Norwegian Tamils demonstrate against Sri Lanka's Genocide of Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 08:09 GMT]
Norwegian Tamils marched through Central Oslo (Youngstorget) on Wednesday around 6:00 p.m to condemn Sri Lankan government for its genocidal war against Tamil people. The Leader of the Opposition, from the Conservative party (H), Ms. Erna Solberg, who spoke said that she doesn't support LTTE but she supports the right to self-determination for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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India legally obliged to prevent GoSL's genocide against Tamils- Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 05:02 GMT]
Emphasizing that under Common Article 1 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, India has the obligation "to respect and to ensure respect" for these Conventions "in all circumstances," Professor Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a communiqué sent to TamilNet says, "India must demand that the United States government prosecute Rajapakse immediately for violating the U.S. Genocide Convention Implementation Act as well as the U.S. War Crimes Act," and appeals to the Tamils worldwide and people of good faith and goodwill to mobilize behind the legal agenda set forth above [in the communique] and to pressure the Governments of India and the United States to fulfill their solemn obligations under the Genocide Convention and the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949."
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Anonymous organization upbraids dailies in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 01:23 GMT]
An anonymus organization, calling itself, ’Theasa Makkal Ezhuchchip Pearavai’ (Nation’s People’s Form of Uprisal’), called on the dailies of Jaffna peninsula to uphold journalistic moral instead of submitting themselves to be influenced by the culture of arms, in a fax message sent to the media in Jaffna Wednesday.
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Government party paramilitary men threaten Tamil daily editors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 00:06 GMT]
Paramilitary men of a Tamil political party that is a member of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government of Sri Lanka threatened the editorial staff of the two Tamil dailies published in Jaffna for not giving prominence for the news related to their party activities or the reports issued by their party leader, according to the complaint made by the editorial staff to the Joint Media Association in Colombo, sources in Colombo said.
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Deliberate massacre, not 'crossfire' killing Tamil civilians - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 18:33 GMT]
Criticising international media reports for suggesting Tamil civilians are caught in a ‘crossfire’, TNA MP for Vanni S. Kanagratnam Wednesday said the Sri Lanka Army was shelling deep into Tamil Tiger controlled territory and deliberately targeting hospitals and internally displaced people. “Scores of Tamil civilians are being killed every day. But the civilian victims are not on or near the frontline as some international media is reporting. These people, inside safety zone, away from the frontline and they are being deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military,” he said.
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Tamil businessman abducted in Kadawatte

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 17:52 GMT]
A Tamil businessman of Kadawatte in Colombo district was abducted by a gang of unidentified armed persons on Monday night. The members of the gang dressed in denim trousers and T-shirts arrived in a white van and took the businessman identified as M.Gnanasamy, 35 with them.
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South Africans demonstrate against Sri Lanka's Genocide of Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 17:19 GMT]
Representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP) Wednesday took part in a demonstration that called for an immediate end to the Sri Lankan military aggression against Eezham Tamils. The demonstration was held around the Durban City Hall on February 04, 2009, coinciding with Sri Lanka’s independence day. South African Muslim Network, Minority Front and members of the South African community also rallied against the war in Sri Lanka.
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Tamil civilian reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 16:48 GMT]
A Tamil civilian Velupillai Suntharajah, 47 has been reported missing after he left by train from Colombo to Bandarawela, his home town on 17th January, according to complaints lodged by his relatives with the Bandarawela and Colombo police on Monday.
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Australian Tamils mark February 04 as Black Day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 16:31 GMT]
Upto 5000 Tamils rallied during peak hour traffic through Sydney City, Australia on Wednesday 4 February to urge the Australian government to support international calls for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka as well as highlight the need for an independent Tamil homeland in response to continued acts of genocide by the Sri Lankan army upon Tamil civilians. "For 61 years the Tamils have lived without peace, justice or freedom," says Lakshmi Kathir, a high school student. "Today maybe Sri Lanka's Independence Day, but for the Tamils it is the day we lost our liberty," she added.
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Tokyo Co-chairs' stand fails in fundamentals - TNA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 14:35 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance, responding to the controversial statement by the Tokyo Co-chairs, which called on the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and surrender to the Sri Lankan government, said it has been the firm and consistent position of the Tamil people that the island of Sri Lanka is inhabited by the Tamil nation and the Sinhala nation. "It is on the basis of recognising this reality and by the respective authentic representatives of these two nations, namely the LTTE and the Sri Lanka State, engaging in negotiations on how these two nations shall associate with each other for the future security and mutual benefit of both nations, can a just and sustainable solution to the Tamil National Question be found."
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Trinco Tamil youth arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 14:30 GMT]
A 23 year-old Trincomalee Tamil youth was arrested in Colombo on Monday by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police.
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Tamil labourer shot killed in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 13:54 GMT]
Unidentified armed men abducted a Tamil labourer Tuesday around 7:30 p.m from the dairy farm where he worked and later shot and killed him, in Akkaraanai in Punaanai police division in Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Sri Lanka's scorched earth offensive must be stopped - Boston Globe

