Wider public participation marks Heroes Day in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 December 2011, 11:34 GMT]
It became clear on the eve of Heroes Day, Sunday, that ruling circles in India join hands with genocidal Colombo in denying Tamils the right to remember their fallen freedom fighters. Yet the day was observed with a marked positive difference in Tamil Nadu this time. Public and grassroot initiatives replaced political party organized mass gatherings, and there was wider and spontaneous participation of a social cross-section: from workers and farmers to communities in business, education and professions. “If Tamils have contributed anything memorable to human civilization in their contemporary history that was the paradigm-setting stand taken by the Eezham Tamil heroes, defying injustice of all the world Establishments,” commented an 85-year-old Marxist who spent a life time for the communist movement in the diaspora and in the home country, ever since he was 16.
Full story >>

US-UK axis drags EU into endorsing militarisation of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 December 2011, 21:12 GMT]
USA and the UK are primarily responsible for endorsing Sri Lanka’s military rule and military solution to the national question of Tamils. Europe is unwillingly manipulated by the US-British axis, says a feedback from a Sinhala reader to the feature “West endorses ethno-military rule, military solution: Tamil civil groups,” appeared in TamilNet, Thursday. The feedback cites the instance that the ‘Friend of Sri Lanka’ EU parliamentarian, Geoferey Van Orden, who went on ‘fact-finding’ to Jaffna and came up with appreciation to Hathurusinghe’s military reconciliation, is actually a Eurosceptic British Conservative Party member who was earlier serving in the British military intelligence corps.
Full story >>

West endorses ethno-military rule, military solution: Tamil civil groups

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 December 2011, 11:39 GMT]
Civil society organisations in the country of Eezham Tamils are enraged at foreign diplomats visiting their country confining the purposes of the visits primarily to meeting the commanders of the occupying Sinhala military but not the civil society. While genocidal Sri Lanka conjures ’normalcy’ has come to Tamils, the gesture of these diplomats is a tacit endorsement to the ethnic-shaded military rule and military solution. Those who delay international justice, sit on international responsibilities, and talk about ‘domestic’ solutions are not honest. They only mean ‘remote controlled’ military solution, and that is what in the minds of the core sections of the Establishments that deploy cosmetic talk of human rights as a cover, the civil groups accused. They are particularly enraged at the conduct of the US, UK and EU diplomats.
Full story >>

Batticaloa observed Heroes Day, defying SL military orders

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 06:19 GMT]
The public expression in Batticaloa has come out stronger than any other areas of Tamil homeland. A special feature this year, unlike the last two years, was that the people of Batticaloa marked the birthday of the LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan with cakes and sweets on Saturday and on the following day staged public events where people gathered to pay homage to Tamil Heroes. Officers of the occupying SL military went in person to instruct the priests and management committee members of the Hindu temples in the district not to conduct poojas on 27 November, Sunday. Yet, torches were lit and bells were tolled in many temples in the rural areas, where families observed the day with lighting traditional lamps in remembrance of their loved ones who had sacrificed their lives in the war against the Sri Lankan state.
Full story >>

‘Tamil Sovereignty Cognition Declaration a conceptual reference point’

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 November 2011, 18:59 GMT]
The Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration released this year on Heroes Day would serve as a ‘conceptual reference point’ in ensuring that Tamil sovereignty is never compromised, writes RM Karthick, research scholar at a British university, in an article published in Countercurrents, an Indian on-line journal. “It is naivety to expect anything democratic from a unitary state of Sri Lanka,” he argues drawing parallels between the observations by the military analyst and senior editor late Mr. Sivaram Dharmeratnam with the Declaration and the video messages released by the second generation activists on Sunday. “The declaration conceptually challenges the ‘monopoly of truth’ that Lanka and its friends claim to wield in defending their unitary state, through its concise elucidation of the three types of sovereignties that the Tamils can lay claim to namely historical, earned and remedial.”
Full story >>

Questions for Sri Lankan Ambassador of Australia: Dr. Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 November 2011, 11:21 GMT]
If the war is over and the Tamil people have been ‘liberated’ from the ‘terrorists’ and ‘rehabilitated’, then why does the Sri Lankan government still not allow access to international groups in Tamil areas, asks Brian Senewiratne in a hard-hitting series of questions to Sri Lankan High Comissioner to Australia. Dr. Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, produced posers to ex-Admiral Thissara Samarasinghe using evidence from the UN report, Channel 4 video and other sources. The ex-Admiral, incidentally, is also alleged of war crimes and there have been calls in Australia to investigate his role in the genocide of the Eelam Tamils.
Full story >>

