SL military collects details on ex-LTTE members in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2011, 13:22 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka Army soldiers in Jaffna and Vanni have again started collecting details of former LTTE members. The SLA, using new forms from Colombo, is registering details of ex-Tiger members who had left the movement several years ago and of those who were detained and released by the SLA after the genocidal onslaught on Vanni in 2009. The SLA has been registering the details of former LTTE members since it seized the control of Jaffna peninsula from the Tigers in 1996. The SL military also registered the details of the LTTE members whom it took into its custody in 2009. The SLA is now collecting data on the whereabouts and details on what the former LTTE members are doing now. Even the identities of the dead ones are being verified, sources in Jaffna said.
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"Sri Lanka's Killing Fields" to be screened at EU Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 October 2011, 03:35 GMT]
Three international Human Rights watchdogs, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group (ICG), and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are jointly organizing the screening of Channel-4 documentary "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields," at the European Union Parliament Wednesday (12th), invitation sent to decision makers said. The documentary has been shown at the legislative bodies of western capitals including Washington, Ottawa, London, Wellington (NZ), and Oslo, and United Nations in Geneva and New York, and has triggered calls for international investigation on war crimes in Sri Lanka.
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SLA encroaches 100 acres of farmland in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2011, 17:20 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni has forcibly taken over about one hundred acres of farmland situated between the villages Shanthapuram and Kanakaampikaik-ku'lam 5 km southeast of Ki'linochchi town. Earlier, the farmland was the livelihood of hundreds of people under a poverty alleviation scheme under the civil administration of the LTTE. A church and a well used by the residents of Shaanthapuram and Ira'naimaduk-ku'lam are also located in the land militarised by the occupying SL military. The SL military says it wants to exhibit military hardware seized from the Tigers in the farmland, which is situated near Ira'naimadu.
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Dutch Court overrides Koppe's challenge against Judges

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2011, 02:30 GMT]
The Hague Chamber of Recusal ruled that the panel of three judges in the case of five alleged Dutch Tamil citizens charged with providing material assistance to Liberation Tigers, can continue, after the panel considered a challenge to the judges submitted by defense lawyer, Victor Koppe, for refusing to let Koppe continue with the 200-page address beyond 5:00 p.m., Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) reported Monday. Koppe said the trial was "unfair" as the Judges "shamelessly ignored his request for an additional 30 minutes of defense argument.
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Australia’s bids to lend legitimacy to Sri Lanka’s war-crime regime condemned

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2011, 11:16 GMT]
Vehemently condemning Australia’s envoy for Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, for partaking in a high-profile propaganda ceremony at the Sri Lankan Presidential residence in Colombo, head of the International Commission of Jurists in Australia, John Dowd, has accused the Australian government of trying to legitimise the actions of Rajapaksa regime, which is credibly accused to have committed wide-spread war crimes during the final months of the war, a media report by The Age said. Australia’s high commissioner to Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, took part in a ceremony in Colombo on Friday to release 1,800 ex-members of the LTTE after what the Sri Lankan military called “a two-year rehabilitation program”. She also handed out certificates to alleged ‘rehabilitated’ Tamils, who were later detained and prevented from reuniting with their families.
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‘Misplaced Loyalties’

