Hold Gotabhaya accountable for war-crimes, writes NYU Professor of Law

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 June 2014, 03:14 GMT]
"Even if Gota[bhaya Rajapakse] never sees the inside walls of a US prison, the White House could send a powerful signal of its commitment to accountability by formally investigating and, if the evidence is there, indicting Gota[bhaya]," writes Ryan Goodman, Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in the on line forum called Justice and Security which provides rigorous analysis of U.S. foreign policy, national security and law. "Because of Gota’s citizenship the US would also be less vulnerable to accusations of meddling. And, indeed, the US administration could also suspend its own criminal inquiry, in a very public way, on the ground that it will give Sri Lanka’s political establishment an opportunity to do the right thing. Congressional members can very publicly support the initiation of a full-blown criminal inquiry by the Justice Department," Goodman said.
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Indian corporate to build houses for Gotabhaya’s Colombo development

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 May 2014, 07:04 GMT]
Timed to the Indian election results, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa-controlled Urban Development Authority of Colombo has made an unconventional deal with a leading corporate house of India, the Tata Group, by giving a prime area of Colombo city on a 99 years lease ‘free of charge’, for the group to ‘build houses’. While Sri Lanka’s strategy is to bind India with the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, through Colombo-centric interests and building Sinhala military capitals in Jaffna and Trincomalee, the Indian intelligence agencies deceptively tell Tamil activists that an ‘economic integration’ would bring in political solutions. The Colombo-backing stand of Observer Research Foundation has to be understood in the background of the actual happenings, said Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Conspiring acts of outgoing New Delhi government need investigation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 May 2014, 23:27 GMT]
The outgoing government of the New Delhi Establishment hurriedly coming out with a series of manoeuvrings just before its exit, particularly targeting the affairs of Eezham Tamils, needs a thorough investigation, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. They were citing the New Delhi government on Wednesday extending the ban on the LTTE and that too for an unusual term of five years; the fishermen talk held on Monday with the ‘supervision’ of the officials of New Delhi and Colombo, directed in such a way to bring in rift between Tamils on either side of the Palk Bay; and New Delhi’s reported compliance in the first week of May with Gotabhaya’s ban list of diaspora Tamil organizations and individuals.
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Sinhala military operates US-trained ‘counterinsurgency’ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 22:21 GMT]
The commander of the genocidal Sri Lankan military in the Jaffna peninsula, Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, who was trained and awarded in the US Army War College in 2012, after his role as director of SL Army operations in the genocidal onslaught in 2009 followed by counter-insurgency foreign service targeting Tamil diaspora from Malaysia, is deploying new tactics for furthering the structural genocide against Eezham Tamils in his position as the commander of SL military occupying the peninsula. The SL commander has launched a deceptive programme to woo Tamil youth into subservient jobs to SL military by promising good payment through a secret agent known as ‘Tamil CNN Kannan’ who has come from the UK. As the direct campaign to enlist Tamils into the genocidal military has failed, the SL military has chosen to trap Tamil youth through business and media agents.
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Genocidal military twists statistics on uprooted Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 April 2014, 23:31 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka has instructed its government agents in the 8 districts of North and East not to release any statistical figures without consulting the authorities in Colombo, informed sources told TamilNet Wednesday. Sri Lankan authorities have fully abandoned the figures of the resettled people residing outside the so-called welfare camps. The EPDP collaborators in the UPFA have also been instructed to play in sync with Colombo on the statistics of displaced people and resettled people in these two districts, Tamil civil sources in Jaffna said pointing out the controversies that surfaced at the District Development Committee (DDC) meetings of Jaffna and Ki’linochchi held this week.
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JMC workers protest demanding permanent jobs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 April 2014, 12:45 GMT]
A section of Jaffna Municipality Council (JMC) workers, who have been employed at the JMC for several years, protested on Monday demanding permanent employment as promised by the JMC and the colonial SL governor of North. The protesters gathered in front of the secretariat of the colonial governor Major Genral (retd) GA Chandrasiri as SL minister Douglas Devananda of the EPDP had recently threatened to deploy SL soldiers to take over their work if they continued to protest demanding permanent jobs at the JMC.
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SLAF steps up militarisation of Ve'l'lai-ma'nal coast in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 April 2014, 19:02 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Trincomalee city has seized more than 4,000 acres of coastal land in Ve'l'lai-ma'nal, located between Marble Beach and Karumalai-yoottu within the administrative DS division of Trincomalee Town and Gravets. The SL military has completed surveying the public lands and has fenced off the coastal stretch barring the people from accessing the coast, civil sources told TamilNet. After the end of war in the East, the SL military has put up two major camps, one for SLAF and another for Sri Lanka Army (SLA), in the division. The SLAF has also transformed Marble beach into a military-run corporate outfit by launching a tourist resort.
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Colombo’s Gazette confirms colonial rule over Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 April 2014, 22:54 GMT]
Apart from its atrocious content, the Tamil version of genocidal Sri Lanka’s extraordinary Gazette declaration, dated 21 March and signed by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa itself is an evidence for the State’s non-rightful rule over Eezham Tamils and their territory in the island. If a State doesn’t know how to properly spell the names of places it claims as ‘integral’ parts of its country, that only shows an alien rule and questions the very right of the State to rule over that territory, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, citing the way many of the Tamil villages and places in the island are notified in the Gazette that individually lists out around 400 Tamils in the diaspora as ‘threats’ to its genocidal and colonial rule.
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People of Keappaa-pulavu demand Gotabhaya to hand over their lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 April 2014, 17:41 GMT]
Appropriating 2,500 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in Keappaa-pulavu near Nanthik-kadal lagoon in Mullaiththeevu district, and transforming the area into a Sinhala Military Zone, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL presidential sibling and the defence secretary of Sri Lanka attempted to cut an image on Thursday as if he was returning the lands back to the people by freeing 100 acres to 29 families at the border towards Sooriyapuram, where the uprooted people have been forcefully ‘resettled’. 223 families, who have been refused access to their lands, made a bold move of handing over an appeal to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa demanding their lands back.
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SL military accelerates forced ‘resettlement’ permanently seizing lands from Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 April 2014, 06:16 GMT]
Despite the continuous refusal from the people, the occupying Sri Lanka Army is forcefully settling Tamil people from Keappaapulavu by constructing 121 ‘sample’ houses at a jungle locality called Sooriyapuram. The houses are to be handed over in a military function scheduled to be attended by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL presidential sibling and defence secretary of the occupying State, who has also instructed its military Establishment to get rid of the complaints from uprooted people from Valikaamam North in Jaffna district by forcing them to accept ‘alternative’ housing schemes being offered at quarry lands in Kaangkeasan-thu'rai after permanently seizing their fertile lands from them in 24 village divisions. Also, people from Champoor in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district, currently staying in the so-called welfare camps are being harassed to accept forced resettlement.
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Britain neglected British Tamil suspiciously died in Sri Lanka's prison

