Uproar in TN State Assembly over India’s refusal to allow Pirapaharan’s mother to land in Chennai

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 April 2010, 10:04 GMT]
Protesting against India’s refusal to allow LTTE Leader Mr. V. Pirapaharan’s mother Mrs. Velupillai Parvathi to land in Chennai airport for medical treatment in Tamil Nadu Friday night, major opposition parties in Tamil Nadu State Assembly moved a special attention-calling motion Monday, sources in Chennai said. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanithi, in response to the motion said that he knew nothing about the incident and came to know about in the papers the following morning. Heated arguments ensued the response creating uproar in the House. Consequently, the major opposition parties including Patali Makkal Kadchi, Indian Communist Party, Marxist Communist Party and Makkal Dravida Munetra Kazham staged a walkout. Jeyalalitha’s Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhakam party which had not initially participated in the moving of the motion joined in the walkout.
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Tamil Nadu police arrest protestors against Namal Rajapkase’s arrival in Chennai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 April 2010, 18:13 GMT]
Tamil Nadu police arrested ten persons Sunday among hundreds of people who had gathered at Chennai airport to protest against the arrival of Namal Rajapakse, the son of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse, passing via Chennai International Airport to watch the cricket match between the Chennai and Punjab teams, sources in Chennai said. Meanwhile, a group of fifty Sri Lankan police officers led by Superintendent of Police, L. R. Wijeyasinghe, who are to follow a three month course in security services for Very Important Persons (VIPs) in a training centre in Haryana state, arrived in Delhi Sunday, sources in Delhi said.
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JNU convention condemns Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 April 2010, 14:15 GMT]
"[C]onditions in Sri Lanka cannot improve unless the Tamils are given a respectful place in society as equal citizens. Unfortunately, that is not happening,” said Rajinder Sachar former Chief Justice on Delhi High Court in a conference on Sri Lanka's war crimes held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Thursday, a summary report of the convention issued by the organizers said. The convention concluded with passing a resolution condemning "the genocidal war crimes perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government on the Tamils," and demanding that the war criminals in the Sri Lankan government be brought to justice, Tamils who have been forcefully detained in camps be released and settled in their native homes, an immediate end to colonization, and suspension of military aid by India.
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"Sri Lanka sets precedent for internationally acceptable genocide model"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 April 2010, 14:56 GMT]
Kolathur T. S. Mani, president of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, during a conference at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi titled "Unspoken Genocide: Convention on War Crimes and Genocide in Sri Lanka," held at the Speaker Hall, Constitution Club on Thursday , said that Sri Lanka has presented to the world a viable model of genocide by successfully killing "hundreds of thousands of civilians without any witness" and not eliciting international or national censure or condemnation. Rajinder Sachar, former chief justice of High Court of New Delhi, a member of the Dublin war crimes Tribunal, Justice V R Krishna Iyer, former judge of the Supreme Court of India, and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC), Kashmir, participated in the event among others.
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India refuses landing to Pirapaharan's mother

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 April 2010, 22:35 GMT]
Mrs. Vallipuram Parvathi, the ailing mother of LTTE leader Mr. Velupillai Pirapaharan, was refused landing by Indian immigration officials at Chennai airport Friday night around 11:30 p.m., media sources in Tamil Nadu said. Mrs. Parvathi, travelling from Malaysia, was seeking medical treatment in India. She was sent back to Malaysia in the same flight. Tamil Nadu leaders Nedumaran and Vaiko were at the airport and they were later joined by the members of the VCK party of Thirumavalavan. According to media sources citing immigration officials, Mrs. Parvathi is considered by India as a threat to law and order situation in the country. Members of I'lanthamizhar Iyakkam (Young Tamils Movement) led by Mr. Arunbarathy and Director Ram continued staying at the airport at the time of this report, demanding explanation from responsible officials.
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JMC evicts Sinhalese pavement traders in Nalloor

