UN human rights system in Geneva lacks courage to make “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 February 2020, 20:04 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 30/1 adopted in 2015 was fundamentally flawed as it was based on the “Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Investigation on Sri Lanka” (OISL). The OISL was not mandated to investigate decades-long Tamil genocide as it was conceived as an “internationalised” extension of the Rajapaksa regime’s “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC), a blueprint for post-2009 genocide. Now, the LLRC-inventors are back, and they are at loggerheads with the inventors of the International-LLRC (OISL). The acid test for the High Commissioner, her office, the OHCHR and the 47-member UNHRC is the notion of SL “co-sponsorship”. If the human rights regime in Geneva wants to save its credibility, it has to make the human rights situation in “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item to the council. But, it lacks such courage.
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SL departure from 30/1 could step up external intervention as blessing in disguise: Mavai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 February 2020, 23:22 GMT]
If the SL government opts to withdraw from its commitments to the co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution 30/1, such a move will end up escalating the external interference in the island, said Tamil parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah during his address to the SL Parliament on Thursday. The international intervention was needed to resolve the national question, which is being ignored by the Sinhala politicians, both ruling and the opposition, even after experiencing high financial burden during the three decades of war, he said. While registering ITAK's strong objections to SL Government's reported discourse towards the closure of co-sponsored commitments to the Geneva resolution, the ITAK Leader said the external interference would continue to prevail until the root cause, the ethnic conflict, is resolved.
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Tamils need to add Macron’s France to geopolitical watchlist on genocide-abetting regional powers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 February 2020, 22:18 GMT]
The Republic of France, one of the five nuclear-weapon states distinguished by the non-proliferation treaty, is asserting itself as a sovereign regional power in the Indo-Pacific with a dedicated strategy. With a robust military presence and 93% of its exclusive economic zone located in the Indo-Pacific, France has started to compete and cooperate with the US. A comparatively weak global power, vying for regional influence, complicates the already complex matrix in the region, especially when it seeks to woo rogue, autocratic and genocidal state actors. The stateless nations and people facing suppression from the occupying state actors are already at the receiving end due to lopsided geopolitics curtailing their collective rights and international justice. Wrong symptoms were showing up in the recent message coming from French President Emmanuel Macron to SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
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Pompeo blacklists pro-China Shavendra giving Gotabaya second chance to toe US line

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 February 2020, 19:44 GMT]
It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who led the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009, giving instructions to the then Major General Shavendra Silva to bomb the hospitals as well as to carry out the brutal white-flag killings. Gotabaya was a US citizen and SL Defence Secretary at that time. Instead of holding the greatest war criminal and genocidaire, liable under US Congress’s War Crimes Act, accountable for the crimes, the Trump administration has opted for a different approach with strategic interests in mind. The US State Department is enticing him offering carrots while pointing its stick selectively against his pro-China Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva. On Friday, US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo designated Silva under Section 7031(c) of US Department of States Appropriations Act, passing a severe message to Gotabaya not to delay toeing the US line.
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Israel’s balancing act with China ‘inspires’ Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 February 2020, 22:00 GMT]
Dr Ron Malka, the ambassador of Israel to India and Sri Lanka, paid a courtesy call on SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday morning. Israel is ready to strengthen bilateral relationships with Colombo, reported SL State-owned newspaper Daily News. Mr Rajapaksa was seeking Israeli assistance to modernize agriculture, the paper said. However, there is more to the re-emerging nexus between Tel Aviv and Colombo. In January, a “think-tanker” of the SL Ministry of Defence was comparing Israel permitting China to operate its Haifa port with SL State’s leasing of Hambantota port to China. In the meantime, China and Israel, after having secret talks for several years, are set to conclude a trade pact in 2020 despite repeated warnings from US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the Foreign Policy reported earlier this month.
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Mike Pompeo slammed, Mahinda Rajapaksa praised over China comments

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 February 2020, 16:59 GMT]
China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang was commending SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa for ‘positive’ remarks on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) during his recent visit to India. Mr Shuang, who is also the deputy director of China’s Foreign Ministry Information Department, was praising Mr Rajapaksa, although the latter had prioritised India as a “relation” over China, which he described a “friend” during his recent trip to India. Mr Shuang, in his daily briefing online, was responding to questions from journalists on matters ranging from the epidemic caused by novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan to Indo-Pacific geopolitics. China was firmly opposed to US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's recent speech, which “fraught with Cold-War mentality and political prejudice,” the Chinese spokesman said.
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Russian commander to inspect SLN marines groomed by US Indo-Pacific Command

