Sumanthiran, Sritharan contradict reasoning Geneva absentia

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 March 2012, 00:22 GMT]
In a meeting held by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Jaffna on Monday, explaining to the public why the TNA opted out canvassing in Geneva, TNA’s Vanni parliamentarian Sritharan and nominated parliamentarian Sumanthiran came out with contrasting reasons. As the TNA has publicly rejected the LLRC recommendations, is there any point in going to Geneva where the resolution is harping on implementation of the recommendations; won’t it be strengthening the resolution, asked Sritharan. But, Sumanthiran implied that the resolution comes after TNA conferring with the US State Department four months back and that it won’t be diplomatically beneficial to the sponsors of the move if the TNA is present in Geneva.
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Colombo harasses Tamil politicians, civil officials

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 March 2012, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Criminal Investigation Department’ in Colombo has stepped up harassments on Tamil politicians and civil officials summoning them for investigation meetings in Colombo. A politician and a medical officer have been recently ‘invited’ to appear in Colombo without providing any information on why they were being ‘investigated’. Colombo government has again started to systematically harass the active sections Eezham Tamils, seeking to dis-empower them by de-motivating and demoralising such activists.
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Land grabbed for Buddhist stupa, local people blocked at Kudumpimalai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 March 2012, 07:33 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Sinhala military occupying the scenic sacred hillock Kudumpimalai (Baron's Cap) in the Koa'ra'lappattu South Division of the Batticaloa district has not only appropriated five acres of land there to build a Buddhist stupa, but also blocks the local people from entering that area. The occupying military plans to convert the local sacred place of Eezham Tamils and a former jungle stronghold of the LTTE into a tourist place for the Sinhala-Buddhists from the south, informed civil officials of the division told TamilNet. The land has been appropriated at Alli-Oadai junction, 2km south of the hillock and the local people are blocked from going to that junction and beyond it, besides being prevented from entering their grazing lands in the nearby village Tharavai. The name of the junction also has been Sinhalicised similar to the Sinhalicisation of Kudumpimalai into Thoppigala.
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US, Sri Lanka squabble whether hang or slaughter Eezham Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 March 2012, 23:32 GMT]
The LLRC recommendation of the majoritarian and genocidal state of Sri Lanka is clear on the point that ethnic territories cannot exist in the island, and ‘trilingual’ society (ostensibly paving way for total Sinhalcisation) should be achieved by 2020. While Sri Lanka in Geneva sessions wants implementation of its agenda left completely to itself, the US-backed resolution seeks international endorsement to the LLRC recommendations and international commitment from Sri Lanka in the implementation and phases. In an exclusive interview to Ceylon Today on Thursday, the US ambassador in Colombo, Patricia Butanis praising the LLRC for coming out with “some excellent recommendations,” argued why then the qualms in publicly committing to implementation. The squabble is just on whether publicly hang or secretly slaughter the Tamil nation, commented an Eezham Tamil politician.
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RSF calls for condemnation of Sri Lanka over media rights violations

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 February 2012, 02:20 GMT]
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a media release issued Tuesday, called on members of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) "to pass a resolution condemning the Sri Lankan government’s violations of freedom of information and to demand an end to threats and violence against news media and human rights defenders in Sri Lanka." The release also referred to TamilNet's struggle against the modern electronic form of suppression of media freedom saying, "[s]ince 25 February: Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks (DDoS) have been disrupting web traffic of TamilNet.com. The service provider is struggling to keep the website online."
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DDoS attack disrupts TamilNet web traffic

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 23:14 GMT]
Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack (DDoS), identified by the service provider of TamilNet as originating in an orchestrated way from certain affluent parts of the world, has been disrupting web traffic of TamilNet.com since Saturday. The attack on the independent media reporting to the world on Tamil affairs coincides with the opening of the 19th sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in Geneva on Monday, where the USA and Sri Lanka have already pitched positions in hijacking the focus of issues concerning the cause of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils. TamilNet has been forced to seek expert services in regularising the web traffic. As a media arguing for Eezham Tamil public to take up the issues into their hands, TamilNet depends on the support of nobody other than the Tamil masses and the alternative world.
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SL colonial governor coordinates anti-UN demonstration of SLFP, EPDP in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 16:41 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s colonial governor, Maj. Gen. G. A. Chandrasri was seen coordinating the two factions collaborating with the Rajapaksa regime, the Angkayan-led SLFP and Douglas Devananda-led EPDP, in staging a simulated demonstration in Jaffna and Vanni against UNHRC discussing Sri Lanka in Geneva on Monday. The simulation forced in sections and individuals waiting for benefits from the Colombo regime. An attendance register was maintained for the participants. However, a media clip that captured comments of a passing-by youth street vendor, universally encapsulated the game on the island. The youth told the unemployed graduates in the ‘demonstration’: “I am not educated like you to perform this act.” The youth has not said that to the ‘demonstrators’ alone, commented media circles witnessing the scene in Jaffna.
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Halt deportations of Tamils, Sri Lanka tortures Tamil deportees: Human Rights Watch

