10 Jaffna Tamil youths arrested in Chilaapam

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2008, 15:51 GMT]
Ten Tamil youths were taken into custody by the police in a cordon and search operation conducted covering two fishing hamlets Aluthwatte and Yampuwatte located in the Chilaapam (Chilaw) police division from morning till evening on Sunday. They are being detained in the police station and subjected to interrogation, police said.
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Time for Tamil Nadu to Act

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 20:04 GMT]
The negative approaches of the International Community towards the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka and towards the Tamil diaspora are allegedly more due to the Indian attitude than due to pressure from the Colombo government. How to expect the IC to back the masses facing genocide, when their brethren in India are not voicing for them? Voicing is not merely holding rallies and making speeches. They will not be counted in an international forum. What about the Tamil Nadu Assembly passing a resolution, upholding the right to self determination of the Eezham Tamils, and announcing a policy of supporting it, confining to the purview of the Indian constitution and laws, opines columnist Chivanadi.
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Marukkaarai Moaddai

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 June 2008, 00:07 GMT]
The shallow tank / pond of Marukkaarai shrubs (Randia dumetorum)
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The Symbols Affair

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2008, 13:41 GMT]
Tamil diaspora quarters lament the inability or unwillingness of the International Community to read the diaspora public opinion. They feel that Tamil Nationalism has to be differentiated from the issues between the International Community and the LTTE and no power should dictate or exert insinuating pressure on what the Tamils should aspire for and what not. According to them, in the guise of protecting the diaspora from intimidation of terrorism, the IC is intimidating the Tamil national sentiments and such approaches in the name of the international system are not going to bring in any credibility to the powers involved.
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Fein seeks action against Sri Lanka officials

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 05:41 GMT]
Bruce Fein, a Washington Times columnist, and a functionary in the Ronald Reagan administration, who is currently in Toronto, told a Toronto newspaper, that he is seeking support to "gathering evidence against two brothers of current Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse (one a U.S. citizen) and that nation's army chief, Sarath Fonseka," who he claims are responsible for "daily atrocities" in Sri Lanka.
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'Tamils seek liberation, not just an end to human rights abuses' - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2008, 02:21 GMT]
By reducing the Sri Lankan state’s multi-faceted repression of the Tamils to simply a problem of ‘human rights abuses’, the international community is avoiding the central question of Tamil self-determination and, through the logic of ‘reform’, seeking to legitimize its efforts to strengthen the Sri Lankan state, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “For the Tamils, the atrocities inflicted on them by the Sri Lankan security forces are a symptom, an indicator of the racist logic of the Sinhala-dominated state; for the international community, they are the problem itself i.e. end the abuses and thus solve the crisis,” the paper’s editorial said.
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Pongku Thamizh rally in France draws 7000

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 23:21 GMT]
Around 7,000 French Tamils thronged the venue of Pongku Thamizh rally at Place du Président Edouard Herriot close to the French Parliament in Paris Wednesday. A parliamentarian of the French Communist Party (PCF), Maxime Gremetz, who came out of the Parliament, appreciated the Tamils for voicing for their rights. In a spontaneous address to the audience, he said that the proscription imposed on Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) was unfair and the movement was essentially a freedom movement.
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Seven leaders including G.G.Ponnambalam honored in SL parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 04:29 GMT]
Seven political leaders, C.W.W.Kannangara, A.E.Goonesinghe, Dr.S.A.Wickremasinghe, G.G.Ponnambalam, Dr.N.M.Perera, Phillip Gunawardene and Alhaj T.B.Jayah were honored for their services to Sri Lanka, Tuesday in Sri Lanka's parliament. Their photographs were unveiled Tuesday morning in the parliament as a mark of respect in an event presided by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, parliamentary sources said.
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Italian Tamils express support for Eezham homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 June 2008, 14:40 GMT]
Diaspora Tamils in Northern Italy gathered Sunday for Pongku Thamizh rally held in Piazza Argentina in Milan, one of the largest cities in Italy, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and voiced their support for Eezham Tamil homeland, Tamils right to self-determination, and protested against the Sri Lankan state's aerial bombardment of Tamil civilians and rights violations of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. Burani Vainer, a renown lawyer in Italy for his legal defence of freedom struggles, addressed the audience as a chief guest, on the principles of the right to self determination.
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Abductions have blessings of Colombo- Ganeson

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2008, 00:01 GMT]
Responding to the recent press communiqué released by the Presidential secretariat, Mano Ganeshan MP, the leader of Western Province People Front (WPPF) and Convenor of Civil Monitoring Commission on Extra judicial killings and Disappearances state, in a press release issued Friday said: "It is good to note that the President is concerned of this situation but we did not create this situation. In fact this was created due the abductions created with the blessings of this Government."
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East CM wants foreign funds for rehabilitation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 June 2008, 16:16 GMT]
"We need assistance from foreign countries to provide dwellings to resettle displaced," said Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, the Chief Minister of Eastern Province and the head of TMVP paramilitary. "My administration will not show any discrimination while maintaining law and order with our own police force," he said.
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Rival London demonstrations as Rajapaksa meets Commonwealth leaders