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 February 2020, 23:42 GMT]
Russia’s Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces and General of the Army Oleg Salyukov who is visiting the island with a military delegation from his country will be inspecting the SL Marine Academy of genocidal Sri Lanka at Champoor in Trincomalee on Thursday. The Russian army delegation is discussing “bilateral cooperation, training of Sri Lanka military personnel in higher education institutions of the Russian Land forces, participation of Sri Lankan teams in the Army international games-2020, and conduction of joint exercises,” according to Russian state-run news agency, TASS.
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February 04 Black Day marks 72 years of genocide, prolonged colonial rule

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 February 2020, 22:26 GMT]
The nation of Eezham Tamils is subjected to protracted genocide with a systematic structural genocide for 72 years since February 04, 1948, the day of so-called ‘Independence’ from the British colonial rule. But, for the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island, it is a Black Day marking prolonged colonial rule and continued subjugation. It is also a day to remember international injustice that has rendered Eezham Tamils non-self governing, said President P. Ujanthan and Secretary R. Kopishanth of the Arts Students’ Union of the University of Jaffna in a statement issued on Monday.
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US-Israeli plan goes against UN resolutions, negates sovereignty of State of Palestine

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 February 2020, 22:53 GMT]
“A realistic solution would give the Palestinians all the power to govern themselves but not the powers to threaten Israel,” states the so-called Trump peace plan, which was named “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People”. The US-Israeli plan, hatched without Palestinian participation negates Palestinian sovereignty. It proposes the State of Israel to “retain the right to engage in necessary security measures to ensure that the State of Palestine remains demilitarized and non-threatening to the State of Israel”. Furthermore, allowing Israel to annex the territories of occupied Palestine, the plan severely restricts the borders of the State of Palestine to be mostly encapsulated by the State of Israel and refuses East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.
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Palestine rejects Trump’s plan: Jerusalem and rights of Palestinians not for sale

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 January 2020, 23:26 GMT]
US President Donald Trump proposed a plan to resolve the Israel-Palestine dispute, claiming his project as the “Deal of the Century,” while announcing it at the White House with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his side on Tuesday. Mr Netanyahu hailed Mr Trump’s plan as a “great plan for Israel” and as “a great plan for peace.” For Palestinians, who were not involved in the negotiations at all, the proposed plan was nothing else than a major land-grabbing scheme as it allowed Israel to annex the territories under its control and to subject their statehood to conditions. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, called the plan the “Slap of the Century.”
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Gotabaya's “non-alignment” talk temporary, tactically aimed at consolidating genocidal state

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 January 2020, 22:12 GMT]
The Sino-Russian global alliance wants New Delhi to subscribe to the Nehruvian tradition of non-alignment of the Atlanticist Cold War period, which in effect meant alignment with the USSR in the past. However, if New Delhi were to continue the non-alignment policy in the modern-day, especially after the start of the Indo-Pacific Cold War, the choice would block any “in-depth techno-security partnership” with the US. Therefore, pursuing “non-alignment” in practice means choosing Sino-Russian side, wrote M.D. Nalapat, the editor of The Sunday Guardian in a piece titled “Time to choose sides in Indo-Pacific Cold War” on Saturday. Similarly, Colombo would also be under pressure to make the choices as determined by the New Delhi (by extension the US) establishment, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna.
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Colombo to increase trade ties with Iran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 January 2020, 22:25 GMT]
Iran's Ambassador to Colombo, Hashem Ashjazadeh, has told the Governor-General of Iran’s East Azarbaijan Province that the present government in the island is being run by “popular government,” which was seeking “more interaction with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” according to a report by IRNA, the official news agency of Iran on Wednesday.
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US President seeks friendship with Pakistan PM at Davos

