Sitrampalam proves self-determination not a diaspora fantasy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 05:24 GMT]
Prof SK Sitrampalam, Senior Vice President of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), writing in Thinakkural this month on the importance of Eezham Tamils asserting to their right to self-determination, disproved a distorting campaign by Colombo, New Delhi, Washington, international crisis managers and even the UN panel report trying to tell that this right is not an aspiration of the Tamils in the island but only in the diaspora. While the concerted campaigners assert to their audacity without seeking a referendum and while the Eezham Tamils in the island are constitutionally and militarily gagged to open mouth on the issue, the bold voice of Sitrampalam coming from the island was highly appreciated by many. Today, Tamils in the island are left to feel more compellingly for liberation than Tamils in the diaspora, Tamil political circles said.
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Indian court stops deportation of an Eezham Tamil

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 10:48 GMT]
A magistrate court in Delhi on Tuesday rejected the plea of the Indian government to deport an Eezham Tamil to Sri Lanka as a part of punishment. “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors,” observed Arul Varma, the judge of the Metropolitan Magistrate Court, in a case filed against Chandra Kumar, who has been living in a refugee camp at Thiruva’l’loor for 20 years but got caught recently by immigration while attempting to leave for Italy seeking better life. He was charged with cheating, forgery, impersonation and other offences. The public prosecutor on instructions from the government sought deportation as part of the order on sentence. Besides rejecting deportation, the judge released Chandra Kumar saying that the six months he had already spent in prison was enough punishment.
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India’s indirect campaign backs Sri Lanka’s military and genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 09:36 GMT]
Choosing a time when Geneva is supposed to decide on investigating Sri Lanka’s war crimes, New Delhi has scheduled a large-scale joint military exercise with Sri Lanka in Trincomalee in the country of Eezham Tamils. Meanwhile, a senior leader of India’s major opposition party, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi of BJP, chose to deliver a lecture in Colombo on Saturday commemorating a Sinhala-Buddhist revivalist, and according to The Hindu, Dr. Joshi “was left with the impression that everyone wanted an early solution leading to a united Sri Lanka under one constitution.” Both the Administration and Opposition of New Delhi indirectly signal against investigating genocidal Sri Lanka’s war crimes and the ‘impression’ Joshi conveyed to The Hindu has no moral validity as Tamils are constitutionally prevented from telling their opinion on the national question, commented a Tamil politician in the island.
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Aaraip-pattai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 September 2011, 04:44 GMT]
The thicket of Aarai shrub
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has say in appealing to Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 04:59 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has a say in appealing to New Delhi and other Commonwealth countries, especially where Tamils live, to decide not to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Sri Lanka in 2013, Eezham Tamil political circles told TamilNet. The decision will be taken in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Perth in Australia in October. The Canadian Prime Minister has already announced that he would not take part in the meet in Colombo, if Sri Lanka doesn't make progress on the question of human rights in the island. The Indian Prime Minister may not attend the meet in Australia this year, but Tami Nadu should register its opinion with the head of Indian delegation against deciding on holding the next meet in Colombo, Eezham Tamil politicians requested.
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Sri Lanka aims to get more time to complete genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 16:46 GMT]
The primary aim of Sri Lanka in the UN human rights council is to buy some more time to complete its genocide of Eezham Tamils through structural means and militarisation so that the question of war crimes would eventually lose its importance and would become acceptable means of contemporary world polity. The more time is given to a virtually Sinhala military to occupy the country of Eezham Tamils with impunity, the more the world will be contributing to a dangerous paradigm. If the existing State system in the international organisations is going to repeatedly prove its incapability in delivering criminal and political justice, the global Tamils have to be prepared to undertake an international struggle in appropriate ways. 70 million global Tamils cannot be taken for ride by the Sinhala polity just because it has a State and Tamils don’t have a State.
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Multilingualism, multiculturalism and Sinhala academia

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:31 GMT]
‘Celebrating multilingualism’ in Sri Lanka, and delivering a keynote address in a language award ceremony in Colombo in July, Professor of Sinhala K.N.O. Dharmadasa said that Tamil came to be introduced into the island at a later time, especially after the Polonnaruva period (c. 13th century AD). According to the Mahavamsa myth he was relying upon, culture of multilingualism in the island began when “a group of settlers led by Prince Vijaya, who would have been speaking a dialect which linguists call Prakrit, came and settled down in the northern plains.” Meanwhile, delivering a lecture on Buddhism at the UN General Assembly in May and using it for campaigning Sri Lanka’s ‘reconciliation,’ another Sri Lankan Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne said, arrival of Buddhism and other north Indian social ideologies heralded the beginnings of civilization in the island.
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Chengkodi remembered in New Zealand

