Canadian Tamils unveil memorial, remember victims of Black July

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 01:30 GMT]
Glen Murray, Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Toronto Centre, working with Canadian-Tamil youth, unveiled a plaque at a Tamil Memorial Tree Planting event at Evergreen Brick Works – a community environmental centre, Saturday honoring the tens of thousands Tamil lives lost in the struggle for human rights in Sri Lanka. Erected hours before the Black July remembrance event, the memorial commemorates the events of Black July 1983 to Mu'l'livaikkaal of May 2009, the organizers said. Later in the day, in a memorial event organized by National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), Canadian-Tamils gathered at Queens Park –Toronto, to remember the victims of Black July- bracing the heavy rains.
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‘Dropping call for justice and independence is worst crime’

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 21:03 GMT]
Voicing on behalf of the present establishment in New Delhi, sections in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) unnecessarily declaring against independence of Eezham Tamils and discouraging war crimes investigations are worst of the crimes committed not merely against Eezham Tamils but against human civilization, said Tamil national as well as Left political circles in the island and in the diaspora to TamilNet on Monday. The comments have come responding to TNA views expressed after its victory and during its campaign in the civic elections. TNA leader Sampanthan interpreted the victory as Tamil wish for solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’ and a confidential document circulated among ‘friends of the TNA’ during the civic elections said that the war crimes investigations were actually directed against India than against Colombo, and hence Tamils should not pin hopes on them.
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Colombo is not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence: New Zealand MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 17:51 GMT]
“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
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Tamils reject collaboration-reconciliation, favour identity-based peace

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 08:03 GMT]
The results of civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils decisively show that despite maximum intimidation and ‘development’ lures, people reject the paradigm of ‘collaboration-reconciliation’ but determinedly favour a polity of peace, based on the identity of their nation, political observers in the island said on Sunday. The message should be useful in seeking innovative and creative ways to resolve the national question in the island in order to achieve peace and stability in the region, they further said.
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TNA wins Thirukkoayil PS in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has secured 72.87% of the votes polled in Thirukkoayil Piratheasa Chapai (PS) in Ampaa'rai district. The ruling UPFA and the UNP received one seat each. The victory of the TNA in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai is an expression of Eezham Tamil unity across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, political observers in Colombo said.
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Protests make India withdraw SLA training in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 14:21 GMT]
A programme of the Indian military to train soldiers of the genocidal Army of Sri Lanka at the Madras Regimental Centre at Wellington in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu was withdrawn after a protest of the people of Tamil Nadu staged by Periyar Dravida Kazhakam (PDK), Naam Thamizhar Party (NTP), Viduthali Chiruththaigal Katchi (VCK) and other activists groups on Friday. 25 soldiers of Sri Lanka’s Army who arrived at Wellington Thursday night for a three months training were sent back in a bus via Chennai, Indian officials said Saturday. About 200 activists participated in the protest demonstration at Wellington on Friday. A wordy quarrel took place between the Tamil Nadu police and a section of the agitators when the latter attempted to squat on road, PTI reported.
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91 killed in Norway, Tamil politician escapes massacre

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 20:38 GMT]
At least four Eezham Tamil youths, including a politician of the ruling Labour Party of Norway, Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, were amongst those who escaped the indiscriminate shooting by a lone gunman at the summer camp of the youth wing of the party (AUF) on Friday. The attack killed at least 84 people. A short-while before the gunman struck at the camp held at Utøya island, a bomb blast ripped through the political enclave of central Oslo, killing at least seven people and injuring many more in the locality where government offices and ministries including the Prime Minister's Office are located. Oslo police are questioning a 32-year-old ethnic Norwegian man, who is reportedly a right-wing extremist, in connection with both the attacks, described by Norwegian media as the worst episode of violence in the country since World War II.
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US official foresees elections in the north as way for ‘indigenous leadership’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 12:17 GMT]
While the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton visiting Chennai was looking at “some innovative and creative ideas” to break the impasse over the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday that the US government was looking towards Sri Lanka conducting provincial council elections in the north to facilitate the emergence of indigenous leadership for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, campaigning for Rajapaksa in the intimidated civic elections in the north that is now taking place ‘guided’ by the Rajapaksa regime and its occupying Army, SL minister Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said in Jaffna that Tamils should vote for Rajapaksa to “ensure that there is no foreign interferences.”
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Clinton’s analogue contradicts political reality

