Sitrampalam proves self-determination not a diaspora fantasy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 05:24 GMT]
Prof SK Sitrampalam, Senior Vice President of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), writing in Thinakkural this month on the importance of Eezham Tamils asserting to their right to self-determination, disproved a distorting campaign by Colombo, New Delhi, Washington, international crisis managers and even the UN panel report trying to tell that this right is not an aspiration of the Tamils in the island but only in the diaspora. While the concerted campaigners assert to their audacity without seeking a referendum and while the Eezham Tamils in the island are constitutionally and militarily gagged to open mouth on the issue, the bold voice of Sitrampalam coming from the island was highly appreciated by many. Today, Tamils in the island are left to feel more compellingly for liberation than Tamils in the diaspora, Tamil political circles said.
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Jagath Dias faces arrest in Europe

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 13:20 GMT]
Swiss Federal Prosecutor has announced the initiation of a formal criminal investigation against Jagath Dias, in case of his return to the country, according to European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) Thursday. The ECCHR also said that the allegations of crimes under international law during the war in the island of Sri Lanka are already under preliminary investigation in Germany.
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Discussions in Geneva show world plunging into ‘State Anarchy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 05:26 GMT]
The way Sri Lanka’s war crimes were viewed by many State actors at Geneva showed how these States are leading the world into anarchy and are contributing to global unrest of peoples, political observers said. In an informal discussion of State delegates and human rights groups held in Geneva on Wednesday on a draft proposal from Canada to convene an Interactive Discussion on the outcome of Sri Lanka’s LLRC in the 19th session in March 2011, Sri Lanka challenged such a procedure. Russia, China, Cuba and Pakistan opposed any demand on Sri Lanka. Malaysia and Algeria were not happy of the procedure. Thailand, Chili and Mexico were sitting on the fence. The EU, UK, USA, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland and New Zealand welcomed the proposal. India and Maldives present in the room were silent.
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US cables show how international silence enabled Sri Lanka’s genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 03:55 GMT]
In March 2009 Sri Lanka had come to the attention of the UN’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, but despite his disquiet he did not take further steps as Sri Lanka had assured him the United States and India supported its military campaign, according to a leaked US cable. The account of the meeting on March 16, 2009 between Mr. Deng and the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, as well as other US cables, shows how international inaction and silence, rather than ignorance, made it possible for Sri Lanka to continue and escalate its mass killings of Tamil civilians.
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Don’t be intimidated, Prof Neelson tells Tamil diaspora

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 September 2011, 05:41 GMT]
“When I see the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam or the Global Tamil Forum, you associate and put your faith in the West, I beg to differ,” said Professor John P. Neelson, while addressing Eezham Tamils rallying at Geneva on Monday. Talking on the past experience of Tamils trusting Western Establishments, Neelson said that instead of siding with the victims of State Terrorism, they [the West] sided with the perpetrators. Criminalisation of your struggle in favour of Sri Lanka was to intimidate you. Don’t be intimidated, Neelson said besides warning Tamils against trusting the ruling elites of the West too much. He emphasized on seeing more white people of Europe associated with the Eezham struggle and stressed on the point that India “remains the most important power that will determine what happens in Sri Lanka.”
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Genocide proceeds inside Geneva, within diaspora: Viraj Mendis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 22:31 GMT]
“We all know that the process of Genocide is continuing. In Eelam the colonization process and the enslavement process in continuing, as the power of the LTTE is not there to stop it. The process of Genocide is continuing here too. It is happening inside these buildings here in Geneva,” said Mr. Viraj Medis, a progressive Sinhala rights activist and a long-term supporter of the struggle of Eezham Tamils, while addressing the Pongku Tamil rally held in front of the UN office in Geneva on Monday. The real external architects of the genocidal war are now trying their ultimate spin. The US/British political offensive which is a crucial part the genocidal process is taking place right now within the Diaspora, cautioned Mr. Mendis of the International Human Rights Association, Bremen, Germany.
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Pongku Thamizh in Geneva reinvigorates call for Eezham Tamil Independence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 14:11 GMT]
More than 5,000 Eezham Tamil activists across Europe confluenced Monday in what the organizers of the event described as successful Pongku Thamizh rally in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in Switzerland where 18th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is taking place. “We demand the Human Rights world to denounce Tamil Genocide in the island of Sri Lanka in both word and deed,” an exiled Tamil activist with a personal experience of the genocidal war, who met the representatives of the UNHRC at its 18th Session, told TamilNet. Professor John P. Neelson, an experienced scholar on the international dimensions of the conflict in the island and Stéphane Gatignon, a mayor from France, who asserted that he had come to the rally reflecting the interests of 30,000 Tamils in his constituency, met the representatives of the Human Rights Council with the Tamil representatives.
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Sri Lanka cancels landing visa for 78 countries