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2011, 05:17 GMT]
Genuine anti-imperialism does not lie in mere abstract anti-American/anti-west sloganeering, writes RM Karthick, a freelance writer based in Chennai. “In the wake of a ‘post-national world’ discourse framed by apologists of multi-national capitalism and equally regressive capitalist-bureaucratic models as upheld by states like Turkey, China and Russia - both aiding the logic of genocidal states like Sri Lanka, anti-imperialism in concrete requires solidarity with national liberation struggles and their progressive representatives,” he further writes in an article that appeared in West Bengal based Sanhati online journal on Saturday. The regimes in Cuba and Venezuela end up as political opportunists by supporting mass murderers and despots like Rajapaksa who virulently implement neo-liberal policies in deed, but put up a sham ‘anti-Americanism’ in words, the writer from Tamil Nadu says.
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‘Reconciliation comes by accepting nations are different’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 October 2011, 10:15 GMT]
The South and its Sinhala polity talked of themselves as Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. Those who opposed the war, but still wanted to be part of the warring Sinhala ideology, thus said the common meeting point of all Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people is the ‘Sri Lankan’ identity. But this ‘Sri Lankan’ identity is essentially a Southern Sinhala identity, points out veteran Sinhala journalist Kusal Perera. Sinhala political parties in the opposition cannot and does not want to leave their Sinhala identity in challenging this regime [of Rajapaksa]. Challenging this regime with a Sinhala identity is impossible, with a State that is now wholly Sinhalised and is firmly controlled with the defence establishment entrenched in politics and economics, he further said, writing in The Sunday Leader, last Sunday.
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Sri Lanka governor demolishes British heritage in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 21:14 GMT]
Part of a landmark heritage complex at the Old Park in Jaffna, the residency buildings of the British Government Agents, dating back to the beginnings of British rule, was demolished overnight on Wednesday at the orders of the occupying Sri Lanka governor in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasri, despite the SL Archaeology Department declaring it a heritage site, preventing any demolitions. The SL governor is already building a mansion for the occupying governors in that location at a cost of 100 million Rs, news sources in Jaffna said. Both SL President Rajapaksa and his governor give utmost importance to the symbolism in showing who are the colonial masters now, by building a mansion for the SL president at the ‘King’s House’ inside the Dutch Fort and by building a governor’s mansion at the complex of the former British Residents.
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Regimes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, forge questionable alliance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 06:09 GMT]
Maldivian Vice-President Dr Mohammed Waheed, meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa over the weekend at the UN General Assembly Sessions, assured the latter of the support of Male to Colombo’s stand on its human rights issues, according to Maldivian media Haveeru, Tuesday. “Early this month Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed defended Sri Lanka’s position at the UN Human Rights Council sessions held in Geneva,” Haveeru said in its feature “Maldives assures support for Sri Lanka amidst UN allegations.” The undue extra efforts taken by the present regime in Male to shield Colombo against the struggle of Tamils and Muslims in the island need careful scrutiny by the people in Maldives and peoples movements across South Asia, commented a political observer in Male.
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BASL exemplifies Sri Lanka's legal institutional decay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 01:50 GMT]
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) "express[ed] serious concerns as to diabolic overtures by the West to destabilize Sri Lanka on the instigation of the Tamil Diaspora...," a Sri Lanka weekly said Sunday, and added, BASL is establishing "a high powered" committee to advise the government on matters that should be raised before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The Head of the Committee, de Z. Gunasekera's initial defense of Colombo arguing that delay in Channel-4 video presentation as evidence the video is a fake reflects a serious lack of basic legal reasoning skills from the highest legal institution of practicing lawyers, legal sources in Washington pointed out.
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HRW to screen Channel 4 documentary at Parliament Hill, Canada

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 00:43 GMT]
Human Rights Watch in Toronto, Canada, is screening “Sri Lanka's Killing Fields”, the Channel 4 documentary in Ottawa on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, the HRW said in an invitation to the press. The event will be hosted by Patrick Brown, Member of Parliament for Barrie and will include a discussion with Elaine Pearson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. The film was recently screened to wide acclaim at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and has fuelled renewed calls for an international response to these crimes, according to the HRW.
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UK plans bulk deportation of Eezham Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 11:44 GMT]
UK has taken a decision to deport more than 100 Eezham Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on 28 of this month. The Home Ministry of UK has taken this decision as a test case to declare Sri Lanka a country free from human rights violations, said Eezham Tamil diaspora activists protesting the deportation in a meeting convened by Tamil Lawyers Association at Ealing Amman Temple in London on Sunday. Meanwhile, just last Tuesday, delivering a judgement and stopping the deportation of an Eezham Tamil refugee in India, judge Arul Varma said in New Delhi, “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors.” The Indian judge was worrying about the lack of proper refugee laws in India, but UK has striped the rights of its courts to intervene in such matters, the UK lawyers commented.
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‘Politics of Deceit’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2011, 14:51 GMT]
The TNA needs to publicly clarify its position on the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination and how it is proposing to overcome the Politics of Deceit perpetuated on the Tamils for the last 63 years, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. As experience teaches us, any agreement can be torn unilaterally. So it is not the details or fine print that matters but that agreement is built on the base of the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination. The politics of deceit is practised universally by the oppressors, in various forms from diversionary politics to pre-emptive solutions, all aimed at blocking political progress of the peoples. What concern Eezham Tamils mostly are the pre-emptive solutions put forward by various interested parties in the prevailing atmosphere of negativism after the disaster of May 2009, he further writes.
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Tamils protest outside Rajapakse's UN address

