Navi Pillay explains ‘human rights’ limitations in Geneva on Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 March 2021, 13:34 GMT]
The manifestation of a “pre-existing strategy” using archaeology and historic preservation as guises for political or religious agendas has been observed by the UN Special Rapporteurs visiting Sri Lanka in recent years. Today’s international law has not provided universal human right to land. However, SL State’s violations of the land rights of “marginalised communities” could be addressed under the normative framework of international law, said Dr Navanetham Pillay. She mentioned the violation of the Right of Self-Determination. Pillay appeared as a keynote speaker at a conference titled “Loss of the Tamil Homeland,” which was convened by Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Saturday. She was confronting TamilNet’s questions over her failure to call for investigations on Tamil genocide, which includes examining the “pre-existing strategy” for all the crimes committed against Tamils in the past.
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Tamils witness false dilemma in Geneva as geopolitical formations pit against each other

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 February 2021, 11:53 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ‘balancing act’ has tightly pitted the US-UK-India axis of bandwagoning strategic partners against the China-Russia-Pakistan formation at Geneva. US Ambassador Ms Alaina Teplitz in Colombo was making a North trip as Pakistan’s prime minister visited Colombo. Simultaneously, the politics of human rights was unfolding in Geneva at the Interactive Dialogue on Thursday after Ms Michelle Bachelet, the UN Human Rights High Commissioner and the former president of Chile, presented her report on Wednesday. As usual, the UN High Commissioner’s Report was strongly worded than what one could expect from a resolution being tabled by parties with a vested interest. Eelam Tamils, who demand specific referral to the main crime of genocide from the UN High Commissioner and the UNHRC Resolution, have to confront a false dichotomy once again.
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UK not prepared to push for ICC option in new UNHRC Resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 February 2021, 14:02 GMT]
The South Asia Department of the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office of the UK has stated that it still believed that the UNHRC framework is “the best way” to establish the truth and achieve justice and lasting reconciliation for “all communities in Sri Lanka”. The Tamil organisations demanded both ICC referral and investigations on genocide in their letters to the British Foreign Secretary. However, the FCO was dodging any reference to genocide in its reply. On the ICC option, it said: “The ICC could only exercise jurisdiction if the situation is referred to it by a UN Security Council Resolution, or if Sri Lanka accepts the Court’s jurisdiction. Our assessment is that this step would not have the support of the required Security Council members and that it would not advance the cause of accountability for an ICC referral to fail to win Security Council support or to be vetoed.”
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Unprecedented P2P uprising paves the way for rights-oriented politics of Tamils and Muslims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2021, 23:16 GMT]
The Tamil-speaking people in the North-East have waged an unprecedented post-2009 march from Poththuvil in Ampaa’rai in the East to Polika’ndi in Jaffna. Confronting the legal barriers and the roadblocks put up by the SL Police and the notorious Special Task Force (STF) commandos, the people across the eight districts of the North-East mobilised outmanoeuvring the ‘disciplining mechanisms’ of the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocratic rulers in Colombo. The five-day march, named as “Poththuvil to Polika'ndi” (P2P), was organised ahead of the 46th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The rally concluded on Sunday demanding international justice for genocide reiterating the fundamental principles, the Right of Self-Determination and Eezham Tamils’ nationhood. The P2P mobilisation also demanded an immediate end to the discriminatory forced cremation of COVID-19 Muslim victims.
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Tamil activists resisted three sources of outside influence while drafting demands to UNHRC

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 January 2021, 23:44 GMT]
The joint demands formulated by the Tamil national political parties towards the United Nations make specific reference to genocide twice. The four-point document gains significance as Parliamentary Group Leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Mr R Sampanthan has endorsed it with his signature, said former Northern Provincial Council Minister Ms Ananthy Sasitharan. Mr M A Sumanthiran representing the TNA in the negotiations finally agreed to make the specific reference after TELO Parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan seemingly insisted for it, she said. TELO is a party of the TNA with three parliamentary seats. In an explosive and lengthy comment to TamilNet, Sasitharan narrated how the foreign powers and NGO agenda-setters were attempting to influence the process from three fronts. She considered Dr Guruparan Kumaravadivel as the behind-the-scene drafter of the final document.
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Boyle prefers IIIM demand over ICC-referral, says specific reference to genocide essential

