Tamil Eelam - Struggle for Freedom

SLA war crimes eerily similar to Srebrenica Scorpions' terror, says Boyle

2009-08-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Summary executions violate Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting Party, prohibiting in subsection I(d) "... the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court...." Violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes, said Professor Francis Boyle, after watching the video on the cold-blooded extra-judicial killings carried out by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, published by a German-based group 'Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS)' Tuesday.

Scorpion Trnovo massacre

"We have a video of the same being done to Bosnians at Srebrenica by Serbia's 'Scorpions,' which I viewed with one of the few male survivors while in the killing fields of Srebrenica itself," Boyle added, continuing:"Of course the Scorpion executions were just a small element of the Serbian genocide at Srebrenica."

Srebrenica massacre of 6 Bosnian Muslims

A video of Serb paramilitary soldiers Scorpions, caught in the act of murdering six Bosnian Muslim youths in July 17, 1995, near the town of Trnovo, Srebrenica, discovered 10 years later, shocked Serbia and led to the arrest and later conviction of the soldiers. The six Muslim men and boys were forced to lie down with their hands tied before being shot in the back by their captors. Two of the victims were 17, while the others were in their 20s and 30s. A Belgrade war-crimes court sentenced four Scorpions to a total of 58-years in prison.

The New York Times reporting on the story on the 6-person massacre by the Scorpians, said: "The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the Muslims can be heard. The film was shot by a Scorpions member."

Video in 3GP format

In remarkable eerie similarity with the SLA crimes, the SLA terror video was also obtained by an SLA soldier using a mobile-phone camera, and the SLA soldiers are also heard spewing insults to the naked Tamil prisoners.

JDS: Video evidence of extra-judicial executions in Sri Lanka

"Scorpions, however, did not strip and then murder the Bosnians in the nude. But the GOSL Army did exactly that, which is even more akin to what the Nazis did to the Jews, depriving their victims of the last shred of their humanity before dying," Boyle observed.

Killings by SLA

German police ready to shoot dead jewish men stripped naked

On the disappearances inside internment camps, the press release issued by the JDS said: "The Sri Lankan government justifies the internment of approximately 280,000 Tamil people, for over three months now, on the basis that they are 'screening' for LTTE cadres. These camps still remain out of bounds for independent media and human rights observers. Apart from these known camps, it is widely believed that there are over 10,000 Tamils are held in undisclosed locations. Further, as a recent BBC report reveals the interned Tamils have to regularly experience the trauma of the appearance of the 'dolphin vans' in the camps – as these whisk away people – who then disappear."

Commenting on the disappearances, Boyle said, “when the enforced disappearances are "widespread" or "systematic" they become Crimes against Humanity under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court," adding:"Crimes against Humanity are the precursor to genocide, just as Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews--I also visited Dachau."

The Scorpions (Škorpioni) were a Serbian paramilitary group which actively sought out the extermination of other ethnicities in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The unit was formed in 1991 in what was then the breakaway Croatian Serb Republic of Serbian Krajina. The Scorpion leader was Slobodan Medić.

Chronology:

27.08.09 HRW: UN must investigate Sri Lanka atrocities

26.08.09 SLA war crimes eerily similar to Srebrenica Scorpi..

25.08.09 Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sr..

External Links:

TheAge:		Murder video broadcast stuns disbelieving Serbs
Humanrights.de:		Act against the torture and executions in Sri Lanka
Times:		Naked, bound and shot: how ‘Tamil rebel’ was killed by Sri Lankan soldier
NYT:		Serbian Court Convicts 4 in Srebrenica Massacre
Independent:		Serb 'Scorpions' guilty of Srebrenica massacre

Is this evidence of Sri Lankan 'war crimes'? (VIDEO UPDATED)

2009-08-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

Channel 4 News shows footage claimed to show Sri Lankan forces executing Tamils earlier this year. Jonathan Miller reports.

Just three months after the Sri Lankan government declared the country liberated from the Tamil Tigers, video footage has emerged apparently showing government troops summarily executing Tamils.

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, which obtained the material, said it was filmed in January - when the international media were prevented by the Sri Lankan government from covering the conflict zone.

Tonight, the Sri Lankan High Commission denied the government had carried out atrocities against the Tamil community.

The Sri Lankan government launched a large scale military offensive in January capturing the Tamil Tiger held town of Kilinochchi. The army then steadily pushed the rebels into an small area of the north-east.

Be warned - there are extremely disturbing scenes in this report from our foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller.

Sri Lanka High Commission response

"The High Commission of Sri Lanka categorically deny that the Sri Lankan armed forces engaged in atrocities against Sri Lankan Tamil community. They were only engaged in a military offensive against the LTTE.

"The High Commission has noted that in many instances in the past, various media institutions used doctored videos, photographs and documents to defame the Sri Lankan government and armed forces. Therefore, we request you to verify the authenticity of the video footage before the telecast".

Is this evidence of Sri Lankan 'war crimes'?

2009-08-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan Miller

Channel 4 News shows footage claimed to show Sri Lankan forces executing Tamils earlier this year. Jonathan Miller reports.

Just three months after the Sri Lankan government declared the country liberated from the Tamil Tigers, video footage has emerged apparently showing government troops summarily executing Tamils.

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, which obtained the material, said it was filmed in January - when the international media were prevented by the Sri Lankan government from covering the conflict zone.

Tonight, the Sri Lankan High Commission denied the government had carried out atrocities against the Tamil community.

The Sri Lankan government launched a large scale military offensive in January capturing the Tamil Tiger held town of Kilinochchi. The army then steadily pushed the rebels into an small area of the north-east.

Be warned - there are extremely disturbing scenes in this report from our foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller.

Sri Lanka High Commission response

"The High Commission of Sri Lanka categorically deny that the Sri Lankan armed forces engaged in atrocities against Sri Lankan Tamil community. They were only engaged in a military offensive against the LTTE.

"The High Commission has noted that in many instances in the past, various media institutions used doctored videos, photographs and documents to defame the Sri Lankan government and armed forces. Therefore, we request you to verify the authenticity of the video footage before the telecast".

Channel 4 News

Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka

2009-08-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala.

“From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership. The soldiers egging each other on, the insulting jokes and the laughter show that there is a consensus that these cold blooded killings should take place,” JDS further reported.

Killings by SLA

As there is no reason to believe there is a change in the behaviour of the armed forces, the treatment of the 280,000 people in the internment camps kept for ‘screening’ and another more than 10,000 alleged to be LTTE cadres, kept in undisclosed locations, is widely feared.

Video in 3GP format

The way the men are treated even in execution, shown in the video clip, is a repeatedly demonstrated feature of the chauvinism in the island. One can imagine the treatment of women, was the observation of Tamil circles.

BBC Sinhala Service Monday reported the trauma of the internment camp inmates about 'Dolphin vans' whisking away people, who then disappear.

JDS: Video evidence of extra-judicial executions in Sri Lanka

While some governments are sitting on indicting Colombo’s war crimes and while some other governments don’t want to recognise the genocidal perspectives or the need to call for the closure of internment camps, Colombo enjoys absolute impunity, Tamil circles said.

Zip archive of the massacre video

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) was founded on 18th of July in Berlin, with the participation of Tamil and Sinhala journalists coming from six european countries, who were forced into exile. JDS aims to raise the concerns about the deteriorating conditions of democratic rights in Sri Lanka, with a special emphasis on issues related to media freedom.

External Links:

Humanrights.de:

Act against the torture and executions in Sri Lanka

Boyle: India a moral failure, Colombo's monstrosity matched only by Nazis

2009-08-24T22:20:00.001-07:00

"India’s support to Rajapakse Government is an atrocious crime. Tamils are undergoing unspeakable hardship, and the monstrosity is only matched by the Nazis terror on Jews. The world had simply closed its eyes....Failure to ensure safety to Sri Lanka Tamils is a moral disgrace to India and a stain in India's illustrious history," said Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, during an interview with Tamil Nadu magazine, Dalit Murasu.

Text of Interview in full (Tamil)

English translation of the Tamil article follows: (Note: The Tamil article is a translation of a recorded interview conducted in English):

Dalit Murasu: When more than 300,000 Tamils are held against their wishes in internment camps, do you think there remains any prospect of reaching a resolution to the conflict through intervention of International Rights Organizations including United Nations?

Prof. Francis A Boyle: It is imperative that these organizations should intervene. The 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1949 Geneva Convention obligate the United Nations to engage in Sri Lanka’s conflict and seek resolution. I have been consistently writing and advocating the urgent need for the UN and the International Community to intervene and save the Tamil people held by the Sri Lanka Government in the several internment camps. Reports indicate nearly 1400 people die in a week in these camps, and that the conditions within the camps are very similar to those in the Nazi internment camps.

DM: Even after Sri Lanka's military unilaterally declared that the “war was over in Sri Lanka,” the International Community, various Rights Organizations, and the media have failed to expose the gross rights violations that occurred during and after the war. You have noted in several articles that the internment camps are nothing but “death camps.” Do you think similar silence would have prevailed if the affected people are from Palestine or from a European country?
FAB: One cannot be certain how the International Community will react to your hypothetical scenarios. While the U.S. supported peace talks between the two adversaries in Sri Lanka, U.S.’s approach to mediating conflicts took a dramatic turn after the 9-11, when the Bush administration started to aggressively pursue the “war on terror” on all movements that used violence to achieve their goals.

Civilian bodies in Safe Zone

The President of India sending a congratulatory message to Sri Lanka’s President is indeed a sad event. India has assured Sri Lanka of its cooperation, and India’s position vis-a-vis Sri Lanka is totally unacceptable. India is ready and willing to continue support to Sri Lanka while standing on the bodies of 30,000 Tamils killed during the last several weeks of war. China and Pakistan both are collaborating with Sri Lanka.

The 65 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu should soon rise up to constrain India. The uprising in numbers and intensity should surpass the protests that occurred while Sri Lanka was slaughtering the Tamils. If India reconfigures its policy on Sri Lanka, US will likely support that. US will view with concern a friendly China-India relationship.

India’s support to Rajapakse Government is an atrocious crime. Tamils are undergoing unspeakable hardship, and the monstrosity is only matched by Nazis terror on Jews. The world had simply closed its eyes.

DM: The world was waiting to hear the details of the last weeks of the war from the doctors detained by the Sri Lanka Government. These Doctors were later paraded in front of the media and were forced to recant casualty figures. Do you think there is any chance for the truth to come out?

FAB: That depends on you, me, the other media, and in the hands of the 65 millions Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Sri Lanka Government has been systematically destroying physical evidence after barring news organizations from visiting the crime area and imposing censorship on journalists reporting the details. US will have detailed evidence of what’s happening, and of what has happened. While the world watches in silence atrocities are continuing.

DM: Why is International Community not taking effective action to resettle the displaced people?
FAB: I don’t think the International Community has any interest in the welfare of the Tamil people. That is why they kept silent during the slaughter of nearly 50,000 Tamils between February and May 2009. Finally the IMF loan is also going to be awarded. [was awarded early this month]. What happened in Sri Lanka is an attempt at extermination of a race, a racist war. Same thing happened in the 1930’s against the Jews. Only after millions were killed the world began to know the truth of the atrocities. The world could not do anything.

DM: If IC does not have an interest in Sri Lanka, why did they express their commendations to Sri Lanka after the war?
FAB: I only said they have no interest in Tamils. Countries certainly have geopolitical interest in creating conditions advantages to them. Use of sea ports, and control of land mass in the Indian Ocean is certainly of interest to many powers.

DM: Will the Sri Lanka Government, which did not heed to the righteous demands of the Tamils when they had military power, attend to Tamils welfare now that Tamils appear defeated and powerless?
FAB: Definitely not. Sri Lankan state has set about to exterminate or, in the least, marginalize the Tamil people. The State inebriated with military victory have incarcerated the Tamil people in internment camps. For every 3 Tamils there are 14 Sinhala soldiers. This is violation of Geneva Conventions. What we witness in Sri Lanka is a clear attempt to destroy a race in whole or in part. All should identify this act as genocide.

DM: Why is the US unwilling to release satellite images it may have taken during the last stages of war?
FAB: US is cognizant of the serious repercussions that may result when the world sees the truth. These images will reveal the slaughter of Tamils with the use of heavy weapons, heavy artillery, and aerial bombardments by the Sri Lanka military. US’s behavior was the same with respect to Bosnia. US is unlikely to reveal Sri Lanka images as truth may lead the civilized world to demand a solution that will be inimical to US’s interest.

DM: What’s US position on Sri Lanka’s Tamils? Has the US revealed its true policy?

FAB: I believe the US will continue to support Rajapakse. The IMF loan is a clear indication of US's policy towards Sri Lanka. Earlier US supported peace talks. There is no more space for US to take that position. What's happening in Sri Lanka is a clear case of genocide. However, if the US accepts this, then Article I of Geneva Convention will obligate the US to intervene to stop the genocide. US does not want to do that. Similar thing happened in Bosnia too.

DM: Tamils are contemplating the establishment of a transnational government. In the future if Tamils declare a State of Tamil Eelam either within Sri Lanka or outside, what will be US's position?
FAB: US will not be disposed to supporting it.

DM: What do you think is a feasible political solution to the struggle waged by the Tamils for the last half a century?
FAB: The political solution has to be determined by the Tamils themselves. One of three solutions are possible. 1. Create a free, sovereign, separate state for themselves. 2. Form a confederation with another independent state. And 3. Any other solution agreed by a majority Tamil people. International laws dictate that Tamils are entitled to the right of self-determination. India, you, me or the Sri Lanka Government cannot dictate terms to what Tamils should do.

I want to emphasize one point here. Historically, peoples who have suffered through genocide-level atrocities like what the Tamil people have been through, assured their safety only after creating a separate state for themselves.

During the last few months when more than 50,000 Tamils were slaughtered in Vanni no country was able to stop the killings. All countries failed to execute their obligatory duty as required by the 1948 Genocide Convention. For Tamils to safeguard their lives from the Sri Lankan State, International Community should assist the Tamils to form their own separate state. International covenants declare that it is necessary and just that such peoples who have been affected by genocidal crimes to form their own state.

India's reason for not supporting Sri Lanka's Tamils is that a separate Tamil State in Sri Lanka will trigger fissiparous tendencies within Tamil Nadu. This is a lie and simply double talk. Failure to ensure safety to Sri Lanka Tamils is a moral disgrace to India and a stain in India's illustrious history.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) clearly the Tamil people have the right to self-determination. Sri Lanka is a signatory to this covenant. Sri Lanka has accepted that Tamil people is a distinct race with their own language and have lived in areas of historical inhabitation.

Therefore, they have the right to exercise their right to self-determination, and as a free people they can then safeguard and nurture their social, economic, and cultural well-being.

Boyle: India a moral failure, Colombo's monstrosity matched only by Nazis

2009-08-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

Text of Interview in full (Tamil)

Civilian bodies in Safe Zone

Australian politicians troubled by deteriorating conditions in Sri Lanka

2009-08-22T20:22:00.001-07:00

A group of Australian parliamentarians have expressed concern for the plight of thousands of refugees being held in Sri Lankan military run camps at a meeting with members of the Tamil youth at Parliament House on Tuesday. In a free flowing discussion covering conditions faced by displaced civilians and a lack of independent access to refugee facilities, the panel also condemned reports of intimidation directed at the Tamil Diaspora from the Sri Lankan Government, before citing the promised resettlement of the 300,000 refugees within a 6 month period as the basis for future engagement.

In an hour long meeting, the parliamentarians discussed at length various concerns raised by a youth delegation headed by Vishna Sivaraj and Seran Sribalan, who had been welcomed just minutes after completing a 300km walk over eight days from Sydney to Canberra to raise awareness of the imprisonment of Tamil refugees in military run camps.

The politicians shone a critical eye over recent actions carried out by the Sri Lankan Government, including the blocking of the Vanangama Mercy Mission, an aid ship organised by members of the Tamil Diaspora to deliver essential goods to thousands of refu'gees that was turned away by authorities.

“This should be of great concern to all of us because we are talking about the fundamentals of human existence. If you can’t get food and medical aid to the people who so desperately need it, we have got to speak out against it” said MP John Murphy.

Responding to a letter he received highlighting the Sri Lankan Government's threats of arresting anyone who was seen speaking out against authorities upon return to Sri Lanka, MP Murphy said: “We are very concerned, at the heart of what we want to do here in Australia is ensure that human rights and dignity of those people are preserved, and if we are getting a message now that the government now don’t even want the Diaspora of the world speaking out for the poor people...this gravely concerns us as parliamentarians”.

Discussing possible avenues for future action, the delegation, consisting of Senators Mark Furner and Claire Moore, and Members of Parliament Jill Hall, Laurie Ferguson, John Murphy and Julie Owen, cited Mahinda Rajapakse's seemingly doomed pledge to resettle civilians detained in government camps within 6 months as the basis for higher level discussions with Australian Foreign Minister Steven Smith.

The ministerial representatives also praised the efforts of Vishna and Seran for their inspiring dedication and resolve in raising awareness of the issue, describing the Tamil Diaspora as “fine citizens who have made invaluable contributions to Australian society”.

Australian politicians troubled by deteriorating conditions in Sri Lanka

2009-08-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

'UN, the fence that ate the crop'

2009-08-22T20:21:00.001-07:00

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who was refused admittance by Colombo at the height of the war, chose to accept its invitation as soon as the war was “won”, accuses Norway’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mona Juul, whose confidential assessment of Ban sent to Norway’s Foreign Ministry, leaked to Afterposten newspaper of Oslo Wednesday. War in Sri Lanka is an example of the weak handling of the Secretary General. He was a passive observer when thousands lost lives and were driven from their homes, the diplomat further said in her mid term assessment of Ban’s tenure. “Even when it was helpless at the gang-up of certain powers, the UN should have upheld its integrity by telling the truth and exposing the culprits to the world. But Ban and his chosen officials not only failed but also shielded them”, said Tamil circles which look at UN as the ‘fence that ate the crop.’

The ‘leak’ of the diplomatic document, stamped ‘strictly confidential,’ coincides the visit of the Secretary General to Norway scheduled to the end of this month.

Unfortunately, the world is yet to design ways of legally indicting UN officials for their wrongs, said a Human Rights lawyer in Colombo.

Meanwhile, Tamil circles in Norway commented that the Norwegian media, recently seen orchestrating 'sensational' news on 'post-war' Tiger politics and now exposing UN failure, has also a duty in investigating the role played by Norwegian politicians and diplomats in the failure of arresting the genocide in the island of Sri Lanka.

Details, culled out from the report of Mona Juul follow:

Ban was a conscious choice of the Bush Administration that did not want an active secretary general. But even the current US Administration has not signalled a changed attitude towards him. However there are rumours now that some in Washington call him a ‘one-term secretary general’.

Mona Juul

China is happy with Ban’s performance and could be the key to his possible re-election. But Russia is not happy with him over Kosovo and Georgia and for not appointing enough Russians in the UN. Many other nations are negative to him.

At a time when the UN is needed the most by the world, Ban and his staff are conspicuously absent.

