supporters handed out leaflets to arriving spectators and cricket officials and staged a noisy demonstration opposite the famous grounds in the latest in a series of events organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) to raise awareness of the mass killings of Tamil civilians during the final months of Sri Lanka’s war in 2009, and call for a boycott of Sri Lankan cricket until Colombo agrees to an independent international investigation.
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US Defence Attaché in Colombo ‘embarrasses’ Obama administration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 June 2011, 16:53 GMT]
“Remarks earlier this week by the U.S. Embassy’s Defense Attaché at a conference in Colombo reflected his personal opinions. They do not reflect the policy of the United States Government,” said a spokesman for the U.S. State Department Friday. The comment came in a statement officially distancing the USA from remarks made this week by its own defence attaché Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith in Colombo at the controversial 3-day seminar organised by the Sri Lankan military to expound on its defeat of the LTTE. The USA had earlier declined Sri Lanka’s invitation to attend the controversial seminar. The latest US controversy has raised questions whether the US military officials were also playing a ‘personal counter-insurgency’ role in the Sri Lankan State's war against Eezham Tamils.
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War-crimes film, Heyns report, drown Colombo theatrics on terror

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 June 2011, 00:22 GMT]
Channel-4's announcement of screening of an hour-long film on Sri Lanka's killing fields at UN on 3rd June, and the presentation of video footage to the UN Human Rights Council by the UN special investigator into extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, spread a gloomy war-crimes cloud over Sri Lanka making the terror-summit in Colombo, a holiday-extravaganza for the military brass of several rogue nations. The terror-summit is widely perceived as an ill-conceived attempt to whitewash the criminal enterprise the Rajapakse brothers took in slaughtering more than 40,000 civilians and incarcerating more than 300,000 Tamils in internment camps in the war to defeat the Tigers.
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SLA suppresses evidence of skeletal remains unearthed during demining

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2011, 17:29 GMT]
Officials of demining NGOs in Vanni allege that the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are taking measures to ensure that evidence regarding the skeletal remains of Tamil civilians discovered during the demining operations do not become exposed or become public information, sources in Kilinochchi said. Sri Lanka officials have issued unofficial directives to the demining organizations to bury the skeletons in a demarcated area, according to the NGOs.
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Genocide recognition of Mu’l’livaaykkaal 2009 gains ground

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2011, 00:03 GMT]
Genocide recognition is a long and politicised process. While the international media has a pivotal role, historically it has failed to publicise genocides as they occur and has delayed in recognition afterwards. Governments on the other hand have been reluctant to recognise genocide as this would impose obligations on them under international law to act to 'prevent and to punish' and these obligations would consume resources and damage diplomatic relations with countries that may be their allies in military and security endeavours.
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SL Militarization demonstrates extracting 1 million signatures in 10 days

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2011, 05:21 GMT]
The genocidal army and militarized infrastructure of Rajapaksa regime proves its ‘capability’ in intimidating people in the island to put 1 million signatures within 10 days against the UN Expert Panel report. According to Sri Lankan state-owned media on Wednesday the vehicles, which are transporting the petition with letters against the UN report are now returning to Colombo, after which, the government will hand over the petition to the UN.
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Amnesty urges NAM countries to act on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 04:43 GMT]
As the foreign ministers of the 118 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meet Wednesday in Jakarta, Amnesty International urged them to support an international investigation into the killings of 40,000 civilians in the final months of Sri Lanka’s war. In an op-ed published in the Jakarta Post, Amnesty’s international advocacy director, Steve Crawshaw, said NAM countries “have a critical part to play in ensuring these terrible abuses never happen again and that survivors of the conflict can seek justice, thus laying the groundwork for reconciliation” and urged them to act on the report on the mass killings by the UN expert panel – led by former Indonesian attorney-general Marzuki Darusman.
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HRW: governments should shun Sri Lanka’s whitewash of mass killings

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 01:50 GMT]
Governments should decline Sri Lanka’s invitation to attend a Sri Lankan military conference that seeks to legitimize the unlawful killing of thousands of civilians during the armed conflict with the LTTE, Human Rights Watch said Monday. "This conference is nothing more than a public relations exercise to whitewash abuses. No professional, law-abiding military should take part in this farce," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. Sri Lanka’s army chief admitted several Western states and Japan had declined the invitation, but India was sending three Colonels whilst Pakistan and Bangladesh are each sending a General, and Russia is sending six officers. The seminar is being sponsored by two Chinese defence companies.
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Uprooted Champoor Tamils show resolution to get back their land

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 May 2011, 06:48 GMT]
Uprooted Tamils in Champoor, whose lands were taken away by the Sri Lankan government for India's thermal power project, de-populating the Tamil villages and declaring the area as High Security Zone, managed to secure permission from the occupiers to to hold Vaikaasi Pongkal in several centuries old Champoor Paththirakaa'li Koayil on Sunday. The uprooted Tamils prayed for the blessing of Kaa'i goddess that they should be allowed to resettle without further delay in their home villages and in their houses in Champoor area.
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Massacre commemoration rally in front of UN headquarters

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2011, 02:51 GMT]
Nearly one thousand expatriate Tamils from the U.S. and Canada held a protest rally in front of the United Nations headquarters near the Dag Hammarskjold park in Manhattan New York on the second anniversary of the Mu’l’livaaykkaal massacre of May 2009, appealing to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to act on the recommendations of his expert panel to conduct independent war crimes investigations in Sri Lanka. Protesters' chants of “UN, UN, Never again” and “Ban Ki-moon, Act Now” echoed off the white metal building where Secretary General Ban's office now is, Inner City Press (ICP) which covered the protest reported.
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Colombo alleged of engineering paramilitary clash in East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2011, 15:21 GMT]
A special team of Sri Lanka Army personnel Tuesday afternoon conducted a search at the Batticaloa residence of Eastern Province Chief Minister S. Chandrakanthan alias Pilliayan. Mr. Chandrakanthan was not at his residence at the time of search operation. TMVP sources said the reason for the operation was not revealed by the army personnel. The search of Chandrakanthan's residence, located along Lake View, is being viewed as the climax of the internecine fighting between the two paramilitary groups, which are operated by the Rajapaksa regime in Colombo. Informed sources in Colombo said that the Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit has been actively engaged in causing deep division between the two paramilitary groups.
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Calls for war-crimes probe escalate as Tamils commemorate massacre

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2011, 02:49 GMT]
Amid increasing calls by world's premier human rights NGOs, newly elected Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for independent international investigations into alleged accusations of war-crimes committed by Sri Lanka on Tamils, Tamil expatriates in several countries in the West are preparing to commemorate the massacre of Tamil civilians during the final phase of Sri Lanka war. In the United Kingdom, youth groups are organizing a vigil in Trafalgar Square and planning protest campaigns against visiting Sri Lanka cricket team, while in the U.S. in a show of unity, multiple Tamil organizations are participating in a protest and vigil in front of the United Nations building. Organizers of both events said they are expecting a large turnout.
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New Zealand MP questions compromising stand on UN report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2011, 06:55 GMT]
“The ‘international community’ should get moving now, because the Sri Lankan government has already dismissed the report out of hand,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke on Monday, responding to the stand of New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully that the IC would consider appropriate action if the Sri Lankan government is unable to address the concerns of the UN panel report. Keith Locke called a similar stand by the European Parliament on the implementation of the panel report as compromising. “The European Parliament’s compromise resolution makes some good points but essentially leaves it up to the Sri Lankan government to investigate further and implement the Panel’s recommendations,” he said.
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