Tamil internment, a manifestation of Sinhala state racism - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 October 2009, 16:04 GMT]
"Despite the manifest outrage of international human rights groups like HRW and Amnesty International, relief agencies and several Western states, Sri Lanka defiantly continues to brutalize the [Tamil] detainees [locking them up in barbed wire militarized camps]. Whilst various international actors attempt to goad, cajole and compel Sri Lanka to let the civilians go, few have examined the reasons for their incarceration. As far as the Tamils are concerned, it is obvious: this is the latest manifestation of the Sinhala state racism," the British paper Tamil Guardian said in the latest weekend edition.
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US should help launch international investigations into Sri Lanka killings - HRW

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 23:10 GMT]
Pointing out that "Sri Lanka's nervousness about its international standing has not yet triggered any significant improvement on human rights matters, and there is no indication that the government is genuinely rethinking its policies," Dr Anna Neistat, Human Rights Watch (HRW), in an article written for a Washington-based think tank, said that Washington while "pushing publicly and privately for the release of the displaced," should insist on accountability for the crimes by using its "influence at the UN to help launch an international independent investigation into violations of humanitarian law."
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Colombo set to lose GSP plus

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 18:20 GMT]
The European Union has found Sri Lanka in breach of International Human Rights laws, implying that Colombo does not fulfil the basic human rights conditions of GSP plus, according to an exclusive update by Reuters Friday night. It is likely that Sri Lanka would lose concessions worth over $100 million for its top exports to Europe, the report said citing EU sources. The findings of the investigations by the EU are expected to be published Monday.
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Colombo ducking international investigations on civilian killings - UN Rights Chief

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 04:30 GMT]
United Nations Human Rights Chief, Navi Pillay, speaking at a press conference in Brussels Wednesday criticized the Sri Lanka Government for not responding “to our many requests for an international investigation of what we say is widespread acts of killing of civilians," and that she had pointed out that "they [Sri Lanka Government] have in the past attempted to hold national investigations of very serious acts of killings that occurred of NGO and humanitarian workers and these investigations were dropped," the Washington D.C-based Examiner reported.
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States financing Tamil internment, UN, complicit in Crimes against Humanity - Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 02:36 GMT]
United Nations Organization and other Western States financing the nazi-style concentration camps, where nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians are held against their wishes under Sri Lanka military supervision, are complicit in Sri Lanka's genocide against Tamils, and also complicit in these crimes against humanity, said Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet Thursday.
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Miliband cosmetically presents catalogue of failures

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 01:18 GMT]
British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband on Tuesday presented a written statement to the House of Commons on the 'developments' in the island of Sri Lanka since his last visit in April in response to his concerns on minimising humanitarian impact, strengthening of the rule of law to address human rights and on setting out a political process to address the grievances of 'minorities'. Tamil circles find nothing worthy has been achieved in the last six months but the cosmetic presentation of the catalogue of failures by Mr. Miliband raises concern in them whether the British government is up for appeasement with the aggressive elements in the island.
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'Time for South India to take care of its own geopolitics'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 00:26 GMT]
The historic duty of Tamil Nadu today is to cast with far sight its diplomatic weight internationally, convincing New Delhi and the international community to come out with fundamental solutions recognizing the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. "Saying foreign affairs is an exclusive domain of the Centre is only an excuse in contemporary world, especially when a federal government fails in it seriously affecting the strategic interests of a state. A Tamil Nadu delegation visiting Sri Lanka is perhaps for the first time an external affairs exercise of a state in India, but it has cut a negative image with the people to whom it was meant for, raising questions on the bona fides of the whole exercise," the commentator further says.
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Tamil civilian arrested in Chilaapam

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 October 2009, 16:47 GMT]
A team of the State Intelligence Service Sunday arrested a Tamil civilian, a resident of Chilaapam in the northwestern province. Chilaapam police said he was taken into custody on information that he had been assigned by Liberation Tigers to gather information around the Colombo port area.
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Fonseka's legal perils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 October 2009, 04:50 GMT]
As Major General Sarath Fonseka's military and political stars in Sri Lanka show signs of decline, the General may have to soon decide whether to stay in Sri Lanka and suffer ignominy under the Rajapakse brothers, or to use the lottery-won US Green Card, and seek safety with his children in the US. But safety in US may spell judicial danger. Without the cover of sovereign immunity, which had protected Fonseka's alleged war-crimes until now, the General will be exposed to answer charges, in the US Federal Courts, against his conduct of war in Sri Lanka's north. Both criminal and civil actions against Maj.Gen. Fonseka are likely in the US, and Colombo's resources, including legal help from US lobby-firms under Sri Lanka's payroll, will unlikely be available to him, legal sources in Washington said.
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Indian strategic analyst writes on 'lost leverage'