University student missing in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 November 2011, 09:23 GMT]
A student of the University of Jaffna, 27-year-old Vetharaniyam Latheesh, was missing after he left the gents hostel (Balasingham Hostel) of the University of Jaffna in Thirunelveali by 6:45 pm, Sunday evening. The student, studying at the Siddha Medicine department of the university located at Kaithadi, and used to stay in the hostel there, had come to the university hostel in Thirunelveali to meet a friend. University circles fear that the SL Army that was deployed in large numbers around the university campus on Sunday might have abducted him. A relative of Latheesh, who made a mobile call to him and got connected, heard his abductors talking in Sinhala and beating him, asking “kawuda” (who). The University Students Union has confirmed the abduction of Latheesh.
Full story >>

SL Police ‘fixes’ Moothoor murder crime on Tamil Veddahs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 November 2011, 15:05 GMT]
Two Tamil males with Veddah background were arrested by the Sri Lankan Police in Champoor Friday evening allegedly for the crime of killing the teacher Miss Kurukulasingham Srivathanion on Thursday. The SL police has allegedly ‘fixed’ the crime, which took place within 200 meters from a Sri Lanka Army post and between two SLA camps while the Tamil teacher was on her way to Paaddaa'lipuram government school from Kaddaipa'richchaan.
Full story >>

Moothoor villagers demand their security ensured after teacher murder

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2011, 16:27 GMT]
Students, teachers, education officials and members of public in large numbers went in a procession Friday morning from Cheanaiyoor Central College to Champoor Police Station in the Moothoor East in Trincomalee district demanding that the culprits behind the brutal killing of a young unmarried Tamil teacher Miss Kurukulasingham Srivathani that took place on Thursday should be arrested. Srivathani left home Wednesday as usual in her scooter to Paaddaa'li-puram Government Tamil Mixed School in the Moothoor education zone, about seven km away from her place Cheanaiyoor-Kaddaipa'richchaan, which is located between two Sri Lanka Army camps, one at Paaddaa'li-puram and the other at Chanthosa-puram. Moothoor East, previously a part of the de facto Tamil Eelam administration by the LTTE is now fully occupied by the SL military.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil heroes continues for the third year

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2011, 08:58 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils continued for the third year in militarily preventing people observing the Heroes Day week ending on Sunday. SL military’s paranoia or arrogance of oppression has gone to the extent of ordering temples not to toll bells or light lamps during the week. Military is also placed near some temples to watch for any breaches. With the cemeteries of the heroes erased down, temples became the solace for parents and relatives paying annual homage to the fallen heroes. Sanctions on temples too started in 2009, coinciding with Indian foreign minister choosing the day to visit Jaffna. In a latest development on Friday, hundreds of SL police personnel have entered into the University of Jaffna to prevent any observation of the week by students. On Thursday some masked men entered the university and destroyed students union noticeboards.
Full story >>

Senators urge US to take lead role in Sri Lanka investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 November 2011, 15:09 GMT]
In a letter to United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, three senior Senators have called for "United States to openly take the lead in pressing for an independent international commission, either by the UN Human Rights Council or under the [UN's] Secretary General's own authority," if Sri Lanka fails to take "credible steps to investigate and hold perpetrators accountable for the array of allegations documented in the UN Panel of Experts report." Senators also expressed concern that "since the end of the war the [Sri Lanka] military has supplanted or interferes in civil administration in the North, and that more than thousand detainees with suspected LTTE links, names withheld, reportedly remain without charge, without access to Red Cross or family."
Full story >>

‘Sandwich theory’ an excuse for not taking a stand: Indian academic Radha D’Souza

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2011, 17:59 GMT]
“Those wanting to remain equidistant from state and the struggles of people. [..] actually end up legitimating the moral authority of the state by giving the state the moral authority to continue with the war on people.”, observes Radha D’Souza in an interview to TamilNet on Sunday. Dr. D’Souza, who is a reader of law at the University of Westminster and a social justice activist from India, argues that such an approach by international agencies that act as ‘peace-brokers’, ‘NGOs’, and local actors, only benefits militarist states in the final analysis. They are the other face of oppression because the other face is necessary to sustain the armed intervention, she says.
Full story >>

Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2011, 03:39 GMT]
Norwegian minister Erik Solheim, while speaking in Oslo 11 November at the release of the report evaluating Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka, tried to hijack the philosophical thrust of the findings of the report and this brought him into confrontation with the evaluation team leader, Gunnar M. Sørbø. Mr. Erik Solheim tried to defend the main criticism in the report and the stand of Sørbø that Norway should have quit the peace process to signal the world of the impending dangers. Arguing that nobody expected a military solution succeeding, Solheim painted the picture of a star-crossed and epic-style tragedy that everyone has to be now contended with in a philosophical way, and said that the stand of Sørbø was ‘arrogant’. Solheim’s speech made Sørbø to remind that the issue was of life and death and Norway should have had contingencies ready.
Full story >>

