Washington synchronises geographic conception of “Indo-Pacific” with New Delhi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 January 2020, 20:53 GMT]
Two high-ranking US national-security and State Department diplomats who attended the Raisina Dialogue conference held in New Delhi 14-16 January 2020 have gone on record stating that the US had expanded the territorial scope of the geopolitical notion “Indo-Pacific” to be more or less the same as what was being defined by the New Delhi Establishment. US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger said the American conception of “Indo-Pacific” was now “roughly aligned with the Indian conception” and that it included East Africa and the Gulf. “More than Hollywood to Bollywood, it is really now California to Kilimanjaro,” he said at the session titled “Coalitions and Consensus: In Defense of Values that Matter” on 19 January.
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ICJ imposes preliminary measures to prevent Rohingya genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 January 2020, 23:33 GMT]
In a historic preliminary ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday found it had prima facie jurisdiction over the Rohingya genocide case filed by the Gambia. The ICJ, also known as the World Court, instructed Myanmar to take a series of provisional measures to prevent the crimes within the scope of the definition set out in the Genocide Convention and to take effective measures to prevent the destruction of any evidence while the case is pending the final decision. The Theravada-Buddhist Establishments in Myanmar and elsewhere, complicit a prolonged genocide, have to now contend that the genocidal intent of the ideology is going to be scrutinised at the World Court. This is welcome news for Eezham Tamils.
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IC accountable for Gotabaya reneging on justice commitments: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2020, 22:24 GMT]
Several countries in the International Community (IC) supported the Sri Lankan State that waged a genocidal war against the Tamils. The Tamil national liberation struggle and its taproot [the LTTE] were wiped out through a genocidal war by the SL State with the backing of other states in the IC. It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who commanded the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009. Now, what are these countries going to do to enforce international justice, especially after Mr Rajapaksa pronouncing all the missing as dead, asked Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian S Shritharan at the SL Parliament on Tuesday. Today, we are voicing for justice as a nation subjected to genocide. We are not merely speaking from a suppressed situation or a coated environment of so-called development, Mr Shritharan said adding that Tamils were no longer begging for justice, but demanding international justice.
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Maldives openly backs US Indo-Pacific Strategy

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 January 2020, 21:58 GMT]
The Maldives would be backing the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” (IPS), the maritime naval strategy of the USA, the Foreign Minister of the Maldives Abdulla Shahid has told the Hong-Kong based paper South China Morning Post on Thursday. The Maldivian FM described India as a “special” friend and said his country shared "same needs, same security concerns" with India regarding China's geopolitical ambitions in the Indian Ocean Region. He was talking to the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialougue, the conference on geopolitics organised by the Indian External Affairs Ministry and Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
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US-India ‘think-tankers’ advise New Delhi to put Tamil concerns on the backburner

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 January 2020, 21:34 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra has been successful in culminating a two-year-long “silent background work” to rebuild relations with Rajapaksa siblings, observes Constantino Xavier, a research fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi. In an interview to Rediff, the Portuguese academic, who specialises foreign policy and defence in South Asia says, however, India was risking that Mr Gotabaya could repeat the game Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Olie played with India during the last three years. Mr Oli “gave in to all of Indian protocol demands and political optics, visited Delhi first, proclaimed India first, then waited for India to forget about him, and went on to do more business with China,” the US-India think-tanker told Rediff.com on Thursday.
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Putting Russian abetment of Tamil genocide in proper context

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 January 2020, 23:55 GMT]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given an email-interview to Colombo-based Daily News before his visit to the island on Monday. The long-serving Russian FM was stressing a set of principles such as “indivisible security” and “non-interference in the internal affairs” of the states in the Indian Ocean. Mr Lavrov also mentioned “peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use of force or the threat of force”. As far as the Eezham Tamils are concerned, they will never forget the use of lethal weapons deployed by genocidal Sri Lanka’s military. Much of those were supplied by Russia, particularly the OFAB-500 cluster bombs deployed by the SL Air Force and the thermobaric infantry weapons such as RPO-A Shmels used by the SL Army against Eezham Tamils.
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Visits by Chinese, Russian foreign ministers to coincide with the stopover of US top diplomat