There was little UN engagement and appeals fell on deaf ears on the crises of Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Congo. Failure was also registered on the inspection of Gaza war. Ban’s recent fruitless visit to Burma has made further UN efforts difficult.

Very strangely Ban was almost absent on the area of weapons limitation and proliferation, which he had wished to focus on before his election.

Ban is not visible in attending the global financial crisis and environmental agenda.

The secretary general lacking moral authority is battling to show leadership.

He lacks charisma and his fits of rage make working with him difficult even for experienced co-workers.

The relationship with deputy, Migiro is strained. There are rumours that she is on her way out.

He wants to control everything including press releases.

All the people chosen by him for various tasks failed. The only exception perhaps is Helen Clark, the new chief of UNDP, who has shown results within a short period. She could succeed as secretary general.

There are rumours that Holmes could take over as chief of staff and that Nambiar is about to quit. Holmes is also a possible candidate to take over the political department as the British are focusing on getting the seat back for them.

External Links:

Aftenposten:

Sviende norsk refs av FN-sjefen

'UN, the fence that ate the crop'

2009-08-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Mona Juul

Aftenposten:

Sviende norsk refs av FN-sjefen

Floods and IDP Camps in Sri Lanka-

2009-08-22T19:49:00.001-07:00

Floods and IDP Camps in Sri Lanka-

2009-08-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

CNN report on IDP camp -Sri Lanka

2009-08-22T19:48:00.001-07:00

CNN report on IDP camp -Sri Lanka

2009-08-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

'Political formula needs to address Tamil nationalist fundamentals'

2009-08-21T12:32:00.001-07:00

The powers of the international community, especially India, recognising the nation of Eezham Tamils, spelling out its right to self-determination and immediately stepping in guaranteeing its security and territorial integrity are more important for producing positive political results than mooting proxy draft solutions, says Roy Gardiner Wignarajah, a spokesman of the Canadian Tamil activist group, International Human Cultural Union (IHCU). "Tamil groups should not engage in demoralising the future course of the liberation struggle by playing in the hands of those who are all out to erase the nationalism of Eezham Tamils. Instead, they should concentrate on ingenuously posing democratic challenges, locally and internationally, convincing the inevitability of conceding liberation to Tamils."

Full text of the observations by Mr. Roy Gardiner Wignarajah follows:

Roy Gardiner Wignarajah

The conflict as it stands today and the way it is handled by the state of Sri Lanka, is a question of nations at war.

The national conflict in the island is historical and the militant phase is only a part of it. But certain irreversible realities have emerged through the historical process of the last few decades, underlining the need to recognize and accommodate the divide of nations in any future political processes of the island.

The validity of the national cause of Eezham Tamils doesn’t get nullified either by projecting it only as an agenda of militancy or by Sri Lankan state and the IC creating military situations of subjugation.

The Sri Lankan state for chauvinistic reasons, India and the other powers for geopolitical reasons and multinational corporations for economic reasons, have demonstrated in recent times militarily and diplomatically, their intention to keep the geographic entity of the island as a single political entity.

But chauvinism, geopolitics and outside economic interests cannot make the criteria for forging a common national identity to the island. This game on the island is continuing from colonial times and the world is yet to spell out solutions.

If common national identity has not evolved spontaneously in more than a century, the wise decision for the benefit of all concerned is to recognise the divide and to come out with appropriate alternative statecraft.

All the terms as well as concepts such as nation state, independence, sovereignty, right to self-determination etc., are said to be meaningless or are redefined in some parts of the contemporary world, but they have become more meaningful than ever to Eezham Tamils to rehabilitate themselves, to reconcile with the Sinhala nation and to fit themselves into the global process.

Any political formula that doesn’t address the fundamental aspirations of Eezham Tamil nation and is enforced after militarily weakening it, will not resolve the conflict. Any such formula of any powers, even when routed through Tamil proxies, will be seen only as a continuum of the proxy war waged by them.

Open recognition of the nation of Eezham Tamils, its territorial integrity, security, international interaction and its absolute right to self-determination, including the right to secession, can only be the basis at this juncture to consider agreeing upon the unity of the island, if that is what people want.

As world progresses and as regional or global entities take shape, even the Sri Lankan state may not exist tomorrow in the way it exists today. In any such future developments the Eezham Tamils must be able to fit in without losing their identity.

The powers of the international community, especially India, recognising the nation of Eezham Tamils, spelling out its right to self-determination and immediately stepping in guaranteeing its security and territorial integrity are more important for producing positive political results than mooting proxy draft solutions.

A neither secession nor unitary model will take a long time to evolve details and to put them into genuine practice. Some of them are going to be trial and error.

Considering the given attitude of the Sri Lankan state, the magnitude of its militarization and the internationally enacted military subjugation of Tamils, it is futile to expect smooth political experiments to take place in the island unless political fundamentals long aspired by Tamils are conceded in no uncertain terms and there is international presence and guarantee in implementation.

If the international community could forge a singular companionship in abetting Sri Lankan state against Tamils, it should also be able to conceive and implement a unique political solution to the conflict, if it is not expecting another war in the island.

As far as Tamil political groups are concerned there is no guarantee at all in the given set up that just by sacrificing righteous demands they would get anything. The ball is in the court of the aggressors and their abetters to take bold decisions in offering acceptable and long-lasting solutions if they want peace for ‘development’.

Tamil groups should not engage in demoralising the future course of the liberation struggle by playing in the hands of those who are all out to erase the nationalism of Eezham Tamils. Instead, they should concentrate on ingenuously posing democratic challenges, locally and internationally, convincing the inevitability of conceding liberation to Tamils.

'Political formula needs to address Tamil nationalist fundamentals'

2009-08-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

Roy Gardiner Wignarajah

White House Tamil protest draws media attention

2009-08-21T12:31:00.001-07:00

Commenting on the increase in number of protests after President Obama came to power, Politico.com, a site run by a Virginia-based popular American political group and edited by former Washington Post staffers, noted that the "most memorable crowd of protesters outside Obama's door [White House]" was a Tamil expatriate group which has "caught the attention of administration officials and journalists alike with its unflagging, mind numbing chants." Washington-based Tamils and Canadian Tamils have been protesting in front of the White House for the 102nd contiguous day Thursday, urging Obama administration to take steps to safeguard Tamil civilians and to enforce a just and fair solution to the Tamil National question.

Protest video by Politico

President Obama! President Obama!" women and men on a megaphone would call as the rest of the crowd — sometimes as large as 300 people — echoed, "Stop the genocide," Politico commented on the chanting, adding that White House reporters have complained on the repetitive chanting distracting reporters' concentration on other matters.

"We are going to keep going until our loved ones are freed from concentration camps and they can live in their own places without any torturing," said one Tamil Tiger protester who would identify herself only as coming from Canada. "The babies are starved to death. Even the old people are dying in the concentration camps," Politico quoted a Canadian Tamil protester as saying.

"When slaughtering of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lanka military inside the "Safe Zone" reached unprecedented levels we decided to start a protest on a continued basis in front of the Lafayette park in full view of the White House. 11th May was the first day, and we have continued since that date. We will continue until U.S. takes some concrete measures to alleviate the tragedy that had befallen on the Tamil people," Dr Thayaparan, the main organizer of the protest told TamilNet.

Evidence gathered by The Times newspaper has revealed that at least 20,000 Tamil people were killed on the Mullaiththeevu beach by Sri Lanka Army shelling. While UN remained silent, 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.

Chronology:

20.08.09 White House Tamil protest draws media attention

17.05.09 White House protest to continue into next week

12.05.09 White House protest accuses Sri Lanka of civilian ..

Related Articles:
29.05.09 20,000 Tamil civilians massacred by Sri Lanka – The Times
20.05.09 Fears mount for safety of doctors arrested by SLA

External Links:

Wiki:		The Politico
Politico:		Protesters proliferating in Obama era

White House Tamil protest draws media attention

2009-08-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

Protest video by Politico

Chronology:

20.08.09 White House Tamil protest draws media attention

17.05.09 White House protest to continue into next week

12.05.09 White House protest accuses Sri Lanka of civilian ..

Related Articles:
29.05.09 20,000 Tamil civilians massacred by Sri Lanka – The Times
20.05.09 Fears mount for safety of doctors arrested by SLA

External Links:

Wiki:		The Politico
Politico:		Protesters proliferating in Obama era

Winners are never tried for war crimes, says Colombo’s foreign secretary

2009-08-21T12:29:00.001-07:00

“If you look at the history of war crimes there isn’t one instance where a winner of a war has been tried before a Tribunal. They have always been set up for losers. And if you were to take winners then the start would have to be taken elsewhere. Sri Lanka did not drop atom bombs or destroy entire cities during the war,” said, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary and newly appointed permanent representative to the UN, Palitha Kohona in an interview to Daily Mirror, Thursday, outlining the diplomatic prospects of Colombo in engaging the officialdom of the world, in negating political solutions to the Tamil national question. “There is this thinking that all our problems can be solved by applying a political solution. I fail to see the logic behind this,” he said.

The foreign secretary while justifying uselessness of political solution, made a special reference to a bunch of Tamils in the diaspora with whom his government had made a rapport.

“The government has engaged expatriate Tamils in a very constructive manner. The government in February brought in a representative group of Tamils with whom we had a dialogue for 2 days. We continue to do that,” he said adding, ”I learnt from the BOI recently that there are 31 buildings coming up in Colombo all being built by expat Tamil people. Our efforts to engage them is certainly bearing fruit.”

The foreign secretary was of the opinion that there was no need for a political solution to North and East, as Tamils are not living there anymore.

“Where are we going to apply this solution? Are we going to do that to the 54% of those living in and around Colombo or those in the North and East? In the North the entirety of the Tamil population is 750,000. There were 300,000 in the Wanni area who are now in the camps. There’s no one outside the Wanni area. The total number in the Jaffna peninsula is miniscule compared to the rest of the island,” he said rejecting any problems to Tamils.

“If there were a problem with them why have 54% of the entire Tamil speaking people of this country migrated to Sinhala speaking areas? They did it on their own. If they had a problem why did they voluntarily come to these areas?” was his question.

“It is easy to suggest that a political problem will solve, when, even if we have problems, they are certainly not in an political form. Like in every other country people have problems with job opportunities or getting children to school etc. We need to address them but not through an ethnic approach”, he said.

On APRC, his response was: “We made the mistake in the past of trying to impose the solution from the top. But on this occasion President decided that any changes would carry the majority support.”

He was confident that Rajiv vision of 1987 is the ultimate contentment of India: “India has been very supportive of our issues. We are confident of this support. Their own suggestion is that we should implement the 13th amendment. And the President has said he will. I don’t think India has gone beyond that in their discussions.”

On the conditions of the internment camps he cited a British delegation: “The cross party delegation from the House of Commons publicly said that these camps were better than they had seen elsewhere.”

Palitha Kohona accused the international agencies for not agreeing to make ‘permanent’ facilities in the internment camps: “The latest is the rains. Of course the conditions would deteriorate. When the government asked the international agencies in paving the paths and roads in the camps they refused on grounds that these would be converted to permanent camps. Today the same agencies are complaining that the roads are unusable. The same with the lavatories.”

The foreign secretary who was jubilant of the support of India, Pakistan, China, Russia and some other countries not just in the ‘tasks’ of Colombo but in the human rights council too, in ‘disgracing the opponents,’ ended his ‘interview’ with Colombo’s FO agenda deviously put as a question.

“Q:Similar arrests (like that of KP) are expected of LTTE activists in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, India and even in Scandinavia and very likely also in Norway in the coming year. What special difficulties do you foresee especially in the Scandinavian countries given their continued support towards the LTTE? How can you ensure that these countries are no longer made safe havens for senior LTTErs?”

“We will continue to work with them. I would never say there was no support. I wouldn’t say that the LTTE was ever endorsed by Norway; they were the acknowledged facilitator of the peace talks and their argument was that as facilitator it was not in a position to take sides. Our goal it to get all our friends on board to get back to our old friendships before terrorism raised its head.”

According to reports, militarization of diplomacy in the lines of certain totalitarian regimes has changed the face of Colombo’s foreign office in a drastic way in recent times.

Winners are never tried for war crimes, says Colombo’s foreign secretary

2009-08-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Review fears Sri Lanka used British weapons on Tamil civilians

2009-08-19T07:30:00.001-07:00

Fears that British weapons were used against civilians in Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers have prompted calls for a review of the arms trade, British newspapers said. Four British Parliamentary committees have issued a joint report arguing that all existing licences to Sri Lanka should be investigated. Singling out Sri Lanka, Roger Berry, chairman of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, said that arms exports to countries which had only recently ceased hostilities should be monitored because of the high risk that fighting would resume. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the UK Foreign Office told the Daily Telegraph newspaper a review of Sri Lanka was underway, adding: "the Government shares the Committees' concerns regarding military exports fuelling conflict in countries such as Sri Lanka.”

Telegraph: UK arms used against civilians in Sri Lanka

Times: Arms review urged over fears British weapons
were used against Tamils

Channel 4: British guns 'fired at Sri Lanka civilians'

The Parliamentary committee says that while the situation in Sri Lanka made it “impossible” to know how British weapons were deployed, there were legitimate concerns that they may have been used against civilians.

“Sri Lanka highlights the need for the UK Government to monitor closely the situation in countries recently engaged in armed conflict,” Mr. Berry said.

“It must assess more carefully the risk that UK arms exports might be used by those countries in the future in a way that breaches our licensing criteria.”

Photo: Channel 4

Britain approved the sale of more than £13.6 million of weapons and military equipment to Sri Lanka during the last three years of its civil war, including armoured vehicles, machinegun components, semiautomatic pistols and ammunition.

However, Britain is legally bound by the European Union code of conduct on arms transfers, which restricts the arms trade to countries facing internal conflicts or with poor human rights records and a history of violating international law.

MPs specifically want to know which British arms were used by Sri Lankan forces in this year’s final offensive against the Tamil Tigers, in which an estimated 20,000 civilians died, The Times said.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "As a result of the intensified fighting in Sri Lanka earlier this year, the Government launched a full review of export licensing decisions to Sri Lanka. This review is nearing completion, and the outcome will be reported to Parliament."

In the last quarter of 2008 Britain approved 21 licences for more than £1.3 million of supplies and declined two that were deemed to violate EU rules on such sales, The Times reported.

The code focuses not on the lethal potential of the weapon but on its end use. Between April last year and March 34 licences were granted for military exports to Sri Lanka.

Malcolm Bruce, a Liberal Democrat MP who visited Sri Lanka in April, told The Times of the licences: “There were too many unanswered questions. With hindsight, Britain’s sales did violate the EU code of conduct.”

MPs rejected the Government’s claim that it could not have anticipated the civilian toll in Sri Lanka, noting the dramatic increase of hostilities after the collapse of the ceasefire in 2006. Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office Minister, also argued that a British arms embargo on Sri Lanka would have prevented them attaining any leverage to press for a ceasefire.

The United States suspended all military aid and sales to Sri Lanka early last year because of concerns about worsening human rights abuses against both Tamil fighters and civilians. British MPs and activists against the arms trade said that the EU should have done the same even earlier, when the ceasefire first collapsed.

“Of course it could have been anticipated,” Mr Berry told The Times.

“Anyone who knows anything about Sri Lanka realised where things were going. We think there are enormous lessons to be learnt from Sri Lanka, to put it mildly.”

External Links:

Telegraph:		UK arms used against civilians in Sri Lanka and Gaza
Channel4:		British guns 'fired at Sri Lanka civilians'
Times:		Arms review urged over fears British weapons were used against Tamils

Review fears Sri Lanka used British weapons on Tamil civilians

2009-08-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

Telegraph: UK arms used against civilians in Sri Lanka

Times: Arms review urged over fears British weapons
were used against Tamils

Channel 4: British guns 'fired at Sri Lanka civilians'

Photo: Channel 4

Telegraph:		UK arms used against civilians in Sri Lanka and Gaza
Channel4:		British guns 'fired at Sri Lanka civilians'
Times:		Arms review urged over fears British weapons were used against Tamils

Academic exposes ideological shift in DMK

2009-08-18T06:36:00.001-07:00

Discerning students of Tamil Nadu politics, especially those analysing the role of the state in Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, are intrigued by the transformation that has taken place in the DMK perception on Sri Lanka, writes V. Suryanarayan in an article last week appeared in New Indian Express. “The tragedy of the situation must be underlined; the Sri Lankan Tamils became pawns in the electoral politics of the state. What is more, their struggle for justice, equity and dignity has been pushed back by several decades. A long winter of discontent is ahead of Sri Lankan Tamils,” he concludes the article.

V. Suryanarayan, a long time Sri Lanka watcher and former professor of the Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies of the University of Madras, was citing the recent speech of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in the state assembly, brushing aside Tamil Eelam as not a realistic goal.

Karunanidhi government has now gone to the extent of even instructing its police to erase the word ‘Eezham’ from posters and banners displayed in Tamil Nadu, according to news coming from Chennai, Monday.

Suryanarayan in his article was reminding that on August 27, 1983, DMK, the political party of Karunanidhi had passed a resolution that a ‘separate Tamil Eelam shall be the only remedy and paramount solution’ and the following day the party’s stalwart K Anbazhakan demanded Indian military intervention to the genocide taking place in the island.

The professor also reminded that, “While in power, in '89, Karunanidhi did not have the courtesy to welcome the Indian Peace Keeping Force, which returned from Sri Lanka. He accused the Indian army of committing `atrocities' against the Tamils.”

Comparing the DMK of today, he writes: “As the Lankan military offensive gathered momentum, the war against the Tigers degenerated into a war against Tamils. The hapless Tamil civilians were caught between the Sinhalese Lions and the Tamil Tigers and hundreds of them [Editor's note: several thousands] lost their lives. Instead of trying to evolve an international mechanism, acceptable to both the Tigers and the Lankan government, to rescue the Tamil civilians from the war zones to refugee camps, the response of the Government of India, backed by Tamil Nadu, was only to express `concern' at the increasing number of civilian casualties.”

Asking “How does one explain the paradigm shift in the New Delhi-Chennai equation,” Suryanarayan raises a few riddles: “Was it due to the `coalition dharma' of the Centre, where the DMK is an important ally? Was it due to Karunanidhi's desire for stronger relations with Sonia Gandhi when sections within the Congress were toying with the idea of extending an olive branch to Jayalalithaa? Was the policy dictated by the chief minister's desire to ensure important Cabinet berths to his near and dear ones in New Delhi?”

The question missed is that to what extent corporate interests played a role in influencing the outlook of the DMK, responded TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Over the decades, Karunanidhi family has evolved into a multinational corporation, it has made alliances with other such corporations of India, irrespective of them being Brahmin or non-Brahmin, and it has become successful in synthesising its corporate interests with its rule of the state and its participation at the Centre, he further said.

Further responses from the commentator follow:

"The war against Eezham Tamils, especially the ganging up of the international community in abetting Colombo, was essentially to open up the island for corporate plunder.

