Karunanidhi should bargain exit of habitually biased

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 02:04 GMT]
It is a well-known fact that certain elements, belonging to a clan operating from Nehru’s time bringing in disasters to India’s foreign policy, were responsible for the second time in India committing war crimes on Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. In forming the next government, chief minister Karunanidhi should use all his bargaining power to see that these elements never play a role again in Tamil affairs, said a Tamil journalist in Chennai. This is more important than bargaining ministerial portfolios, considering national interests of India and peace of the Tamil people, he said.
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'Responsibility now with US'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2009, 10:37 GMT]
The first act of Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi after the announcement of the election results was an appeal to the Indian Establishment re-elected to power to save the Eezham Tamils. However, the utmost responsibility lies with the Co-Chairs and especially with the US, says TamilNet’s political analyst in Colombo. The US has to either convince India or act alone to save the situation and save its own credibility. Failing, the White House is likely to emerge bearing the major responsibility for conning Tamils to their death and subjugation, and the IC tagged behind it may never be able to justify its credentials in implementing a world order it desires, he further said.
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Colombo / Kozhumpu / Ko'lumpu / Ko'lamba

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 13:46 GMT]
The point where the land bends inside
The point of the bend
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99 percent Norway Tamils aspire for Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 10:51 GMT]
In a secret ballot of universal suffrage, conducted by a Norwegian media simultaneously in 14 centres in the length and breath of the country among Eezham Tamils, 98.95 percent of the voters said that they aspire for the formation of an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. The voter turn out was a high 89.8 percent in the capital city of Oslo and an average 80 percent for the country, Utrop biweekly that conducted the ballot said. The ballot gains significance not only in democratically and concretely revealing what the Tamils want, but also in telling that the so-called Oslo Declaration that speaks about internal self-determination is not up to their expectations, Tamil circles said. A couple of days before the ballot, Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim advocated a federal solution to the crisis.
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Grand response to Norway ballot: 80 percent turn out

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 03:41 GMT]
Around 80 percent of eligible voters among Eezham Tamils in the cities and other centres where a ballot was conducted to test the current validity of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution, turned out for the voting, Utrop news paper, which conducted the ballot, reported Sunday night. The voting took place on Sunday between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., simultaneously in 6 centres in the major cities and in 8 other centres in suburban and remote towns of Norway. People were seen standing in long queues to cast their votes on the gist of the Resolution, whether they like an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam or not. This is the first time the question is tested through universal suffrage, 33 years after its endorsement by the Eezham Tamils in the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka. The results are awaited Monday noon.
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Norway Tamils ballot-test political course

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 08:50 GMT]
"After deliberately abetting the process of ethnic polarisation to its height reaching genocide, and after creating a situation that warrants secession more than ever, the international community and India, vested with their own interests, have started talking about a federal solution. It is time that the Tamils have to democratically test the validity of the political course democratically set for them in 1976 by the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution and democratically tell the world what they want now," commented a self-exiled Tamil politician of the pre-1977 times responding to a ballot on Vaddukkoaddai resolution taking place among Eezham Tamils in Norway on Sunday.
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'Post-conflict is post-Sri Lankan'

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 13:31 GMT]
The Norwegian peace facilitator Erik Solheim is half a century late in calling for a federal solution to the Tamil national question in the island of Sri Lanka, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. “By naming the solution in his mind, whether Erik Solhiem is resigning from his role of peace facilitation and assumes another profile”, asked the commentator. “A federal agenda upheld at this juncture is a mockery of the spirit of federalism. A successful federal set-up comes only from spontaneous and mutual consent of peoples. Warring parties of a long legacy may make federal more miserable. The bitter war unchecked but abetted by the international community in the island leads to nothing but secession”, the commentator further said.
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MIA draws Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka bombing of safe zone