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 January 2020, 23:04 GMT]
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to arrive in Colombo on Monday, one day ahead of the already-announced visit by Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian FM is scheduled to visit Colombo on his way to attend a conference on geopolitics organised by the Indian External Affairs Ministry and Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. In the meantime, Alice Wells, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, scheduled to attend the Indian conference, is also arriving in Colombo on Monday. The Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministers, as well as the US Deputy State Secretary, will be meeting Gotabaya Rajapaksa, media reports in Colombo said.
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Sampanthan indirectly implicates India, US, EU, UK, Japan, Norway for Tamil predicament post-2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 January 2020, 23:10 GMT]
Despite all the valid criticisms against the revisionist TNA hierarchy, which has misled the occupied nation of Eezham Tamils by deviating from the fundamentals of the democratically mandated aspiration after 2009, one should appreciate TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan for strait-forwardly reiterating, especially in recent times, the names of the regional and international formations ultimately responsible to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The countries and the alliances mentioned by Mr Sampanthan include India, USA, Japan, Norway and the European Union with the UK. Sampanthan refers to the block of countries excluding India as the “international community”, and these countries were formally represented by identifiable individuals who served the formation of Tokyo Co-Chair Donors. A troika of diplomats was representing India at the height of the war.
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Gotabaya deploys PTA against protesting families of missing persons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 January 2020, 22:53 GMT]
The coordinator of the continuous protest in Vavuniyaa Jeyavanitha Kasippillai is again facing harassment from the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of the SL Police which is compelling her to appear for an investigation under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The cabinet of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has recently refused to withdraw the PTA. The latest harassment comes as the attempts by Douglas Devananda, an ex-paramilitary collaborator of Rajapaksa regime, miserably failed to end the continuous protests in the North and East. The families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military have spent more than 1,055 days in continuous protests in the North and East.
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Gotabaya backtracks on Colombo’s assurances to New Delhi: Sumanthiran

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 January 2020, 23:31 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran has said that SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was regressing from the assurances made by his predecessors, including his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, to New Delhi on three occasions about the full implementation of the 13th Amendment. When India intervened in 1987, Colombo turned towards the “right direction” and started to “acknowledge the diversity of its peoples,” by amending the Constitution, the TNA parliamentarian said. The equal status between the peoples in the island is not dependent on their respective numerical strength. “This principle must be acknowledged if our democracy is to survive and indeed flourish, and not regress into naked majoritarianism. Regretfully, in his address to Parliament on 3rd January 2020 the President has articulated such a regressive position,” he said.
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61 parents of missing persons have perished while continuing protest beyond 1,050 days

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 January 2020, 23:30 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military are passing away, one by one. Their deaths occur as the SL State, and the global forces behind the deceptive ‘transitional justice’ mechanism continue to remain deaf to their demand of establishing the truth of what had happened to their loved ones. While a section of families avoid protests succumbing to the so-called pragmatic view that the SL military had assassinated all the missing family members under its captivity, the protesting families want an official answer establishing what had happened to their loved ones. 72-year-old Rasendram Soosaippillai from Oalaith-thoduvaay in Mannaar was the 61st parent to die without a response from the SL authorities on the whereabouts of his son, who was abducted ten years ago in Mannaar.
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Eezham Cinema takes shape with Chinam-ko'l movie filmed in occupied Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 January 2020, 23:41 GMT]
Sinamkol (Ciṉamkoḷ/சினம்கொள்), meaning “infuriate”, is a theatrical movie filmed in the occupied Tamil Eelam narrating the situation of former LTTE freedom fighters. The critically acclaimed film gets screened in Europe and North America this weekend (03-05 January) in eight countries, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the USA, after a series of successful premiere shows. Canada-based Ranjith Joseph, the story writer and the director of the film, has demonstrated incredible ingenuity in circumventing the censorship hazards of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka in making the movie, which was shot in 70 locations in the three districts of Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna in 2017. The approach of the story is genuine to the core in all its aspects.
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Tamil Political Prisoner passes away after 26 years of SL imprisonment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2020, 23:07 GMT]
A 45-year-old Tamil Political Prisoner (TPP) from Batticaloa, Mahendran Sellappillai, passed away after suffering from a life-threatening illness (cancer) in the custody of genocidal Sri Lanka on Thursday. He was 19-year-old when the occupying Sinhala military detained him under the notorious so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) during a cordon-and-search operation in Batticaloa on 27 September 1993, just three days after he had lived together with his newly married wife. The SL Army and its much-feared paramilitary operatives tortured Mahendran, who was illiterate. His family was poverty-stricken, and its livelihood was dependent on toddy-tapping. His life ended after twenty-six years, three-months and six days of custody in the various prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka. His story exposes not only the tragic fate of the TPPs but also the mindset of the SL regimes in Colombo.
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Families of missing Tamils in Vanni turn their protest against EPDP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2019, 17:41 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military in the genocidal war up to 2009 have turned the focus of their protest against SL Minister Douglas Devananda, who has been a close ally of the Rajapaksa regime. Mr Devananda's EPDP was a former Tamil paramilitary group, operated by the occupying Sinhala military. The families have been irked by the attempts by Devananda to dilute their continues protests that have passed one thousand days this month.
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Sinhalese have right of return to North, says lawyer from South rejecting Tamil rights

