Heroes’ Day address highlights political formation for liberation

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 >>

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 >>

'Norway finances humiliation of Tamils'

Norway is up to appease Colombo as the Tamil Tigers are out of the picture and the only way to do this is abetting Colombo’s discrimination of Tamils in the line of Iran, Burma and China, writes Professor Øivind Fuglerud of the University of Oslo adding that a revealing cue comes from Norway insensitively sponsoring a Buddhist organisation to conduct a music festival on 27th November in Galle, timed to humiliate Tamils on the Heroes' Day. Norway sat silently like a mouse in the final phase of the war. Now its ‘humanitarian’ aid helps the internment camps of captivity and death. In future Norway’s aid may be integral to Colombo’s military complex cum Buddhist temple infrastructure to dominate Tamil areas, he further says. Not surprisingly, Norway's leading news agency, NTB, on Monday came out with biased reporting on the first ever democratically elected council of diaspora Tamils. 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 >>

Credentials of IC challenged while widespread rape by SLA alleged in Vavuniyaa

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence officers operating in the internment camps of Vanni have been allegedly involved in several rape cases during the past months. At least three cases of young victims, aged 14, 15 and 16, appeared in front of Vavuniyaa District Judge in October. SLA soldiers have also raped a 14-year-old mentally retarded Tamil girl inside the Vavuniyaa hospital. Full story >>

Fonseka instructed to vacate official residence on short notice

Retired Chief of Defence Staff and former SLA Commander General (retd) Sarath Fonseka is facing difficulty in securing a new residence in a safe location after the Sri Lankan defence authorities have given him near zero time to vacate his official residence in Colombo, sources close Fonseka said. Full story >>

SLA in Jaffna refuses entry to 1500 Vanni IDPs

1500 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Vavuniyaa camps brought to Jaffna Friday claiming that they are from Jaffna peninsula are now being held in the abandoned Raamaavil camp in Kodikaamam as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna refuse them permission to be settled in Jaffna. Most of these IDPs are not from Jaffna but residents of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts in Vanni and it appears that they will be held permanently in Raamaavil camp, Thenmaraadchi Divisional Secretariat sources said. Full story >>

'Future bleak, but do not give up,' veteran Marxist reviewed

“Fifty years of ethnic cleansing have wiped out whole generations who knew any sort of peace, and made cohabitation with the Sinhalese people virtually impossible,” says veteran Marxist A.Sivanandan on the political future of the island of Sri Lanka in an interview to the New Left Review 60, November-December 2009. The 87 years old ideologue, who in his younger days “had no sense at all of being a Tamil” while living in the south, and who now feels “not only for the Tamils but also for the Sinhalese people,” further said: “The Sinhala elite has transformed the country into a counter-insurgency state like Colombia, in which repression, torture, imprisonment without trial and disappeared people are institutionally embedded. I don’t think anything now can be done from above, let alone from the debased self-interests of the ‘international community’.” Full story >>