Outrageous response of UN to humanitarian crisis: Diaspora scientist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 14:33 GMT]
Children as young as 12 are forcefully recruited and given with guns to fight on the front line alongside LTTE, Guardian.co.uk reported Saturday, 9.49 GMT, citing Gordon Weiss, UN spokesman in Sri Lanka. “Whom are they guarding”, Tamil circles asked. “It is outrageous that the UN which has no means to stop Colombo’s genocide or immediately take responsibility of the captured and even reluctant to talk about the high casualty but only ‘leaks out’ figures, to raise this matter at this juncture in an imbalanced way, when Colombo is bombarding the remaining civilians in the so-called safety zone”, said Thomas Aloysius, senior scientist in Bergan, Norway. “If what the UN official says is true, it is deplorable, but aren’t they too responsible for the tragedy by their inaction in prevailing upon Colombo to stop the war. The LTTE always ask for ceasefire”, he asked.
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Another carnage imminent as the two Indian mandarins return

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 03:27 GMT]
In lines of precedence with Colombo, which escalates war immediately following consultations with India, another carnage is anticipated with the return of the two Indian mandarins, Menon and Narayanan, from Sri Lanka on Friday, Tamil circles in Colombo said. Earlier, on Thursday, the Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee accused the LTTE of "barbaric" attempts. Meanwhile, US State Department Friday asked the LTTE to consider surrendering to a 'third party'. Diplomatic and military preparations are set for another bout of Colombo's genocidal onslaught, observers said.
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165,000 civilians face imminent starvation, LTTE urges IC to act

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 23:52 GMT]
In a press statement titled 'UN and IC Need to Act Faster to Prevent Hunger' the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam Friday said 165,000 Tamil civilians belonging to 40,000 families within the LTTE controlled area in Mullaiththeevu coast are faced with serious crisis due to the deliberate  denial of food and other humanitarian supplies by the Sri Lankan Government. "The LTTE urges the UN and other members of the international community to act promptly to ensure  immediate and continuous supply of food to these people.  We fear that further delay can result in a crisis similar to that faced in Darfur or even deadlier," the statement released from Vanni said.
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Rajapaksa appoints notorious commander to head IDP resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 17:32 GMT]
Sri Lankan President and C-in-C of the armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday appointed Chief-of-Staff of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri as the Competent Authority Officer in charge of resettlement of Tamils from Vanni in alleged barbed-wire 'internment camps' and 'villages' in the North. Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri was the former chief of the SLA in Jaffna, under whose command Jaffna witnessed hundreds of forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations in the period from 2006 to 2008. Meanwhile, Colombo has started to seek funds to 'resettle' and 'rehabilitate' civilians who have been captured from the LTTE controlled area.
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Colombo uses starvation, denial of medicine as weapons of war: LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 11:26 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has been systematically limiting, delaying and blocking humanitarian supplies to the civilian population of Vanni committing a serious crime of war said a statement issued by the Political Division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Friday. Questioning why the International Community has failed to demand the Sri Lankan government to allow humanitarian supplies reaching the civilians of Vanni, the LTTE statement issued in Tamil said it was condemning Colombo in strongest terms for using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians and for violating the Geneva Conventions.
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Vithiyatharan released

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 09:38 GMT]
The Chief Editor of the Tamil daily Sudaroli, Nadesapillai Vithiyatharan, who was 'abducted' and later claimed as 'arrested' by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Divison on February 26, was released Friday by the Colombo Magistrate Court after the charges against him were dropped.
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Civilian casualties top 20,000 in Vanni: Leaked UN document

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 09:31 GMT]
A new document originating from the UN and circulated among the diplomatic missions in Colombo this week has put the figures of the civilians killed in Vanni since January as at least 6,432 and 13,946 wounded, according to a news report by the Associated Press Friday. "The casualties were reported as 'verified data' in the document," the AP said. The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has been firing thousands of artillery and mortar shells, including internationally banned cluster munitions and chemical warheads, into the so-called no-fire zone or 'safety zone' killing and maiming thousands of Tamil civilians, constituting a grave war crime and crime against humanity.
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SL Police arrests Tamil couple in Ratnapura

