Indian intelligentsia led by The Hindu, CPI-M, failed Tamils: Thirumurugan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 March 2013, 04:23 GMT]
Talking about the two sides of Indian intelligentsia, and from where the struggle in Tamil Nadu is gaining its ideological support, Mr Thirumurugan Gandhi of the May 17 Movement said, the Indian intelligentsia that is mostly Left-orientated and goes with the CPI-M has failed Tamils in the past. The CPI-M, for its information, depends on The Hindu or NGOs like the Observer Research Foundation that is liaising between the Establishments in Colombo and New Delhi, said Mr Thirumurugan in an exclusive interview to TamilNet in last November.
Full story >>

German Left youth group conveys solidarity with Tamil Nadu protesters

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 March 2013, 03:31 GMT]
The North Rhine-Westphalia youth wing of the Die Linke leftist political party in Germany conveyed its solidarity with the student upsurge in Tamil Nadu in a statement released on Tuesday. Criticizing the US administration for supporting Sri Lanka owing to “geo-strategic interests in the region”, the statement further called on the German federal government “to push for an international, independent investigation of the genocide, as well as to support a referendum on an independent Tamil state.” Speaking to TamilNet, Balakrishnan Koculan, a leftist Eezham Tamil youth activist from the same party, criticized those sections of diaspora organizations that compromised principled Tamil politics unwilling to criticize the US, urging the diaspora youth to join in protest along with the Tamil Nadu students.
Full story >>

Conscious inequity: The Hindu’s “Mindless solidarity”

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 March 2013, 01:28 GMT]
As the peoples’ mobilisation in Tamil Nadu is surging up to question the junta of the Establishments that was ultimately responsible for the genocide and on-going genocide of Eezham Tamils, The Hindu that played a leading part in the media game seems to be ‘missing’ the LTTE. “With the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam no longer in the picture, large sections of the people in Tamil Nadu have begun to openly sympathise with the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka,” said the editorial of The Hindu titled “Mindless solidarity” on Tuesday. The Hindu, perhaps because of its base in Chennai and perhaps because it represents the interests of a particular class (not exactly caste) suffers from the defect of cat’s eye view when it comes to the question of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full story >>

Karunanidhi pulls out from New Delhi Establishment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 March 2013, 13:52 GMT]
DMK chief Mr M Karunanidhi in a press meet in Chennai on Tuesday announced the decision of his party pulling out from the ruling Congress coalition and cabinet at New Delhi. Continuing any further in the Indian Central Government is committing great evil to Tamil people, after the Indian Government has largely diluted the US resolution and didn’t consider the suggestions made by the DMK, and as there is a situation created that is not going to help the Eezham Tamils in any way, Mr. Karunanidhi told media. There could be no ambiguity in opinion that Rajapakse regime committed genocide in Tamil Eelam, Mr Karunanidhi said. Paying heroes’ homage (Veera Va’nakkam) to the Tamil fighters and their families who laid down their lives in the Eezham War, Mr Karunanidhi said they fought for idealistic victory, while people lacking Tamil feeling ridiculed at them.
Full story >>

Jayalalithaa urging international investigation cum interim setup slips in solution

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 March 2013, 23:28 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalithaa in a letter addressed to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Monday, demanded India to “strengthen” the US resolution tabled at Geneva by including an “unequivocal call for a credible, independent, international mechanism to prosecute genocide, war crimes and war criminals.” She wanted the process, including bringing the responsible for trial before an International Court, to be completed within six months for reporting at UNHRC next March. The CM, implying an international interim setup, has also urged India to modify the resolution so that Sri Lanka has to accept an international institution to act on reconciliation coupled with “a pragmatic political package,” making Tamils equal citizens on par with Sinhalese. However, her outlook for solutions was based on a ‘Sri Lankan Tamil minority’ framework.
Full story >>

TN readies biers for US resolution, demands genocide acceptance, interim set-up, referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 March 2013, 23:19 GMT]
Declare genocide, announce international investigations on Sri Lanka, bring forth interim administration and conduct UN referendum to do justice to the question of Eezham Tamils, demanded thousands of protestors, who gathered at Marina Beach in Chennai in Tamil Nadu on Sunday. Meanwhile, students of the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai (IIT), an internationally renowned all-India institute, came out in solidarity with the student upsurge, by observing a day-long fast. Despite the attempt of Tamil Nadu state to deter the upsurge by closing a section of government colleges, the student movement gained momentum during the weekend. In the struggle demanding justice, the students' movement prepares biers to take the US resolution to ‘cremation’ on Monday, news sources in Tamil Nadu said.
Full story >>

US resolution burnt in front of US Embassy in London

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 March 2013, 12:26 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils gathered in front of the US Embassy in London on Friday evening, burnt the copy of the US resolution tabled at the UNHRC session in Geneva and the copy of the LLRC recommendations of Sri Lanka, based on which the USA has tabled the resolution. All the speakers at the protest welcomed the student uprising in Tamil Nadu opposing the US designs as an inspiration to global Tamils in continuing the struggle of Eezham Tamils. Viewing the US resolution as one that is facilitating the agenda of the genocidal State and regime of Sri Lanka in the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils, the demonstrators demanded protection and solutions based on identity, territoriality and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island. The protestors who gathered at a short notice braved rains and detractors pinning hopes on the USA.
Full story >>