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2012, 01:26 GMT]
Citing own research and medical verification of rape and torture of recently deported Eezham Tamil asylum seekers from the United Kingdom at the hands of Sri Lankan CID at the airport and at the hands of Sri Lanka Army at various check-posts in the island, the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday urged the British authorities to immediately suspend further deportations from UK to Sri Lanka. The HRW expressed particular concern about the next scheduled deportation from the United Kingdom of about 100 Tamil asylum seekers, scheduled for February 28, 2012. “The Sri Lankan government has a long record of torture and mistreatment that has not ended with the end of the long war with the LTTE,” said Brad Adams, the UK-based Asia director of the HRW.
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UNHRC sessions open on Monday amidst US–Sri Lanka gambits

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 February 2012, 07:16 GMT]
On Tuesday, Genocidal Sri Lanka’s foreign minister GL Peiris and its ‘socialist’ ploy Tamara Kunanayakam, SL permanent representative in Geneva, painted a picture of victimisation by the USA, to the 47 UNHRC member states meeting in Geneva for two weeks from Monday. Sri Lanka that conducted the genocidal war and carries out structural genocide labelled as ‘reconciliation’– both primarily architected by the USA– now says that it has no secret deal with the USA on any resolution in the sessions and urges the member states to vote against even the mildest move of the USA proposing Sri Lanka to conduct its own investigations on the war crimes, recommended by its own LLRC. On the same day, military delegations of Iran, Russia and Bangladesh visited Jaffna, and a few days earlier Rajapaksa secretly inaugurated a China project in Jaffna. India maintains an eerie silence.
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Military officials of Iran, Russia, Bangladesh visit Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 20:05 GMT]
In a show of solidarity to genocidal Sri Lanka, on the eve of UNHRC sessions in Geneva, military officials of Iran, Russia and Bangladesh visited Jaffna exclusively for meeting the occupying military of Sri Lanka in the peninsula, on Tuesday and Wednesday, news sources in Jaffna said. The visiting military delegates didn't meet the public, but were taken to showcase the ‘rehabilitation’ of ex-LTTE cadres and to see the Nalloor temple and the Buddhist Naga Vihara at Nayinaa-theevu. On 05 February, SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, secretly inaugurated China-involved power generation project along the northern coast of Jaffna. The inauguration completely hushed to the knowledge of media, took place in a SL naval base at Maathakal, near the KKS harbour.
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Gananath review shows nations divided in perception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2012, 01:44 GMT]
“I will confess that, as I write this essay, many do see him [Rajapaksa] as someone who “saved” the nation from the brutal LTTE. Surely such a view is not without its truth. But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflict the nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority,” writes Gananath Obeyesekere, in reviewing a recent book on Sri Lanka. Commenting, a Tamil academic said Gananath’s reference to ‘nation’ in singular confines to the Sinhala nation, for despite differences of opinion on ways and tactics, many Eezham Tamils see the LTTE as something that was checking brutal genocide by the Sinhala state. The divided perception is sign of nations in plural, justifying their separation even for reconciliation in future, the Tamil academic said.
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Veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin killed in Syria

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 11:53 GMT]
Renowned journalist Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times (UK), who is familiar to Eezham Tamils for her coverage on the conflict in the island, has been killed in shelling in Syria together with French photographer Remi Olchlik on Wedensday, agency reports said. The courageous journalist lost one of her eyes in 2001 in Sri Lanka Army shelling while working in the island. She was the only journalist to be present in besieged town of Homs in Syria, covering the conflict there, where she was slain. The shocking news of her death comes a few hours after her coverage on “sickening scenes” from Syria.
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TNA tries to sell Indo-US pre-emption to Eezham Tamil civil society

