Top 10 Summer Book List for Human Rights Advocates

Here at Amnesty, our staffers have put together a list of books on our summer reading list for human rights. We invite you to read with us as we look to books, non-fiction and fiction alike, on issues in today’s world. Here are our top 10 summer must-reads!

1.) Anil’s Ghost: A Novel
by: Michael OndaatjeAnil's Ghost

Summary: With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.*

2.) Chasing the Flame: One Man’s Fight to Save the World by: Samantha Power

Summary: In this perfect match of author and subject, Pulitzer Prize-winner Samantha Power tackles the life of Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose work for the U.N. before his 2003 death in Iraq was emblematic of moral struggle on the global stage. Power has drawn on a staggering breadth of research (including 400 interviews) to show us a heroic figure and the conflicts he waded into, from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge to the slaughter in Bosnia to the war-torn Middle East. The result is a peerless portrait of humanity and pragmatism, as well as a history of our convulsive age.*

3.) Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunnHalf the Sky

Summary: From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad.*

4.) Woman at Point Zero: Second Edition
by: Nawal El SaadawiWoman at Point Zero

Summary: “All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up.” –Excerpt This is a new edition of the best-selling novel with a specially commissioned new Foreword by Miriam Cooke.*

5.) Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
by: Ayaan Hirsi AliNomad

Summary: Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world’s attention with Infidel, her compelling coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom—her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women’s every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values.*

6.) Little Bee: A Novel
by: Chris CleaveLittle Bee

Summary: Sarah Summers is enjoying a holiday on a Nigerian beach when a young girl named Little Bee crashes irrevocably into her life. All it takes is a brief and horrifying moment of crisis a terrifying scene that no reader will forget. Afterwards, Sarah and Little Bee might expect never to see each other again. But Little Bee finds Sarah’s husband’s wallet in the sand, and smuggles herself on board a cargo vessel with his address in mind. She spends two years in detention in England before making her way to Sarah’s house, with what will prove to be devastating timing. Chapter by chapter, alternating between Little Bee’s voice and Sarah’s, Chris Cleave wholly and caringly portrays two very different women trying to cope with events they’d never imagined. Little Bee is experiencing all the fullness and emptiness of the rich world for the first time, and her observations are hopeful, charming and piercing. This is a novel about important issues, from refugee policy to the devastating effects of violence, but more than that, it does something only great fiction can:Little Bee teaches us what it is like to live through experiences most of us think of only as far off disasters in the news.*

7.) We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

by: Philip Gourevitch

Summary: In April 1994, the Rwandan government called upon everyone in the Hutu majority to kill each member of the Tutsi minority, and over the next three months 800,000 Tutsis perished in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler’s war against the Jews. Philip Gourevitch’s haunting work is an anatomy of the war in Rwanda, a vivid history of the tragedy’s background, and an unforgettable account of its aftermath. One of the most acclaimed books of the year, this account will endure as a chilling document of our time.*

8.) Pedagogy of the Oppressed
by: Paulo Freire

Summary: This text argues that the ignorance and lethargy of the poor are the direct result of the whole economic, social and political domination. The book suggests that in some countries the oppressors use the system to maintain a ‘culture of silence’. Through the right kind of education, the book suggests, avoiding authoritarian teacher-pupil models and based on the actual experiences of students and on continual shared investigation, every human being, no matter how impoverished or illiterate, can develop a new awareness of self, and the right to be heard.*

9.) The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
by: Jane Mayer

Summary: The Dark Side is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world—decisions that not only violated the Constitution, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In spellbinding detail, Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions by which key players, namely Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, exploited September 11 to further a long held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.*

10.) Nothing to Lose But Your Life: My 18 Hour Journey with Murad
by: Suad AmiryNothing to Lose But Your Life

Summary: She stands in front of the mirror, trying to hide her womanly curves and fully aware that she is about to expose herself to danger. A tomboy at heart, driven by adventure and a desire to understand what her less privileged compatriots go through, architect and university professor Suad Amiry has decided to disguise herself as a man and cross the Israeli border illegally to seek work in the Israeli town of Petah Tikva. The 18-hour journey that she braves with Murad and his brother Mohammed starts with a bumpy late night ride in a bus crammed with other illegal workers – all men -whose endless stories are both horrifying and amusing. And in his pocket, Murad carries a photograph of his object of desire who lives in Tel Aviv but who seems to have her eye on his friend.*

*Summaries from Amazon.com and Google Books

AIUSA welcomes a lively and courteous discussion that follow our Community Guidelines. Comments are not pre-screened before they post but AIUSA reserves the right to remove any comments violating our guidelines.

80 thoughts on “Top 10 Summer Book List for Human Rights Advocates

  1. I'd like to add this short, prescient essay published in 1999 "Give War A Chance" by Edward Luttwak.

    Opening paragraph:

    AN UNPLEASANT truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

    My favourite part is where he proves conclusively that, sometimes, human rights organisations (and similar NGOs) prolong war and suffering by calling for ceasefires.

    Exactly as AI did (calling for ceasefires) in Sri Lanka's final war against the LTTE.

    "Too MANY wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention. "

    You can download or read it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7258092/Luttwak-Give-Wa

    Ignore 'Anil's Ghost.' Its very, very dull and utterly facile. Hugely over-rated and most useful as a paperweight.

    David Blacker's 'A Cause Untrue' is a miles better, even though its an action/thriller about the SL conflict. At least he was there at the sharp end, unlike Ondaatje.

    Enjoy your summer reading.

  2. I like the books mentioned but I would also add another. The book title is Not Even My Name by Thea Halo.

  3. I'd like to add this short, prescient essay published in 1999 "Give War A Chance" by Edward Luttwak.

    Opening paragraph:

    AN UNPLEASANT truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

    My favourite part is where he proves conclusively that, sometimes, human rights organisations (and similar NGOs) prolong war and suffering by calling for ceasefires.

    Exactly as AI did (calling for ceasefires) in Sri Lanka's final war against the LTTE.

    "Too MANY wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention. "

    You can download or read it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7258092/Luttwak-Give-Wa

    Ignore 'Anil's Ghost.' Its very, very dull and utterly facile. Hugely over-rated and most useful as a paperweight.

    David Blacker's 'A Cause Untrue' is a miles better, even though its an action/thriller about the SL conflict. At least he was there at the sharp end, unlike Ondaatje.

    Enjoy your summer reading.

  4. I'd like to add this short, prescient essay published in 1999 "Give War A Chance" by Edward Luttwak.

    Opening paragraph:

    AN UNPLEASANT truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

    My favourite part is where he proves conclusively that, sometimes, human rights organisations (and similar NGOs) prolong war and suffering by calling for ceasefires.

    Exactly as AI did (calling for ceasefires) in Sri Lanka's final war against the LTTE.

    "Too MANY wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention. "

    You can download or read it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7258092/Luttwak-Give-Wa

    Ignore 'Anil's Ghost.' Its very, very dull and utterly facile. Hugely over-rated and most useful as a paperweight.

    David Blacker's 'A Cause Untrue' is a miles better, even though its an action/thriller about the SL conflict. At least he was there at the sharp end, unlike Ondaatje.

    Enjoy your summer reading.

  5. Please consider, "A Thousand Sisters" by Lisa Shannon. About women in Congo, worst place on Earth to be a woman. Powerful

    Please consider, "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah. Suffer the children!

    Thank you. Peace.

  6. I like the books mentioned but I would also add another. The book title is Not Even My Name by Thea Halo.

  7. I’d like to add this short, prescient essay published in 1999 “Give War A Chance” by Edward Luttwak.

    Opening paragraph:

    AN UNPLEASANT truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

    My favourite part is where he proves conclusively that, sometimes, human rights organisations (and similar NGOs) prolong war and suffering by calling for ceasefires.

    Exactly as AI did (calling for ceasefires) in Sri Lanka’s final war against the LTTE.

    “Too MANY wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention. ”

    You can download or read it here:
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/7258092/Luttwak-Give-War-a-Chance

    Ignore ‘Anil’s Ghost.’ Its very, very dull and utterly facile. Hugely over-rated and most useful as a paperweight.

    David Blacker’s ‘A Cause Untrue’ is a miles better, even though its an action/thriller about the SL conflict. At least he was there at the sharp end, unlike Ondaatje.

    Enjoy your summer reading.

  8. Please consider, “A Thousand Sisters” by Lisa Shannon. About women in Congo, worst place on Earth to be a woman. Powerful

    Please consider, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah. Suffer the children!

    Thank you. Peace.

  9. Interesting lists. Though AI claims them to be the top 10, I doubt whether they have ranked these after reading all the books that one could include in to this category of books.

    For example, with all due respect, Michael Ondaatje is a great writer, but, one would really not put it right at the top. Also, it is also not related to the war with Terrorists which was concluded recently to my knowledge. It is to do with the civil war that happened with the leftists in the 80's. Anil, being a Singhlales who was educated in USA and UK comes home at the time the JVP troubles were on – this is more or less a novel based on the situation during the period than a true story, hence, I don't know how it could be labeled a "HR" advocates document.

    I am also glad in a way that these books are not published on line – if they were, we would basically have seen the whole stories being copied and pasted by the Terrorist Diaspora though they would not have understood a word of what it means !

    Anyways, Thanks for the list, may be we should read them in the context of reading a novel and enjoy the wittiness of the novels than take them in a true context !

  10. With all due respect to the opinions voiced above: Anil's Ghost is one of my all time favourites of book. Taken to a deeper level than the Sri Lankan conflict it is a great book about humanity, courage and the way how people react when they are faced with unusual situations (war, illness, migration, etc.). Obviously it is not in the middle of the battlefield but maybe this is not its intention. It is not an action laden book. Try and read it again and see how beautiful and touching it really is.

  11. Interesting lists. Though AI claims them to be the top 10, I doubt whether they have ranked these after reading all the books that one could include in to this category of books.

    For example, with all due respect, Michael Ondaatje is a great writer, but, one would really not put it right at the top. Also, it is also not related to the war with Terrorists which was concluded recently to my knowledge. It is to do with the civil war that happened with the leftists in the 80’s. Anil, being a Singhlales who was educated in USA and UK comes home at the time the JVP troubles were on – this is more or less a novel based on the situation during the period than a true story, hence, I don’t know how it could be labeled a “HR” advocates document.

    I am also glad in a way that these books are not published on line – if they were, we would basically have seen the whole stories being copied and pasted by the Terrorist Diaspora though they would not have understood a word of what it means !

    Anyways, Thanks for the list, may be we should read them in the context of reading a novel and enjoy the wittiness of the novels than take them in a true context !

  12. With all due respect to the opinions voiced above: Anil’s Ghost is one of my all time favourites of book. Taken to a deeper level than the Sri Lankan conflict it is a great book about humanity, courage and the way how people react when they are faced with unusual situations (war, illness, migration, etc.). Obviously it is not in the middle of the battlefield but maybe this is not its intention. It is not an action laden book. Try and read it again and see how beautiful and touching it really is.

  13. I just finished Karen Connelly's "Burmese Lessons," which is wonderful, absolutely worthwhile, but less about the human rights situation in Burma than about her personal experience. I would recommend Connelly's previous book, "The Lizard Cage," a novel based heavily on her interviews with Burmese political prisoners. It is hardly a documentary, but it is a deep, moving and detailed read.

  14. I just finished Karen Connelly’s “Burmese Lessons,” which is wonderful, absolutely worthwhile, but less about the human rights situation in Burma than about her personal experience. I would recommend Connelly’s previous book, “The Lizard Cage,” a novel based heavily on her interviews with Burmese political prisoners. It is hardly a documentary, but it is a deep, moving and detailed read.

  15. Sri Lanka massacred up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009
    A war will not end without the delivery of political justice to the core issue. Even the winners who waged World Wars for the monopoly of colonies couldn’t escape conceding independence to colonies. USA and India bungling political justice to the national question in the island will have a bearing on Afghan War, Western Civilisation and on Indian integrity. The solidarity of Eezham Tamil diaspora is as important a trump as the geopolitical trump of Sri Lanka. In its historic duty to its nation and to civilisation, the diaspora without succumbing to lures should intensely align with the people of Tamil Nadu and progressive Sinhalese in realising political justice and in seeing no others ever suffer like Eezham Tamils. The last diplomatic chance for the USA and India to make ‘strategic partnership’ a smooth affair is to jointly uphold the balance of nations in the island.

  16. is10 summer reading enough?
    On 31 May 1981, the Sri Lankan government burned down the famous Jaffna library. An act of cultural genocide of the Tamils, the burning down of the Jaffna library, one of the biggest and finest in Asia saw the loss of some 97,000 volumes of books, including rare and important Ola manuscripts.

  17. Sri Lanka massacred up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009
    A war will not end without the delivery of political justice to the core issue. Even the winners who waged World Wars for the monopoly of colonies couldn’t escape conceding independence to colonies. USA and India bungling political justice to the national question in the island will have a bearing on Afghan War, Western Civilisation and on Indian integrity. The solidarity of Eezham Tamil diaspora is as important a trump as the geopolitical trump of Sri Lanka. In its historic duty to its nation and to civilisation, the diaspora without succumbing to lures should intensely align with the people of Tamil Nadu and progressive Sinhalese in realising political justice and in seeing no others ever suffer like Eezham Tamils. The last diplomatic chance for the USA and India to make ‘strategic partnership’ a smooth affair is to jointly uphold the balance of nations in the island.

  18. is10 summer reading enough?
    On 31 May 1981, the Sri Lankan government burned down the famous Jaffna library. An act of cultural genocide of the Tamils, the burning down of the Jaffna library, one of the biggest and finest in Asia saw the loss of some 97,000 volumes of books, including rare and important Ola manuscripts.