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 January 2020, 22:31 GMT]
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan met US President Donald Trump at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual conference at Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. Mr Khan was renewing his country’s friendship with the US and assuring Islamabad’s assistance to the US on peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan and was seeking US support to resolve the Kashmir crisis with India. Mr Trump said they were “working together on some borders,” including the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. “[I]f we can help, we certainly will be helping. And we’ve been watching that and following it very, very closely,” Trump said. India has earlier turned down the US offer to negotiate between Pakistan and India on the crisis in Kashmir.
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IC accountable for Gotabaya reneging on justice commitments: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2020, 22:24 GMT]
Several countries in the International Community (IC) supported the Sri Lankan State that waged a genocidal war against the Tamils. The Tamil national liberation struggle and its taproot [the LTTE] were wiped out through a genocidal war by the SL State with the backing of other states in the IC. It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who commanded the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009. Now, what are these countries going to do to enforce international justice, especially after Mr Rajapaksa pronouncing all the missing as dead, asked Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian S Shritharan at the SL Parliament on Tuesday. Today, we are voicing for justice as a nation subjected to genocide. We are not merely speaking from a suppressed situation or a coated environment of so-called development, Mr Shritharan said adding that Tamils were no longer begging for justice, but demanding international justice.
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Gotabaya finds himself at centre of bipolar geopolitics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 January 2020, 23:16 GMT]
"Being geographically super positioned in a strategic location, #LKA will always face many political challenges. However, I strongly believe that we need to be economically strong, in order to gain the political independence needed," SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa tweeted a day after his meeting with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The Indian NSA called on him on Saturday after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister earlier this week.
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Maldives openly backs US Indo-Pacific Strategy

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 January 2020, 21:58 GMT]
The Maldives would be backing the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” (IPS), the maritime naval strategy of the USA, the Foreign Minister of the Maldives Abdulla Shahid has told the Hong-Kong based paper South China Morning Post on Thursday. The Maldivian FM described India as a “special” friend and said his country shared "same needs, same security concerns" with India regarding China's geopolitical ambitions in the Indian Ocean Region. He was talking to the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialougue, the conference on geopolitics organised by the Indian External Affairs Ministry and Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
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Gotabaya praises Chinese President, but avoids reciprocating “strategic partnership”

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 January 2020, 23:06 GMT]
“Sri Lanka may have less landmass, but will soon be strong economically. China will be with Sri Lanka in its striving to reach this goal,” said the visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who met SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday. “As Sri Lanka’s strategic partner China will continue to standby Sri Lanka’s interests. China stands for the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence. We will not allow any outside influences to interfere with matters that are essentially internal concerns of Sri Lanka”, the Chinese FM said. China was expecting Colombo to reciprocate ‘strategic partner’ status and benefit from its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in a “win-win” manner. However, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was responding to the call in a sophisticated manner.
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Putting Russian abetment of Tamil genocide in proper context

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 January 2020, 23:55 GMT]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given an email-interview to Colombo-based Daily News before his visit to the island on Monday. The long-serving Russian FM was stressing a set of principles such as “indivisible security” and “non-interference in the internal affairs” of the states in the Indian Ocean. Mr Lavrov also mentioned “peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use of force or the threat of force”. As far as the Eezham Tamils are concerned, they will never forget the use of lethal weapons deployed by genocidal Sri Lanka’s military. Much of those were supplied by Russia, particularly the OFAB-500 cluster bombs deployed by the SL Air Force and the thermobaric infantry weapons such as RPO-A Shmels used by the SL Army against Eezham Tamils.
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Visits by Chinese, Russian foreign ministers to coincide with the stopover of US top diplomat

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 January 2020, 23:04 GMT]
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to arrive in Colombo on Monday, one day ahead of the already-announced visit by Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian FM is scheduled to visit Colombo on his way to attend a conference on geopolitics organised by the Indian External Affairs Ministry and Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. In the meantime, Alice Wells, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, scheduled to attend the Indian conference, is also arriving in Colombo on Monday. The Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministers, as well as the US Deputy State Secretary, will be meeting Gotabaya Rajapaksa, media reports in Colombo said.
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Sampanthan indirectly implicates India, US, EU, UK, Japan, Norway for Tamil predicament post-2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 January 2020, 23:10 GMT]
Despite all the valid criticisms against the revisionist TNA hierarchy, which has misled the occupied nation of Eezham Tamils by deviating from the fundamentals of the democratically mandated aspiration after 2009, one should appreciate TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan for strait-forwardly reiterating, especially in recent times, the names of the regional and international formations ultimately responsible to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The countries and the alliances mentioned by Mr Sampanthan include India, USA, Japan, Norway and the European Union with the UK. Sampanthan refers to the block of countries excluding India as the “international community”, and these countries were formally represented by identifiable individuals who served the formation of Tokyo Co-Chair Donors. A troika of diplomats was representing India at the height of the war.
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