Aftenposten-Wikileaks shows shallow understanding of US diplomats

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 19:18 GMT]
Classified cables of US diplomats sent between February 2009 and January 2010, made available by Wikileaks and released in the Norwegian media Aftenposten earlier this month, show how shallow and wanting the understanding of the US diplomats in dealing with the decades-old and still continuing national question and genocide in the island of Sri Lanka, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. The primary responsibility of the diaspora, rather than being ‘guided’ by such diplomacy, is the edification of the neo-Orientalist thinking in the Western capitals, especially in Washington, London and Paris for the replacement of this kind of diplomacy, he further writes, citing what the public opinion has achieved in Tamil Nadu and pointing to where the public opinion has to be directed to in the world by the diaspora.
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University students in Jaffna defy subjugation, observe Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 18:05 GMT]
More than 600 students from all the faculties of Jaffna University, came together Monday to observe Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance, defying the threatening presence of Sri Lankan riot police commandos, Sri Lanka Army soldiers and intelligence operatives at the University premises between 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The Jaffna University Students Union urged the Tamils to excel in knowledge by continuing to focus on education and resolved that any effort to find a political solution should be founded on ‘historical realities’ and that those who claim to conduct ‘negotiations’ with the government should be mindful that their mandate is vested with people and all sections of the Tamil Nation should be consulted before finalising any model. Sinhala and Muslim students also took part in the remembrance event.
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Ron Ridenour writes on the dilemma of socialist leaning governments on Tamil Genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 13:36 GMT]
The countries in the United Nations are divided in two blocs when it comes to the plight of Eezham Tamils. Those who tag themselves behind a world order promoted by the USA, and those who are in the opposing camp, many of them from the non-alignment movement (NAMs) and Cuba, Venuzela led ALBA countries of Latin America. These countries supported the Sri Lankan state in the previous UN Human Rights Council sessions. “However, ALBA partners now have a chance, whether on the UN Human Rights Council or not, to help the Tamil people in some way, also by calling for an investigation,” writes Ron Ridenour, a veteran US born but now Denmark-based leftist and anti-imperialist, who voiced against the US aggression on Cuba in 1961, jailed in the US for his views on several occasions and contributed extensively to the study of Latin America.
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Daily Mirror editorial: “TNA kindles violence”

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 10:51 GMT]
“A senile TNA member’s descendants are in the West. With one foot in the West and one in the grave this member thrive on the sufferings of the innocent Tamil civilians. And he likes kindling violence. And obviously TNA welcomed the findings of the Experts’ Panel,” was the editorial opinion of a “noteworthy” newspaper, Daily Mirror, published in Colombo on Monday. The editorial titled “Irresponsible politics,” by the pro-opposition newspaper, projecting itself belonging to a ‘liberal world’, show only the basic feelings of Sinhala polity, whether ruling or opposition, when it comes to delivery of justice to Tamils within Sri Lankan State that is upheld by powers in the island, commented Tamil political circles in the island, adding that the editorial in fact was a response to the stand of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms. Jayalalitha.
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Kohona admits to sending "Killer SMS"

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2011, 20:26 GMT]
Dr Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, admitted to sending an SMS message through a European intermediary giving instructions to leaders of the Libertation Tigers to surrender, Sydney Morning Herald reported in an investigative story in its Friday edition. In this "white flag" incident Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers is alleged to have gunned down all the LTTE members who surrendered. The Journalist Ben Doherty appeared to have visited Sri Lanka and gathered the pertinent evidentiary information, including a statement from an eye-witness to the incident.
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26 Villages continue as HSZ in Valikaamam alone

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2011, 00:13 GMT]
While visiting SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa claimed in Jaffna on Monday that there is noting called ‘High Security Zone’ (HSZ) and that the whole island is a ‘Peace Zone’, 26 villages in the Valikaamam HSZ alone are occupied by Sri Lankan military, uprooting 43,700 people of 17,108 families for more than two decades now. The number is actually more, and could go upto 70,000, if refugees to foreign countries are included, welfare societies in Jaffna said. Considering, their location and the intentions of the occupying military, the people of these villages are afraid that they will never see their homes back. The excuse of Colombo is that it would take 8 more years for de-mining these villages.
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SLA in Vanni alleged of using forced labour

