Sri Lanka’s democratically mandated genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 15:41 GMT]
"If Sri Lanka has reached the stage of having a 'democratically elected' government mandated for genocide by the ethnic majority, then that is the strongest reason why the country has to be democratically divided", writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo, responding to British envoy John Sawers' comment Thursday at UN that "Sri Lanka is a democratically elected government fighting a terrorist organization". Pointing out that this stand, worse than the fallacy of viewing an ethnic war as war on terrorism is not isolated in the IC, the commentator cautioned "as long as the IC, jaundiced in eyesight, fails to acknowledge that genocide and terrorism are 'democratically elected’ in Sri Lanka, they endanger democratic ideals globally” adding that "it is time for Tamil Nadu and the diaspora to demonstrate mandate for secession".
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Prof. Boyle calls for humanitarian airdrop to starving civilians in 'safety zone'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 19:10 GMT]
Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, on Thursday called on India, the United States, Britain and France to fulfil their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and Protocol, and under the Genocide Convention by launching an immediate humanitarian air-drop relief operation for the starving Tamil civilians within the so-called safety zone, who are suffering without adequate humanitarian supplies for weeks. In a note sent to TamilNet, Prof. Boyle said starvation of civilians, as a method of warfare, can also constitute an act of genocide as defined by Article II (c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
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Miliband's statement obligates UK to take immediate UN action - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 03:42 GMT]
Pointing to the latest statement during the visit to Sri Lanka by British Foreign Minister, David Miliband that ""[t]his is a civil war that does have regional and wider ramifications...," Professor Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that Miliband's statement obligates Britain, as a Permanent Member of the Security Council, under U.N. Charter Article 35(1) to bring this "civil war" and genocide in Sri Lanka "to the attention of the Security Council" for the purpose of obtaining remedial action under Chapters VI and/or VII of the Charter."
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Rehabilitation symbols: How minds work in naming barbed-wire camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 02:25 GMT]
Four major internment camps meant for the civilians of Vanni and envisaged as long-term detention-villages as a part of Colombo’s structural genocide of Tamils, have been named after Sir Ponnampalam Ramanathan, Sir Ponnampalam Arunachalam, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Lakshman Kadirgamar. All four of them belonged to two aristocratic families of Jaffna that had settled in Colombo. They served more to Colombo than to Tamil homeland. Two of them never spoke Tamil, but all of them in some way served Sinhala interests. The message is subtle: Look upon the supremacy of the Colombo-centric system and be subservient, never think of your own system, writes TamilNet’s regular political commentator in Colombo.
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300 feared killed, worst spurt of massacre imminent as UK, France fail

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2009, 16:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army is expected to embark upon the worst phase of massacre any time soon in the narrow stretch of land, 5 km long and 1.5 km wide, remaining in the so-called safety zone congested with nearly 120,000 civilians, sources in Vanni said. SLA attacks normally begin in the early hours. Heavy 100 mm cannon fire and machine gun fire from naval craft of the Sri Lanka Navy already began around 4:00 p.m. A total of 300 are feared killed in the latest use of heavy weapons. Meanwhile, reports from Colombo indicate that 'ministerial diplomacy' of UK and France failed to bring in ceasefire or in sending international observers to the war front. The latest phase of Colombo's spree of carnage escalated after discussions with two Indian bureaucrats last Friday.
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SLA fired 5,600 shells within 15 hours: LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 14:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired at least 2,600 Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) rockets, more than 1,000 artillery shells and at least 2,000 heavy mortar shells from 6:00 p.m. Monday till 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, LTTE officials in Vanni told TamilNet. Most of the shells fired by the SLA hit civilian shelters in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal, Thaazhampan, Ottaip-panaiyadi and Iraddai-vaaykkaal areas.The Tiger officials put civilian casualty figures at more than 200 killed and said three medical centres treated hundreds of wounded civilians throughout the day. Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers attacked Ottaip-panai and iraddai-vaaykkaal areas by deploying cluster bombs, LTTE officials further said.
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IC makes history in experimenting ‘genocide bomb’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 10:14 GMT]
The international community accusing the LTTE all this time for ‘inventing’ human bomb is testing a premeditated ‘genocide bomb’ on Tamils and sets new ‘guidelines’ for global order, says a political commentator, who contributes regularly to TamilNet. “Even though there are many actors, the final responsibility for the experiment and deployment of this worst possible weapon of human civilization squarely falls on Obama’s US administration and on Ban Ki Moon’s UN,” he said adding that they will go down in history for “calculatedly allowing one of the worst ethnic genocides of contemporary history to take its toll in the island of Sri Lanka, in the cruellest and deceitful way.”
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IC has been duped by Colombo: Prof. Ramasamy