  19. Burning Memories —

    You remember, so i learn the truth of lanka's auto da fe.

    i learn , but i can never know the tears & the heartache of the Tamil Nation at the loss of their ancestral treasures.

    Ninety seven thousand books burned !!!!

    This is cultural holocaust comparable to the razing of Alexandria's great ancient library during Caesar's invasion of Egypt.

    And the loss forever of the invaluable Ola manuscipts you mention !!

    Like the burning of the thousands of priceless Aztec & Mayan codices by the Inquisition.

    Let's give war's book arsonists a chance, indeed !!

    Their fires fuse our memories into one.

  20. Burning Memories Says: July 25th, 2010 at 1:58 am and
    a.savage Says: July 25th, 2010 at 7:39 pm yes, not only 97,000 books, but many memories, BLACK JULY (sep 11 for Tamil) is another

    The tragic history of post-independence records that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have been subjected to mass-scale mob violence in the years 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983. The anti-Tamil violence of July 1983 was the most terrible and horrible of them all. It remains etched in memory even after 27 years. Twenty seven years ago on the night of July 23, members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ambushed an army patrol at the Post Box junction area in Thirunelvely in Jaffna and killed 13 soldiers.

    What happened in July 1983 was not a spontaneous riot but a planned pogrom. A “Pogrom” is defined as a form of violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, property and religious centers.

    The word pogrom is of Russian origin and means “to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently” in the language. Pogrom became commonly used in English after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia encompassing present-day Ukraine and Poland from 1881-1884. Later more bloodier waves of pogroms broke out from 1903–1906, leaving thousands of Jews dead and wounded.

    What happened in July 1983 was that there was a pre-planned conspiracy to launch a widespread attack against Tamil life, limb and property on a massive scale. All it required was a powerful incident to be the provocative pretext to justify such an attack. The Thirunelvely attack by the LTTE killing 13 soldiers provided such an excuse.

    It is also noteworthy that violence against Tamils had preceded July ‘83 in Vavuniya, Trincomalee and the University at Peradeniya. July ‘83 in that sense was a grand finale.

    One of the best books that came out in the aftermath of the July ‘83 violence was Sri Lanka: The Holocaust And After. It was written by an unknown author, L. Piyadasa. It was known that L. Piyadasa was a pseudonym. Who then was L. Piyadasa?

  21. Burning Memories —

    You remember, so i learn the truth of lanka’s auto da fe.

    i learn , but i can never know the tears & the heartache of the Tamil Nation at the loss of their ancestral treasures.

    Ninety seven thousand books burned !!!!

    This is cultural holocaust comparable to the razing of Alexandria’s great ancient library during Caesar’s invasion of Egypt.

    And the loss forever of the invaluable Ola manuscipts you mention !!

    Like the burning of the thousands of priceless Aztec & Mayan codices by the Inquisition.

    Let’s give war’s book arsonists a chance, indeed !!

    Their fires fuse our memories into one.

  22. Burning Memories Says: July 25th, 2010 at 1:58 am and
    a.savage Says: July 25th, 2010 at 7:39 pm yes, not only 97,000 books, but many memories, BLACK JULY (sep 11 for Tamil) is another

    The tragic history of post-independence records that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have been subjected to mass-scale mob violence in the years 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983. The anti-Tamil violence of July 1983 was the most terrible and horrible of them all. It remains etched in memory even after 27 years. Twenty seven years ago on the night of July 23, members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ambushed an army patrol at the Post Box junction area in Thirunelvely in Jaffna and killed 13 soldiers.

    What happened in July 1983 was not a spontaneous riot but a planned pogrom. A “Pogrom” is defined as a form of violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, property and religious centers.

    The word pogrom is of Russian origin and means “to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently” in the language. Pogrom became commonly used in English after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia encompassing present-day Ukraine and Poland from 1881-1884. Later more bloodier waves of pogroms broke out from 1903–1906, leaving thousands of Jews dead and wounded.

    What happened in July 1983 was that there was a pre-planned conspiracy to launch a widespread attack against Tamil life, limb and property on a massive scale. All it required was a powerful incident to be the provocative pretext to justify such an attack. The Thirunelvely attack by the LTTE killing 13 soldiers provided such an excuse.

    It is also noteworthy that violence against Tamils had preceded July ‘83 in Vavuniya, Trincomalee and the University at Peradeniya. July ‘83 in that sense was a grand finale.

    One of the best books that came out in the aftermath of the July ‘83 violence was Sri Lanka: The Holocaust And After. It was written by an unknown author, L. Piyadasa. It was known that L. Piyadasa was a pseudonym. Who then was L. Piyadasa?

  23. Oh. My. God.

    The "copy 'n' paste Eelamist drones" have already derailed this thread with their tedious verbal suicide bombings. 🙂

    Perhaps they and their supporters (like 'a. savage'), should read The Broken Palmyra by Rajani Thiranagama, one of the founders of the UTHR(J) (The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), who was murdered by the LTTE in 1989.

    A brief precis of the book:
    "The Broken Palmyra set a pattern that persists till today.. namely, the ability to see and report on the evils of human rights violations regardless of who are the victims and who are the perpetrators. Thus the book deals with violations committed by the Sri Lankan security forces and the IPKF, but it also reveals the ugly record of abuses by the LTTE and other Tamil groups. In fact, this is in some ways its focus: the palmyra, the symbol of Tamil society, can bend before the blast of external repression, but it breaks only when something is rotten within. The agony of seeing the society they loved torn apart by fratricidal violence, of innocence desecrated by the induction of children into armed groups, comes through loud and clear in this and subsequent publications."
    With that one murder, the LTTE ensured the Tamils' silence, complicity and acquiescence of their terror.

    Who says violence doesn't work?

    In today's Eelamish news, whiny 'British' Eelam supporters (who were oddly reluctant to participate in Eelam War 4) are walking to Geneva, looking for 'justice'. (I hope the walker's visas are thoroughly checked in France & Switzerland! 🙂

    Yet not a word about 'justice' for Tamil civilians murdered by the LTTE in the last months of the War. Strange kind of justice. Hmmmm… perhaps living in the Northern latitudes causes short term memory loss.

  24. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments on our reading list. We really value everyone's suggestions and insight. We would also greatly appreciate it if you could keep your comments on topic. If you would like to discuss the situation in Sri Lanka it would be great if you could take it offline.

    And please keep your reading list suggestions coming! Thanks all.

  25. Oh. My. God.

    The “copy ‘n’ paste Eelamist drones” have already derailed this thread with their tedious verbal suicide bombings. 🙂

    Perhaps they and their supporters (like ‘a. savage’), should read The Broken Palmyra by Rajani Thiranagama, one of the founders of the UTHR(J) (The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), who was murdered by the LTTE in 1989.

    A brief precis of the book:
    “The Broken Palmyra set a pattern that persists till today.. namely, the ability to see and report on the evils of human rights violations regardless of who are the victims and who are the perpetrators. Thus the book deals with violations committed by the Sri Lankan security forces and the IPKF, but it also reveals the ugly record of abuses by the LTTE and other Tamil groups. In fact, this is in some ways its focus: the palmyra, the symbol of Tamil society, can bend before the blast of external repression, but it breaks only when something is rotten within. The agony of seeing the society they loved torn apart by fratricidal violence, of innocence desecrated by the induction of children into armed groups, comes through loud and clear in this and subsequent publications.”
    With that one murder, the LTTE ensured the Tamils’ silence, complicity and acquiescence of their terror.

    Who says violence doesn’t work?

    In today’s Eelamish news, whiny ‘British’ Eelam supporters (who were oddly reluctant to participate in Eelam War 4) are walking to Geneva, looking for ‘justice’. (I hope the walker’s visas are thoroughly checked in France & Switzerland! 🙂

    Yet not a word about ‘justice’ for Tamil civilians murdered by the LTTE in the last months of the War. Strange kind of justice. Hmmmm… perhaps living in the Northern latitudes causes short term memory loss.

  26. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments on our reading list. We really value everyone’s suggestions and insight. We would also greatly appreciate it if you could keep your comments on topic. If you would like to discuss the situation in Sri Lanka it would be great if you could take it offline.

    And please keep your reading list suggestions coming! Thanks all.

  27. "Reductio ad Absurdum" recommends an essay by Edward Luttwak.

    Luttwak — someone who can figure on a human rights lover's summer reading list ?

    He's a counterinsurgency "consultant" — ie, an expert on how to destroy Third World peoples' liberation movements.

    He's worked extensively for the US govenment, Army, Navy…..

    Trained agencies of the US, other goverments, & private interests in counterinsurgency…..

    He himself works as an undercover intelligence operative engaging in illegal ( by international law ) extraditions, arrests, & interrogations, as well as "field operations" which are illegal as well ( if they're operations inside sovereign countries by the foreign agencies he gose around with ).

    And here he is, recommended by the same people who, if you dare to criticise them, will turn right around & attack america & the West for terrible rights violations during the invasions of Third World countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

    *****************************************************************************

    May i recommend two marvellous books to you.

    Two books about a people's VIVID saga of sojourning through war.

    Two books you can immerse yourself in, & ponder on, & shake your head in recognition to, & cry in sorrow & delight with, at the deathlessness of the spirit.

    Here they are.

    1. "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation", by Saree Makdisi. Nonfiction.

    The daily Occupation from within. Recommended by Alice Walker, Howard Zinn, Richard Falk, Desmond Tutu, Slavoy Zizek, & others.

    If a whole people woke up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, what sort of rules would they find themselves living, working, travelling & ENDLESSLY APPLYING under ? Makdisi's book gives you a guided tour of Hell.

    2. "Gate of the Sun: a novel", by Elias Khoury.

    Magnificent, lyrically poetic in that haunting Arabic style captured by Humphrey Davis' translation .

    What it has truly meant, upon the undying land & inside the deathless heart, to pass through the endless circles of the Palestinian purgatory of Removal upon Removal, the decades in dispossession in the Lebanon, the existence of hope & its extinguishment in the camps of exile, the massacres of Sabra & Shatila … the entirety of the Palestinian journey through Calvary.

    Recommended by the late great Edward Said.

  28. “Reductio ad Absurdum” recommends an essay by Edward Luttwak.

    Luttwak — someone who can figure on a human rights lover’s summer reading list ?

    He’s a counterinsurgency “consultant” — ie, an expert on how to destroy Third World peoples’ liberation movements.

    He’s worked extensively for the US govenment, Army, Navy…..

    Trained agencies of the US, other goverments, & private interests in counterinsurgency…..

    He himself works as an undercover intelligence operative engaging in illegal ( by international law ) extraditions, arrests, & interrogations, as well as “field operations” which are illegal as well ( if they’re operations inside sovereign countries by the foreign agencies he gose around with ).

    And here he is, recommended by the same people who, if you dare to criticise them, will turn right around & attack america & the West for terrible rights violations during the invasions of Third World countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

    *****************************************************************************

    May i recommend two marvellous books to you.

    Two books about a people’s VIVID saga of sojourning through war.

    Two books you can immerse yourself in, & ponder on, & shake your head in recognition to, & cry in sorrow & delight with, at the deathlessness of the spirit.

    Here they are.

    1. “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation”, by Saree Makdisi. Nonfiction.

    The daily Occupation from within. Recommended by Alice Walker, Howard Zinn, Richard Falk, Desmond Tutu, Slavoy Zizek, & others.

    If a whole people woke up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, what sort of rules would they find themselves living, working, travelling & ENDLESSLY APPLYING under ? Makdisi’s book gives you a guided tour of Hell.

    2. “Gate of the Sun: a novel”, by Elias Khoury.

    Magnificent, lyrically poetic in that haunting Arabic style captured by Humphrey Davis’ translation .

    What it has truly meant, upon the undying land & inside the deathless heart, to pass through the endless circles of the Palestinian purgatory of Removal upon Removal, the decades in dispossession in the Lebanon, the existence of hope & its extinguishment in the camps of exile, the massacres of Sabra & Shatila … the entirety of the Palestinian journey through Calvary.

    Recommended by the late great Edward Said.

  29. Sorry, not a book but a marvellous read !!
    ————————————————————
    Sri Lanka resembles a total failure of rule of law. The only law prevails in Sri Lanka is Law of the Jungle. See the following link for International Commission of Jurists recent publication on Rule of Law in Sri Lanka by Kishali Pinto Jayawardena
    http://www.icj.org/IMG/Sri_Lanka_COI_18.01.09-2.p

  30. Sorry, not a book but a marvellous read !!
    ————————————————————
    Sri Lanka resembles a total failure of rule of law. The only law prevails in Sri Lanka is Law of the Jungle. See the following link for International Commission of Jurists recent publication on Rule of Law in Sri Lanka by Kishali Pinto Jayawardena
    http://www.icj.org/IMG/Sri_Lanka_COI_18.01.09-2.p

  31. Sorry, not a book but a marvellous read !!
    ————————————————————
    Sri Lanka resembles a total failure of rule of law. The only law prevails in Sri Lanka is Law of the Jungle. See the following link for International Commission of Jurists recent publication on Rule of Law in Sri Lanka by Kishali Pinto Jayawardena
    http://www.icj.org/IMG/Sri_Lanka_COI_18.01.09-2.p

  32. Sorry, not a book but a marvellous read !!
    ————————————————————
    Sri Lanka resembles a total failure of rule of law. The only law prevails in Sri Lanka is Law of the Jungle. See the following link for International Commission of Jurists recent publication on Rule of Law in Sri Lanka by Kishali Pinto Jayawardena

    http://www.icj.org/IMG/Sri_Lanka_COI_18.01.09-2.pdf

  33. The Sinhalese created a monster in the name of Rajapakse to win the war.

    Then once again in the last election, they fed the monster with all their votes to keep it in power

    Do Sri Lankans think that now they are done with the monster, they could easily get rid of it?

    The monster is there to stay and it’s stronger than ever!!!

