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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US-India ‘think-tankers’ advise New Delhi to put Tamil concerns on the backburner

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 January 2020, 21:34 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra has been successful in culminating a two-year-long “silent background work” to rebuild relations with Rajapaksa siblings, observes Constantino Xavier, a research fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi. In an interview to Rediff, the Portuguese academic, who specialises foreign policy and defence in South Asia says, however, India was risking that Mr Gotabaya could repeat the game Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Olie played with India during the last three years. Mr Oli “gave in to all of Indian protocol demands and political optics, visited Delhi first, proclaimed India first, then waited for India to forget about him, and went on to do more business with China,” the US-India think-tanker told Rediff.com on Thursday.
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Gotabaya seeks US investment in big development of IT, high-tech

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 January 2020, 22:51 GMT]
Alice G Wells, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, who met SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday delivered a letter from US President Donald Trump to Mr Rajapaksa. At the meeting, Mr Rajapaksa was hinting on a possible renegotiation of the terms of the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact. He told the visiting diplomat that the MCC agreement would be evaluated considering the views of the public. The Daily Mirror reported that Gotabaya “invited the US to invest in technology-based industries since Sri Lanka is also ready to develop its IT-based sectors.” The Daily News in its report said that Sri Lanka was planning to develop the “IT and other technology-related industries in a big way” with US support.
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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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Gotabaya deploys PTA against protesting families of missing persons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 January 2020, 22:53 GMT]
The coordinator of the continuous protest in Vavuniyaa Jeyavanitha Kasippillai is again facing harassment from the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of the SL Police which is compelling her to appear for an investigation under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The cabinet of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has recently refused to withdraw the PTA. The latest harassment comes as the attempts by Douglas Devananda, an ex-paramilitary collaborator of Rajapaksa regime, miserably failed to end the continuous protests in the North and East. The families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military have spent more than 1,055 days in continuous protests in the North and East.
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Nepal’s balancing act between powers carefully watched in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 January 2020, 23:18 GMT]
The ruling Communist Party in Nepal is divided in opinion as the country’s parliament is required to ratify the mega infrastructure project the previous government had negotiated with US foreign aid agency, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in 2017. The critics of the MCC project argue that Nepal would be coerced into the military US Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) by embracing the project. Why does the bilateral agreement have a binding clause of Indian approval, they ask. India is a major strategic partner to the US and one of the four military powers constituting the emerging Quad alliance led by the USA in the Indo-Pacific. The proponents argue that the US Congress-initiated MCC, which came into being long before the Pentagon’s IPS outlook must be seen as an economic programme without any military dimension attached to it. The Nepalese choices will have an impact on Colombo.
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Gotabaya backtracks on Colombo’s assurances to New Delhi: Sumanthiran

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 January 2020, 23:31 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran has said that SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was regressing from the assurances made by his predecessors, including his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, to New Delhi on three occasions about the full implementation of the 13th Amendment. When India intervened in 1987, Colombo turned towards the “right direction” and started to “acknowledge the diversity of its peoples,” by amending the Constitution, the TNA parliamentarian said. The equal status between the peoples in the island is not dependent on their respective numerical strength. “This principle must be acknowledged if our democracy is to survive and indeed flourish, and not regress into naked majoritarianism. Regretfully, in his address to Parliament on 3rd January 2020 the President has articulated such a regressive position,” he said.
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Maha Sangha wants anti-LTTE forces mobilised to conquer economic war, international challenges

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 January 2020, 22:22 GMT]
The Maha Sangha of the Sinhala Buddhist Theravada Establishment in the island staged an all-night Pirith Chanting Ceremony at SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence in Colombo on Saturday. While delivering a special sermon, Professor Ven Medagoda Abayatissa Thero “pointed out that the alliance that came together to defeat the LTTE should join again to conquer the economic war and international challenges,” a news release issued by the SL Presidential Secretariat revealed on Sunday. The Maha Sangha was invoking “blessings on the President, war heroes, the citizens and the country,” the news release further stated.
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Gotabaya's China visit postponed as Russian FM's visit to Colombo coincides with schedule

