Channel 4 ‘persecuting’ Sri Lanka’s government - Rajiva

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 02:36 GMT]
Speaking on the BBC radio’s ‘Today’, one of Britain’s most popular current affairs programs, Sri Lankan government representative Rajiva Wijesinghe brazenly claimed Monday that Channel 4 had “apologized” for using “doctored” video in its recent hard-hitting documentary on Sri Lanka. His claim immediately drew a swift retort from Channel 4 which categorically denied the accusation and said it “stood by the excellent journalism” of the film. On the BBC programme, referring to international calls for investigations of the allegations, Prof. Wijesinghe said “the people of Sri Lanka are not interested in witch hunts.”
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Midnight ‘resettlement’ of IDPs for Basil-show

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 08:38 GMT]
IDPs from Vadamaraadchi East (a former LTTE controlled region) affected by the war and were staying in the Raamaavil camp near Kodikaamam for more than two years were all of a sudden ordered to vacate the camp immediately by Saturday midnight and were herded by the occupying SL Army into military vehicles, after telling them that they would be ‘resettled’ in their villages in Vadamaraadchi East. They are at present staying in a school building in Vadamaraadchi East, without any food or facilities. They were ordered to go to their abandoned and dilapidated houses within three days and ‘live’ there. The reason for the overnight operation executed in an inhuman way was that the visiting presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa wanted to make a show of enacting ‘resettlement’, news sources in Jaffna said.
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India adopts a genocidal Army to achieve military integration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2011, 05:45 GMT]
As Sri Lanka ‘successfully’ ended its war with the LTTE and India is still fighting ‘insurgents’ in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast states, India will share more experience with the SL military particularly in tackling ‘insurgency’ and will give more training to SL military in building capacity, particularly in adventure sports and English language, media reports from India said on the first ‘Army-to-Army’ talks between the two militaries that took place from Wednesday to Friday. Both sides have agreed to send their instructors to each other’s military academies. India has allotted more seats for training SL military personnel in its military academies. As Sinhala and Tamil politics are hostile, economic and military integration are the ways for political integration of the entire island with India, is the line of thinking in New Delhi, political observers said.
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Eezham Tamil coastal areas intensively encroached by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 05:34 GMT]
Occupying genocidal Sri Lanka opens up the coastal areas of Eezham Tamils for intensive ‘invasion’ of Sinhala fishermen and ‘tourism’ fat cats of the south. The latest target is the eastern coast of Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna districts as well as the islands off Jaffna, news sources from Jaffna said. While thousands of Sinhala fishermen, officially permitted by Colombo, encroach the eastern coast of the northern province to deprive local fishermen, the islands off Jaffna are encroached in the guise of tourism. A large block of prime land at Chaaddi in the Kayts Island, which earlier had the memorials of the LTTE fighters who laid down their lives for the independence of Tamils, is now claimed by John Keells, a Sinhala hotel corporate based in Colombo.
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‘India can do without a highly militarised autocratic neighbour in the south’ - paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 04:39 GMT]
India’s political engagement and generous financial assistance are not bringing about an equitable post-war settlement Sri Lanka, and instead an authoritarian government and a dangerously powerful military have emerged, The Pioneer newspaper warned Wednesday in an editorial titled 'Necessary Intervention' . “[India’s] policies and initiatives have fallen tragically short [but] South Block has been reluctant to … press for more reforms and greater accountability. This must change. … Rajapaksa should be asked to keep his promises,” India’s oldest English language newspaper argued.
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European Conservative bloc calls for maximum autonomy for Tamil areas, justice for war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 03:36 GMT]
A center-right bloc of Conservative parliamentarians in the European Parliament Tuesday expressed support for “a just and peaceful solution for the Tamil community of Sri Lanka” and for “a negotiated political solution which can achieve maximum autonomy and regional devolution to Tamil majority areas within a single Sri Lankan state”, as well as “justice for all alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the conflict.” In a statement, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group and British Conservative MEPs said whilst they support the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, they also support the “peaceful and democratic pursuit of all political goals.”
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SL Army earns by smuggling LTTE iron

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2011, 02:32 GMT]
Five lorry loads of scrap iron, coming from the machinery and shell-manufacturing units of the LTTE now abandoned in Vanni, were confiscated by police in Vavuniyaa when they were being smuggled to the south. The scrap iron trade is carried out with direct involvement of the officers of the occupying SL Army in Vanni and Jaffna who earn from the trade by deals with Muslim traders, informed sources said. Meanwhile, around 50 lorry-load of scrap metal left Jaffna on Thursday with full support of the SL Army.
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Work with the ‘other’ International Community: leftist MEP