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2021, 00:04 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has made it clear that it will not cooperate with the UNHRC. It is time for the UNHRC to take action against the GoSL, said Professor Francis Boyle, an international law expert who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law in the USA. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet could forward the situation to the Security Council or the General Assembly if she wants to, he said, responding to a set of questions coming from the Tamil politicians on the ground. However, getting a new resolution with specific reference to genocide is essential, Prof Boyle said. “You have to keep up the reference to genocide. This is the gravamen of your Complaint against the GoSL.” Asked whether he preferred the demand for ICC-referral over the IIIM demand, he said: “I would go for the IIIM along the lines of Syria and for the same reasons”.
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Colombo’s brutal suppression of Tamil Heroes’ Day counter-productive to stated objectives: Tamil MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 December 2020, 15:44 GMT]
Emboldened with a two-thirds majority in the SL Parliament, the regime of Rajapaksa has chosen to suppress Tamil remembrance days, particularly the Maaveear Naa'l (Tamil Eelam Heroes’ Day) this year. The Rajapaksa regime was short-sighted in using the opportunity to showcase to its southern audience that it was more determined than its predecessor in blocking November 27 Remembrance. However, the brutal manner in which the SL State and its judiciary suppressed the collective remembrance events received more attention not only among the Tamil youth in the North and the East but also in the South, said ITAK (TNA) Parliamentarian from Batticaloa Shanakiyan Rasamanickam. “I received phone calls from Up-Country Tamil youth from Deniyaya and Matara in the down south to Kandy and Colombo,” he said adding that even fifteen and sixteen-year-old youth were posing questions.
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China launches world’s biggest regional trade agreement without Indian participation

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2020, 18:45 GMT]
The ten-member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five of ASEAN’s major trade partners, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea that also includes critical US allies and defence partners, have signed the trade agreement known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), at a virtual conference hosted by Vietnam on Sunday. Asia’s first, second, and fourth-largest economies, China, Japan, and South Korea, and advanced economies like Singapore are signatories to the RCEP constituting almost a third of the world gross domestic product. “India withdrew from the RCEP talks late last year, following Prime Minister Modi’s increasing cooperation with the US-led Indo-Pacific initiative,” observed the official paper of the Chinese Communist Party, China Daily, in an opinion piece on Monday.
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Tamils risk Kashmir-like status revocation if Gota continues Trinco military cooperation with US

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2020, 10:58 GMT]
Certain quarters have been misplacing the significance of the recent visit of US State Secretary Mike Pompeo to Colombo vis-à-vis the national question of the Eezham Tamils. SL President and Commander-in-Chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s choice to continue the already on track military cooperation with the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) is the determining factor, particularly at the strategic port city of Trincomalee of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. One has to judge the geopolitical orientation of the SL State based on the defence-related choices being made and not based on polemics of Rajapaksa's ‘non-alignment’, or the escalating ‘predator’ vs ‘friend’ rhetoric between the US and China. Wherever Pompeo goes, be it London or Colombo, this rhetoric is the same.
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Poet Pulamaipithan who championed Tamil Eelam solidarity in Tamil Nadu turns 85

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 October 2020, 11:40 GMT]
It was Kuttimani's profound speech proclaiming his last wish while on death row that captivated Poet Laureate Pulamaipithan to be inspired by the freedom struggle of Eezham Tamils. The poet was 44 in 1979. His commitment secured LTTE leader V Pirapaharan and fellow militants from possible deportation from Tamil Nadu to Colombo back in 1982, following a shoot-out at Pondy Bazaar in Chennai. A man of integrity, Poet Pulamaipithan, played a crucial role in getting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) to support Mr Pirapaharan and the Tamil Eelam cause. In an interview with TamilNet in June 2008, the famous lyricist, who was also a former Deputy Chairman of Tamil Nadu Legislative Council, narrated his involvement since the early days. Joining Tamils world over in wishing him well on his 85th birthday, TamilNet releases this 2-hour long video recording made in Tamil.
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