The Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam (often referred to as “Tissa“) is finally free! As I wrote on this site earlier, Tissa had been sentenced last year to 20 years’ hard labor, after an unfair trial, for criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war against the Tamil Tigers in a couple magazine articles. Amnesty International had adopted Tissa as a “prisoner of conscience,” since he was being prosecuted solely for his legitimate journalistic activities. While the Sri Lankan government had announced on May 3 that President Rajapaksa had decided to pardon Tissa, as of June 9 the pardon still hadn’t been issued. Nor did we know whether his rights would be fully restored, including the right to leave the country.
Well, his pardon has finally come through and he has gotten his passport back. As the Committee to Protect Journalists has reported, Tissa arrived in Washington, DC yesterday morning. Thank you very, very much to all those who wrote on his behalf; I’m sure it helped a lot in getting his freedom restored.
Now’s the time for the Sri Lankan government to take other steps to demonstrate its respect for media freedom and human rights, including determining the fate of the disappeared journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda and repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the emergency regulations. I hope I’ll be able to report more good news again soon.
Tissa is free !!
Great !! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you dear AI, Jim McDonald and many others for your tireless work to free Tissa !!!!
Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities.
This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland.
What about Prageeth Eknaligoda?
The Sri Lankan cartoonist and journalist disappeared shortly after leaving work at the Lanka-e-News office.
Local residents reported seeing a white van without number plates close to his house around this time.
When his wife tried to lodge a complaint with the police the next day, she was detained for several hours at the police station.
SLA're destroying hundreds of human remains
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are hastily destroying hundreds of human skeletal remains that lies in the weed overgrown bunkers where the Vanni civilians had crept into to save their lives when SLA moved into Vanni in its final offensives on Vanni, a representative of an International NGO who recently visited places not permitted for resettlement in Vanni told TamilNet. Meanwhile, a priest, an eyewitness to the massacre, recalled how the advancing SLA soldiers had thrown grenades into the bunkers and how SLA tanks had dumped them with earth even with people alive in them.
Grieving for the War Victims – criminalized in Sri Lanka
The mourning seem to be criminalized in the newly “liberated” North
On 18th June 2010, has been declared a public holiday by the government. Many Sri Lankans, especially Sinhalese from the South are expected to respond enthusiastically to the government’s elaborate plans to celebrating the war victory over the LTTE. For several days, citizens in Colombo had to put up with closed roads in preparation. How much of our – citizens – tax payer’s money will be spent for this celebration is something I don’t know and dare not think.
Some media had highlighted on the fact that the General who led the war victory is likely to be in detention and not invited to celebrate the victory he led.
What seems to be forgotten, and what I do know for sure is that tens or hundreds of thousands of Tamils, particularly in the North, will not be celebrating this victory. Many of them infact, will be grieving and mourning for family members and friends killed, injured, missing and detained in during the course of the war, particularly the final months of the war.
However, now, even grieving and mourning appears to be criminalized in the newly “liberated” North.
On 17th May, amidst heavy showers and floods in Colombo (which had compelled the government to postpone the victory celebrations), I was with a group of friends, at an ecumenical (Christian) event to commemorate those killed in the war. As we were starting the event, I got a call from a good friend, a Catholic priest in Jaffna, who told me that he had got several threatening calls asking him to cancel a religious event he had organized in Jaffna to commemorate civilians killed in the war.
In addition to the telephone calls, senior army officers had visited his office-threatened them and forced them to cancel the event. He was in a dilemma – he was personally not keen to cancel the event, but was concerned about the safety of his staff and families due to participate in the event.
Later, I came to know that this was not an isolated incident and several other friends were subjected to similar threats.
On the same day, 17th May, Nallur Temple area in Jaffna, where an inter-religious event was being held to remember those killed in the war was held, was surrounded by the police and the army. The people who came to participate were threatened and told to go away. Those who insisted on going in they were asked to register their names and other details with the police. Many went away in fear and only few had participated. Later on, the army had questioned and threatened a priest who was involved in organizing the event. The priest was even summoned to Palaly military headquarters in Jaffna for interrogation .
