Free civilians from detention camps, HRW tells Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 11:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government should immediately release the more than 280,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians held in detention camps, Ney York-based rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), again demanded Wednesday. “The government has effectively sealed off the detention camps from outside scrutiny. Human rights organizations, journalists, and other independent observers are not allowed inside,” HRW said. Condemning the mass detention as “outrageous”, HRW cited comments by Walter Kälin, the UN secretary-general’s representative on internally displaced persons, that: “Prolonged internment of such persons would not only amount to arbitrary detention but it also aggravates the humanitarian situation needlessly.”
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India needs to work with IC - Former Indian diplomat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 23:10 GMT]
India has a common interest with the US in countering China’s strategy. No matter the motives behind the US’ current emphasis on a “political settlement”, after having been a staunch supporter of Rajapaksa’s war, Delhi must closely work with the Barack Obama Administration, writes former Indian diplomat M. Bhadrakumar, who sees Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo diminishing in what he thinks ‘post-LTTE’ era. To make up lost influence India needs to work with the IC, promote urgent international monitoring mission and mobilise IC opinion favouring political process and settlement within reasonable timeline, he said.
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IMF takes charge in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 00:02 GMT]
Whilst Sri Lanka’s government hailed its securing of an IMF loan for $2.6bn last week as a ‘victory’ and as indication of international support for its political and economic policies, the reality is the reverse. Sri Lanka has been compelled to accept not only painful economic and quasi-political obligations, but also the kind of external supervision the ultra-Sinhala nationalist regime routinely rails against. Moreover, whilst the IMF loan is ostensibly to revive Sri Lanka’s economy, its first purpose is to ensure the government keeps up with repayments to prior foreign lenders. In short, Sri Lanka can borrow from the IMF to pay back its creditors but has to undertake harsh economic reforms - under IMF supervision - for the breathing space.
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US, UK, France abstain, IMF vote to approve Sri Lanka loan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 July 2009, 00:10 GMT]
Despite opposition from the US, UK, and France, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday approved a $2.6B loan to Sri Lanka, of which approximately $322m will be made available immediately, wire reports from Washington D.C. said. "The U.S. position was based on an assessment, in the current circumstances, of the ability and commitment of the government to carry out necessary policy adjustments during an IMF program," a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said. A British Government source said that that it was “not the right time to go forward” with the loan, because Sri Lanka is forcibly detaining nearly 300,000 mostly Tamil refugees in internment camps and spending a large proportion of its wealth on its military - even though the country’s bloody 26-year civil war ended in May, British daily, The Times reported.
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Sri Lanka’s policies contradict IMF loan’s goals - HRW

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 21:44 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government’s policies threaten post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation, and stability and undermine the very purposes for which the IMF’s proposed loan is to be used, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. The human rights pressure group said as “minimum benchmarks”, the IMF should make disbursement of funds conditional on Sri Lanka “allowing [diplaced] people to choose for themselves whether to stay in the [government] camps and full access for independent monitors.”
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French university conference on Tamils flawed in perspectives - Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 09:28 GMT]
Organisers from two French universities have embarked upon an international pluridisciplinary conference on ‘Tamil communities and the Sri Lankan conflict’, based on presumptions that the LTTE has ‘surrendered’ and what exists is only Tamil ‘minority rights’ issues, as though the question of Eezham Tamil nation doesn't exist. One of the conference themes is the role of religious communities in seeking solutions to “the traditional Tamil society founded mainly upon the importance of caste and religious solidarity.” A Tamil academic in Colombo, responding to the conference scheme said the current task of the Eezham Tamils is to prove their status of nationhood since the agenda of priority for Colombo, New Delhi and the IC that orchestrate media and universities, is to nullify Eezham Tamil nationalism.
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New political formation of LTTE claimed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 16:42 GMT]
Addressed as originating from the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, an Executive Committee on Tuesday, announced restructure of the organization and the leadership of Selvarasa Pathmanathan in taking up the future course of the movement. “We have set up a head office for our liberation movement and formulated various sector-based working groups and an executive committee," a press release on behalf of the Executive Committee said adding that the details will be shared in due course. Meanwhile, LTTE watchers said that the new formation has the burden to prove its credibility with the grass root at home and among the diaspora that aspire not incumbencies but a strong mass organisation to address the national cause.
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Another amnesty for Muslim groups to surrender arms

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 11:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police announced another five-day amnesty period with effect from Monday to hand over all illegal weapons by Muslim militant groups in E’raavur police division in Batticaloa district. Using loud speakers, the police announced that any person, who is carrying illegal weapons, should hand over the weapons to the nearest Mosque within this period. The announcement added that soon after the end of the amnesty period, police and Sri Lanka military will commence to search for illegal weapons in the area. The earlier amnesty period ended on July 4.
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3 Tamil youths, travel agent arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2009, 11:26 GMT]
Two Tamil youths who were waiting to take a flight to Cairo, capital of Egypt Thursday morning and another Tamil youth who arrived in Friday morning from Dubai were taken into custody at Katunayake International Airport by the Katunayake police. Police said they are being detained and are suspected to be LTTE cadres, sources in Colombo said.
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Awakening North, an election gimmick? - Sunday Leader

