British historian questions ‘parliamentary freedom’ in Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2012, 15:15 GMT]
Reputed British Marxist scholar specialised in intellectual history, Perry Anderson, interviewed by Indian magazine Outlook, opined that as regards ‘parliamentary freedom’, Jamaica and Mauritius fared better than Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia, citing respectively, disenfranchisement of Tamils, Kashmiris, and the lack of freedom during polls. He was responding to columnist Praful Bidwai who asked whether Indian democracy was a ‘unique achievement’, better than SL where “a state of war and emergency has prevailed for decades, with effective disenfranchisement of the Tamils” and Malaysia that has a “corrupt Lebanese-style ethnic power-sharing system”. Prof. Anderson’s observations were further elucidated by an Indian academic researcher writing to TamilNet that the disenfranchisement of the Eezham Tamils is a structural necessity of genocidal and unitary Sri Lanka.
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ICE rewards Solheim with international position to lead development facilitation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2012, 00:25 GMT]
The failed Norwegian peace facilitator Erik Solheim, who was recently removed from his ministerial portfolio by his party in Norway, has been rewarded by the International Community of Establishments (ICE) with an international position to lead the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation of Economic Corporation and Development (OECD), run by a group of leading developed countries in setting the agenda of development in developing countries.
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‘Independent civil society activism best tribute to Thamilchelvan’: Tamil Nadu writer

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2012, 23:20 GMT]
Arguing that Sri Lanka’s genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils and the protracted genocide post-2009 was possible only due to the system of global injustice, Tamil Nadu based writer, poet and civil society activist Meena Kandasamy urged the Eezham Tamils in the island, the people of Tamil Nadu, the Tamil diaspora and other solidarity groups to form a ‘global civil society’ so as to politically and ideologically counter the designs of the establishments, in a commentary sent to TamilNet. Writing on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the assassination of S.P. Thamilchelvan, Ms. Kandasamy opines that such activism would be the best tribute to the legacy of the late political leader of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam.
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IC should no longer accept empty promises by Sri Lanka: Amnesty says after UPR session

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2012, 03:03 GMT]
“Sri Lanka’s promises on human rights should no longer be accepted by the international community, Amnesty International said in a press statement after the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Thursday. “Sri Lanka has been making empty promises about human rights for decades. This was made clear by a number of countries which questioned Sri Lanka’s lack of progress in ending human rights violations during the review,” said Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International’s expert on Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala academic condemns ICE’s manipulations of Eezham Tamils at Italy conference

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2012, 01:39 GMT]
“Today there is a psychological and political warfare waged against the Tamil Diaspora not only to forget the past but also to abhor the whole project of a Tamil state. Domination under the Sinhala dominated unitary state has been justified as a rational and realistic choice,” Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando said at a conference held in Lecce, Italy last Friday. Criticizing the West for tilting the parity of status against the LTTE, he added that “what has been committed is genocide with full international endorsement. It is approved simply to protect the unitary state of the Sinhalese.” The conference titled “We demand our land” was also addressed by TNPF leaders Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and S. Kajendran, besides Italian EU politician Adriana Poli Bortone, and human rights activist Klodiana Cuka and lawyer Italo Porcaro.
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ICE orchestrates once again to deviate from crux of the matter

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 October 2012, 10:29 GMT]
Following deliberations by Norway’s Erik Solheim, International Crisis Group’s Alan Keenan and the UNSG panel member Yasmin Sooka at Frances Harrison’s book launch in London earlier this month, the Emeritus President of the ICG and former foreign minister of Australia, Gareth Evans on Friday was harping on war crimes of both sides, accountability of the remaining side and post-mortem on the UN, but omitting the ultimate culprits and deviating from the crux of the matter– the genocide and the national question in the island. He is now advisor to International Crimes Evidence Project, a recently established outfit in Australia. While Dr. Radha D’Souza exposes the deviatory tactics of such orchestrations of International Community of Establishments (ICE), Tamils have to think of alternative international mobilisation of opinion.
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Genocidal Sinhala state manoeuvres Tamil speaking communities in occupied Mannaar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 October 2012, 17:39 GMT]
Unlike the Eastern Province, where Colombo has waged a successful campaign of divide-and-rule, creating and sustaining communal disharmony among the Tamil-speaking people, the people of Mannaar have managed to co-exist in the district against all odds in the past. Vanni knew it better. The solidarity went to the extent of coastal Muslims in Mannaar sustaining a lifeline to Vanni in transporting crucial energy supplies across Sri Lanka to the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam during the Eelam War III and IV. Now, as the balance of power is gone and the country of Eezham Tamils is under genocidal occupation, the agents of Colombo manoeuvre to divide Catholics and Muslims in Mannaar and thereby to create sectarianism among the Tamil-speaking people. The vacuum of a competent Tamil polity in the region has also been favourable to the SL state, writes a political observer in Mannaar.
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TNA seeks bearings while Gotabhaya proves futility of Indo-US cosmetic solutions