"The Eezham Tamils were able to be spared since their nationalism failed to ally with any power and more than that it didn’t evolve its own multinational corporations. Such a nation dominated by a service middleclass and multinational only in basing its liberation movement doesn’t deserve a nation state but promiscuous Colombo offering resources of the island to everyone in return for Tamil blood deserves all favour.

"No wonder, being in the corporate club, Karunanidhi family, Kasthuri Ranga Iyengar family, Chidambaram family and a host of others in India have 'larger interests' in the island and that tilted the balance of their outlook. Of course it will take a long time for Eezham Tamils to get into the club.

"Suryanarayan quotes Prof. K M De Silva writing that the separatist movement in Sri Lanka `was fostered, nurtured and protected in Tamil Nadu'.

"The Sinhalese who were not prepared to share the island with their Eezham Tamil brethren and are now self-congratulating over an internationally abetted ‘victory’ will soon find new realities, for they too don’t have a corporate society.

"Whether the article reflects a paradigm shift in Suryanarayan, disillusioned with the Indian Establilshment, is the question asked in the Tamil circles."

External Links:

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Eelam Eelam cause washed away

Academic exposes ideological shift in DMK

2009-08-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

IE:

Eelam Eelam cause washed away

Floods threaten Tamils in Sri Lanka’s detention camps - HRW

2009-08-18T06:35:00.001-07:00

Floods and disease are threatening the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of Tamils detained enmasse in violation of international by the Sri Lankan government, HRW said Tuesday. The floods have caused emergency latrines to flood or collapse, causing sewage to flood several areas of the camps, heightening the risk of outbreaks of contagious diseases. The camps are located in places that are known to flood during the onsetting monsoon season.

Flooding in Vavuniyaa internment camps

Meanwhile, HRW says camp residents are getting increasingly frustrated by the difficult conditions in the camps. In late June, camp residents held at least two protests, which were dispersed by the security forces. Since then, the military administration of the camps, apparently fearing more unrest, has divided the camps into smaller sections, which are easier to control.

The full text of HRW’s statement follows:

Floods caused by heavy rains unnecessarily threaten more than 260,000 displaced Tamil civilians whom the Sri Lankan government has unlawfully detained in camps in northern Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch said today.

Permitting displaced families to move in with friends and host families would quickly address the deteriorating conditions in the camps with the onset of the rainy season, Human Rights Watch said.

"The government has detained people in these camps and is threatening their health and even their lives by keeping them there during the rainy season floods," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "This is illegal, dangerous, and inhumane."

In violation of international law, the government has since March 2008 confined virtually all civilians displaced by the fighting between government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in detention camps, euphemistically called "welfare centers" by the government. Only a few thousand camp residents have been released and allowed to return home or to stay elsewhere.

During the last several days, heavy rain fell on northern Sri Lanka, flooding several camps. Zones 2 and 4 of Manik farm, a large complex of camps west of the town of Vavuniya, were particularly affected by rain. More rain is expected with the onset of the rainy season next month, further worsening conditions in the overcrowded camps.

"Aanathi," a 30-year-old woman living in zone 2 with her 1-year-old son, told Human Rights Watch: "Within seconds, the water was pouring into our tents. ... After a couple of minutes, everything was flooded. We lost all of our things. We had no place to cook. We couldn't get help from anybody, because everybody was in the same situation. It was terrible. We were already frightened, and this made it worse."

Seven people from three families were living in Aanathi's tent, which was designed to house five people. According to the United Nations, the majority of the camps are severely overcrowded; zones 2 and 4, with a joint capacity of 50,000 people, held more than 100,000 people as of July 28, 2009. For their protection, the residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch were not identified by their real names.

The rain caused emergency latrines to flood or collapse, causing sewage to flood several areas of the camps, heightening the risk of outbreaks of contagious diseases. "Shantadevi," also in zone 2, told Human Rights Watch: "Some of the toilets are completely flooded. It looks like they are floating in water. The pits have collapsed and raw sewage is floating around with the storm water in a green and brown sludge. It smells disgusting."

Aanathi explained to Human Rights Watch that the area where the camp is located usually floods during the rainy season: "If they don't release us before then, we will be washed away by all the water, there will be outbreaks of diseases here. It will be terrible."

The camps have already suffered from outbreaks of contagious diseases with health officials recording thousands of cases of diarrhea, hepatitis, dysentery, and chickenpox.

Observers report that camp residents are getting increasingly frustrated by the difficult conditions in the camps and that the current heavy rain caused unrest that was quickly defused by the military camp administration without the use of force. In late June, camp residents held at least two protests, which were dispersed by the security forces. Since then, the military administration of the camps, apparently fearing more unrest, has divided the camps into smaller sections, which are easier to control.

Humanitarian organizations have long advocated the release of the displaced from the camps. Many of the camp residents have relatives, including close family members, with whom they can live if they are allowed to leave. Aanathi told Human Rights Watch that she would go to live with her mother in Jaffna or her mother-in-law in Trincomalee if released.

"The camp is like a desert, there are no trees here," she told Human Rights Watch. "When it is sunny, it gets really hot. When it rains, you can't walk because of all the mud. With a 1-year old it is very difficult to move around, and I can't leave him alone in the tent. It is painful to speak about my situation here. I am lonely, very lonely. If I could go to Jaffna or Trincomalee, I would have a good life again."

The government has refused to release the displaced from the camps, contending that it needs to screen them for Tamil Tiger combatants. In response to calls to release them, Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona, recently named Sri Lanka's ambassador to the UN, told the BBC on August 10 that it was "mischievous to talk of rights in the absence of security."

On August 15, the minister of resettlement and disaster management, Rizad Bathiudeen, told the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror that he held UN agencies responsible for the flooding in the camps, saying, "[T]he Government cannot be blamed for the poor condition of the drainage systems which burst and failed."

"The government bears full responsibility for the situation in the camps," said Adams. "Locking families up in squalid conditions and then blaming aid agencies for their plight is downright shameful."

Floods threaten Tamils in Sri Lanka’s detention camps - HRW

2009-08-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

Flooding in Vavuniyaa internment camps

Tamil Nadu government erases the word 'Eezham'

2009-08-18T06:34:00.001-07:00

Tamil Nadu Police was seen pasting white papers on the word 'Eezham' and on the picture of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan, figured in the banners and posters of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Kadchi (VCK) organised uprising in Chennai attended by more than 100,000 people Monday. The VCK's annual uprising day, conducted on the birthday of its leader Thol Thirumavalavan, has chosen the theme 'Ezhum Thamizh Eezham' for this year. The phrase can either mean the 'rising Tamil Eelam' or 'Tamil Eelam will rise'. The word 'Eezham' is the earliest reference to today's island of Sri Lanka, found in Tamil literature and inscriptions of pre-Christian centuries.

On the eve of the meeting, within a couple of hours, more than 2000 large digital banners publicizing the public meeting were pulled down by the police in and around Chennai city alone. The police, who pasted white papers on the word 'Eelam', which appeared in the name of the conference, spared only a tiny fraction of the banners.

The state police also pasted white paper to cover pictures of Mr. Pirapaharan wherever it appeared in the digital banners.

According to news reports, these banners had been placed throughout Tamil Nadu more than ten days ago. The sudden police action of pulling down these digital banners on Monday left the VCK embittered. The VCK cadres staged spontaneous protests.

Wall writings (graffiti) giving details of the event, which had been painted several months ago, were also defaced by the civic staff in Chennai on the orders of the city police who supervised this cleaning operation.

Launching a tirade against the Government of Sri Lanka for its systematic genocide of Tamils, Mr. Thirumavalavan, who is also an Indian Member of Parliament vowed to cast his party, the VCK (Liberation Panthers), as the "unarmed Tamil Tigers" and to keep the fire of Tamil Eelam struggle alive in Tamil Nadu.

Thirumavalavan argued that although his party was bound by the Indian Constitution, the Tamil people in India could not remain mute spectators to the genocide of their brethren in Sri Lanka.

Referring to the police action, Thirumavalavan said that such an assault on the freedom of expression was highly condemnable. He also observed that any force in the world could only erase words and images from walls, and use their might to pull down banners, but they can never remove these emotions and feelings of liberation and homeland which people carry in their minds, nor can these powers stop our uprising.

Alleging that fifty thousand Tamil people, including young children and women, were killed in Sri Lanka since the beginning of 2009, he also detailed the sufferings that the Tamils were presently undergoing in the barbed wire camps in Vavuniyaa.

The VCK leader also read out a resolution stating that an independent state of Tamil Eelam was the only solution to ensure the long-term safety and protection of the Eelam Tamils.

Another resolutions passed in this conference requested the US and Indian governments to remove the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from the list of terrorist organizations and called upon them to recognize the LTTE as freedom movement.

Thirmavalavan expressed suspicions on the truth behind Sri Lanka's unverifiable claims about LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.

The conference also passed a resolution condemning the "arrest" of Selvarasa Pathmanathan. The resolution demanded that the Government of Sri Lanka should announce whether Mr. Pathmanathan was arrested or kidnapped, and called upon the United Nations to safeguard him from any threat to his life.

Moreover, according to sources in Tamil Nadu, rumours of Thirumavalavan's arrest caused some anxious moments for his cadres, and this was used by the police as a pretext to prevent thousands of people from reaching the Chennai to take part in this public meeting. The railway police had also resorted to a lathi-charge on VCK cadres in Madurai Sunday night and prevented them from boarding trains to come to the state capital to participate.

Thirumavalavan said that while his party would take every effort to ensure that the DMK Government would not be put to hardship, any question of compromise in aim or ideology was impossible and that his support for Tamil Eelam was unwavering.

Related Articles:
23.09.08 Eezham Thamizh and Tamil Eelam: Understanding the terminolog..

Tamil Nadu government erases the word 'Eezham'

2009-08-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

Flooding of Vavuniya IDP Camps-Possible outbreak of Epidemics: PUCL

2009-08-17T08:03:00.001-07:00

PUCL expresses concern about reports from the IDP (Internally Displaced People) Camps in Vavuniya area housing Sri Lankan Tamil about severe flooding of the camps following heavy rains for the last 2 days. PUCL apprehends that the IDP camps will turn into `death traps’ unless urgent measures are taken to safeguard lives of the 300,000 inmates.

Zones 2 (Ramanathan Camp), 3 (Ananda Kumarasamy Camp), 4(No name) of Menik Farm Camps house 65,000, 43,000 and 41,000 inmates respectively. These camps are enclosed by barbed wire from which none can leave without permission of security forces. The camps are constructed in low lying areas susceptible to flooding. Toilets for the inmates are not only inadequate but are also temporary structures oftentimes being mere huge pits dug into the soil. Due to the rains the toilet pits have caved in. As though this is not bad, the toilets have also become full and there is severe water contamination. Flood waters mixed with toilet slush is reportedly flooding the living areas.
Zone 0 and 1 alone are the model zones shown to visiting journalists and diplomats. The habitations are built with tin roofs. Housing in Zones 2,3,4,5 and 6 are made from UN supplied tents shared by 2-3 families, with no privacy.

Supply of cooked food stuffs have been stopped two weeks back. The inmates of these camps have to depend on dry rations and have been forced to have individual kitchens. Due to the rains, the firewood have become wet and unusable. Families are therefore starving.

The red soils of the area have made the camps slushy and unlivable. It is reported that the flood waters are waist deep in some parts posing severe threat to personal safety, health and hygiene. Due to the poor road conditions vehicles are unable to move in the area and thus supply of essential commodities has stopped.

The situation of children and elderly is appalling. Equally horrible is the plight of the injured and handicapped people who are unable to compete with able bodies camp inmates for a share of essential commodities and toilet facilities.

Most NGOs are running out of money and unable to supply food to camps. It is informed that World Food Programme (WFP) is planning to close down its operations in these areas soon.

Epidemics and illnesses due to the poor conditions in the camps and flooding will kill as many as the war did unless the international community steps in and initiates remedial steps on a war footing. The world governments, especially the Government of India have a moral duty to the victims Tamils to ensure that all possible safety measures are initiated.

Government of India has announced that they are going to allocate another tranche of Rs. 500 crores. As members of Indian civil society PUCL demands on behalf of other human rights community that Government of India insist that the IDP camps are shifted to a safer place and all possible remedial measures be undertaken under supervision of Indian groups including experts and independent experts. If this is not done, PUCL fears there will be numerous deaths of Tamils and immense suffering.

Under the circumstances, PUCL urges the Government of India and the International Community to immediately intervene in the administration and running of the IDP camps in Vavuniya region of north Sri Lanka housing close to 300,000 Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the war.

Flooding of Vavuniya IDP Camps-Possible outbreak of Epidemics: PUCL

2009-08-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

Most NGOs are running out of money and unable to supply food to camps. It is informed that World Food Programme (WFP) is planning to close down its operations in these areas soon.

Sri Lankan elections at one glance (GRAPH UPDATED)

2009-08-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

[ Sunday, 09 August 2009, 09:02.11 AM GMT +05:30 ]

The final results of Jaffna Municipality, Vavuniya Urban council and Uva Provincial council election results have been published. On this basis, the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance has won the Jaffna Municipality and Uva provincial council, while the Tamil National Alliance has acquired the Vavuniya Urban Council.

According to this, United Peoples Freedom Alliance has secured 10 thousand and 602 votes, and had obtained 13 seats the Jaffna Municipality elections. Tamil National Alliance had acquired 8008 votes and won 8 seats. Meanwhile, the Independent group received 175 votes, with one seat, the Tamil Liberation Alliance has got 7 votes(1seat)

According to the official votes of Vavuniya Urban council election, the Tamil National Alliance had obtained 4 thousand and 136, ( 3 seats).

The Plotte Democratic People’s Liberation Front Party has acquired a total number of 4 thousand and 136 votes and acquired 3 seats. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance has received 3 thousand and 45 votes (2 seats). Sri Lanka Muslim Congress won 1 seat and obtained 587 votes.

The final results of Uva Provincial elections the United Peoples Freedom Alliance acquired 4 hundred and 18 thousand votes and received an 2 additional seats, which consisted of 25 seats. United National Party obtained 1 hundred and 29 thousand and received 144 votes and captured 7 seats. The JVP received 14 thousand and 639 votes and on this basis it won 1 seat. Other than this, the Upcountry Peoples’ Front had acquired 9 thousand and 227 votes and won 1 seat.

Stop the Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka

Displaced people suffering due to heavy rain

2009-08-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

[ Sunday, 16 August 2009, 12:21.32 PM GMT +05:30 ]

It is stated, due to heavy rain for the past three days, in Vavuniya, people living in the displaced camps are facing immense hardships. Mainly people detained in the Menik farms are facing massive difficulties.

It was pointed out that due to heavy rain, many health crisis have cropped up. Presently the temporary toilets are unable to be used hence people may face the danger of spreading contagious diseases was informed by the aid organizations.

Menik farm zone three and four and affected badly with distribution of food was stated.

Stop the Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka

A view from behind the barbed wire: UNHCR

2009-08-15T06:18:00.001-07:00

During the final months of Sri Lanka's civil war, the island nation's government barred the media and other observers from entering the war zone. As a result, first-hand accounts of the conditions facing the hundreds of thousands of Tamils forced to flee their homes, and later interned in internally displaced peoples (IDP) camps, were practically non-existent.

But on the ground during the final weeks of intense fighting was Denise Otis, a Canadian employed at the Montreal office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. After 15 years representing mostly asylum seekers before the Immigration and Refugee Board, Ms. Otis joined the UNHCR as a legal officer in 2004. Eager for field experience, Ms. Otis volunteered for the UNHCR's emergency roster team, and after some training in Sweden, spent May and June among Sri Lanka's internally displaced Tamils.

Last week, 'Embassy' spoke with Ms. Otis about her experiences. This is an edited transcript of her reflections on her time in Vavuniya, a town which swelled with internally displaced peoples in the war's aftermath:

When you were dealing with the IDPs near the end of the conflict, what were they telling you? What state were they in?

"We were not alone there, of course. There were many organizations, and it was a huge operation at the very beginning because these people were coming down to the checkpoint called Omanti. At this spot the people were registered, a very brief registration, and sent to camps.

"And so at that checkpoint, [Doctors Without Borders] was present, and trying to cover the cases they could monitor.... One important task for UNHCR was what we call presence protection, to be there and observe what's happening. We were visible with our T-shirts and caps, and we were allowed to be present to monitor what was going on.

"[The IDPs] had just left courageously, they were survivors of war. They were in bad shape. They had been under fire for a few months, and some of them had practically lived in bunkers. Some of them were injured; they had been victims of shelling. They were all extremely tired. They also had had problems of access to food.

"I myself witnessed the case of a young boy-my boy's age, an 11-year-old-who was dehydrated and they were going to lose him, but they finally fortunately succeeded in resuscitating him. It was something very [deeply moving] to witness.

"At the beginning, a lot of people were sent to schools and community centres in Vavuniya City. Because the arrivals were sudden, it was very difficult half the time to establish proper camps and so on.

"The first protection that you try to give people is for their lives, so you need shelter and food and so on. UNHCR, in terms of shelter, had, thanks to donations, sufficient shelters, mainly tents, to protect those people at the beginning. But it was huge numbers of displaced...in total at the beginning about 280,000 people.

"So obviously, at the beginning the authorities, including the army, were taken a bit off guard because of all the displacements and what it meant in terms of sheltering. You have to remember, we were in a context of war, and obviously the LTTE cadre, the combatants, were also among those people who were being displaced. So the Sri Lankan army wanted to make sure that the combatants would be apart from the civilians. So there was a screening process going on at this particular checkpoint."

Broadly speaking, how did the Sri Lankan army treat the IDPs?

"We were very much constrained as humanitarians, we were not allowed on roads before eight o'clock and after six o'clock pm, for security reasons.

"When we were there we did not, generally speaking, see any mistreatment. But the bottom line is...that they are encircled by barbed wire. Generally speaking, there is no freedom of movement, which is one of the basic principles applied to internally displaced peoples. There is a [UNHCR] guideline that exists on IDPs, and it's very clear that the very first principle of these guidelines is freedom of movement.

"In Sri Lanka, many people had been displaced in the past, including when the tsunami took place. And I saw some of these settlements of people who had been displaced in 1998, and these people had never been constrained, never been submitted to confinement like that.

"The main reason given by the government, and I think UNHCR understood the fact, that because of the context, the government thought it was better for security reasons to confine those people. But the situation is that they are still confined."

What are some of the things that stick out clearest in your mind about the situation in those camps?

"Well it's heavily militarized around the camps. At the beginning the army was also in the camps, but they were eventually replaced by civilians. I think this was also thanks to advocacy from UNHCR, because that's another principle: the camps cannot be militarized.

"Nevertheless, it's still militarized outside, but inside now it's civilians, which is a good improvement. But it was a first impression, that that was a bit contrary to the principles.

"Of course the fact that the people are confined is something that catches the attention. It's barbed wire and you see kids, old age people, and so on. Now, I have to tell you that the government of Sri Lanka has established rules where people 60 and above and the kids 10 and below were allowed, according to various rules and procedures, to leave the camps. So a certain number have been released, but Vavuniya is a small town. The infrastructure did not necessarily exist, but they did their best to have those people find a place to live."

Has any progress been made?

