Japan urged to act over Sri Lanka crisis

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 19:14 GMT]
Four international organisations - Human Rights Watch, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, International Crisis Group and Amnesty International - released a joint letter to the Japanese Prime Minister Monday, calling on Japan “to play a more active role in confronting the unfolding catastrophe in Sri Lanka.” The four organisations called on Japan “to support efforts for the [United Nations] Security Council to keep the situation in Sri Lanka under close and regular review and to consider the situation in Sri Lanka formally at the Security Council.” Meanwhile, American Tamils after a rally and a night vigil Friday in New York submitted a memorandum to the Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations.
Full story >>

Pathmanathan calls for urgent international intervention

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 09:19 GMT]
Refuting the Sri Lankan propaganda that artillery and shelling against the Tamil civilians was carried out by the Tigers, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE's head of international relations on Monday urged the governments of the world to prevail upon the Sri Lankan Government to prevent it from causing a collective tragedy.
Full story >>

Ilanthirayan seriously wounded in SLA barrage

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 15:38 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Military Spokesman Irasiah Punitharooban alias Ilanthirayan (Marshall) sustained heavy injuries in the latest artillery barrage by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the early hours of Sunday, sources close to LTTE in Vanni told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Norway Tamils ballot-test political course

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 08:50 GMT]
"After deliberately abetting the process of ethnic polarisation to its height reaching genocide, and after creating a situation that warrants secession more than ever, the international community and India, vested with their own interests, have started talking about a federal solution. It is time that the Tamils have to democratically test the validity of the political course democratically set for them in 1976 by the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution and democratically tell the world what they want now," commented a self-exiled Tamil politician of the pre-1977 times responding to a ballot on Vaddukkoaddai resolution taking place among Eezham Tamils in Norway on Sunday.
Full story >>

LTTE urges IC to act in the international way

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 07:55 GMT]
"More than 2,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours. The wholesale bombardment by Sri Lankan planes and shelling on a densely populated, non combatant civilian safe zone is state terrorism and a war crime," said S. Pathmanathan, the LTTE head of international relations on Sunday. "The Tamil people are dismayed that the United Nations and the International Community have failed in their obligations to protect the endangered civilians. [...] We only ask for an impartial relief effort similar to those extended to other international conflict zones by the UN and the international community in the recent past," he further said.
Full story >>

UN experts demand international scrutiny in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 03:26 GMT]
Four UN Human Rights Council experts on right to health, food, water, and sanitation, in a statement issued Friday, said that "[t]here is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type," and that "[s]hipments of food and medicine to the "no fire zone" have been grossly insufficient over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as to chlorine tablets," and urged the U.N. to establish a commission to address the critical human rights situation, and demand full respect to human rights.
Full story >>

Colombo committing war crimes attacking hospitals – HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 13:35 GMT]
Sri Lankan armed forces “have repeatedly struck hospitals in the northern Vanni region in indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks”, Human Rights Watch said Saturday, warning that commanders responsible for such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes. "While doctors and nurses struggle to save lives in overcrowded and underequipped facilities, Sri Lankan army attacks have hit one hospital after another," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. HRW again called for the situation in Sri Lanka to be urgently taken up by a formal meeting of the UN Security Council and by a special session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Full story >>

'Post-conflict is post-Sri Lankan'

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 13:31 GMT]
The Norwegian peace facilitator Erik Solheim is half a century late in calling for a federal solution to the Tamil national question in the island of Sri Lanka, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. “By naming the solution in his mind, whether Erik Solhiem is resigning from his role of peace facilitation and assumes another profile”, asked the commentator. “A federal agenda upheld at this juncture is a mockery of the spirit of federalism. A successful federal set-up comes only from spontaneous and mutual consent of peoples. Warring parties of a long legacy may make federal more miserable. The bitter war unchecked but abetted by the international community in the island leads to nothing but secession”, the commentator further said.
Full story >>

London protesters want international action, not words, over Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
British Tamils demonstrating outside Parliament are demanding the UK government takes concrete action immediately “to end the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Tamils in Vanni and in the military-run concentration camps.” In a statement to media, Tamil students leading the protests said: “What is needed right now is action by the international community, not merely words of sympathy. Humanitarian intervention has taken place in many parts of the world to save people who have been subject to state violence, ethnic cleansing, and starvation by blockade. Powerful liberal states have acted to save populations being brutalized by their own states, despite the objections and obstructions of other powerful states. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are human beings too.”
Full story >>

LTTE guarantees safety and security for ICRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 08:58 GMT]
Dispelling hints and accusations by certain sections that the LTTE has not guaranteed safe passage to the ICRC to bring in humanitarian relief such as food and medicine, the LTTE political head B. Nadesan in a letter dated 4th May, has given a written assurance that the LTTE reiterates its full commitment and support to the ICRC in its humanitarian and mandated activities. Nadesan requested to consider the letter as a necessary security guarantee. Nadesan was accusing that it was the Sri Lanka government and its forces that were blocking the activities of the ICRC by launching military manoeuvres. Even on Thursday, around 10 AM, Colombo’s forces were shelling towards the ICRC vehicles that had come to the shore to undertake transportation of the wounded civilians, and there were minor damages to the vehicles, LTTE officials said.
Full story >>

US should think of ‘gunboat diplomacy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 03:31 GMT]
It is the last chance for US to strike a political balance in the island, if it is really keen in seeing meaningful ‘post-conflict’ process, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. Neither the present Indian Establishment, which by its role played as a war partner irredeemably lost its positive leverage on the affairs of the island, nor the UN bogged down with Security Council deliberations may able to act swiftly to respond to the emergency, he said. Colombo is on one hand aiming at creating a political and military vacuum for Tamils and on the other hand is aiming at the incarceration of all Tamils either in internment camps or in open prisons. The balance disturbed by US has to be set right by US itself by a timely action such as sending the fleet without waiting for political changes in India, the commentator said.
Full story >>

