British Minister calls for independent war-crimes probe

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2010, 02:32 GMT]
A senior British Minister Friday said that the allegations of war crimes especially during the last phase of war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) including the killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge in Sri Lanka should be probed independently. British International Development Minister, Gareth Thomas MP made these remarks in his address at the First Anniversary of the killing of late editor of Sri Lanka’s weekly, Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunge, during an event held at Mahatma Gandhi Hall, 41 Fitzroy Square London on Friday, 08 January 2010 between 07:00 – 09:00 PM. The event was organized by Tamil Legal Advocacy Project (TLAP).
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Alternative world to hold tribunal on Sri Lanka's war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2010, 02:00 GMT]
An independent commission of jurists of the Rome based Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT) will be meeting in Dublin, Ireland, on 14th and 15th of January 2010 to investigate allegations that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and its armed forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during its final phase of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The commission will also examine violations of human rights in the aftermath of the war and the local and international factors that led to the collapse of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. The provisional findings of the Peoples' Commission will be announced to the public on January 16.
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Media persons need MOD clearance to visit Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 December 2009, 14:08 GMT]
Restriction on the travel of media persons to Jaffna peninsula via A-9 highway still remains, Director General of the Media Centre for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalla, told media in Colombo Wednesday.
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Sri Lanka's civilian massacre censored in RSF's 2009 report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 December 2009, 13:09 GMT]
Reporters sans frontières (RSF), in a 2009 round-up report of key events on journalists, journalism and war, refers to the "mass exodus of journalists from repressive countries such as Iran and Sri Lanka" as RSF's major concern," and notes that "[t]he authorities in these countries have understood that by pushing journalists into exile, they can drastically reduce pluralism of ideas and the amount of criticism they attract." However, the report fails to mention the "massacre of more than 20,000 unarmed Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka security forces during the first 5 months of 2009 after banning journalists and NGOs, and conducting a "war without witness," Tamil circles complained.
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SLA arrests Mannaar Tamil civilian in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 December 2009, 12:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army(SLA) intelligence officers took into custody Sunday a Tamil civilian staying in a lodge in Colombo. Criminal Investgaation Department (CID) has notified the civilian's wife that her husband is being detained in the Fourth Floor of CID headquarters in Colombo.
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Diplomatic misstep

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 December 2009, 21:33 GMT]
Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, appears to have received a reprimand from his Department's Minister after making disparaging remarks on Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary execution, and for dismissing as "another nuisance," the letter from Alston requesting explanation to Sarath Fonseka's allegations that Colombo may have committed war-crimes. In an interview, Mr Wijesinha calls Alston "a sad man," "an excitable man," and "a bit of an excitable chap." The Sri Lanka Government announced that it has withdrawn Mr. Wijesinha's self-publicized response to Alston.
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Boycott campaign in US gathers momentum

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 December 2009, 18:59 GMT]
While New York Tamil activists deployed a mobile billboard to spread the message of their boycott campaign urging ethical shoppers to shun garments and other products made in Sri Lanka whose 99% Sinhala military allegedly killed more than 30,000 civilians, activists in Florida and in Northern California held protest campaigns in Fort Lauderdale and in San Franciso city early this week. Organizers of the two protests said they are working with protest groups in other states to define a consistent boycott message.
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Copenhagen exhibits expose NorthEast environmental destruction

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 December 2009, 14:53 GMT]
Two environmentalists from Tamil Nadu, interrupted their world tour promoting environment preservation, to organize an exhibit in the hallways of the climate change conference in Copenhagen between 7th and 18th December, to highlight the irreversible deforestation in the Tamil homeland of North-East carried out by the Sri Lanka military. “Decades-long massive military operations and occupation of Tamil Eelam by Sri Lanka’s military have caused grave environmental destruction to the north and east of the island. Recovery is difficult as the Tamil homeland is in the dry and arid part of the island, depending on scanty and truant northeast monsoon,” the two activists said, echoing many eelam activists' sentiments.
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Boston Tamils protest over Kerry report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 December 2009, 01:04 GMT]
Tamils in Boston, U.S., protested in front of Senator John F. Kerry's office Monday against a report that Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee released earlier this month that called for friendlier relations between the United States and Sri Lanka. "The protesters claimed that the report was biased towards the Sinhalese ethnic majority that rules Sri Lanka, and against the Tamil minority that has been fighting for a separate homeland for decades," Boston Globe reported in its Monday edition.
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Third boycott protest held in Atlanta

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 December 2009, 03:30 GMT]
Tamil activists in Atlanta held a protest at the North Point Mall in the Atlanta's suburb of Alpharetta Saturday, urging ethical consumers to stop buying "made in Sri Lanka" products, especially the garments, for the 3rd time since this campaign started in September, an attendee to the protest said. North Point Mall is a super-regional shopping mall serving affluent part of the metropolitan Atlanta, according to the protesters.
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IFJ report adds to Colombo's woes on war-crimes video

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 December 2009, 17:05 GMT]
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), in a report released Friday after a fact finding mission to Sri Lanka, notes that the current political rivalry between the two leading presidential contenders is exposing the "abuses suffered by the media during the years of war, especially in its final stages." On possible new flashpoints the report notes the "anxiety in Sri Lanka official circles" when a video footage "purporting to show summary executions by army troops of a group of men described as Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka’s north" was broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 in August. Despite attempts by Sri Lanka to dismiss the video as fake, a Colorado firm in the U.S, and British Daily Times have independently verified that video is authentic, raising the spectre of renewed calls for charging the presidential contenders of war crimes.
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World obliged to expose civilian slaughters, Arnestad tells CNN