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 March 2014, 23:43 GMT]
The relatives of a 43-year-old British Eelam Tamil, Gopithas Visuvalingam, who died in the Sri Lankan jail under suspicious circumstances on 24 February, blame Colombo for torture of Tamil political prisoners. Mr Gopithas, a British national and father of two, was arrested in Colombo in March 2007 and jailed without any charges till 2012, when he was finally charged and ‘convicted’ for assisting the LTTE. Gopithas had told his aged father, who was visiting him in prison recently that he feared for his life at the hands of operatives, who were under the direct command of the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa before the jail term was over. The family and the relatives of the victim are disappointed with the lack of legal assistance from the British High Commission in Colombo, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Tamils in UK protest against British role in EU ban on LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 February 2014, 23:12 GMT]
Tamil activists in UK gathered at 10 Downing Street, London, on Friday condemning Britain’s lead role in the suppression of independent Tamil political opinion, both before and after Sri Lanka’s genocidal onslaught in 2009. While the UK itself has stated that the LTTE is defunct for the past 5 years, it continues to justify the ban on the Tamil movement, still criminalising all the individuals who were associated with the armed struggle in the past, the protesters said. In the meantime, young Tamil activists who took part in the protest were of the opinion that the fight against the injustice of the past, especially the political struggle against EU ban on the LTTE, an act that enabled the Sri Lankan State to end the peace process in a genocidal onslaught, was a crucial component of the Tamil struggle.
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SL military steps up monitoring patrols in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2014, 23:37 GMT]
The latest innovation by the US-trained SL military commander of Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera, is the introduction of 7-member teams patrolling every interior village in the peninsula. The Sri Lankan State, while waging a propaganda campaign to the outside world that it has reduced military deployment in the North, has seized thousands of acres of public and private lands for the establishment of Sinhala Military Zones in the Jaffna peninsula. Permanent camps, built larger than ever before, have been ceremonially opened recently by the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at several places under the propaganda of relocating the camps away from civilian properties, while the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa who visited Jaffna came with an open lie on the figure of the occupying SL troops present in the North.
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Colombo ‘reveals’ US connections in cluster bomb use