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 15:29 GMT]
A young Tamil couple was taken into custody Tuesday by the Nallathanni Police in Ratnapura district while they were staying in a house at an estate in the area. Police said they were detained on detention orders by the Defence Ministry for further inquiry.
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Deliberations to get UN approval for Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 13:59 GMT]
Statement diplomacy and behind the screen deliberations of Colombo, India, and the International Community are heading for tacit UN approval for the Tamil genocide in the island of Sri Lanka, news reports indicate. The stand taken by the UN Security Council, and also echoed by the US state department Wednesday, welcoming the capture and detention of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lanka Army is the first step of direct approval for the genocide, Tamil circles said. All this time they were indirectly approving the killing of civilians by shelling and starvation to lead to their capture. By twisting the ethnic-oriented humanitarian situation as an issue of ‘terrorism’, the UN is approving the genocide, the Tamil circles said.
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Demonising Tamil struggle without citing solutions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 11:40 GMT]
What the Sinhala government is now trying to do to the Tamil people is nothing new. Exactly the same thing was done in Vietnam by the US army, writes Indian journalist T.G. Jacob from Kerala. “Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are there all over Europe and their number in India is growing. All these factors make the situation even more highly volatile, which in all possibility will create new polarizations. The short term military defeat of LTTE cannot at all prevent the Tamil issue from becoming an international one and change to guerilla war within the island. That is why the Sri Lankan political leadership is talking of ‘protected’ villages. Actually this is exactly what is happening now. The Sri Lankan government through all its barbarity and outrageous double talk is immensely facilitating this process”, he writes.
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SLA shelling on church kills 14, Caritas-HUDEC Vanni director wounded

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 05:40 GMT]
Rev. Fr. T. R. Vasanthaseelan, the director of Human Development Centre (HUDEC) of Caritas Jaffna, the social arm of the Catholic Church in the Jaffna Diocese, was seriously wounded Thursday morning around 7:30 a.m. when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired shells on Our Lady of Roses Church in Valaignarmadam for the second day. 14 civilians who had taken refuge at the church were killed. The shelling on the church, which is the main centre for people seeking refuge in Valaignarmadam, comes a day after Rev. Fr. James Pathinathar was wounded in a similar attack. The SLA has attacked the church despite repeated calls from Jaffna Diocese not to target the church where 17 priests and 22 nuns were continuing to serve their congregations.
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US questioned for lack in response to match the catastrophe

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 20:16 GMT]
While talking about rebuilding the society afterwards, US efforts right now are not matching the emergency of the situation described as a catastrophe by the ICRC, was a question of journalist, Mr. Arshad, put to US spokesman Robert Wood, when he came out with a statement on Sri Lanka, during the daily press conference of the State Department Wednesday. The spokesman agreed but placed the blame on the defiance of the parties to the conflict to the calls of the international community. Another question was on the US presumption that the conflict is coming to an end by Sri Lankan military action. “Is it not quite conceivable that the level of violence that is now occurring will simply sow the seeds for continuing or renewed conflict”, Arshad asked Wood. While agreeing that violence is at an unacceptable level, Wood said that he couldn’t make that kind of judgement.
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India unhappy of civilian killings, sees LTTE as "barbaric"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 19:58 GMT]
A special meeting on the situation in Sri Lanka was convened at the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi Wednesday night. At the end of the urgent meeting Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying: "We are very unhappy at the continued killing of innocent Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. These killings must stop." PTI also reported citing Mr. Pranab Mukherje that India asked LTTE to stop "barbaric" attempt to hold civilians hostage.
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Major part of civilians seek refuge with LTTE, while US, India deliberate

