Arbour to campaign for independent war-crimes inquiry in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 23:29 GMT]
Louise Arbour, president of the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "will examine these allegations [of war crimes in Sri Lanka] and make the case for an independent international inquiry as a necessary step in making Sri Lanka's tenuous and bitter peace more just and sustainable," said a note sent to the invitees for a conference on "War Crimes in Sri Lanka" to be held Monday at the premises of the event's joint sponsor, Chatham House, London.
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Cancellation tactics make potential candidates withdraw from TGTE elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 13:14 GMT]
Four candidates, including two who had come within the first five in the poll conducted 8 days ago for the TGTE in the London South West Constituency, withdrew their candidature Monday after there were delays in announcing the results. Dr. N.Sathiyamoorthy, Mr. A.Vairavamoorthy and Mr. David Joseph, candidates sharing a common opinion said in their withdrawal letter that "even though it was hard for us to come to this decision, we feel it is necessary to make such decision to take our struggle to the next level through the TGTE, without giving any room for the Sri Lankan state or the IC to shame our Tamil Nation." The election committee delayed the announcement of the results citing ‘complaints’ and there were behind the scene manoeuvrings by certain members of the CWG that conducted the elections, in selecting candidates without a re-poll, said a journalist who did not wish to be named.
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Tamils’ cause finds support amongst candidates of all main British parties - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 May 2010, 13:34 GMT]
Dozens of parliamentary candidates from all three major British parties responded this weekend to inquiries by the Tamil Guardian newspaper regarding their stance on the Tamil question in Sri Lanka. The responses from, or on behalf of, eighteen Labour, fifteen Liberal Democrat and twenty four Conservative candidates reflects increasing engagement in Britain’s political spaces with Sri Lanka’s protracted and entrenched ethnic crisis, the paper’s researchers said.
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Final nail on APRC's coffin

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 May 2010, 15:46 GMT]
Professor Tissa Vitarane's omission from the ministerial list "reinforces the contention that the APRC [All Party Representative Committee] was set up for the sole purpose of placating the international community and India in particular," said Dr. Paikiyasothi Saravanamuttu, director of Colombo-based think-thank, in the Saturday edition of Daily Mirror, adding that the APRC was "never meant by the regime to be anything else." Saravanamuttu was one of the few who were unique in articulating publicly that APRC was constituted for mere presence than for action.
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Sivaram showed how Sri Lankan state was dependent on oppression of Tamils: Prof. Whitaker

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 17:10 GMT]
Sivaram’s biographer and close friend Professor Mark P. Whitaker said Thursday that Sivaram’s ability as a professional journalist to show convincingly how the Sri Lankan state was dependent upon its oppression of Tamil people, was one of the key reasons why he was targeted and killed exactly five years ago. Professor of Anthropology of the University of South Carolina , Mark P. Whitaker made these observations when delivering a speech at an event in London to commemorate the fifth death anniversary of Sri Lanka ’s top journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram, well-known by his pseudonym as Taraki.
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TamilNet releases Sivaram video footage on Tamil journalism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 10:55 GMT]
TamilNet has released video clippings from a lecture conducted by late D. Sivaram (Taraki), the well-known political and military analyst and senior editor of TamilNet, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his assassination, at a remembrance event held in Oslo by the Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils on Thursday.
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All in the game in the name of archaeology

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 April 2010, 03:19 GMT]
The Sinhala academics cannot compare their plight of opposing totalitarian social fascist system of governance with that of the Tamils who bear the entire brunt of fascism amounting to genocide set against them by an ethnic-powered state mechanism, says a Tamil academic in Jaffna responding to professor Sudharshan Seneviratne defending the archaeology agenda of Colombo. Genuine dialogue on culture, co-existence etc and partnership in opposing fascism come only when sovereignty snatched away from Tamils is restored as a priority and when there is parity. However patronising in overtures, individuals and organisations serving Colombo cannot escape from being ultimately colonial. Academics who are always on the side of enjoying the comforts of state power in the island are yet to explore ways of contributing to their ideals better by coming out of the system they identify as oppressive.
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British Tamils must pick candidate, not party

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 April 2010, 15:19 GMT]
With Britain’s general election less than two weeks away, campaigning is in full swing. In an election that is too close to call and with many constituencies where British Tamils' vote can be decisive, the vital question facing expatriate Tamils is where best to place their votes? "As British Tamils, we have in this country, every opportunity to make our voices heard. By participating with enthusiasm in the forthcoming general elections British Tamils can work towards a just and stable future for Tamils in Sri Lanka," argues TamilNet political commentator in UK.
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Senior ex-LTTE cadres under pressure to confess

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 April 2010, 09:46 GMT]
Colombo Establishment has subjected hundreds of senior Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres in its custody to confess to alleged accusations of war crimes, promising that a general amnesty would be granted sooner to those who confess, informed legal sources in Colombo told TamilNet Friday. The move, backed by Indian advice, comes as the Rajapaksa government secured majority of seats in Sri Lankan parliament. Concerned legal sources urged Diaspora Tamils to take meaningful action in arranging legal assistance to the victims through independent and reliable sources without allowing Indian or Colombo backed legal practitioners to victimise the detained cadres.
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Australian Tamil referendum attracts media, provokes Colombo's envoy