"The basic rights have to come through. Sanitation, water, etcetera. And now I know they have made a lot of efforts in order for the kids to have access to education. They also made efforts to decongest those huge camps where too many people were jammed at the beginning. Now they put them in other camps.

"They have the intention to resettle, meaning they will be sent back to where they came from, but because of the war situation, the demining, the operation can still take some time."

Why are they still in the camps?

"It's not that all the territory has been mined, but it's risky to send them back to where they come from, that's the reason that's given.

"So for the moment, they're trying their best, I guess, to make sure people are fed, but the problem remains they are confined, and that's something UNHCR is advocating [against]. In Pakistan, people were sent also to their families, people who could not do otherwise, they are in camps, but are free to move, and they have the option to go."

I understand there are a number of Canadians are among the IDPs. How are they?

"I must admit when I was there I didn't know about [those Canadians]. I heard about it afterward. But the fact is yes, there are.

"Some [foreign] people had been in the areas, because they attended a funeral, or were on holidays or were coming from a wedding or whatever, and were caught in the situation and so they found themselves in the camps. That's pretty unfortunate.

"The monsoon season is coming, and that's something I dread for them, because they are in tents and when it rains, it rains...and there's no flooring. When I was there, there was a half hour rain and it was a total disaster."

Do you think peace is in the cards now for Sri Lanka?

"The people want it, right. The Tamils, the ones I talked to, want to do like everyone else: be in peace, raise their kids peacefully and be able to go out in the evening. War is war, and at one point you just want to be at peace. That's what they want, most of them."

It seems to me that the main thing where the Sri Lankan government is falling afoul here is the freedom of movement issues.

"That's a big issue, yes. Because it's the basis of guidelines on IDPs and it's also a principle that is in the Declaration of Human Rights. It's not out of the blue, it's really the fundamentals of international law, and we have the mandate and the duty to repeat it, here and everywhere."

Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

A view from behind the barbed wire: UNHCR

2009-08-15T06:18:00.000-07:00

When you were dealing with the IDPs near the end of the conflict, what were they telling you? What state were they in?

Broadly speaking, how did the Sri Lankan army treat the IDPs?

"We were very much constrained as humanitarians, we were not allowed on roads before eight o'clock and after six o'clock pm, for security reasons.

What are some of the things that stick out clearest in your mind about the situation in those camps?

"Nevertheless, it's still militarized outside, but inside now it's civilians, which is a good improvement. But it was a first impression, that that was a bit contrary to the principles.

Has any progress been made?

"They have the intention to resettle, meaning they will be sent back to where they came from, but because of the war situation, the demining, the operation can still take some time."

Why are they still in the camps?

"It's not that all the territory has been mined, but it's risky to send them back to where they come from, that's the reason that's given.

I understand there are a number of Canadians are among the IDPs. How are they?

"I must admit when I was there I didn't know about [those Canadians]. I heard about it afterward. But the fact is yes, there are.

Do you think peace is in the cards now for Sri Lanka?

It seems to me that the main thing where the Sri Lankan government is falling afoul here is the freedom of movement issues.

Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Sri Lanka’s state terrorism spreads to foreign soil - Extraordinary rendition? says AFTA

2009-08-15T06:15:00.001-07:00

The Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA), the umbrella organisation of peak Tamil Associations in Australia and New Zealand in its media release yesterday said that it condemns in the strongest terms, the manner in which Mr. Selvarasas Pathmanathan has been seized in Malaysia and taken to Sri Lanka for interrogation by the Sri Lankan security agents.

AFTA considers the abduction and transfer of Mr. Pathmanathan to Colombo as an act of Extraordinary Rendition. Tamil Diaspora is gravely concerned that if this dastardly act goes unchecked, no Tamil would be safe in any part of the world.

According to international news agencies Mr. Pathmanathan spearheaded a move to direct the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement, to continue its struggle for self-determination of Tamils through democratic and diplomatic means. His recent efforts in taking steps to form a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (PTGTE), through a democratic process amongst the Tamil Diaspora were welcomed by AFTA.

The Thai government spokesman has stated that Mr. Pathmanathan is married to a Thai national and lived in the north of the country. Mr. Pathmanathan is believed to be a Thai national as well. Although Sri Lankan authorities initially claimed that Mr. Pathmanathan was arrested in Thailand and taken to Sri Lanka for interrogation, Thailand's prime minister said on Friday 7th August that he had been seized but denied that it happened in Thailand. All the independent media reports indicate that Mr. Pathmanathan was seized in Malaysia in an illegal manner by the Sri Lankan military intelligence with possible support of some sections of the Malaysian law enforcement agencies.

Extraordinary Rendition is illegal and should be challenged by people who believe in democracy and rule of law and signatories to the relevant Geneva Conventions. Even states which are not a party to conventions against Torture are bound by international norms to stamp out torture and not facilitate such acts. Article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits Extraordinary Rendition. Article 3(1) prohibits parties from returning, extraditing or refouling any person to a state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The Committee against Torture has held that this danger must be assessed not just for the initial receiving state, but also to states to which the person may be subsequently expelled, returned or extradited. It further states that for the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

It is alarming to note that such an act could be permitted despite the International Community including Malaysia and Thailand being fully aware of the abductions, torture and indiscriminate killing of Tamils are common place in Sri Lanka.

Reuters news agency quoted Sri Lankan defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella as saying, "We are quite capable of demolishing LTTE activities anywhere in the world. We have the capacity and assistance". Reuters quoting three senior military sources has said that, three senior Sri Lankan military sources speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that three teams were deployed to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia to hunt down and kill Pathmanathan, not capture him. "We didn't want him to be brought down here. But the circumstances didn't allow us to do that," one military intelligence officer told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

AFTA is of the opinion that if these statements by Sri Lankan military sources are true no Tamils from Sri Lanka, irrespective of their current nationality are safe on the streets of the country of residence.

AFTA feels that Sri Lanka has abducted Mr. Pathmanathan to deny a source of evidence of “war crimes” committed by Sri Lankan government officials, including the former DFAT official Dr. Palitha Kohona, who was involved in the surrender arrangements of the LTTE political wing leaders. These leaders were shot and killed by the Sri Lankan army while surrendering unarmed and carrying a white flag on the order of Government officials. Mr. Pathmanathan only negotiated the modalities for the surrender and he had played recently some of the recordings of these conversations to the international media.

AFTA appeals to

the ICRC to demand immediate access to Mr. Pathmanathan to ensure his safety and his well being including supply of essential medication. ICRC also should facilitate the availability of a lawyer to represent him to assist in the investigation by the Sri Lankan authorities and protect this key witness who is vital for future independent international “war crimes” investigations.
all the States who are against Extraordinary Rendition, including Australia and New Zealand, to condemn the illegal seizure of Mr. Pathmanathan, irrespective of any crime if committed by him, and the subsequent transfer of him to Colombo.
the Malaysian government to break its silence about the alleged involvement of any of its law enforcement agencies in this matter.
Thai Government to secure the release of its national; and
The human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch to seek a just resolution to this matter.

AFTA also appeals to the independent media to use investigative journalism to expose blatant disregard displayed by the parties involved in violating international norms.

Sri Lanka’s state terrorism spreads to foreign soil - Extraordinary rendition? says AFTA

2009-08-15T06:15:00.000-07:00

the ICRC to demand immediate access to Mr. Pathmanathan to ensure his safety and his well being including supply of essential medication. ICRC also should facilitate the availability of a lawyer to represent him to assist in the investigation by the Sri Lankan authorities and protect this key witness who is vital for future independent international “war crimes” investigations.
all the States who are against Extraordinary Rendition, including Australia and New Zealand, to condemn the illegal seizure of Mr. Pathmanathan, irrespective of any crime if committed by him, and the subsequent transfer of him to Colombo.
the Malaysian government to break its silence about the alleged involvement of any of its law enforcement agencies in this matter.
Thai Government to secure the release of its national; and
The human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch to seek a just resolution to this matter.

AFTA also appeals to the independent media to use investigative journalism to expose blatant disregard displayed by the parties involved in violating international norms.

US urged to go beyond clichés

2009-08-15T06:14:00.001-07:00

The very phrase ‘political reconciliation’ is partial and diabolical as it only upholds the integrity of a genocidal state and artfully nullifies the nationalist perspectives of the Tamil struggle, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo, responding to US stand discussed with groups of diaspora Tamils. Any genuine political approach to the age-old nationalist conflict in the island begins from recognising the nations involved in the conflict and engaging them as equal parties having full right to self-determination, the commentator writes, adding: “If willingness for positive political engagement is not forthcoming from the Sri Lankan state, the state can be induced and Eezham Tamils could be encouraged to participate willingly, by US and India in particular acknowledging the nation of Eezham Tamils and its absolute right to self-determination without mincing words.”

Full text of the response from the TamilNet's political commentator to the US stand, discussed with diaspora groups Tuesday, follows:

Coining phrases is a powerful weapon the US Administration deploys from time to time in subverting righteous causes that do not overlap with its world designs.

Unfortunately for the US, the phrase bombs it deployed so far to nullify the Tamil nationalist struggle in the island of Sri Lanka in order to protect a faulty state have misfired.

The wrong application of ‘war on terror’ by the Bush Administration of course hit the Tamils hard but it also equally hit the international credibility of the US and made it look a fool at the hands of hijackers.

Obama Administration’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s enthusiasm for ‘post-conflict era’ at the height of war ended up in confounded silence at the turn of affairs.

But the US refuses to learn lessons from the Sri Lankan state.

The US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Blake on Tuesday deployed another phrase weapon, ‘political reconciliation,’ in a meeting with 16 Tamil diaspora groups, when no signs are coming either from Colombo or from the powers that had actively abetted Tamil genocide, even in recognising Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island.

The sweet-coated ‘political reconciliation’ only means a venomous ‘political subjugation’ to confirm military subjugation, if the parties to genocide don’t demonstrate first that to what extent they have changed in their heart.

The very phrase ‘political reconciliation’ is partial and diabolical as it upholds the integrity of a genocidal state and artfully nullifies the nationalist perspectives of the Tamil struggle.

How do they expect the Tamils to listen either to Colombo or to the US, India and other abettors of genocide, after what had been done and what is being done, unless they all consider Eezham Tamils as vanquished slaves.

Any genuine political approach to the age-old nationalist conflict in the island begins from recognising and respecting the nations involved in the conflict and engaging them as equal parties having full right to self-determination.

It only amounts to duplicity when the powers that ganged up for destruction in the island don’t show that enthusiasm in ganging up for construction.

If willingness for positive political engagement is not forthcoming from the Sri Lankan state, the state can be induced and Eezham Tamils could be encouraged to participate willingly, by US and India in particular acknowledging the nation of Eezham Tamils and its absolute right to self-determination without mincing words.

They also must demonstrate their determination in implementing such a political engagement.

In the spirit of the perception of Obama towards the end of the war, and the way the war ended, the US particularly has a responsibility in setting the right track in seeking alternatives to the verbose of ‘reconciliation.’

Chronology:

15.08.09 US urged to go beyond clichés

14.08.09 US stresses ‘political reconciliation’ with Tamils..

US urged to go beyond clichés

2009-08-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

15.08.09 US urged to go beyond clichés

14.08.09 US stresses ‘political reconciliation’ with Tamils..

Abduction of KP shows state terrorism goes on unabated

2009-08-14T14:07:00.001-07:00

"The arrest of KP shows that the Sri Lankan government will not go easy with anyone although they speak out in support of Tamils and are giving assurances that they will bring the Tamils’ grievances to an end through peaceful means", writes Satheesan Kumaaran in his article titled "Abduction of KP shows state terrorism goes on unabated".

He further writes: "The State, however, failed to realize that it cannot bring the millions of Tamils to its knees unless the State accommodates the demands of Tamils".

The story written exclusively for the eelamnation.net website follows:

Abduction of KP shows state terrorismgoes on unabated

By Satheesan Kumaaran

The Sri Lankan government came out last week with its own military intelligence agents to Malaysia to kidnap the head of LTTE’s International Relations Department. They escorted him in a plane to Colombo and his whereabouts and his destiny are still unknown. Even though Selvarasa Pathmanathan, better known as KP, announced, after LTTE officially declared that they silenced their guns in May 2009, that he would lead the LTTE in a peaceful manner using democratic and diplomatic means to end the Tamils’ grievances. Growing fear among Tamils in Sri Lanka is that their three decades of military campaign and earlier three decades of peaceful struggle since the island gained independence from Britain will be silenced using state terrorism.

The arrest of KP shows that the Sri Lankan government will not go easy with anyone although they speak out in support of Tamils and are giving assurances that they will bring the Tamils’ grievances to an end through peaceful means. But its actions are not matched with words. The government seems to be more anti-Tamil now and determined to suppress Tamils at any cost.

Even Tamil parliamentarians are afraid to speak in favour of Tamils as the Sri Lankan State has already, through its paramilitaries, killed elected MPs, while denying any associations to the killings and the State has to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The state-sponsored terrorism in Sri Lanka has grown its deep roots over the last couple of years. Sri Lanka has a notorious track record, inter-alia, with state-sanctioned murders of elected Tamil MPs, journalists, and aid-workers. Eleven journalists, of whom nine are Tamils, have been killed while fifty have been abducted from 2005 up to now. Another 50 journalists have left the country due to fear of persecution. Many Tamil businessmen have been abducted for ransom and killed. One Tamil parliamentarian from the North, five Tamil doctors, and Government Agent of Kilinochchi have been arrested and imprisoned merely because they happened to be Tamils.

This dishonourable track record of human rights abuses and suppression of free speech and their failure to protect the Tamil MPs show that Sri Lanka is a failed state and they have no qualms about their genocidal agenda toward the Tamils. Even KP himself announced that he would lead the LTTE as a political movement to represent the Tamils on the island denouncing violence, and even KP is not a wanted person in Sri Lanka for any criminal activity on its soil. Sri Lanka had no right to kidnap him and extradite him to Colombo on August 5 as he is a Thai citizen and according to UN conventions, he should be produced in a court in the country where he was kidnapped.

His kidnapping and extradition to Colombo violates international jurisdictions. Sri Lanka fears that he would mobilize Tamils around the world and he would demand that Sri Lanka fulfill the demands of Tamils through diplomatic and political means.

Sinhala majority will never recognize Tamils

Although KP is a wanted man by Interpol for gun running charges, he was not on the list of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But it was speculated that KP would be a better person to provide clues in finding out the LTTE’s plot in the murder. However, they took little action to extradite him from his adopted country. Sri Lanka, which has no charges on KP, arrested him and detained him in an undisclosed location in Sri Lanka.

KP spent his most time talking to his diplomatic contacts to get all the displaced people, who languish in military-run barbed wired camps, released. These innocent civilians have broken no laws, but are being treated like criminals. Their conditions are worse than animals. There are reports of torture, rape, and starvation inside the camps. Food and medicine are regularly denied to Tamils, forcing them to die of starvation and diseases. Red Cross, a lone international humanitarian presence on the war’s last battlefield, was last month forbidden access to most internment camps and forced to close four offices in the east on the orders of the all powerful Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Further, KP was acting fast to get international aid to the affected people in the North. So, he was not doing anything illegal, but he was mobilizing resources to help the Tamil victims of the war. In spite of the Tamils hardships, the Sri Lankan State drums its chest in the South and receives enormous support from the majority of Sinhala people over the winning of a war with the LTTE and now the capture of KP. This shows from the recently held urban council elections. The ruling government managed to sweep the votes among the Sinhala voters.

On various occasions, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has made claim that he was elected by the Sinhalese-Buddhist constituency and, therefore, he will not betray their mandate. In keeping with his "Mahinda Chinthana" he has said no to Tamil homeland, no to Tamil people’s right to self determination, and no to Tamil nation.

War drumming by the failed Sri Lankan State with the support of the Sinhala majority will never grant autonomy for the Tamils. This reminds us what the father of Tamils, Chelvanayagam, said -- that no one other than the god will save the Tamils from the Sinhalese. Although Chelvanayagam is no more, his wise words remain valid.

Despite knowing the facts, the global community, too, supports the oppressor rather than the oppressed because they care too little about the Tamils on the island. Even when many western European countries raised their strongest voices while tens of thousands of people were butchered by the Sri Lankan army, Sri Lanka ignored them. Instead of taking actions against Sri Lanka, these powerful countries held press conferences and released statements. They did nothing to bring the terrorist Sri Lankan State to book.

The value of democracy is for the majority to embrace the minority and although Sri Lanka claims it is a democratic socialist republic, they oppress the minority through violence. This shows that the majority Sinhalese will never embrace Tamils. The Tamils will have no option but to recognize themselves and when the time is ripe, they will support Tamil militants leading to another phase of war with the Sri Lankan State.

KP arrest a symbolic threat to others

KP’s arrest further disappoints the Tamils. Sri Lanka should realize that no one should suppress others through violence. Sri Lanka should recognize the Tamils’ political grievances and end the conflict through peaceful means rather than sending army to kill and abduct peace doves.

While Sri Lanka celebrates the abduction of KP, the Sri Lankan State remonstrates with Tamil activists, warning that they will not abide free speech concerning Tamils rights. The State, however, failed to realize that it cannot bring the millions of Tamils to its knees unless the State accommodates the demands of Tamils. Tamils are not begging the Sri Lankan State for power. However, international jurisdictions make it difficult for the Tamils to secede from a recognized State.

However, the kidnapping and removal of KP in Kuala Lumpur to Colombo violates international jurisdiction. Without informing the family or close relatives, kidnapping and relocating him to another country is not acceptable to the UN conventions. It is a gross violation of international rules and regulations. There is no doubt that some influential and powerful countries contributed behind the scenes in his kidnapping, even though the Sri Lankan authorities issued statements to the contrary. Even the Thailand Prime Minister said that KP was not arrested on his soil. The LTTE’s legal advisor, Viswanathan Rudrakumaran, who is a resident of the U.S. as well as U.S citizen, strongly urged the Malaysian government to clarify on the abduction of KP and he urged the Malaysian government to order a full investigation on the KP arrest episode.

The Malaysian Prime Minister said he was not aware exactly what happened and he did not admit that he would launch a full investigation as demanded by Rudrakumaran. However, it is a sensitive matter and Malaysia is home to nearly two million Tamils who embraced the country as their home. However, they remain a forgotten community in the country. Despite all this, the present situation over the arrest of KP will further anger the Tamils towards the Malaysian government.

Sri Lanka, who is drumming its victories over military success and now over the capture of KP, will definitely boost Colombo politically and will help Colombo to extend hands to arrest and bring any others who speak in favour of Eealm Tamils to Sri Lanka. But Colombo should realize that it would not get the support from the global community always as it did in South East Asia. In arresting KP, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has lost an historic opportunity to heal the ethnic wounds between the majority Sinhalese and the long brutalized Tamils. This is further proof the Sinhala government is out to crush Tamils’ demand for equal rights and freedom regardless of the means of resistance.

