UN violating Charter obligation to promote, encourage human rights - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 00:45 GMT]
Dithering in the halls of the human rights apex body, the United Nations, culminating in the recent uncharacteristic pronouncement that the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is "too-busy" to visit Sri Lanka, has prompted a legal scholar to point out that "where an individual such as the U.N. Secretary General has an obligation to act to prevent criminal activity and either refuses or fails to do so, that would render him "complicit" with the underlying criminal activity--in this case genocide." Prof. Francis Boyle said Thursday that "[t]he U.N. Secretary General must immediately travel to Sri Lanka and do all in his power " to prevent" the Government's genocide against the Tamils."
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Students boycott schools in Batticaloa against abduction of girl student

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 14:07 GMT]
Students of nearly 25 schools in and around Batticaloa town continued their boycott of schools for the ninth day Thursday in protest against the abduction of Satheskumar Thinusika, a grade 3 girl student of Batticaloa Koaddaimunai Junior School by a paramilitary group operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Batticaloa said. Meanwhile, parents alleged that the police have shot and killed three suspects in order to save the main perpetrators who hold high positions in the government, the sources added.
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London protesters want international action, not words, over Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
British Tamils demonstrating outside Parliament are demanding the UK government takes concrete action immediately “to end the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Tamils in Vanni and in the military-run concentration camps.” In a statement to media, Tamil students leading the protests said: “What is needed right now is action by the international community, not merely words of sympathy. Humanitarian intervention has taken place in many parts of the world to save people who have been subject to state violence, ethnic cleansing, and starvation by blockade. Powerful liberal states have acted to save populations being brutalized by their own states, despite the objections and obstructions of other powerful states. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are human beings too.”
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LTTE guarantees safety and security for ICRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 08:58 GMT]
Dispelling hints and accusations by certain sections that the LTTE has not guaranteed safe passage to the ICRC to bring in humanitarian relief such as food and medicine, the LTTE political head B. Nadesan in a letter dated 4th May, has given a written assurance that the LTTE reiterates its full commitment and support to the ICRC in its humanitarian and mandated activities. Nadesan requested to consider the letter as a necessary security guarantee. Nadesan was accusing that it was the Sri Lanka government and its forces that were blocking the activities of the ICRC by launching military manoeuvres. Even on Thursday, around 10 AM, Colombo’s forces were shelling towards the ICRC vehicles that had come to the shore to undertake transportation of the wounded civilians, and there were minor damages to the vehicles, LTTE officials said.
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Green light to rid Tigers while 50,000 lives at risk, Boyle faults US, UK

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 04:33 GMT]
"US. UK, France and India appear to have given green light to Sri Lanka to get rid of the Tigers no matter what the cost is to the 50,000 lives of innocent Tamils at risk now. Let's get back to the need to change that green light to a red light, and let's solve the humanitarian crisis first, and then talk about some sort of solution," said Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, during an interview with Aljazeera network Wednesday. Eric Solheim, key architect of the 2002 peace process in Sri Lanka, and Nirj Deva, a Member of European Parliament and of Sri Lankan origin also participated in the discussions.
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US should think of ‘gunboat diplomacy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 03:31 GMT]
It is the last chance for US to strike a political balance in the island, if it is really keen in seeing meaningful ‘post-conflict’ process, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. Neither the present Indian Establishment, which by its role played as a war partner irredeemably lost its positive leverage on the affairs of the island, nor the UN bogged down with Security Council deliberations may able to act swiftly to respond to the emergency, he said. Colombo is on one hand aiming at creating a political and military vacuum for Tamils and on the other hand is aiming at the incarceration of all Tamils either in internment camps or in open prisons. The balance disturbed by US has to be set right by US itself by a timely action such as sending the fleet without waiting for political changes in India, the commentator said.
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Why information sabotage, UN questioned

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 01:52 GMT]
Why the UN withheld casualty figures and satellite information on the no-fire zone in Sri Lanka, while it released such information on Gaza was the question put to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Tuesday, by the Inner City Press (ICP). The Secretary General’s reply not touching the question reflected his continued hopes in private deal with the Colombo government. Tamil circles find it strange, that a UN that accepts its inability to send its team or life-saving food cum medicine supply to the no-fire zone, and unable to guarantee the human rights of the civilians already moved, is showing keenness only in further ‘evacuation’ of civilians and in helping Colombo in ‘any post-conflict facilitations’. While the ICP hints at hidden Indian hands behind the UN, the Tamil circles wonder whether the UN stand is the stand of the US also.
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Canadian academics support self-determination, ask direct US action

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 19:53 GMT]
Stressing on the recognition of the self-determination of Tamils as the basis for any solution to the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka, Canadian Academics for Tamil Rights in a press conference Wednesday in Toronto said that the proscription of the LTTE had affected the peace initiatives and Canada was a party to be blamed. “As an immediate remedy to the grave situation at the moment, the IC and UN should take food and medicine directly to Vanni and if not possible they should pressure the US to do it. It may look strange, but it is the only option if any one wants to save the lives of the people in Vanni”, was the opinion expressed in the press conference, citing the urgency.
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Critical medicine shortage, alarming number of casualties - Ambassador Rice