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 10:42 GMT]
Oscar and Grammy award nominee, Eezham born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam (MIA), after meeting the popular talk-show host Oprah Winfrey at a gala at Lincoln Center in celebration of the most influential people list the Time magazine produced, drew Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka Government's bombing of civilian camps inside the safe zone in MIA's face book.
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Sri Lanka’s democratically mandated genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 15:41 GMT]
"If Sri Lanka has reached the stage of having a 'democratically elected' government mandated for genocide by the ethnic majority, then that is the strongest reason why the country has to be democratically divided", writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo, responding to British envoy John Sawers' comment Thursday at UN that "Sri Lanka is a democratically elected government fighting a terrorist organization". Pointing out that this stand, worse than the fallacy of viewing an ethnic war as war on terrorism is not isolated in the IC, the commentator cautioned "as long as the IC, jaundiced in eyesight, fails to acknowledge that genocide and terrorism are 'democratically elected’ in Sri Lanka, they endanger democratic ideals globally” adding that "it is time for Tamil Nadu and the diaspora to demonstrate mandate for secession".
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'One-man hunt excuse to nullify a national question'

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2009, 08:04 GMT]
Contrary to what is said outside, the real focus of the UN Security Council deliberations is not on the plight of the Tamil civilians, but using their plight as a shield and by manipulating it, the thrust is actually for the hunt or deposition of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan, in order to blunt the Tamil struggle, news reports hinted Thursday. Inner City Press quoted a senior advisor of Ban Ki-moon saying that the UN Secretariat’s hope was to arrange amnesty to the remaining LTTE cadres in the conflict zone, except Mr. Pirapaharan. When asked about his son, the advisor said, “That’s what negotiations are for”. While Colombo’s ambassador at UN said the matter is being considered, according to the UN advisor cited above, the Three Brothers have shown little interest as they feel they are about to win. Tamil circles smell Indian hand in such a line of deliberations.
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Rehabilitation symbols: How minds work in naming barbed-wire camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 02:25 GMT]
Four major internment camps meant for the civilians of Vanni and envisaged as long-term detention-villages as a part of Colombo’s structural genocide of Tamils, have been named after Sir Ponnampalam Ramanathan, Sir Ponnampalam Arunachalam, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Lakshman Kadirgamar. All four of them belonged to two aristocratic families of Jaffna that had settled in Colombo. They served more to Colombo than to Tamil homeland. Two of them never spoke Tamil, but all of them in some way served Sinhala interests. The message is subtle: Look upon the supremacy of the Colombo-centric system and be subservient, never think of your own system, writes TamilNet’s regular political commentator in Colombo.
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Physical capture and incarceration of people: latest ways of neo-colonialism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 06:01 GMT]
"The pundits of political science may have to revise the connotations of the word neo-colonialism as indirect ways of imperialism only operating through economy. The experiment that is taking place with the Tamil question in the island of Sri Lanka indicates that powers of today are bold enough to orchestrate physical capture of people in brutal ways without worrying about casualty and the imprisonment of the remaining indefinitely, in order to achieve their geopolitical goals," writes a regular political commentator to TamilNet. "The manipulations at the UN, open defiance in recognizing the obvious ethnic nature of the crisis, and the outrageous statement diplomacy empty of action in saving the oppressed, but signalling Colombo’s genocide, are clear evidences for the new trends of neo-colonialism, encountered by the world of freedom-loving people," the commentator writes.
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Demonising Tamil struggle without citing solutions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 11:40 GMT]
What the Sinhala government is now trying to do to the Tamil people is nothing new. Exactly the same thing was done in Vietnam by the US army, writes Indian journalist T.G. Jacob from Kerala. “Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are there all over Europe and their number in India is growing. All these factors make the situation even more highly volatile, which in all possibility will create new polarizations. The short term military defeat of LTTE cannot at all prevent the Tamil issue from becoming an international one and change to guerilla war within the island. That is why the Sri Lankan political leadership is talking of ‘protected’ villages. Actually this is exactly what is happening now. The Sri Lankan government through all its barbarity and outrageous double talk is immensely facilitating this process”, he writes.
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'Empty statements of IC evoke fury in the diaspora': Oslo hunger striker

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 14:57 GMT]
The whole concept of peace facilitation will become a mockery and no peace facilitation will hereafter be seen with credibility in the world, if Norway fails in its ‘responsibility’ in stopping civilian tragedy in Sri Lanka, said 51 years old Sri Navaratnam, the leader of Norway Tamil Sangam (association), who commenced an indefinite fast in Oslo, Monday, demanding Norway bringing out immediate ceasefire, negotiations between LTTE and GoSL, not sending civilians to camps but resettling them and Norway recognizing the self-determination of Eezham Tamils. Mr. Navaratnam was furious of empty statements coming from IC and said such statements without action only infuriate the already traumatised people.
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Perfect opportunity for US to prove credentials: ICG, Asia Director