    This monster is holding All the power in Sri Lanka and is more dangerous than anyone.

    He is enjoying unchallenged power to finish off anyone who he is suspicious of.

    This monster interns or finishes off suspects without any witness to how they are tortured or disposed.

    So in the retrospect let us see in real terms what this monster has achieved since the so called peace dawned on this country.

    1. A defense budget allocation that surpassed all wartime defense budgets.
    2. Loss of GSP plus resulting in daily closure of garment factories.
    3. Escalation in prices of Bread/Gas/and most essentials.
    4. Appointment of UN panel to probe rights abuses.
    5. Demolition of legal/illegal structures of people occupying them for decades.
    6. Budget allocation to family held ministries totaling 70% 0f budget.
    7. Further suppression of media and journalists.
    8. Targeted registration of Tamils thus discriminating minorities.
    9. Embracing friends like China, Myanmar, Iran, Russia.(Birds of feather…….)
    10. Slowly killing the population with increasing COL and repression.

    Keep up the good work

  34. The Sinhalese created a monster in the name of Rajapakse to win the war.

    Then once again in the last election, they fed the monster with all their votes to keep it in power

    Do Sri Lankans think that now they are done with the monster, they could easily get rid of it?

    The monster is there to stay and it’s stronger than ever!!!

    This monster is holding All the power in Sri Lanka and is more dangerous than anyone.

    He is enjoying unchallenged power to finish off anyone who he is suspicious of.

    This monster interns or finishes off suspects without any witness to how they are tortured or disposed.

    So in the retrospect let us see in real terms what this monster has achieved since the so called peace dawned on this country.

    1. A defense budget allocation that surpassed all wartime defense budgets.
    2. Loss of GSP plus resulting in daily closure of garment factories.
    3. Escalation in prices of Bread/Gas/and most essentials.
    4. Appointment of UN panel to probe rights abuses.
    5. Demolition of legal/illegal structures of people occupying them for decades.
    6. Budget allocation to family held ministries totaling 70% 0f budget.
    7. Further suppression of media and journalists.
    8. Targeted registration of Tamils thus discriminating minorities.
    9. Embracing friends like China, Myanmar, Iran, Russia.(Birds of feather…….)
    10. Slowly killing the population with increasing COL and repression.

    Keep up the good work

  35. Why National Reconciliation is Not Possible In Sri Lanka

    by Brian Senewiratne
    ” Sri Lanka is a pathetically polarized country. The problems are Sinhala majoritarianism, Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism, and after the end of the war, Sinhala triumphalism with no consideration of the (Tamil) civilian cost of achieving this ‘victory’. This is not going to change, indeed there is every indication that it will get worse, despite international concerns.”

    The military has also occupied Poonahari’s government hospital. As there are no longer any hospital facilities, people have to beg someone in the army camps to take any seriously ill patients to Kilinochchi in a military vehicle for treatment. Patients with minor illnesses simply have to suffer.
    In Vattakachchi village there is no hospital and no school, and the people live in tents. The houses were destroyed during the war. The local Vattakachchi and Ramanathapuram schools remain occupied by the military.

    Many women have lost their husbands. They are struggling to survive, facing numerous difficulties, without proper clothes and education for their children. One woman explained: “The government did not give us any help. I don’t have the money to search for my disappeared husband. Others like me face the same problems.”…………
    http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/07/why-national-rec...

  36. Why National Reconciliation is Not Possible In Sri Lanka

    by Brian Senewiratne
    ” Sri Lanka is a pathetically polarized country. The problems are Sinhala majoritarianism, Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism, and after the end of the war, Sinhala triumphalism with no consideration of the (Tamil) civilian cost of achieving this ‘victory’. This is not going to change, indeed there is every indication that it will get worse, despite international concerns.”

    The military has also occupied Poonahari’s government hospital. As there are no longer any hospital facilities, people have to beg someone in the army camps to take any seriously ill patients to Kilinochchi in a military vehicle for treatment. Patients with minor illnesses simply have to suffer.
    In Vattakachchi village there is no hospital and no school, and the people live in tents. The houses were destroyed during the war. The local Vattakachchi and Ramanathapuram schools remain occupied by the military.

    Many women have lost their husbands. They are struggling to survive, facing numerous difficulties, without proper clothes and education for their children. One woman explained: “The government did not give us any help. I don’t have the money to search for my disappeared husband. Others like me face the same problems.”…………
    http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/07/why-national-rec...

  37. Why National Reconciliation is Not Possible In Sri Lanka

    by Brian Senewiratne
    ” Sri Lanka is a pathetically polarized country. The problems are Sinhala majoritarianism, Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism, and after the end of the war, Sinhala triumphalism with no consideration of the (Tamil) civilian cost of achieving this ‘victory’. This is not going to change, indeed there is every indication that it will get worse, despite international concerns.”

    The military has also occupied Poonahari’s government hospital. As there are no longer any hospital facilities, people have to beg someone in the army camps to take any seriously ill patients to Kilinochchi in a military vehicle for treatment. Patients with minor illnesses simply have to suffer.
    In Vattakachchi village there is no hospital and no school, and the people live in tents. The houses were destroyed during the war. The local Vattakachchi and Ramanathapuram schools remain occupied by the military.

    Many women have lost their husbands. They are struggling to survive, facing numerous difficulties, without proper clothes and education for their children. One woman explained: “The government did not give us any help. I don’t have the money to search for my disappeared husband. Others like me face the same problems.”…………
    http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/07/why-national-rec...

  38. Why National Reconciliation is Not Possible In Sri Lanka

    by Brian Senewiratne
    ” Sri Lanka is a pathetically polarized country. The problems are Sinhala majoritarianism, Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism, and after the end of the war, Sinhala triumphalism with no consideration of the (Tamil) civilian cost of achieving this ‘victory’. This is not going to change, indeed there is every indication that it will get worse, despite international concerns.”

    The military has also occupied Poonahari’s government hospital. As there are no longer any hospital facilities, people have to beg someone in the army camps to take any seriously ill patients to Kilinochchi in a military vehicle for treatment. Patients with minor illnesses simply have to suffer.
    In Vattakachchi village there is no hospital and no school, and the people live in tents. The houses were destroyed during the war. The local Vattakachchi and Ramanathapuram schools remain occupied by the military.

    Many women have lost their husbands. They are struggling to survive, facing numerous difficulties, without proper clothes and education for their children. One woman explained: “The government did not give us any help. I don’t have the money to search for my disappeared husband. Others like me face the same problems.”…………

    http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/07/why-national-reconciliation-is-not.html

  39. Malaysian Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) Prof Dr P. Ramasamy is spearheading the formation of an international committee to take up the issue of the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka last year.

    The group, comprising NGOs, activists and politicians, is expected to be operational within a few months, and would collect evidences of the genocide with the aim of presenting a case to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Panel, Ramasamy said. The report on war crimes committed during hostilities between the Tamil Tigers rebels and the Sri Lanka government would also be presented to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

  40. Malaysian Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) Prof Dr P. Ramasamy is spearheading the formation of an international committee to take up the issue of the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka last year.

    The group, comprising NGOs, activists and politicians, is expected to be operational within a few months, and would collect evidences of the genocide with the aim of presenting a case to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Panel, Ramasamy said. The report on war crimes committed during hostilities between the Tamil Tigers rebels and the Sri Lanka government would also be presented to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

  41. 15000 Tamil kids study under trees

    15000 N.E kids study under trees

    ARMY CAMPS MUSHROOM
    NO APPOINTMENTS FOR TEACHERS

    Fifteen thousand school children in the North and East are compelled to study under trees since schools have been converted into IDP and transit camps and detention centres, while the government spends millions on military bases, education department sources said. The situation is grave in Vavuniya, Omanthai, Maithadi and Kilinochchi where the majority of schools function in temporary shelters with minimal facilities.
    “Omanthai Maha Vidyalayam is used as a transit camp for people who are returning to their villages from IDP camps. Although a year has passed after the civil war ended, no steps have been taken by the government to either build new shelters for IDPs, or to rebuild schools in another location,” said an education ministry official.
    Meanwhile, General Secretary of Sri Lanka Teacher Services Union (SLTSU) Mahinda Jayasinghe told LAKBIMAnEWS that there is also a massive dearth of teachers in the North and the East, which is having a negative impact on education. This shortage mainly affects subjects such as English where the education authorities are dependant on pensioners who have been re-enlisted on contract basis.
    “Not only are thousands of students continuing their education without buildings, water or sanitary facilities, these schools also need hundreds of teachers,” Jayasinghe said. “A lot of teachers who worked in these schools have either left for Colombo or have left the island. Even 14 months after the end of the war the government has not appointed Tamil medium teachers to these areas.”
    Jayasinghe added that there are over 500 Tamil medium teachers in the 2010 batch at teacher training centres in the island, but none of them have been given appointments because of the lack of funds.
    “Each year around 3000 trained teachers are given appointments around this time of the year, but this time that is not the case. Appointment letters are not given since no funds have been allocated in the 2010 budget. This means that thousands of Tamil youth will sit for O/L and A/L exams partially ready.”
    Meanwhile in a recent visit to Wishwamadu Army Commander Major General Jagath Jayasuriya claimed that with the establishment of new army camps, buildings which have been occupied for security purposes will be returned to schools.
    http://www.lakbimanews.lk/news/laknew1.htm

  42. 15000 Tamil kids study under trees

    15000 N.E kids study under trees

    ARMY CAMPS MUSHROOM
    NO APPOINTMENTS FOR TEACHERS

    Fifteen thousand school children in the North and East are compelled to study under trees since schools have been converted into IDP and transit camps and detention centres, while the government spends millions on military bases, education department sources said. The situation is grave in Vavuniya, Omanthai, Maithadi and Kilinochchi where the majority of schools function in temporary shelters with minimal facilities.
    “Omanthai Maha Vidyalayam is used as a transit camp for people who are returning to their villages from IDP camps. Although a year has passed after the civil war ended, no steps have been taken by the government to either build new shelters for IDPs, or to rebuild schools in another location,” said an education ministry official.
    Meanwhile, General Secretary of Sri Lanka Teacher Services Union (SLTSU) Mahinda Jayasinghe told LAKBIMAnEWS that there is also a massive dearth of teachers in the North and the East, which is having a negative impact on education. This shortage mainly affects subjects such as English where the education authorities are dependant on pensioners who have been re-enlisted on contract basis.
    “Not only are thousands of students continuing their education without buildings, water or sanitary facilities, these schools also need hundreds of teachers,” Jayasinghe said. “A lot of teachers who worked in these schools have either left for Colombo or have left the island. Even 14 months after the end of the war the government has not appointed Tamil medium teachers to these areas.”
    Jayasinghe added that there are over 500 Tamil medium teachers in the 2010 batch at teacher training centres in the island, but none of them have been given appointments because of the lack of funds.
    “Each year around 3000 trained teachers are given appointments around this time of the year, but this time that is not the case. Appointment letters are not given since no funds have been allocated in the 2010 budget. This means that thousands of Tamil youth will sit for O/L and A/L exams partially ready.”
    Meanwhile in a recent visit to Wishwamadu Army Commander Major General Jagath Jayasuriya claimed that with the establishment of new army camps, buildings which have been occupied for security purposes will be returned to schools.
    http://www.lakbimanews.lk/news/laknew1.htm

  43. 15000 Tamil kids study under trees

    15000 N.E kids study under trees

    ARMY CAMPS MUSHROOM
    NO APPOINTMENTS FOR TEACHERS

    Fifteen thousand school children in the North and East are compelled to study under trees since schools have been converted into IDP and transit camps and detention centres, while the government spends millions on military bases, education department sources said. The situation is grave in Vavuniya, Omanthai, Maithadi and Kilinochchi where the majority of schools function in temporary shelters with minimal facilities.
    “Omanthai Maha Vidyalayam is used as a transit camp for people who are returning to their villages from IDP camps. Although a year has passed after the civil war ended, no steps have been taken by the government to either build new shelters for IDPs, or to rebuild schools in another location,” said an education ministry official.
    Meanwhile, General Secretary of Sri Lanka Teacher Services Union (SLTSU) Mahinda Jayasinghe told LAKBIMAnEWS that there is also a massive dearth of teachers in the North and the East, which is having a negative impact on education. This shortage mainly affects subjects such as English where the education authorities are dependant on pensioners who have been re-enlisted on contract basis.
    “Not only are thousands of students continuing their education without buildings, water or sanitary facilities, these schools also need hundreds of teachers,” Jayasinghe said. “A lot of teachers who worked in these schools have either left for Colombo or have left the island. Even 14 months after the end of the war the government has not appointed Tamil medium teachers to these areas.”
    Jayasinghe added that there are over 500 Tamil medium teachers in the 2010 batch at teacher training centres in the island, but none of them have been given appointments because of the lack of funds.
    “Each year around 3000 trained teachers are given appointments around this time of the year, but this time that is not the case. Appointment letters are not given since no funds have been allocated in the 2010 budget. This means that thousands of Tamil youth will sit for O/L and A/L exams partially ready.”
    Meanwhile in a recent visit to Wishwamadu Army Commander Major General Jagath Jayasuriya claimed that with the establishment of new army camps, buildings which have been occupied for security purposes will be returned to schools.
    http://www.lakbimanews.lk/news/laknew1.htm

  44. 15000 Tamil kids study under trees

    15000 N.E kids study under trees

    ARMY CAMPS MUSHROOM
    NO APPOINTMENTS FOR TEACHERS

    Fifteen thousand school children in the North and East are compelled to study under trees since schools have been converted into IDP and transit camps and detention centres, while the government spends millions on military bases, education department sources said. The situation is grave in Vavuniya, Omanthai, Maithadi and Kilinochchi where the majority of schools function in temporary shelters with minimal facilities.
    “Omanthai Maha Vidyalayam is used as a transit camp for people who are returning to their villages from IDP camps. Although a year has passed after the civil war ended, no steps have been taken by the government to either build new shelters for IDPs, or to rebuild schools in another location,” said an education ministry official.
    Meanwhile, General Secretary of Sri Lanka Teacher Services Union (SLTSU) Mahinda Jayasinghe told LAKBIMAnEWS that there is also a massive dearth of teachers in the North and the East, which is having a negative impact on education. This shortage mainly affects subjects such as English where the education authorities are dependant on pensioners who have been re-enlisted on contract basis.
    “Not only are thousands of students continuing their education without buildings, water or sanitary facilities, these schools also need hundreds of teachers,” Jayasinghe said. “A lot of teachers who worked in these schools have either left for Colombo or have left the island. Even 14 months after the end of the war the government has not appointed Tamil medium teachers to these areas.”
    Jayasinghe added that there are over 500 Tamil medium teachers in the 2010 batch at teacher training centres in the island, but none of them have been given appointments because of the lack of funds.
    “Each year around 3000 trained teachers are given appointments around this time of the year, but this time that is not the case. Appointment letters are not given since no funds have been allocated in the 2010 budget. This means that thousands of Tamil youth will sit for O/L and A/L exams partially ready.”
    Meanwhile in a recent visit to Wishwamadu Army Commander Major General Jagath Jayasuriya claimed that with the establishment of new army camps, buildings which have been occupied for security purposes will be returned to schools.

    http://www.lakbimanews.lk/news/laknew1.htm

  45. Sri Lanka's civil war inquiry is 'eyewash'

    When President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the commission earlier this year, its purpose was ostensibly to find out why a 2002 ceasefire brokered by Norway, and signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), broke down. Its chairman, C R de Silva, said in his opening remarks yesterday that the time had come to “consolidate the military victory by addressing the root causes of the conflict and establish national integrity and reconciliation”.