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 12:25 GMT]
Based on ‘security considerations’ Sri Lanka cancels landing visa facility to 78 countries. Visitors form these countries could make online applications from September 28 onwards for Colombo to process visas, Daily Mirror reported Monday, citing a SL Immigration Department official. The 78 countries are yet to be named and getting online visa prior to arrival will be mandatory from 01 January 2012. Through the process genocidal Colombo aims to differentiate, screen and deny visa to diaspora Eezham Tamils having foreign passports, said diaspora political circles adding that this is another intimidation tactic. As property rights and even visiting rights of Eezham Tamils are targeted in subtle ways, only jokers can deny that there is no structural genocide in the island, diaspora circles further said.
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India’s indirect campaign backs Sri Lanka’s military and genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 09:36 GMT]
Choosing a time when Geneva is supposed to decide on investigating Sri Lanka’s war crimes, New Delhi has scheduled a large-scale joint military exercise with Sri Lanka in Trincomalee in the country of Eezham Tamils. Meanwhile, a senior leader of India’s major opposition party, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi of BJP, chose to deliver a lecture in Colombo on Saturday commemorating a Sinhala-Buddhist revivalist, and according to The Hindu, Dr. Joshi “was left with the impression that everyone wanted an early solution leading to a united Sri Lanka under one constitution.” Both the Administration and Opposition of New Delhi indirectly signal against investigating genocidal Sri Lanka’s war crimes and the ‘impression’ Joshi conveyed to The Hindu has no moral validity as Tamils are constitutionally prevented from telling their opinion on the national question, commented a Tamil politician in the island.
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Aaraip-pattai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 September 2011, 04:44 GMT]
The thicket of Aarai shrub
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Weiss's "The Cage" adds to Colombo's war-crime woes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2011, 20:17 GMT]
Canada's National Post, and Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, two major dailies, carried articles on Gordon Weiss's book on Sri Lanka war, exposing further the world-wide interest in alleged war-crimes in Sri Lanka following the submission of the war-crimes report by Ban Ki Moon to the UN's Human Rights Council for debate last week. "The book's version of what happened is hardly far-fetched. Mr. Weiss argues that a lot of civilians needlessly lost their lives during the final months of fighting and that the government bears its share of responsibility," National Post said in the article titled "Sri Lanka's Dirty Secret."
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“We deployed DPU teams inside safe zone”: Rajapaksa confided to US envoy in May 2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 21:43 GMT]
During the final days of the genocidal war in Vanni when the international community was repeatedly urging Colombo to cease attacks on the ‘safe zone’, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa admitted to a top US envoy that his military had deployed Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) missions, also known as Deep Penetration Units (DPU) inside the so-called safe-zone to “organize people to breach the LTTE earth bunds.” Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa has ‘confidentially’ shared this military secret to Charge d'Affaires of the US embassy James R. Moore, while holding a meeting with Co-Chair Ambassadors in Colombo, barely two week before Colombo massacred thousands of civilians and claimed military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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SLA harasses uprooted Tamils from Champoor in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 17:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army soldiers have been harassing uprooted people from Champoor villages in Trincomalee, who are sheltered in temporary camps of the Moothoor East division of the district. In recent days, groups of occupying SLA soldiers who visit the so-called welfare centres of the Champoor uprooted living in Mallikaith-theevu, Ma'natcheanai, Kaddaipa'richchaan and Ki'liveddi, have been questioning the ‘background’ and the ‘past’ of the civilians under LTTE-administration before 2006. Recently, the SL governor of the East, Rear Admiral (retd) Mohan Wijewickrema, had warned the uprooted Champoor people sheltered in the camps that they risk losing their ‘refugee’ status if they continue to refuse moving into alternate lands provided by Colombo. Champoor has been seized from the people for Indian assisted coal power plant, which is a scheme of Colombo's structural genocide on Eezham Tamils.
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Post War Politics of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 17:13 GMT]
The conclusion of the 18th session of the UNHRC will reveal whether there is anything left to rely on the International Community of Establishments, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific. While the Eezham Tamils are the worst affected by the war, they are also at the receiving end of the post war Sri Lankan Politics which is indeed continuation of the war by other means or to put it bluntly the continuation of the Genocide. We should always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. That preparedness is the Solidarity we develop with our Natural Allies. The Natural Allies will certainly include those in the Sinhala society rising up against the Family Rule provided they recognize the Right of Self Determination of the Tamil Speaking Nation, a recognition (including the right to secede) adopted by the Ceylon Communist Party in 1944, he further said.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has say in appealing to Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 04:59 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has a say in appealing to New Delhi and other Commonwealth countries, especially where Tamils live, to decide not to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Sri Lanka in 2013, Eezham Tamil political circles told TamilNet. The decision will be taken in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Perth in Australia in October. The Canadian Prime Minister has already announced that he would not take part in the meet in Colombo, if Sri Lanka doesn't make progress on the question of human rights in the island. The Indian Prime Minister may not attend the meet in Australia this year, but Tami Nadu should register its opinion with the head of Indian delegation against deciding on holding the next meet in Colombo, Eezham Tamil politicians requested.
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Sri Lanka aims to get more time to complete genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 16:46 GMT]
The primary aim of Sri Lanka in the UN human rights council is to buy some more time to complete its genocide of Eezham Tamils through structural means and militarisation so that the question of war crimes would eventually lose its importance and would become acceptable means of contemporary world polity. The more time is given to a virtually Sinhala military to occupy the country of Eezham Tamils with impunity, the more the world will be contributing to a dangerous paradigm. If the existing State system in the international organisations is going to repeatedly prove its incapability in delivering criminal and political justice, the global Tamils have to be prepared to undertake an international struggle in appropriate ways. 70 million global Tamils cannot be taken for ride by the Sinhala polity just because it has a State and Tamils don’t have a State.
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Colombo recalls Dias over war crimes prosecution fear

