Book Review: The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka

2ND LEAD

Thousands attend Heroes day remembrance at Excel Centre, London

Over 50,000 British Tamils gathered at the Tamil National Remembrance Day held in the Excel exhibition centre. Specially designed interior props and the lighting resembled the “Maveerar Thuyilum Illam” Graves of fallen heroes. British Tamils carrying red roses, Gloriosa lilies (Kaarthikaippoo: Tamil Eelam national flower) and lamps, are filing into the main venue, at the Excel Centre in East London, where large cut-outs of Tamil Eelam were displayed on either side of the stage. Full story >>

Heroes’ Day address highlights political formation for liberation

Heroes’ Day Address 2009, released from the headquarters of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Friday, stressed the importance of people evolving elected political bodies in the diaspora for the liberation of their home country and to mobilise international support for the liberation. “We are aware that Tamil people will not accept or forgive structures already formed for achieving the goal of Tamil Eelam and activists of them deviating at anytime from the goal,” the address said, citing in the meantime that “the way ‘Sinhala chauvinism’ behaved even after causing grave human catastrophe has brought in permanent rift between Tamils and Sinhalese.” The address came hard on Colombo for serious human rights violations it is committing on interned LTTE cadres, especially women and mothers, and urged the silent IC to act immediately. Full story >>

3RD LEAD (Additions)

Big GAP in ethics, US shoppers told

Several dozen protesters carried placards in front of the Gap and Banana Republic stores on Wisconsin Avenue, Maryland, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday, urging ethical U.S. shoppers to boycott garments produced in Sri Lanka, while another group of Tamil activists assembled in front of Victoria's Secret Stores in midtown Manhattan in New York to protest against the Store's textile trade with Sri Lanka, sources in Washington D.C. said. Protests were also held in Miami, Boston, Atlanta, San Franciso and Dallas. Leaflets distributed said that trade in garments by US big label stores with Sri Lanka promotes a Government that has allegedly killed thousands of Tamil civilians, committing possible war-crimes in the process, according to a recent US State Department report. Full story >>

Tamil, Muslim political parties find their table in Zurich

Widely speculated as a drama backed by ‘high-powers,’ leaders of most of the Tamil and Muslim political parties in the island of Sri Lanka are meeting for the first time in Zurich, Switzerland, between Thursday and Saturday. The move is said to be for ‘extracting’ a joint proclamation of them necessary for further power manoeuvres in the island. A couple of years ago it was such a behind-the-scene move of some powers that made most of these parties except the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to rally behind Mahinda Rajapaksa and pledge support to him in the war that brought in disaster to Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Full story >>

Counter-national conspiracy against Tamils comes to light

LTTE members either in custody or operating units in the island have become the most vulnerable to counter-Tamilnational conspiracies of Colombo government, well informed sources in Colombo indicate. The Colombo government’s focus now is to get the section of the LTTE in its trap to denounce Tamil Eelam and efforts are intensified to make use of the Heroes’ Day to test the conspiracy. Colombo is as usual abetted by certain powers in this exercise, the sources further said. Meanwhile, Tamil diaspora circles responded to the news saying that under current circumstances any ‘statement’ addressed to the public has to be viewed not from the point “what is said or who has said but from where it has been said.” The free LTTE has a great responsibility in promoting the emergence of new democratic political leadership that truly represents the national aspirations of Tamils, they further said. Full story >>

Rapp snubs Sri Lanka's comment to US's war crimes investigations

United States will "press for accountability at the national level, at the level closest to where the crimes were committed," Washington Post said quoting Stephen Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues appointed by President Obama. Rapp told the Post that last month, to a request by Rapp to investigate war crimes by the Sri Lankan military, which allegedly killed thousands of civilians in an offensive against the country's separatist insurgency, a Sri Lanka diplomat [not named] had told Rapp, "[w]e're following your [US's] lead. We [Sri Lanka] believe in eliminating these terroristic threats and resolving these issues once and for all." Full story >>

UNP, SLFP-M back Fonseka

The working committee of the main Sri Lankan opposition United National Party (UNP) Thursday endorsed General (retd) Sarath Fonseka as their common presidential candidate. UNP is the main constituent of the newly formed United National Front (UNF). The peoples’ wing of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), led by rebel SLFP parliamentarian Mangala Samaraweera, former Foreign Minister in the President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government also endorsed General Sarath Fonseka as their common presidential candidate. Full story >>

Carter, Tutu: continued detention, clear violation of international law

A group of eminent global leaders, whose members include former US President, Jimmy Carter, and South African Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, has written to Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa to say they are “deeply worried” about the humanitarian situation faced by the largely Tamil civilian population who fled fighting in the north of the country, and warn that this could squander hopes for national reconciliation. The leaders add that the continued confinement of approximately 135, 000 internally displaced people is a “clear violation of international law” and that these people are being denied basic human rights, including the right to liberty and freedom of movement. Full story >>

2ND LEAD

Fonseka to contest presidential election on swan symbol

Former Sri Lanka Army Commander General (retd) Sarath Fonseka, the common opposition candidate for the Sri Lankan presidential election, which is scheduled to be held on January 26 is to contest on the symbol swan and on the ticket of a newly registered political party. He held the first press briefing Sunday morning at Jaica Hotel in Colombo. Full story >>