Law to take over private lands in Tamil Homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Whilst the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has been in the past taking over lands in the Tamil Homeland under the guise of High security Zones (HSZ) they have now surreptitiously introduced a Bill in the Parliament to amend the ‘Town and Country Planning Ordinance’ in an effort to take over even private lands belonging to Tamils in Tamil dominated areas under various religious and historical pretexts, writes a legal practitioner and human rights activist in the Eastern Province.
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Political power and own state only could address structural genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 November 2011, 07:17 GMT]
Contrary to what certain Tamil politicians who are manipulated by India and/or western powers and intellectuals on the payroll of ‘donors’ may claim, the Eelam Tamils did not fight for individual human rights or equality. The structural genocide they face is not a one-time event but is a process, and that it is not an aberration but is inherent to the system of ‘united’ Sri Lanka. Any genuine politics therefore must start from the position that Eelam Tamils as a people are unequal, and will continue to be, unless they have political power in their hands in their own state, writes R M. Karthick, research scholar in political theory in a British university, citing Slovenian Philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, who upholds a thinking that we need a different notion of ideology to understand today’s politics.
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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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Delink War Crimes accountability from political process, NorthEast civil leaders urge Clinton

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 01:43 GMT]
In a memorandum sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and copied to the Tamil National Alliance, a group of NorthEast Civil society leaders said that "the question of accountability [for war-crimes] should not be bartered for the sake of arriving at political solution [yet to be defined]," and added that the civil leaders believe that "justice cannot and should not be bartered for anything else," informed sources who obtained a leaked version of the confidential letter said Tuesday. The civil society group is comprised of politically active and highly respected professional members of the NorthEast Tamils.
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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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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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‘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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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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US cables show how international silence enabled Sri Lanka’s genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 03:55 GMT]
In March 2009 Sri Lanka had come to the attention of the UN’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, but despite his disquiet he did not take further steps as Sri Lanka had assured him the United States and India supported its military campaign, according to a leaked US cable. The account of the meeting on March 16, 2009 between Mr. Deng and the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, as well as other US cables, shows how international inaction and silence, rather than ignorance, made it possible for Sri Lanka to continue and escalate its mass killings of Tamil civilians.
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“We deployed DPU teams inside safe zone”: Rajapaksa confided to US envoy in May 2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 21:43 GMT]
During the final days of the genocidal war in Vanni when the international community was repeatedly urging Colombo to cease attacks on the ‘safe zone’, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa admitted to a top US envoy that his military had deployed Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) missions, also known as Deep Penetration Units (DPU) inside the so-called safe-zone to “organize people to breach the LTTE earth bunds.” Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa has ‘confidentially’ shared this military secret to Charge d'Affaires of the US embassy James R. Moore, while holding a meeting with Co-Chair Ambassadors in Colombo, barely two week before Colombo massacred thousands of civilians and claimed military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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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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Friends, Enemies and Geopolitics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2011, 08:27 GMT]
National oppression is common to all countries and we cannot expect the dominant Nations of Countries to be our friends. Our strategic long-term natural allies are obviously the oppressed Nations without State and then the oppressed peoples of the World. We have failed to cultivate friendship and solidarity with our Natural Allies while foolishly expecting the oppressors to deliver Liberation to us. We need to give highest priority first for unity among ourselves at least to the level of coordinating action committees for specific objectives and then develop solidarity and friendship with the Nation without State of Tamil Nadu followed by relationship with other Natural Allies, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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Blake will draw blank if truth not recognized

