Diaspora Muslim academic reasons out SLMC politics

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2012, 00:28 GMT]
Colombo-born Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz, who is currently teaching in a US university, cautioned this week the SLMC in alliance with Rajapaksa that it “should be able to read political logic of the Rajapaksa regime.” The Tamil-speaking academic, while reasoning out the bargaining politics of the SLMC, and delineating on the areas of lacuna in Tamil–Muslim understanding, further cautioned the SLMC that “Any failure or any deception, would very likely trigger tensions and distrust between Tamils and Moors.” Using the term Moors in his responses to questions put forth by a TamilNet contact in North America, Dr. Imtiyaz commented on the SLMC decision that “ It is easy to win diamonds for elites and politicians in coalition politics, but what is hard is to effectively win rights and security for the masses”.
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Resettlement farce disproves claims of IOM and UN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2012, 00:04 GMT]
No one from the UN or any other international humanitarian body had come to witness the plight of the people who were forcefully relocated from IDP camp to Vattaappazhai in Mullaiththeeu and then dumped at a plot of land cleared after burning jungle at Chooripuram. The people belonging to more than 110 families languish without potable water or any basic facilities. Many of the remaining families have also been dumped at similar sites at Kaiveali and in other pockets of Puthukkuidyiruppu division. TamilNet brings out photos of Kaiveali and Chooripuram and a video clip from Chooripuram. The visuals tell the story, while the UN and IOM, who have not taken any effort to visit the site, pat their own backs and that of Colombo on fulfilling the ‘commitment’ and resettling people back in their ‘homes’ with safety and dignity.
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Muslim academics condemn Rajapaksa politics of SLMC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 14:31 GMT]
“As a member of the Eastern Muslim community, I am ashamed and take this opportunity to condemn the deceitful actions of the SLMC,” says Dr. Mohamed Ismail Zulfika, responding to the politics of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) that has joined the Rajapaksa government in forming the Eastern Provincial Council administration after getting the Muslim votes by campaigning against the government. This is betrayal of trust of the Muslim voters and even if projected as means of ‘bargaining politics’ it will affect the long-term goals of the war-torn society of the North and East, Zulfika who is now in the diaspora further said in a feature received by TamilNet. Meanwhile, Professor M.A. Nuhman and Dr. M.S.M. Jalaldeen, two prominent Muslim academics from the East, serving universities in the island, have also come out with similar views.
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UN complicit in Mu'l'livaaykaal killings, say UN humanitarian workers

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 September 2012, 00:44 GMT]
A report filed by an independent researcher based on eye-witness accounts from twelve United Nations humanitarian workers during the last phases of war ending in May 2009 on the policies implemented by Colombo, leading to starvation, deprivation of medical supplies, indiscriminate bombings of hospitals and schools in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1612 amounting to war-crimes and crimes against humanity, accuses the United Nation's officials' inaction, failure to speak out and willingness to acquiesce with the Rajapakse government's rights violations and state sanctioned killings of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians. Professor Boyle commented that Tamils should push for a UN independent commission similar to that which produced the hardhitting UN Rwanda report, and to avoid Srebrenica type report which was an inside UN job and hence was a coverup.
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Pongku Thamizh event in Geneva urges global Tamils to uphold struggle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 September 2012, 03:18 GMT]
Diaspora Tamils should focus their full efforts in demanding the United Nation to conduct a plebiscite among the Tamil speaking people in the Tamil homeland, told Professor Giuseppe Burgio from the University of Palermo, Italy, at the Pongku Thamizh rally held Saturday in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in Switzerland. More than 3,500 Tamil activists across Europe gathered in Geneva to assert their resolve to uphold the struggle for the independence of the nation of Eezham Tamils. A group of mayors and lawyers from France appeared in the stage vowing their support to Eezham Tamils' Right to Self Determination and international legal efforts that sought to pave the way forward. Norwegian Red party politician Stian Nicolajsen told the gathering that his party would extend full support to Tamils' independence.
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SL military threatens IDP camp inmates to accept ‘alternative resettlement’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 19:33 GMT]
Following Friday’s demonstration at Mullaiththeevu for resettlement of the people of Keappaa-pulavu back in their own village, the SL military on Saturday embarked upon threatening the villagers now in the IDP camp at Cheddiku’lam to immediately vacate it, move temporarily to a school building at Vattaappazhai and accept the SL government offer of another place for resettlement. When the people insisted that they want their village and cultivation lands back, the Sinhala military commander started shouting in his language that either willing or not, all people would be removed from the camp before Monday. Speaking to TamilNet on Saturday, the TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam blamed the International Community for the current plight of Eezham Tamils.
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Economic Times insinuates Tamils to follow Colombo in ditching India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 09:38 GMT]
The editorial of Mumbai-based The Economic Times on Friday insinuates that Tamils will never get justice from India unless they too compete with Colombo in playing the card of China and Pakistan, commented a political analyst in Jaffna. The Economic Times editorial, criticising the opposition to Rajapaksa’s visit as chauvinism wrecking New Delhi’s strategy said: “India has many bones to pick with Sri Lanka, including thwarting Colombo's game of playing Pakistan and China off against India. This calls for a combination of unrelenting pressure on some subjects, such as political rights of the Tamil minority, and generous accommodation on some others.” Responding, the Jaffna analyst told TamilNet that ‘unrelenting’ here implies indefinite hoodwink and ‘generous accommodation’ accommodates annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Tamils in UK salute Vijayaraj, condemn India's welcome of Mahinda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 00:03 GMT]
Saluting the sacrifice of Salem based Tamil Nadu activist Vijayaraj, who had self-immolated protesting Mahinda Rajapaksa's visit to India and who succumbed to his burns on Tuesday, Eezham Tamils in the UK conveyed their solidarity to the protesting Tamils of Tamil Nadu, condemning India's welcome of the genocide-accused SL President. Demonstrating outside the Indian High Commission in London on Friday, the protesters further urged the Indian government to recognize the genocide of the Eezham Tamils.
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SL forces attack, throw dirt at people demanding resettlement in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2012, 11:22 GMT]
When people of Mullaiththeevu for the first time in last three years gathered in hundreds in front of the district secretariat on Friday, to demand resettlement in their village at Keappaa-pulavu in the district, the occupying Sinhala military deployed in large numbers responded with intimidation of taking videos of the demonstrators and by arranging a gang to throw human excretion at them. After throwing dirt the gang escaped by getting into a nearby SL police station. Later, a motorbike gang followed the vehicle in which Mr S. Kajendran was returning from the demonstration to attack it near Mu’l’liyava’lai. Another gang, in the very presence of SL military, attacked the vehicle in which Dr. Wikramabahu Karunaratne and Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam were returning via Paranthan road. A vehicle of media persons was also attacked.
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Protests intensify against Rajapaksa’s presence in India, Congress-BJP condemned