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 12:44 GMT]
"Barack Obama's administration has said it is committed to the principals of international law and humanitarian protection. Sri Lanka is the perfect opportunity for the new U.S. president to show that this is not empty rhetoric," says an article by Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group. "Urgent, determined, and united international action is necessary to ensure the safety of the innocent -- by the United Nations Security Council, other multilateral organizations, and individual countries that have relations with Sri Lanka, including India and Japan. Only international supervision, unhindered by the government, can provide the necessary level of protection," writes the author, reflecting the changing and opportunistic perspectives of the IC, but elusive on the crux of the crisis – the Tamil national aspirations.
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ANC calls for ceasefire, supports independent Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 21:58 GMT]
The ruling party of the government of South Africa (ANC) have reiterated calls for a permanent ceasefire in Sri Lanka and acknowledged the need for an independent Tamil homeland. ANC MP and chairmen of the Solidarity Group of Peace and Equality Sisa Njikelana in an interview with Tamilnet, Saturday, has stressed the need for bilateral talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE, an organisation that articulates the aspirations of the people. “This Government believes that by defeating the LTTE, the Tamils will just automatically fall for any offer given. I look at that with a nice cynical smile”, he said.
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Diaspora youth hunger strike ignites mass struggle for Eezham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 13:05 GMT]
The fast to death protest by Parameswaran Subramaniyan to draw attention of the International Community to the ongoing catastrophe in Sri Lanka, has reached the 13th day on Sunday. Thousands of Tamils of all ages and all walks of life have been pouring into the Parliament Square throughout the campaign, expressing their support to hunger strikers and their demands put forward to the British Government. The hunger strike launched by Parameswaran and Sivatharsan Sivakumaravel has become a key point of confluence drawing not only the first and second generation of Tamils in UK, but also attracting active participation of third generation of Tamils in the Eezham cause.
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French organisations vote, unanimously support Eezham Tamil independence

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 09:41 GMT]
Exercising their right of free expression, 67 registered social welfare organisations of diaspora Tamils in France, took a pioneering democratic step of secret ballot on Saturday and unanimously declared support to the independence war of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, said Ki Pi Aravinthan in Paris to TamilNet. The Paris declaration read that in supporting the cause of Eezham Tamils, it has infallibly adopted the will and spirit of the Vaddukkoaddai Declaration of 1976 that was overwhelmingly mandated by Tamil voters in 1977, and was in line with the ideology behind the declaration of American independence, the Republic of France in 1789 and the UN human rights declaration of 1948.
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Colombo, India and IC conspire three-pronged attack: Canadian Tamil artist

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2009, 00:01 GMT]
The coercion of the Canadian government withdrawing the release of a statement just because the Canadian Tamil demonstrators refused to lower the Tamil national flag, considered as pro-LTTE flag by the government, is a part of the international conspiracy to break down the Eezham Tamil liberation struggle by isolating and dealing with the three components of the struggle, i.e., the LTTE, the TNA and the diaspora, said Varnarameshwaran, a Canadian Tamil Music Director. "The conspiracy is to abet Colombo to eliminate the LTTE leadership at whatever civilian cost, India to handle the TNA and the governments of the so-called international community to intimidate the diaspora. It is a three-pronged attack," he said.
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Holmes needs more homework: Diaspora refugee worker

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 April 2009, 15:06 GMT]
It is unfortunate that UN, the apex body meant to protect the weaker sections of humanity, is on the contrary exploiting the misery of Eezham Tamil civilians to abet the aims of their sworn oppressors, said K.Suthahar, an information counsellor of a refugee reception centre in Norway. "Top UN official John Holmes, would do better by convincing his organisation to first demonstrate that to what extent it can practically defy the genocidal agenda of the Sri Lankan state and in what ways it can protect the concerned civilians particularly, and the Tamil people in general. The first step is to take full responsibility of the civilians who are already in the concentration camps of Colombo. But the UN is unable even to free its own local workers in Colombo’s camps," he said.
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