2ND LEAD
Sinhala military takes over UN demining following Geneva resolution
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 March 2013, 07:10 GMT]
One of the immediate results of the US-resolution at Geneva “welcoming and acknowledging the progress” of genocidal Sri Lanka in various avenues, including in demining the country of Tamils, is the UN entirely handing over demining and supervision of demining to the occupying Sinhala military. This will pave way for the genocidal SL military to make money, Sinhalicize even demining and to come out with excuses for years in handing back lands, news sources in Jaffna said. The last international organisation involved in demining the country of Eezham Tamils and has an office in Jaffna, i.e., a UN outfit of Tamil staff that was supervising, monitoring and issuing certificates on demining, will be closed down in June. The work will be handed over to the SL military and its Sinhala staff.
Instead of Sri Lanka receiving the UN agencies, the US resolution has paved way for even the remaining UN agencies, that too involved in demining, to quit and to be replaced by the genocidal Sinhala military, the news sources in Jaffna said, addressing to the ‘lobbyists’ in the diaspora.
The outcome of the US resolution such as this may provide job for the OHCHR to ‘count trees’ for the next year’s session and may provide opportunities of paid tours for diplomats of the West, Australia and Japan to visit the island and give certificates absolving Sri Lanka, but the whole process would only facilitate another irreversible stage in the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, the news sources said.
The Jaffna news sources made a particular note on the Japanese delegations whose primary aim was ‘patching up’ genocidal Sri Lanka with the West. They unfairly escape the diaspora radar of scrutiny, the news sources said.
The treachery of the UN and agencies like the IOM in the winding up of the IDP camps and the plight of the Keappaa-pulavu people were in the highlight last year, but peruse the net outcome and the statements of the visiting diplomats from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, India and Japan, the news sources cited.
Unless the ultimate culprit the USA is not addressed against the absurd resolutions it brings out, the genocide of Eezham Tamils could never be stopped, the news sources in Jaffna were telling it as a priority to the activists in the diaspora who see ‘something progressive’ in the US resolution.
The part of the US resolution “Welcoming and acknowledging the progress made by the Government of Sri Lanka in rebuilding infrastructure, demining, resettling the majority of internally displaced persons,” was added in the third draft, perhaps by the prodding of India, but the USA is ultimately responsible for the larger framework and the bandwagon, alternative political activists in Jaffna commented.
* * *Several international agencies were engaged in demining in the country of Eezham Tamils. They all had Tamil staff. All these agencies were winded up in the recent times, replaced by Sri Lanka’s occupying Sinhala military that has taken up the job for itself.
The UN agency is the last of the international agencies that has an office in Jaffna. In the recent months it was engaged only in supervising and monitoring the work and in issuing clearance certificates.
Even this office will be closed in June. The agency will continue for the next six months, until December, at the SL Government Agent’s Office in Jaffna just to handover the work to Sri Lanka’s military.
The local Tamil staff members, who now work with the UN agency, are given with contract only up to December.
The Tamil staff members are now instructed to ‘train’ the occupying Sinhala military or ex-Sinhala military personnel who are recruited to succeed the work of the UN agency.
Most of the Tamil staff has decided to quit the job when the UN leaves, as it would be impossible to work with the succeeding Sinhala military, informed circles told TamilNet.
Already hundreds of Tamil staff members who were earlier working with the other international demining agencies were out of job, as the Sinhala military had taken over the programme.
Demining is a lucrative area to channel international aid to the benefit of the genocidal Sinhala military patronized by criminal Establishments of the world; to give lucrative jobs and to station the Sinhala units in ‘civil’ among the Tamil population, and to manipulate demining to the requirements of the occupying military, alternative Tamil political activists in Vanni told TamilNet.
Demining, denied of authority or participation to the affected people and carried out by the very culprits, is indispensable in shielding the crimes and in passing the blame on the very affected people. Earlier, the staff that found evidence for cluster bombs and revealed that evidence were ‘penalised’ in Ki’linochchi for that ‘crime,’ news sources in Vanni said.
Meanwhile, the occupying Sri Lanka military has already claimed that it would take 10 years to clear the mines in some areas like the High Security Zone, which the military fast converts into Sinhala Military Zone.
The international assessment on the nature and process of demining in the country of Eezham Tamils, appreciation for the genocidal State on the demining and the policy of withdrawing international supervision are fundamentally faulty and scheming, leading to licensing irreversible structural genocide of a people, political activists in Vanni said.
* * *News sources in the North and East of the island, reporting to TamilNet on such issues insist on ‘views’ preceding ‘news,’ challenging the so-called ‘media conventions’.
“Engineering the release of news to time agendas and interpretation of it are only their prerogatives, while the struggling people in the ground should only supply news for their polity – think the masters and their English-speaking followers in the diaspora.”
“Our news is always silenced, manipulated, suppressed and then when needed for their interests, anonymously ‘leaked’ in international reports and media. This is the so-called media convention we experience in practice. That’s why we want our views to be heard first, at least for the attention and edification of our diaspora misled by the forces of imperialism,” commented a veteran journalist in Jaffna.
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