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 January 2020, 23:46 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s scheduled visit to China on 14 and 15 January 2020 has been postponed, media reports in Colombo said on Friday. Mr Rajapaksa visited New Delhi, a major strategic partner of the USA within two-weeks since getting elected as the SL president in November 2019. In the meantime, Chinese President Xi Jinping dispatched a special envoy in December 2019 to invite Mr Rajapaksa to China. The trip, scheduled to take place in January, has now been postponed due to the coinciding visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is expected in Colombo on 14 January. However, media reports in Colombo were trying to give the impression that the re-scheduling was taking place at Beijing’s request.
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Tamil Political Prisoner passes away after 26 years of SL imprisonment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2020, 23:07 GMT]
A 45-year-old Tamil Political Prisoner (TPP) from Batticaloa, Mahendran Sellappillai, passed away after suffering from a life-threatening illness (cancer) in the custody of genocidal Sri Lanka on Thursday. He was 19-year-old when the occupying Sinhala military detained him under the notorious so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) during a cordon-and-search operation in Batticaloa on 27 September 1993, just three days after he had lived together with his newly married wife. The SL Army and its much-feared paramilitary operatives tortured Mahendran, who was illiterate. His family was poverty-stricken, and its livelihood was dependent on toddy-tapping. His life ended after twenty-six years, three-months and six days of custody in the various prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka. His story exposes not only the tragic fate of the TPPs but also the mindset of the SL regimes in Colombo.
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Modi wants “close and extensive” cooperation with Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 January 2020, 23:40 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was dialling to seven leaders of five neighbouring countries, except Pakistan, to greet the rulers chose to greet both Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa on the New Year Day. A statement issued by the office of Indian Prime Minister stated that Mr Modi wanted to expand “close and extensive cooperation” with Colombo. Rajapaksa siblings reciprocated his wishes and expressed their keen desire to enhance relations further, the statement said.
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India's CAA deepens “geopolitical schisms” in South Asia, say 14 regional activists

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2019, 20:05 GMT]
Fourteen academics, rights activists and writers from South Asia, including the renowned Sinhala academic Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, have issued a joint statement condemning the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the Hindu nationalist BJP in India. They were identifying themselves as “South Asian citizens” in issuing the statement. The CAA has the potential of “deepening geopolitical schisms” among the countries of South Asia, which should be striving for peace and mutual understanding, the statement issued by the fourteen South Asians said.
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Russian FM to visit Colombo before proceeding to New Delhi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2019, 23:28 GMT]
After conducting joint naval training with Iran and China in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman in December 2019, Russia is dispatching its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Colombo on 14 January 2020. He will proceed to New Delhi on the following day. In the meantime, China, Russia and Iran are conducting a four-day naval drill between Friday and Monday. The trilateral training is the first of its kind and comes amidst escalating tensions between the US and Iran since 2018. China is sending a guided-missile destroyer, Xining, to the drill, stated China's Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian in a statement on Thursday.
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Colombo prepares to trade off China-renegotiations for Quad scaling-down UNHRC Resolution in 2020

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2019, 23:19 GMT]
Susil Premajayantha, the SL State Minister for International Relations, has gone on record on Tuesday stating that the new SL government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa was preparing to propose ‘amendments’ to the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 of 2015 during the March 2020 UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva. “We have fulfilled 17 out of 20 conditions in the resolution. Sri Lanka has a new government with a new mandate. Therefore, we have every right to prevent any untoward impact on our nation from any quarter,” the minister was quoted as saying by Daily Mirror on Wednesday. Three of the four Quad partners, Australia, Japan and India are going to be the geopolitical powers with active membership of the UN Human Rights Council in 2020.
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After Hambantota ‘clean-up’, US-India alliance expects Gotabaya to reconsider China’s ICT

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2019, 23:48 GMT]
After getting ‘US-citizen’ Gotabaya Rajapaksa to sort out Hambantota port-related security concerns of the Quad partners, the US-India strategic partnership is aiming to contain what it considers as a risky cybersecurity infrastructure in India’s backyard. The US-India alliance is posed to ‘discipline’ the SL State to abandon or phase out China’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in the island, a highly-placed Tamil source within the mobile technology sector in Colombo told TamilNet this week. India’s Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh is holding the stick, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be under pressure to deliver in favour of US-preferred ICT to be favoured instead of China’s ICT in the island, the source further revealed.
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