Killing, abducting, and torturing a community will not bring stability to the country. Further, all these will add fuel to divisions and enable the oppressed to come out stronger than before to fight the oppressor. Daydreaming will never become a reality, but independent Tamil Eelam will definitely become a reality as justice always will triumph at the end. However, people like KP and tens of thousands of others belonging to a nation should sacrifice for the liberation of their community as freedom will not come into birth without sweating. In spite of Sri Lanka’s not-so-clandestine attempts to silence the Tamils, the Tamils still struggle mightily for their rights and freedoms and will continue to do that until their rights are established.

-Satheesan Kumaaran -

(The author can be reached at e-mail: satheesan_kumaaran@yahoo.com)

Abduction of KP shows state terrorism goes on unabated

2009-08-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

"The arrest of KP shows that the Sri Lankan government will not go easy with anyone although they speak out in support of Tamils and are giving assurances that they will bring the Tamils’ grievances to an end through peaceful means", writes Satheesan Kumaaran in his article titled "Abduction of KP shows state terrorism goes on unabated".

He further writes: "The State, however, failed to realize that it cannot bring the millions of Tamils to its knees unless the State accommodates the demands of Tamils".

The story written exclusively for the eelamnation.net website follows:

Abduction of KP shows state terrorismgoes on unabated

By Satheesan Kumaaran

France 24 about srilanka detention camps.

2009-08-12T19:20:00.001-07:00

France 24 about srilanka detention camps.

2009-08-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

France 24 about srilanka detention camps.

2009-08-12T19:19:00.001-07:00

France 24 about srilanka detention camps.

2009-08-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

Bemoaning the luxury of three meals a day to Tamil IDPs

2009-08-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

Palitha Kohona, a former senior public servant in the Australian Federal government, currently the secretary to the Sri Lankan ministry of foreign affairs serving the terrorist State of Sri Lanka in an interview with the July issue of Himal, South Asian says: “We make sure that they (the Tamil IDPs) get three meals a day which is costing us more than a million dollars a day and medical care (232 doctors have been sent to look after them). Now, 40,000 of the children who came out of the LTTE areas attend school”. What a five star luxury short of Champagne and Caviar they afford to the Tamils they claim to have liberated now with breakfast: bread and lentil, lunch: boiled rice and coconut sambal and dinner: coconut Sambal and boiled rice. What more do they want. This is good enough for the Tamils. This is what President Rajapakse meant by "liberation" with the Tamils paying the price for their freedom: from hunger, privation and liberty.

These Tamils might not have experienced the Sri Lankan brand of "free elections" for some time but they certainly have come from an environment of abundance in both agriculture and fisheries in the Vanni before the military raids began in early 2009. Kohona’s statement should be viewed in the backdrop of when the Tamils began to be starved with the onset of the war when the Sri Lankan government sent only thirty percent of the food requirements to more than 350,000 civilians in the Vanni a part of whom now constitute those in the concentration camps in Vavuniya.

It would be recalled that in late April 2009 in an interview with Al Jazeera, Kohona, contradicting his statement made two weeks before that, completely denying the aerial bombings on civilian targets including hospitals by the Sri Lankan government within the farcical No Fire Zone (NFZ) finally admitted when confronted with pictures of them justifying this act of genocide as being a retaliation "perfectly legitimate", against guns located on the ground, stating that the attacks were proportionate, when in actual fact, they were an act of indiscriminate aggression and by no means self defence. Now in the Himal interview he states he was misquoted.

Kohona in the Himal interview grudges the 232 doctors servicing these 287,000 IDPs interned in the camps, the proportion of which is one doctor for every 1237 patients and potential patients making it remotely evident and suspicious of the horrendous extent of the state of ill health in the internment camps, while the number of military personnel with no knowledge of the Tamil language with their racial prejudices to effectively communicate with the Tamil people doctoring these camps are far in excess of this proportion. Tamils do not want private hospital treatment for their hundreds dying of malnutrition, traumatic disorders, meningitis, chicken pox, measles with serious consequences of permanent brain damage and damage to other organs with another hundreds of patients dying weekly with the government having no place to covertly bury them. Tamils trapped within, want freedom to look after themselves and seek their own remedies. They have had enough of the State patronage loving them to death. At least now the Sri Lankan state must let them go without strangling them with their overbearing love and affection. Leave them alone to go back to their homes and survive, and this is all what we ask.

While hedging the issue of their disgraceful human rights record, Kohona boasting of support from nations with dismal human rights records makes a pathetic effort to shift the blame for the failures and the serious lapses on human rights on the international community for not acting cooperatively when in actual fact any cooperation on their part has been rendered impossible and fruitless with a rogue state like Sri Lanka around, permanently defaulting.

Not defining what kind of schooling that is, Kohona says: "Now, 40,000 of the children who came out of the LTTE areas attend school" while not talking of the grades of these children and what kind of education they are being given comparable to the children in the Sinhalese areas. Are they having classes under trees writing on sand? Are the teachers from among those incarcerated in the camps? It has been reported that many children have lost their tertiary and university education because they have either been separated from their parents, having been killed, or missing. Do they have the proper mental condition to pursue any studies or do they end up as victims of genocide?

In response as to when the IDPs would be settled back in their original homes, Kohona repeats the Mantra that their homes have been heavily mined. Who in their sanity would mine their own houses unless the State is now launching a programme of mining in their genocidal quest. What is more, 300,000 refugees from the Vanni, it is claimed walked in several directions to reach their veritable prisons in Vavuniya and there had not been a single report of a land mine exploding. Further Kohona talks as if he was unaware of the Indians designated in their complicity to delay, saying that it would take 3 years to have the entire area de mined, an utter drain of money and time, a ploy to delay the process and to enrich the Indian contractors and themselves with foreign aid

Military weapons said to have been buried by the Tigers do not go off by themselves. He states: "Water has to be connected, electricity has to be connected, the schools and clinics have to be rehabilitated and the roads have to be restored. It’s a huge challenge, and we hope that the international community will assist us in this." One should be out of their mind to believe this insincere concern for the Tamils coming especially from Kohona. We can give the guarantee that these will never happen. There is nothing to connect water for they lived on water from the rivers and wells with no electricity in all parts. Again this is all a ruse to get as much aid as possible, delay until most people are decimated and the funds squandered.

Kohona states: "The next task is to separate the LTTE combatants from the non-combatants. We have no intention of keeping large numbers of former combatants in jail – they must be rehabilitated". We can now tell you that they have already been killed in the jails that they were kept in as reported even in websites favourable to the government. In Sri Lanka there is the history of suspected Tamil militants taken in for questioning never returning home. Rehabilitation in their parlance is death by violence, an example, the Bindunuwewe massacre.

On being asked about the internment camps, Kohona says, apart from other crap into which we are not going into: "First, children were being dragged into the jungle by the armed groups to be inducted into their units. The UN wanted us to stop that. The only way to do that was to put a security fence around the camps. Then, the other thing was, the locals were looting the UN supplies. They were coming in and walking away with water pumps, roofing material etc. So the UN asked us to put those fences. Now when we put in the fences on our own, everybody is complaining that we are putting people into "internment" camps. I think that is a little cynical and unfair". They claimed that the LTTE were no more, and the children that were abducted was actually done by their military to share in the human loot for domestic child slavery, another crime against humanity. So according to Kohona what were to be enclosed within razor wires were infra structure material and not humans but while fencing, human beings got caught up inextricably into these! As to how they came to be within these wires is then a mystery and they cannot find a way to release them. Further according to him, while UN helicopters were landing, children were seen standing beside fences (These fences must have materialised in the landscape) as they usually do and The Times using these picture made it known to the world that people were being interned within concentration camps. How preposterous. After all 40,000 attend school with the question being: are these “schools” outside of the wired boundaries. If The Times (of London) did not call them internment camp they would not be internment camps. Perhaps they would have been virtual prisons called by another name.

Identifying the Sinhala polity with the Sri Lankan State, Kohona plays up to the Sinhalese people, hankering for their support to the State to offer help towards the Tamil people’s welfare. He says: "I think the State and the Sinhalese people will do all that is necessary to care for the Tamil people", revealing that any welfare for the Tamils has to be not of their own right but on the approval and the sufferance of the Sinhalese people. The racist State in the wake of its outrageous human rights record and crimes against humanity has to invent new stories day to day, if not hour to hour, to paint a pathetic picture lacking of any realism.

[Editorial, Eelam Nation]

Bemoaning the luxury of three meals a day to Tamil IDPs

2009-08-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Is India a victim of its own policies?

2009-08-12T07:59:00.001-07:00

"To bring Sri Lanka within its fold, India should avoid finding political solution to the Tamil problem only on Rajapaksa’s terms. It is only a distinct Tamil administered area that could check the Sinhalese fear and hatred of India and work against it. The Sinhalese are interested in preserving their country as the last bastion of Theravada Buddhism. They care a damn for India’s security or her fear of China infiltrating into her southern flanks", writes Mr. Visvanathan in his article "Is India a victim of its own policies?".

He further writes: "India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads".

-Eelam Nation-

Within two months of the highly celebrated victory of the Sinhalese over the Tamils on 17 May, 2009, Jayasooriya a friend of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as the Defence secretary posted the following statement on a website under his control.

"India has no right to tell us that we should give equal rights to Eelam Tamils. All leaders and officials from India are giving orders to Sri Lanka. Even the Foreign Minister, S. M. Krishna has said recently that ‘only by giving the fundamental rights to all the communities that ethnic issue can be solved. We are asking him, ‘Who are you to give us advice? What qualifications do you have?’

Sri Lanka is a sovereign country and we know how to run a government. You mind your own business. We won’t offer any power to Tamils because that will enable them to fight for a separate state.

Not only that, we will also throw out the Indian Accord that was thrust upon us. Through that we will wipe out the last signs of Indian domination. You created Tamil Tigers in order to annex our country with India. We have destroyed what you created."

This article couldn’t have been posted in the Defence website without the approval of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Therefore, this reflected the Sri Lankan state’s official opinion.

Now let us look at India’s qualifications to give advice to Sri Lanka. Even by the admission of Sinhalese officers, the contribution of India to Sinhalese victory was immense. Former Army chief General L Balagalle said the following:

"For me, 80 per cent of my advanced training happened in India. I have been trained in Pakistan as well. There are vacancies for our officers and men in both countries. We generally send company commander-level officers for training" Brigadier Udaya Nanayakar added:

"I got training in both India and Pakistan. Both have been helping us a lot. We send our officers regularly to India and Pakistan for specialised training. I did four courses in India and three in Pakistan. The last time, I trained in Secunderabad". He said Lankan forces have been procuring the latest technology from both countries.

Before the Congress Party came into power in 2005, The Sri Lankan army was in bad shape. By 1999 it was defeated by the LTTE in almost every battle. Soon the Tigers controlled 80% of Tamil Homeland.

Successive defeats forced the Ranil government to agree to a ceasefire in February 2002. Since 2005, India trained hundreds of Sri Lankan officers at all levels and in various fields of advanced training.

According to Nanayakara in addition to sharing intelligence during military operations, "India also helped by carrying out naval operations in the area. There were naval exercises too that helped.

Pakistan and China, supplying sophisticated military equipments, could not have by itself tilted the military balance in favour of the Sinhalese. In the heat of the battle the Sinhalese army was famous for leaving the equipment behind and running away from the battlefield. It was the Indian training and military intelligence supplied that made the difference. Moreover, it was reported that a few thousand Indian troops with their officers were in the battlefield to see that the Sri Lankan army didn’t retreat.

Now Jayasooriya is asking S.M.Krishna for his qualifications for advising Sri Lanka to restore the rights of the Tamils.

This exhibition of ingratitude comes within two months after Rajapaksa describing India as Sri Lanka’s greatest friend on earth.

This is not the first time that India found itself in a similar situation. Indira Gandhi was unable to have any control over Jayawardene leaning towards US. The fear of Trincomalee falling into US hands prompted her to arm the Tamil groups to resist the Sinhalese.

Post LTTE era could pose a problem for India. This is where Indian diplomacy had successively failed.

A former Indian diplomat M. Bhadrakumar, who sees Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo diminishing in what he thinks ‘post-LTTE’ era says that India needs to work with the International Community (IC) to promote urgent international monitoring mission and mobilise IC opinion favouring political process and settlement within reasonable timeline.

He said "the IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process," and added further that "the European Union has done the right thing by calling for an inquiry into war crimes."

"Rajapaksa indeed has a blueprint for the final resolution of the Tamil problem. It involves the systematic colonisation by the Sinhalese of the Tamil homelands north of Elephant Pass so that over the next decade or so, the demography of those regions will be altered to the disadvantage of Tamils. This was how Colombo 'solved' the Tamil problem in the eastern provinces of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara," Bhadrakumar said.

In his anticipations, "the Sinhalese establishment will promote an exodus of Tamils to India as a matter of state policy. As victims of state discrimination, Tamils will be willing or even eager to migrate to India as time passes. This will constitute the Sinhalese establishment’s ‘permanent solution’ to the Tamil problem." The biased Indian Establishment was in no way less guilty in exploiting the China card to justify its abetment of Colombo and in continuing its nullification of the national liberation struggle of Eezham Tamils.

To bring Sri Lanka within its fold, India should avoid finding political solution to the Tamil problem only on Rajapaksa’s terms. It is only a distinct Tamil administered area that could check the Sinhalese fear and hatred of India and work against it. The Sinhalese are interested in preserving their country as the last bastion of Theravada Buddhism. They care a damn for India’s security or her fear of China infiltrating into her southern flanks.

The Sinhalese are highly sophisticated practitioners of diplomacy and politics. When they disfranchised the Indian Tamils in 1948, they made sure the Northeastern Tamils and the Muslims were kept at ease. The prime minister at that time, Don Stephen Senanayake, knew that India’s problem with Pakistan would prevent Nehru from invading Sri Lanka.

When the Sinhalese decided to finish off the original Tamils, who had been there for 2,500 years, they played the Tamil card in India They encouraged India’s fear of Tamil Nadu breaking away from India. In the later years they fanned India’s fears of LTTE assisting the Maoist groups in India.

The 9/11 tragedy was a God sent gift to Sri Lanka. They exploited Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ to the maximum to ban LTTE finances and arms procurement. The problem with the Western powers is that they do lip service to human rights violations in many countries. They will close one eye to the violations of human rights in countries like Sri Lanka, Israel and in some of African and South American states, whom they favour; but, when it comes to countries like China, Sudan, Russia and countries whose foreign policies they do not approve, they magnify the gravity of the violations through their government pronouncements and media. So far this policy of the West has encouraged Sri Lanka.

In March 2009, Sri Lanka depended on China and Russia to block a US move in the UN Security Council for humanitarian intervention in Sri Lanka. If India was not "cooperative", Rajapaksa would not have hesitated to show her the door. He knows he has options other than India.

Bhadrakumar says that these are unpalatable thoughts. But what are India’s options? Paradoxically, Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo will diminish in the post-LTTE era. Delhi needs to make up for its loss of influence by working with the international community.

It suits Delhi to promote an urgent international monitoring mission in Sri Lanka, which safeguards the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils who are interned in virtual concentration camps and are highly vulnerable to coercion and violence. India must also mobilise the international opinion in favour of initiating a political process with the aim of finding a durable settlement of the Tamil problem within a reasonable timeline.

President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their pre-election speeches had indicated that the Tamils were fighting only for the restoration of their rights; but they are keen not to jeopardize their relationship with India as they need India’s help to contain terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To prevent China making further inroads, India could cooperate with US to restrain Rajapaksa.

A complicating factor is that Sri Lanka has become a theatre of big-power rivalry. The Sinhalese establishment views China as its "steadfast ally." and are willing to participate in the Chinese sponsored trade group, Shanghai Cooperation. The payoff for Beijing has been the $1 billion deal to construct a major port facility comprising container port, bunkering system, oil refinery, airport, etc. in Hambantota, which China fancies as a trans-shipment hub.

Sri Lanka, facing a worsening foreign exchange crisis, was urgently in need of a $1.9 billion dollar IMF loan. Rajapaksa’s regime faced growing popular unrest over declining living standards due to the costly war and the global economic crisis that has caused a sharp fall in commodity prices and export earnings.

Sri Lanka has virtually exhausted all access to domestic borrowing and international markets. The IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process. Pressure from the Western financial sources would restrain Sri Lanka from spending money on its armed forces and be amiable towards solution to the ethnic problem

India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads.

India has a common interest with the US in countering China’s strategy. No matter the motives behind the US’ current emphasis on a "political settlement", after having been a staunch supporter of Rajapaksa’s war, Delhi must closely work with the Barack Obama Administration.

The Sri Lankan Government has provided funds and vehicles to facilitate the well being of thousands of Sinhalese, who fled LTTE attacks in the Weli-Oya–Padaviya Sector, to be resettled before the end August. It provided Rs.50 million for the development of internal roads in the Padaviya area, Rs.100 million to reconstruct the Parakramapura –Kokkuthuduwai road and another Rs.100 million for the reconstruction of roads in Athawetunawewa and Wedhaturna.

In addition it is granting each resettled family Rs.25000 along with roofing sheets, kitchen utensils, agricultural implements and dry rations sufficient for six months.

When it came to settling the 300,000 Tamils in their original homes, the government cited numerous obstacles. The demining and screening of the Tamils in the camps would take six months or, perhaps, years. It only shows that the government officials are in an obscene hurry to populate the Tamil areas with Sinhalese settlers long before the Tamils are allowed to return to their homes.

All these should be put in perspective with what General Sarath Fonseka told a western interviewer with absolute non-chalance: "strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese. We being the majority of the country, 75 per cent, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country. They (minorities) can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."

India and the West are not ignorant of what Sinhalese intentions are. Ever since independence in 1948, the Sri Lankan government had continued centuries old hatred and fear of India. They had consistently allied themselves with enemies of India whether it is US, Pakistan or China. For the first time in history the US and Indian security interests are converging against China in the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka allowing China to make inroads into its territory is obviously a source anxiety to US and India. Both have helped the Sinhalese to crush the LTTE, the only power that could have checked them. Alienating the Tamils will never be in their best interest.

As far the International Tamil Diaspora is concerned they have no other choice but to unite themselves into a single organization and engage US and Indian politicians to redeem the plight of the people interned in camps and restore the Tamil rights for self-determination. The Jews, Irish and East Timorese have waited for years, perhaps centuries, to do that and if we have the will we can.

By Visvanathan.

Is India a victim of its own policies?

2009-08-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

A roadmap to liberation

2009-08-12T07:56:00.001-07:00

What is currently seen as the biggest threat of destabilisation by Colombo and by some powers is not the militancy of Tamils. Militancy of a small nation can be crushed by ganging up and by fabricating all excuses, as has already been witnessed by us. But what exactly threatens the establishments is the effort of Tamils organising themselves politically. What they expect is the ‘defeated’ Tamils to play political stooges. Tamil national question today appeals to an array of oppressed masses deprived of political justice all over the world. It is a topic that appeals to progressive minds thinking of restructuring the polity of human civilisation. The responsibility of Eezham Tamils and their diaspora is to present the case with a progressive political theme and language.