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 11:26 GMT]
Visiting Chennai and appreciating the Tamil Nadu state in India, the US Secretary of State Ms. Hilary Clinton on Wednesday said, "Every Sri Lankan deserves the same hope and opportunity." If Ms. Clinton implies an Indian-modeled federal solution to the chronic national crisis in the island then she is making a historic mistake in her analogy, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Federalism in India had an altogether different origin beginning from the days of the English East India Company compared to the vicious experiment of the British ‘Crown Colony’ in the island. Ms. Clinton should now delete the word ‘Sri Lanka’ if she means talking about Eezham Tamils or about ‘reconciliation’ in the island, he further writes.
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Nepalese in West Bengal achieve autonomy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 22:17 GMT]
The Gorkhas of the West Bengal state of India achieved a special autonomy for them in the Darjeeling Hill tracts, after nearly 20 years of struggle. A tripartite agreement signed by the Central Government of India, State Government of West Bengal and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha at a village called Pintail in West Bengal on Monday paves way for the setting up of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. Gorkhas are a major ethnicity of Nepal that also inhabits the Darjeeling Hills in India, bordering Nepal. While it became possible for the Gorkhas to cast geostrategic weight of their location in a bottleneck territory to achieve autonomy, the Tamils on either side of the Palk Bay are yet to cast their international geostrategic weight in decisive ways to achieve the long-deserving liberation of Eezham Tamils, commented Dravidian political circles in Chennai.
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Clinton meets Jayalalithaa in Chennai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 17:00 GMT]
The United States is “looking at some innovative and creative ideas to break the impasse over the Sri Lankan Tamils issue,” PTI quoted visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in Chennai Wednesday. The report did not elaborate. Meanwhile, in a public address Ms. Clinton said that India's example of multicultural democracy should serve as a model for Sri Lanka. Commenting on Clinton's remarks, Eezham Tamil political circles said Indian-modelled political solution will not work in the island when the military is Sinhalese. Centuries of political experience in the island shows that equal status of Tamils and Sinhalese is possible only when they have equal States, the political circles further commented.
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BJP vows to take up Eezham Tamils plight in Indian Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 07:10 GMT]
Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari who met a top delegation of the British Tamils Forum (BTF) last weekend in London, has said that the BJP was very serious on taking up the ‘Sri Lanka issue’ in the Indian Lok-Sabha. BTF leaders V Ravi Kumar and S. Pathmanathan, who led the BTF delegation to the meeting with the visiting Indian politicians, expressed hope that the BJP would be consulting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa on the plight of Eezham Tamils and that the Indian leaders would also be meeting the Tamil representatives from the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The BJP is yet to adopt a stand on the accountability issue on the question of Eezham Tamils and the genocide committed on them.
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Civic elections question solutions within ‘united’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 17:32 GMT]
The way civic elections take place in the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka and its genocidal Army is an open challenge invalidating the stand taken by some powers that political models within a united Sri Lanka could resolve the national question in the island, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. In recent times political pundits in the US are busy in thinking how to inspire the people of China to become ‘Liberal Democratic’ in order to avoid an impending East-West conflict. But in its desire to woo ‘pivotal’ Sri Lanka into its fold, to what extent the West is going to uphold its credibility by structuring a military and genocidal Sri Lanka that makes a mockery of democracy, he asks.
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Tamils have reasons to seek asylum: NZ Herald editorial