In Vanni, an army officer had told a villager that he will shoot a parish priest and drag him behind his jeep, because he (the priest) was organizing prayer services for those killed in the war. Another priest was prevented from celebrating a holy mass to pray for those killed in the war on 19th May in the Vanni.
So, it is clear the army doesn’t want Tamils to mourn and grieve for their loved ones killed during the war.
A new (cultural) campaign against Tamils in Vanni
As Tamil signs disappear in northern Sri Lanka, those in Sinhalese go up. Soldiers are rebuilding Buddhist temples whilst allowing Christian churches and Hindu temples to lay in ruin even though most locals belong to these two religions. Meanwhile, monuments celebrating the Sinhalese victory are starting to dot the region, but for Tamil victims there is but oblivion.
The provinces of northern Sri Lanka “are undergoing a different kind of attack, not military, but cultural and religious this time. They are faced with the ‘Sinhalisation’ of the area,” Rukshan Fernando told AsiaNews. The human rights activist and director of the Law and Society Trust just completed a tour of the provinces of Vanni and Killinochi.
“A first example and one that might appear trivial but isn’t so is road signs. Tamil language signs have disappeared; everything now is in Sinhalese. The military claim that Tamil terms are too long and complicated and that’s that. Place names are in both languages, but the one in Sinhalese comes first. What is more, beside the usual and accepted Sinhalese names, signs also mention older Sinhalese names in an attempt to show that these lands are Sinhalese lands,” a Tamil priest told me.
The attempt to change local history and society “also involves religion. In the city of Killinochi, for example, a large arch was put up, saying ‘May Buddhism shine’.” Yet, most people in the area are either Hindus or Christians.”
“Buddhist temples have been rebuilt and are spotless, whereas the places of worship of other religions are not allowed to do the same. And the difference is clearly visible since soldiers are involved in the work at Buddhist sites.”
Lastly, this campaign includes monument building.“Soldiers are building all sorts of monument hailing the victory of the government and the army . For locals, they are a symbol of their domination, also because no one is allowed to build anything to commemorate Tamil war dead.”
Mass Marriage in prison
What a large and dramatic idea occurred to the brigadier in charge
of rehabilitation , to organize a mass wedding to spur former Tiger
troops into formation under a different philosophy and yet appeal
to their strengths to cohere as a group not any longer in waging war
against the State but to reveal their common humanity to agree
to a public celebration of private bonds, to ensure their co-habiting
led to proper inheritance for children, access to social welfare
payments when necessary, all to the good for these members
of a herd, now in white vershtis and magenta sarees eating cake
and chatting with relatives witnessed by the Bollywood actor
Vivek Oberoi, no less, before returning to detention camps,
now two by two, respectable members of the new unitary ark,
where domestic animals gather obediently while the brigadier
sheds a tear; he told the press, he was nervous, even more so
than before his own wedding, which did not take place thankfully
under public glare and was not diminished by the splendour
of mass marriage like mass production of poultry, efficiencies
of scale, government desire to move rehabilitation forward
in one swoop, a sort of dog training in a large group; anybody
realize that marriage among truly reborn takes place between
two people and the witnesses are God and invited guests? Here,
some exceptions were made to the usual practice, no consultation
with bride or groom, whether the actor was indeed an honoured
guest, or if the brigadier should cry like a mother, or if even
53 couples minded seeing their knots tied in the presence
of each other, or have Reverend Moon and other enlightened
priests of mass marriage, become advisers to Sri Lankan
military, spiritual guides to its standard operating procedure?
A nice piece that highlights the absurdity of the whole affair.
The military should play no role in civilian affairs, period.
If I recall the BBC report correctly, these young couples are to be resettled in what is called a “Peace Village.”
A peace village that is heavily guarded by military – what a joke!