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2011, 23:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army in Vanni is forcing the Tamil civilians, who visit Vanni to see their kith and kin in Mullaiththeevu district from other parts of the island, to work in the SLA-run projects. Failing to do so they are warned and their relatives in Mullaiththeevu are being interrogated by the SLA intelligence unit, according to affected victims.
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US military envisages interventions against genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, 01:36 GMT]
The United States has launched a high-level initiative to make its military more ready and able to respond to potential mass killings in future, the Wall Street Journal reports. The emerging doctrine is a blueprint for an interventionist foreign policy that places such ideas as "responsibility to protect" on a par with the principles of realpolitik, the paper says. A senior Department of Defense official told the WSJ that the project, which is at an early stage, would help develop "a complete set of options that the leadership can consider in the preventive area before it comes to sending in the military, or not sending in the military."
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UK Tamils plan protests during Sri Lanka cricket tour

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, 01:16 GMT]
Tamil Diaspora groups are planning protests to coincide with Sri Lanka’s cricket tour of England this summer, beginning with a demonstration on May 14 at the Uxbridge venue of the first match between Sri Lanka and Middlesex County. The protest series is the latest phase of a ‘Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket’ campaign initiated by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) in March and since endorsed by several other Tamil community groups in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Tamil campaigners Monday dismissed Sri Lankan press reports claiming that British authorities were trying to prevent the protests.
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Third instance of Australia accepting alleged SL war criminal as ambassador

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 01:21 GMT]
Australia has accepted as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner former Navy commander Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, according to some press reports. Admiral Samarasinghe was commander of the Navy during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s war, including the final months in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were slaughtered. The recently released UN panel’s report states that “[f]rom as early as Feb 6 [2009], the SLA continuously shelled within the area that became the second NFZ from all directions, including air, land and sea.”
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Blake should not mislead Tamils again: Mano Ganesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:38 GMT]
Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF), who was once named by then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on Wednesday, reminded the Tamils that the visiting US Asst Secretary Robert Blake was instrumental in providing US government's unconditional support to the war waged by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils. The “US government wanted put out a savior impression. But in real it did not bother about the Tamil civilian causalities,” Mr. Mano Ganesan said. “International community should act decisively with the GoSL. It is time that US assistant state secretary for central and south Asia affaires Robert O Blake lives upto his earlier ambassadorial preaching. He should not mislead the Tamils again.”
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Robert Blake visits Ki'linochchi, learns the plight of Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 18:08 GMT]
Robert O. Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for the South and Central Asian affairs visited Vanni for the first time on Tuesday and learned the plight of Tamil civilians, affected by the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in 2009 and continue to suffer in the hands of the SL military. The occupying SL military didn't allow journalists to witness the event, which was scheduled as monitoring the ‘development’ activities supported by the USAID, the lead development agency of the US government. However, civilians who had the opportunity to raise their plight with Mr. Blake, who came to witness the programmes for unemployed youth and the farmers, said they got an opportunity to raise their concerns and got a chance to respond to the questions from the visiting US diplomat.
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Armed robberies escalate in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 16:35 GMT]
Several robberies carried out by armed men in military uniform have taken place in recent times in Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni, where resettlement of civilians is partially allowed. Armed men in military uniform who came to Kallaa'ru Periyaku'lam village, claiming that they were on a search operation, instructed the families of two houses to stay outside while they searched their houses around 01:00 a.m. The men removed all the valuable belongings inside the houses and walked away, residents who had recently resettled complained.
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Rajapaksa's governors blame UN Expert panel report as “irresponsible act”

