Politics of the Way Ahead

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 November 2011, 20:22 GMT]
The contradictions between the Establishments and Peoples are likely to be the most antagonistic in the Indian subcontinent and hence that is the region for the next major change in the World. Our alliance with Tamil Nadu is of utmost priority in this regard. It appears that India used the Vanni War without witness as a ‘Field Trial’ for its developing wars against its own Nations without State. In due course, the Indian Establishment will become the main enemy of the region and at that time coalition of Establishments supporting the Indian Establishment will be quite different to the coalition that supported genocidal Sri Lanka. With this in perspective, we should keep our eyes open to new opportunities including progressive Sinhala forces that recognize the Right of Self Determination of the Nation of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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Aaduka'lam 2011: spectacular dance performances celebrate pursuit of World Peace

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 October 2011, 04:34 GMT]
Aaduka'lam 2011, an international dance competition hosted by the Tamil Youth Network in Munich, Germany on October 22 drew spectacular performances from Diaspora teams vying for the top prize. Staged in the Theater Leo 17, one of the city’s most prestigious venues, the event was organised by the Global Tamil Youth League, and had as its theme, ‘In pursuit of Global Peace’. Interpreting this, the performances depicted how all forms of oppression, as well as hunger, poverty and greed, needed to be confronted if this aspiration is to be realised. The competition was won by a British team which also won best prize for technical execution, while teams from Switzerland and Canada won prizes for choreography and costume.
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Another student activist attacked, civil society comes together in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 October 2011, 08:42 GMT]
A motorbike squad allegedly operated by the intelligence unit of the occupying Sri Lankan military Sunday night followed 27-year-old Rajavarothayan Kavirajan, a final year student at the art faculty of Jaffna University and severely attacked him and a fellow student, who were on their way from Poonakari to Paranthan near A-9 highway in Ki'linochchi district. Mr. Kavirajan was one of the student activists who organised the protest against the attack on Jaffna University Student Union president S. Thavapalasingam on 16 October. The new attack has come as the university students were continuing their strike for 8th day on Monday. In the meantime, civil society members in Jaffna got together on Monday and discussed the prevailing situation in Jaffna and resolved to take forward concerted actions in confronting the situation of terror prevailing in North and East.
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K. Manoharan et al. v. Mahinda Rajapakse: Complaint, Summons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 23:13 GMT]
As per order issued on the 13th day of October 2011, by the United States District Judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court of District of Columbia, with respect to Civil Action No. 11-00235 (CKK) Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, et al. v. Percy Mahendra Rajapakse, the Court Summons and the Complaint are published here in full. The 29-page complaint is published as a single PDF document, and as 29 separate jpg images, one for each page.
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No bartering of war-crimes accountability for political concessions: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 16:02 GMT]
Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), a post-war Tamil political formation in the island of Sri Lanka, in a press conference held Sunday morning 11:00 am at a Colombo residence, congratulated TNA leadership on the forthcoming visit to the USA, and said that the visit is a significant historic first where the US-State Department has extended invitation to a non-State Tamil political party, adding that the visit has potential for improving the political status of the Tamil people who have suffered within a majoritarian democracy for several decades. While pointing out that the TNA is carrying a tremendous burden on its shoulders to articulate clearly the aspirations of Tamils, TNPF cautioned that TNA, under no circumstance, should barter away Sri Lanka's accountability for war crimes for ‘political concessions.’
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Canadian Peace Alliance, unions show solidarity with Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 14:44 GMT]
The Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada’s largest umbrella organisation of 180 groups representing over 1 million Canadians, resolved last week to encourage “its member organizations to stand in solidarity with the Tamil nation in their global struggle for self-determination and freedom.” It called for an “immediate end to the colonialism and genocide of the Tamil nation and an end to the occupation of the Tamil homeland by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and its allied paramilitary groups.” It resolved to support “the Pongu Tamil Rally for Self-Determination on Saturday, October 29,” besides urging international investigation on war crimes. Meanwhile, Canada’s largest trade union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers demanded Sri Lanka to “immediately withdraw from Tamil Eelam,” and the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario, condemned the attack on the student president of Jaffna University.
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Rajapakse says will defy Court Order, Shavendra hires NY law firm