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 April 2010, 23:35 GMT]
More than 10,000 registered to cast their votes in the referendum across Australia last weekend, on the creation of independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka, reported SBS Australia, citing organisers. However, the success of mass participation provoked Colombo's envoy to retaliate that "the Tamils who are in Sri Lanka at the moment are perfectly happy to go on with the present system. It is only the Diaspora who are trying to force this thing on the people in Sri Lanka”. But, it won the support of John Dowd, the president of the International Commission of Jurists in Australia, SBS said, citing him saying that the referendum highlighted the aspirations as well as the plight of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. "Australians need to be reminded that there is a common obligation to these people who for centuries or indeed millennia have led their own lives there," John Dowd further said.
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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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Sri Lanka Boycott campaign buoyed by British MP's endorsement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 April 2010, 00:02 GMT]
The Sri Lanka boycott campaigners staged co-ordinated rallies in US and UK cities Saturday and were enthused by the endorsement to their campaign by the British Member of Parliament, Siobhain McDonagh, who in her publicized video and urged consumers to step up pressure on the Sri Lanka Government by sustained economic boycott, US organizer of the boycott, Dr Ellyn Shander said. Boycott rallies were held in several cities in the U.S. and in U.K. "The campaigns in the future are likely to take the form of globally co-ordinated events to increase the effectiveness and to elicit wider publicity," Shander said.
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Self-organised democracy of Tamils receives global attention

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 April 2010, 09:59 GMT]
The Tamil community in Australia is trying to test its aspirations of its people through a referendum of its own while Sri Lanka goes for parliamentary elections, reported Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Wednesday about a referendum on independent Tamil state organised by Australian Tamils on April 17th and 18th. "This ballot has nothing to do with the parliamentary elections held this week in Sri Lanka. This is a referendum to test the will of the Tamil diaspora," Liam Cochrane of the ABC reported. "Self-organised democracy, the most meaningful of all democracies, has become the need of the times for Eezham Tamils, who are cornered for subjugation, not only militarily, but also through imposed elections in the island," TamilNet correspondent in Australia cited the mood of the diaspora.
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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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Why welcome and caution to Transnational Government

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 March 2010, 07:09 GMT]
Many Eezham Tamils are elated at the idea of Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam. But it seems the concept has been hijacked at the outset itself to turn it into another CEO of corporate colonialism. TamilNet, which was advocating for Transnational Government even before the pronouncement of the present move, will not advise Eezham Tamils to abandon the move. Rather, the diaspora has to face the elections just like people at home face a series of imposed elections. The diaspora is free and better disposed in identifying elements that should be kept at a distance and in electing right candidates to bring in the necessary course correction in the outlook of the Transnational Government. In the meantime, moves for grass root political organizations in the diaspora should proceed unabated, because they are going to be the real fallback for the independent polity of Eezham Tamils.
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‘Engaging’ Tamil diaspora to elude the cause

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 March 2010, 21:45 GMT]
Engaging sections of vested interests in the diaspora to elude righteous causes of struggling people, in order to achieve imperialist goals in war and peace, is a long time strategy of powers. International foundations, firms and other such outfits are created from time to time for this purpose. How such outfits envisage to blunt the cause of Eezham Tamils by locking vulnerable sections of the Tamil diaspora into a Sri Lankan diaspora identity, and how the outfits wish to achieve it behind the back of Tamil people and their media, is clearly revealed in a ‘confidential’ Assessment Report and Program Strategy of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), prepared in March 2009. Engaging the diaspora should take place confidentially and by neutralizing ‘spoilers,’ says PILPG, citing a failed initiative in Malaysia in 2008, exposed by TamilNet.
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EPDP obstructs other parties campaigning in the islets of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 March 2010, 14:57 GMT]
Candidates contesting Jaffna district electorate allege that supporters of Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a constituent party in the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), obstruct other political parties from electioneering in the islets of Jaffna which are under the complete control of Sri Lanka Navy (SLN). EPDP is trying to secure a seat in the parliamentary election in the islets of Jaffna with threats and physical harm to the contestants and supporters of other political parties, the candidate of a national political party who had been to the islets for election campaigning told TamilNet.
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‘Vanni Mouse’ wins best fiction award in international film festival

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 March 2010, 18:01 GMT]
A Tamil short film directed by a diaspora Eezham Tamil winning the best award in an international festival is seen as a first with the short film titled ‘Vanni Mouse’, which has won the best film award in the fiction category in the nine-day 11th International Short and Independent Film Festival (ISIFF) at the Shaukat Osman auditorium of Central Public Library in Dhaka on Friday. Commenting on the award, Barrister S. J. Joseph of Eelavar Cine Arts Council, based in London told TamilNet on Monday that this was the first time an Eezham Tamil artist being awarded at an international film festival.
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US rights report adds to Colombo's woes over war-crime accusations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 March 2010, 00:08 GMT]
The "2009 Human Rights Report" on Sri Lanka released by the United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, criticized the Sri Lanka Government, paramilitaries working with the Government, and the Liberation Tigers for gross human rights violations. On torture, the report said, "reports of secret government facilities where suspected LTTE sympathizers were taken, tortured, and often killed." The report adds fuel to the recent accusations by high-level officials of the United Nations that Sri Lanka is balking on investigating allegations of war-crimes, and calling for an international investigations.
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UN investigation can serve as leverage to establish ICTSL, says Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 March 2010, 03:28 GMT]
Commenting on the United Nations report that UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon's appointed experts will establish standards for Sri Lanka's accountability concerning "possible breaches of international humanitarian law...," Professor Francis A. Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law said, "[t]his language of "international humanitarian law" means that the United Nations will be getting into investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the GOSL against the Tamils, which is an encouraging sign. In other words, the United Nations will be investigating international criminal responsibility by the Rajapaksas, Fonseka, the General Staff, et al," Boyle added.
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