Kohona admits to sending "Killer SMS"

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2011, 20:26 GMT]
Dr Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, admitted to sending an SMS message through a European intermediary giving instructions to leaders of the Libertation Tigers to surrender, Sydney Morning Herald reported in an investigative story in its Friday edition. In this "white flag" incident Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers is alleged to have gunned down all the LTTE members who surrendered. The Journalist Ben Doherty appeared to have visited Sri Lanka and gathered the pertinent evidentiary information, including a statement from an eye-witness to the incident.
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JDS condemns silence of Colombo media over terror campaign in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 08:27 GMT]
Detailing the recent killings, abductions and other atrocities in the SL military occupied North, the Journalists For Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an exiled organisation of journalists, on Friday condemned the silence of Sinhala and English media in Colombo over the terror campaign. Instead, these media highlight only the explanations from the side of the SL government, the report said. The JDS statement exposed the latest twist of portrayal of the situation by SL media minister and government spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella, who wanted to pass the blame on "elements seeking tarnish the image of Colombo government internationally". The JDS statement, with details of earlier unreported crimes, noted that human rights violations not being exposed is high in Vanni as journalists and aid workers were barred from entering Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts.
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US emergency food aid amid WFP fears for 2011

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2010, 19:07 GMT]
The United States this week provided the UN’s World Food Program operation in Sri Lanka with $5.5 million of emergency food aid, shortly after the organisation warned of serious shortages and halved the wheat flour and sugar in rations it distributes to displaced people. The food situation remained ‘fragile’, despite improving since march 2010, and the next four months are critical , the WFP was quoted by IRIN as warning. The WFP estimates that it needs some $27 million next year to continue to provide assistance to an estimated 371,000 Tamils displaced by the armed conflict from 2008 and has warned of a “pipeline break” looming in 2011.
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UN post confers no absolute immunity from war crimes prosecution

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 00:04 GMT]
Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, UN Officials only have “functional” immunity, immunity ratione materiae which confers immunities on those performing acts of state (duties). War crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are not incidental to the duties of a UN accredited diplomat, and therefore, Shavendra Silva, Sri Lanka's official at the UN in New York, can be prosecuted under the 18 USC 2441 of US criminal code for allegedly committing war crimes outside the US. Legal sources also said that the UN Headquarters Agreement on UN officials' Privileges and Immunities concluded with respect to the UN Charter arguably confers functional immunity only as well.
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New York media alerts UN posting of 'War Criminal'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 18:47 GMT]
"A suspected war criminal who allegedly played a key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka has landed a cushy job at the United Nations -- with full diplomatic immunity," said New York Post in the Sunday Edition, adding "Human-rights groups are outraged that Shavendra Silva, 46, a top ex-military commander, was named Sri Lanka's deputy permanent UN representative in August, after which he moved to New York." Innercity Press, referring to NY Post's story, pointed out to ICP's August 25th report where ICP asked the UN spokesperson that if the alleged killings by Mr Silva during the final stages of the war was true, whether the UN Secretary General has the discretion to reject Mr Silva. ICP said the question is no longer a hypothetical and that Ban Ki Moon did nothing.
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Dublin follow-up on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 October 2010, 15:33 GMT]
School of Law and Government of Dublin City University together with Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka are holding two events this week as follow-up to the Dublin war crimes tribunal on Sri Lanka held in January this year. Dublin findings issued at the end of the hearings said, Sri Lanka Government is "guilty of War-Crimes" and "guilty of Crimes Against Humanity." The tribunal also concluded that the charge of Genocide requires further investigations. Eye witnesses included several escapees from the final week of Sri Lanka offensive in the Mullaitivu "No Fire Zone" where more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were allegedly slaughtered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) training heavy weapons on them.
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Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN job in New York

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) to the United Nation's post in New York, vacant following the recall of previous DPR, Bandula Jayasekera, after an alleged sexual harassment scandal, is reported to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, former 58th Division commander, who has been accused of committing war crimes by his former General Sarath Fonseka, Inner City Press reported. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on this reported UN job said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."
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Malaysian politician to form Committee on genocide in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 August 2010, 14:26 GMT]
Deputy Chief Minister of Penang, and human rights advocate, Prof. Ramasamy, is to form an international committee to collect evidence on the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, with the aim of presenting a case to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Panel, a Malaysian companian site to the Sun newspaper said Sunday. "The group will also fight for human rights anywhere, in places where people are deprived of their rights and privileges," said the Batu Kawan MP who is a long-time human right activist.
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Government planning to bring Sinhalese colonists again to Ma’nalaa’ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is accelerating its plans to colonize Ma’nalaa’ru area in Vanni with Sinhalese people and also to bring back the Sinhalese people who had been earlier brought to this area as colonists, some government officers who had visited Ma’nalaa’ru area said. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and other de-mining organizations are now at work in the above Ma’nalaa’ru area which includes Janakapura, Parakrampura and the traditional Tamil village Othiyamalai. The government has no plans to resettle the ancient Tamil inhabitants of Othiyamalai, the officers said.
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The Tamil Diaspora