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 15:40 GMT]
The nine governors appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, including the two ex-military governors of North and East, Maj. Gen (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri and Rear Admiral (red.) Mohan Wijewickrema, have come out with a joint statement accusing the UN Expert panel report as a “biased unilateral report which would bring discredit to the President and the Armed Forces thereby to the people of Sri Lanka.” Mohan Wijewickrema, the colonial SL governor of the Eastern Province has issued the press release in the capacity of the Chairman of 13th Governor’s Conference.
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Boyle: Word "Genocide" missing in UN Panel's war crimes report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Pointing out the instances where the criminal allegations on Sri Lanka made in the UN's war crimes report support the charge of genocide on Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "[f]or obvious political reasons, no one wants to use the word “genocide." And that is because it then raises the question why did no one stop the genocide as required by article I of the Genocide Convention. The same phenomenon happened in Bosnia. No one would use the word “genocide” until afterwards, and it was too late to do anyone any good—they were all dead."
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Sri Lanka war-crime alleged over killing of TECH Director

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 00:08 GMT]
Emerging evidence on Sri Lanka military targeting civilian leadership of Eezham Tamil development organizations at the end of Vanni war further reinforces the credible allegation that Sri Lanka's war crimes and crimes against humanity had genocidal intentions. C. Sivalingam Suhunan, alias Thilak, the executive director of TECH (The Economic Consultancy House), the flagship development NGO of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam and a registered NGO in Sri Lanka, was one of the victims, according to a Senior official of TECH, who has identified Thilak's body in a recently leaked photograph taken by Sri Lankan soldiers. Mr. Suhunan had phoned his family last on 18 May, 2009 at 6:15 a.m. local time, informing that he was among a group of persons in civil clothes, going into Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled territory in Mullaiththeevu.
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Horrors of Rwanda genocide to be retold in Kansas court

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2011, 01:16 GMT]
While Sri Lanka's savage killing of more than 40,000 Tamil civilians is in the center stage of world main stream media following the release of UN's war crimes report Monday, trial of Rwanda's Lazare Kobagaya, having a last name similarly syllabled as the first name of Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminal Gotabaya, charged with illegally obtaining United States citizenship and misusing an alien registration card is to begin in a Kansas Court. Prosecutors say Mr. Kobagaya lied on his citizenship application when he denied participating in genocide in 1994, and they are bringing witnesses from Africa to try to prove it, New York Times said in an article in Tuesday.
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Colombo’s crimes grotesque – The Times

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2011, 00:04 GMT]
The Times newspaper (London) said Wednesday that the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes confirms the newspaper’s reporting in May 2009 that the “Sri Lankan Government was party to the mass murder of civilians.” Referring especially to mass bombardment of civilians in so-called no-fire zones, the paper demanded that “perpetrators of this war crime should be pursued and targeted with sanctions by the UN and other international organisations.” Dismissing Colombo’s claim that the UN panel’s conclusions would inflict “irrevocable damage” on postwar efforts of reconciliation as “disingenuous”, the paper singled out India especially to act over Sri Lanka’s war crimes.
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New evidence leads to war crime committed on LTTE's Col Ramesh

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 April 2011, 22:47 GMT]
The wife of slain Batticaloa Commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on Thursday verified that the dead body shown in the photo released on Wednesday was that of her husband, Col. Ramesh. On Wednesday, a former member of the LTTE identified a photo leaked in recent days by the soldiers of the SLA as that of showing the dead body of Col. Ramesh, who had come to SLA controlled territory with civilians during the final hours of Vanni war in May 2009.
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Colombo rejects UN Expert Panel report, dubs it as “Darusman Report”

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 April 2011, 14:49 GMT]
Colombo government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday issued an official statement, stating that the conclusions of the externally constituted “Darusman Panel” working from New York should not take precedence over the conclusions, still awaited, of the domestic [LLRC] process. The statement said that the material could be looked at by the LLRC should it wish to do so, depending on its own assessment of the contents. “The public release of the Report at this stage is divisive, and disrupts our efforts to reinforce peace, security and stability in Sri Lanka. It feeds into the political agendas of interested parties,” the release by the External Affairs ministry in Colombo said.
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