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 October 2012, 16:09 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on last Thursday called for the abolition of the New Delhi-architected 13th Amendment to the constitution without further delays, reported The Island, last Friday. Gotabhaya compared the Amendment to the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in facilitating separatism. Rejecting SL military pullout from the Tamil territories and upholding ‘majoritarian’ rule of the island, he also implied what course would be taken by the LLRC implementation legitimised by the USA at Geneva. Meanwhile, writing to The Island on Thursday, TNA’s nominated parliamentarian Mr Sumanthiran, asked what hope is there in TNA participating the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) of Rajapaksa regime to discuss solutions.
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UK Tamil tortured in Colombo, returned after payment of ransom to CID

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 October 2012, 07:46 GMT]
Sivasubramaniam Jeevan, an Eezham Tamil youth citizen of UK living in Scotland, who was on a visit to the island of Sri Lanka on 3 October, was detained by the notorious Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Colombo from the day he landed to 9 October, and was allegedly tortured under suspicion of “LTTE links”, after taking away his passport and other documents. He was released last Tuesday after managing a payment of a sum of 1.5 million rupees, plus 325 pounds, as ransom money to the CID. Speaking to TamilNet from his residence in Scotland, 33 year old Jeevan, who is now undergoing psychological treatment owing to the trauma of interrogation, said that the CID officers tortured him by beating him, verbally abusing him, and threatening to kill him. He was also interrogated on diaspora activities in the UK, he said.
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SL Police in Champoor appropriates public playground in Naavaladi

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 October 2012, 20:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan government officials in Colombo have instructed the divisional secretary of Moothoor to hand over a play ground, about four acres in extent, situated at the centre of several villages in Champoor area to the occupying SL police, civil officials told media. The Moothoor DS is the sole authority of the playground. The Divisional Secretary has handed over the playground for the use of the SL police camped at Champoor without seeking the consent of the people of the area and the school administration.
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‘Sri Lanka model of COIN sets a dangerous precedent for humanity’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 October 2012, 18:26 GMT]
After the International Community of Establishments working in tandem with a genocide-intending Sri Lankan state oversaw a brutal military solution over the armed struggle of the Eezham Tamils in May 2009, the ‘Sri Lanka model’ of dealing with insurgencies is now being incorporated into the science of Counterinsurgency (COIN), opines RM Karthick, observing what dangerous ramifications this could have for struggling peoples worldwide in an article published on Sanhati, an Indian online journal, on Wednesday. Outlining internal and external factors in shaping the conflict, using the politico-military analysis of the late TamilNet senior editor ‘Taraki’ Sivaram, the author explains how internationally coordinated measures against the LTTE and the genocidal intent of Sinhala nationalists led to Mu’l’livaaykkaal and the systemic repression of the Eezham Tamils in their homeland that followed.
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Canada’s will to intervene guided by geopolitics or humanity, ask Tamil activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2012, 20:17 GMT]
On September 24, the Canadian capital of Ottawa announced its endorsement of the “Will to Intervene” Project. It is the fourth Canadian city to endorse external military intervention on human rights grounds. Discussion at September 24th's event centred on the present civil conflict in Syria. Given Canada's recent rupture of diplomatic ties with Iran, the prospect of intervention in Syria holds clear geo-strategic implications. "Genocide" discourse, however, masks a selectively humanitarian foreign policy whose inconsistency demonstrates Canada's political interests in conflict situations. The divergence between Canada's approaches toward Syria and Sri Lanka is instructive and Tamil activists allege that Canada does not want the “Responsibility to Protect” Eezham Tamils, and harbours no moral “Will to Intervene” against Sri Lanka.
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TamilNet columnist in Asia Pacific passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 October 2012, 10:48 GMT]
TamilNet columnist in the diaspora, writing as Economic and Political Analyst in the Asia Pacific, passed away this week at the age of 73. Retired from the service of an apex world infrastructure of the Establishments, including a tenure that brought him awards from Vietnam, he had first hand experience on the 1 per cent of the world oppressing the 99 per cent. Oppressed nations and peoples coming together to change the world order was the pivotal theme of his writings. His commitment to the Tamil Eelam cause was based on his ideology that completion of the national liberation or recognition of the Right of Self-determination of the 6000 odd nations without state is an indispensable preliminary for the Socialist World Order. TamilNet’s inability to reveal his identity even at his demise reflects the nature of oppression Eezham Tamils face today.
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Solheim’s politics, UN role in SL criticized at Frances Harrison’s book launch event

