Trade Unions slam Australia’s treatment of refugees

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 May 2010, 15:46 GMT]
Leaders of Australia’s most powerful unions have united to voice their “concern at the growing stance of indifference towards and demonisation of asylum seekers from both sides of Australian politics” in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Rudd released on Monday.
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Colombo adopts failed Sudanese ruse to deflect war crimes charges - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 May 2010, 14:38 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse's announcement that Colombo will appoint a 7-person commission to "search for any violations of internationally accepted norms of conduct in such conflict situations, and the circumstances that may have led to such actions [in Sri Lanka], and identify any persons or groups responsible for such acts," Francis A Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law said "after it was announced that the ICC was going after Sudan, they hired a British lawyer to advise them on setting up some type of fake internal procedure of investigation/ prosecution in order to head off the ICC, pretending to satisfy the requirement of complementarity. It miserably failed, and Sudan's Al Bashir is now under ICC's arrest warrant."
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Australia playing “political football” with refugees: Amnesty International

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 May 2010, 17:20 GMT]
Amnesty International in Australia have slammed the Federal Government’s decision to freeze asylum claims from Tamil and Afghan refugees, accusing both Ruling and opposition parties of “using some of the world’s most vulnerable people as political footballs”, and urging the nation to adhere to its “legal and moral obligation” to provide protection to refugees who have “suffered torture, violence, fear and persecution that we could never imagine”.
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Game of smoke and mirrors, HRW blasts Sri Lanka's new commission

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 May 2010, 02:02 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka's announcement that it is appointing a laws-of-war commission, Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said, "[e]very time the international community raises the issue of accountability, Sri Lanka establishes a commission that takes a long time to achieve nothing. Ban should put an end to this game of smoke and mirrors and begin a process that would ensure justice for all the victims of Sri Lanka's war," adding, "Secretary-General Ban should not let Sri Lanka bully and manipulate him into abandoning justice for Sri Lanka's war victims," Adams said. "It is time for him to demonstrate that he is squarely on the side of the victims of Sri Lanka's long war."
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Colombo announces reconciliation commissison classifying 1,350 LTTE POWs as criminals

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 May 2010, 11:04 GMT]
While on the one hand keeping uprooted civilians subjugated in open prisons and inside internment camps under a military-led administration, engaging in systematic demographic genocide in Tamil homeland in the form of Sinhala colonisation encroachments, abetting cultural genocide by erecting the symbols of Mahavamsa mindset and destroying the Tamil heritage, on the other hand the Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa has come up with the announcement of appointing a commission for truth and reconciliation. Announcing the move, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne said in SL parliament on Wednesday that his government had categorized around 1,350 ex-LTTE members as "criminals who will be dealt with according to the law."
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Why Genocide is an issue in the British elections

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 May 2010, 05:36 GMT]
This general election sees unprecedented levels of engagement of British political parties with issues that are important to the Tamil Diaspora. With three active party-affiliated campaigning groups within the Diaspora – Tamils for Labour, British Tamil Conservatives and the Tamils for Liberals and the reciprocal active engagement of candidates from a cross section of parties in issues specific to the Tamils, the British Tamil Diaspora is no longer expected to vote primarily for a single party that was ‘sympathetic’ to their issues. Voters will ultimately need to choose based on the relationships they have built and what they feel their candidates have achieved for them. However, in policy terms the priorities of the Diaspora are clear: Tamils need to see a fundamental shift in the way the conflict has been viewed.
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Sri Lanka joins international issues in British parties’ focus

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 May 2010, 13:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis is among international issues that have drawn comment by all three main political parties in Britain ahead of the general election on Thursday. The main opposition Conservative party insisted Sri Lanka “take immediate steps to address the concerns of the Tamil people” and emphasised the importance of “meaningful political reform” for lasting peace. The Liberal Democrats, the second largest opposition party, demanded an end to Sri Lanka’s “land-grabbing” and called for the formation of “an independent body to end all fraudulent claims to land.” The ruling Labour party, which raised warcrimes probes in its manifesto, said its 13-year government “had consistently sought to help Sri Lanka achieve a lasting solution and is committed to an inclusive political process.”
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UN failed to protect Tamil civilians - Lord Patten

