War crime in the massacre of LTTE officials

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 01:52 GMT]
While rejecting Colombo's claim of the killing of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan and assuring his safety and well-being, LTTE's International Relations Head S. Pathmanathan Tuesday accused Colombo of treachery in the killing of the political wing leaders B. Nadesan and S. Puleedevan. Mr. Pathmanathan said it is a crime against humanity that needs to be investigated. Meanwhile, informed sources told TamilNet that what happened in the early hours of Monday was a well-planned massacre of several unarmed civil officers of the LTTE with the aim of annihilating its political structure. At the orders of a 'top defence figure,' an international arrangement involving ICRC, European diplomats and a Colombo government diplomat to arrange safe exit to the civil officers was defied, the sources said.
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Sri Lanka lost confidence of Tamils: Pathmanathan

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 21:36 GMT]
Stating that the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Mr. V. Pirapaharan is alive and well, Mr. Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the head of LTTE's international relations, told TamilNet Monday that it was very unfortunate that many of its senior members and leaders have either given up their lives or have been treacherously killed. "The Sri Lankan Government may have declared a military victory. But it does not realize that it is a hollow victory. It has completely lost the trust and confidence of the Tamils in Sri Lanka," he further said in an exclusive interview.
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'EU should consider justice, not investigations'

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 20:58 GMT]
The EU foreign ministers Monday called for the investigation of war crimes committed by ‘both sides’ in the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. Responding to the news, TamilNet political commentator in Colombo said that what happened and what is happening in Sri Lanka is a unique case in contemporary human history in which the war crimes are ‘multilateral’, involving the UN, India, China and the Co-Chairs, involving even the EU. “The investigations have to be comprehensive sparing ‘nobody’, but where on earth to find such a neutral body, he asked. Rather than giving importance to post mortem in which the winners always have a better say, the EU has to urgently prevent further war crimes by immediately recognizing the Tamil independence and sovereignty in the island”, he said.
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SLA spree of massacre in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 07:43 GMT]
In a spree of massacre, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is killing the wounded civilians in large numbers in the so-called safety zone, according to a reliable telephone call from Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Monday forenoon. There are still civilians hiding in the bunkers the phone call said.
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Mahinda’s accounts crime

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 07:33 GMT]
Before his murderous assault on the so-called safety zone, Mahinda Rajapaksa has always been maintaining that the number of civilians there was only 70,000. But after the first bout of the capture of civilians last month, until Thursday, 247,908 civilians from the safety zone were registered in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa, Pulmoaddai, Mannaar and Jaffna. After the first bout, the Sri Lanka president was saying that only 15 to 20 thousand were remaining in the safety zone. Sunday evening Colombo’s militarised civil administration head of internment camps, Chandrasiri admitted more than 80,000 crossing after the latest onslaught. According to aid officials, some more thousands are still remaining.
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'Responsibility now with US'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2009, 10:37 GMT]
The first act of Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi after the announcement of the election results was an appeal to the Indian Establishment re-elected to power to save the Eezham Tamils. However, the utmost responsibility lies with the Co-Chairs and especially with the US, says TamilNet’s political analyst in Colombo. The US has to either convince India or act alone to save the situation and save its own credibility. Failing, the White House is likely to emerge bearing the major responsibility for conning Tamils to their death and subjugation, and the IC tagged behind it may never be able to justify its credentials in implementing a world order it desires, he further said.
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Stench of dead bodies permeate Vanni, wounded allowed to die without treatment

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 10:26 GMT]
An uncounted number of dead bodies between 2,000 and 3,000 are lying all over the places in civilian congested area and the civilians are all struck by a heavy stench of dead bodies, said a volunteer doctor from Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal. "Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has destroyed all medical facilities by targeted attacks, and the SLA was continuing inhuman and indiscriminate attacks on civilians providing only two options, death or surrender," he added. The volunteer doctor himself witnessed more than 100 deaths Saturday morning. All the government doctors and the top officials have fled the shelling. Civilians are in shock at the continuing carnage in Vanni.
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Bloodbath will not resolve the conflict: Pathmanathan