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2012, 07:24 GMT]
Even as Erik Solheim tried to sell stories that the LTTE leadership was responsible for the Mu’l’livaaykkaal massacre at the book launch event of Frances Harrison’s ‘Still Counting the Dead’ at London on Friday, solidarity activists and members from Eezham Tamil diaspora in the audience criticized his role as a failed peace-broker and the unjust role of the UN and the International Community of Establishments in leading to the genocidal massacre of the Eezham Tamils in May 2009. Ms. Harrison’s book, which presents the different types of atrocities that the Eezham Tamils endured at the hands of the Sri Lankan forces through case histories, also had some insights on the silence of world powers as the Sri Lankan government carried its onslaught on the Eezham Tamils.
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‘Surrendering a struggle’: Biafran lessons to Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2012, 15:56 GMT]
In an article published in The Guardian on Tuesday, famed novelist Chinua Achebe, who hails from the Igbo community in Nigeria, opines that decades after Nigeria’s genocidal war on the short-lived state of Biafra, the Igbo people still face monumental problems under Nigerian rule. The Nigerian-Biafran war ended after the internationally aided Nigerian offensives on the Igbo people, which resulted in the death of around 2 million, compelled the leaders of the armed resistance for Biafra to capitulate. Whether the Solheim clique in the Western establishments who now claim that they could have saved civilian lives by facilitating the ‘surrender’ of the LTTE leadership in 2009 had the same intentions for the Eezham Tamil nation, ask Tamil political activists.
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SL military stops renovation of Hindu temple, appropriates Islamic burial ground in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2012, 23:47 GMT]
Interfering in the religious freedom of Hindus and Muslims in Ampaa'rai, the occupying Sinhala military has appropriated an Islamic burial ground at Koddukkal in Poththuvil division of the district while instructing the administration of an ancient Murukan temple, worshipped by the Saivites for centuries, to stop the renovation of the temple. The head of the Murukan temple administration at Changkaman-ka'ndi in Thirukkoayil, Mr. Nakalingam, on Wednesday said that the SL military personnel who had come from Kaagnchirang-kudaa military base instructed the temple administration to immediately stop the renovation work being undertaken at the temple. The SL Army had told the temple administration that they were acting on behalf of the SL Archeology Department in Colombo.
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British Marxist historian Hobsbawm dies at 95

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2012, 23:44 GMT]
Eric Hobsbawm, one of the most prominent British historians of this century and the last, passed away at the age of 95 at London this Monday. Hobsbawm, who specialized in the history of industrial revolution in the West and the emergence of modern societies in Europe, underscored in his works the crucial role that popular culture played in the evolution of history. Besides influential works on historical epochs in modernity and the study of history as a discipline, Hobsbawm has also written extensively on the subject of nations and nationalism. Till his death, despite his loss of faith in the Soviet/Chinese model of socialism, he remained convinced that the current model of capitalist globalization was against the interests of humanity, writes RM Karthick, research scholar at a British university.
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NESoHR book on Tamil massacres prior to 2009 published in German

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2012, 23:21 GMT]
A compilation of large-scale massacres from 1956 to 2008, brought out by the North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), has been translated to German. The book, “Damit wir nicht vergessen” will be launched at Frankfurt Book Fair this month. The publication has an important historical dimension as it presents the massacres prior to 2009 genocidal onslaught in a historical dimension, says Emeritus Professor Peter Schalk in Uppsala, Sweden, sending an introductory note to TamilNet. “In a shortened time perspective those violations of human rights [in 2009] may appears as an occasional and random deviation of a particular Government of Sri Lanka or as committed by individual offenders. We have good reasons to assume that this massacre by the government represents a planned cultural and physical genocide over a long time,” he further says adding that a Chinese translation is desirable.
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Mass graves surface along bunkers in Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 October 2012, 22:21 GMT]
An official who recently visited the outskirts of Mu'l'livaaykkaal with the soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army told TamilNet this week that he had personally witnessed skeletal remains of hundreds of slain people surfacing along the few kilometers long, L-shaped bunker, running from Vadduvaakal to northwards along the land of the genocidal onslaught. A vast area is still not cleared and is strictly prohibited from access to anyone except SL military officials. “There are booby traps and UXOs. Rotten automatic rifles and RPG ammunitions are lying around in the area. When I walked across a bunker, I was able to sense that it was a bunker of mass slaughter. As the bodies buried underneath have rotten, the soil was going under as we walked across,” he said. Meanwhile, some other mass graves show the use of chemicals that have burnt even the bones to become ashes, journalists report.
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Understanding BJP’s politics vis a vis Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 September 2012, 10:32 GMT]
Despite MDMK leader Vaiko’s protests against the invitation of Mahinda Rajapaksa to inaugurate a Buddhist university in BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh alleging that the Sri Lankan government was responsible for the destruction and desecration of hundreds of Hindu temples in the course of its genocidal war and the military occupation of the Eezham Tamils’ homeland, no senior leader of India’s biggest Hindu nationalist party condemned Rajapaksa’s presence at the event. On the contrary, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has appealed for stronger cultural ties with Sri Lanka. In a hard-talk show on Win TV's Urimaik-kural hosted by C.R. Baskaran earlier this month, Tamil Nadu activists Srinivasa Rao and P. Abdul Samad, general secretary of the TMMK, argued that when it came to the Eezham Tamils, there was no difference in the policies of the opposition BJP or the ruling Congress.
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