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 16:52 GMT]
Dr Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in a press release issued early last week expressed deep concern at the "growing and grave humanitarian crisis," and pointed pointed to "serious allegations against both parties of violations of international humanitarian law." While indicating that shelling by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continues despite assuarances by Colombo, Ambassador Rice also expressed concern at the shortage of "critical medicines," and disappointment at the refusal by Sri Lanka to allow "UN humanitarian team into conflict zone to facilitate relief operations and safe evacuation of civilians."
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Tamil teacher shot dead in Vavu’natheevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 11:49 GMT]
An unidentified armed man shot dead a Tamil teacher Wednesday morning at Kannankudaa Pi’l’laiyaaradi area in Vavu’natheevu police division in Batticaloa district while he was cycling to his school located at Paavatkodichcheanai, sources in Batticaloa said.
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UNP also against Tamils: Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 10:43 GMT]
Mano Ganeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Western People’s Front (WPF) condemned United National Party (UNP) Puththa’lam district parliamentarian, Palitharanga Bandara’s statement that heavy weapons should be used on the ‘safe zone’ to destroy the Liberation Tigers, in a media release Wednesday in Colombo. Palitharanga praised the Sri Lankan Armed Forces for their victories against the war on Tamils besides expressing views revealing racism in the press meet held Monday in the official residence of the Opposition Leader and this shows that UNP too is a political party that is against the Tamils,” Mano Ganeshan said in the press release.
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Minister Chandrasegaran condemns effort to tax plantation workers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 08:59 GMT]
”Efforts to have deducted a day’s pay from innocent Tamil plantation workers to help people affected by war will only assist the government in its war against the Tamils,” Up-country Peoples’ Front (UPF) leader and Sri Lanka Minister, P. Chandrasegaran said in a press report, condemning demands made by certain trade unions and voluntary organizations on the plantation workers to give a day’s wage to help war affected people, sources in Colombo said.
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Tamil couple arrested in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 04:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police arrested a Tamil couple in Ezhuthoor in Mannaar district claiming that a claymore mine and some explosives were recovered from a bare land next to their house, in a search operation conducted in the area on 27 April, sources in Mannaar said.
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‘State terror’ waging ‘racist war’ - Sonali Wickrematunge

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 18:57 GMT]
The UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize 2009 has been awarded posthumously to Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, assassinated by a government death-squad in January. Wickremetunga, long-standing editor of The Sunday Leader newspaper, was one of the few journalists who continued to criticise the militarist, hardline government of President Mahinda Rajapakse. In a statement marking the award, his wife, Sonali Wickrematunge, described the government’s military campaign in the north as a “racist war” in which future charges of genocide would not be surprising and pleaded for international action.
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Slow-motion genocide to exceed horrors of Srebrenica, warns Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 18:52 GMT]
Professor Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law, an international expert on Boznia and crimes of Genocide said Tuesday, "[s]ince the outset of this latest crisis in January, the GOSL has exterminated about 7000 Tamils in Vanni, certainly a "substantial part" of the Tamil population in Vanni and Sri Lanka. If not stopped now, the GOSL's toll of genocide against the Tamils could far exceed the recent horrors of Srebrenica." Prof. Boyle's call for urgent food drop to the civilians close to starvation in the Safe Zone, has gathered momentum, and international media are seeking his comment on the urgency of humanitarian support.
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US responsible, least humanitarian is dropping food: Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 17:07 GMT]
If there is any meaning for the word humanitarian, the minimum humanitarian act right now is to drop food to the civilians of Vanni without wasting a minute, repeatedly appealed health officials in Vanni on Tuesday, as an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe caused by Sri Lankan government enforced starvation engulfs the civilians of Vanni. “The US government and the world should realise that the situation culminating in the most inhuman act of Colombo calculatedly inflicting starvation death on civilians is ultimately a consequence of the lopsided application of a US policy, and the US has every responsibility to remedy it. Failure amounts to connivance to the crime. US has to immediately airdrop food”, said a relief official in Vanni.
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LTTE calls on IC to support Diaspora actions to deliver humanitarian aid

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 16:21 GMT]
Noting that the UN and the rest of the International Community has a moral obligation to support the initiative launched by the Tamil Diaspora to deliver humanitarian aid direct to the Tamil people in Vanni, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Political Head Quarters in a statement issued on Tuesday urged the International Community to extend "moral, political and logistical support to implement this initiative."
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Tamil IDP abducted in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 15:44 GMT]
Unidentified armed men entering Ki’liveddi Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) welfare centre in Moothoor division in Trincomalee district Saturday night forcibly took away a man in the centre amid protests by fellow IDPs, sources in Moothoor said. The IDPs, displaced due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives, have been waiting for resettlement in their own villages.
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TRO: Food shortage in Safe Zone, critical

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 12:55 GMT]
While the need of food for the estimated 165,000 people, as determined by the District Secretariat, is roughly 2500 MT a month, ships brought only 60 MT for the whole of April, and the 1100 MT announced by the Sri Lanka Government to be loaded in Trincomalee in ships, never materialized, said Lawrence Christy, head of Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) field office in the Safety Zone, in a report released 2nd May, adding that World Food Program is limited by the Government of Sri Lanka to send a quantity of food barely sufficient to keep alive 50,000 people, a number GoSL is willing to admit as the numbers holed up in the Safe Zone.
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Claymore attack kills youth in Buttala

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 12:43 GMT]
Unidentified men launched a Claymore attack Tuesday morning on a tractor belonging to Pelawathe Sugar Factory in Weliyara village in Buttala in Monaragala district, killing a youth and seriously injuring another man, sources in Puththa’lam said. Meanwhile, Monoragala police arrested two Tamil youths in Monoragala town and have detained them for interrogation, the sources added.
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