There is no limit to what a government and military drunk with power can do !!
This absurd propaganda is so pathetic !!
What is the future of these married couples?
Without homes to live in and livelihoods to earn money ?
Are they going to live in camps and have children born into captivity?
Even if they are resettled in their former homes and livelihoods, they will live in a highly militarized society ( open-air prison) where they will be constantly harassed !!
Sri Lankan Tragedy
Those who argue that Sri Lanka has finally brought an end to the Asia’s longest running conflict, are not only ignorant but making a blunder by indirectly supporting the dangerous regimes in Sri Lanka that are determined to wipe out a race from the face of this earth. Torture, murder and rape against the minority Tamils, abductions, summary executions, forced colonizations of Tamil lands, extension of military bases in Tamil areas even in the absence of war and various human rights abuses, have made this country as an island of hell.
Sri Lankan rulers use a simple binary logic that their categorise anyone who oppose their extremist policies and human rights violations as terrorists. They are able to see only two types of humans on this planet. Those who are with them or those who are against them. Since they identify the ones who disagree with them as terrorists, Sri Lanka has in many instances blamed Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross and many other humanitarian organisations as terrorist sympathisers. David Miliband, Hillary Clinton and many other western leaders were blamed as terror supporters. This is exactly like how the Al Qaeda blames the western countries as terror states and their leaders as terrorists.
Sri Lanka uses the same logic for the innocent Tamils who are fleeing for their lives in boats and ships to foreign shores. They blame the fleeing children and pregnant women as terrorists. Only crime they had committed was that they cried when their fathers and brothers were brutally murdered and they objected when their mothers and sisters were raped.
What make things worse in Sri Lanka are not just the atrocities carried out by the fascist forces but the compromise made by some international elements, who have decided to support the criminals but turned a blind eye to the victims. They danced when the war criminals sang, and hid their faces in the sand when thousands of innocents were murdered in cold blood. UN, who is supposed to be a guardian for the oppressed and vulnerable in the world, had in fact assisted Sri Lanka in mass murdering innocent Tamils, simply by ignoring the cries of the dying at the crucial hours.
Sri Lankan Tragedy is also about an unfair world that is letting the murderers and rapists to walk on red carpets but ignoring the plight of the innocents that are languishing in torture camps and prisons.
Sri Lankan conflict is sometime quite a complex one to understand not because the conflict itself is complex but, corrupt politicians, career minded journalists, biased terror experts, countries with geopolitical interests and those who are short sighted have twisted the stories that many in the world don’t exactly know what has been going on in Sri Lanka.
Those who are responsible for the misery in Sri Lanka for years have been successful in hiding the root cause of the problem in order to continue with their own agendas.
While many are doing this deliberately, there are also people including some Tamils tend to misinterpret the crisis in Sri Lanka, by looking and analyzing isolated incidents or judging various parties to the conflict based on their personal experiences.
Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation has not, as Rajapaksa suggests, been appointed to look into alleged war crimes.
As an article on the website of the Ministry of Defence summarises its purpose, it is “to find out the root causes of the terrorist problem”.
There is not a single mention of ‘human rights’, ‘humanitarian law’, ‘violations’, ‘war crimes’, or any comparable term.
The mandate accorded by the government very carefully avoids any of these issues.
Instead, the President has indicated that the commission should look forward, which is generally a way of saying that past violations should be ignored.
Consistent with this, he has spoken of restorative justice designed to further strengthen national amity, which is another way of making the same point.
Yay, Amnesty! Thank you for saving Tissa! I'm so happy! 🙂
Tissa is free !!
Great !! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you dear AI, Jim McDonald and many others for your tireless work to free Tissa !!!!
Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities.
This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland.
What about Prageeth Eknaligoda?
The Sri Lankan cartoonist and journalist disappeared shortly after leaving work at the Lanka-e-News office.
Local residents reported seeing a white van without number plates close to his house around this time.
When his wife tried to lodge a complaint with the police the next day, she was detained for several hours at the police station.