TamilNet Editorial Board

Unfolding events, whether in war or in elections, clearly indicate that Sri Lanka, known for its state terrorism, is all out to subjugate Tamils militarily and politically. All Eezham Tamils in their heart are aware that they have no option other than facing the challenge.

We live in times state terrorism in the island to the extent of multifaceted genocide is rationalised and is unashamedly blessed by the international community – from the UN, world powers and India to some other states in the region.

All know well that the Sri Lankan state cannot bring in any solution other than escalating the conflict, but it seems this is what precisely they want that to happen, until the question ‘who is going to have the geopolitical say in the island’ is resolved among the powers.

As such is the reality, it is folly to argue that things would have been different had the Tamil struggle opted a different course. There was no option between fighting and conceding to machinations of subjugation.

What is currently seen as the biggest threat of destabilisation by Colombo and by some powers is not the militancy of Tamils. Militancy of a small nation can be crushed by ganging up and by fabricating all excuses, as has already been witnessed by us. But what exactly threatens the establishments is the effort of Tamils organising themselves politically. What they expect is the ‘defeated’ Tamils to play political stooges.

Independent political organisation is a fundamental right of every society and is a vital norm of contemporary human civilisation.

The responsibility of aptly asserting to this fundamental right falls squarely on every member of the Eezham Tamil nation. It is not just Tamils caring for themselves, but more than that, it is meeting a challenge of global perspective having a bearing to entire humanity.

In a remarkable way the people of Jaffna have demonstrated their will for fresh political organisation in the recent municipal elections. It was a bold and clear boycott when only 20 percent turned out for voting– a slap in the face to all political parties, including the TNA that was playing words with ‘self-determination.’ In this instance no one instructed the people to boycott voting. It was spontaneous.

As Lionel Bopage, a former general secretary of the JVP, has recently pointed out, the Sri Lankan state had long back disenfranchised the Eezham Tamils by enacting the 6th Amendment to the constitution in 1983 that prevents them from politically airing their aspiration of nationhood.

As political organisation of their choice is constitutionally prevented in the island, the onus righteously falls on the diaspora of Eezham Tamils to rise up to the occasion.

Colombo is engaged in a dubious propaganda that diaspora’s political organisation is harmful to its ‘home made’ solution that is nothing but structural genocide.

In the highly internationalised conflict in the island, diaspora’s political organisation is justifiable not only in voicing for the people facing genocide in the homeland but also in globally responding to the global system that failed in its political cum humanitarian values and humiliated the diaspora.

The efforts of diaspora Tamils in re-affirming self-determination, independence and sovereignty proclaimed by the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 and their novel concept of transnational governance for a nation victimised by the international community have become challenges worse than a war to Colombo.

The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution was rebuked as ‘Tamil tribalism’ by a Sinhala writer, in a Colombo newspaper recently.

“The Vaddukkoaddai war was a tragedy bought upon themselves by their intransient, self-defeating, short-sighted, Jaffna-centric extremism. Peninsular politics was never dominated or driven by any modern political ideology – liberalism, communism, socialism, multi-culturalism or even Gandhism which was a mere passing fad without any deep roots – other than primal communalism,” says this writer in Daily Mirror, according to whom all progressive politics in the island come from the South.

It is as though answering him Arundhati Roy wrote in her recent book: “I have always been struck by the fact that the political party in Turkey that carried out the Armenian genocide was called the Committee for Union and Progress.”

On the strategy of branding the aspirations of people, she further wrote: “This theft of language, this technique of usurping words and deploying them like weapons, of using them to mask intent and to mean exactly the opposite of what they have traditionally meant, has been one of the most brilliant strategic victories of the tsars of the new dispensation. It has allowed them to marginalise their detractors, deprive them of a language in which to voice their critique and dismiss them as being 'anti-progress', 'anti-development', 'anti-reform' and of course 'anti-national'—negativists of the worst sort.”

The Sri Lankan state, genetically impotent in forging a national polity for the island, had no limits in its duplicity in nullifying Tamil political organisation. Cultural pluralism is a convenient fad in some of the elite lips today to camouflage Colombo-centric capitalist greed. Pluralism has gone with the wind ever since colonial orientalism re-invented Mahavamsa to become the basis for the idea of state, forcing even leftists to betray their principles. Tamil political organisation was accused as Jaffna-centric while more than 50 percent of the island’s wealth is Colombo-centric. It was accused as caste-centric, replacing casteism with communalism, while no one other than belonging to a particular caste of Sinhalese could become a monk in the leading Buddhist chapters formidable in the island’s polity.

Responding to all sorts of challenges and evolving social inclusion, the polity of Tamils has irreversibly graduated into Tamil nationalism with local genius, thanks to state oppression, international victimisation and the course of militancy.

Tamil national question today appeals to an array of oppressed masses deprived of political justice all over the world. It is a topic that appeals to progressive minds thinking of restructuring the polity of human civilisation.

The responsibility of Eezham Tamils and their diaspora is to present the case with a progressive political theme and language.

Lionel Bopage has hinted that Tamil militancy was only aiming to liberate the homeland from the occupying forces but it did not attempt to destabilise the Sri Lankan state. He says the old JVP was aiming at total destabilisation of the state.

If properly structured, the political organisation of Tamil nationalism is sure to find congenial partnership with alternative Sinhala polity in destabilising the Sri Lankan state, is the view of some sections that see such a course a positive achievement to the island and to the world civilisation.

Any successful political move doesn’t come from negativism.

There may be a thousand odd slips in the course of Tamil militancy that are now going to be exaggerated by the ‘victorious’ opponents to demoralise Tamils and to confirm subjugation.

Tamils should carefully deduce and grasp in mind the theoretical, strategic and tactical drawbacks of the past, but these cannot be the cornerstones for political resurgence.

Political resurgence comes from holding on to positive achievements.

It should be clearly remembered that neither the war nor the cause of Ezham Tamils has ever been surrendered. A consensus is emerging now in the diaspora for its global unification as evidenced by the spontaneous moves for a number of global outfits. Above all, the most positive development is the awakening of the diaspora youth. The direct involvement of them in the protests of the last stage of war has given them an ownership of the struggle, enlightened them of the world they deal with and relieved them from myopia.

The vital point to be kept in mind is that resurgence of Tamil politics should begin from the people, by the people and for the people. It cannot and should not begin from the intelligence agencies and embassies. Those days have gone and Tamils have seen enough of them. The rot should be kept far away until Tamils organise themselves.

Some intelligence agencies in the West are said to be advising the diaspora youth to join Sinhala political parties than maintaining separate polity for Tamils. There is also a microscopic section in the diaspora believing in Rajapaksa remedy, even after seeing what has happened to people of the shade of opinion like Dayan Jayatillake. Tamils willingly finding fellowship with island-wide political parties can happen only with parties such as of Vikramabahu Karunaratne that are prepared to recognise Tamils as a nation in the island entitled to the right to self-determination.

A lot of questions come about a democratically formed transnational government. TamilNet has already published a few articles on this, initiating the debate. As an alternative government having no territory, its power comes only from the will of people and its ability to do service. It cannot have any affiliation to any organisation.

Transnational governance is not an elite exercise coming from the above and asking the people to vote. Such an exercise, when not orientated in the grass root, is always exposed to the danger of getting hijacked or succumbing to intimidation. But when it is formed with a clear bearing and mandate, through a series of democratic exercises among the diaspora in different parts of the world and if constituently linked from top to bottom, such a structure will be withstanding and cannot be ignored or sabotaged by anyone.

It is essentially as a matter of proclamation of the will of Eezham Tamils to the international community and to set a firm bearing for the transnational governance, efforts of re-mandating the main principle of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution are being organized in the diaspora, in different parts of the world.

The diaspora in Norway that has already re-mandated VR, with 99 percent assent in a 80 percent voter turn out is soon expected to experiment with an elected council for Eezham Tamils in Norway.

In the process of people taking over Tamil polity, the society, especially the diaspora that is in a position to materialise it now, needs new blood of politicians and it goes without saying that the diaspora youth has a major role to play.

Chronology:

11.08.09 A roadmap to liberation

12.07.09 Holding grounds is fundamental to everything

15.06.09 Breaking the deadlock through transnational govern..

07.06.09 Historic task awaits all freedom fighters

01.06.09 Setting the hands of the clock right

24.05.09 Demonstrate the politics of war

21.05.09 IC, India shouldn’t impose 'inclusion' on Sri Lank..

A roadmap to liberation

2009-08-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

TamilNet Editorial Board

11.08.09 A roadmap to liberation

12.07.09 Holding grounds is fundamental to everything

15.06.09 Breaking the deadlock through transnational govern..

07.06.09 Historic task awaits all freedom fighters

01.06.09 Setting the hands of the clock right

24.05.09 Demonstrate the politics of war

21.05.09 IC, India shouldn’t impose 'inclusion' on Sri Lank..

Chinese identify Tamils conducive in breaking up India

2009-08-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

A recent article that appeared in a Chinese strategic think tank saying “[i]f China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up,” and its argument that China in its own interest, and the progress of whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris, and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India, has ruffled the Indian counterparts. Responding to the article in Chinese, D S Rajan, Director of Chennai Centre for China Studies wrote, “an approach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoring them will prove to be costly for India.”

The Chinese article by Zhan Lue, that appeared on Saturday, was timed for the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks held in New Delhi, Friday and Saturday. After holding talks with M K Narayanan and meeting Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, the visiting delegation declared the importance of Sino-Indian partnership, stressing that it involves 40 percent of the world’s population. The delegation also said that they discussed South and Northeast Asia.

On the outcome of the talks, The Hindu reported that China and India have agreed to set up a hotline communication between the leaders of the country, a facility that exists for India at the moment only with Russia.

Writing in South Asia Analysis Group, Sunday, promptly responding to the Chinese article, Rajan said, “[i]t has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices – its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting.”

According to Rajan, the punch line in the Chinese article has been that “to split India, China can bring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam’s independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal, and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km. territory in Southern Tibet.”

It is rumoured in the diplomatic circles that during the war against Eezham Tamils, huge amounts of unaccounted Chinese money was spent especially in Tamil Nadu by Colombo’s agents in Chennai to buy or check media and politicians.

The biggest question is why the Indian Establishment is precipitating a situation for China to eye on Tamils, ask Tamil circles.

External Links:

SAAG:		China should break up the Indian Union, suggests a Chinese strategist
The Hindu:		India, China to set up hotline

Sri Lanka is laying foundations for renewed war – paper

2009-08-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

“Sri Lanka's conflict is anything but over. On the contrary, it has clearly entered another period of gestation,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper warned in its latest editorial. “Unless the international community acts decisively to end Sinhala oppression of the Tamil people and ensures a robust political solution that guarantees the equality of the two nations, there will be neither 'reconciliation' nor peace. Instead, the violent tyranny of the state will lead inevitably to violent resistance anew,” the paper, published last week, said.

The full text of the Tamil Guardian’s editorial, titled ‘Fostering Hatred’, follows:

Military supervised internment camp in Vavuniyaa (Photo: The Times, UK)

Tamil victim of Sri Lanka's war, signs of chemical warfare

Beware, High voltage - mortal danger

The end to armed hostilities in Sri Lanka that followed the conventional defeat of the Liberation Tigers in May and the movement's declaration last month that it has suspended its armed struggle has led some observers to talk about a 'post-conflict' era. It is in this context that the language of 'reconciliation' has entered the discourse, for example. To begin with, Sri Lanka's conflict is anything but over; on the contrary, it has clearly entered another period of gestation. Unless the international community acts decisively to end Sinhala oppression of the Tamil people and ensures a robust political solution that guarantees the equality of the two nations, there will be neither 'reconciliation' nor peace. Instead, the violent tyranny of the state will lead inevitably to violent resistance anew.

Whilst overt hostilities have now ceased, the enmities long-driven by the state's racial oppression of the Tamils are only further intensifying. While Sinhala leaders, drunk with victory, deny there is a political problem to be solved, a chauvinist triumphalism has engulfed the Sinhala people. The polarization between Sinhalese and Tamils that became especially acute over the past few years is being rendered irreversible.

This is no 'ancient hatreds' argument, but the contrary. Whilst the Tamils and Sinhalese are long-established nations on the island, Sri Lanka's conflict and crisis is the direct outcome of politics, specifically a chauvinist nation-building project undertaken by Sinhala leaders since independence based on a supposed divinely ordered superiority of the Sinhala over the Tamils and others. This superiority is embedded in the country's constitution, its flag, the composition of its state bureaucracy and military, and above all in the annihilitory trajectory of the policies enacted and violence carried out by the Sinhala-dominated state since 1948. And that was before the Tamil armed struggle erupted in 1983.

For decades, Sri Lanka's crisis and conflict has been defined as the consequence of Tamil depends for independence. On the contrary, as a cursory survey of pre-1976 history demonstrates, it is the reverse: the demand for Tamil Eelam flowed directly out of state policies and violence towards the Tamils - policies and violence that are inexorably escalating.

The Tamil charge of genocide is no outlandish rhetoric, but a recognition of an existential threat from the Sinhala-dominated state. First there was the state-backed mob violence of the riots and pogroms between 1956 and 1983. In each year since 1983, our people have been slaughtered by the thousand by the armed forces. Throughout the war, under the logic of 'fighting terrorism', hundreds of thousands of Tamils have been starved and denied medicine en masse. Thousands of Tamils have been disappeared, summarily executed, tortured and raped by the state's forces. This is still ongoing in today's 'post-conflict' times.

Then there is the unabashed racism institutionalized in state policies, including distribution of health, education and welfare provision. Whilst the Tamils have been marginlised, excluded and impoverished, the state has fostered the Sinhala and Buddhism. This chauvinism was exemplified by how international aid has consistently been denied to the Tamil northeast - especially after the devastating 2004 tsunami. It is amply illustrated today in how Tamil fisherman are prevented by the military from going to sea whilst Sinhalese trawlers fish with abandon off the Tamil coast.

The point is this: today's Sri Lanka constitutes the perfect conditions for fostering a future armed conflict. Quite apart from the legacy of the past sixty years, the actions and policies of the Sinhala state are inflicting all manner of deprivation and humiliation on Tamils all over the island. Moreover, these actions and policies are enthusiastically backed by the Sinhala people. Especially amid a conviction Tamil defiance has been militarily crushed, the racism manifests itself in daily interactions between Tamils and Sinhalese and between Tamils and state officials across the island. In short the grievances that drive a future war are to be found especially in the present, not just the past.

International aspirations for a united, peaceful Sri Lanka are doomed without decisive action to make it possible. Reconciliation can only be possible from a position of parity. England and Scotland warred for centuries, yet today they are reconciled. It is hardly remarked but fundamental that the unity of the United Kingdom turns on the recognition of the equal worth of four distinct nations and their homelands, and not only on the formal equality of all individuals as citizens. Neither can be dispensed with.

Sri Lanka on way back to Tamil rebellion - FT

2009-08-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sri Lanka is careering back to where it was when the conflict began, with Tamil grievances being ignored amid a triumphalist wave of Sinhalese chauvinism, the Financial Times warned in its editorial Tuesday. Rather than share power with the Tamils, US and British officials fear the Sinhala state is seeking to scatter them, the paper said. “Unless the Sinhala majority shows magnanimity and gives the Tamils control over their lives, their cause will surely reignite from the embers of this war,” the paper said.

The FT’s editorial, titled ‘Dark triumphalism clouds Sri Lanka’ follows:

FT Logo

After the government of Sri Lanka finally and violently crushed the 25-year-old insurrection by Tamil rebels last May, there were hopes this sparkling island in the Indian Ocean would finally emerge from its dark history into the light. That is already looking forlorn.

Put simply, while the conflict has ended, Sri Lanka is careering back to where it was when the conflict began. Its precarious identity as a mix of ethnic and linguistic, cultural and religious influences is in danger of being swept away by a triumphalist wave of Sinhalese chauvinism.

True, partial local elections on Saturday returned some Tamil nationalists in northern towns on the fringe of the former fief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But the real purpose of the poll seems to have been to test the popularity of President Mahinda Rajapaksa before he calls an early general election to secure a second six-year term, in the afterglow of military victory. Mr Rajapaksa’s machine steamrollered through the southern province of Uva. That will, no doubt, have added to his sense of invulnerability.

What really happened in the elections is hard to know; foreign journalists were banned from the north, just as all journalists were during the final stages of the war.

The government has stepped up its intimidation of dissidents, lawyers and human rights workers as well as journalists. Five doctors who were the sources for the outside world on the final civilian bloodbath in the Tigers’ last redoubt have somehow been persuaded to recant in public, downgrading the number of civilian deaths to a tenth of UN estimates.

Meanwhile, 280,000 Tamils are being held in camps largely sealed off from aid workers. The notion of devolution to deal with Tamil grievances has been taken off the table. The government no longer wishes to discuss minority rights, only individual rights within the new national identity it intends to forge. US and British officials fear this may involve the forced dispersal of Tamils across the island so they can no longer cluster.

Even before last month’s $2.5bn reconstruction loan package from the International Monetary Fund, Mr Rajapaksa’s ability to find new sources of finance, especially from China, had made him relatively immune to international pressure.

His victory seems to have convinced him force is the answer. Yet unless the Sinhala majority shows magnanimity and gives the Tamils control over their lives, their cause will surely reignite from the embers of this war.

External Links:

CSM:		In Sri Lankan polls, Tamils affirm desire for self-rule
FT:		Dark triumphalism clouds Sri Lanka

Israel-Iran

2009-08-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

A hostility affecting the region

The New Indian Express, 11 August 2009,

While their leaders warn of an impending global catastrophe if Iran goes nuclear, the Israeli public is taking a more sanguine view. An opinion poll by Tel Aviv University finds that over 80 per cent feel their personal lives ‘would not be expected to change’ if Iran developed nuclear weapons. Should this enable us to look for an understanding between the Jewish State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran?

With the war of words flying in both directions, such an entente is almost unthinkable. Since he became president in 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has functioned as if the destruction of Israel is the raison d’être of Iran. He has denied, denounced and belittled the Holocaust in which Jews were slaughtered by the Nazi regime. Organising Holocaust denial events has become his pastime. His quixotic fights with history shames many Iranians. His controversial re-election can only worsen the situation.

Moreover, every now and then Iran announces the successful test firing of missiles. Each test is deadlier than the last and the latest in mid-May was for a missile with an estimated range of 1,200 miles. This not only brings Israel but also southern Europe within Iran’s range.

Israel is equally obsessed with the Islamic republic. The present government blames Tehran for most of its problems with the Arabs and Palestinians. Iranian support for militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas clouds Israel’s ability to examine the root causes of the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict. Today, Iran’s nuclear ambitions are Israel’s top foreign policy priority. The recent meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barrack Obama confirms this. Obama was keen to push the two-state solution, while the Likud leader wanted a firmer American commitment on Iran.

It appears that the military option is still on the Israeli table. Despite the technical difficulties and political hurdles, it has not given up the idea of attacking Iran’s nuclear programme. Netanyahu apparently told Obama that Israel would not wait indefinitely for concrete measures to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

When each side perceives the other as the mortal enemy, can one visualise reconciliation? At first glance, such a suggestion would be dismissed as wishful thinking.