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Thoazhar (comrade) Chengkodi of Kaangncheepuram, Tamil Nadu, a dedicated social worker and fighter of the rights of the weaker sections of the society immolated herself, to save the three Perarivalan, Murugan and Shanthan from being hanged. It is really sad that the 21-year-old lass should have taken a hasty decision. At the climax of the Vanni war, fourteen Tamil Nadu brethren including Muththukkumar immolated themselves urging the people and Government of India to safeguard the Eezham Tamils. These sacrifices should not end in vain, said Mr. A. Thevarajan, while addressing the gathering last Sunday at the function organised by the New Zealand Tamil Society to mark the sacrifice made by Thoazhar Chengkodi.
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Champoor power plant, an ominous threat to public health

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2011, 11:20 GMT]
The signing of the agreement in Colombo Tuesday to build a 500MW coal power plant in the pristine surroundings of Koddiyaar Bay in Trincomalee District, by India and Sri Lanka marks the development of an environmentally destructive project in the east, civil society sources in the east said. A coal power plant of the magnitude planned for Champoor could produce 3,700,0000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, which is a main cause of global warming, will present great danger to the future generations of the Eezham Tamils of the Koddiyaarpuram region, civil sources in the east said.
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Friends, Enemies and Geopolitics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2011, 08:27 GMT]
National oppression is common to all countries and we cannot expect the dominant Nations of Countries to be our friends. Our strategic long-term natural allies are obviously the oppressed Nations without State and then the oppressed peoples of the World. We have failed to cultivate friendship and solidarity with our Natural Allies while foolishly expecting the oppressors to deliver Liberation to us. We need to give highest priority first for unity among ourselves at least to the level of coordinating action committees for specific objectives and then develop solidarity and friendship with the Nation without State of Tamil Nadu followed by relationship with other Natural Allies, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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India needs foundational policy change if past is catalogue of failures

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2011, 05:46 GMT]
“The need of the hour is for India to undertake a thorough reappraisal of its Sri Lanka policy and make the necessary changes so that it is in consonance with the traditions of Nehru-Indira Gandhi years. The international community will be watching how India will react to the situation in the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly when the matter [Sri Lanka’s war crimes] comes up for discussion, writes V. Suryanarayan and Ashik Bonofer in Tuesday’s paper of SAAG. The paper catalogues Nehru-Indira Gandhi era interventions in protecting Tamils from pogroms, criticises India’s failure in protecting Tamil civilians in 2009 and argues for a policy change. Tamil politicians commented that the change should be foundational if piecemeal interventions proved a catalogue of failures and the writers treating a nation, as “Tamil minority groups in Sri Lanka” won’t help such a change.
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No foreign affairs without consulting states: India’s new foreign secretary

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 September 2011, 17:44 GMT]
“In our federal system, nothing is done and nothing will be done without the consultation of the State government,” India’s new Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai was cited saying on the issue of India and Bangladesh sharing the waters of Teesta River. No agreement on sharing the waters could be reached without West Bengal's consent, the Foreign Secretary told media in New Delhi on Monday. People of Tamil Nadu should take a special note of the consistent disparity in New Delhi’s treatment between the issues of Bengalis and Tamils. Demanded by West Bengal, India liberated Bangladesh, but acting completely opposite to the wishes of the people of Tamil Nadu, India contributed to genocide of Eezham Tamils. New Delhi has not acted on any of the resolutions of the State of Tamil Nadu, political circles in Tamil Nadu point out.
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CPI(M) ‘keen’ in solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 22:22 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils experiencing genocide have long resolved on their right to self-determination and independence, the Tamil Nadu State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday has announced that it will stage an agitation in New Delhi on Wednesday ‘demanding’ the Indian government to find a political solution based on equal rights and regional autonomy within ‘united Sri Lanka.’ The party has also called for immediate measures of rehabilitation and a ‘high level’ (not international) investigation on war crimes. While grassroot public opinion in Tamil Nadu is mounting on leaving the political future of Eezham Tamils to be decided by the right to self-determination of Eezham Tamils, the imperialist outlook behind the CPI(M) agenda tries to deviate it, Tamil Nadu political circles said.
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Tamil Nadu Assembly, Madras High Court, make precedent in Indian democracy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 19:34 GMT]
In an extraordinary development in Indian constitutional history, the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Tuesday unanimously and strongly resolved that the President of India, respecting the sentiments of the people and political parties of Tamil Nadu, should reconsider the clemency appeals of the three Tamils fixed for execution and convert their death sentences into life imprisonment. In the meantime, acting on a legal move by Vaiko and N. Chandrasekaran, The Madras High Court on Tuesday stayed the executions for 8 weeks giving time for the government to file counter affidavit. The President of India earlier rejected the clemency appeals of Perarivalan of Tamil Nadu and two Eezham Tamils, Murugan and Shanthan condemned to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, and their hangings were fixed to September 09.
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Tamil Nadu tensed over execution of death sentences