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 April 2010, 21:28 GMT]
Due to pressure from Jaffna Traders’ Union (JTU) and civil society organizations in Jaffna peninsula Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) administration has begun evicting the Sinhalese pavement traders who had illegally set up stalls in the surroundings of historically famous Nalloor Kanthasuvami Koayil, sources in Jaffna said. Some of the above Sinhalese traders along with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers had on 22 March demolished the memorial pillar of Lt. Col. Thileepan located behind Nalloor temple and this had enraged the residents of Jaffna peninsula who had accused JMC authorities for not evicting the illegal pavement traders from the streets around the temple.
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Diaspora and Tamil Nadu have to play their cards

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 April 2010, 10:51 GMT]
Diaspora's self-organised structures of experimental democracy polarising political will, is inspiration as well as fallback to the polity of the silenced people at home, writes TamilNet political commentator adding that diaspora Tamils have an immense responsibility in seeing right people come forward and right people elected to these bodies. On current geopolitical perspectives he writes: “The West and intelligence circles in India invariably acknowledge that much significance is attached to the role Tamil Nadu could play in the given scenario. But how effectively the people of Tamil Nadu are going to play their strength to achieve a decisive solution overpowering deceptions of detractors is the concern of Eezham Tamils.”
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SLA blocks public visiting Pirapaharan’s house in VVT, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 April 2010, 18:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna deny permission to public visiting the house at Aaladi, Valveddiththu’rai (VVT) in Vadamaraadchi where the Leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Pirapaharan was born and raised. It has become an important tourist attraction for the people from South and foreign tourists who pour into Jaffna peninsula after the opening of A9 road, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA authorities have set in course the secret destruction of the remains of LTTE leader's house, civil society organizations in Valveddiththu’rai said.
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USA aids, awards Colombo supplier

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 April 2010, 22:56 GMT]
A Colombo-based supplier of horticultural produce to McDonalds, Burger King, Unilever, Heinz and also to Japan has been provided with US aid since 2008 to initiate its activities in the Eastern Province. Mr. Mohan Pandithage, chairman of the supplier group, Hayleys, a Multi National Corporate (MNC) of Sri Lanka, received an award from USAID for the achievement of economically linking conflict-affected East with the Colombo-centric system and through that with the other multinational corporates. While Eezham Tamils were butchered, starving, suffering from acute malnutrition, deprived of their land and were incarcerated, sections of their cultivable lands were producing gherkins, jalapeno, peppers and pineapples to MNCs under the programme of the USA, commented a university academic of the East.
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Elections for ‘Asian’ model of dictatorship

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 April 2010, 10:27 GMT]
Even though the present elections are imposed ones and are deviation tactics of the oppressors, if it is properly understood where the game is heading for, Eezham Tamils will know to whom should they vote to keep their aspirations alive. Despite all odds, the TNA line of politics has to be challenged by the Tamil national cause, at least in some token constituencies, to send the message loud and clear to India and to the outside world. Such a challenge only can be the inspiration for Tamils to eventually evolve the much needed new genre of polity of their own to meet the local and global scenario and once again, such a challenge only can nullify forces conspiring to divide Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and at home, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Coup in The Hindu means more than a family feud

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 March 2010, 19:35 GMT]
Battle for control breaks out in The Hindu, very divided family, reported Indian Express Thursday. At the heart of this battle is the proposed retirement of publisher and the group Editor-in-Chief N Ram and his decision to dig his heels in. According to people close to the developments, the board is split, one group supporting Ram and the other seeking his retirement, Indian Express reported further. In the corporate dictated scenario of polity in India, the coup means more than a family feud – a panic in the Indian corporate world over a failed course and scurried attempts to revise it, political observers said. Similar tensions are noticed in recent times in India’s External Affairs and Home establishments too, the observers further said.
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Nambiar, Kohona assembling Ban's expert panel on war-crimes

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 March 2010, 04:19 GMT]
United Nations expert panel to advise Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the accountability process required to address the alleged war crimes committed by Colombo and the LTTE, is being assembled by Moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar and Sri Lanka's UN representative Palitha Kohona, two officials widely believed to be complicit in the extra-judicial killing by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers' of civil and political officials of the Liberation Tigers who surrendered to the SLA during the final days of the war in May 2009, Inner City Press (ICP) reported.
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Remnants of Thileepan memorial monument dumped in Nalloor garbage dumping grounds

