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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Muslim prisoner alleged of LTTE gets back-to-back life sentence in genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2019, 09:09 GMT]
Anuradhapura’ Special High Court’ of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has served three jail terms, 20 years each, to be followed one after the other for the first three indictments and a life sentence for the remaining 29 charges to a Tamil-speaking Muslim political prisoner on Tuesday last week. The accused, 45-year-old Abdul Hameed Umar Hattaaph, was the second accused in the case regarding the assassination of a notorious Sinhala military commander, Major General (retd) Janaka Perera in October 2008. Umar Hattaaph had pleaded not guilty. He has been languishing in SL prisons for the past ten years. There was no lawyer prepared to defend him. Umar Hattaap is a father of three and hails from Neariya-ku’lam, Maangku’lam, Vavuniyaa.
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Blake's Colombo lecture reminds Tamils of bureaucracy abetting 2009 genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 May 2019, 16:57 GMT]
Former US Ambassador Robert O. Blake was visiting Colombo on Tuesday to deliver a lecture titled ‘US Foreign Policy towards China and South Asia and what it means for Sri Lanka’. He was advising Colombo to tackle the response to the Easter Sunday attacks by drawing lessons from the 2001 Bush Administration and form an intelligence coordinating body of technocrats not to miss any single lead of information on potential attacks. Former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was precisely doing that during the war, he said. He also warned against over-reacting as the US did after 9/11 by expanding government surveillance without appropriate constitutional checks. On geopolitics, Mr Blake was enticing Colombo to engage with China, the USA and other countries in parallel, a paradigm which enabled Colombo to annihilate the military power of Tamils through a genocidal onslaught in 2009.
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Sinhala monk wages anti-TNA propaganda among flood-affected Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2019, 22:10 GMT]
The Tamil people in Vanni should thank the SL military as their saviours as it protected them from the recent floods and the Tamil people should not demand its withdrawal from the North, said Sinhala extremist politician in saffron robes, Battaramulla Seelarathana thero, who was visiting Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu this weekend in an apparent propaganda move. The TNA politicians, who demand de-militarisation were flying in helicopters while the SL military was helping the flood-affected Tamils on the ground, the extremist monk told the people. Apart from the drive to promote military psyops, his visit was aimed at strengthening Sinhala settlers (not affected by the floods) who have encroached Karai-thu'raip-pattu division in Mullaiththeevu district seizing the strategic link between the North and East to wedge the contiguity of the traditional Tamil homeland permanently.
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Jaffna University students urge UN to act on releasing TPPs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 October 2018, 17:36 GMT]
The Jaffna University Student Union has urged the United Nations to demand the SL State to free all the political prisoners, who are languishing in the prisons of the island without any attached conditions. The oppressive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which is used to suppress the Tamils, should be abolished and the legal system should be conditioned to function impartially. The accountability of the SL State on enforced disappeared, should be addressed at an international level, the JUSU has urged the UN in an appeal handed over to the residential representative of the UN system in Jaffna on Monday.
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Colombo wants to seize lands of Muslims near Mannaar Fort

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2018, 21:41 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has now started to claim ownership to the lands of Tamil-speaking Muslim residents, who have been resettled in Koanthaip-piddi area, where the Dutch Fort of Manaar is situated. SL Archaeology Department and SL Wildlife Department have started to harass the Muslims after seizing the lands of Eezham Tamils under the so-called claims of protecting heritage and conservation. SL Cabinet Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and SL Deputy Minister for Rehabilitation & Resettlement K. Kader Masthan are equally powerless as the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran in safeguarding the land rights of the people against the occupation from the conservation agencies of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, Tamil-speaking political observers in Mannaar said.
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Role of powers with colonial legacy, abetting contemporary Sinhalicisation, requires scrutiny

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2018, 20:33 GMT]
The National Housing Development Authority (NHDA), which comes under the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, is silently transferring 5 acres of lands to the notorious British-trained ‘Special Task Force’ (STF) to expand its commando post into a permanent camp to defend the controversial Sinhala colony at the strategic entrance to Jaffna at Naavat-kuzhi. The colonisation scheme, initiated during the rule of Rajapaksa brothers, received state-patronisation after the regime change backed by the West. The colony is planned to control the arteries of the city and to Sinhalicise Jaffna city itself. The trend is also evidenced in the latest move by the occupying Colombo to station its troops at the Jaffna Fort, which is ‘developed’ with the blessings, funding and research coming from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
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Extremists among Sinhalese burnt Tiger flags in South, racism says Fr Sakthivel