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 March 2010, 13:56 GMT]
Much of the recent commentary on the Tamil Diaspora, both in research and media, not only fails to account for the specific reality of Tamil expatriates in the West, it consciously serves to misrepresent and vilify them, with the explicit objective of denying them their rightful place in the resolution of the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, and limiting their role in the island’s politics, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial.
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Dublin verdict: Sri Lanka guilty of War Crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 January 2010, 22:51 GMT]
Dublin war-crimes tribunal, conducted by Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) based in Milan, which held hearings on Thursday and Friday on war-crime charges on Sri Lanka from eye-witnesses and other material evidence, in the preliminary findings issued Saturday said, Sri Lanka Government is "guilty of War-Crimes" and "guilty of Crimes Against Humanity." The tribunal also concluded that the charge of Genocide requires further investigations. Eye witnesses included several escapees from the final week of Sri Lanka offensive in the Mullaitivu "No Fire Zone" where more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were allegedly slaughtered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) training heavy weapons on them.
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Internment, poisoning hopes of reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 05:29 GMT]
"The fate of a quarter of a million interned Tamils is poisoning Sri Lanka’s hopes of ethnic reconciliation....So long as Tamils feel abused by a racist Sinhalese state, the conflict may resume. Economic development of their shattered regions, which the government is planning, is unlikely to change that. Hence the government’s continued war-footing—but this is in turn also reinforcing Tamil grievances," a feature in the 1st October edition of The Economist said,
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Horrendous video images indicate violation of International Law - UN expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 22:23 GMT]
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, commenting on the video clip aired in British Channel-4 TV, allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing prisoners, stressed the need for an investigation, AFP reported. The images, which Alston described as "horrendous," indicate a serious violation of international law if found to be authentic, AFP reported Alston as saying. The video showed victims stripped naked and their hands crossed and tied behind their backs, when they were executed.
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Sri Lanka to train Pakistan army in Tamil land

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 August 2009, 07:20 GMT]
“We received a request from Pakistan to train their officers on our small team operations, so we have decided to open several new training schools in Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya to train local and foreign military officers,” said Colombo’s new Army Chief Jagath Jayasuriya, reported, Daily Mirror, Friday. The newspaper further quoted the military chief saying that there was a big demand from foreign countries to have their forces trained by Sri Lanka. But Political observers said that it was a ploy of Colombo, Pakistan and probably some others too, to check the current presence of Indians in Vanni.
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Amnesty calls for war crimes probe after doctors paraded

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 00:29 GMT]
Amnesty International Friday called for “a systematic and independent investigation of allegations of war crimes” and said such an investigation “must include confidential interviews with witnesses - most of whom are currently detained in government internment camps.” Responding to Sri Lanka’s parading of five Tamil doctors this week in which the men retracted accounts of mass civilians casualties they had issued amid a Sri Lankan government offensive, Amnesty pointed out that “the Sri Lankan authorities have a long history of extracting confessions by force and compelling detainees to give media interviews that support the government's position.”
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The Liberal Moment in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 June 2009, 12:39 GMT]
“For decades, the international community, especially the Western liberal democracies, have simply refused to confront the Sinhala chauvinism at the heart of the island’s crisis. Instead, it has blamed the LTTE solely. … Without the LTTE, it was unshakably believed, compromise, reconciliation and peace were inevitable. Now, according to Colombo, the LTTE is no more. However, what is taking place is something very different to liberal peace. The Sinhalese, it seems, have little interest in liberalism or peace with the Tamils. The question, however, is what is to be done, ” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week.
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UN can investigate Sri Lanka’s actions - war crimes judge

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 May 2009, 20:47 GMT]
The United Nations is able to investigate the war crimes which occurred recently in Sri Lanka, British human rights lawyer and international war crimes judge, Geoffrey Robertson QC said Sunday. The avenues for the UN include the UN Human Rights Committee, which can investigate individuals’ complaints against states under the International Convention on Human Rights, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory. The UN Human Rights Council, by contrast, is a “highly politicized” body staffed by diplomats of various countries, including those abusing human rights, rather than human rights experts, he said.
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20,000 Tamil civilians massacred by Sri Lanka – The Times

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 May 2009, 00:54 GMT]
Evidence gathered by The Times newspaper has revealed that at least 20,000 Tamil people were killed on the Mullaitivu beach by Sri Lanka Army shelling. Aerial photographs, official documents, witness accounts and expert testimony collected by the newspaper “present clear evidence of an atrocity that comes close to matching Srebrenica, Darfur and other massacres of civilians,” the paper’s editorial says. Confidential UN documents acquired by The Times record nearly 7,000 civilian deaths in the ‘no-fire’ zone up to the end of April. UN sources said that the toll then surged, with an average of 1,000 civilians killed each day until May 19.
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Sri Lanka accused of 'ethnic cleansing' of Tamil areas - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 May 2009, 12:43 GMT]
"Aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the north-east of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias. They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages," Telegraph, UK, said, adding that according to an aid worker the recent killings in Trincomalee "were part of a strategy to drive out Tamils."
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'Our Holocaust and the impossibility of peace in Sri Lanka'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 04:17 GMT]
“It is self-evident that the close scrutiny of the international community, the pleas and pointed warnings by powerful states and the disgust of the world has not impressed a Sinhala state, polity and people drunk with racism,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. “It is inescapable that whatever the international community does, the Sinhala state will continue to pose an existential threat to the Tamil people, unless we are protected by our own borders and security forces.” The paper added, “[meanwhile] contrary to Sinhala expectations, Tamil militancy will remain central to Sri Lanka’s future. As the LTTE, which has transformed itself – yet again – for a new kind of war, bluntly put it last month: as long as the Tamils are oppressed, ‘Sri Lanka will never be able to live in peace’.”
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