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 June 2011, 17:56 GMT]
“Tamil diaspora activists are very capable and able to put pressure on governments around the world. But, alongside this work, I would really like to encourage the Tamil diaspora to focus on the 'other' international community – which isn't represented by these governments or institutions,” said Socialist Party and United Left Alliance MEP for Dublin, Paul Murphy MEP, in an e-mail interview to TamilNet on Thursday. The Irish MEP who played a key role in organising a hearing at the EU Parliament earlier this month also said: “For us in the Committee for a Workers' International, the right to self-determination for the Tamil people is vital.” He urged the Eezham Tamil diaspora to join hands with the progressive Sinhala forces in the South.
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Law becomes an ass by inaction on UN report: Miliband, Kouchner

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2011, 18:30 GMT]
“If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity,” said David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, writing in New York Times Monday and commenting on how Sri Lanka conducted the Vanni War and treated Tamil life as fourth or fifth class in the refugee camps. Both Miliband and Kouchner were foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively during the Vanni War. They said that in April 2009 they tried to stop the war. Now, responding to the UN panel report on war crimes in the island and citing the need of action, both the former foreign ministers said “We therefore call on our governments to set a deadline, soon, for satisfactory response from the Sri Lankan government, and if it is not forthcoming to initiate the international arrangements recommended by the report.
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US-UK responsible for ‘killing field’ war on Eezham Tamils: papers

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 13:52 GMT]
“The war on terror served as a justification for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries which ten years latter are still shattered and fractured, with a rather bleak future. It seems that it has, under the eyes of the International community, also been used as a cover up for a conflict that was nothing more than a racist war,” says Anissa Haddadi writing on Sri Lanka in International Business Times, Friday, asking the question, “Is the US war on terror responsible for Sri Lanka Killing Fields?”
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Buddhist Stupa, Sinhala colony in the making in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2011, 12:27 GMT]
Following a Buddhist stupa complex and Sinhala colony planned in 3000 acres of land in Trincomalee city, depriving Eezham Tamils the territoriality of their country, a similar venture in Mullaiththeevu town is being undertaken by the military governor of genocidal Sri Lanka in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. The stupa complex is planned in a locality where the LTTE earlier had its memorials for combatants laid down their life in fighting for the liberation of Eezham Tamils. Apart from allotting a huge sum from the funds of Colombo’s administration for the north, The SL governor is intimidating NGOs and civil society institutions functioning in the Tamil country to ‘donate’ unspecified amounts of money in ‘unaccounted ways’ for this project of structural genocide schemed by Colombo.
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SL Army brutally attacks public meeting of politicians, journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 16:34 GMT]
In what is seen as retaliation for Channel 4 broadcast Tuesday, the genocidal SL Army occupying Jaffna brutally attacked TNA parliamentarians, journalists and public in Jaffna on Thursday, causing injuries to an unspecified number of people, according to initial reports. The blatant attack by SL Army in uniform took place when the TNA politicians held a meeting at A’laveddi in Jaffna, inaugurating their political campaign for the forthcoming civic elections. Tension prevailed as SL Army was deployed in the area and the public that came for the meeting sought refuge in the nearby houses. “British diplomats satisfied with Army’s role in Jaffna,” said a website of the occupying Army on Tuesday, after the visit of the Deputy High Commissioner of UK, announcing ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants in detention through the occupying Army.
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Colombo: Channel 4 film ‘fake’, made for LTTE supporters