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 00:49 GMT]
Maj. Gen. (retd.) Jegath Dias, deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, and commander of Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 57th division during the last phase of the Sri Lanka war, was recalled by Colombo "in response to accusations he was involved in war crimes," Swiss media reported today. Spotlight on Dias's alleged war-crimes began when Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET) and Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, first filed a case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Germany for accepting Dias to the diplomatic post. Two other legal efforts by Swiss-based advocacy groups, Society for Threatened People and TRIAL, and by Germany-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights further hindered Dias's ability to function as a diplomat, sources said.
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TNA slams Samarasinghe’s UN statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 00:02 GMT]
Leader of the Tamil National Alliance, R Sampanthan, in a press release issued to the media today, took exception to Head of Sri Lanka delegation to the UN and Minister in Rajapakse government, Mahinda Samarasinghe’s statement which said that his “government’s approach to reconciliation has been predicated on building trust and amity between communities." TNA retorted that the experience of the Tamil people does not support this claim and that “Tamil people of the North and East continue to be subjected to violence even after the end of the war.”
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Sri Lanka's war crimes, discussion in UN rights session imminent

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 01:49 GMT]
While Colombo appeared to be spending major diplomatic effort to prevent UN expert panel war crimes report on Sri Lanka reaching the 18th session of the UN's Human Rights Council for discussions, reports from Geneva indicate imminent submission of the Report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to the Human Rights Council, "a move that could lead to an international investigation of the conflict," VoA report said Monday.
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Blake's bona fides to deliver Tamil justice questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 September 2011, 09:12 GMT]
Robert Blake, U.S. assistant secretary of State for South Asia, and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka and India, is widely known to be the architect of the U.S. policy on Sri Lanka which has resulted in Sri Lanka's massacre at Mu'l'livaaykkaal where more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed. Key activists in the Tamil diaspora are increasingly convinced that Tamils are unlikely to obtain justice and accountability under Blake's tenure where Blake is forced to face challenges to provide sustenance to his Sri Lanka policy - a policy which requires accommodating Rajapakse rule amid soaring rights violations, continuing structural genocide of Tamils and an authoritarian governance where war victims are further subjected to State sanctioned military violence.
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