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 May 2009, 21:16 GMT]
"Colombo's approach to finish the war in 48 hours through a carnage and bloodbath of civilians will never resolve a conflict of decades. On the contrary it will only escalate the crisis to unforeseen heights. The Sinhala people have a duty and responsibility in stopping it, considering their own interest if not that of the Tamils," said LTTE's Head of International Relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, when contacted by TamilNet on the situation prevailing in Vanni.
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More than 100,000 civilians in safe zone, ICRC suspends Vanni missions

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 May 2009, 13:04 GMT]
"Unless an external humanitarian intervention is carried out without delay, it would be difficult to avert an inhuman catastrophe," said a volunteer doctor appointed by the LTTE to serve the civilians within the so-called safety zone, Friday afternoon. "The ICRC has abandoned its missions, there is no food, no proper access to potable water to tens of thousands of civilians who are forced to stay under the bunkers, surrounded by dead bodies and wounded civilians who are dying without medical help," the medics doctor told TamilNet through a satellite phone. The Sri Lankan forces are deploying superior fire power and advancing along the coastal line deploying cluster munitions and shells causing immediate fire.
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'Safety zone' in smoke, close-quarter fighting is on

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 May 2009, 05:39 GMT]
The entire safety zone area is in smoke since the early hours of Friday as shelling by the Sri Lanka Army was destroying all the structures within a narrow strip of coastal land which is densely populated with tens of thousands of people. 75% of the population remains under bunkers as close quarter fighting was heard. Hundreds of civilians are being killed and maimed in the carnage caused by the SLA, which attempts to enter the remaining part of the so-called safety zone before the election results are published in India.
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SLA shells hospital again, several killed including doctor, ICRC worker

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 10:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells hit the makeshift hospital in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal East, killing at least 38 patients who were waiting for treatment at the hospital, a medical staff told TamilNet. "There are many more killed inside the hospital premises, but I can only confirm that 38 casualties that I have witnessed near the main theatre upto 2:53 p.m.," the medical staff told TamilNet. Many shells have hit the makeshift hospital premises across the road. Meanwhile, a patient who reached an administrative office put the casualty figures at 100 and said he had witnessed that an ICRC worker was killed. Meanwhile, LTTE's Director of Peace Secretarait S. Puleedevan when contacted by TamilNet said 39 female patients at a counselling aid center for mentally ill women were massacred by targeted SLA shelling in the morning. More than 40 patients were feared wounded, he said.
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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.
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India should sue Sri Lanka in ICJ for massacre of 2000 Tamils - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 14:00 GMT]
"In light of the latest atrocity by the Government of Sri Lanka that overnight exterminated 2000 Tamils, at a minimum the Government of India must sue Sri Lanka for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, request an Emergency Hearing by the World Court, and win an Order of Provisional Measures of Protection --the international equivalent of a temporary restraining order-- against the GOSL to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Tamils," said Professor Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet Sunday. "I stand ready to file this World Court Lawsuit immediately upon receipt of the appropriate authorization from the Government of India," Boyle further said.
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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.
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'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.
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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.”
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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.
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Slow-motion genocide to exceed horrors of Srebrenica, warns Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 18:52 GMT]
Professor Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law, an international expert on Boznia and crimes of Genocide said Tuesday, "[s]ince the outset of this latest crisis in January, the GOSL has exterminated about 7000 Tamils in Vanni, certainly a "substantial part" of the Tamil population in Vanni and Sri Lanka. If not stopped now, the GOSL's toll of genocide against the Tamils could far exceed the recent horrors of Srebrenica." Prof. Boyle's call for urgent food drop to the civilians close to starvation in the Safe Zone, has gathered momentum, and international media are seeking his comment on the urgency of humanitarian support.
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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.
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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."
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