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2011, 13:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka denounced a hard hitting Channel 4 documentary aired Tuesday on war crimes committed by both sides during the final months of the armed conflict in 2009 as propaganda by Tami Tiger supporters. Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the film was a ‘fake’ and that LTTE supporters had paid Channel 4 to make it. The External Affairs ministry echoed the charge, saying the film came from “a sinister motive driven by a political agenda against Sri Lanka” and had been made “at the behest of certain parties with vested interests”, for an objective that “caters only to the interests of separatist forces living outside Sri Lanka.”
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Gordon Weiss tries to unrelate fire and smoke: Jaffna politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:59 GMT]
“The problem was not that the army of Sri Lanka had decided to regain its sovereign territory and to take on the Tamil Tigers, whose brutality was a matter of record, the problem was the manner in which they carried out the final phase of the war and the sheer number, the sheer proportion, of civilians who were killed during these final assaults,” said Gorden Weiss, former UN spokesperson stationed in Colombo during the war, commenting on a fresh evidence of war crime brought out by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday. By projecting the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in this manner, Gorden Weiss, who was veiling the crimes to the knowledge of the world when they were taking place, now tries to say that fire was not the problem but smoke was the problem, responded an Eezham Tamil politician in Jaffna.
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On burying evidence: The Guardian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 12:43 GMT]
Placing the blame on the International Community and Human Rights Organizations for not preventing the mass murder in Sri Lanka where the Government allegedly killed 40,000 Tamil civilians, and for not documenting the atrocities committed there, The Guardian in an editorial comparing Sri Lanka crimes to the Genocide in Srebrenica, recommends Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother meet the same justice as Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic now face justice in The Hague, and Bashar al-Assad faces UN sanctions for an assault that has killed 1,300 Syrians.
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SLA extorts money from Batticaloa milk producers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 11:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit personnel camped in Tharavai in Batticaloa district are demanding money from Tamil civilians under threat, sources in Batticaloa said. Intelligent unit personnel are alleged to be using an individual known as ‘Maniam’ for ‘collecting’ money from owners of dairy farms, persons employed for milk collection and farmers through intimidation. SLA intelligence personnel also visit houses where Tamils returned from abroad reside in Kiraan, Chiththaa'ndi and Vanthaa'rumoolai, demanding money from them under threat. Victims fear to lodge complaints with the police due to retaliation by the army soldiers.
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UK routeing ex-LTTE ‘reintegration’ through SL Army raises controversy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2011, 22:06 GMT]
Announcing a donation of 5,00,000 pound sterling (90 million SL rupees), and entirely accompanied by the occupying Sri Lanka Army, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, Mark Gooding, visited a detention camp run for ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants by the SL military at the High Security Zone part of Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, on Monday. The British government policy of accepting a genocidal military accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as competent authority for the ‘reintegration’ of the ex-LTTE combatants, and involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of questionable local credibility in the process, raises controversy in Jaffna.
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Koppe: Tamil demand for retributive justice justifiable

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2011, 21:16 GMT]
Victor Koppe, the Amsterdam-based Bohler advocaten attorney, acting on the recent decision by European Court of Justice that he can legally represent the Europe-based political wing of the Liberation Tigers, said in an interview to the Sunday Leader, that his demand for annulment of the inclusion of LTTE in the EU's terrorism list is partly to stop the prosecution of Tamils in The Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other member countries. Legal sources in Amsterdam said that the Court's decision to allow the LTTE to grant power of attorney to Victor Koppe, may also establish the standing of the EU-based political wing of the Liberation Tigers to file other claims in the EU Court of justice, including possibly complaint against EU-members regarding international law violations arising from imposition of the ban during peace process.
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Sitrampalam receives dead-dog threat

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 June 2011, 09:00 GMT]
A dog shot by gun and packed in a bag was put into the well of the house of Professor S.K. Sitrampalam in Thirunelvealy, Jaffna, on Thursday night. The emeritus Professor of Archaeology of the University of Jaffna and Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) stalwart recently gave an interview to a Tamil daily in which he has said that the Mu’l’livaaykkaal war was like Kurukshetra (the war of the Mahabharata epic) and Tamils should never forget it. In another incident recently Rev. Fr. C.G. Jeyakumar, the parish priest of Kayts and former director of Human Development Centre of the Catholic Church was humiliated by a group of thugs who bucketed him with dirt at his church. The identity of the assailants was traced to a private army operated by Sri Lanka Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
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Eezham liberation is geopolitical priority for Tamil Nadu: Thirumurukan

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 June 2011, 00:40 GMT]
If the people of Tamil Nadu are vigilant enough of the nature and aims of the geopolitical forces operate in the region, then they will realise that call for independence of Eezham Tamils should get priority over war crimes investigation and indictment of Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Mr. Thirumurukan Gandhi of the May 17 Movement of Tamil Nadu, while discussing the UN report in Chennai last month. The whole world, except Tamil Nadu, knows that the power to change the paradigm lies in Tamil Nadu, he further said. Thirumurukan’s analysis coming from grassroot thinking in Tamil Nadu was refreshing, while ‘analysis groups’ in Chennai and some international organizations backed by establishments aiming to capitalize the war crimes to their interests truncate the ultimate justice of liberation to the affected, said political observers in the island and in the diaspora.
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