TNPF: Only a UN Special Tribunal can deliver justice to Sri Lanka's genocidal criminality

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 19:39 GMT]
During the General Debate on the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner's report on Sri Lanka, 26th Wednesday, the President of Tamil National People's Front [TNPF], Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, while concurring with the People's Tribunal that there is on-going genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, said that "the remedy for violations at the level of gravity that occurred ultimately, cannot be anything short of a judicial process through the ICC [International Criminal Court] or an Ad Hoc special tribunal," adding, "[a]nything less would undermine the concept of international justice and the application of humanitarian law." Selvarajah Kajendran, General Secretary, TNPF, and Visvalingam Manivannan, National Organiser, TNPF, also spoke on the other weaknesses in the UN resolution.
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Guruparan addresses de-Tamilization, dichotomization in Geneva narrative

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 March 2014, 04:44 GMT]
“Unless we take a critical stance in terms of what is happening in Geneva and unless we move away from the approach that all roads lead to Geneva in terms of how Tamil problems are going to be looked at, we are not going to identify the alternatives,” Tamil civil society activist and Jaffna University law academic Kumaravadivel Guruparan said while discussing whether the resolution to be tabled in Geneva is part of solution or problem. On the question, if not for this resolution what is the alternative, he said: “If we approach the resolution critically and people are made to understand what the resolution is about, at least the space of identifying the alternative will come about. It is that creation of that space for looking for alternatives that I am arguing for. That will come about only by taking stock a realistic, pragmatic and honest take over this resolution.”
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UNHRC resolution with weak mandate will not help Tamils, says Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 March 2014, 23:58 GMT]
Noting that the Resolution tabled at the UNHRC Geneva meeting falls short in establishing a required accountability mechanism through a UN-controlled transitional administration that has the capacity to create an environment to gather evidence of what happened during the war, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of the Tamil National People’s Front, said in a press meet held in Geneva on Friday that the weak mandate of the resolution will not only fail to bring about positive changes to Tamil people on the ground, but will also encourage the Sri Lankan government to continue to carry out the sort of actions that they have been carrying out.
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Key sabotage in US draft lies in withdrawal of demilitarisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2014, 16:00 GMT]
The US draft resolution that will be tabled at the UNHCR, initially talking of demilitarisation and then deleting it, amounts to encouragement of Sinhala militarisation in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, and the results are already showing in the SL military activities, said Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. The removal of demilitarisation is done with the particular intention of nullifying even the weak investigative mechanism of the OHCHR brought out in the draft, as witnesses will have no freedom to facilitate a genuine investigation in a genocidal-militarised environment, the activists said.
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Geneva press conference to discuss nature of US resolution

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2014, 20:24 GMT]
Civil society activists and Tamil politicians from the homeland join together with Diaspora activists and exiled journalists to look into the question whether the US draft resolution being framed at the Human Rights Council would be a part of the solution or part of the problem in bringing a solution to the 60-year-old genocide of Eezham Tamils in their homeland on Friday at a side event in Geneva addressing a press conference at Geneva Press Club on Friday, Professor R. Sri Ranjan from the University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Canada, told TamilNet on Thursday. The event would explore the multiple aspects of the resolution and whether UNHRC as a body failed in its mandate to protect a persecuted people who face a most brutal form of genocidal oppression in their homeland. The press conference will also be webcast at 11:00 a.m. CET.
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IC should address Tamil question coupled with international mechanism: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 February 2014, 23:02 GMT]
No internal mechanism would deliver justice to the people of Tamil homeland. The International Community should come up with a constructive international mechanism capable of delivering political solution to the Tamil question. If the IC that is in fact well able to grasp the situation fails Tamils would regard the IC also as being complicit in the act of suppression being meted upon them, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF). The prevailing suppression on the peaceful, non-violent and democratic voices of the people of Tamil homeland is equivalent to the act of annihilation of the existence of Tamils as a nation, he said while attending a demonstration organized by the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) in Jaffna on Saturday. The occupying SL military has blocked the affected people from taking part in the protest.
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London conference explores nature of land grabs in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 February 2014, 10:50 GMT]
Academics, legal experts, activists, journalists, and Eezham Tamil politicians gathered in London to discuss Sri Lankan state facilitated land grabs in the Eezham Tamils homeland, its nature, its effects, and possible solutions, at a conference on Saturday. While all of the presenters were in consensus that land grabs in the Tamil homeland was a phenomena that was a genuine and pressing issue, many expressed their support for a strong international campaign to put a halt to this. Likewise, some of the participants also criticised the international community’s silence and complicity in the process. There was also heated debate on whether the process could be termed “genocide”, with former UN official and Bremen-PPT judge Dr. Denis Halliday along with Tamil activists from both the presenters and the audience arguing in its favour.
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UNHRC urged against considering PSC route