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 06:41 GMT]
The people of Tamil Nadu and Tamils all over the world are agitated over the Indian government decision to execute death sentences to three Tamils after keeping them in prison for more than 20 years. Perarivalan of Tamil Nadu, and Eezham Tamils Murugan and Shanthan arrested in 1991 on charges of involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi were sentenced to death in 1998. Their clemency petition was rejected last month and the hangings are fixed to September 9. The politics behind the case is 30 years of India-involved war in the island of Sri Lanka that turned into genocide of Eezham Tamils. While the Indian foreign minister in the parliament last week sought to respond to the war crimes investigations without endangering India’s relations with Sri Lanka, the hangings are sure to endanger New Delhi’s relations with Tamils, political observers said.
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Blake will draw blank if truth not recognized

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 August 2011, 01:57 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake visits Sri Lanka this week, following Indian Foreign Minister Krishna telling the Parliament that what bothered the island for the last three decades was nothing but ‘terrorism’ and the solution confines to material ‘rehabilitation’ of Tamils and political ‘build up’ of the defunct 13th Amendment. Blake spoke to diaspora groups in the US before his visit. The engagement of India and the USA with the island is meaningless if it is not based on the recognition of the truth that the issue in the island is a national question, the war waged there had chronic genocidal intentions on the part of the Sri Lankan State and the military that now occupies the country of Eezham Tamils is in actuality not a State military of international norms but a genocidal Sinhala military, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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BTF reps visited India over Sri Lanka war crimes probe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 August 2011, 13:36 GMT]
Representatives of the British Tamil Forum (BTF) travelled recently to India to raise awareness of the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, and to build support for an independent international investigation into the mass killings of Tamil civilians in the closing months of the island’s war, the organisation said in a statement this weekend. Taking up an invitation extended to the BTF by India’s main opposition Bhathiya Janatha Party (BJP) during a meeting in London, a delegation travelled to Delhi and several Indian states, including Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, to meet several key political leaders and senior political advisors, as well as representatives of human rights organisations, religious and media organisations, the statement said.
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Delhi protest proclaims Eezham Tamil Right to Self-Determination

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 August 2011, 18:00 GMT]
Rajya Sabha MP Baishnab Charan Parida of Biju Janta Dal, the ruling political party of the State of Orissa, on Friday expressed his party's strong support to Tamil Right to Self-Determination at a rally organized by leftist youths of the Communist Party of India in front of the Indian Parliament. Meanwhile, R. Thirumalai, from Tamil Nadu, state secretary of the All India Students’ Federation (AISF), declared that no one has the moral right to dictate the form of political solution, and that the victims of genocide, the Tamils in the island, should alone decide their political destiny by exercising the absolute right to Self-Determination without any pre-conditions.
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Tamil Nadu Congress MP agrees with Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 August 2011, 04:22 GMT]
There is no need for any more solution as the 13th Amendment is already there, said Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in giving an interview to Headlines Today this month. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Thursday, Tamil Nadu Congress parliamentarian Dr EM Sudharshana Natchiappan agreed with Gotabhaya. “In the latest booklet released by their [Sri Lanka] Defence Ministry a humanitarian analysis is given. In that also they have accepted the Thirteenth Amendment. Why I am stressing on the Thirteenth Amendment again and again is because there is a new thinking in the policy makers that they have to go beyond the Thirteenth Amendment. This is the policy followed by all the parties including BJP after Rajiv Gandhi. What he had laid as a foreign policy for Sri Lanka is to have the Thirteenth Amendment implemented in toto, so that there is peaceful settlement,” Natchiappan said.
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Krishna beats around the bush in Lok Sabha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 August 2011, 03:51 GMT]
Finding India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna beating around the bush on the question of Eezham Tamils, during discussions in the Lok Sabha on Friday, DMK’s TR Baalu who tabled the topic for discussion raised three specific questions: 1. Whether the Government of India have any relevant information for a time-bound political solution as per the 13th Amendment, and that too in the context of a statement by the [SL] Defence Secretary, who has said, “LTTE has gone, political solution not necessary? 2. Whether the Government of India will come forward to plead before the United Nations Organization for an enquiry by an international agency pertaining to the large-scale human rights violation? 3. Is it not your responsibility to expose the perpetrators before the world as war criminals for having committed human rights violations? But, Krishna had no direct answers.
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