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 March 2010, 10:55 GMT]
The gang of Sinhalese army soldiers and hooligans who demolished Monday night the memorial pillar erected in memory of Thileepan in Nalloor took the remnants of demolished memorial pillar and the remaining structures Tuesday night in vehicles and dumped them in Jaffna Municipal Council garbage dumping ground in Nalloor, sources in Jaffna said. People of Jaffna already grieved and enraged by the defilement fear similar fate befalling the memorials of Tamil personalities in the peninsula, the sources added.
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Sinhalese soldiers, hooligans destroy Thileepan memorial in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 March 2010, 10:45 GMT]
A gang of Sinhalese army soldiers and hooligans went on rampage Monday night, demolishing the memorial pillar of Lt. Col. Thileepan (Rasiah Parthipan) located behind the historic Nalloor Kanthasuvami Koayil on Point Pedro-Nalloor road, residents of the area said. Lt. Col. Thileepan began his fasting on 15 September 1987 in front of the Nalloor Kandasuvami temple placing five demands to the Indian government but died as India failed to meet the demands, on September 26, 1987.
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BBC: Fox and Love lobbied for Sri Lanka after junkets

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 March 2010, 04:00 GMT]
Two British MPs, Mr. Andy Love of the ruling Labour party, and Dr. Liam Fox of the main opposition Conservative party, made visits to Sri Lanka paid for by the government there, and while not declaring their trips, spoke in support of Sri Lanka in parliament, a BBC investigation has revealed. Both MPs were hosted by Mahinda Rajapakse regime in the past three years amid Sri Lanka’s onslaught in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. Mr. Fox, some of whose trips coincided with international outrage over the ongoing slaughter, told the BBC his visits were to “promote peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.” Following his second visit in 2008, Mr. Love urged British ministers to send more aid to Sri Lanka.
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Real war is just beginning, get involved: Brian Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 18:47 GMT]
“Despite my involvement over many years, I was taken aback by the result,” writes Brian Senewiratne on the overwhelming mandate for Tamil Eelam in the referenda of the diaspora in several countries. The time for federation has long since gone. Until the Tamil areas are separated from the control in Colombo there will be neither peace nor prosperity in the island. If there is a genuine referendum in the Tamil areas of the island the ‘yes’ vote might be 100 percent and Delhi will have to duck for cover if such a ballot is taken among the 70 million Tamils of Tamil Nadu, he writes. According to him this major crisis of global dimensions, the genesis of which lies in British colonialism, and the global fall-out in resolving it, demands global response. The real war, not in a military sense, is just beginning. Loss of hope has achieved nothing and the ray of hope is the Tamil youth, he says.
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Sri Lanka’s partnership with UN liable to go sour – SL Foreign Minister

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 08:59 GMT]
Unless Sri Lanka’s unique context and rising public anger against the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s proposed move to appoint a Panel of Experts to advise him on accountability issues relating to Sri Lanka are taken into consideration, the move has the potential to dent or sour the excellent partnership Sri Lanka has been enjoying with the UN since Independence, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said, according to Foreign Ministry sources in Colombo.
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“1978 Constitution places me above the Law” - Sri Lanka's President

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 March 2010, 11:15 GMT]
“Republic Constitution of 1978 brought by the then J. R. Jayawardene government places me above the Law. Accordingly judiciary cannot take action against me. The consititution empowers me to punish any soldier of the Sri Lanka Army who works against the country,” Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse said Tuesday while addressing an election rally in support of Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollogama held at Kotte, according media reports from Colombo.
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SL government begins to wipe out traces of Tigers in the North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 March 2010, 10:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has begun clearing all Liberation Tigers landmarks in the North in an attempt to wipe out any trace of the Tigers, government sources told media in Colombo Thursday. Tourism Ministry Secretary George Michael confirmed that the government had begun clearing some LTTE landmarks in the north in line with the government’s policy to not highlight former LTTE landmarks for local or foreign tourists.
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Expert panel for Sri Lanka will not infringe on sovereignty – Ban Ki-moon

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 March 2010, 07:09 GMT]
The panel of experts being set up by the United Nations as part of an accountability process following the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka will not infringe on the country’s sovereignty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday. Mr. Ban told journalists that the establishment of the panel is in line with a joint statement he issued with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to the country last May after Government forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to UN News Centre press release Tuesday.
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