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2012, 09:08 GMT]
Criticizing both the BJP led Madhya Pradesh state government and Congress Party for inviting SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a Buddhist event in Sanchi, MDMK leader Vaiko told reporters “Despite knowing that Rajapaksa is solely responsible for the genocide of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh has invited him and the Centre endorsed his visit,” a PTI report on Thursday said. As Mr. Vaiko and the MDMK cadres attempted to march to Sanchi today, all were arrested and have been temporarily detained at a location nearby, sources told TamilNet. Separately, a correspondent for The Hindu reported today that “It was an ironical scenario in Bhopal as a President accused of genocide arrived here on Thursday to inaugurate a ceremony on world peace.”
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Resettled people report traces of genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 September 2012, 00:46 GMT]
Despite reports of alleged deployment of unscrupulous foreign expertise in erasing the traces of the genocidal onslaught that took place in Mullaiththeevu district in the final days of Vanni war in 2009, there are still remains of hundreds of human skeletons that were burnt to ashes in Aananthapuram and other parts of Puthukkudiyiruppu, civilians who have been allowed to resettle there told TamilNet this week. Their observations confirm earlier information from reliable sources inside the SL military that thousands of non-combatants were taken to the suburbs of Puthukkudiyiruppu and shot and killed en masse with a clear intention to annihilate a large section of the people including children and women.
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Blake greets Sampanthan in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2012, 20:00 GMT]
The visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake Thursday morning met R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at Colombo Hilton Hotel. Mr Blake showed interest in knowing about the tug-o-war between the parties in the forming the next administration of the EPC, the sources close to TNA told TamilNet. Referring to the Action Plan submitted to the UNHCR by the Sri Lankan Government about the implementation of some of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Sampanthan pointed out to Blake that the SL government had diluted those recommendations in its Action Plan
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Socialist Alliance in Perth formes equality campaign for Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 23:16 GMT]
“Just like the apartheid in South Africa was isolated through the tightening grip of trade, cultural and sporting sanctions; just as the freedom struggle was aided by international support-moral, financial and political; so too a new international campaign for equal rights and justice in Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka must be brought into being,” says Samuel Wainwright, one of the leaders of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Australia, who recently organised a solidarity seminar in Perth. A new network, named ‘WA Network for Human Rights in Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka’ has come into being following the seminar held on 01 September in Fremantle, he said.
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IOM blamed for double standards

