Knowing folly

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 02:12 GMT]
The pleading tone of the US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert Blake, even in selling what is already existing or is in proposal, last Friday, show the mood of Sinhala chauvinism in the South, living in the euphoria of ‘victory’ and delusions of ‘post-LTTE’ politics, writes Opinion Columnist Chivanadi. “A striking note of the ambassador’s speech was the importance he gave to the electoral process in ending the conflict.” It is ‘knowing folly’ of Mr. Blake to paint a picture of hope on the end of conflict through electoral process in Sri Lanka, after weakening the Tamil fighting force, he says.
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Diaspora prepares to send relief to forsaken civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 23:47 GMT]
The Tamil diaspora in Britain is organising a direct 'mercy mission' taking food and medicine to the civilians of Vanni, forsaken by the conscience of the International Community, said Dr. V. Arudkumar from London, on Tuesday. Prominent humanitarian personalities are expected to participate in this mission. The expedition will be supported and participated by diaspora Tamil professionals in the medical field.
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18 Tamil youths arrested in outskirts of Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 12:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka police and home guards arrested eighteen Tamil youths in a joint search conducted Monday in Panadura, Pandura Nalloor, Kalutura and Minuwangoda areas in the outskirts of Colombo, according to complaints made to Deputy Minister P. Rathakrishnan by the relatives of the arrested youths. Five of the youths arrested are from Jaffna and the rest are from upcountry, Panadura police said.
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Sri Lankan cluster shelling kills 129 civilians within 7 hours

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 10:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells fitted with cluster munitions and fire-bombs into civilian 'safety zone' killing at least 129 civilians between 2:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Around 200 civilians were wounded. 300 tarpaulin huts burned down to ashes in Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) fired rockets. The medical store at Valaignarmadam has sustained damage and the son of a doctor was reported killed there, according to initial reports. A local NGO official, who was coordinating the rescue of the wounded described the carnage as "Colombo’s show of open mockery at international concern," reports TamilNet's Vanni correspondent. "The attack was criminally deliberate as it was timed for the aftermath of a mini cyclone and floods, at the stranded civilians," the NGO official said.
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Evacuation would constitute U.S. "complicity in genocide"- Prof Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 05:59 GMT]
"For the United States government to "evacuate" Tamils from Vanni and then turn them over to the genocidal Government of Sri Lanka would constitute "Complicity in genocide" by the United States to the genocide that GOSL is currently inflicting on the Tamils in violation of Genocide Convention Article III (e) and the United States's own Genocide Convention Implementation Act as amended. Such a turn-over could very well create personal criminal responsibility for United States government officials involved in this process under both international criminal law and United States domestic criminal law," warns Prof. Boyle, an expert in international law and a professor at University of Illinois College of Law.
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Liquor baron buys Gandhi memorabilia in US auction

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 2009, 12:10 GMT]
The spectacles, chapels, pocket watch and eating plate along with a bowl, used by Mahatma Gandhi were bought for 92 million Indian rupees by Bangalore based Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya when the memorabilia were auctioned in Washington, USA, on Thursday. “It is unfortunate that the Indian government first of all allowed them to go out of the country, didn’t take any legal effort to regain them and didn’t even care at least to buy them in the auction. It is a sad irony to see liquor money bringing back the belongings of Mahatma Gandhi, who throughout his life fought for temperance in India”, writes Communist Party of India (CPI) leader, C. Mahendran, in Janasakthi, Monday.
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'Evacuation enforced is negation of territoriality'

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 2009, 10:49 GMT]
While concern is mounting up beyond limits on the plight of civilians facing sanctions and attack by Colombo, a new concern looming large about their future is the possible prodding or pressed evacuation coming from ‘strategic partners’, to see them ending up in the hands of the Sri Lankan state. The 'evacuation' move, and not protection of them in their own land, is seen as negation of the territoriality of Tamils and is understood as signalling Colombo to continue the war against Tamils, their national aspirations and against their fighting force, diaspora Tamil circles observed.
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'Belated and wanting musings from India'

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 2009, 08:29 GMT]
While the Establishment in New Delhi is frantic in its attempt to eliminate the liberation force of Eezham Tamils but at the same time by hook or crook insinuate itself into the Tamil masses in order to show a semblance of success before the elections, a section of Indian academics and writers come out with belated and wanting musings urging India to work for a federal solution, writes a political analyst from Colombo. "Some of them may have good intentions, but they fail to see the sharp divide and limited option – genocide or Tamileelam – created by the Indian abetted war. Whatever they now write could serve as a lead to the next government, if there will be changes, but time is over for the present Establishment to achieve anything meaningfully," the analyst says further.
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British Tamils pay tribute to ‘hero’ Varnakulasingham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 March 2009, 17:46 GMT]
Ten thousand British Tamil expatriates paid tribute Saturday at the funeral of Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, 26, who self-immolated in front of the United Nations in Geneva in protest at the international inaction amid the mass killings of Tamils by the Sri Lankan military. "This man died not for himself but for us," the British Tamil Councillors and Associates group said, according to a BBC report. Mr Varnakulasingham’s family have said they were proud of his actions.
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Indian High Commissioner rebuffs memorandum of Mauritian demonstrators