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 December 2009, 02:15 GMT]
Beate Arnestad, the director an hour long documentary film, "My daughter the terrorist," in an interview with CNN Monday says that the lesson the world should learn from her film which follows two young, Catholic female LTTE fighters and the final end of the war when tens of thousands of unarmed civilians were killed by Sri Lanka military, is that the World has an obligation to expose the slaughter civilians by Governments for political reasons. The documentary made its World Premiere to a full house at Parkteatret in the Norwegian capital Oslo on the 12th March 2007.
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FT: Fight for Eelam far from over, say young activists

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 December 2009, 01:18 GMT]
Popular British broadsheet Financial Times, on a follow-up article to October coverage on young Tamils, said that while the western crackdown on the Tigers’ financiers among the diaspora, has created despondency among this often wealthy migrant community, the "clued-up second-generation migrants were turning to political lobbying," and that, "[t]hese young activists said the fight for Eelam, an independent Tamil homeland, was far from over."
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Family rule or Democratic rule? – Ranil Wickremasinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 December 2009, 10:22 GMT]
“The time has come for the people to decide whether they want the Rajapakse family rule to continue or democratic rule to be restored in Sri Lanka,” Leader of the opposition and United National Party (UNP), Ranil Wickremasinghe, who is in Jaffna canvassing support for Sarath Fonseka, the common candidate of the opposition parties in the presidential election, said Saturday speaking among the students of the private College of Education near the Buddhist temple in Jaffna.
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HR Day observed in Jaffna after 3 years

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 December 2009, 07:28 GMT]
Thousands of persons whose family members had gone missing after abduction or arrest by Sri Lanka Armed forces and paramilitary men participated in an event organized by Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Jaffna Veersingham Hall Thursday around 10:00 a.m to mark the 61st International Human Rights Day. Representatives of various Tamil political parties and human rights activists participated in the event which ended around 2:00 p.m. The day’s events concluded with the torch festival held in Aariyaku’lam in Jaffna after a procession which highlighted human rights, source in Jaffna said.
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Reveal whereabouts of surrendered, arrested Liberation Tigers – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 December 2009, 06:35 GMT]
“The government should maintain transparency in matters related to the Liberation Tigers who had surrendered or were arrested at the end of the war,” Mano Ganeshan, Democratic People’s Front (DPF) leader and parliamentarian said, in a special interview to TamilNet Thursday. Mano Ganeshan, presently in Jaffna, also said that Sarath Fonseka, the common opposition presidential candidate, is steadfast in solving the issues related to the reunion of the Liberation Tigers with their families and resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
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Parents of Tamil detainees hold protest march in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 December 2009, 14:19 GMT]
Parents and relatives of Tamil prisoners held in Sri Lanka prisons in Vavuniyaa, Anuradhapura, and Jaffna held a peaceful demonstration Thursday in Vavuniyaa demanding the release of hundreds of Tamil civilians. The march commenced from the Vavuniyaa regional office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) and concluded at Vavuniyaa District Secretariat building, according to sources in Vavuniyaa.
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Colombo court remands 2 Tamil civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 December 2009, 15:38 GMT]
Two Tamil civilians were ordered remand by the Colombo Magistrate Tuesday till December 16 on a report submitted by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) that they were cadres of the LTTE air-wing involved in sentry duties at the Visuvavamadu air strip.
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US Senate Committee evaluation pushes aside political solution to Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 December 2009, 07:32 GMT]
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recommending Monday on ‘recharting’ US strategy on Sri Lanka, said the US should focus on economy and security of the island instead of humanitarian considerations, IDPs and civil society; should also invest in Sinhalese parts of the country instead of just focussing on North and East; should resume training of Sri Lankan military officials to ensure human rights in future operations as well as to build critical relationships and implied that US should not emphasise on political reform as a condition to assistance, bringing rift in US- Sri Lanka relations making the latter to align with countries of alternative model of development. While the report based on evaluation by two staffers, one of whom a US Sinhalese, is viewed by Tamil circles as an open insult to their struggle, it is also seen as an election ‘manifesto’ to woo Sinhalese votes.
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Indian parliament expunges remarks on genocide in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 December 2009, 08:13 GMT]
When Communist Party of India (CPI) member D. Raja in his speech Friday in Rajya Sabha pointed out what happened in the island of Sri Lanka was full-scale war and genocide against Tamils with the assistance of Government of India, the Chair ordered to expunge the word genocide from parliamentary records. The verbatim but lengthy debate Friday questioned the government on IDPs, Kachchatheevu, Tamil Nadu fishermen, and about sending a parliamentary delegation to meet Tamil IDPs. But when it came to the core issue of political solution, the debate had nothing new to offer as from Indian foreign minister S M Krishna to main opposition BJP’s Vekaiah Naidu were still harping on treating the Eezham Tamils not as a nation but as a ‘minority’ and perceiving solutions based on obsolete 13th Amendment. Even Raja was using the word ‘national linguistic minority’.
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