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, 03:13 GMT]
While Sri Lanka's media spokesperson told a website that Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse "will not answer and is not answerable" to charges in the complaint filed by three Tamil plaintiffs in the District Court of District Columbia, Shavendra Silva, an ex-army commander and currently Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) has hired a New York-based multi-national law firm as his defense counsel for charges of torture and extra-judicial killings filed in the District Court of Southern District of New York (SDNY). Both are civil cases.
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US Court authorizes use of TamilNet to serve Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 October 2011, 02:22 GMT]
In a precedent setting order issued by the District Court of District of Columbia Thursday on the case against Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse filed by three Tamil plaintiffs, Judge Kotelly authorized service by "posting the full summons and complaint on the main page of the TamilNet website," and by publication in two Sri Lankan newspapers. Legal sources in Washington said that Rajapakse being haled into a US court to answer charges of complicity in the extra-judicial killings of plaintiffs relatives is imminent.
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Improper Swiss disclosure to Sri Lanka endangered Tamil lives: Swiss TV

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 01:09 GMT]
Switzerland government improperly passing over information of 235 phone numbers to Colombo by the end of 2010 is feared to have contributed to arrests, disappearances or extrajudicial killings of Tamils traced by those numbers in the island, Switzerland National TV, Schweizer Fernsehen said Tuesday. Swiss gave the phone numbers in the island that were contacted by alleged LTTE sympathisers in Switzerland. Commenting, Social Democratic Party’s Luzern Canton parliamentarian Lathan Sudaralingam told TamilNet that accused war-criminal and former SL Ambassador Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias was instrumental in facilitating such transactions. “We have long been raising alarm on such human rights violations, but Swiss Government appeared to have allowed an alleged criminal to engage in more crimes while in Switzerland, and had allowed him to escape from facing prosecution,” Mr. Lathan said.
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Politics of Imperialism

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 October 2011, 00:50 GMT]
Politics of Imperialism had ensured that Nations without State do not know one another and confined to borders controlled by dominant Nations (Agent Imperialists) with State. Thus 1/3rd of the population of the World is reduced as Stateless peoples without controlling any resources including their own Labour, often ending as refugees in strange lands. A sense of helplessness and powerlessness pervades their minds and they are made to depend on charity by well wishers. Their minds are brainwashed not to think of hurting their well wishers even to the extent of betraying their natural allies. The Politics of Imperialism takes extra care to ensure that natural allies never get together, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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Snail pace delivery of houses with Indian assistance, mere 0.1% completed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 14:38 GMT]
Housing scheme for displaced civilians of North and East, announced by India last year, has failed to deliver, according to Tamil NGO and political circles in Jaffna. India had announced last year that it would construct 50,000 houses for the displaced in the North and East. However, only 53 houses have been constructed so far till October 2011, Tamil NGO sources said. Plans were afoot in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna in North to construct houses for the war-displaced people. Earlier this year, when asked on the lack of progress of Indian announcement, Indian officials in the island responded that at least one thousand houses will be constructed before the end of 2011. The officials diluted the commitment further indicating that the numbers also included repair of existing houses.
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Rajapakse, an enemy of all mankind, filed U.S. Court papers say

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2011, 17:07 GMT]
In a potential precedent setting motion filed in the U.S. District Court of District of Columbia, Bruce Fein, attorney for three Tamil plaintiffs, requested Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, to authorize issuing summons through latest electronic social networks and local papers to the defendant, Sri Lanka's sitting President, Mahinda Rajapakse, forcing the defendant to answer war-crimes charges, paving the way for Court determination of civil claims of $30m, legal sources in Washington said. Arguing that Rajapakse is "hostis humani generis," an enemy of all mankind, the motion provides legal precedence to establish that Rajapakse's crimes fall under Universal Jurisdiction applicable under TVPA.
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Politics of Human Rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 08:49 GMT]
“Is it not time for us to realize that these partners in collusion are making us to chase a mirage that is getting further and further away,” asks TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in Asia Pacific, citing Human Rights Council in Geneva giving further time for Rajapaksa to stabilize the genocide. Stressing on the importance of collectivism in ideology to face the situation, the analyst said the lacuna in current human rights activism is that it harps only on individual human rights and not on collective human rights such as the right to self-determination of nations. Individualism carefully promoted by the Establishments leads to inaction, frustration and negativism. The present HR activists hooked to the paradigm should be reminded of the limitations of their activism resulting in negativism capturing the minds of all oppressed peoples, he further writes.
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Armed robberies escalate in SLA-deployed areas of North