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 11:37 GMT]
Noting that the loan scheme announced by the Sri Lanka Government to Northern small scale enterprises while soliciting donations for the diaspora for refugee relief, exposed the scarcity of funds to support Jaffna loans, an article in Sunday Leader, said that the loan announcement is likely an election ploy to woo Jaffna voters towards the ruling UPFA. Questioning the motives for recent actions by the Central Bank in not revealing the details of IMF Article IV consultation report, and suspending publication of weekly economic indicators, the article said the reluctance of the Government to set free the screened IDPs in the internment camps is likely driven by the need to mobilize "humanitarian aid from the donors and donations from the diaspora to bolster the foreign currency reserves of the government."
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Policy on Tamils haunts India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 05:20 GMT]
Setting the parameters based on 13 plus and ruling out federal, the Colombo – Chennai – New Delhi axis is learnt to be pressurising Tamil political circles to come out with a political formula, as early as possible, to hastily close the file on Tamil nationalism and to hide all skeletons under the cupboard. The haste in the Indian Establishment is said to be arising from the fear of China’s growing influence in the island resulted from India’s folly of not maintaining balance in the ethnic war. “Grasping geopolitics and aspirations of people, the Tamil political circles need to play the cards with dexterity,” said TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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ACF calls for international inquiry into Moothoor massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 03:55 GMT]
Action Contre la Faim (ACF), a Paris-based NGO, in a press release issued Friday said that the 17 of its staff members shot dead in execution style in Moothoor Sri Lanka in August 2006 is one of the "most serious crimes ever committed against an NGO," and accused Sri Lanka of failing to identify the people responsible for the killings after "[t]hree Years of obstructionism, smokescreens, and politicized proceedings." ACF called on the European Union to initiate an international inquiry into the "massacre."
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Campaign against free speech must end: CPJ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 23:17 GMT]
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, slammed the Sri Lankan Government for its anti media policies and accused the current administration of “continuing to silence its critics through harassment and threats” in a press release on Tuesday. Responding to the recent blocking of independent news websites in Sri Lanka and “smear campaigns” against various publications and individuals engineered to incite public outrage hatred, CPJ Asia program coordinator Bob Dietz urged the Governement to lift its censorship and cease its campaign against free speech.
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Holding grounds is fundamental to everything

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 22:34 GMT]
Professing defeatism or surrendering the basic grounds are not the ways to begin or to sustain the struggle with the masses, even in ways anew, perhaps through democratic means. Talking on the need to continue the struggle is not to rule out the need to negotiate. But negotiation is not collaboration. Negotiators need a firm platform supported by the hearts of the masses on behalf of whom they negotiate. Negotiation cannot take place when the platform is surrendered. It is to safeguard the platform for struggle and negotiation the Tamil circles are now keen in re-affirming the democratically mandated Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 that upholds independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Eezham Tamils, at least where there is freedom of expression. Even after 2000 years the Jews were able to regain their land because they never lost their nationalism or the thought of Israel.
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Gotabaya labels popular Colombo attorneys as traitors

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 16:39 GMT]
A defence website run by Sri Lanka's Secretary of Defence Gotabaya Rajapakse has labeled the attorneys appearing to defend Leader Publications (Pvt) which was charged with allegedly publishing a libelous article involving Secretary of Defence Mr Gotabaya Rajapakse, as traitors. "A new team comprising of some who have a history of appearing for and defending LTTE suspects in the past, namely Srinath Perera, Upul Jayasuriya, S. Sumanthiran, Attorney-at-Law Viran Corea, Attorney-at-Law instructed by Athula Ranagala, Attorney-at-Law appeared for Leader Publications," the website further said.
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Amnesty calls for war crimes probe after doctors paraded

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 00:29 GMT]
Amnesty International Friday called for “a systematic and independent investigation of allegations of war crimes” and said such an investigation “must include confidential interviews with witnesses - most of whom are currently detained in government internment camps.” Responding to Sri Lanka’s parading of five Tamil doctors this week in which the men retracted accounts of mass civilians casualties they had issued amid a Sri Lankan government offensive, Amnesty pointed out that “the Sri Lankan authorities have a long history of extracting confessions by force and compelling detainees to give media interviews that support the government's position.”
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SL government establishes Coast Guard Department

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 14:00 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Parliament Thursday approved the bill to set up a Coast Guard Department (CGD) under the Ministry of Defence, Public Security and Law and Order replacing the Coast Guard Unit which operated under the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. The bill was passed with amendments.
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Abetting genocide for ‘conflict termination’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 15:36 GMT]
“Rwanda, Sudan and now Sri Lanka, it is another wake up call to the World”, says a blog-writer Richard Dixon, questioning why no world leader is declaring “War on Genocide”. The article in Independent Minds blog, Wednesday, said “An internal conflict in Sri Lanka has now been made worse by its greedy neighbours. They are now lining up with spanners and hammers to fix the problems in Sri Lanka. The ones that are now trying to fix Sri Lanka are helping the strong party to the conflict to destroy the weaker one completely. Arrogant voice from Sri Lanka in the recent times is to do with its close bonding with India and China. These two countries have both been involved in high level PR-campaigns to hide the war crimes committed by Sri Lanka. […] Such method can’t be called as conflict resolution but it is an unfair conflict termination by eliminating one party to the conflict.
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Do not weaken the goals and direction of Eelam struggle: Father S.J. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 18:02 GMT]
"Let us not betray the struggle nor its goals as evolved, formulated and consolidated by the sacrifice of many thousands of combatants and civilians under the leadership of the LTTE," says Rev. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, the former Vicar General of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna, in the second part of the open appeal to the Eelam Tamil diaspora. "Let the change of phase in the struggle from the last militant-cum-political phase to a political and international phase, not in any way weaken or water down the goals and directions of the struggle."
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Vanni doctors forced to give false statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 17:36 GMT]
5 Tamil doctors being held by the Sri Lankan authorities say they expect to be released, after being paraded to local and international media on Wednesday when they were made to claim that they had exaggerated civilian casualty figures in the final phases of the war at the request of the LTTE. Meanwhile, health workers who have escaped Vanni have slammed the international community for allowing the detainment of the doctors and questioned the validity of their statements in light of the 'precarious position' they face.
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