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 May 2010, 01:24 GMT]
Noting British foreign policy is unlikely to change after the May 6th election, and that United Nations is better at "normative diplomacy than at launching action on the ground," Lord Patton, current chancellor of University of Oxford, and who as European Commission External Relations Commissioner visited Kilinochchi during the ceasefire, said, while having endorsed the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to prevent atrocities, "UN was paralysed when political and diplomatic intervention was required to protect Tamil civilians in the Sri Lankan government campaign to wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," in an article in Financial Times.
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Sri Lanka cricketers told to shun Dalai Lama over China ties

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 May 2010, 14:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka stopped cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara and another player from calling on the Dalai Lama out of fear that a meeting would anger China, AFP reported Tuesday. Sangakkara and former skipper Mahela Jayawardene were advised not to join their Indian Premier League teammates who paid a courtesy call on the Tibetan spiritual leader last month, Sri Lanka cricket secretary Nishantha Ranatunga told AFP. "We were made to understand that we should not upset relations with China," he said.
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Uprooted Vanni civilian shot dead, first killing in Jaffna after May 2009

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 May 2010, 17:51 GMT]
A 26-year-old male, Sivalingam Satheesan, an uprooted civilian who settled in Jaffna after leaving the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operated internment camp in Vavuniyaa, has been gunned down on Jaffna - Point Pedro Road Sunday around 7:30 p.m. by armed men riding a motorbike. The killing has taken place in SLA-guarded road near Ceylinco insurance company and Vadamaraadchi telecommunication building. This is the first killing by gunmen reported in Jaffna after the Eelam War - 4 ended in May 2009 in Vanni. The targeted killing of Vanni IDP comes in the wake of a recent visit by Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to Jaffna. Tension prevails in the area.
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Sivaram showed how Sri Lankan state was dependent on oppression of Tamils: Prof. Whitaker

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 17:10 GMT]
Sivaram’s biographer and close friend Professor Mark P. Whitaker said Thursday that Sivaram’s ability as a professional journalist to show convincingly how the Sri Lankan state was dependent upon its oppression of Tamil people, was one of the key reasons why he was targeted and killed exactly five years ago. Professor of Anthropology of the University of South Carolina , Mark P. Whitaker made these observations when delivering a speech at an event in London to commemorate the fifth death anniversary of Sri Lanka ’s top journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram, well-known by his pseudonym as Taraki.
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Colombo plans Buddhist vihara in Mullaiththeevu town

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 16:16 GMT]
Sri Lankan government has planned a large Buddhist vihara at the entrance of Mullaiththeevu town at Karaichchikkudiyiruppu, 150 meters near the Kachcheari building, said former Jaffna MP Selvaraja Kajendren Saturday. The government is spending millions in construction of the Buddhist temple and in constructing at least two memorial sites for Sri Lanka Army commanders killed in action, while the Tamil civilians are not provided with meaningful aid for resettlement, Mr. Kajendren told media.
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Australia's young lawyers to document Sri Lanka's war-crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 April 2010, 01:39 GMT]
While calls for independent investigations into Sri Lanka's war crimes continue to mount, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's appointment of advisory panel on Sri Lanka's war-crimes shows no progress, ABC Radio Australia reported that Australian Young Lawyers Group in New South Wales is joining forces with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) to take witness statements and prepare evidence on the conduct of Sri Lanka's Security Forces, and the Polical and Military Command for future war crimes tribunals on Sri Lanka.
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Tories, Tamils reach out

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 April 2010, 22:33 GMT]
It’s a sight that would have been incongruous a few years ago, but is almost unremarkable today. Nestled amongst the Tamil restaurants, grocery shops and other businesses on the main strip in Rayners Lane, a suburb of London, a large sign on the front of former store front says: ‘British Tamil Conservatives’. On the other side of London, another office of the BTC opened a few weeks ago with a lamp lighting ceremony accompanied by mirithungam drummers, directly opposite the tube station in the Tamil-dominated suburb of East Ham.
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Liberation Tigers’ Ira’naimadu runway used exclusively by Indian Air Force