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 21:45 GMT]
The Indian High Commissioner in Mauritius rebuffed a memorandum of thousands of Mauritian Tamil demonstrators Friday, requesting India to stop the war against Tamils in Sri Lanka. The representatives of the demonstrators were seeking to submit the memorandum in person to the High Commissioner who is a Tamil and they had informed the High Commission of their request five days in advance. On Friday, Third Secretary Ms Menon and the Deputy High Commissioner who received them, turned down their request. Angered at the contempt, the demonstrators chose to burn the memorandum outside the High Commission. The Vice Prime Minister of Mauritius and the Justice Minister were active participants of the emotion-charged demonstration, organized by National Movement Against Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, reports Koomaran Chetty from Mauritius.
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IDPs in Jaffna SLA detention camps require help

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 17:33 GMT]
Financial and relief assistance given to civilians fleeing war in Vanni and held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention camps in Jaffna district by Sri Lanka Government and Non-government organizations are inadequate, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna Hindu Maha Sabai (JHMS) has extended an appeal to the Saiva institutions and humanitarian organizations in Jaffna peninsula to donate funds to provide the additional needs of the detainees in the camps, according to a media report signed by JHMS Secretary, S. Sakthikireepan.
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SLA shoots dead Tamil woman in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 17:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit men shot and killed Friday around 8:00 p.m a Tamil woman, the mother of two children, in her house at Kaakkaachivaddai village in Vellaave’li police division in Batticaloa district. A 14-year-old Tamil girl was raped by a policeman Sunday while a Tamil woman social activist was strangled to death Monday, in Viveakaananthapuram, the neighbuoring village of Kaakkaachivaddai, where the mother of two children was shot and killed by SLA Friday night, sources in Batticaloa said. The killing being the third consecutive incident of violence perpetrated on Tamil women by Sri Lanka armed forces in Vellaave’li police division within a week has created tension and fear among the Tamils of the area.
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California Democrats seek Referendum to resolve Sri Lanka conflict

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 13:16 GMT]
The Santa Clara County Democratic Party Central Committee, Thursday, passed a resolution asking "U.S. Congress and the Federal Administration to immediately persuade the government of Sri Lanka and the UN to conduct a UN monitored referendum in the Tamil region of Sri Lanka to determine if the people wish the autonomy or the complete independence." The organizers of the resolution said they will be mounting a campaign to urge other Democratic party branches in different counties to adopt similar resolutions to raise Sri Lanka as a key policy issue within the Democratic Party.
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Human chain demonstration in Norway

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 16:11 GMT]
More than 700 Norwegian Tamils stood in line with joined hands forming long human chains Thursday around 5:00 p.m staring from the Oslo Central Railway Station up to National Theatre along both sides of Karl Johans Street protesting against attempts to force out Tamil civilians from their birth places to Sri Lanka Army concentration camps in government controlled areas outside Vanni. The demonstration organized by Norwegian Tamils’ Forum (NTF) ended around 6:00 p.m.
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Silent prayer, fast for Vanni Tamils in Jaffna University concludes

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 14:54 GMT]
Thousands of persons including students, lecturers, faculty heads, employees and Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University took part Friday between 11:00 a.m and 12:00 a.m in final day of the silent prayer and fast conducted daily since 9 February for the sake of the suffering Tamils in Vanni due to the war waged on them by the Government of Sri Lanka.
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Police arrest 3 Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 10:19 GMT]
Police arrested three Tamils including two women Wednesday in a house at Athurugiruya in Colombo district suspected to be supporters of Liberation Tigers, according to police spokesman Ranjit Gunasekara. The three arrested are being detained in the police station and interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division of Sri Lanka police.
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Doctors warn severe shortage of medicines in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 07:56 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lankan and its armed forces have systematically blocked medical supplies, causing several patients to die at the hospital and inflicted slow death of patients dependent on medications. The makeshift-hospital at Puthumaaththa'lan is struggling to cope with the situation. On Thursday, Dr. Saththiyamoorthy, the Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) of Ki'linochchi district, in his situation report, said medicines for four months have not arrived in Vanni.
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Japan accused of aiding Sri Lanka's war against Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 06:00 GMT]
U.S. Tamils plan to protest in front of Japanese Embassy located at 2520 Massachusetts Ave, Washington D.C. Friday urging Japan to stop funding Sri Lanka's war against Tamils, and appealed to Tamils world-wide to boycott Japanese goods, organizers of the protest said. Japan is the top contributor in aid to Sri Lanka, providing $350m a year of the nearly $1 billion Sri Lanka receives in bilateral/multilateral aid, loans from aid agencies and other countries.
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Forced starvation constitutes an act of Genocide - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 04:53 GMT]
Commenting on recent reports that Colombo is withholding food supplies forcing into starvation the more than 300,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the war-zone, Prof. Boyle, an expert in international law and a professor at University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet said, "[I]n the context of longstanding Sri Lankan genocide against the Tamils, this recent GOSL atrocity also constitutes an act of genocide as defined, prohibited and criminalized by Genocide Convention Article II (c):"Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
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Acid test for international actors

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2009, 02:36 GMT]
It is clear that the Colombo government is waging a direct war on unarmed civilians with the intention of intimidation and subjugation of them. The hard truth is that for chauvinistic Colombo war with Eezham Tamil civilians is more important than its war with the Tigers. The war with the LTTE is only a part of the agenda aimed at making the Tamils orphans first. India and the Co-Chairs countries have a direct responsibility in perpetrating the present war leading to the genocide of Tamils. They cannot dodge their responsibility accusing the LTTE or saying it is internal affair of Sri Lanka and citing Russia and China possibly vetoing a move in the UN. Their immediate responsibility now is providing food and medicine at the doorstep of the civilians, unconditionally, even if it is going to be against the wishes of Colombo, writes an IDP activist in Vanni.
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