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2009, 16:07 GMT]
The Tokyo-Co-chairs and other international actors have been duped in supporting the war aims of the Sri Lankan government, says Professor P. Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister of Penang, Malaysia, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet. “The LTTE is expression of Tamil discontent of the Sri Lankan government and the way the latter has dealt with the Tamil national question. In so far as the conflict in Aceh was concerned, the international community was much neutral in providing the political circumstances for peace to be achieved. However, in the Sri Lankan conflict, the international took a biased stand. The current issue is not one of positions between the warring parties, but one that re-focuses attention on the fallacy of the international community in searching for a just solution for Tamils in Sri Lanka”, he says.
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Sri Lanka continues air strikes violating own announcement - Puleedevan

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2009, 07:45 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) fighter bombers continued to bomb civilian targets in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal after the announcement by the Sri Lankan forces that it would not deploy heavy weapons or carry out air attacks as pressure mounted from the International Community. LTTE's Director of Peace Seceratariat, S. Puleedevan, when contacted by TamilNet told that SLAF bombers were attacking civilian targets at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal at 12:50 p.m. and again at 1:10 p.m. despite the announcement to cease such attacks. He blamed Colombo for "attempting to deceive the International Community, including the people of Tamil Nadu," with the announcement.
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World awaits right action from Obama: UK hunger striker of 20 days

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 April 2009, 19:56 GMT]
In a faint voice barely audible, 28-year-old Parameswaran, on the 20th day of his hunger strike in London said Sunday the world is waiting for right action from the US president. “White house said stop shelling and warned Sri Lanka that a military end of the conflict will end a unified Sri Lanka. But Colombo is air attacking. We are waiting for right action. 10,000 civilians died in three months. Thousands and thousands are suffering in the hands of the Sri Lankan military and in the refugee camps - the barbed wire camps, without international monitoring. This is clearly, without any doubt genocide… I condemn all nations for not condemning. I strongly condemn the Indian government for supporting the war in Sri Lanka”, Parameswaran said.
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Starvation: Colombo deploys the worst genocidal weapon

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 18:29 GMT]
No food shipment was sent to the safety zone after 02 April. Even the earlier supplies were pathetically inadequate. The World Food Programme (WFP) shipment that already set sailing with 1,500 MT food items and was scheduled to arrive in Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal has been diverted to Jaffna in the last minute by the Colombo government, citing ‘security reasons’, civil officials inside the zone told TamilNet Saturday. People starve beyond imagination, subsisting just on fish and prawns caught amidst high risk of SLA attack and eating them semi-raw, roasted in fire, as there is no cooking oil.
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Physical capture and incarceration of people: latest ways of neo-colonialism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 06:01 GMT]
"The pundits of political science may have to revise the connotations of the word neo-colonialism as indirect ways of imperialism only operating through economy. The experiment that is taking place with the Tamil question in the island of Sri Lanka indicates that powers of today are bold enough to orchestrate physical capture of people in brutal ways without worrying about casualty and the imprisonment of the remaining indefinitely, in order to achieve their geopolitical goals," writes a regular political commentator to TamilNet. "The manipulations at the UN, open defiance in recognizing the obvious ethnic nature of the crisis, and the outrageous statement diplomacy empty of action in saving the oppressed, but signalling Colombo’s genocide, are clear evidences for the new trends of neo-colonialism, encountered by the world of freedom-loving people," the commentator writes.
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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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'Bountiful in killing shells, but no means for food packets'

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 00:37 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) which was able to fire thousands of shells per day into the so-called safety zone to capture the civilians, doesn't have enough means to feed them when they are captured, said a District Secretariat official in Vavuniyaa. The SLA, which is still keeping the civilians inside the militarized zone, north of Oamanthai, for its screening, has asked the Tamil people of Vavuniyaa through loudspeaker announcements, to donate cooked-food packets to supply the captured civilians, the official speaking in condition of anonymity told TamilNet Thursday. So far, no civil official is able to confirm the arrival of the new batch of civilians into the internment camps of Vavuniyaa town this week.
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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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Stalling, obfuscation mirror UN's actions before Srebrenica genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 16:19 GMT]
"This same type of deliberate stalling, delaying and obfuscation by United Nations Officials preceded and occurred during the course of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica. Of course these UN Officials were then (and are still today) acting at the behest of the Permanent Members of the Security Council, who supported Serbia taking over the Srebrenica "safe-haven" as designated by the Security Council, no matter what the cost to the innocent civilians seeking refugee there," said Prof. Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet, commenting on the denial at the United Nations to have Security Council hearings on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka.
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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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Colombo blocks WFP supply ship scheduled to reach Vanni Tuesday

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Sri Lankan authorities have put off the departure of a ship with WFP supplies scheduled to reach Vanni on Tuesday despite the local civil officials in Vanni indicated the coordinates for the new landing point, Vavuniyaa District Secretariat officials told TamilNet Tuesday evening. Starvation-stricken civilians have long been waiting for humanitarian supplies to arrive and the officials urged the WFP to impress upon the government of Sri Lanka not to delay the humanitarian supply ship, the sources further said.
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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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