Fonseka verdict signals trend to come out of LLRC

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 November 2011, 16:51 GMT]
Colombo High Court Bench on Friday convicted Sri Lanka’s former military commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka to three years rigorous imprisonment for him alleging that the SL President’s brother and defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had ordered the execution of surrendering LTTE officials in the white flag incident. Fonseka was found guilty of “spreading rumours and causing public disorder.” His rigorous imprisonment may mean that he should perform manual labour in prison. Fonseka’s conviction signals what directions the LLRC findings and following actions might take, commented political observers in Colombo. “This conviction happens under a dictatorship,” Fonseka told the court rejecting the verdict. "People will rise against this judgement and only then will the independence of the judiciary be restored," he added.
Full story >>

India emerges as main designer of ‘Asian Model’ in Norway report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 November 2011, 10:25 GMT]
The Norway report on the failed peace in Sri Lanka, concluding that Asian powers in pursuance of military solution were a reason for the failure, cautions that this model of ‘conflict resolution’ will challenge future Norwegian-style mediations. India’s role in the genocidal model of conflict resolution is not adequately discussed in the report, yet bits and pieces in the report along with what transpired in the panel discussion in Oslo on Friday, place India as decisively responsible for the ‘Asian model’ that ended the war in genocide. Meanwhile, citing the upsurge of Sinhala nationalism as a result of the international peace process, the report advises appeasement by leaving the fate of Eezham Tamils to ‘domestic solutions’. But an upsurge of Tamil nationalism resulting from the genocide, snowballing in either side of the Palk Bay, is yet to make impact with the IC.
Full story >>

International unity on criticism of Sri Lanka’s conduct: Armitage

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 November 2011, 10:45 GMT]
Expressing dismay at the “chauvinistic attitude” of the Sri Lankan state, former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday the international community was united in its criticism of Sri Lanka’s conduct in the north and east and that SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa would not be welcomed internationally unless conditions there improved. “I don’t think anyone disagrees that the Tamil people have been mistreated and are continuing to lack – across the board – fundamental freedoms, dignity, etc,” Mr. Armitage told the audience.
Full story >>

LTTE losing, SL winning was Norway failing: Norway report team leader

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 November 2011, 18:46 GMT]
While releasing the evaluation report on Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka on Friday, the team leader of the evaluation panel, Gunnar M. Sørbø, outlining the main findings of the report said “The collapse of talks and the subsequent military victory were as much a story of the LTTE ‘losing’, as of the government ‘winning’, or the Norwegians ‘failing’. The social anthropologist also came out with a profound reality the nation of Eezham Tamils were encountering for ages but hardly realized by the outsiders, when he said that apart from the other factors that failed the peace facilitation, “there were also patterns and structures and some of them were ‘old tricks in the Sri Lankan book’, so there was no excuse for not anticipating them, or for lacking a strategy to deal with them.”
Full story >>

SLMM tilted balance in favour of Sri Lanka, against LTTE: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 November 2011, 21:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), the peace keeping arm of the Norway facilitated peace process in the island, tilted the balance in favour of the Sri Lankan state and against the LTTE, wrote Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam in 2007, in an unpublished research paper on the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) he submitted to a foundation in the West. The IC could have used the CFA to pursue conflict resolution by maintaining the balance of power between the parties, but to the contrary it had used the CFA as a ‘counterinsurgency’ tool to reinforce the state and weaken the de facto state, so that the state could pursue yet another military solution to the conflict, he further wrote. The unpublished paper that reveals how the very idea of Norway’s peace facilitation was to ‘fail the peace facilitation’ in favour of state, is documented here for historical purposes.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka massacre, 5 times Srebrenica, 80 times My Lai, says German paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 November 2011, 11:55 GMT]
Referring to the Channel-4 documentary Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, journalists, Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, in an opinion column that appeared in German newspaper Die Welt said that the massacre of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka by the State military is five times the killings from Srebrenica genocide, and 80 times the numbers killed in the Mai Lai massacre. "Colombo successfully covered up the killings by sending away the UN observers on the grounds that the State will not be able to ensure their safety, and then began the mass murder," Die Welt said on 03 November.
Full story >>

Norway ‘LLRC’ distributes blame, washes hands of victims after ‘victory’

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 November 2011, 11:11 GMT]
A report on Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka, “Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka, 1997-2009” was released in Oslo on Friday. Whether pawns of peace or ploys for genocide, Norway’s report distributed blame among all the actors. A deficiency the report finds in Norway was not its grave failure to warn the world about peace turning into genocide, but that Norway should have escaped from the scene at an earlier stage. The report admits that the peace process has only enhanced obstacles to peace now. But, even after the process facilitating internationally abetted genocide, the report subconsciously sees “victory” in the war and it now harps on “primacy of domestic politics,” to imply ways for solutions. Norway washes hands of its responsibilities to victims and the report now seeks lessons to learn for ’peacebuilding’ elsewhere.
Full story >>