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2018, 12:32 GMT]
A section of Sinhala extremists in the South has burnt Tiger flags after an organised campaign in the social media by certain elements that are believed to be from the SL military intelligence wing operating in the North. Propaganda has been waged through the social media, intentionally spreading false information to the South that the Northern Provincial Council had lowered the Lion flags to half-staff on Mu'l'livaaykkaal Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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SL Attorney General continues to protect genocidaire commander

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2018, 22:49 GMT]
A Deputy Solicitor General representing the SL Attorney Department was urging the High Court in Jaffna on Wednesday to suspend the investigation on the writ of habeas corpus, which was seeking a high-ranking commander of the occupying SL Army to produce Tamil youth who were detained 22 years ago in Jaffna during the regime of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Former SL Commander and present minister, Sarath Fonseka, has been protecting Major General Duminda Keppettiwalana, who commanded the Sinhala soldiers of the military camp at Naavatkuzhi in 1996.
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Colombo strengthens impunity for genocidal Sinhala commander

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 April 2018, 23:13 GMT]
Jaffna High Court Judge Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan on Monday gave green signal to proceed with the cases of habeas corpus seeking a senior commander of the SL Military to produce three of twenty-five Tamil youth, whose whereabouts are not known after the SL Army at Naavatkuzhi detained them 22 years ago in 1996. The SL Police instructed by the Judge to investigate the case stated that it was impossible for them to investigate the case as more than 20 years have elapsed since the disappearance of the victims. The first respondent is Major General Duminda Keppettiwalana, who commanded the Sinhala soldiers of the military camp at Naavatkuzhi in 1996 when he was a captain. He has been systematically protected and promoted by Sarath Fonseka, the former SL Army commander and a partner of the current regime in Colombo.
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Jaffna at standstill, people rally at Nallloor in support of Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 June 2017, 07:41 GMT]
More than 2,000 Eezham Tamils, most of them students, gathered in front of Nalloor temple and marched towards the nearby residence of NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, expressing their solidarity with him on Friday morning. The protesters condemned Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), the main constituent party of the TNA for conspiring with the Colombo’s ruling sections in a move to oust Justice C.V. Wigneswaran from the position of Chief Minister. The peaceful rally received active support from Jaffna University Teachers Association and student groups. In the meantime, all the government offices were brought to a complete standstill and the private businesses remain closed in Jaffna and elsewhere in the North, observing a successful shut-down.
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Tamil Prisoners of War call for renewed struggle to free them from SL prisons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 August 2016, 23:06 GMT]
Tamil Prisoners of War, languishing in the prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka have urged Tamil political and civil activists, students and journalists to launch a renewed struggle for their liberation from the SL prisons. The Tamil POWs said their freedom should be based upon a political decision and a principled one. If SL President Maithiripala Sirisena was able to re-instate a former Chief Justice subjected to impeachment by Rajapaksa government and extend complete Presidential pardon acquitting former SL Commander Sarath Fonseka of all the charges, how could anyone defend the lack of political decision to free the Tamil political prisoners without subjecting them to prolonged imprisonment, a spokesperson of the Tamil POWs asked TamilNet over the phone. The Tamil prisoners have raised severe criticism against Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and TNA Parliamentarian M. Sumanthiran.
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Sri Lanka used cluster bombs against Tamils, says Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2016, 22:42 GMT]
New photographic evidence leaked by an employee of a large demining organization, Halo Trust, and independently corroborated by Human Rights Watch that the material pictured as the "remnants of Russian-made cluster bombs and unexploded cluster submunitions, emerged as the 32nd sessions of the UN Human Rights Council opened last week, said UK Guardian in an exclusive story Monday. The photographs depict cluster bombs uncovered within Sri Lanka Government declared "no fire zones" where Tamil civilians were asked to gather for their safety during the final stages of the war, the paper said. Reports produced by the UN and several rights groups have found that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed by the Sri Lankan forces, but so far no senior member of the Government or the armed forces has been held accountable, the paper added.
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Terms may not be important but the thrust matters