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 07:13 GMT]
Nearly one thousand Tamils protested outside the United Nations Friday between 10 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. while Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse was addressing the UN's General Assembly. Protesters held placards criticizing UN's inaction on Sri Lanka, and took the 'Pongku Thamizh' oath promising to continue to non-violent struggle until Tamils' inalienable rights are recognized in a political settlement based on Tamils right to self-determination, attendees to the event said. Several protesters crossed the Canadian border to be present at the rally held amid tight security on the 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue.
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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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Torture case filed against Sri Lanka's ex-General Shavendra Silva

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 00:50 GMT]
American University Washington College of Law's Human Rights Clinic in a press release issued today said that it has filed civil action at the District Court of New York Southern District (SDNY), on behalf of two Tamil plaintiffs against Sri Lanka's ex-Army General and currently Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Shavendra Silva, on charges of torture and wrongful death. The civil action under the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) called for declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages for torts in violation of international and domestic law.
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US cables show how international silence enabled Sri Lanka’s genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 03:55 GMT]
In March 2009 Sri Lanka had come to the attention of the UN’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, but despite his disquiet he did not take further steps as Sri Lanka had assured him the United States and India supported its military campaign, according to a leaked US cable. The account of the meeting on March 16, 2009 between Mr. Deng and the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, as well as other US cables, shows how international inaction and silence, rather than ignorance, made it possible for Sri Lanka to continue and escalate its mass killings of Tamil civilians.
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Genocide proceeds inside Geneva, within diaspora: Viraj Mendis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 22:31 GMT]
“We all know that the process of Genocide is continuing. In Eelam the colonization process and the enslavement process in continuing, as the power of the LTTE is not there to stop it. The process of Genocide is continuing here too. It is happening inside these buildings here in Geneva,” said Mr. Viraj Medis, a progressive Sinhala rights activist and a long-term supporter of the struggle of Eezham Tamils, while addressing the Pongku Tamil rally held in front of the UN office in Geneva on Monday. The real external architects of the genocidal war are now trying their ultimate spin. The US/British political offensive which is a crucial part the genocidal process is taking place right now within the Diaspora, cautioned Mr. Mendis of the International Human Rights Association, Bremen, Germany.
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Pongku Thamizh in Geneva reinvigorates call for Eezham Tamil Independence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 14:11 GMT]
More than 5,000 Eezham Tamil activists across Europe confluenced Monday in what the organizers of the event described as successful Pongku Thamizh rally in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in Switzerland where 18th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is taking place. “We demand the Human Rights world to denounce Tamil Genocide in the island of Sri Lanka in both word and deed,” an exiled Tamil activist with a personal experience of the genocidal war, who met the representatives of the UNHRC at its 18th Session, told TamilNet. Professor John P. Neelson, an experienced scholar on the international dimensions of the conflict in the island and Stéphane Gatignon, a mayor from France, who asserted that he had come to the rally reflecting the interests of 30,000 Tamils in his constituency, met the representatives of the Human Rights Council with the Tamil representatives.
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EPC acts as agent of Colombo in harassing Champoor Tamils: Thurairatnam

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 05:54 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) led by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan in the capacity of its chief minister has been assisting the Colombo government in harassing uprooted Eezham Tamils of Champoor now being held in so-called temporary welfare centres in Ki'liveddi, Ma'natcheanai, Mallikaith-theevu and Kaddai-pa'richchaan, alleged Mr.R.Thurairatnam, an opposition EPC councillor. He appealed to EPC administration to allocate a day to debate Champoor resettlement issue, as uprooted people are not in favour to be resettled in alternate lands other than in their original traditional Tamil villages.
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