SLA’re destroying hundreds of human remains
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are hastily destroying hundreds of human skeletal remains that lies in the weed overgrown bunkers where the Vanni civilians had crept into to save their lives when SLA moved into Vanni in its final offensives on Vanni, a representative of an International NGO who recently visited places not permitted for resettlement in Vanni told TamilNet. Meanwhile, a priest, an eyewitness to the massacre, recalled how the advancing SLA soldiers had thrown grenades into the bunkers and how SLA tanks had dumped them with earth even with people alive in them.
Grieving for the War Victims – criminalized in Sri Lanka
The mourning seem to be criminalized in the newly “liberated” North
On 18th June 2010, has been declared a public holiday by the government. Many Sri Lankans, especially Sinhalese from the South are expected to respond enthusiastically to the government’s elaborate plans to celebrating the war victory over the LTTE. For several days, citizens in Colombo had to put up with closed roads in preparation. How much of our – citizens – tax payer’s money will be spent for this celebration is something I don’t know and dare not think.
Some media had highlighted on the fact that the General who led the war victory is likely to be in detention and not invited to celebrate the victory he led.
What seems to be forgotten, and what I do know for sure is that tens or hundreds of thousands of Tamils, particularly in the North, will not be celebrating this victory. Many of them infact, will be grieving and mourning for family members and friends killed, injured, missing and detained in during the course of the war, particularly the final months of the war.
However, now, even grieving and mourning appears to be criminalized in the newly “liberated” North.
On 17th May, amidst heavy showers and floods in Colombo (which had compelled the government to postpone the victory celebrations), I was with a group of friends, at an ecumenical (Christian) event to commemorate those killed in the war. As we were starting the event, I got a call from a good friend, a Catholic priest in Jaffna, who told me that he had got several threatening calls asking him to cancel a religious event he had organized in Jaffna to commemorate civilians killed in the war.
In addition to the telephone calls, senior army officers had visited his office-threatened them and forced them to cancel the event. He was in a dilemma – he was personally not keen to cancel the event, but was concerned about the safety of his staff and families due to participate in the event.
Later, I came to know that this was not an isolated incident and several other friends were subjected to similar threats.
On the same day, 17th May, Nallur Temple area in Jaffna, where an inter-religious event was being held to remember those killed in the war was held, was surrounded by the police and the army. The people who came to participate were threatened and told to go away. Those who insisted on going in they were asked to register their names and other details with the police. Many went away in fear and only few had participated. Later on, the army had questioned and threatened a priest who was involved in organizing the event. The priest was even summoned to Palaly military headquarters in Jaffna for interrogation .
In Vanni, an army officer had told a villager that he will shoot a parish priest and drag him behind his jeep, because he (the priest) was organizing prayer services for those killed in the war. Another priest was prevented from celebrating a holy mass to pray for those killed in the war on 19th May in the Vanni.
So, it is clear the army doesn’t want Tamils to mourn and grieve for their loved ones killed during the war.
A new (cultural) campaign against Tamils in Vanni
As Tamil signs disappear in northern Sri Lanka, those in Sinhalese go up. Soldiers are rebuilding Buddhist temples whilst allowing Christian churches and Hindu temples to lay in ruin even though most locals belong to these two religions. Meanwhile, monuments celebrating the Sinhalese victory are starting to dot the region, but for Tamil victims there is but oblivion.
The provinces of northern Sri Lanka “are undergoing a different kind of attack, not military, but cultural and religious this time. They are faced with the ‘Sinhalisation’ of the area,” Rukshan Fernando told AsiaNews. The human rights activist and director of the Law and Society Trust just completed a tour of the provinces of Vanni and Killinochi.
“A first example and one that might appear trivial but isn’t so is road signs. Tamil language signs have disappeared; everything now is in Sinhalese. The military claim that Tamil terms are too long and complicated and that’s that. Place names are in both languages, but the one in Sinhalese comes first. What is more, beside the usual and accepted Sinhalese names, signs also mention older Sinhalese names in an attempt to show that these lands are Sinhalese lands,” a Tamil priest told me.