    But several human rights groups, along with organisations representing the country’s Tamil minority, who have long complained of being marginalised, believe the inquiry was designed to deflect UN and other international demands for an investigation into the final stages of the war, in which more than 10,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed. Crucially, the government-appointed inquiry has no mandate to examine this aspect of a conflict which is estimated to have claimed more than 70,000 lives over 30 years.

    Suren Surendiran, a senior member of the Global Tamil Forum, said:“Sri Lanka has fooled the international community for so long and this commission is another one of those eyewashes. All we ask is justice for the thousands who perished in the last few weeks and months and years leading up to the end of the war last year.”

    In June, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed a three-member panel to advise him on ensuring accountability for the alleged abuses during the war, which ended with the crushing of the last remnants of the LTTE forces in the late spring of 2009.

    As well as accusing them of indiscriminate shelling, rights groups have claimed that government forces blocked access to food and medicine for minority Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. The rebels have been accused of holding civilians as human shields, killing those trying to escape the violence and forcibly recruiting children as fighters.

    The International Crisis Group think tank said in a report early this year that at least 30,000 civilians could have died in the last phase of the fighting. Earlier this week, a group of 57 US lawmakers wrote to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to push for an international investigation.

    Sri Lanka has angrily refused to cooperate with the UN panel or issue visas for its members, saying an external panel is an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sri-

  46. Sri Lanka's civil war inquiry is 'eyewash'

    When President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the commission earlier this year, its purpose was ostensibly to find out why a 2002 ceasefire brokered by Norway, and signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), broke down. Its chairman, C R de Silva, said in his opening remarks yesterday that the time had come to “consolidate the military victory by addressing the root causes of the conflict and establish national integrity and reconciliation”.

    But several human rights groups, along with organisations representing the country’s Tamil minority, who have long complained of being marginalised, believe the inquiry was designed to deflect UN and other international demands for an investigation into the final stages of the war, in which more than 10,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed. Crucially, the government-appointed inquiry has no mandate to examine this aspect of a conflict which is estimated to have claimed more than 70,000 lives over 30 years.

    Suren Surendiran, a senior member of the Global Tamil Forum, said:“Sri Lanka has fooled the international community for so long and this commission is another one of those eyewashes. All we ask is justice for the thousands who perished in the last few weeks and months and years leading up to the end of the war last year.”

    In June, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed a three-member panel to advise him on ensuring accountability for the alleged abuses during the war, which ended with the crushing of the last remnants of the LTTE forces in the late spring of 2009.

    As well as accusing them of indiscriminate shelling, rights groups have claimed that government forces blocked access to food and medicine for minority Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. The rebels have been accused of holding civilians as human shields, killing those trying to escape the violence and forcibly recruiting children as fighters.

    The International Crisis Group think tank said in a report early this year that at least 30,000 civilians could have died in the last phase of the fighting. Earlier this week, a group of 57 US lawmakers wrote to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to push for an international investigation.

    Sri Lanka has angrily refused to cooperate with the UN panel or issue visas for its members, saying an external panel is an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sri-

  47. Sri Lanka's civil war inquiry is 'eyewash'

    When President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the commission earlier this year, its purpose was ostensibly to find out why a 2002 ceasefire brokered by Norway, and signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), broke down. Its chairman, C R de Silva, said in his opening remarks yesterday that the time had come to “consolidate the military victory by addressing the root causes of the conflict and establish national integrity and reconciliation”.

    But several human rights groups, along with organisations representing the country’s Tamil minority, who have long complained of being marginalised, believe the inquiry was designed to deflect UN and other international demands for an investigation into the final stages of the war, in which more than 10,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed. Crucially, the government-appointed inquiry has no mandate to examine this aspect of a conflict which is estimated to have claimed more than 70,000 lives over 30 years.

    Suren Surendiran, a senior member of the Global Tamil Forum, said:“Sri Lanka has fooled the international community for so long and this commission is another one of those eyewashes. All we ask is justice for the thousands who perished in the last few weeks and months and years leading up to the end of the war last year.”

    In June, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed a three-member panel to advise him on ensuring accountability for the alleged abuses during the war, which ended with the crushing of the last remnants of the LTTE forces in the late spring of 2009.

    As well as accusing them of indiscriminate shelling, rights groups have claimed that government forces blocked access to food and medicine for minority Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. The rebels have been accused of holding civilians as human shields, killing those trying to escape the violence and forcibly recruiting children as fighters.

    The International Crisis Group think tank said in a report early this year that at least 30,000 civilians could have died in the last phase of the fighting. Earlier this week, a group of 57 US lawmakers wrote to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to push for an international investigation.

    Sri Lanka has angrily refused to cooperate with the UN panel or issue visas for its members, saying an external panel is an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sri-

  48. Sri Lanka’s civil war inquiry is ‘eyewash’

    When President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the commission earlier this year, its purpose was ostensibly to find out why a 2002 ceasefire brokered by Norway, and signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), broke down. Its chairman, C R de Silva, said in his opening remarks yesterday that the time had come to “consolidate the military victory by addressing the root causes of the conflict and establish national integrity and reconciliation”.

    But several human rights groups, along with organisations representing the country’s Tamil minority, who have long complained of being marginalised, believe the inquiry was designed to deflect UN and other international demands for an investigation into the final stages of the war, in which more than 10,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed. Crucially, the government-appointed inquiry has no mandate to examine this aspect of a conflict which is estimated to have claimed more than 70,000 lives over 30 years.

    Suren Surendiran, a senior member of the Global Tamil Forum, said:“Sri Lanka has fooled the international community for so long and this commission is another one of those eyewashes. All we ask is justice for the thousands who perished in the last few weeks and months and years leading up to the end of the war last year.”

    In June, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed a three-member panel to advise him on ensuring accountability for the alleged abuses during the war, which ended with the crushing of the last remnants of the LTTE forces in the late spring of 2009.

    As well as accusing them of indiscriminate shelling, rights groups have claimed that government forces blocked access to food and medicine for minority Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. The rebels have been accused of holding civilians as human shields, killing those trying to escape the violence and forcibly recruiting children as fighters.

    The International Crisis Group think tank said in a report early this year that at least 30,000 civilians could have died in the last phase of the fighting. Earlier this week, a group of 57 US lawmakers wrote to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to push for an international investigation.

    Sri Lanka has angrily refused to cooperate with the UN panel or issue visas for its members, saying an external panel is an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sri-lankas-civil-war-inquiry-is-eyewash-say-tamils-2050138.html

  49. 1800 Hindu temples destroyed

    These places of religious worship have been destroyed and there is no plans to rebuilting them in the near future…. perhaps not ever 🙂

  50. 1800 Hindu temples destroyed

    These places of religious worship have been destroyed and there is no plans to rebuilting them in the near future…. perhaps not ever 🙂

  51. The Battle to Define Again the Soul of Canada
    by C. L. Cook

    The small boat, traveled from across the world recently, its passengers a desperate collection of men, women, and children fleeing brutal repression in the wake of a failed popular uprising, has provided Canada an opportunity to define for itself just of what it is constituted and for what it will stand.

    Fitting that aspiring migrants would prove the opportunity, for what else are all of us here on Turtle Island but peoples come from across time and space who by fate, chance, and weird fortune find ourselves shored up here, elbow to elbow, cheek to jowl, forced to decide just what this tossed ship of state is to be called and how this world is to be captained?

    It’s a rare moment, and one worthy of more than the proto-racist, hand-wringing calamity promotion purveyors of the new nigger population boom set to explode narrative the government of Stephen Harper and his media managers would like to restrict the debate to.

    The press has been abuzz this past week as the MV Sun Sea and its “boat load” of what the fourth estate describes by turns as: “terrorists,” and “criminals,” and worst yet, “human smugglers” descending on the nation’s shores, a “probing effort,” bellwether signal they say the scheming “people smuggling, criminal terrorist hoard” in Sri Lanka are watching and waiting for.

    They warn, Canada’s willingness to shelter the remnant scatterings of the genocidal culling of the Tamil minority barely a year ago will be a sign of “our” weakness, prompting others forced to flee for their lives from the modern plethora of dime store demagogues, and good old fashioned Death Squad states the green light to “invade” the nation.

    What the moral midgets calling for the swift return, boot in ass, do not pass go card stapled, no tattooed, to hand have mainly forgotten, or merely failed to remind in their haste to mount soap boxes in Victoria, speed-dial local call-in radio stations, and projectile blogviate across the “internet” is the recent horror the Tamil people of Sri Lanka experienced at the hands of the barely chastized Sinhalese supremacists still in power there. Fewer yet of these have speculated as to the fate awaiting those they would return to the concentration camps and killing fields so recently escaped.

    I know the news cycle never stops, and especially now as climate disaster denier defying disasters are blaring from all media quarters it’s hard to keep track of stories from all the way back in 2009; but, if we’re to have a context, however gruel thin such a one is to be had, it is, I believe, important to take a little ride back in time a short spell. In May of 2009, the LTTE, or more familiarly called, Tamil Tigers surrendered to the their Sinhalese overlords after suffering three years of an intensified “surge.” Uncounted thousands were killed and brutalized, and an equally unknown number of innocents civilians, guilty of no more in the main than belonging to an ethnic minority, and living in homes turned battlefield by the government armies.

    Those armies were aided and abetted the great blood-letting that culminated last May by the governments of the “International Community” who declared the Tamil resistance and its insistence on a separate homeland within Sri Lanka illegal, and illegal too all those who assist the “terrorists.”

    Even as the Sinhalese army shelled the concentration camps Tamil civilians were herded into in the waning days of the Tigers’ destruction. It is as though the Canadian government and its friends in the Anglo-American Axis, after witnessing a brutal aerial and artillery attack against a trapped population, declared the Palestinian resistance and its insistence it be free to self-govern within the lands of its history without fear of repression or summary destruction “terrorist” and illegal, and then deported refugees from that repression and destruction back to the turkey shoot.

    It would never happen of course, but should it, it would be the same thing.

    In a country without an ethical core, as Canada is today, a collective raison d’etre is required. For Stephen Harper and the Republican lights providing his media aura, the Tamil “crisis” is an opportunity to move the nation further towards the “illegals at the gate-crazed” constituency he would make of us. It is also a chance for Canadians recognizing this country has strayed too far from the enlightened, humanist tenets we so nearly realized here in the last century.

    It is also a chance to look at our world and realize; while we can’t provide shelter from the storm to the entirety of those so desperately needing it, we can afford to provide it for those few that make it here.

    And, more importantly, it is a reminder to those that would call themselves our leaders; the failure to properly condemn tyranny abroad and to denounce in the most strenuous fashion its excesses can expect to see the victims of ignored atrocities shoring up more often here, just as we see today in Victoria
    http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/08/the_battle_to

  52. The Battle to Define Again the Soul of Canada
    by C. L. Cook

    The small boat, traveled from across the world recently, its passengers a desperate collection of men, women, and children fleeing brutal repression in the wake of a failed popular uprising, has provided Canada an opportunity to define for itself just of what it is constituted and for what it will stand.

    Fitting that aspiring migrants would prove the opportunity, for what else are all of us here on Turtle Island but peoples come from across time and space who by fate, chance, and weird fortune find ourselves shored up here, elbow to elbow, cheek to jowl, forced to decide just what this tossed ship of state is to be called and how this world is to be captained?

    It’s a rare moment, and one worthy of more than the proto-racist, hand-wringing calamity promotion purveyors of the new nigger population boom set to explode narrative the government of Stephen Harper and his media managers would like to restrict the debate to.

    The press has been abuzz this past week as the MV Sun Sea and its “boat load” of what the fourth estate describes by turns as: “terrorists,” and “criminals,” and worst yet, “human smugglers” descending on the nation’s shores, a “probing effort,” bellwether signal they say the scheming “people smuggling, criminal terrorist hoard” in Sri Lanka are watching and waiting for.