Let’s take a second look. Israel and Iran are the only two countries in the greater Middle East that could be classified as regional powers. No one can deny that their policies, actions and rhetoric often have had seismic effects. For better or worse, many countries in the region fear their actions as well as rhetoric.

The other countries are no match for these two. Petro-power and Islamic credentials have not transformed Saudi Arabia into an effective regional power. Likewise, the political aspirations of Egypt are not commensurate with its diplomatic accomplishments. Of late, Cairo has been less effective even on the Palestinian front.

Should a resurgent and perhaps nuclear Iran bring Arab countries closer to Israel? Theoretically yes. Shared security concerns, especially over pro-Iranian militant groups, should bring the Arabs closer to Israel. But this will not happen before a comprehensive peace in the region. The cold peace between Egypt and Israel is between states, not people. The Arab street is not ready for reconciliation with Israel, at least not before Palestinian political aspirations are met. And the Netanyahu government is not ready for a two-state solution. Hence private understanding over Iran is the maximum that Israel can expect from the Arab regimes.

Moreover, for Israel as well as Iran, Washington remains an enigma. Can Obama convert high expectations into concrete policies and tangible results? Will his Iran policy satisfy Israel as well as Iran? Squaring the Israel-Iran-US triangle is easier said than done. The historical baggage and complexities are overwhelming. Thus, the Obama administration is more likely to disappoint than satisfy expectations on both sides.

As a result, Israel and Iran need to plan for an alternate contingency, one that recognises their mutual concerns as well as possible failure of Obama’s Middle East policy. Of late, spearheaded by Cairo, a number of Arab countries are arguing that the nuclear capabilities of Iran as well as Israel are a threat to the region, especially Arabs. Under Amr Moussa the Arab League is not prepared to de-link Iran from Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

These concerns should enable Israel and Iran to re-examine their hostility towards each other. There is a greater convergence of interest between the two than is recognised. One is not suggesting a modern-day Sykes-Picot arrangement where Iran and Israel divide the Middle East into spheres of influence. Even if they dream, neither Iran nor Israel has the imperial wherewithal for such overreach.

Nor can they go back to the days of the Shah when both countries pursued David Ben-Gurion’s policy of peripheral diplomacy. Driven by their mutual concerns over the increasingly revolutionising Arab world, one found the other as an ally. This strategy and their pro-western orientation worked in tandem until the Islamic revolution. Times have changed and Israel is no longer as isolated as it was during the Cold War. It has some friends and more clandestine allies in the Arab world.

Thus, the US-USSR behaviour during the later part of the Cold War offers an interesting model for Israel and Iran. Their mutual animosity did not diminish, public rhetoric against the other continued and each one scrambled for allies in the other’s backyard. This however, did not prevent the US and USSR from reaching broad understanding on critical matters. Israel and Iran are too small to divide the region among themselves, but could reach some broad understanding on issues that affect and undermine their security. It calls for chutzpah, perhaps; but are we not discussing the Middle East?

For weblink click here

Diary Beijing

2009-07-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

The New Indian Express, 24 July 2009

Moody machines at airport
It is often impossible to figure out what can ‘pass’ at the security checks. Obviously different countries have different standards. I confronted another problem and the same equipment had its preferences. For my Chinese friends who are fond of Indian food, I carried some species in the carryon baggage, our only luggage during the trip. While packing I did not think carefully and spread them in both bags. One bag with all spices went off smoothly and the other one did not. The machine discovered some ‘banned’ substance and we had to empty it. The security person wont allow us carry the species that had chillies and a larger bottle of cream. We quietly dropped them at the dustbin. Although disappointed, I could not ignore the irony. What happened to the same ‘banned items’ in my other carryon bag that went undetected? Not just the personnel, even the equipment is getting moody?

Airport barometer
The flow of passengers at the airport is an interesting indicator for measuring the economy of the country. While hotel occupancy might tell a different story, the size of the passenger flow shows the trend. This is more valid in countries such as Egypt and Turkey, which relies heavily upon the tourists for economy. Recent political tension over the Gaza war, for example, has adversely affected the flow of Israeli tourists to both these countries. The economic crisis is manifests in many European airports. A few years ago, SARS played havoc when international tourism to China dropped dramatically. The initial impression of the Beijing airport is interesting. Not only were there planeloads of people, there were more foreigners than Chinese. Of course, there were a number of Chinese speakers; the family behind me was Canadian whose kids were trying to read the signs in Chinese. There were far more counters for foreigners but still the non-Chinese queues were longer than the native ones. Perhaps it is a sign that weakening of the dollar has not dampened tourism to China.

Emulate China?
One of the first things one reads in the Chinese media was the report that the government officials in the southern province of Guangdong, often described as an ‘economic powerhouse’ of South China, should disclose all their personal belongings to the public. Through this measure the provincial government hopes to increase transparency among the public, which have become sceptical and disgusted over corruption in high places. Can’t help wonder if those aspiring to emulate China, both on the Left and on the Right in India, would demand our bureaucrats to disclose their personal as well as family belongings?

Ticketless travel
When you board a bus in Beijing a few things are striking. Most public buses are air-conditioned; senior citizens travel free while most young people have monthly tickets. The occasional travellers and tourists are the only ones who need a ticket. Like the West, the buses only have drivers who also double as conductors. But there is a big difference. You drop the money in a box next to the driver and move towards the back. Neither he nor the machine dispenses any ticket. The reason? Passengers discard small tickets in the streets and add to garbage and dirt in the streets. Hence the bus system has dispensed with tickets. So, literally you travel ticketless in Beijing. At the same time, the city is yet to find a way-out for the challenge posed by its smoking population. It is not uncommon to find burned out cigarette buds not just in street corners but also along the major roads.

Crossing chaos
For a country that prides itself on order and discipline, crossing the roads is a nightmare in Beijing. The traffic lights are heavily loaded against the pedestrian who get only a few seconds to cross the broad, normally six lanes, roads. Both young and old could not make it to the other side without being harassed by the vehicles that use the free right option. Special lanes for bicycles only make matters worse.

Lonely at the Wall
The Great Wall literally caters to different tastes. First time visitors prefer the popular tourist site at Badaling which is also the most developed and easily accessible. Naturalists prefer Mutianyu section with its lush green surrounding. This time around we opted for the undeveloped Ba Dao Kou section that demands trekking along the woods. Most sections of the Wall are dilapidated, could not find a single complete step and at times the Wall was literally unstable. It is impossible to pass beyond a few hundred metres that too with great difficulty. But once on top, the whole surrounding area is breathtaking. What more, we four were the only ones on the Wall as much as our eyes could see.

Astronauts on ground
That was how they looked. With only their eyes visible, that too behind goggles, they were completely covered in white protective clothing. Why did our plane skip the aerobridge in the new Beijing Capital International Airport? The Chinese officials are not satisfied with the passengers’ declaration that they have no signs of Swine Flu. A medical team boarded the plane and focusing their hand-held pistol-like equipment towards the forehead, they measured the body temperature of about 300 passengers. It took less than 15 minutes. Their efforts were not futile as a Chinese passenger had some symptoms and was quickly taken away in the waiting ambulance.

For the weblink click here

India-Israel friendship

2009-07-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

The Singapore-based Middle East Institute just carried my short paper on The Friendship With Israel: India Squares the Circle. If interested you can find the full text click here

SL Navy blocks aid to Tamils from Diaspora; (Latest news) Upon pressure of Indian Red Cross Vanangaman allowed to enter Lankan waters

2009-07-09T06:04:00.000-07:00

[ Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 03:05.19 PM GMT +05:30 ]

The humanitarian relief aboard the MV Captain Ali was unloaded and handed over to the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) for transport to the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) on 5 July 2009.

The humanitarian relief was thoroughly searched by Indian Police and Customs using metal detectors and “sniffer” dogs as it was unloaded. Indian Customs cleared the cargo and the two passengers aboard the ship were allowed to leave the ship at 3:30AM 5 July 2009. The humanitarian relief was packed (“stuffed”) into 27 containers and on 6 & 7 July the 27 containers were loaded aboard the MV Cap Colorado.

Meanwhile, Srilankan Navy didn't allow the Mercy Mission to enter into lankan waters and it say, without the permission of army they can't do anything. Again the critical situation arise in unloading the content.

Latest news: Upon pressure from Indian Red Cross and media the ship had get permitted to halt at harbour. Due to this situation it is delayed for 4 hours to get halted.

Vanni doctors forced to give false statement

2009-07-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

[ Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 08:15.29 PM GMT +05:30 ]

5 Tamil doctors being held by the Sri Lankan authorities say they expect to be released, after being paraded to local and international media on Wednesday when they were made to claim that they had exaggerated civilian casualty figures in the final phases of the war at the request of the LTTE.

Meanwhile, health workers who have escaped Vanni have slammed the international community for allowing the detainment of the doctors and questioned the validity of their statements in light of the 'precarious position' they face.

The doctors, whose arrest in May by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) caused uproar throughout the Tamil Diaspora, said they had provided information to the media on the 'instructions of the LTTE', including 'exaggerated figures about civilian casualties'.

Facing the public for the first time since being held by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), the group claimed civilian casualties between January to May was around only 650, contradicting leaked U.N reports and global media coverage.

Health workers in Colombo and abroad have criticised the International Community for not condemning the immoral detainment of the doctors, and say the statement may have been the only option available to avoid further detention.

"The world has allowed the government to demonise and incarcerate these heroes, who worked tirelessly to assist civilians within the conflict zone when no one else did," said a Vavuniyaa based health professional.

"Keeping into account the precarious position the doctors are in, and the grave dangers they face at the hands of the Sri Lankan authorities, one must be sceptical of their retractions," he warned.

The doctors in custody are Kilinochchi RDHS Dr. T.Sathiyamoorthy, Mullaiththeevu RDHS Dr. T.Varatharaja, MS for Mullaiththeevu V.Shanmugaraja, Dr. Illancheliyan Pallavan of the Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital and Dr. S. Sivapalan.

104 billion loss due to liberation tiger attacks against Inland Revenue Department

2009-07-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

[ Thursday, 09 July 2009, 07:51.01 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Minister Dinesh Gunawardena stated, the Tamil Eelam Liberation tiger’s attacks towards the department, caused the Inland Revenue, a loss of 104 billion rupees. Such attacks occurred last February 20th.

Information states, 104 billions rupees are required to refurbish the damaged Inland Revenue Department. At present the functions of the Department is performed at a temporary building for which the Inland Revenue department, is spending rupees 21 billion as rent.

Few jihadis among armed Muslims in Sri Lanka

2009-07-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

[ Thursday, 09 July 2009, 06:49.42 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Only a few of the armed Muslim groups in Eastern Sri Lanka are jihadis, it is learnt. Most of the armed Muslim men are political henchmen or persons enjoying the protection of mainstream Muslim political leaders, informed sources in the Eastern town of Batticaloa told The New Indian Express on Monday.

“The jihadis among the Muslim armed men may be just about 30 or so,” one source said. Most of those who surrendered at the Kattankudy Grand Mosque on July 4 were those linked to Eastern Provincial Health Minister M.L.A.M. Hisbullah, the most powerful minister in the Eastern Provincial government. The still absconding kingpin, “Police” Faiz, is also said to be close to Hisbullah.

State intelligence agencies have identified 18 Muslim militant leaders who are wanted for various crimes. Police and army are hunting for three main Muslim militant leaders, “Police” Faiz, Moothoor Nizam and Ruhul Haq. They are believed to be instrumental in recruiting Muslim youth for an armed rebellion and other crimes in the East, the media quoted the police as saying.

According to Hisbullah, it was the late President R. Premadasa who had given arms to Muslim youth so that they could defend the community against the LTTE, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The step was taken after 143 Muslim worshippers were massacred at the main mosque in Kattankudy in the 1990s. Hisbullah said that it was significant that the Muslims were handing over the weapons to the government at the same mosque where the massacre took place.

Tamils in Sri Lanka

2009-06-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Problem is ethnic, not just Tamil

The New Indian Express, Chennai, 18 June 2009

ONLY history can judge the true contribution of Vellupillai Prabhakaran to the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. Has he put the problems of the ethnic minority on the world map a la Yasser Arafat or squandered the opportunity by wanton disregard for human lives? Such an assessment would be made not only by his followers, supporters and sympathisers but also by the wider international community, Tamils and non-Tamils alike. One thing is for sure. The Tamil problem as it is defined for the past three decades will not be the same. To be effective it has to be viewed, understood and above all presented differently. Packaging, if you prefer.

First and foremost, the Tamils of Sri Lanka need to re-examine their reliance upon Tamils across the Palk Strait. When push comes to shove, they were let down. Not by the larger Indian state as some would like to believe but by the leaders of Tamil Nadu. Chief minister M Karunanidhi personifies this trend. A few days after LTTE accepted the death of its leaders, he urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to treat Sri Lanka ‘as a special case’ where non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country could not be applied. This was only after he concluded cabinet deals for his family.

Others are no better. During the election campaign how many buried their past and took refuge under Eelam agenda? All were prepared to ‘sacrifice’ their lives but not their hunger for power. Both DMK and AIADMK leaders used NSA against pro-LTTE leaders because it served their interests. Thus any emerging Lankan leadership from the present trauma would have to take a hardnosed approach to the track record of Tamil politicians in India, their politicking and their limitations. It is time they buried the notion that the Tamils across the Strait could provide deliverance.

Second, the inglorious defeat of Vaiko sends a strong message. The Lankan problem is an important emotional issue for the people of Tamil Nadu but it is not a critical issue. At the end of the day, it is battle in another state. It is time, the Lankan Tamils recognised this. A greater Tamil nation is a cultural identity that encompasses Tamils living in different parts of the world. Making them into a political nation is vastly different.

Let’s say that the Tamil Nadu government reintroduces the entertainment tax with the purpose of transferring that revenue towards the welfare of the Lankan Tamils. Will Kollywood organise a welcome rally? One per cent VAT for the same purpose would evoke public outcry. Will the youth who were in the forefront of many pro-Eelam agitations accept a ten rupee increase in the monthly bus passes? In short the leaders have conditioned the population into symbolism and rhetoric and forgotten the core issues. They are primarily concerned with the electoral gains to be made and play up the Sri Lankan problem.

Three, there has to be introspection. The LTTE failed not because of its military weakness or lack of support but primarily due to its short-sighted approach towards the struggle. If Prabhakaran failed to put the Tamil problem on the world map like Mr. Palestine, who should be blamed? Despite all the violence against Israel and its civilian population, under Arafat the Palestinian national movement strived for internal unity. The emergence of Hamas indicated his failure but Arafat bribed, cajoled, reasoned, blackmailed and at times intimidated his opponents and rivals. Physical elimination of rival factions was not his style.

Let’s admit. The LTTE chief was Arafat’s antithesis. How many Tamil political personalities, leaders and civilians populations were literally eliminated by the LTTE? Those who disagreed became traitors and were eliminated. New leadership would have to come to terms with black phase, own up and unequivocally distance itself. Likewise, before denouncing the Lankan government for targeting civilians, Tamil groups must admit that they were no better. In the name of fighting for the Tamil cause how many civilians, Tamils and Sinhalese alike, were killed by LTTE and various other groups. Every single civilian life is sacrosanct.

Finally, the problem needs to be redefined. It is not a just Tamil problem but a larger problem of majority intolerance. While the Tamil diaspora would continue to be a major source of support, the problem has to be taken to a higher level. Sri Lanka says it is a democracy, so let’s judge it by democratic standards. Are there laws and norms to reflect this democratic commitment? What is the number of Tamils in the bureaucracy, military, educational institutions, student communities and other sectors? Not poster boys but substantial representation. Does the judiciary uphold social justice or ratify state-sponsored discrimination? Sri Lanka relies heavily on international aid, assistance and cooperation and is vulnerable. China can step in and compensate Indian refusal for military supplies but Colombo needs the wider world which is more sensitive to minority issues.

Such an approach will also enable non-Tamil Indians to see the Sri Lankan problem differently. By playing up the Tamil card, the problem became parochial and narrow. Today it is Tamils of Lanka and tomorrow it can be another minority in another country.

It is an ethnic problem and not a Tamil problem. By expanding the scope, the Tamils of Sri Lanka will acquire more and genuine friends. Will the phoenix emerge from the ashes?

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People have a right to know the names of journalists on LTTE pay-roll: UNP

2009-06-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

[ Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 07:20.01 AM GMT +05:30 ]

The UNP called upon the Government to reveal the names of journalists who, according to government politicians, had been on the pay-roll of the LTTE.

UNP MP Lakshman Seneviratne said that there were rumours and various statements made by politicians and top officials of the government that there was a list of names of 50 journalists who had been paid by the LTTE for aiding and abetting the terrorist organisation.

"One Media Minister says he does not known anything pertaining to such a list. Then the other Media Minister says that there is such a list of names and investigations were on. We demand the government to publicise these names. No one, no party would oppose it if those journalists are brought before the law."

He said that people have a right to know the names of such persons.He said that the UNP commends the President and the Commanders of tri-forces for wiping out terrorism from the country.

"We respect all our heroes in the armed forces who had sacrificed life and limb to eliminate terrorism," he said.

Participating in the emergency debate, the MP said the civilians who had been victimised by the war too should be compensated duly.

"The government should not let the international community meddle with internal affairs. The UNP would not allow any international force to take our security forces members or officers before war-crime tribunals."

He said that the UNP was not opposing the extension of the state of emergency, but would oppose the government making use of it to harass journalists and suppress its political opponents.

Historic task awaits all freedom fighters - Tamilnet

2009-06-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

[ Monday, 08 June 2009, 01:57.42 AM GMT +05:30 ]

The Eezham Tamil nation doesn’t need words to explain the current situation because everybody feels it in the core of their heart. This is a situation that warrants no one else but only the members of the nation to rise up to the occasion. Unprecedented catastrophe awaits unprecedented response from the nation revealed Tamilnet Editorial Board

It is time for all Eezham Tamil freedom fighters to realise that there is no credible alternative other than taking up the matter directly to the people concerned for a mandate to reaffirm the political fundamentals and to direct the course of action. Incumbency, elitism and adventurism are no answers to the gravity of the situation that needs handling with legitimacy not only the genocidal regime of Colombo but also an entire world.

It is heartening to see moves being discussed towards the formation of a global structure for Eezham Tamils, but how to evolve it mass orientated, how to make it responsible to the people and what is the relationship of this body to the already existing infrastructure are the questions. All freedom fighters with a record of service to the Eezham Tamil nation have a historic responsibility in this regard to come forward united in forging a neutral interim body with full commitment to execute conducting a mandate among Eezham Tamils in forming a government, even if it is going to be bereft of territory at the moment.

Fortunately the Eezham Tamil nation’s resources and organizational infrastructure are intact in the diaspora. But these have to be immediately transformed with unity and consensus into backing the formulation of the much-needed political structure. Any failure will only see the hijacking of the cause by the same forces that crushed Tamil nationalism militarily. Some feedbacks to our earlier columns questioned the legitimacy of the diaspora in forming a government and hinted that the future politics of Eezham Tamils will surge up from the conditions of the internment camps.