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 September 2015, 20:02 GMT]
What is practically delivered matters more than terms such as international justice, genocide investigation, federalism etc., is the argument of Tamil orchestrators envisaging ‘non-descript’ outcome through ‘hybrid mechanism’. Tamils in their long experience have seen how concepts and coining terms were the monopoly of some and what outcome has come through terms such as international terrorism, peace facilitation, reconciliation etc. The fundamental injustice in the Washington/ New Delhi/ UN approach is the insistence in vantage exclusively from the point of saving or reforming the colonially created State and brutal suppression of space for the nation of Eezham Tamils to even enter into a discourse from another point. The genocide denial or detraction is just a manifestation, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics.
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Chequered Swiss history of supporting Sri Lanka's crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 September 2015, 22:02 GMT]
Switzerland, besides U.S., U.K, and India, has played a key role in providing diplomatic sanctuary for Sri Lanka in international fora against censure for alleged criminal conduct against Tamils. The most strident display was when the Swiss sponsored a UN resolution calling "upon the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate and prosecute itself for war crimes and crimes against humanity," as the State killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final phases of 2009 war. This paved the way for the international community to whitewash a possible genocide. This practice continues to this day as Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) and Swiss Peace [NGO] participate this week in a meeting organized by an NGO outfit to soften the Tamil call for international investigations on Sri Lanka genocide.
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Families of enforced disappeared Tamils decry domestic investigations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 August 2015, 15:38 GMT]
Around 1,200 people from all the 8 districts of North-East came together at an emotional gathering on Sunday at the De La Salle Brothers School in Mannaar, remembering the enforced disappeared persons in the country of Eezham Tamils. On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, the families of enforced disappeared demanded independent international investigations and categorically rejected the domestic and so-called hybrid mechanisms that are currently being advocated by the USA. In the meantime, leading lawyers from Mannaar told TamilNet on Sunday that international investigations were necessary on the mass graves at the killing fields of Mannaar. On Friday, an abandoned well allegedly used by the SL military to dump slain Tamils was located 40 meters close to Maanthai Junction near Thirukkeatheesvaram temple.
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Chadian parallel: dictator faces trial for war-crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2015, 22:04 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils are searching for international mechanisms to bring those who bear responsibility for the "Crime of the century" of killing more than 80,000 Tamil civilians in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, to justice, human rights activists are elated but reminded that the "march of justice can be slow" in the recent trial of Hissen Habre, a former dictator from Chad, in the courts of Senegal. The trial began on 20th July, for alleged crimes of mass killings, torture, disappearance as part of ethnic cleansing in the 1980s, crimes that have stark parallel to those committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka. US State Department, in their selective approach to dealing with International Crimes, saved former SL President Rajapakse in the US Courts of Law suggesting sovereign immunity, an archaic legal doctrine that allows the US Executive branch to protect even genocidaires from legal action.
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Politics of memorialisation discussed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 May 2015, 23:44 GMT]
A Colombo-based Human Rights defender and an NGO researcher promoting ‘Sri Lanka’ reforms were proposing ‘space’ for ‘multiple narratives’ in the memorialisation process for an ‘inclusive’ Sinhala-Muslim-Tamil ‘Sri Lanka’ at a meeting held in Jaffna last Sunday. The activists from the South were advocating the right of memorialisation as part of a reparations of a reconciliation process as if the underlying genocidal conflict in the island had been resolved. The Tamil activists of the TCSF, defending the right of Eezham Tamils to mark their memorialisation as a collective right were also advocating a transformation within the Tamil nation, in order to accommodate space for various narratives within the mainstream Tamil nationalist discourse itself.
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TNPF rejects ‘domestic investigations’ upheld by USA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2015, 21:49 GMT]
The fact that the United States and the US Secretary of State John Kerry would consider the post January 08th 2015 situation in Sri Lanka, with the new government favourable, is understandable. But, for him to suggest that there is a favourable condition for the Tamils, is stretching too far, said Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) Leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, responding to a question from TamilNet on the subject on Tuesday. Pointing out that the new regime is not only maintaining the status quo of the occupying military, which is primarily being accused in the crimes, but both the major parties in the South have claimed complete allegiance to the military and have in fact vouched that the military would be protected, the former parliamentarian said.
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IC has failed to save imprisoned Eezham Tamils: NPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2015, 19:14 GMT]
The new Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena, who came to power with the votes of the Tamil-speaking people, gave full pardon to political prisoner Sarath Fonseka, who was the Sri Lankan Army commander during the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009. This new president, who came to power with Tamil votes, was not able to release any of the Tamil political prisoners who are imprisoned by the Sri Lankan courts with jail terms ranging to 20 to 30 years for their participation in the war, said NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam at a press conference held in Jaffna earlier this week. “When I visited Europe recently and the met some of the MEPs, they were urging the Tamils to be patient. I told them in clear terms that they too have failed in securing the release of Tamil prisoners from a regime that came to power with the votes of Tamil speaking people,” Mr Shivajilingam said.
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