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 17:55 GMT]
Contrary to Colombo’s propaganda, major part of the civilians who escaped capture by Sri Lanka Army are moving towards the LTTE side from Valaignar Madam to Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, in large numbers, Tiger officials told TamilNet Wednesday. LTTE’s Political Division official C. Ilamparithi said almost 200,000 civilians are still in the LTTE area. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister has convened an emergency meeting of ministers and officials to discuss Sri Lankan situation, BBC reported Wednesday. Same day, the US government has urged Colombo to allow international observers to the battlefront and UN access to all points of civilian movement, said a State Department spokesman in a press conference. Unless there are significant changes and swift action from the side of the US, positive developments can hardly take place, Tamil circles commented.
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"Inner well springs" of Tamil struggle can't be destroyed, says South African Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 17:36 GMT]
South Africa's deputy minister for Communications, Radhakrishna Padayachie, has reiterated calls for bilateral talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to establish a permanent peace. The African National Council (ANC) Member of Parliament, citing a "common conviction in the right to people for self determination" as the basis of continued relationship between his party and the LTTE, rejected suggestions that the LTTE can be defeated, and added that a political solution that addressed the "resolution of the minority question" was the only possible way forward.
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Nambiar reluctant to brief UN Security Council on Sri Lanka humanitarian situation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 11:08 GMT]
Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, who was sent to Sri Lanka as the United Nations envoy to report on the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the beaches of Mullaiththeevu has expressed reluctance to have "even a closed door briefing" on the crisis, Inner City Press reported Tuesday. Nambiar's refusal to brief is likely have been influenced by Indian officials during Nambiar's stop-over in India after his three day visit to Sri Lanka, political sources in Colombo said.
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SLA shells Church in Valaignarmadam, Fr. James Pathinathar wounded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 08:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) stepped up artillery and mortar barrage on Valaignarmadam Wednesday killing and maiming civilians who have sought refuge at several locations. Rev Father James Pathinathar, a prominent Catholic priest was injured in SLA shelling that hit the Church in Valaignarmadam Wednesday noon, initial reports said.
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Contradicting figures raise fears of disappearances

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 15:05 GMT]
While the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) claimed Monday that 30,000 civilians had reached territory under its control from the so-called safety zone, civil officials in Vavuniyaa and in Jaffna reported Tuesday that only 8,500 have arrived in the districts. However, SLA officers in Jaffna gave contradicting figures ranging between 5,000 and 12,000 in the custody of the army in Vanni, waiting to be evacuated. Meanwhile, over 1,000 civilian casualties were reported from reliable sources in Vanni Monday. In addition a large number of injured were also in the custody of the SLA. Unconfirmed reports put the casualty figure much higher. It seems at least one in ten suffered either death or injury in the SLA's operation to capture the civilians on Monday.
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'Empty statements of IC evoke fury in the diaspora': Oslo hunger striker

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 14:57 GMT]
The whole concept of peace facilitation will become a mockery and no peace facilitation will hereafter be seen with credibility in the world, if Norway fails in its ‘responsibility’ in stopping civilian tragedy in Sri Lanka, said 51 years old Sri Navaratnam, the leader of Norway Tamil Sangam (association), who commenced an indefinite fast in Oslo, Monday, demanding Norway bringing out immediate ceasefire, negotiations between LTTE and GoSL, not sending civilians to camps but resettling them and Norway recognizing the self-determination of Eezham Tamils. Mr. Navaratnam was furious of empty statements coming from IC and said such statements without action only infuriate the already traumatised people.
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South African group condemns Sri Lanka for killing Tamil civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 14:02 GMT]
South Africa based Solidarity Group for Peace and Justice in Sri Lanka, which comprises of members from African National Congress (ANC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Communist Party (SACP) and Tamil activist groups, on Tuesday condemned the Government of Sri Lanka for the killing of thousands of Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan armed forces. "The pursuit of a military solution not in favour of a viable political framework addressing the legitimate grievances of the Tamil people and their aspirations for self determination remains the fundamental barrier between permanent peace amid an unfolding humanitarian disaster," the statement further said.
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