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 January 2014, 12:33 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s submissions to the UNHRC seek international pressure on the TNA and the UNP to take part in the deliberations of the deceptive Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC). Rajapakse has not implemented even a single recommendation of his own Commissions and Committees so far. On what grounds can the International Community guarantee that a future for the Tamils lies in Sri Lanka, questioned a media release of the Tamil Action Front, New Zealand, on Tuesday. The media release signed by Mr. A. Theva Rajan reminded Tamils and the international community to never subscribe to the continuity of the catalogue of deceits.
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Transcend SA model, SL State and West’s mechanisms in seeking justice: Fr Rajan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2014, 07:04 GMT]
The South African model that betrayed its people is now taken up by Colombo just to save war criminals. It is futile for Tamils to expect justice from any future government of SL State. Tamils also have to reconsider approaching their struggle once again through West’s mechanisms of justice. The current TNA failed to combine moderate politics with the politics of struggle. Steering Tamil national polity for crumps can’t be justified as ‘diplomacy.’ Tamil intellectuals have to think beyond the trap of ‘Transitional Justice’ and investigate potentialities of the concept Post-Transitional Justice, which is non-state, multi-sited, multi-actor and multi-referential, said Fr Elil Rajan, advocating Chile model, at a gathering in Batticaloa last week that remembered slain TNA parliamentarian Mr Joseph Pararajasingham.
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Vadamaraadchi East remembers Tamil tsunami victims

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 16:06 GMT]
Families, relatives and friends of victims who perished in the 2004 tsunami gathered at Uduththu’rai, Ma'natkaadu and Thaazhaiyadi burial grounds on Thursday remembering their loved ones on the 9th anniversary of the devastating catastrophe. The gigantic waves of tsunami claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island on 26 December 2004 and most of the victims were from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the tsunami. The International Community of Establishments, who failed the victims of tsunami, were not only complicit in Sri Lanka's genocidal onslaught on them in 2009, but they continue to fail the victims of the tsunami and the genocide by allowing the Sri Lankan State to continue the structural genocide on the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Reminding Britain of its geostrategic injustice against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 December 2013, 23:35 GMT]
The British Prime Minister David Cameron seeking ‘engagement’ with Tamils needs to be reminded of the root injustice the imperial Britain had committed against Eezham Tamils by making them prone to more than 60 years of genocide in the hands of the unitary Sri Lankan State. The British cabinet in 1947 decided to short-circuit the discourse of an evolutionary constitutional approach with an accelerated process of handing over of power to Sinhalese, an exercise it carried out on the basis of its own geostrategic considerations amidst the pressure exerted by DS Senanayake, a shrewd politician on the Sinhala side. In their geostrategic concerns to secure defence, trade and external-affairs control of the independent Ceylon within the British Commonwealth, the British ignored the Tamil ‘50-50’ balanced representation demand as well as the Kandyan claim of three federal units.
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Colombo forced Tamil doctors to lie: Dr. Varatharajah