    They warn, Canada’s willingness to shelter the remnant scatterings of the genocidal culling of the Tamil minority barely a year ago will be a sign of “our” weakness, prompting others forced to flee for their lives from the modern plethora of dime store demagogues, and good old fashioned Death Squad states the green light to “invade” the nation.

    What the moral midgets calling for the swift return, boot in ass, do not pass go card stapled, no tattooed, to hand have mainly forgotten, or merely failed to remind in their haste to mount soap boxes in Victoria, speed-dial local call-in radio stations, and projectile blogviate across the “internet” is the recent horror the Tamil people of Sri Lanka experienced at the hands of the barely chastized Sinhalese supremacists still in power there. Fewer yet of these have speculated as to the fate awaiting those they would return to the concentration camps and killing fields so recently escaped.

    I know the news cycle never stops, and especially now as climate disaster denier defying disasters are blaring from all media quarters it’s hard to keep track of stories from all the way back in 2009; but, if we’re to have a context, however gruel thin such a one is to be had, it is, I believe, important to take a little ride back in time a short spell. In May of 2009, the LTTE, or more familiarly called, Tamil Tigers surrendered to the their Sinhalese overlords after suffering three years of an intensified “surge.” Uncounted thousands were killed and brutalized, and an equally unknown number of innocents civilians, guilty of no more in the main than belonging to an ethnic minority, and living in homes turned battlefield by the government armies.

    Those armies were aided and abetted the great blood-letting that culminated last May by the governments of the “International Community” who declared the Tamil resistance and its insistence on a separate homeland within Sri Lanka illegal, and illegal too all those who assist the “terrorists.”

    Even as the Sinhalese army shelled the concentration camps Tamil civilians were herded into in the waning days of the Tigers’ destruction. It is as though the Canadian government and its friends in the Anglo-American Axis, after witnessing a brutal aerial and artillery attack against a trapped population, declared the Palestinian resistance and its insistence it be free to self-govern within the lands of its history without fear of repression or summary destruction “terrorist” and illegal, and then deported refugees from that repression and destruction back to the turkey shoot.

    It would never happen of course, but should it, it would be the same thing.

    In a country without an ethical core, as Canada is today, a collective raison d’etre is required. For Stephen Harper and the Republican lights providing his media aura, the Tamil “crisis” is an opportunity to move the nation further towards the “illegals at the gate-crazed” constituency he would make of us. It is also a chance for Canadians recognizing this country has strayed too far from the enlightened, humanist tenets we so nearly realized here in the last century.

    It is also a chance to look at our world and realize; while we can’t provide shelter from the storm to the entirety of those so desperately needing it, we can afford to provide it for those few that make it here.

    And, more importantly, it is a reminder to those that would call themselves our leaders; the failure to properly condemn tyranny abroad and to denounce in the most strenuous fashion its excesses can expect to see the victims of ignored atrocities shoring up more often here, just as we see today in Victoria
    http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/08/the_battle_to

  53. The Battle to Define Again the Soul of Canada
    by C. L. Cook

    The small boat, traveled from across the world recently, its passengers a desperate collection of men, women, and children fleeing brutal repression in the wake of a failed popular uprising, has provided Canada an opportunity to define for itself just of what it is constituted and for what it will stand.

    Fitting that aspiring migrants would prove the opportunity, for what else are all of us here on Turtle Island but peoples come from across time and space who by fate, chance, and weird fortune find ourselves shored up here, elbow to elbow, cheek to jowl, forced to decide just what this tossed ship of state is to be called and how this world is to be captained?

    It’s a rare moment, and one worthy of more than the proto-racist, hand-wringing calamity promotion purveyors of the new nigger population boom set to explode narrative the government of Stephen Harper and his media managers would like to restrict the debate to.

    The press has been abuzz this past week as the MV Sun Sea and its “boat load” of what the fourth estate describes by turns as: “terrorists,” and “criminals,” and worst yet, “human smugglers” descending on the nation’s shores, a “probing effort,” bellwether signal they say the scheming “people smuggling, criminal terrorist hoard” in Sri Lanka are watching and waiting for.

    They warn, Canada’s willingness to shelter the remnant scatterings of the genocidal culling of the Tamil minority barely a year ago will be a sign of “our” weakness, prompting others forced to flee for their lives from the modern plethora of dime store demagogues, and good old fashioned Death Squad states the green light to “invade” the nation.

    What the moral midgets calling for the swift return, boot in ass, do not pass go card stapled, no tattooed, to hand have mainly forgotten, or merely failed to remind in their haste to mount soap boxes in Victoria, speed-dial local call-in radio stations, and projectile blogviate across the “internet” is the recent horror the Tamil people of Sri Lanka experienced at the hands of the barely chastized Sinhalese supremacists still in power there. Fewer yet of these have speculated as to the fate awaiting those they would return to the concentration camps and killing fields so recently escaped.

    I know the news cycle never stops, and especially now as climate disaster denier defying disasters are blaring from all media quarters it’s hard to keep track of stories from all the way back in 2009; but, if we’re to have a context, however gruel thin such a one is to be had, it is, I believe, important to take a little ride back in time a short spell. In May of 2009, the LTTE, or more familiarly called, Tamil Tigers surrendered to the their Sinhalese overlords after suffering three years of an intensified “surge.” Uncounted thousands were killed and brutalized, and an equally unknown number of innocents civilians, guilty of no more in the main than belonging to an ethnic minority, and living in homes turned battlefield by the government armies.

    Those armies were aided and abetted the great blood-letting that culminated last May by the governments of the “International Community” who declared the Tamil resistance and its insistence on a separate homeland within Sri Lanka illegal, and illegal too all those who assist the “terrorists.”

    Even as the Sinhalese army shelled the concentration camps Tamil civilians were herded into in the waning days of the Tigers’ destruction. It is as though the Canadian government and its friends in the Anglo-American Axis, after witnessing a brutal aerial and artillery attack against a trapped population, declared the Palestinian resistance and its insistence it be free to self-govern within the lands of its history without fear of repression or summary destruction “terrorist” and illegal, and then deported refugees from that repression and destruction back to the turkey shoot.

    It would never happen of course, but should it, it would be the same thing.

    In a country without an ethical core, as Canada is today, a collective raison d’etre is required. For Stephen Harper and the Republican lights providing his media aura, the Tamil “crisis” is an opportunity to move the nation further towards the “illegals at the gate-crazed” constituency he would make of us. It is also a chance for Canadians recognizing this country has strayed too far from the enlightened, humanist tenets we so nearly realized here in the last century.

    It is also a chance to look at our world and realize; while we can’t provide shelter from the storm to the entirety of those so desperately needing it, we can afford to provide it for those few that make it here.

    And, more importantly, it is a reminder to those that would call themselves our leaders; the failure to properly condemn tyranny abroad and to denounce in the most strenuous fashion its excesses can expect to see the victims of ignored atrocities shoring up more often here, just as we see today in Victoria
    http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/08/the_battle_to

  54. The Battle to Define Again the Soul of Canada
    by C. L. Cook

    The small boat, traveled from across the world recently, its passengers a desperate collection of men, women, and children fleeing brutal repression in the wake of a failed popular uprising, has provided Canada an opportunity to define for itself just of what it is constituted and for what it will stand.

    Fitting that aspiring migrants would prove the opportunity, for what else are all of us here on Turtle Island but peoples come from across time and space who by fate, chance, and weird fortune find ourselves shored up here, elbow to elbow, cheek to jowl, forced to decide just what this tossed ship of state is to be called and how this world is to be captained?

    It’s a rare moment, and one worthy of more than the proto-racist, hand-wringing calamity promotion purveyors of the new nigger population boom set to explode narrative the government of Stephen Harper and his media managers would like to restrict the debate to.

    The press has been abuzz this past week as the MV Sun Sea and its “boat load” of what the fourth estate describes by turns as: “terrorists,” and “criminals,” and worst yet, “human smugglers” descending on the nation’s shores, a “probing effort,” bellwether signal they say the scheming “people smuggling, criminal terrorist hoard” in Sri Lanka are watching and waiting for.

    They warn, Canada’s willingness to shelter the remnant scatterings of the genocidal culling of the Tamil minority barely a year ago will be a sign of “our” weakness, prompting others forced to flee for their lives from the modern plethora of dime store demagogues, and good old fashioned Death Squad states the green light to “invade” the nation.

    What the moral midgets calling for the swift return, boot in ass, do not pass go card stapled, no tattooed, to hand have mainly forgotten, or merely failed to remind in their haste to mount soap boxes in Victoria, speed-dial local call-in radio stations, and projectile blogviate across the “internet” is the recent horror the Tamil people of Sri Lanka experienced at the hands of the barely chastized Sinhalese supremacists still in power there. Fewer yet of these have speculated as to the fate awaiting those they would return to the concentration camps and killing fields so recently escaped.

    I know the news cycle never stops, and especially now as climate disaster denier defying disasters are blaring from all media quarters it’s hard to keep track of stories from all the way back in 2009; but, if we’re to have a context, however gruel thin such a one is to be had, it is, I believe, important to take a little ride back in time a short spell. In May of 2009, the LTTE, or more familiarly called, Tamil Tigers surrendered to the their Sinhalese overlords after suffering three years of an intensified “surge.” Uncounted thousands were killed and brutalized, and an equally unknown number of innocents civilians, guilty of no more in the main than belonging to an ethnic minority, and living in homes turned battlefield by the government armies.

    Those armies were aided and abetted the great blood-letting that culminated last May by the governments of the “International Community” who declared the Tamil resistance and its insistence on a separate homeland within Sri Lanka illegal, and illegal too all those who assist the “terrorists.”

    Even as the Sinhalese army shelled the concentration camps Tamil civilians were herded into in the waning days of the Tigers’ destruction. It is as though the Canadian government and its friends in the Anglo-American Axis, after witnessing a brutal aerial and artillery attack against a trapped population, declared the Palestinian resistance and its insistence it be free to self-govern within the lands of its history without fear of repression or summary destruction “terrorist” and illegal, and then deported refugees from that repression and destruction back to the turkey shoot.

    It would never happen of course, but should it, it would be the same thing.

    In a country without an ethical core, as Canada is today, a collective raison d’etre is required. For Stephen Harper and the Republican lights providing his media aura, the Tamil “crisis” is an opportunity to move the nation further towards the “illegals at the gate-crazed” constituency he would make of us. It is also a chance for Canadians recognizing this country has strayed too far from the enlightened, humanist tenets we so nearly realized here in the last century.

    It is also a chance to look at our world and realize; while we can’t provide shelter from the storm to the entirety of those so desperately needing it, we can afford to provide it for those few that make it here.

    And, more importantly, it is a reminder to those that would call themselves our leaders; the failure to properly condemn tyranny abroad and to denounce in the most strenuous fashion its excesses can expect to see the victims of ignored atrocities shoring up more often here, just as we see today in Victoria

    http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/08/the_battle_to_define_again_the.html#more

  55. The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils

    SRI LANKA REFUGEES – PRODUCT OF THE SIX DECADES OF SRI LANKAN GENOCIDE

    The arrival of freighter MV Sun Sea with some 500 asylum seekers off the Canadian coast revived a furious debate over whether it is people smuggling activity with security implications for the host country or a deeper problem caused by conditions in the originating country creating the refugee exodus. Feigning SL apologist believe that it is the former, while sober minds view it as the latter succinctly summarized in the following quote:

    ‘It is Sri Lanka that has a problem…President Rajapakse’s government has failed to make the country’s large Tamil minority feel secure after crushing the Tamil
    last year. Until he does, people will continue to flee…That’s a message Prime Minister Harper’s government should drive home, as the United Nations, the United States and India have done. Sri Lanka didn’t win the war on its own. India’s political support and its naval blockade weakened the Tigers. So did U.S. and Canadian moves to cut off Tiger funding… still our help pre-supposed a fair deal for Tamils when the war ended…Now the Tamils are fleeing in desperation… So it was a bit too much to hear Sri Lankan High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara urging Ottawa to turn away the Sun Sea, with its women and children, to prevent Tigers from regrouping here. If Sri Lanka’s majority of 17 million were making the minority 4 million Tamils feel less threatened, fewer would be regrouping anywhere.’ Further ‘… Indeed, instead of…delivering reform… (SL)… chos(ing) to rebuff UN probe into war crimes… (and) to focus more on economic rebuilding than devolution..(or) justice for Tamils… would (not) put the people smugglers out of business.’ How much more candid could Canada be in the face ‘.. of the..self-serving rhetoric about ‘terrorist probing Canada’s defenses?

    Likewise when refugee boats coasted the Australian shores SL’s Chitraganee’s people smuggling refrain was there in the ready to muddy the refugee debate to mischievously and crudely exploit the emotionally sensitive refugee arrivals issue in Australia’s general election year. SPUR Media Release of 30 July 2010 titled ’Australian Parliamentary Elections – 2010; ABS Census Exposes Myths of theTamil Tiger Lobby’ falls into people smuggling category (and brilliantly rebutted in the above quote) with arrivals carrying the remnants of a totally defeated LTTE to become a menacing security threat to Australia. The SPUR Media Release goes further than Chitraganee to deceptively manipulate ABS Census statistics to target the credibility of the Tamil diaspore lobby. SPUR is reputedly active as SL’s front organization as more and more Western nations join in the vanguard supporting UN war /genocide crimes investigations against SL.