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 21:04 GMT]
A section of the officials of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), working with the Sri Lankan State, have been harassing former LTTE members to return the identity cards the organisation had earlier provided to them certifying their release. The IOM, which undertook ‘pre-release profiling’ of more than 10,000 ex-Tiger members, had received foreign aid from Japan, Norway, USA, The Netherlands and the UK for the programme named ‘Information, Counselling, and Referral Services’ (ICRS). After completing the project, the inter-governmental organisation, with its global agenda of restricting ‘illegal immigration’, has now sought to prevent the possibility of ex-Tiger members using the identity card to document their background when they seek political asylum outside the island, informed sources told TamilNet.
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Blake to visit Colombo to steer LLRC course of politics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 00:06 GMT]
One of the main articulators of the system that architected the genocidal war in the country of Eezham Tamils and the US Asst. Secretary of State, Robert O. Blake Jr., will be visiting Colombo between September 12 and 14. According to a US State Department press release, he will be meeting Colombo’s External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris and senior officials to discuss a wide range of issues, including progress in implementing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Action Plan. For 25 years New Delhi was harping on the 13th Amendment. Now the USA comes out with the LLRC implementation, which in the thrust of it, is worse than the 13th Amendment in the annihilation of the nation and territoriality of Eezham Tamils, commented Tamil political activists in the island, adding condemnation at the gullibility of the hijacked political dealers in the diaspora.
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‘Sexist cartoons on Tamil Nadu CM reflect Sinhala patriarchal attitude to Tamil women’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 00:03 GMT]
In the garb of criticizing protests in Tamil Nadu against visiting Sri Lankan pilgrims, Lakbima, a mainstream Sinhala daily published two cartoons on Sunday portraying the Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa in a derogatory manner. The libellous cartoons, which targeted Ms. Jayalalitha on the basis of her status as a woman political leader, also targeted the late MGR, former Tamil Nadu CM and popular Tamil cinema icon, and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The sexist nature of these cartoons on a political leader of Tamil Nadu published in a major Sinhala newspaper reflect the patriarchal attitude of the Sinhala state machinery towards Tamil women in general,” commented a feminist working with war survivors in Vanni adding that this attitude manifested itself as genocide-intended sexual violence against Eezham Tamil women by the occupying Sinhala forces in the Tamil homeland.
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Eezham Tamil elected to leading committee of SP party in Switzerland

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 September 2012, 14:22 GMT]
Lathan Suntharalingam, an Eezham Tamil and a legislative member of Lucerne canton in Switzerland, has been elected to the national level 9-member Leading Committee of the Social Democratic Party (SP) on Sunday. Dissler Sebastian, the general secretary of the SP party in the Canton of Lucerne, told TamilNet that the election of Lathan Suntharalingam to a crucial role in their party not only demonstrated the achievement of an active politician, but also how their party has recognized the role of the immigrant population.
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Australia deals legal setback to US on extradition cases

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2012, 10:23 GMT]
In a legal blow to U.S. anti-terrorism laws used in extraditing Tamils caught in various sting operations of the U.S. law enforcement authorities, the 109-page opinion issued by the Federal Court of Australia's Judge J. North agreed with the Eezham Tamil defendant, Thulasitharan Santhirarajah, that in approving the extradition request, the Australian Attorney General (AG) fell into jurisdictional error on six different legal issues, the most precedent setting among them being that the offences charged by the U.S. were "political offenses," and therefore, that under section 22(3)(a) of the Extradition Act 1988, the Court was empowered to grant relief by prohibiting the "AG acting on her determination to surrender the defendant to the US."
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Arnestad’s ‘Silenced Voices’ documentary gains momentum

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 September 2012, 14:27 GMT]
Even as the GoSL tightens its vice through different means to gag democratic voices in the island from expressing the truth about the genocide of the Eezham Tamils, award-winning Norwegian documentary filmmaker Beate Arnestad’s ‘Silenced Voices - Tales of Sri Lankan Journalists in Exile’ has been steadily gaining momentum at acclaimed film festivals and screenings across the world, exposing the truth about media repression by the Sri Lankan state. After a grand pre-première in Oslo in February 2012, a world premiere in Hague at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in March, screenings at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York in June, Arnestad’s documentary received a salubrious welcome at public screenings in Australia this week.
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SLN arrests asylum seekers, Greens Senator notes systematic abuse of Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2012, 19:36 GMT]
As the Sri Lanka Navy arrested 54 Australia bound asylum seekers fleeing from the island on a boat on Thursday and hauled them off to the CID for interrogations, Australia’s Greens Party Senator Lee Rhiannon condemned the Australian Coalition’s political position to deport refugees from the island before they set foot on Australian soil as being “immoral, discriminatory, cruel”, referring to the routine violations of the Tamils’ basic rights in the island. "It is not surprising that people are looking to escape from Sri Lanka,” she told TamilNet. "Reports of the systematic abuse of Tamil women political prisoners and prisoners-of-war by the Sri Lankan armed forces are extremely disturbing,” she further said, alluding to TamilNet’s feature on genocide-intended sexual violence perpetrated by the Sri Lankan military and police on ex-LTTE female cadres.
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