The attempt to change local history and society “also involves religion. In the city of Killinochi, for example, a large arch was put up, saying ‘May Buddhism shine’.” Yet, most people in the area are either Hindus or Christians.”
“Buddhist temples have been rebuilt and are spotless, whereas the places of worship of other religions are not allowed to do the same. And the difference is clearly visible since soldiers are involved in the work at Buddhist sites.”
Lastly, this campaign includes monument building.“Soldiers are building all sorts of monument hailing the victory of the government and the army . For locals, they are a symbol of their domination, also because no one is allowed to build anything to commemorate Tamil war dead.”
Mass Marriage in prison
What a large and dramatic idea occurred to the brigadier in charge
of rehabilitation , to organize a mass wedding to spur former Tiger
troops into formation under a different philosophy and yet appeal
to their strengths to cohere as a group not any longer in waging war
against the State but to reveal their common humanity to agree
to a public celebration of private bonds, to ensure their co-habiting
led to proper inheritance for children, access to social welfare
payments when necessary, all to the good for these members
of a herd, now in white vershtis and magenta sarees eating cake
and chatting with relatives witnessed by the Bollywood actor
Vivek Oberoi, no less, before returning to detention camps,
now two by two, respectable members of the new unitary ark,
where domestic animals gather obediently while the brigadier
sheds a tear; he told the press, he was nervous, even more so
than before his own wedding, which did not take place thankfully
under public glare and was not diminished by the splendour
of mass marriage like mass production of poultry, efficiencies
of scale, government desire to move rehabilitation forward
in one swoop, a sort of dog training in a large group; anybody
realize that marriage among truly reborn takes place between
two people and the witnesses are God and invited guests? Here,
some exceptions were made to the usual practice, no consultation
with bride or groom, whether the actor was indeed an honoured
guest, or if the brigadier should cry like a mother, or if even
53 couples minded seeing their knots tied in the presence
of each other, or have Reverend Moon and other enlightened
priests of mass marriage, become advisers to Sri Lankan
military, spiritual guides to its standard operating procedure?
A nice piece that highlights the absurdity of the whole affair.
The military should play no role in civilian affairs, period.
If I recall the BBC report correctly, these young couples are to be resettled in what is called a “Peace Village.”
A peace village that is heavily guarded by military – what a joke!
There is no limit to what a government and military drunk with power can do !!
This absurd propaganda is so pathetic !!
What is the future of these married couples?
Without homes to live in and livelihoods to earn money ?
Are they going to live in camps and have children born into captivity?
Even if they are resettled in their former homes and livelihoods, they will live in a highly militarized society ( open-air prison) where they will be constantly harassed !!
Sri Lankan Tragedy
Those who argue that Sri Lanka has finally brought an end to the Asia’s longest running conflict, are not only ignorant but making a blunder by indirectly supporting the dangerous regimes in Sri Lanka that are determined to wipe out a race from the face of this earth. Torture, murder and rape against the minority Tamils, abductions, summary executions, forced colonizations of Tamil lands, extension of military bases in Tamil areas even in the absence of war and various human rights abuses, have made this country as an island of hell.
Sri Lankan rulers use a simple binary logic that their categorise anyone who oppose their extremist policies and human rights violations as terrorists. They are able to see only two types of humans on this planet. Those who are with them or those who are against them. Since they identify the ones who disagree with them as terrorists, Sri Lanka has in many instances blamed Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross and many other humanitarian organisations as terrorist sympathisers. David Miliband, Hillary Clinton and many other western leaders were blamed as terror supporters. This is exactly like how the Al Qaeda blames the western countries as terror states and their leaders as terrorists.
Sri Lanka uses the same logic for the innocent Tamils who are fleeing for their lives in boats and ships to foreign shores. They blame the fleeing children and pregnant women as terrorists. Only crime they had committed was that they cried when their fathers and brothers were brutally murdered and they objected when their mothers and sisters were raped.