    In the aftermath of the 1983 pogrom the widely created perception by SL apologists including SPUR in Australia is that Tamils the victims of the 1983 pogrom arrived in Australia as refugees in such overwhelming numbers and not to the liking of most Australians. SPUR’s statistics shows Sinhalese arrivals were much than the Tamils. According to the widely used ‘language spoken at home’ demographic measure Tamils were 32 701 and Sinhalese 29 053 (ABS Census 2006). The SPUR memorandum chose to use a subsidiary ABS’s ‘ancestry’ measure for its self serving agenda that shows the Tamils were 8 897 and Sinhalese 73 852 giving a massive difference in the numbers arrived at using ‘language spoken’ measure. It’s normal when difference of this magnitude surface clarification from ABS is called for especially when there is a correlation between language spoken and ancestry criteria. That Sinhalese (who were not victims of the pogrom) slipped into Australia in such large numbers using the refugee migration program meant for Tamil victims of the anti-Tamil 1983 pogrom is thus substantiated by the 2006 Census figures. SPUR’s 73 852 Sinhalese in Australia that falls outside acceptable margin of error is ignored for the purposes of the current debate. These Sinhalese now form the hardcore vocal anti-Tamil (SPUR) Buddhist Sinhala elements in Australia.

    SPUR’s use of the deceptive ‘ancestry’ measure and totally omitting to mention the ‘language spoken at home’ measure is in line with many other similar deceptive stories SL puts out from time to time. Readers are reminded of SL’s iconic story of the 130 000 Norwegian passports that LTTE stole and sold to Al Qaeda for millions of US $ reported in the Asian Tribune and the Hindu (in May 2007). The story was narrated Bernard Goonetileke, SL Ambassador to the US (now holding high office in the Sri Lanka Peace Council) who in a lengthy interview with the highly reputed Washington Post Radio attempted to discredit the Tamils/LTTE for alleged involvement in people smuggling. The Norwegian clarification exposed that the 130 000 passports were lost (not stolen) over a ten year period and that only in 6 cases were the Tamils involved..

    Similarly SL’s catalogue of Tamil militancy/LTTE’s crimes included funds extortion, narcotics trafficking, people smuggling and a whole host of activities without specifics. These were recited almost verbatim by SL’s country lobbyists/apologists like B Raman, Hariharan and Ajit Kumar Singh in India, Shanaka Jayasekera, an ex SL cop, one time student of Macquarie University and a freelance counter-terrorism expert in Australia, (Alexander Downer in 2007 rebutted totally Shanaka’s catalogue of allegations against the Tamil diaspora in Australia) and one Rohan Gunaratne a self promoted counter-terrorism expert who is in South Asia. The excesses of the counter-terrorism experts cost them their credibility. SPUR’s recent media release has not performed any better.
    The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils and Tamil militancy had a field day when most western countries subscribed to Bush’s doctrinaire war on ‘terrorism’. With Obama/Hilary Clinton’s nuanced approach there is greater understanding of the role of militancy in confronting ‘state terrorism’ that is as evil as Jihardism especially in SL with strong genocidal tendencies. SL and its army of agents planted overseas are hard put to find a platform in its fight to reverse the growing ‘anti-SL state terrorism’ sentiment internationally.
    When its traditional tools failed to cope with SL’s loss of credibility, SL resorted to harsh abuse. SL apologists would not even spare respected eminent persons like a Desmond Tutu and the Elders. The silence of the usually boastful Rohan Gunatileke to the comments of (‘So what Asia saw was ethnic cleansing’ in Tom Plates – Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew) another distinguished elder statesman is ominous for SL. The Elders’ media release of 3 August 2010 is unlikely to go without impact on international opinion when SL’s remarkable success in ethnic cleansing removed about 50 per cent of SL Tamils as refugees, war casualties and in extra-judicial killings. In post Tamil militancy/LTTE the continuation of a more brutal ethnic cleansing using out of sight ‘holding camps’ in the North (the Tamil homelands) has few supporters outside SL except China, Pakistan and possibly Delhi. These are crimes against humanity that only the powerful moral voices of a Desmond Tutu or a Lee Kuan Yew and the West would act to stimulate UN action to hold SL accountable for ‘crimes’ on the Tamils.
    Hence the call ‘End Sri Lanka’s genocide behavior to end flow of Asylum seekers’ in Groundreport.com 9 Nov 2009 highlights SL’s Nazi like labeling of asylum seekers (para demalas) as SL’s unwanted exports underpinning the cruel SL mindset that most civil Western nations would desist from associating
    Instead there is mounting pressure from the international community especially the West to hold SL accountable for crimes that SL was able to successfully commit with impunity. The diaspore committed to the Tamil cause strives purely to save Tamil lives in SL first, the positive result of which is a definite shift in the Tamil cause debate away from the LTTE in post May 2009 to prosecuting SL officials for the genocide and the massacres. The West now better informed is at pains to redress the consequences of hastily lumping the Tamil resistance with Jihardi terrorism to deprive the Tamils of the protection they had against SL’s thirty years of atrocities on the Tamils.

    Though the number of refugee Tamils seeking asylum will diminish further host countries are better served by acting jointly to end SL’s genocide behavior even if necessary involving the UNHRC that is now unlikely to be paralyzed into inaction by the numerically larger number of human rights abuser members. The US and EU stepping in and providing the ‘leadership to deliver on what the UNHRC failed to deliver is the prayer of every Tamil worldwide’.
    http://www.groundreport.com/World/SRI-LANKA-REFUG

  56. The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils

    SRI LANKA REFUGEES – PRODUCT OF THE SIX DECADES OF SRI LANKAN GENOCIDE

    The arrival of freighter MV Sun Sea with some 500 asylum seekers off the Canadian coast revived a furious debate over whether it is people smuggling activity with security implications for the host country or a deeper problem caused by conditions in the originating country creating the refugee exodus. Feigning SL apologist believe that it is the former, while sober minds view it as the latter succinctly summarized in the following quote:

    ‘It is Sri Lanka that has a problem…President Rajapakse’s government has failed to make the country’s large Tamil minority feel secure after crushing the Tamil
    last year. Until he does, people will continue to flee…That’s a message Prime Minister Harper’s government should drive home, as the United Nations, the United States and India have done. Sri Lanka didn’t win the war on its own. India’s political support and its naval blockade weakened the Tigers. So did U.S. and Canadian moves to cut off Tiger funding… still our help pre-supposed a fair deal for Tamils when the war ended…Now the Tamils are fleeing in desperation… So it was a bit too much to hear Sri Lankan High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara urging Ottawa to turn away the Sun Sea, with its women and children, to prevent Tigers from regrouping here. If Sri Lanka’s majority of 17 million were making the minority 4 million Tamils feel less threatened, fewer would be regrouping anywhere.’ Further ‘… Indeed, instead of…delivering reform… (SL)… chos(ing) to rebuff UN probe into war crimes… (and) to focus more on economic rebuilding than devolution..(or) justice for Tamils… would (not) put the people smugglers out of business.’ How much more candid could Canada be in the face ‘.. of the..self-serving rhetoric about ‘terrorist probing Canada’s defenses?

    Likewise when refugee boats coasted the Australian shores SL’s Chitraganee’s people smuggling refrain was there in the ready to muddy the refugee debate to mischievously and crudely exploit the emotionally sensitive refugee arrivals issue in Australia’s general election year. SPUR Media Release of 30 July 2010 titled ’Australian Parliamentary Elections – 2010; ABS Census Exposes Myths of theTamil Tiger Lobby’ falls into people smuggling category (and brilliantly rebutted in the above quote) with arrivals carrying the remnants of a totally defeated LTTE to become a menacing security threat to Australia. The SPUR Media Release goes further than Chitraganee to deceptively manipulate ABS Census statistics to target the credibility of the Tamil diaspore lobby. SPUR is reputedly active as SL’s front organization as more and more Western nations join in the vanguard supporting UN war /genocide crimes investigations against SL.

    In the aftermath of the 1983 pogrom the widely created perception by SL apologists including SPUR in Australia is that Tamils the victims of the 1983 pogrom arrived in Australia as refugees in such overwhelming numbers and not to the liking of most Australians. SPUR’s statistics shows Sinhalese arrivals were much than the Tamils. According to the widely used ‘language spoken at home’ demographic measure Tamils were 32 701 and Sinhalese 29 053 (ABS Census 2006). The SPUR memorandum chose to use a subsidiary ABS’s ‘ancestry’ measure for its self serving agenda that shows the Tamils were 8 897 and Sinhalese 73 852 giving a massive difference in the numbers arrived at using ‘language spoken’ measure. It’s normal when difference of this magnitude surface clarification from ABS is called for especially when there is a correlation between language spoken and ancestry criteria. That Sinhalese (who were not victims of the pogrom) slipped into Australia in such large numbers using the refugee migration program meant for Tamil victims of the anti-Tamil 1983 pogrom is thus substantiated by the 2006 Census figures. SPUR’s 73 852 Sinhalese in Australia that falls outside acceptable margin of error is ignored for the purposes of the current debate. These Sinhalese now form the hardcore vocal anti-Tamil (SPUR) Buddhist Sinhala elements in Australia.

    SPUR’s use of the deceptive ‘ancestry’ measure and totally omitting to mention the ‘language spoken at home’ measure is in line with many other similar deceptive stories SL puts out from time to time. Readers are reminded of SL’s iconic story of the 130 000 Norwegian passports that LTTE stole and sold to Al Qaeda for millions of US $ reported in the Asian Tribune and the Hindu (in May 2007). The story was narrated Bernard Goonetileke, SL Ambassador to the US (now holding high office in the Sri Lanka Peace Council) who in a lengthy interview with the highly reputed Washington Post Radio attempted to discredit the Tamils/LTTE for alleged involvement in people smuggling. The Norwegian clarification exposed that the 130 000 passports were lost (not stolen) over a ten year period and that only in 6 cases were the Tamils involved..

    Similarly SL’s catalogue of Tamil militancy/LTTE’s crimes included funds extortion, narcotics trafficking, people smuggling and a whole host of activities without specifics. These were recited almost verbatim by SL’s country lobbyists/apologists like B Raman, Hariharan and Ajit Kumar Singh in India, Shanaka Jayasekera, an ex SL cop, one time student of Macquarie University and a freelance counter-terrorism expert in Australia, (Alexander Downer in 2007 rebutted totally Shanaka’s catalogue of allegations against the Tamil diaspora in Australia) and one Rohan Gunaratne a self promoted counter-terrorism expert who is in South Asia. The excesses of the counter-terrorism experts cost them their credibility. SPUR’s recent media release has not performed any better.
    The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils and Tamil militancy had a field day when most western countries subscribed to Bush’s doctrinaire war on ‘terrorism’. With Obama/Hilary Clinton’s nuanced approach there is greater understanding of the role of militancy in confronting ‘state terrorism’ that is as evil as Jihardism especially in SL with strong genocidal tendencies. SL and its army of agents planted overseas are hard put to find a platform in its fight to reverse the growing ‘anti-SL state terrorism’ sentiment internationally.
    When its traditional tools failed to cope with SL’s loss of credibility, SL resorted to harsh abuse. SL apologists would not even spare respected eminent persons like a Desmond Tutu and the Elders. The silence of the usually boastful Rohan Gunatileke to the comments of (‘So what Asia saw was ethnic cleansing’ in Tom Plates – Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew) another distinguished elder statesman is ominous for SL. The Elders’ media release of 3 August 2010 is unlikely to go without impact on international opinion when SL’s remarkable success in ethnic cleansing removed about 50 per cent of SL Tamils as refugees, war casualties and in extra-judicial killings. In post Tamil militancy/LTTE the continuation of a more brutal ethnic cleansing using out of sight ‘holding camps’ in the North (the Tamil homelands) has few supporters outside SL except China, Pakistan and possibly Delhi. These are crimes against humanity that only the powerful moral voices of a Desmond Tutu or a Lee Kuan Yew and the West would act to stimulate UN action to hold SL accountable for ‘crimes’ on the Tamils.
    Hence the call ‘End Sri Lanka’s genocide behavior to end flow of Asylum seekers’ in Groundreport.com 9 Nov 2009 highlights SL’s Nazi like labeling of asylum seekers (para demalas) as SL’s unwanted exports underpinning the cruel SL mindset that most civil Western nations would desist from associating
    Instead there is mounting pressure from the international community especially the West to hold SL accountable for crimes that SL was able to successfully commit with impunity. The diaspore committed to the Tamil cause strives purely to save Tamil lives in SL first, the positive result of which is a definite shift in the Tamil cause debate away from the LTTE in post May 2009 to prosecuting SL officials for the genocide and the massacres. The West now better informed is at pains to redress the consequences of hastily lumping the Tamil resistance with Jihardi terrorism to deprive the Tamils of the protection they had against SL’s thirty years of atrocities on the Tamils.

    Though the number of refugee Tamils seeking asylum will diminish further host countries are better served by acting jointly to end SL’s genocide behavior even if necessary involving the UNHRC that is now unlikely to be paralyzed into inaction by the numerically larger number of human rights abuser members. The US and EU stepping in and providing the ‘leadership to deliver on what the UNHRC failed to deliver is the prayer of every Tamil worldwide’.
    http://www.groundreport.com/World/SRI-LANKA-REFUG

  57. The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils

    SRI LANKA REFUGEES – PRODUCT OF THE SIX DECADES OF SRI LANKAN GENOCIDE

    The arrival of freighter MV Sun Sea with some 500 asylum seekers off the Canadian coast revived a furious debate over whether it is people smuggling activity with security implications for the host country or a deeper problem caused by conditions in the originating country creating the refugee exodus. Feigning SL apologist believe that it is the former, while sober minds view it as the latter succinctly summarized in the following quote:

    ‘It is Sri Lanka that has a problem…President Rajapakse’s government has failed to make the country’s large Tamil minority feel secure after crushing the Tamil
    last year. Until he does, people will continue to flee…That’s a message Prime Minister Harper’s government should drive home, as the United Nations, the United States and India have done. Sri Lanka didn’t win the war on its own. India’s political support and its naval blockade weakened the Tigers. So did U.S. and Canadian moves to cut off Tiger funding… still our help pre-supposed a fair deal for Tamils when the war ended…Now the Tamils are fleeing in desperation… So it was a bit too much to hear Sri Lankan High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara urging Ottawa to turn away the Sun Sea, with its women and children, to prevent Tigers from regrouping here. If Sri Lanka’s majority of 17 million were making the minority 4 million Tamils feel less threatened, fewer would be regrouping anywhere.’ Further ‘… Indeed, instead of…delivering reform… (SL)… chos(ing) to rebuff UN probe into war crimes… (and) to focus more on economic rebuilding than devolution..(or) justice for Tamils… would (not) put the people smugglers out of business.’ How much more candid could Canada be in the face ‘.. of the..self-serving rhetoric about ‘terrorist probing Canada’s defenses?