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 October 2009, 11:58 GMT]
“Today, India stands more marginalized than ever in Sri Lanka. Its natural constituency—the Tamils—feels not only betrayed, but also looks at India as a colluder in the bloodbath. India already had alienated the Sinhalese majority in the 1980s,” writes Professor Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in a forthright article appeared in Forbes, Friday. Welcoming his admissions and responding to him, Tamil circles said that who ever now addresses the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, holds the key to the region of South India-Sri Lanka- Maldives, but India is yet to learn the lesson and may continue forfeiting leverage even with its own people, by blunting the national question.
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Mass graves fear prevents Colombo from seeking demining help - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 11:35 GMT]
"The Sri Lanka government fears that, if the international community gets involved in the de-mining, they may stumble on to mass graves of Tamil victims killed during the last stages of fighting between the Sri Lanka military and the Tamil Tigers," said Parliamentary Group Leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R. Sampathan, on Thursday accusing the Sri Lankan government of refusing to accept foreign assistance towards the de-mining parliamentary sources in Colombo said.
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Tamils facing “cultural annihaliation” by SL Government: Australian Politician

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 05:10 GMT]
“It may be argued that the Tamil people have a legitimate right to self-determination but what is essential now is that we must see an end to the oppressive and discriminatory policies of the victorious Sri Lankan Government” urged Greens MLC Ian Cohen in an address to the Australian Parliament on September 24th. Highlighting the “potential humanitarian catastrophe” faced by almost 300,000 refugees who “despite their desire and capacity to return home they are being held prisoner”, Cohen described the Governments treatment of Tamils as “a litany of injustice, cultural annihilation and human rights atrocities”. Meanwhile, a Tamil NGO official in Vavuniyaa, while welcoming the interest of Australian politicians, said they should also come forward to "first address the question of double standards, employed by their government, between issues such as East Timor and Eezham.”
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Colombo has plans to colonize North with Buddhist Sinhalese – Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 October 2009, 17:06 GMT]
The government of Sri Lanka is actively engaged in colonizing Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna district with Sinhalese Buddhists in order to crush the demand for Eelam in the traditional homelands of the Tamils in the North, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian, said in a press meet held Monday in his Jaffna office. He further accused the government for not accepting help from International Community in de-mining Vanni as it does not want the persons from foreign countries to see the mass graves of civilians killed by its armed forces in the Vanni during the war. The MP also said that though the government says that it had resettled 40,000 IDPs from Vavuniyaa internment camps, 95% of them have been again detained in new internment camps in their respective home districts under the direct control of Sri Lankan forces.
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Boat people, no security risk - Australian Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 October 2009, 12:25 GMT]
Australian Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor has "rejected claims some Sri Lankan boat people detained on Christmas Island are former Tamil Tigers who could pose a security risk," Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) reported Tuesday. The Minister was responding to Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Australia, Senaka Walgampaya's allegations that "former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels are among recent illegal boat arrivals," the newspaper said.
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Sri Lanka's internment camps for Tamils: experience of an inmate

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 09:37 GMT]
South Asia has never witnessed such a large scale, state-organized crime as one committed on Eezham Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka. Perhaps the world has never witnessed hitherto that such a crime of internment camps for civilians could be initiated collectively by all the powers of the world and the UN, and could be left like this without anyone being able to do anything about it. A civilian woman who was a captive in the Zone 3 of the internment camp of Menik Farm for four months, and managed to come out by ‘other means’ a month ago, writes on her experience in the camp – an indelible shame for the so-called civilised world.
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Civilian killed during curfew hours in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 09:17 GMT]
Unidentified men entered the house of a civilian Friday night during Sri Lanka Army (SLA) imposed curfew hours in Raamaavil in Kodikaamam and killed him by cutting his throat, Kodikaamam police who recovered the victim’s body and handed it over to Jaffna Teaching Hospital said. The killing took place close to the SLA detention centre in Raamaavil where IDPs are held.
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Tissainayagam's wife accepts Mackler award

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 07:19 GMT]
Ronnate Tissainayagam, wife of Sri Lanka jailed journalist, Jayaprakash Tissainayagam, accepted the Peter Mackler Award for courageous and ethical journalism, named for a 30-year veteran of Agence France-Presse who died last year, at a ceremony at the National Press Club Friday, AFP reported. Tissainayagam was honored by the US branch of Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders and Global Media Forum, a company founded by Mackler to train journalists and non-profit organizations to use the media as a tool for social change, AFP report added.
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Clinton's rape bombshell

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 00:17 GMT]
US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, chairing the United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday, on the last day of US's turn of the rotating presidency of the 15-member body in September, on violence against women in warfare, dropped a bombshell on Sri Lanka by including Sri Lanka in the company of Congo, Sudan, and Mayanmar, saying Sri Lanka has used rape as a weapon of war [against Tamils], thereby adding another incriminating legal element to mounting woes of the Sri Lanka Government from allegations of war-crimes for slaughtering more than 20,000 Tamil civilians, and incarcerating more than 300,000 Tamils with little freedom of movement in military supervised internment camps.
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Torrential rain kills 5 in Galle

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 13:07 GMT]
Five civilians, three from the same family, were killed and two others wounded when a tree collapsed on their house in Galwadugoda in Galle Friday afternoon. The torrential rains and gusty winds are experienced in many parts of the island, especially in the Western, Southern and Central Hills.
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British MP urges boycott of Sri Lanka goods

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 12:14 GMT]
Siobhain McDonagh MP, Mictham & Morden, UK, during the Labor Party conference held Thursday appealed to the delegates, and to the millions of live TV viewers, to shoulder their own commitment on the Sri Lanka issue, urging that a boycott of goods and avoiding holidays in the unsavory state would ensure their money would not “prop up that government.” During the event, the sitting government party passed a resolution condemning the treatment of Tamils in the island by that government.
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