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2019, 22:03 GMT]
The North is “just as much the historical habitation of the Sinhalese as it is of the Tamils”. And, the Tamils “do not have a right to sovereignty and self-determination adverse to the rights of the Sinhalese and other groups in the island,” writes Attorney-at-Law Dharshan Weerasekara, a Sinhalese, in an article ‘clarifying’ a judgement delivered by the SL Supreme Court in 2014. The denial of Tamil homeland and Tamils right of self-determination comes as the cabinet led by SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa also refused to allow the Tamil version of the SL ‘national anthem’ at the forthcoming ‘independence day’ celebrations on 04 February 2020. “Sinhalese have moral and historical rights in the North and East of the country, and this would include the right of return,” the Sinhala lawyer claimed in his response.
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No need for Eezham Tamils to ‘namō namō’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 December 2019, 21:10 GMT]
Eezham Tamils ended their emotional attachment to the 1951 ‘namō namō tāyē’ (‘sri laṅkā tāyē’) when their political move for powersharing in what they aspired as the Federal Republic of Ceylon was thoroughly denounced by the Sinhala nation in 1972. The dream for an inclusive and federal Ceylon/Ilaṅkai (Lanka) or Eezham, as Tamils had identified the island for centuries, lost its meaning with the constitutionalization of the ‘Sri’ prefix. The term meant ‘auspiciousness’, but in practice implied the establishment of the ‘holy’ island as chosen by the Buddha to be exclusively destined for the Sinhala people with the mission to protect Buddhism. When it gained constitutional precedent, the Tamil attachment to it ended. After decades of genocidal hegemony and without a political solution to their national question, Eezham Tamils have no moral or legal connection to the anthem.
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India's CAA deepens “geopolitical schisms” in South Asia, say 14 regional activists

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2019, 20:05 GMT]
Fourteen academics, rights activists and writers from South Asia, including the renowned Sinhala academic Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, have issued a joint statement condemning the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the Hindu nationalist BJP in India. They were identifying themselves as “South Asian citizens” in issuing the statement. The CAA has the potential of “deepening geopolitical schisms” among the countries of South Asia, which should be striving for peace and mutual understanding, the statement issued by the fourteen South Asians said.
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After Hambantota ‘clean-up’, US-India alliance expects Gotabaya to reconsider China’s ICT

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2019, 23:48 GMT]
After getting ‘US-citizen’ Gotabaya Rajapaksa to sort out Hambantota port-related security concerns of the Quad partners, the US-India strategic partnership is aiming to contain what it considers as a risky cybersecurity infrastructure in India’s backyard. The US-India alliance is posed to ‘discipline’ the SL State to abandon or phase out China’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in the island, a highly-placed Tamil source within the mobile technology sector in Colombo told TamilNet this week. India’s Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh is holding the stick, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be under pressure to deliver in favour of US-preferred ICT to be favoured instead of China’s ICT in the island, the source further revealed.
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Tamils learning lessons from ICJ-case against Myanmar, ICC-investigation on Israel

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2019, 22:29 GMT]
The Tamil diaspora organisations should seriously evaluate their post-2009 international legal activism, comparing the ICC-based war-crimes move of the Palestinians and the ICJ-based genocide case against the state of Myanmar, both of which have gained milestone achievements in December 2019. The Tamil organisations should be asking a pertinent question as to why did they fail to pursue the International Court of Justice (ICJ)-oriented discourse despite repeated reminders coming from international legal experts such as US-based Professor Francis Boyle. The ICJ is the only place where state responsibility for genocide could be addressed. Unlike some Tamils and their academics believe, no organisation has so-far focused on establishing the basis for presenting a ‘prima facie’ case with the particular focus on proving the intent of genocide and a process towards filing a lawsuit at the ICJ.
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New SL Governor warns Tamils and Muslims in East: ‘One Country, One Law’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 December 2019, 23:56 GMT]
The SL Governor to Eastern Province, Anuradha Yahampath, recently appointed by SL President Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has gone on record stating that her duty was to see whether the unitary status of the SL State gets threatened from the province. “You can have cultural differences and values. But, we all are citizens of Sri Lanka. For marriage, we have to have one law. A lot of Muslim women met me and stressed the need for it. I stand up for one country, one law,” the Sinhala nationalist governor was quoted as responding in an interview to Daily Mirror on Sunday.
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