    Likewise when refugee boats coasted the Australian shores SL’s Chitraganee’s people smuggling refrain was there in the ready to muddy the refugee debate to mischievously and crudely exploit the emotionally sensitive refugee arrivals issue in Australia’s general election year. SPUR Media Release of 30 July 2010 titled ’Australian Parliamentary Elections – 2010; ABS Census Exposes Myths of theTamil Tiger Lobby’ falls into people smuggling category (and brilliantly rebutted in the above quote) with arrivals carrying the remnants of a totally defeated LTTE to become a menacing security threat to Australia. The SPUR Media Release goes further than Chitraganee to deceptively manipulate ABS Census statistics to target the credibility of the Tamil diaspore lobby. SPUR is reputedly active as SL’s front organization as more and more Western nations join in the vanguard supporting UN war /genocide crimes investigations against SL.

    In the aftermath of the 1983 pogrom the widely created perception by SL apologists including SPUR in Australia is that Tamils the victims of the 1983 pogrom arrived in Australia as refugees in such overwhelming numbers and not to the liking of most Australians. SPUR’s statistics shows Sinhalese arrivals were much than the Tamils. According to the widely used ‘language spoken at home’ demographic measure Tamils were 32 701 and Sinhalese 29 053 (ABS Census 2006). The SPUR memorandum chose to use a subsidiary ABS’s ‘ancestry’ measure for its self serving agenda that shows the Tamils were 8 897 and Sinhalese 73 852 giving a massive difference in the numbers arrived at using ‘language spoken’ measure. It’s normal when difference of this magnitude surface clarification from ABS is called for especially when there is a correlation between language spoken and ancestry criteria. That Sinhalese (who were not victims of the pogrom) slipped into Australia in such large numbers using the refugee migration program meant for Tamil victims of the anti-Tamil 1983 pogrom is thus substantiated by the 2006 Census figures. SPUR’s 73 852 Sinhalese in Australia that falls outside acceptable margin of error is ignored for the purposes of the current debate. These Sinhalese now form the hardcore vocal anti-Tamil (SPUR) Buddhist Sinhala elements in Australia.

    SPUR’s use of the deceptive ‘ancestry’ measure and totally omitting to mention the ‘language spoken at home’ measure is in line with many other similar deceptive stories SL puts out from time to time. Readers are reminded of SL’s iconic story of the 130 000 Norwegian passports that LTTE stole and sold to Al Qaeda for millions of US $ reported in the Asian Tribune and the Hindu (in May 2007). The story was narrated Bernard Goonetileke, SL Ambassador to the US (now holding high office in the Sri Lanka Peace Council) who in a lengthy interview with the highly reputed Washington Post Radio attempted to discredit the Tamils/LTTE for alleged involvement in people smuggling. The Norwegian clarification exposed that the 130 000 passports were lost (not stolen) over a ten year period and that only in 6 cases were the Tamils involved..

    Similarly SL’s catalogue of Tamil militancy/LTTE’s crimes included funds extortion, narcotics trafficking, people smuggling and a whole host of activities without specifics. These were recited almost verbatim by SL’s country lobbyists/apologists like B Raman, Hariharan and Ajit Kumar Singh in India, Shanaka Jayasekera, an ex SL cop, one time student of Macquarie University and a freelance counter-terrorism expert in Australia, (Alexander Downer in 2007 rebutted totally Shanaka’s catalogue of allegations against the Tamil diaspora in Australia) and one Rohan Gunaratne a self promoted counter-terrorism expert who is in South Asia. The excesses of the counter-terrorism experts cost them their credibility. SPUR’s recent media release has not performed any better.
    The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils and Tamil militancy had a field day when most western countries subscribed to Bush’s doctrinaire war on ‘terrorism’. With Obama/Hilary Clinton’s nuanced approach there is greater understanding of the role of militancy in confronting ‘state terrorism’ that is as evil as Jihardism especially in SL with strong genocidal tendencies. SL and its army of agents planted overseas are hard put to find a platform in its fight to reverse the growing ‘anti-SL state terrorism’ sentiment internationally.
    When its traditional tools failed to cope with SL’s loss of credibility, SL resorted to harsh abuse. SL apologists would not even spare respected eminent persons like a Desmond Tutu and the Elders. The silence of the usually boastful Rohan Gunatileke to the comments of (‘So what Asia saw was ethnic cleansing’ in Tom Plates – Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew) another distinguished elder statesman is ominous for SL. The Elders’ media release of 3 August 2010 is unlikely to go without impact on international opinion when SL’s remarkable success in ethnic cleansing removed about 50 per cent of SL Tamils as refugees, war casualties and in extra-judicial killings. In post Tamil militancy/LTTE the continuation of a more brutal ethnic cleansing using out of sight ‘holding camps’ in the North (the Tamil homelands) has few supporters outside SL except China, Pakistan and possibly Delhi. These are crimes against humanity that only the powerful moral voices of a Desmond Tutu or a Lee Kuan Yew and the West would act to stimulate UN action to hold SL accountable for ‘crimes’ on the Tamils.
    Hence the call ‘End Sri Lanka’s genocide behavior to end flow of Asylum seekers’ in Groundreport.com 9 Nov 2009 highlights SL’s Nazi like labeling of asylum seekers (para demalas) as SL’s unwanted exports underpinning the cruel SL mindset that most civil Western nations would desist from associating
    Instead there is mounting pressure from the international community especially the West to hold SL accountable for crimes that SL was able to successfully commit with impunity. The diaspore committed to the Tamil cause strives purely to save Tamil lives in SL first, the positive result of which is a definite shift in the Tamil cause debate away from the LTTE in post May 2009 to prosecuting SL officials for the genocide and the massacres. The West now better informed is at pains to redress the consequences of hastily lumping the Tamil resistance with Jihardi terrorism to deprive the Tamils of the protection they had against SL’s thirty years of atrocities on the Tamils.

    Though the number of refugee Tamils seeking asylum will diminish further host countries are better served by acting jointly to end SL’s genocide behavior even if necessary involving the UNHRC that is now unlikely to be paralyzed into inaction by the numerically larger number of human rights abuser members. The US and EU stepping in and providing the ‘leadership to deliver on what the UNHRC failed to deliver is the prayer of every Tamil worldwide’.
    http://www.groundreport.com/World/SRI-LANKA-REFUG

  58. The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils

    SRI LANKA REFUGEES – PRODUCT OF THE SIX DECADES OF SRI LANKAN GENOCIDE

    The arrival of freighter MV Sun Sea with some 500 asylum seekers off the Canadian coast revived a furious debate over whether it is people smuggling activity with security implications for the host country or a deeper problem caused by conditions in the originating country creating the refugee exodus. Feigning SL apologist believe that it is the former, while sober minds view it as the latter succinctly summarized in the following quote:

    ‘It is Sri Lanka that has a problem…President Rajapakse’s government has failed to make the country’s large Tamil minority feel secure after crushing the Tamil
    last year. Until he does, people will continue to flee…That’s a message Prime Minister Harper’s government should drive home, as the United Nations, the United States and India have done. Sri Lanka didn’t win the war on its own. India’s political support and its naval blockade weakened the Tigers. So did U.S. and Canadian moves to cut off Tiger funding… still our help pre-supposed a fair deal for Tamils when the war ended…Now the Tamils are fleeing in desperation… So it was a bit too much to hear Sri Lankan High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara urging Ottawa to turn away the Sun Sea, with its women and children, to prevent Tigers from regrouping here. If Sri Lanka’s majority of 17 million were making the minority 4 million Tamils feel less threatened, fewer would be regrouping anywhere.’ Further ‘… Indeed, instead of…delivering reform… (SL)… chos(ing) to rebuff UN probe into war crimes… (and) to focus more on economic rebuilding than devolution..(or) justice for Tamils… would (not) put the people smugglers out of business.’ How much more candid could Canada be in the face ‘.. of the..self-serving rhetoric about ‘terrorist probing Canada’s defenses?

    Likewise when refugee boats coasted the Australian shores SL’s Chitraganee’s people smuggling refrain was there in the ready to muddy the refugee debate to mischievously and crudely exploit the emotionally sensitive refugee arrivals issue in Australia’s general election year. SPUR Media Release of 30 July 2010 titled ’Australian Parliamentary Elections – 2010; ABS Census Exposes Myths of theTamil Tiger Lobby’ falls into people smuggling category (and brilliantly rebutted in the above quote) with arrivals carrying the remnants of a totally defeated LTTE to become a menacing security threat to Australia. The SPUR Media Release goes further than Chitraganee to deceptively manipulate ABS Census statistics to target the credibility of the Tamil diaspore lobby. SPUR is reputedly active as SL’s front organization as more and more Western nations join in the vanguard supporting UN war /genocide crimes investigations against SL.

    In the aftermath of the 1983 pogrom the widely created perception by SL apologists including SPUR in Australia is that Tamils the victims of the 1983 pogrom arrived in Australia as refugees in such overwhelming numbers and not to the liking of most Australians. SPUR’s statistics shows Sinhalese arrivals were much than the Tamils. According to the widely used ‘language spoken at home’ demographic measure Tamils were 32 701 and Sinhalese 29 053 (ABS Census 2006). The SPUR memorandum chose to use a subsidiary ABS’s ‘ancestry’ measure for its self serving agenda that shows the Tamils were 8 897 and Sinhalese 73 852 giving a massive difference in the numbers arrived at using ‘language spoken’ measure. It’s normal when difference of this magnitude surface clarification from ABS is called for especially when there is a correlation between language spoken and ancestry criteria. That Sinhalese (who were not victims of the pogrom) slipped into Australia in such large numbers using the refugee migration program meant for Tamil victims of the anti-Tamil 1983 pogrom is thus substantiated by the 2006 Census figures. SPUR’s 73 852 Sinhalese in Australia that falls outside acceptable margin of error is ignored for the purposes of the current debate. These Sinhalese now form the hardcore vocal anti-Tamil (SPUR) Buddhist Sinhala elements in Australia.

    SPUR’s use of the deceptive ‘ancestry’ measure and totally omitting to mention the ‘language spoken at home’ measure is in line with many other similar deceptive stories SL puts out from time to time. Readers are reminded of SL’s iconic story of the 130 000 Norwegian passports that LTTE stole and sold to Al Qaeda for millions of US $ reported in the Asian Tribune and the Hindu (in May 2007). The story was narrated Bernard Goonetileke, SL Ambassador to the US (now holding high office in the Sri Lanka Peace Council) who in a lengthy interview with the highly reputed Washington Post Radio attempted to discredit the Tamils/LTTE for alleged involvement in people smuggling. The Norwegian clarification exposed that the 130 000 passports were lost (not stolen) over a ten year period and that only in 6 cases were the Tamils involved..

    Similarly SL’s catalogue of Tamil militancy/LTTE’s crimes included funds extortion, narcotics trafficking, people smuggling and a whole host of activities without specifics. These were recited almost verbatim by SL’s country lobbyists/apologists like B Raman, Hariharan and Ajit Kumar Singh in India, Shanaka Jayasekera, an ex SL cop, one time student of Macquarie University and a freelance counter-terrorism expert in Australia, (Alexander Downer in 2007 rebutted totally Shanaka’s catalogue of allegations against the Tamil diaspora in Australia) and one Rohan Gunaratne a self promoted counter-terrorism expert who is in South Asia. The excesses of the counter-terrorism experts cost them their credibility. SPUR’s recent media release has not performed any better.
    The magnitude of deception to demonise the Tamils and Tamil militancy had a field day when most western countries subscribed to Bush’s doctrinaire war on ‘terrorism’. With Obama/Hilary Clinton’s nuanced approach there is greater understanding of the role of militancy in confronting ‘state terrorism’ that is as evil as Jihardism especially in SL with strong genocidal tendencies. SL and its army of agents planted overseas are hard put to find a platform in its fight to reverse the growing ‘anti-SL state terrorism’ sentiment internationally.
    When its traditional tools failed to cope with SL’s loss of credibility, SL resorted to harsh abuse. SL apologists would not even spare respected eminent persons like a Desmond Tutu and the Elders. The silence of the usually boastful Rohan Gunatileke to the comments of (‘So what Asia saw was ethnic cleansing’ in Tom Plates – Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew) another distinguished elder statesman is ominous for SL. The Elders’ media release of 3 August 2010 is unlikely to go without impact on international opinion when SL’s remarkable success in ethnic cleansing removed about 50 per cent of SL Tamils as refugees, war casualties and in extra-judicial killings. In post Tamil militancy/LTTE the continuation of a more brutal ethnic cleansing using out of sight ‘holding camps’ in the North (the Tamil homelands) has few supporters outside SL except China, Pakistan and possibly Delhi. These are crimes against humanity that only the powerful moral voices of a Desmond Tutu or a Lee Kuan Yew and the West would act to stimulate UN action to hold SL accountable for ‘crimes’ on the Tamils.
    Hence the call ‘End Sri Lanka’s genocide behavior to end flow of Asylum seekers’ in Groundreport.com 9 Nov 2009 highlights SL’s Nazi like labeling of asylum seekers (para demalas) as SL’s unwanted exports underpinning the cruel SL mindset that most civil Western nations would desist from associating
    Instead there is mounting pressure from the international community especially the West to hold SL accountable for crimes that SL was able to successfully commit with impunity. The diaspore committed to the Tamil cause strives purely to save Tamil lives in SL first, the positive result of which is a definite shift in the Tamil cause debate away from the LTTE in post May 2009 to prosecuting SL officials for the genocide and the massacres. The West now better informed is at pains to redress the consequences of hastily lumping the Tamil resistance with Jihardi terrorism to deprive the Tamils of the protection they had against SL’s thirty years of atrocities on the Tamils.