Canadian academics support self-determination, ask direct US action

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 19:53 GMT]
Stressing on the recognition of the self-determination of Tamils as the basis for any solution to the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka, Canadian Academics for Tamil Rights in a press conference Wednesday in Toronto said that the proscription of the LTTE had affected the peace initiatives and Canada was a party to be blamed. “As an immediate remedy to the grave situation at the moment, the IC and UN should take food and medicine directly to Vanni and if not possible they should pressure the US to do it. It may look strange, but it is the only option if any one wants to save the lives of the people in Vanni”, was the opinion expressed in the press conference, citing the urgency.
Full story >>

LTTE calls on IC to support Diaspora actions to deliver humanitarian aid

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 16:21 GMT]
Noting that the UN and the rest of the International Community has a moral obligation to support the initiative launched by the Tamil Diaspora to deliver humanitarian aid direct to the Tamil people in Vanni, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Political Head Quarters in a statement issued on Tuesday urged the International Community to extend "moral, political and logistical support to implement this initiative."
Full story >>

Ocampo urged to investigate Sri Lanka's war crimes

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 May 2009, 22:12 GMT]
Bruce Fein, counsel for a US-based Tamil activist group, in a letter sent to Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) Hon. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and made public Monday, urged him to open investigations for war crimes, crimes against humanity and war crimes against four high-level officials of the Sri Lanka Government. Fein said he had sent copies of the Model Indictment for Genocide currently being reviewed at the U.S. Department of Justice, to Ocampo's office.
Full story >>

Colombo builds up for imminent massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2009, 13:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) during the weekend has reportedly been engaged in heavy deployment of its troops poised for a major onslaught, reports from Vanni said citing sources close to the LTTE on Sunday. All kinds of heavy weapons, including prohibited ones, are ready for deployment on the 'No Fire Zone', the sources said. Meanwhile, denying the use of heavy weapons Sri Lanka's president and Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa said Saturday that he can't help for the world not believing in him. On Saturday, several artillery shells fired by the SLA on the only remaining makeshift hospital in the 'safety zone' killed at least 64 patients and attendees including a volunteer doctor and wounded 87.
Full story >>

Children faint from hunger, starvation deaths reported in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2009, 07:56 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Political Head B. Nadesan on Sunday blamed the Sri Lankan government for deliberately carrying out "horrendous act of genocide" by denying food and humanitarian access to the civilian population. Mr. Nadesan pointed out the imminent danger of starvation escalating exponentially and urged the International Community not to fail in its duty to ensure humanitarian access to the civilian population under siege by the Sri Lankan military. Meanwhile, health officials in Vanni report that several children faint from hunger within the so-called safety zone every day. Deliberate denial of food by Colombo, especially milk powder for children, have caused severe malnutrition and starvation as local media reported at least 9 starvation deaths in recent days.
Full story >>

RSF campaigns for release of three women journalists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2009, 01:38 GMT]
Reporters sans frontiers (RSF), a Paris-based media watchdog, in a press release issued Saturday said it is mounting a campaign for the release of three women journalists, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on a charge of spying for the United States, and two American journalists employed by California-based Current TV, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who have been held in Pyongyang since 17 March. In the 2009 report released earlier in the year the RSF said in Sri Lanka, "[m]urders, physical assaults, kidnappings, threats and censorship are the lot of Sri Lanka's journalists. Top government officials, including the defence minister, are directly implicated in the serious press freedom violations that accompanied the military offensive against the Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels."
Full story >>

LTTE urges UK, French Foreign ministers to continue initiatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 17:59 GMT]
The LTTE’s Head of the Political Division on Saturday appreciated the attempts of the UK and French foreign ministers for visiting Colombo to address the dire humanitarian crisis faced by the Tamil people. In his letter to the ministers, the LTTE political head clarified the situation of IDPs in LTTE control areas in Vanni and invited international monitors to assess the civilian situation. Further, he concurred with the Foreign Ministers’ assessment of the situation by stating that ‘Should the Sri Lankan regime be permitted to continue with its ultimate objective of imposing a ‘final solution’ through military means, we have no doubt that it will destabilize the region’.
Full story >>

Gotabaya's "malice borne of intolerance" cause for incarceration, says Vithyatharan's petition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 16:27 GMT]
In a Fundamental Rights petition filed with the Supreme Court in Sri Lanka, Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, present editor of the newspapers Sudar Oli and Uthayan, states that he was "victimized as a result of the views and opinions expressed in some of his articles published in the aforesaid newspapers, Sudar Oli and Uthayan, " and adds that Gotabaya's "displeasure and intolerance" towards his articles that criticize the Government, and Gotabaya's "malice borne of intolerance," were reasons for his incarceration.
Full story >>

'One-man hunt excuse to nullify a national question'

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2009, 08:04 GMT]
Contrary to what is said outside, the real focus of the UN Security Council deliberations is not on the plight of the Tamil civilians, but using their plight as a shield and by manipulating it, the thrust is actually for the hunt or deposition of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan, in order to blunt the Tamil struggle, news reports hinted Thursday. Inner City Press quoted a senior advisor of Ban Ki-moon saying that the UN Secretariat’s hope was to arrange amnesty to the remaining LTTE cadres in the conflict zone, except Mr. Pirapaharan. When asked about his son, the advisor said, “That’s what negotiations are for”. While Colombo’s ambassador at UN said the matter is being considered, according to the UN advisor cited above, the Three Brothers have shown little interest as they feel they are about to win. Tamil circles smell Indian hand in such a line of deliberations.
Full story >>