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2012, 14:45 GMT]
Accepting the implementation of the 13th Amendment that is already in Sri Lanka’s constitution and failed to meet Tamil aspirations, was the subject matter the TNA was trying to impress upon the representatives of the Eezham Tamil civil society, in a meeting that took place in Vavuniyaa for five hours on Saturday. Eezham Tamils should not ‘hang on’ to their right to self-determination was the argument of a Colombo-based lawyer backing the stand of TNA leader R. Sampanthan, while this right was the very basis of the struggle of Eezham Tamils in the last sixty years, democratically as well as militarily, civil society circles told TamilNet. Many of the civil society representatives, especially from the East and Mannaar requested the TNA to conceive better ideas to bring in an interim administration for the North and East to face the current situation.
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Ban under fire for silence in Shavendra's UN appointment

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2012, 06:42 GMT]
While Navi Pillay, U.N.'s chief of human rights, advised U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier this month to seek the removal of a former Sri Lankan officer, Shavendra Silva, from a top peacekeeping advisory committee for alleged complicity in war-crimes, other rights groups blasted Ban for the silence on the controversial appointment. Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, said "[t]he responsibility for this puzzling appointment lays squarely with the Asia Group, but ultimately Ban Ki-moon established the panel and has to safeguard the reputation and credibility of the United Nations."
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Sumanthiran comes forward to save Rajapaksa from international investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 01:47 GMT]
A few days left to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the Colombo-based nominated parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran, has come out with a statement to BBC Sinhala Service on Tuesday, bailing out the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. “TNA backs a domestic process to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of that,” Sumanthiran said. “It is a step-by-step process. It will take time. They took 30 years in Cambodia,” the BBC further cited the MP, who welcomed the ‘US pressure’ on the SL government. Meanwhile, the visiting US Under Secretary General of State, Maria Otero, told reporters in Colombo on Monday that the US will support a resolution at the UNHRC providing an opportunity for Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations.
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Abductions on rise in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 22:48 GMT]
An abduction was reported in front of the Court complex on Monday and a body of a male was dumped and burnt near SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's private residence in Boteju Mawatha in Colombo 05 on Tuesday while the fate of a leading Tamil businessman who was abducted on Saturday still remained in the hands of the abductors who have claimed 100 million rupees ransom from his family.
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SLAF fighter jet crashes in North Western Province

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 February 2012, 11:19 GMT]
A Russian-built MiG-27 fighter jet used by the Sri Lanka Air Force against civilian targets in the country of Eezham Tamils during the war, crashed Monday in the North Western Province. The SLAF deployed Russian built fighters to carry cluster bombs on LTTE and civilian targets in Vanni, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout the war.
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War crimes of ‘both sides’ or war crimes of all sides: Oslo film discussion stirs thoughts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 February 2012, 17:01 GMT]
After a full house show of Beate Arnestad’s documentary on exiled Sinhala and Eezham Tamil journalists on Thursday in Oslo, Norwegian journalist Sverre Tom Radøy leading the discussion, prompted British journalist Frances Harrison talking on the sufferings of the civilians to elucidate on ‘war crimes of both sides’ and particularly those of the LTTE. Forced recruitment and preventing the civilians from going to the side of the Sri Lanka Army were the war crimes of the LTTE, Ms. Harrison specified. Confining the crimes to a paradigm ‘both sides’ is a tactic of the international architects of the war to circumvent their crimes and responsibility. Made to naively believe that justice would come from the very architects, the affected Tamils have failed in focussing their demand on the accountability of all sides that had committed the crimes, commented an observer to the show.
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Village liquidated in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 February 2012, 06:59 GMT]
Chooriya-puram village, created by the LTTE near Keappaa-pulavu in the Puthukkudiyiruppu division of Mullaiththeevu district, to accommodate landless peasants, has been liquidated by the occupying Sinhala military that is engaged in that locality in building a 1200-acre base, news sources in Vanni said. Around 500 families of the locality have lost their living space and are degenerating in their refugee life, either staying in camps or in the houses of relatives and friends. Around 100 families of the Chooriyapuram village, brought from the internment camps for resettlement, are stranded now.
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Colombo media movement shows sensitivity for linking it with TNA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 February 2012, 23:54 GMT]
Colombo-based Free Media Movement (FMM) on Tuesday strongly reacted to news appearing in SL government-run ‘Dinamina’ on 03 February which had alleged that the members of the FMM had been in collaboration with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in campaigning at Geneva against the Colombo government. Totally disowning any link with the TNA, the language and tone of the FMM press statement only show the anxiety and extra-sensitivity prevailing in Colombo's media associations over the South perceiving any image of their sympathy with the aspirations of Tamil politics in the island. Even in the times of the LTTE, the Colombo media associations were not sensitive like this, political observers in Colombo said.
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