While not denying the fact that the nature of politics is going to be determined by the ground realities of oppression in the homeland, a parallel political stream in the diaspora is not a liability but contributory to the Tamil nationalist cause. The diaspora on one hand cannot be idling at a historic responsibility in meeting the demands of the homeland and on the other hand has to look after its own needs of identity, self-respect and emotional integrity as well.

No one should forget that the diaspora, especially of those who migrated after the 1972 constitution have a say on Tamil Eelam, as the Eezham Tamils have not accepted the Sri Lankan state and have become the diaspora largely as a consequence to it. Many readers may wonder why TamilNet doesn’t cover ongoing factional news and debate on Tamil politics. A media is expected to do that, but as an alternative media committed to a cause TamilNet wishes to refrain from contributing to confusion.

It is our earnest hope that an environment will be created soon, conducive for all freedom loving people of the nation to participate in unison in upholding the struggle. It may be the worst of times but it is also the best of times for Phoenix-like regeneration.

LTTE respected our courts; even they did not fire a single shot at our courts” –CJ Sarath N Silva

2009-06-10T06:15:00.001-07:00

[ Tuesday, 09 June 2009, 07:45.08 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Chief Justice of Sri Lanka Sarath Nanda Silva highly appreciated the LTTE leadership saying the Tamil Tigers respected the orders delivered by Sri Lankan courts. He said that although the Tamil Tigers had own courts in Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu, they had respected Sri Lanka’s courts.

“Tamils are a respectful community. They respected our law and the rights of others. Even LTTE respected our judicial system by refraining from firing a single shot targeting our courts”, the Chief Justice said. The CJ was addressing a press briefing at the auditorium of the Ministry of Justice to make aware media of denominating the judiciary divisions. “When our courts issued warrants to arrest persons that hid in Tiger controlled areas, they arrested them and handed over to Army”, he further said.

Replying to a question from a newsman, the Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva said that there were Sri Lankan judges in north and east continuously. “They also had to approve Tigers’ orders. We removed them and none was sent from south to fill the vacancies. We appointed suitable persons from those provinces”, he added. The CJ said he did maximum harm to Prabakaran legally, but could go to Jaffna freely to open courts. “I prepared the indictment against Prabakaran as the Attorney General. He was jailed for 200 years by a judge whom I appointed. I delivered the judgment to de-merge north and east and I abrogated the Post Tsunami Operational Management Systems (P-TOMS) agreement that warranted World Bank aids to the Tiger administration. I did all these against the Tigers and went to inaugurate courts in Jaffna. If they were against us I could have been the main target”.

Chief Justice Sarath N Silva said: “There was a case in LTTE court. A DNA test was needed to verify the paternity of a child. Then the Tigers referred the case to one of our courts. We examined it and delivered a judgment. It was really a good example”. He said that he was in public service for 41 years. Out of that period, he was judge for 20 years. “I am going to retirement as content Sri Lankan by rendering good service to the countrymen”, the CJ added.

India will not tell Lanka What to do - Menon

2009-06-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

[ Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 04:01.51 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said yesterday that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was ‘in a way right’ when he said that he had fought India’s war since it was the LTTE that had killed Rajiv Gandhi and also because the security of Sri Lanka was interlinked with that of India.

“India would not remain a safe place if Sri Lanka’s security is threatened, as the spillover effects of terrorism always put the security of those who are around in danger” said Mr. Menon. Speaking to a group of visiting Sri Lankan editors, Mr. Menon said that India and Sri Lanka had both learnt lessons the hard way and India now looked forward to Sri Lanka’s prosperity since the financial stability of its neighbours was vital for India’s stability and prosperity. Citing the issues that India faced due to the growing instability in Pakistan, he said one could not expect Indian Punjab to be stable if there were abject poverty, unemployment and security issues in Pakistani Punjab.

He emphasised that the 3 next move of Sri Lanka towards national reconciliation was something that Sri Lanka should explore and “it is neither the job of India nor of Norway to prescribe what is best for Sri Lanka”. “I am quite impressed by what President Mahinda Rajapaksa has explained as his plan towards this. India will always back him in whatever decisions he thinks best suited for Sri Lanka” he said. Responding to a question on Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka, he said a couple of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) seniors were present in Delhi at the time he was talking to the Sri Lankan editors.

“They have various contacts in Delhi with whom they have been having informal dialogue on and off. As far as I know they don’t have an appointment with the Prime Minister” said Mr. Menon, adding that Sri Lankans should not read their presence as a cause for alarm. On the long overdue, proposed, Defence Pact between India and Sri Lanka he said it should take its natural course. Commenting on the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora’s attacks on Indian embassies, he said the Indian diaspora “did not take that well at all”.

Claiming that the war in Sri Lanka had made Indo-Sri Lanka media reports ‘mono-focused,’ Menon said that he hoped there would be a diversification of subjects now that the war was over. “Sri Lanka has a huge market here in India. It should exploit the opportunities. Also we should work together in many areas, like garment industry, where Sri Lanka is known for its expertise on high end products, whereas we are known for lower ends due to cheap labour. Together we can do wonders” he said optimistically.

Sri Lanka rejects Tamil Diaspora humanitarian aid, Vanni Mission

2009-06-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

[ Tuesday, 09 June 2009, 02:12.45 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Mercy Mission (UK) is disappointed to learn that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has turned away the ship MV Captain Ali, which the government, after detaining and thoroughly inspecting for 111 hours (4.5 days), has admitted is carrying a purely humanitarian cargo.

Mercy Mission (UK) issued a press release in this regard today, expressing its disappointment on Sri Lankan government's decision to turn back the ship with humanitarian consignment. The press release further states: The Mercy Mission ship is carrying 884 tons of desperately needed emergency humanitarian aid (food, medicine and medical supplies) destined for the approximately 300,000 Tamil civilians held in internment camps by the GoSL.

In light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis unfolding in the internment camps and the GoSL’s numerous appeals for “assistance” and “funding” from the international community, it is disheartening that the GoSL has rejected, on very flimsy grounds, the attempts by the Tamil Diaspora to provide this vitally needed emergency humanitarian aid. This Mercy Mission ship, the product of the hard work of thousands of volunteers in the UK and Europe and donations from tens of thousands of Tamils throughout the world, could have been, and in fact, should have been, used by the GoSL as an opportunity to show it’s bona fides and engage with the Tamil Diaspora as a means to begin the process of reconciliation in, in the government’s words, “post-conflict” Sri Lanka.

The GoSL has been quoted in media reports as stating that the ship was being detained because certain protocols were not followed and paperwork was not filed in purview of the shipping agent and the ship owner and if they did not follow proper procedure Mercy Mission (UK) extends its apologies. But this is a petty reason to deny the Tamil civilians in the internment camps desperately needed humanitarian relief. Unfortunately, the GoSL continues to show its true colors when it comes to dealing with the Tamil civilians and fulfilling its responsibilities vis a vis international humanitarian and human rights law. The GoSL continues to deny, and unreasonably restrict, access to the internment camps by local and international NGOs, the UN, the ICRC and other humanitarian and human rights organization.

Adequate amounts of humanitarian assistance are not getting into the camps and cases of death by starvation have been reported by the Government’s own Judicial Medical Officer. It seems that the future will just be a continuation of the past where the Tamil Diaspora is demonized and the Tamils on the island are treated as second class citizens whose voice is silenced by extra-judicial executions, disappearance, secret detentions, rape, torture, bombing, shelling and starvation and the international community will continue to sit back in silence and allow it to happen because it is an “internal issue”.

Mercy Mission (UK) is disappointed that this cargo of desperately needed emergency humanitarian relief has been rejected by the GoSL, but we assure all of our donors and volunteers that this food and medicine will reach Tamil refugees and that their efforts and donations will not be in vain. We pledge to continue to work harder in order to assist those in need in the North East. Mercy Mission also wishes to express concern for Mr. Athmanathan, an independent Colombo based businessman, who is being detained by the CID. He was never on the ship and never came into contact with the cargo, he had only agreed to be named as the consignee for the ship’s cargo and assist in clearing it through customs.

HRC urged to set up an International Commission of Inquiry

2009-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

[ Thursday, 28 May 2009, 01:10.49 AM GMT +05:30 ]

On Protecting Human Rights vs. “Internal Affairs”; UN Watch at the Human Rights Council's special session on Sri Lanka.

"This special session arrives late, but it can still be useful, on a single condition: that it ensures that the Human Rights Council set up an International Commission of Inquiry with a mandate to investigate allegations of violations of International Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law and make recommendations on ways and means to address the continuing impunity that exists in Sri Lanka." Arjunan Ethirveerasingam said on behalf of 'Liberation' at the United Nations Special Session on Sri Lanka.

Statement read by Arjunan Ethirveerasingam at the United Nations Special Session on Sri Lanka:

Mr. President,

LIBERATION and other NGOs have repeatedly asked the international community and this Council to act to stop the grave and massive violations of human rights in Sri Lanka. Even the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded over the past many months did not convince the international community to act to stop the massacre of the Tamil people.

This special session arrives too late for the victims. How can one explain the silence of this Council in the light of atrocities committed in Sri Lanka? Credible sources have reported that there have been more than 13000 deaths these last months and the final days of the battle have been described as a “bloodbath”.

More than 300,000 displaced persons, of which approximately 80,000 are children, are in dire need of urgent humanitarian assistance and protection from the ongoing abuses being committed in camps controlled by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Mr. President,

This special session arrives late, but it can still be useful, on a single condition: that it ensures that the Human Rights Council set up an International Commission of Inquiry with a mandate to investigate allegations of violations of International Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law and make recommendations on ways and means to address the continuing impunity that exists in Sri Lanka.

The UN Secretary General has stated that any serious allegations of war crimes “should be properly investigated”. We urge the Council to heed his call and set up an international, independent fact-finding mission to investigate the allegations of war crimes during the conflict in Sri Lanka, especially in recent months.

In this regard, LIBERATION would like to call the attention of the Council to some pressing concerns:

1. Bombing of hospitals in the so-called “Safe Zone”;

2. Denial of food and medicine to civilians, including women and children;

3. Families being separated in the camps, and women exposed to sexual harassment and violence;

4. Women being forcibly sterilised and undergoing forced abortions;

5. Two LTTE Political Division officials, Mr Nadesan and Mr Puleedevan, were reportedly shot dead as they were walking towards the Sri Lanka Army while carrying the white flag;

6. Three Government Medical doctors, Dr Sathiyamoorthy, Dr Varatharajah, and Dr Shanmugarajah are currently being illegally detained by the Sri Lanka Government.

We urge the Government of Sri Lanka to:

1. Ensure that an international, independent fact finding mission be permitted immediate and unrestricted access to the recently concluded conflict areas;

2. Allow international humanitarian aid agencies and the media unfettered and complete access to all IDP camps

3. Allow humanitarian assistance, such as the Tamil Diaspora sponsored “Mercy Mission”, to be delivered to the IDPs

4. Ensure that the screening process be conducted in the presence of the ICRC and other humanitarian organisations;

5. Ensure that all IDP family members are reunited;

6. Ensure a rapid release of IDPs from the camps so that they may resettle in their original places of habitation.

Mr President,

This Council cannot avoid tackling the scourge of the conflict in Sri Lanka, which has arisen due to the denial of the rights of the Tamil people. Fundamental freedoms must be recognised and protected. The United Nations must take the lead and increase efforts towards a just and equitable political solution to the conflict.

Close encounter

2009-05-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

A loss not that significant

The New Indian Express, Chennai, 26 May 2009

Many of them lost their families, property, nationality, identity and dreams. Simply put everything they had or aspired for. I only lost a few photos. Not my life, passport, money or not even my camera. The person only took off the memory chip but returned my camera. I lost a few pictures took earlier in the day. What I lost can be replaced with a few euros.

But what was my crime? I took some picture of the Sri Lankan Tamils who were protesting in lush green lawn in front the headquarters of Air France along the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris.

As I was walking from the Home des Invalides a group of protestors caught my attention. When I got closer, I recognised that about hundred Tamils were protesting against the Sri Lankan government. Through their slogans in French, they were drawing the attention of the international community. There were a number of horrific pictures that reminded the passers-by of the brutality of the conflict back home. Only the previous day the Lankan government had announced that LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran has been killed. Were the protesters mourning his death or they were merely protesting the atrocities? No clue.

I took a few snaps. Then I noticed a poster of Mahatma Gandhi on the lamppost. The Mahatma was not holding his usual long walking stick but rather an inverse AK-47. I could not ignore the irony of the poster and wanted to take a picture. The black flag that was also tied to the same lamppost was fluttering and blocked the view. I wanted both Mahatma and AK-47 in one frame. This took a little more time and caught the attention of the protestors.

As I was moving away, a few young men came towards me and asked something in French. When I expressed in inability, they switched to English: “Which newspapers?” asked one. “Where are you from” another followed. The third one came to the point, “Why were you taking photos. “Others joined in the chorus. I said it is a public place and hence. Then one of them asked me to show the pictures. When I did, he snatched the camera. “I will delete the pictures, if you want” I struggled. Meanwhile someone was saying, ‘Passport, passport, Take it.” The shorter one who snatched my camera was more daring. In a fraction of second took he off the memory card and returned the camera and said: “Now, you can go.”

All this happened in under a minute and right in the heart of Paris and in the middle of the day. Scores of people were walking all over the place. Since others surrounded me, none could have noticed what was happening there. I was not the only one who was taking pictures of the protestors. The protest was held only to highlight the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and hence taking pictures should not be an offence, let alone a violation of privacy.

The LTTE flag in the lawn clearly indicated that the protestors were sympathisers of the Tigers. Why were young men afraid of me taking photos of a public demonstration in a western capital? Maybe not all the protesters were refugees. Perhaps there were some cadre or potential cadre among them and that they would not like to be captured in camera. I have no idea.

But what happened to scores of others, mostly white tourists who were guilty of the same crime. I was the only tourist with sub-continent features in the area and so it was easier for them to bounce me and take away the photos. Wish those young men had the same courage towards white tourists who were clicking at the protest, both before and after I was intimidated. Perhaps skin colour sets limits to bravado.

Unable to decide the next move, I walked ahead and sat on a bench on the other side of the river and looked back at had happened. Not a pleasant thing but I could have lost much more. I decided to walk back along the same route. To avoid further unpleasantness I opted for the other side of the broad road. As I was passing-by, the few men who took away my picture moments ago were staring at me from the other side. I looked back at them.

A lone police car was nearby and I passed on quietly.

But for my own sake and inner peace, I needed to go there. So the next I was there and took pictures that I could not do the previous day. The day was bright and sunny, and the scene was much better and the golden statures atop the pillars across the Seine River were glittering under the sun.

That day also there was a demonstration but on a smaller scale. Maybe I went a little earlier. From afar I noticed many tourists who were taking pictures of the protest. But this time I decided to keep a safe distance and walked a street parallel to the main road. Of course no photos also. Why the same mistake twice?

Photos I took the previous day were for my personal use. Except for one or two close friends. Who has the interest let alone patience to look at amateurish pictures of exotic Paris? They would have remained in my hard disc only to be forgotten soon. Thanks to the lost memory card, the missing pictures are carved in stone. I gained more than I lost. I don’t have the photo but what I saw will go with me to my grave: Mahatma Gandhi holding an AK-47 in the heat of Paris.

For web link click here

Paris Diary

2009-05-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

Diary Paris

The New Indian Express, Chennai, 22 May 2009

Not a single white hawker

Sunday morning. Weather was a bit cold and occasionally drizzling. Many locals and foreigners already queued up below the Eiffel Tower. As with any other tourist sites, scores of vendors were selling or trying to sell souvenirs. With most costing just a euro, how many they will sell or make at the end of the day? One thing was striking. There were Africans, Arabs, South Asians, East Europeans or anyone one can possibly think of. In two hours of wandering there I did not find a single white hawker at the Tower.

Why be different
Jay walking. Both French and tourists are in perfect harmony in jay walking. Right in the heart of the city hordes of people are crisscrossing the busy streets while traffic signals warn them not to. They have stretched pedestrians first to new heights. After waiting at a couple of crossings, I quietly decided to join the main stream. Who likes to declare oneself to be an outsider?

Clouds of smoke
The Parisians are fond of smoking and most restaurants have no restrictions on smoking. Like many other western capitals that have tough anti-smoking laws, front gates of multi-story buildings are occupied by people hanging for a quick dose of nicotine. But the departure lounge at the Charles de Gaulle airport takes the cake. Denied of smoking inside, both those who arrived and cab drivers who were there to pick up passengers converted the open area into a smoking zone. With heavy clouds hanging over the airport, passive smoking was unavoidable.

Cafés aplenty
Eating out is of the Parisian culture, leisure or even lifestyle. Cafés at the street corners spread out dozens of rattan chairs and entice customers. Sipping a drink and watching the moving crowd is not just relaxing but gives you a peep into daily Parisian life. Unfortunately the weather decided to conspire against me and I had to settle for sit down service at enclosed cafés.

Graffiti landscape
Perhaps they are the signs of the riots that rocked Paris in late 2005. Or the new landscape in western capitals. Paris also has its share of graffiti. They are not confined to underground or rundown downtowns. A few pickup vans were painted in graffiti not just in French but also English, Russian and even Arabic. A beautiful glass door of designer apparel was not spared either. Another Rolex showroom reflected this. It had price tags of over two-dozen latest watches but not one was on display. Another graffiti along the scenic Seine River claimed: Israel criminel. As I was taking a picture a bus passed by. A travel company was aggressively selling package tours to Tel Aviv at €299.

Well-fed pigeons
If the healthy, well-fed and big pigeons at the Norte Dame Church are an indication, recession has not touched Paris. Cafés are full; long queues in the two nearby movie multiplexes; malls are open, though not many customers; major designers have not shut shops, at least not in the heart of Paris. Tourist sites are full of people. They speak all languages one can possibly recognise. Thanks to Nicholas Sarkozy and his charm offensive, Americans appeared to have stormed Paris and you see, hear them and smile at them all over. There are no empty buildings at the heart of Paris. Compare this with Washington. There are many ‘Available for Rent’ displays just a few blocks from the White House. But everything in Paris is not rosy. There are a few immigrants scavenging for leftover food in dustbins. An odd family, with their entire wealth, one unwieldy torn suitcase and a couple of large polythene bags, was resting on a bench; just a few yards from the Eiffel. The most breathtaking scene next to harsh realities of life.

The Indian connection
Paris without politics? Those clamouring for the Indo-Pakistan friendship would be delighted to find many Restaurant Indien Pakistanis. I was happy that at last somewhere people were less bothered about politics. This was until my French friend let out the business secret. All are run by Pakistanis but they needed to add India to attract customers. There were a few Tamil shops along the way, selling the DVDs of the latest blockbuster Ayan. My friend informed me that Tamil community in Paris is largely from Lanka and not to be confused with Indian Tamils. As I passed through a dozen of Tamils were holding a protest vigil at one of the crossing. This was a couple of days before the Sri Lankan government announced the death of LTTE chief Prabhakaran and none could have missed the prominent LTTE flag.

For the web link click here