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 April 2010, 21:10 GMT]
The runway constructed by Liberation Tigers of Tami Eezham (LTTE) in Ira’naimadu in Ki’linochchi has been handed over to the exclusive use of Indian Air Force (IAF), according to sources close to a section of Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) personnel who have expressed their disapproval of this course of action by Sri Lanka government. The area in which this runway is located in Ira’naimadu falls within the High Security Zone (HSZ) and is strictly out of bounds for low ranking SLA personnel, the sources added. IAF officers fly routinely between Tamil Nadu and Ira’naimadu besides training SLAF personnel at I’ra’naimadu, the sources said.
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Indian aid to resettled Vanni civilians left undistributed along A9 road

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 April 2010, 16:06 GMT]
Materials to construct shelters given as aid by India meant for the resettled families in Vanni have not been fully distributed to them and are left unattended along A9 road due to noncooperation of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Vanni and their refusal to grant permission for distribution, sources close to Ki’linochchi Secretariat said. SLA authorities purposely delay and obstruct distribution of these materials with the aim to give them to Sinhalese families to be colonized in places including Kokkaavil and Maangku’lam in Vanni, according to some Tamil National Alliance (TNA) newly elected representatives. The distribution of the materials had not been carried out by the government officials due to noncooperation by SLA authorities in Vanni.
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"Sri Lanka sets precedent for internationally acceptable genocide model"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 April 2010, 14:56 GMT]
Kolathur T. S. Mani, president of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, during a conference at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi titled "Unspoken Genocide: Convention on War Crimes and Genocide in Sri Lanka," held at the Speaker Hall, Constitution Club on Thursday , said that Sri Lanka has presented to the world a viable model of genocide by successfully killing "hundreds of thousands of civilians without any witness" and not eliciting international or national censure or condemnation. Rajinder Sachar, former chief justice of High Court of New Delhi, a member of the Dublin war crimes Tribunal, Justice V R Krishna Iyer, former judge of the Supreme Court of India, and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC), Kashmir, participated in the event among others.
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Former SLRC employee in Vanni complains of death threat to HRC Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 April 2010, 10:12 GMT]
An employee of Sri Lanka Red Cross who had served in Vanni during the last stages of war and now living in Ma’nkumpaan in the islets of Jaffna has lodged a complaint with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office of intimidation and death threats by armed men alleged to be ruling party ally Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) persons who operate with Sri Lanka Intelligence division. The armed men come to his place in the nights and intimidate him with threats of abduction and death, the employee said in his complaint.
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USA wishes joint celebrations, engages in joint operations

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 April 2010, 15:20 GMT]
The US embassy in Colombo carried a statement Monday from Secretary Clinton, greeting ‘Sinhala and Tamil New Year,’ and saying that this year, for the first time in decades, Sri Lankans from all parts of the island can celebrate together in a peaceful and united country. This is an opportunity for ‘Sri Lankans’ living inside and outside of the country to renew bonds and the US is eager to support them in this journey, the statement said. On Friday the US embassy announced joint operations of the US and Sri Lankan militaries in ‘humanitarian exercises’ in Trincomalee. “The joint exercise helped members from our two militaries to exchange best practices on how to address complex humanitarian challenges,” said Defence Attache of the US embassy.
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SLA constructs big bases in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 April 2010, 11:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni without allowing the uprooted civilians from resettling in their homes is busy engaged in constructing big bases in strategic areas in Vanni, sources in Vanni said. Meanwhile, the small numbers of civilians permitted to resettle in some areas in Vanni are subjected to harassment by SLA. Armed group of men forcibly enter their houses in the nights where there are young women, the sources further said. SLA soldiers do not permit the civilians to move freely in the nights. Even during day time they are forced to carry their Sri Lankan National Identity Cards.
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