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 January 2014, 15:55 GMT]
United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) advised the Sri Lankan Defence Establishment to purchase Cluster Bomb Units (CBUs) during the peace talks mediated by Norway in 2002. The Island paper, which gives media space for PSYOP and information war waged by the SL military Establishment, on Monday released portions of an alleged FOUO-classified document of the US Defence Establishment. The ‘leak’ was made to remind the US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen J. Rapp, that Colombo was having proofs of ‘US complicity’ in the genocidal onslaught it waged on Eezham Tamils, an informed journalist from South told TamilNet. Colombo’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa himself timed the ‘leak’, the journalist further said.
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Colombo opens new military camps, ‘Red soldiers’ to monitor Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 January 2014, 21:57 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has created a new unit, which has come to be called as ‘Red Army’ with military intelligence personnel fluent in three languages. The new ‘Red’ soldiers of the occupying military will be patrolling the interior villages of Vanni in bicycles. While Stephen Rapp, the US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice was visiting North on Wednesday, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan presidential sibling and SL defence secretary, declared open 3 major military bases of the occupying Sri Lankan military in North. A large complex, which was earlier built by the political division of the LTTE near Ira'naimadu tank, has now become one of the new military installations of the occupying SL military in Ki'linochchi district.
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Sinhala Military Zone in Jaffna gets ‘archway’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 January 2014, 16:29 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which has seized public and private lands in Valikaamam North and bulldozed the buildings, is constructing an arch on Palaali Road, which will be the future entrance to the Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) and its township. The SL military has almost completed the process of bulldozing the buildings inside the SMZ without leaving any trace. In the meantime, the economic assistance from India and other powers, which are locked in the geopolitical game, goes to ‘develop’ ports, corporate outfits, electricity farm and the airstrip of the township of the Sinhala Military Zone in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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Sri Lanka’s TID interrogates Indian journalist in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 13:19 GMT]
The journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested by the occupying SL military and police in Vanni, while he was visiting Ki’linochchi was still under the custody of the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ as late as Thursday night, informed sources in Colombo said. Earlier, the SL police spokesman in Colombo had stated that the Mr Thamizh Prabhagaran was being handed over to the immigration authorities for deportation. But, Colombo's TID officers were interrogating the Indian journalist on his contact network in the island by going through his article series that has appeared in Junior Vikatan, the sources further said.
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SL military further stifles civil life in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 16:53 GMT]
Following the instruction from occupying Colombo's Defence Secretary and Sri Lankan Presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a number of 'Terrorist Investigation Department' (TID) cells have started to function inside the Sri Lankan Police stations in the North in recent days. SL intelligence operatives claiming as TID investigators are engaged in muzzling the civilians, relatives of the victims demanding justice, social media activists and journalists. Those who interacted with the US Embassy delegation that visited Jaffna recently, were being invited for interrogations over the phone, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Aussaresses, Abbott, Rajapaksas, birds of the same feather on torture?

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 December 2013, 01:31 GMT]
While Australian Premier, Tony Abbott, whose recent statements on condoning the allegations of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, was condemned by international rights groups, European media reported that one of top French ex-military officers, Aussaresses, who confessed to coldbloodedly torturing and summarily executing dozens of prisoners during France's brutal colonial war in Algeria decades earlier, and who defended his actions, passed away this week. He was 95. He was stripped of his medals, and was convicted later in France. Allegations of rape and torture are also rampant in Sri Lanka under the rule of Rajapakse-family, with UK charity Freedom From Torture documenting more than 60 cases of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, and Human Rights Watch documented 62 cases of sexual violence involving the security forces, noting that rape is widespread and systemic.
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SL military operatives issue death threat to Catholic priest in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 08:06 GMT]
Pointing their gun at the parish priest of Our Lady of Gaudalupe church, unidentified persons who came in motorbike that had no number plate, issued death threat to Fr. S.S. Johnpillai in Trincomalee city. The incident took place around 9:00 p.m. on 26 November. The gunmen blamed that the priest was praying on the birthday of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.
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