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 August 2011, 01:57 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake visits Sri Lanka this week, following Indian Foreign Minister Krishna telling the Parliament that what bothered the island for the last three decades was nothing but ‘terrorism’ and the solution confines to material ‘rehabilitation’ of Tamils and political ‘build up’ of the defunct 13th Amendment. Blake spoke to diaspora groups in the US before his visit. The engagement of India and the USA with the island is meaningless if it is not based on the recognition of the truth that the issue in the island is a national question, the war waged there had chronic genocidal intentions on the part of the Sri Lankan State and the military that now occupies the country of Eezham Tamils is in actuality not a State military of international norms but a genocidal Sinhala military, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Hambantota port commercially not viable: Sarath N Silva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 August 2011, 06:38 GMT]
"We have built a mega port in Hambantota, but it is not commercially viable yet," the Reuters reported Wednesday quoting former SL Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva at a JVP organised meeting in Colombo on Tuesday. “From the top to bottom, corruption has become a systemic issue... Foreign investors will be discouraged from investing here if this goes on,” Mr. Silva has said. "The anti-corruption law is ineffective. The anti-graft commission can investigate only if they receive a compliant and if the complaint is wrong, the complainant will be given an up to 10 year jail term," the former SL chief justice has said.
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Court inquires into Writ Petition regarding disappeared Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal Wednesday directed the Sri Lanka Treasury Secretary and the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Ministry to appear in court on September 7 on a writ application filed by the father of a disappeared Tamil youth, as the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to pay compensation of 3 million rupees recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). The youth, Thevaraja Sarma, was reported missing in Trincomalee on 23 June 1990 after his arrest by the Sri Lanka Army.
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War and aftermath raise questions over Tamil strategy of engagement with powers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 05:41 GMT]
LTTE and Tamil nationalism were perceived by some powers as getting into the way of their geo-strategic interests. Therefore ‘peace and stability’ means stabilising the Sinhalese regime by crushing LTTE’s military challenge – that was done – and bringing Tamil nationalism to heel, which process is ongoing both in Sri Lanka and among the Tamil diaspora, writes Dr. S. Sathananthan in an article he sent to TamilNet. The power-abetted genocidal war and the aftermath facilitations given to Colombo to complete the genocide into a structural one, raise serious questions among Tamils over the nature of their strategic engagement with some powers.
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US wants ‘quick demonstration’ of Sri Lanka’s willingness to investigate mass killings

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 02:11 GMT]
The United States on Tuesday again called for “a full, credible, and independent investigation” into accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and accountability for such violations, and urged Sri Lanka to “quickly demonstrate that it is able and willing to meet these obligations,” warning that otherwise “international accountability mechanisms can become appropriate.” The position was articulated by the US State Department’s spokesperson.
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US attaché clarification, a linguistic legerdemain, accuses Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 June 2011, 00:03 GMT]
Response from the US State Department on the comments made this week by US defence attaché Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith in Colombo at the controversial 3-day seminar organised by the Sri Lankan military to expound on its defeat of the LTTE earlier this week that the remarks "reflected his personal opinions," and that "[t]hey [the comments] do not reflect the policy of the United States Government,” was "all linguistic legerdemain by the United States Government," accused Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and a professor at the University of Illinois School of Law.
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Ron Ridenour writes on the dilemma of socialist leaning governments on Tamil Genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 13:36 GMT]
The countries in the United Nations are divided in two blocs when it comes to the plight of Eezham Tamils. Those who tag themselves behind a world order promoted by the USA, and those who are in the opposing camp, many of them from the non-alignment movement (NAMs) and Cuba, Venuzela led ALBA countries of Latin America. These countries supported the Sri Lankan state in the previous UN Human Rights Council sessions. “However, ALBA partners now have a chance, whether on the UN Human Rights Council or not, to help the Tamil people in some way, also by calling for an investigation,” writes Ron Ridenour, a veteran US born but now Denmark-based leftist and anti-imperialist, who voiced against the US aggression on Cuba in 1961, jailed in the US for his views on several occasions and contributed extensively to the study of Latin America.
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Blake should not mislead Tamils again: Mano Ganesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:38 GMT]
Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF), who was once named by then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on Wednesday, reminded the Tamils that the visiting US Asst Secretary Robert Blake was instrumental in providing US government's unconditional support to the war waged by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils. The “US government wanted put out a savior impression. But in real it did not bother about the Tamil civilian causalities,” Mr. Mano Ganesan said. “International community should act decisively with the GoSL. It is time that US assistant state secretary for central and south Asia affaires Robert O Blake lives upto his earlier ambassadorial preaching. He should not mislead the Tamils again.”
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