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 17:22 GMT]
“Sri Lanka has not long emerged from a long and bloody civil war. The Sinhalese Government would not allow media to witness the way it finally crushed the Tamil rebellion. Anyone afraid to remain in that country probably has cause. They deserve compassion even though no country can afford to welcome refugees who bypass the international channels for resettling them somewhere safe, said New Zealand Herald editorial on Monday on the question of 85 Eezham Tamil asylum seekers heading for New Zealand in a boat and were detained by Indonesia. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was uncharacteristically blunt about the boatload of asylum seekers when he said, "They are not welcome here," the editorial of the reputed NZ newspaper said.
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Prime Minister criticized in New Zealand’s parliament over Tamil refugees

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 July 2011, 08:38 GMT]
Green Party MP, Keith Locke was furious at New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key in the parliament on Thursday, over the latter’s recent remarks on Eezham Tamil boat refugees. On the question of the 87 asylum seekers, the New Zealand Prime Minister on Monday had said, "Our very simple message to them is they are not welcome here." Citing the PM’s statement, Keith Locke said, “Good-hearted New Zealanders were shocked when their Prime Minister so bluntly rejected the appeals of Tamil boat people who had arrived in Indonesia on the Elysia to come to New Zealand.” Locke pointed out that John Key's own mother was an asylum seeker, who fled from Nazi Germany to Britain in 1939.
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International Criminal Court, Commonwealth Secretariat sign MoU

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 20:08 GMT]
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, on Wednesday signed an MoU with the International Criminal Court, to strengthen and develop co-operation between the two organizations to jointly support States implementing International Criminal Law. Legal circles in Colombo opined that Sri Lanka not being a signatory to the Rome Statute, the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka, would not be a beneficiary of this MoU. However, they said that it is a good sign to see the Commonwealth Secretary General Sharma, who once stated that he had no mandate to question Sri Lanka on its human rights violations perpetrated on Tamil people, has started to move in the right direction with the signing of this MoU.
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SL Army in Jaffna harasses JVP campaigners from South

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 July 2011, 18:02 GMT]
After curbing the Tamil National Alliance from conducting campaign meetings ahead of civic elections in North, the occupying Sri Lanka Army of Mahinda Rajapaksa regime now harasses the other opposition parties that come from the South for election campaign. The JVP campaigners in Jaffna told media Thursday that a Brigadier rank officer of the SL military headquarters in Palaali in Jaffna had phoned and threatened them when they went to the SL Police to complain against the harassments by the SLA soldiers.
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SL governor threatens Vanni NGOs to ‘donate’ money to Buddhist stupas

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 16:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s colonial governor for the country of Eezham Tamils in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri is now completely obsessed with building Buddhist stupas, Sinhala colonisation and Sinhalicisation of administration, news sources in Jaffna said. Building Buddhist stupas at Old Park in Jaffna, where the provincial administration is located, and at Mullaiththeevu town, the occupying SL governor threatens the NGOs working in Vanni to pay ‘unaccounted’ money for his projects. NGOs working in Vanni have to get annual clearance from the SL president’s ‘special task force’ and the colonial governor makes use of this situation to fleece money from the NGOs.
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USA, Sri Lanka co-host Security Conference in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 07:15 GMT]
The US Pacific Command (PACOM) and United States Center for Civil Military Relations (CCMR) conduct South Asia Maritime Conference in collaboration with genocidal Sri Lanka at Hotel Galadari in Colombo this week, from Monday to Friday. The US Ambassador in Colombo, Patricia A. Butenis and SL Navy Commander Somathilake Dissanayake were at the inaugural session on Monday. The conference on maritime security of South Asia is attended by Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Australia and the USA.
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14-year-old boy taken for anti-UN demonstration reported missing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 22:45 GMT]
A 14-year-old student of Yarltan College in Kaarainakar, Jaffna, Thiruchelvan Kajeethan, who was enticed by the EPDP and taken to Colombo to participate in the anti-UN panel report demonstration that took place on May Day, is so far missing. The parents of the grade-6 student, disappointed in getting a reply from the EPDP have approached TNA parliamentarians in Jaffna to find out what had happened to the boy. In recent times, there are many instances of school children, below the age of sixteen, missing in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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