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 12:41 GMT]
Pointing out that "the shelling of a hospital pediatric ward Sunday in Sri Lanka gave the world a glimpse of the scorched-earth offensive Sri Lanka's government has been conducting against the secessionist Tamil Tigers," the Boston Globe, in an editorial that appeared Wednesday, said the "war has to stop," and Obama administration ought to ask for a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, and the Asian powers providing military assistance to Sri Lanka - China, India, and Pakistan - should exert their influence on the government to halt the shooting." The globe reiterated its long standing position that "[t]he only true solution must be political: some form of confederal autonomy for the Tamil regions."
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Top US Senator calls for immediate ceasefire

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 06:34 GMT]
In a statement issued Tuesday, U.S. Judiciary Committee Chairman and Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy said that "it is imperative that the government and the LTTE agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid further loss of life, permit access to UN monitors and humanitarian organizations, and permit civilians to leave for areas of safety. The Obama administration, the British, Indian and other concerned governments, should be publicly urging the same," and added that "over the longer term, if lasting peace is to come to Sri Lanka, the government must effectively address, in negotiations which include all the main Tamil and Muslim parties, the core issues that have fueled the conflict including laws and policies that unfairly discriminate against Sri Lanka’s minorities."
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"Tamils under existential threat"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 05:16 GMT]
In an interview with BBC's Lyse Doucet in Tuesday's Newshour program, British member of the US-based group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), Jan Jananayagam, says, "[g]enocide by UN definition is an attempt to destroy in part or in whole an ethnic group. I think that what is going here becomes perilously close to at least destruction at least in part," and adds that the "existential threat to Tamils" in Sri Lanka has to be immediately recognized to avoid mistakes made in Rwanda where obstruction to recognition of genocide early resulted in the loss of thousands of lives.
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Gotabaya should be prosecuted for Genocide, war crimes – Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 22:47 GMT]
Commenting on the interview to the BBC and to the Sky TV by Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, Professor Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet that “the deliberate targeting of Hospitals and Civilians by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) violates the Geneva Conventions and is thus a war crime,” and that “as a United States Citizen, Defense Secretary Rajapakse, should be prosecuted by the United States government for violating the US Genocide Convention Implementation Act and the US War Crimes Act.”
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‘For whom the Co-chairs strive,’ asks Tamil parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 21:33 GMT]
The statement of the Co-chairs released Tuesday is “regrettably based on wrong premises and aims at disastrous ends,” Jaffna district parliamentarian S. Kajendren told TamilNet. "It sounds as though the Co-directors of the current war are at a last bid attempt to save Sri Lanka, one of the worst genocidal states of our times, before it collapses under its own burden of militarization, ethnic chauvinism and human rights violations. Their approach would have been different if they really care for the lives and dignity of civilians and if they have any respect for the democratic right of the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils,” he told TamilNet while issuing a statement responding to Co-chairs' stand.
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65 Vanni patients transferred to Mannaar, relatives languish in internment camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 20:43 GMT]
Sixty-five seriously wounded patients brought to Vavuniyaa by the ICRC last week have been transferred to Mannaar hospital and admitted there under strict military surveillance, medical sources in Mannaar said. Meanwhile, twelve relatives of the patients, who accompanied them from Vanni to provide care and separated by the SLA at Oamanthai, are still languishing at Nelullku'lam internment camp. The patients in Mannaar, most of them young children and elderly, who have lost either both legs or both hands and need personal care by close family members, have urged the authorities to allow their relatives to be with them as initially facilitated by the ICRC.
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Rajapakse, Karunanidhi governments ideologically similar: Dr.S.Ramadoss

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 19:19 GMT]
PMK founder-leader Dr. S. Ramadoss launched a direct attack on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi over the Eelam Tamils issue Tuesday. He criticized the DMK Executive Council resolutions for not containing any ceasefire demand. "Does Karunanidhi not know that ceasefire is a prerequisite for peace-talks? Does this omission not reveal that the Rajapakse Government and the Karunanidhi Government are no different at the ideological level?" he said.
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SLN hands over arrested Tamil Nadu fishermen to Indian Navy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 18:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) handed over Tuesday evening the 22 Tamil Nadu fishermen arrested on 21 January in the seas of Jaffna islets, to Indian Navy on the sea boundary between Sri Lanka and India, on the orders of Oorkaavttu’rai (Kayts) magistrate Ms. Joy Mahatheva, sources in Jaffna said.
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