    Though the number of refugee Tamils seeking asylum will diminish further host countries are better served by acting jointly to end SL’s genocide behavior even if necessary involving the UNHRC that is now unlikely to be paralyzed into inaction by the numerically larger number of human rights abuser members. The US and EU stepping in and providing the ‘leadership to deliver on what the UNHRC failed to deliver is the prayer of every Tamil worldwide’.

    http://www.groundreport.com/World/SRI-LANKA-REFUGEES-PRODUCT-OF-THE-SIX-DECADES-OF-S_47/2927671

  59. Action contre la Faim (ACF or Action against Hunger) took his decision to withdraw from Sri Lanka consequently to the declaration of the members of the IIGEP to quit the process of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI). Indeed the organization has always considered the presence of the international experts as an essential condition for the credibility of the process. Several times, during the presidential CoI, the IIGEP made suggestions regarding the improvement of the procedure, however, those suggestions have never been considered. Accordingly with all the objections raised by the IIGEP, ACF doubts that the international standards would be respected by the CoI.

    The Organisation is aware of all the information originated from different sources (SLMM-UTHR-etc) regarding the Muttur case. However ACF has never given an opinion in merit, either expressing a judgement of culpability or taking decisions based on those allegations. The organisation considers that it is the duty of a court to investigate and prosecute suspects. Therefore ACF is not in a position to take any stand in relation to any information circulating outside a legal process. We are neither investigators nor a Human Rights organisation; we are just a victim who as such is claiming for a real and credible investigation process.

    Founded in 1979, Action Against Hunger is an international, non-governmental, non-religious, non-profit making organisation with programmes in 43 countries worldwide. Its vocation is to save lives by fighting hunger, especially those of malnourished children, and to work with vulnerable populations to preserve and restore their livelihoods with dignity.

    As a humanitarian agency, ACF is often working in dangerous areas but always taking all the security precautions. Nevertheless our organization has never had to deal with a crime such as the one happened in Muttur in 2006, August 4th. Furthermore, the massacre of so many NGO workers never happened in the history of humanitarian organisations.

    About the question sometimes raised whether ACF is responsible or not regarding the security situation in Muttur at that time, ACF answered several times to these questions and faced unjustified critics. The organization also received the full support of various Sri Lankan and international institutions. We can one more time explain the taking decision process and facts surrounding the killing.

    The July 31st 2006 a meeting was organized at the ACF office in Trincomalee with the national and expatriate staff members, to decide whether or not the team should go to Muttur. Given the situation apparently quiet they decided to move by ferry to Muttur. No indication at that time showed that a major crisis could erupt in Muttur.

    The morning of August 1st the rest of the ACF team leaved Trincomalee moving to Muttur by boat with the idea to come back in the afternoon in Trincomalee. The fact that the ferry service was operational meant that there were no reasons, at that time, to be particularly worried. Officials from Muttur (District Secretary) took the same boat than part of our team that day. The same afternoon (the 1st) the Muttur battle broke out suddenly and every transport way was cut (the road blocked and the ferry suspended). The organisation informed of the Muttur team presence the UN, CHA, ICRC, the Police of Trincomale and the military authority through a SLA Colonel. During the following days of the crisis, ACF kept on asking the authorities to help us evacuate our team.

    The August 2nd the ACF Trincomale office tried to organize with the ICRC a rescue boat to evacuate the workers isolated inside the ACF Muttur office. The ICRC could not get guarantees of security from all the fighting parties, so the mission was aborted.

    The last contact between ACF and the team in Muttur was made by radio on the 4th, around 7:00 am. Unconfirmed information has however emerged since then to the effect that members of the team might have been seen alive during that day. ACF has again tried to organize an evacuation by land but the mission has aborted at an Army checkpoint, 10 km away from Muttur, even if the SLA had already been informed about the ACF workers presence.

    Rumours from several sources started to circulate on the 5th to the effect that around 15 people had been executed on ACF compound in Muttur. Another team left Trincomalee on that day and went up to Thoppur where they met with the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) trying to get into Muttur. Both teams had to turn back as the SLA did not allow them to continue their road. Although at that time a group of journalists get the authorization to go into Muttur.

    On the 6th, hopes to find the workers alive in Muttur were gone but ACF insisted on reaching the town in order to collect the bodies. Another road expedition was organized together with the ICRC. Then again, the convoy had to turn back after having been blocked by a mob in a village on the road. Afterward, some of the organization's staff members took the initiative to get on the ferry whose service was restored. The boat had however to turn back before reaching Muttur when shells felt in front of the boat just before docking. At the same time, the CHA succeeded to get through Muttur by road and went to ACF compound. They discovered the slain workers lying in front of the gate and gave ACF the confirmation that the staff had been executed. Considering the state of things in Muttur, their visit was brief but they took the initiative to take the first official pictures of the crime scene.

    Ultimately, on the 7th, the collection of the bodies was organized from ACF base in Trincomalee with a team mostly comprising of ACF staff members. When they arrived in Muttur, they directly went to the police station and told the officers present that they were coming to collect the bodies.

    Therefore, several attempts were conducted to rescue our ACF team and help them to go out of Muttur but without success because of the situation prevailing in Muttur (attacks) or because of several refusal of allowance by the Police. The position of the organisation has always been very careful, attentive and active in trying to rescue his team. When asked, all NGO and IO operating in the area told they would have taken the same decision (e.g. to ask the team to stay in the office and to increase visibility to identify the compound as an NGO compound and a non-warring party) considering that NGO/IO were never targeted and that humanitarian workers, as well as civilians, are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

    The Muttur slaughter can't be considered only as a "collateral damage" during the Muttur battle: our team has been specifically and deliberately targeted, their death has been organised execution style with bullets shot in their head. Everything was consciously and brutally planned: the victims were kneeling, unarmed and defenceless. The culprits of this massacre are the ones who were carrying the arms. We can assert that this massacre is a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

    The overall aim of a humanitarian NGO is to help affected population particularly during crisis like natural disasters, wars or internal conflicts, in order to avoid humanitarian crises and massive displacements. ACF carries out its role in regions like Darfur and Chechnya, but no accident such as the one happened in Muttur has ever been reported.

    Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger / ACF) was created in 1979 in France and represents a network of international headquarters in Paris, New York, London, Madrid, and Montreal with more than 5000 persons all over the world. The organization provides water, food, non-food items and nutritional support in emergency situations including natural disasters and conflicts, and follows up these activities with post-emergency rehabilitation. In 2006, the ACF international network has delivered aid to more than 4.7 millions of persons.

    ACF has carried out humanitarian projects in Sri Lanka since 1997.

    Lucile Grosjean
    Press officer

  60. Action contre la Faim (ACF or Action against Hunger) took his decision to withdraw from Sri Lanka consequently to the declaration of the members of the IIGEP to quit the process of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI). Indeed the organization has always considered the presence of the international experts as an essential condition for the credibility of the process. Several times, during the presidential CoI, the IIGEP made suggestions regarding the improvement of the procedure, however, those suggestions have never been considered. Accordingly with all the objections raised by the IIGEP, ACF doubts that the international standards would be respected by the CoI.

    The Organisation is aware of all the information originated from different sources (SLMM-UTHR-etc) regarding the Muttur case. However ACF has never given an opinion in merit, either expressing a judgement of culpability or taking decisions based on those allegations. The organisation considers that it is the duty of a court to investigate and prosecute suspects. Therefore ACF is not in a position to take any stand in relation to any information circulating outside a legal process. We are neither investigators nor a Human Rights organisation; we are just a victim who as such is claiming for a real and credible investigation process.

    Founded in 1979, Action Against Hunger is an international, non-governmental, non-religious, non-profit making organisation with programmes in 43 countries worldwide. Its vocation is to save lives by fighting hunger, especially those of malnourished children, and to work with vulnerable populations to preserve and restore their livelihoods with dignity.

    As a humanitarian agency, ACF is often working in dangerous areas but always taking all the security precautions. Nevertheless our organization has never had to deal with a crime such as the one happened in Muttur in 2006, August 4th. Furthermore, the massacre of so many NGO workers never happened in the history of humanitarian organisations.

    About the question sometimes raised whether ACF is responsible or not regarding the security situation in Muttur at that time, ACF answered several times to these questions and faced unjustified critics. The organization also received the full support of various Sri Lankan and international institutions. We can one more time explain the taking decision process and facts surrounding the killing.

    The July 31st 2006 a meeting was organized at the ACF office in Trincomalee with the national and expatriate staff members, to decide whether or not the team should go to Muttur. Given the situation apparently quiet they decided to move by ferry to Muttur. No indication at that time showed that a major crisis could erupt in Muttur.

    The morning of August 1st the rest of the ACF team leaved Trincomalee moving to Muttur by boat with the idea to come back in the afternoon in Trincomalee. The fact that the ferry service was operational meant that there were no reasons, at that time, to be particularly worried. Officials from Muttur (District Secretary) took the same boat than part of our team that day. The same afternoon (the 1st) the Muttur battle broke out suddenly and every transport way was cut (the road blocked and the ferry suspended). The organisation informed of the Muttur team presence the UN, CHA, ICRC, the Police of Trincomale and the military authority through a SLA Colonel. During the following days of the crisis, ACF kept on asking the authorities to help us evacuate our team.

    The August 2nd the ACF Trincomale office tried to organize with the ICRC a rescue boat to evacuate the workers isolated inside the ACF Muttur office. The ICRC could not get guarantees of security from all the fighting parties, so the mission was aborted.

    The last contact between ACF and the team in Muttur was made by radio on the 4th, around 7:00 am. Unconfirmed information has however emerged since then to the effect that members of the team might have been seen alive during that day. ACF has again tried to organize an evacuation by land but the mission has aborted at an Army checkpoint, 10 km away from Muttur, even if the SLA had already been informed about the ACF workers presence.

    Rumours from several sources started to circulate on the 5th to the effect that around 15 people had been executed on ACF compound in Muttur. Another team left Trincomalee on that day and went up to Thoppur where they met with the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) trying to get into Muttur. Both teams had to turn back as the SLA did not allow them to continue their road. Although at that time a group of journalists get the authorization to go into Muttur.

    On the 6th, hopes to find the workers alive in Muttur were gone but ACF insisted on reaching the town in order to collect the bodies. Another road expedition was organized together with the ICRC. Then again, the convoy had to turn back after having been blocked by a mob in a village on the road. Afterward, some of the organization’s staff members took the initiative to get on the ferry whose service was restored. The boat had however to turn back before reaching Muttur when shells felt in front of the boat just before docking. At the same time, the CHA succeeded to get through Muttur by road and went to ACF compound. They discovered the slain workers lying in front of the gate and gave ACF the confirmation that the staff had been executed. Considering the state of things in Muttur, their visit was brief but they took the initiative to take the first official pictures of the crime scene.

    Ultimately, on the 7th, the collection of the bodies was organized from ACF base in Trincomalee with a team mostly comprising of ACF staff members. When they arrived in Muttur, they directly went to the police station and told the officers present that they were coming to collect the bodies.

    Therefore, several attempts were conducted to rescue our ACF team and help them to go out of Muttur but without success because of the situation prevailing in Muttur (attacks) or because of several refusal of allowance by the Police. The position of the organisation has always been very careful, attentive and active in trying to rescue his team. When asked, all NGO and IO operating in the area told they would have taken the same decision (e.g. to ask the team to stay in the office and to increase visibility to identify the compound as an NGO compound and a non-warring party) considering that NGO/IO were never targeted and that humanitarian workers, as well as civilians, are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

    The Muttur slaughter can’t be considered only as a “collateral damage” during the Muttur battle: our team has been specifically and deliberately targeted, their death has been organised execution style with bullets shot in their head. Everything was consciously and brutally planned: the victims were kneeling, unarmed and defenceless. The culprits of this massacre are the ones who were carrying the arms. We can assert that this massacre is a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

    The overall aim of a humanitarian NGO is to help affected population particularly during crisis like natural disasters, wars or internal conflicts, in order to avoid humanitarian crises and massive displacements. ACF carries out its role in regions like Darfur and Chechnya, but no accident such as the one happened in Muttur has ever been reported.

    Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger / ACF) was created in 1979 in France and represents a network of international headquarters in Paris, New York, London, Madrid, and Montreal with more than 5000 persons all over the world. The organization provides water, food, non-food items and nutritional support in emergency situations including natural disasters and conflicts, and follows up these activities with post-emergency rehabilitation. In 2006, the ACF international network has delivered aid to more than 4.7 millions of persons.

    ACF has carried out humanitarian projects in Sri Lanka since 1997.

    Lucile Grosjean
    Press officer

  61. Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir.

    The autobiography of a female Darfuri of the Zaghawa tribe who overcomes countless obstacles in her journey to become a medical doctor.

  62. Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir.

    The autobiography of a female Darfuri of the Zaghawa tribe who overcomes countless obstacles in her journey to become a medical doctor.

  63. The Broken Palmyrah written by 4 Human rights activists from the UTHR (University Teachers for Human Rights) Jaffna Sri Lanka – (one auther was shot shortly after the publication and others are in hiding..) Thing is it cannot be found in Sri Lanka but can be downloaded

  64. Really nice and informative site getting opportunities in future i must visit again this site thanks admin for such a useful posting,

  65. Click Here They are not able to finish the writing assignments on time. For some students, writing any writing assignments is able to waste their time

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