Gajendrakumar at UN calls for transitional administration to safeguard Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 15:48 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF), who addressed the UPR Review session in Geneva on Friday, has called for an internationally supervised transitional administration of the Tamil homeland in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. Noting that the genuine grievances and aspirations of Eezham Tamils are reduced to “mere individual human rights problems” rather than the “destruction of their Nation”, Mr. Gajendrakumar, who represented the NGO, International Education Development (IED), at the UN forum called for independent international investigation on Sri Lanka. In a carefully drafted statement, he further said that the UPR is “de-Tamilized” to the point that, anyone not fully cognizant of the facts of the 65 year long Tamil-Sinhala conflict would not even know who is to be a party to “reconciliation.”
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu student upsurge gains momentum overcoming manipulations

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 06:03 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu student protests against the pro-LLRC US resolution being tabled at Geneva has intensified in all major towns and cities even despite attempts by certain sections of the Indian media and certain political elements to twist the purpose of the protest, Thanjavur based sources told TamilNet. A protest involving over 5000 students took place on Wednesday at Thanjavur, a city of great historical and cultural importance to Tamils. Speaking to TamilNet, the sources said that while the student protests across Tamil Nadu were all about rejecting the US resolution as it did not meet any of the just expectations of the Eezham Tamils, some sections of the media and political circles were trying to give a false image that the students were urging India to support this hollow resolution.
Full story >>

Kurdish leadership accuses imperialist powers for Eezham Tamil tragedy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 March 2013, 19:14 GMT]
In a solidarity message to the Eezham Tamils’ liberation struggle sent to TamilNet, the Executive Council of the Koma Civaken Kurdistan (KCK), condemned “the massacre and humanitarian tragedy that were executed by the occupying army of Sri Lanka with the support of imperialist powers”, accusing the UN and the world powers of their complicity in this mass atrocity on the Eezham Tamils. The KCK, or the Union of Communities in Kurdistan, an organization founded by the leader of the Kurdish liberation struggle Abdullah Ocalan, drawing parallels with the internationally-abetted oppression of the Kurdish nation and the Eezham Tamil nation, further emphasised the need for a continued solidarity and exchange of ideas between the two national liberation struggles.
Full story >>

UNHRC, CHOGM, Regime Change: people’s power has no substitute

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 March 2013, 07:26 GMT]
A drama has been carefully executed by all in the game ultimately guilty of crimes and detract the question of Eezham Tamils: first by giving hope and by deploying agents among Tamils that something serious in ‘procedure’ is going to take place, so that any righteous Tamil mobilisation in the island and in the diaspora could be diffused; then by pointing to New Delhi competing in the crime so that the political parties fixed and the gullible in Tamil Nadu would be facilitators, and finally by tabling a mischievous resolution so that whether it is passed or not passed it would favour the genocidal State and regime in Sri Lanka, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo, welcoming the youth uprising in Tamil Nadu and adding that there is no substitute to people’s power in altering the machinations.
Full story >>

Protest in Australia rejects LLRC-based US resolution, demands Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 March 2013, 05:32 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamils and several non-Tamil protesters gathered at Canberra, Australia in front of the Parliament House, denouncing a LLRC based political solution as a farce and demanding the creation of Tamil Eelam. The Eezham Tamil protesters, who conveyed their admiration for and solidarity with the students’ upsurge in Tamil Nadu, were also of the opinion that the impact of the Tamil Nadu protests had reached Australia, a representative of the Campaign for Tamil Justice told TamilNet. The demonstrators marched to the embassies of the US, India, UK and the EU and submitted their demands to the respective embassies. Speaking to TamilNet, Trevor Grant, former chief sports writer at the Age opined that the proposed US resolution at Geneva would only encourage “the Rajapaksa regime to continue its carefully-planned genocide of Tamils.”
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu students burn US draft resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 March 2013, 00:28 GMT]
Protest started by the Loyola College students in Chennai against an empty US resolution on Sri Lanka at Geneva and the Tamil Nadu State Government action against the protest, have triggered spontaneous statewide student uprising that is not depending on any political party, news sources in Tamil Nadu said. Students of instituions such as the Annamalai University in Chithamparam and St. Xavier’s College, an autonomous university institution at Paa’laiyang-koaddai in Thirunelveali, have burnt the copies of the US draft resolution tabled at Geneva for discussion on Friday, saying that the draft only bails out the genocide-accused Sri Lankan State. Meanwhile, student protests took place in every part of Tamil Nadu and All Colleges Students Federation for the Liberation of Tamil Eelam has come out with a 9-point demand.
Full story >>