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Former Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) for Mullaiththeevu, Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah, currently in exile in the U.S, says in video documentary aired in India's NewsX TV station that Colombo, after keeping him and four other doctors in prison at the end of the war, forced the doctors to lie to foreign media and to the Organizations accusing Sri Lanka of allegations of committing war-crimes to neutralize the allegations. Dr Varatharajah said that living under such conditions had become unbearable that he had to seek ways to get out of Sri Lanka with his family. The doctors were accused by Colombo of giving false accounts of civilian deaths during the war, and were forced to recant the figures in a well publicized news conference. Dr Varatharajah, said he is talking voluntarily to set the record straight now that he does not have to fear for his life.
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Mass struggle, joint action with Tamil Nadu and Diaspora to advance Tamil cause: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 November 2013, 12:34 GMT]
Citing the recent elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and projecting it as a signal of Colombo beginning to deliver something, there was an effort to make many countries attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). To convince the heads of governments not to hesitate attending CHOGM, a message was also passed to the effect that the NPC Chief Minister would be invited to the meet. Had the Indian Prime Minister attended the CHOGM, coupled with this propaganda, the Tamil question would have been endorsed as an internal affair of Sri Lanka. But, this didn't happen, thanks to the non-attendance by the Indian PM, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) in Jaffna on Saturday.
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Prime responsibility to course correct TNA rests with people: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 15:52 GMT]
The people who overwhelmingly voted for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had cast their votes with a different perception and anticipation than what the TNA has officially articulated in writing in its election manifesto, said Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in Jaffna on Monday. “The people have a major responsibility now and they can't simply take the risk of allowing the TNA leadership to take a completely different path contrary to their intention and wait for the next elections,” he said adding that the people should involve them directly at political level course correcting, if the Tamil polity to be in sync with their political aspirations.
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Rajapaksa party brings in gangster politics to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 06:45 GMT]
A clash between two factions of the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA alliance in Jaffna ended up in gunfire on Tuesday in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna. SLFP Jaffna organiser Mr Ankajan Ramanathan’s group and Mr Saravananthan’s group in Thenmaraadchi were chasing each other in vehicles, from Kodikaamam to Chaavakach-cheari. At the end, Saravananthan’s squad smashed vehicles belonging to Ankajan’s squad. Ankajan's father Ramanathan, who was armed with a handgun, opened fire on Sarvananthan’s group, seriously wounding a Saravananthan supporter, the sources further said. Ankajan’s’s gang was also behind the death threat to a TNA candidate in Jaffna, Mr Thambirasa.
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Diplomacy could work only when mass mobilisation is ground reality: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
Do we have an environment to talk about Tamil nation and its right to self-determination? Do we have to ask for internal self-determination? Should we go step-by-step in achieving the goals? Do we have the right to call for a referendum? Could we insist on a transitional administration? Are they all realistic in our situation: asking these questions at the Kumar Ponnambalam Memorial Lecture to a fully packed audience in Jaffna on Sunday, Jaffna University Law Lecturer Kumaravadivel Guruparan said that we cannot wage a struggle by seeing what is in the international law, as international law is purposefully ambiguous leaving space for further discourses, and as what needed more than the international law are the mass mobilisation and the backing of powerful friends.
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‘13th Amendment, PC system cannot provide political solution to Tamils’: TNPF

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 July 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Reiterating their position that “the recognition of the distinct sovereignty of the Eelam Tamil Nation and our right to self-determination is non-negotiable,” the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) in a statement released on Saturday asserted that the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Councils system, rejected by the Eezham Tamil nation way back in 1987, “can never play any part of a process to reach a political solution today.” The statement released on the 30th anniversary of Black July, further said “if there is a firm resolve of the Eelam Tamil Diaspora to be true to this righteous cause at all occasions and venues, we in the homeland believe that it can ultimately serve to reinvigorate the Tamils in the homeland to mobilize and democratically counter the machinations of the Genocidal intent of the Sinhala Buddhist state.”
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Gajendrakumar exposes New Delhi’s deception behind 13th Amendment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2013, 06:33 GMT]
New Delhi that had wanted the LTTE to commit on federal solution as condition to bring in ceasefire, started arrogantly imposing the unitary 13 Amendment once the war ended in genocide, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam exposes, bringing out the roles played by new Delhi’s National Security Advisor, M.K. Narayanan, and the former Foreign Secretary and the present NSA, Shivshankar Menon. When some of the TNA members attempted to explain that the 13th Amendment couldn’t be the way to find a political solution to the national question, Mr Narayanan responded in an angry tone stating that India knew what was good for Tamils much better than the Tamils themselves. The Indian delegation categorically told us that the 13th Amendment was the solution, Mr Gajendrakumar said.
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Starting point of non-cooperation struggle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2013, 10:00 GMT]
After staging one of the worst genocides humanity has seen–this time a paradigm setting one experimented jointly by all the major Establishments of the world–a torturing structural genocide is now conducted almost as a daily routine against the remaining Eezham Tamils and their nation in the island. This is facilitated by an agenda agreed upon and legitimised at Geneva by the ultimate culprits, especially New Delhi and Washington. The pressure that is now exerted on Tamil leaders to accept the 13th Amendment or any provincial deception under the unitary constitution of the genocidal State, whether in the guise of a ‘starting point’ or not, aims at making Tamils to confirm their own genocide. In the last four years both New Delhi and Washington proved nothing in stopping the structural genocide, but demonstrated only to the contrary, commented a Tamil activist for alternative politics.
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Congress parliamentarian invokes zombie of Indo-Lanka Accord

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2013, 09:16 GMT]
“We believe that discussing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987) to be a proper solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka will be beneficial to the Sri Lankan Tamil People,” says Sonia-led Congress parliamentarian from Tamil Nadu, Dr E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, who convenes ‘Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders’ Conference 2013 in New Delhi, from 5th to 6th June. Saying that the conference is a follow up of the 2011 New Delhi meet of 8 Tamil political parties, including 5 parliamentarians from the island, Natchiappan this time has also invited “leaders from the diaspora Tamil community and the leaders from the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India […] to discuss strengthening and fully implementing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987).” Natchiappan recently visited London.
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