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Night robberies are on the increase in Sri Lanka Army deployed areas of the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni after the ‘grease devil’ episodes, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. On Tuesday night, a group of armed men entered the house of 60-year-old Ponnaiah Balasingam and attacked him and his 24-year-old son Dinesh Balasingam, at Thirvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi district. The attackers later robbed the house. The occupying Sri Lanka Army was heavily deployed in the area while the attack and the robbery were taking place. Meanwhile, medical staff at Jaffna hospital staged a one-hour token strike Wednesday against the recent attack on two doctors of the hospital at their residence in Kokkuvil. Normalcy remains disturbed in Jaffna as armed robberies were escalating in areas with heavy SLA presence.
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‘Politics of Deceit’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2011, 14:51 GMT]
The TNA needs to publicly clarify its position on the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination and how it is proposing to overcome the Politics of Deceit perpetuated on the Tamils for the last 63 years, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. As experience teaches us, any agreement can be torn unilaterally. So it is not the details or fine print that matters but that agreement is built on the base of the Recognition of the Right of Self Determination. The politics of deceit is practised universally by the oppressors, in various forms from diversionary politics to pre-emptive solutions, all aimed at blocking political progress of the peoples. What concern Eezham Tamils mostly are the pre-emptive solutions put forward by various interested parties in the prevailing atmosphere of negativism after the disaster of May 2009, he further writes.
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Sitrampalam proves self-determination not a diaspora fantasy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 05:24 GMT]
Prof SK Sitrampalam, Senior Vice President of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), writing in Thinakkural this month on the importance of Eezham Tamils asserting to their right to self-determination, disproved a distorting campaign by Colombo, New Delhi, Washington, international crisis managers and even the UN panel report trying to tell that this right is not an aspiration of the Tamils in the island but only in the diaspora. While the concerted campaigners assert to their audacity without seeking a referendum and while the Eezham Tamils in the island are constitutionally and militarily gagged to open mouth on the issue, the bold voice of Sitrampalam coming from the island was highly appreciated by many. Today, Tamils in the island are left to feel more compellingly for liberation than Tamils in the diaspora, Tamil political circles said.
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Torture case filed against Sri Lanka's ex-General Shavendra Silva

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 00:50 GMT]
American University Washington College of Law's Human Rights Clinic in a press release issued today said that it has filed civil action at the District Court of New York Southern District (SDNY), on behalf of two Tamil plaintiffs against Sri Lanka's ex-Army General and currently Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Shavendra Silva, on charges of torture and wrongful death. The civil action under the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) called for declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages for torts in violation of international and domestic law.
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Pongku Thamizh in Geneva reinvigorates call for Eezham Tamil Independence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 14:11 GMT]
More than 5,000 Eezham Tamil activists across Europe confluenced Monday in what the organizers of the event described as successful Pongku Thamizh rally in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in Switzerland where 18th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is taking place. “We demand the Human Rights world to denounce Tamil Genocide in the island of Sri Lanka in both word and deed,” an exiled Tamil activist with a personal experience of the genocidal war, who met the representatives of the UNHRC at its 18th Session, told TamilNet. Professor John P. Neelson, an experienced scholar on the international dimensions of the conflict in the island and Stéphane Gatignon, a mayor from France, who asserted that he had come to the rally reflecting the interests of 30,000 Tamils in his constituency, met the representatives of the Human Rights Council with the Tamil representatives.
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Rajapakse has no immunity against war crimes prosecution, says Attorney

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 10:15 GMT]
Attorney for the three Tamil plaintiffs, who filed a civil case in the District Court of District of Columbia against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse as responsible for extra-judicial killings of plaintiffs' relatives, said Monday that he will be filing a motion in the Court that will (a) seek authority from the court to serve complaint by publication, (b) argue that sitting head of state has no immunity against war-crimes, and (c) the court has personal jurisdiction over Rajapakse. The case (Civil Action No. 11-235(CKK)) where the plaintiffs seek civil damages of $30m, was filed in January of this year. Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's diplomatic mission in the U.S., and Sri Lanka Department of Justice refused to accept the service.
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Post War Politics of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 17:13 GMT]
The conclusion of the 18th session of the UNHRC will reveal whether there is anything left to rely on the International Community of Establishments, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. While the Eezham Tamils are the worst affected by the war, they are also at the receiving end of the post war Sri Lankan Politics which is indeed continuation of the war by other means or to put it bluntly the continuation of the Genocide. We should always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. That preparedness is the Solidarity we develop with our Natural Allies. The Natural Allies will certainly include those in the Sinhala society rising up against the Family Rule provided they recognize the Right of Self Determination of the Tamil Speaking Nation, a recognition (including the right to secede) adopted by the Ceylon Communist Party in 1944, he further said.
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