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 13:49 GMT]
Over thousand expatriate Tamils demonstrated Tuesday outside the Commonwealth Secretariat where Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa was attending a conference of Commonwealth leaders. Meanwhile several hundred other Tamils who arrived at the demonstration in Pall Mall were turned away by Police, citing space restrictions, to another space in Trafalgar Square. Next to the Tamil demonstration fifty Sinhalese staged a protest in support of the SL President Rajapaksa.
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Shady force speaks of revenge, claims responsibility for bus bombs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 10:19 GMT]
'Ellalan Force', a shady identity in which name terror threats come from time to time in Colombo as well as in Jaffna, on Monday, claimed responsibility for the recent attacks on "transport vehicles" and said the attacks were "stern replies" to four Sri Lankan attacks, an aerial bombardment and three LRRP (also known as DPU) Claymore attacks, in which 26 Tamil civilians were killed.
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International inaction reveal hollowness of external assurances - paper

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 June 2008, 10:29 GMT]
By rearming and stabilizing the Sri Lankan state after the ceasefire and then encouraging a hardline approach to the Liberation Tigers, the international community is responsible for the catastrophe unfolding in the island, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Rather than seizing the moment [of the peace process] and making the restoration of the Tamils' dignity and self-rule their focus, the international community made the weakening and marginalizing of the LTTE their preoccupation" the paper said. "Presently, whilst an imposed solution is in the interests of everyone except the Tamils, a just solution is, conversely, in the interests of only the Tamils."
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Fein seeks SL Defence Ministry approval to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 June 2008, 02:37 GMT]
Responding to Sri Lanka Defence Ministry posting that labeled U.S. based attorney for a Tamil activist group, Bruce Fein, as "Carrion Bird of LTTE Terrorism," Fein said in a letter to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse that he accepts Sri Lanka Defence Ministry's invitation to "any interested party to visit Sri Lanka and see how the people of all ethnicities live in harmony in this country," and requested the Ministry to inform him the travel dates allowing him to obtain "direct and candid testimony of Tamil sentiments toward a unitary state as opposed to separate Tamil statehood."
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"Plucked peace flower"- Washington Times

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 June 2008, 11:25 GMT]
In a commentary appearing in the Tuesday issue of Washington Times, Bruce Fein, Washington-based attorney for a Tamil Activist Group, and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, says that "the peace solution to Sri Lanka's descent into hell was discerned by [Ambassador] Mr. Blake - even if unwittingly - in an interview published in the Sunday Observer on May 25. The subtext affirmed the right of the Tamil people to determine their own political destiny without dictation by Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabharkaran, or by any other person or organization."
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Complicit in silence- Kumar David

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 May 2008, 22:38 GMT]
Pointing out that Rajapakse regime's "human rights record renders it undeserving of a seat on the UNHR Council," Prof. Kumar David, in a column in Lakbima, notes that a more worrying side to this state of affairs is that "significant majority of Sinhalese people are willing to look aside and allow human rights violations to proliferate, so long as the victims are Tamils, or persons suspected of LTTE sympathy, or journalists who expose military setbacks and lies, or as tit-for-tat replies to LTTE bomb blasts...the complicity of silence, on the part of a people in the crimes of its regime, the decay that will eventually corrode the fabric of that whole nation will be hideous."
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Development untenable without peace - Nadesan

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 May 2008, 11:42 GMT]
"Development is possible only when there is permanent peace. To achieve peace the International Community (IC) should engage seriously in restoring the status quo which the IC itself has disturbed in recent times, and should pressurise the Sri Lankan government to come to terms with a negotiated settlement," said Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Political Head B. Nadesan, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Friday, while responding to a question on LTTE's position on International involvement in Colombo's 'development-agenda'. "Recognition of Tamil sovereignty and right to self-determination are key issues in creating a climate for a negotiated settlement," Nadesan added.
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Fein: Hold referendum to test support for Tamil Statehood

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 18:15 GMT]
Bruce Fein, Attorney for a US-based Tamil Activist Group, in responding to a statement by Ambassador Robert Blake to Sunday Observer saying that from his discussions with Tamils he knows that "over 95 percent of them [Tamils] support a solution within a framework of a united Sri Lanka," challenged the Ambassador to hold a referendum to prove his assertion of percentage Tamil support, and added that "[i]f statehood prevails, the Ambassador should be the first to concede Prabhakaran’s superiority in discerning the political aspirations of the Tamil people."
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Shifts in world order alters dynamics of Sri Lanka’s conflict - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 May 2008, 12:14 GMT]
Whether Sri Lanka is or isn’t on the UN Human Rights Council is an irrelevancy as far as international dimensions of the island’s conflict are concerned, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “Rather than a ‘universal’ principle, the concept of ‘human rights’ has, in actuality, served mainly as a tool for the West-led international community to (re)order the world,” the paper said. Meanwhile, the rise of new poles in the international system is proving a challenge for the West’s post-Cold War efforts to construct a liberal order, the newspaper said in another recent editorial.
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