Colombo deploys former LTTE members to twist opposition to US resolution

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 March 2013, 07:32 GMT]
While the Tamil Nadu students in an unprecedented international approach have risen up targeting the hollow resolution tabled by the USA at Geneva, and have come out with 9 demands addressed to New Delhi and Tamil Nadu governments, Colombo engineering an ironical twist to the Tamil uprising, organised a simulated anti-resolution demonstration in Vanni on Tuesday directed by the Sinhala military with the forced participation of former LTTE members, who are now kept as farm labourers by the military. The demonstration was scheduled to take place in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu by placing the detained former LTTE members in the forefront, followed by public passers-by who were detained for this purpose by the SL military on Tuesday morning. But, the plan flopped and the SL military had to bring in Sinhalese from Mannaar in 3 buses to stage the demonstration in Ki'linochchi.
Full story >>

Student protests across Tamil Nadu intensify against US resolution

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 March 2013, 20:41 GMT]
While the students of Loyola have been coerced to end their hunger-strike after their arrest in early hours of Monday, their three day fast has sparked off protests across Tamil Nadu. Students from colleges and universities in Chennai, Chidambaram, Chengalpet, Coimbatore, Kumbakonam, Trichy, Tanjore and Tirunelveli have begun mass protests condemning the pro-LLRC US resolution and urging for a referendum among the Eezham Tamils for a sovereign Tamil Eelam as the only just political solution. Grassroots mobilization that is not affiliated to any political party but based on correct concepts is credited to the success of these protests, sources from Tamil Nadu told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Academics criticize R2P, emphasize inapplicability to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 March 2013, 20:12 GMT]
Even as certain groups of the establishments are suggesting the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine to the Eezham Tamils, the concept has come under severe criticism by academics who attended the “Conference on Tamil People’s Rights” at Geneva on 02 March. While British academic Dr. Andy Higginbottom argued that R2P was “a humanitarian face to further US interests”, Ireland based Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando stated that “At a time when the powers are giving economic diplomatic and military support to the Sri Lankan state, talking about R2P is nonsensical”, in their opinions conveyed to TamilNet. Dr. Fernando also stressed the need for “the application of remedial sovereignty by means of an UN referendum conducted by powers who were not involved in the genocide.”
Full story >>

Tamil women in UK begin campaign to highlight genocidal sexual abuse by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 March 2013, 09:04 GMT]
Seeking to inform the British public on the sexual abuse perpetrated on Tamil women by the Sri Lankan state forces, Tamil women activists in the UK began a campaign on International Women’s Day, from the Boudica statue in Westminster, London, which is an important cultural symbol in British history. “The systematic sexual violence against Tamil women by the Sri Lankan state is not cases of individual human rights violations but part of an intended genocide to break the Eezham Tamil nation. This is a structural problem in unitary Sri Lanka and the International Community should recognize that only in an independent Tamil Eelam, Tamil women can aspire for a life with dignity and safety,” Bairavi Ratnabal, second generation Eezham Tamil youth activist told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Giving bicycles and taking land: New Delhi’s ‘rehabilitation’ policy on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 March 2013, 00:31 GMT]
India donates 10,000 bicycles to assist the rehabilitation of the war displaced in the North, said The Hindu on Thursday, citing the Indian High Commission in Colombo. The highlight was timed for protests in Tamil Nadu and across the world over the Indo-US failure in tabling a just resolution on Sri Lanka at Geneva. New Delhi’s adamant backing to the ‘friendly’ Sinhala State and military in occupying and colonising the lands of the nation of Eezham Tamils is well known. While there are speculations that the Indian policy aims at indirectly grabbing land in the island through strategic partnership with the Sinhala State and by accepting the structural genocide it commits on Tamils, an alternative Indian media Kafila on Wednesday revealed how Indian land grab enslaving peoples takes place in Africa with the complicity of governments there.
Full story >>

Chennai college students on indefinite hunger-strike condemn US resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 March 2013, 18:24 GMT]
Eight students of Loyola College, Chennai, who have begun an indefinite hunger-strike on Friday calling for a UN referendum among the Eezham Tamils, have also condemned the pro-LLRC US resolution to be tabled at Geneva, accusing it of bailing out genocidal Sri Lanka. Speaking to TamilNet, Mr. Britto, one of the protesting students, outlining the demands of the hunger-strike, said that the current US resolution was a farce that would completely cover-up the genocide of the Eezham Tamils and strengthen the hands of the perpetrators. The protestors also told TamilNet if their hunger-strike was not paid heed to by the Central Government, they would undertake a Civil Disobedience campaign throughout Tamil Nadu to boycott paying taxes to the Indian state that is endorsing the genocide of their brethren.
Full story >>

Indian Muslim party demands justice for genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 March 2013, 01:03 GMT]
The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a pan-Indian Muslim political party, protested on Thursday outside the UN office at Delhi demanding justice for the genocide-affected nation of the Eezham Tamils. Stating that there was a “gradual genocide” of the Eezham Tamil nation going on in the occupied homeland of the Eezham Tamils, the protestors placed four principal demands to the UN and India, namely to pass a resolution against the Sri Lankan state recognizing its crime of genocide, to punish the perpetrators of gross human rights violations, to ensure the trial of Sri Lankan war criminals in the International Criminal Court and to punish the perpetrators of sexual violence against Tamil women.
Full story >>