What make things worse in Sri Lanka are not just the atrocities carried out by the fascist forces but the compromise made by some international elements, who have decided to support the criminals but turned a blind eye to the victims. They danced when the war criminals sang, and hid their faces in the sand when thousands of innocents were murdered in cold blood. UN, who is supposed to be a guardian for the oppressed and vulnerable in the world, had in fact assisted Sri Lanka in mass murdering innocent Tamils, simply by ignoring the cries of the dying at the crucial hours.
Sri Lankan Tragedy is also about an unfair world that is letting the murderers and rapists to walk on red carpets but ignoring the plight of the innocents that are languishing in torture camps and prisons.
Sri Lankan conflict is sometime quite a complex one to understand not because the conflict itself is complex but, corrupt politicians, career minded journalists, biased terror experts, countries with geopolitical interests and those who are short sighted have twisted the stories that many in the world don’t exactly know what has been going on in Sri Lanka.
Those who are responsible for the misery in Sri Lanka for years have been successful in hiding the root cause of the problem in order to continue with their own agendas.
While many are doing this deliberately, there are also people including some Tamils tend to misinterpret the crisis in Sri Lanka, by looking and analyzing isolated incidents or judging various parties to the conflict based on their personal experiences.
Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation has not, as Rajapaksa suggests, been appointed to look into alleged war crimes.
As an article on the website of the Ministry of Defence summarises its purpose, it is “to find out the root causes of the terrorist problem”.
There is not a single mention of ‘human rights’, ‘humanitarian law’, ‘violations’, ‘war crimes’, or any comparable term.
The mandate accorded by the government very carefully avoids any of these issues.
Instead, the President has indicated that the commission should look forward, which is generally a way of saying that past violations should be ignored.
Consistent with this, he has spoken of restorative justice designed to further strengthen national amity, which is another way of making the same point.
Yay, Amnesty! Thank you for saving Tissa! I’m so happy! 🙂
Freed Sri Lankan journalist Tissainayagam arrives in U.S. http://cpj.org/2010/06/freed-sri-lankan-journalis…
good news
If he is released it is a good news.
Thanks AI, JIM MD for your continuous voice to pressure the sri lankan Government.
Still 1000's of victim are waiting for the Justice.
Judiciary In Jeopardy in sri lanka
Two magistrates from the Chavakachcheri and Vavuniya Magistrates’ Courts have been transferred with immediate effect to different areas for no specific reason.
Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja have been transferred with immediate effect to Akkaraipattu and Colombo respectively.
When contacted by The Sunday Leader, Prabhakaran confirmed that he had indeed been transferred with immediate effect and has been requested to report to work at the Akkaraipattu Magistrate’s Court tomorrow (21).
He said that Thursday (17) was his last working day at the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court and he has to now move to Akkaraipattu along with his family within a few days.
Alex Raja was not available for comment.
However, the sudden transfers of the two Magistrates are speculated to have taken place following a speech made in parliament by UNP Parliamentarian Jaya Sri Ranga during the last parliamentary sessions.
Sri Ranga in his speech during an adjournment debate directly accused the EPDP, a constituent party in the governing UPFA, of abducting and extorting money from Tamil people in the North while threatening the judges who heard the relevant cases in court.
He has specifically mentioned the names of Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja saying that they were hearing cases against members of the EPDP for alleged threats, abductions, extortion and even murders.
Sri Ranga in his speech called for the independence of the judiciary in the North saying that the judges were under constant threat by members affiliated to the government if they delivered a judgment against alleged extortion.
At the time of the transfer, Chavakachcheri Magistrate Prabhakaran was hearing a case of abduction and murder of a teenager that had taken place in Chavakachcheri during the general election period.
A 19-year-old schoolboy from the Chavakachcheri Hindu College was allegedly abducted and later killed by the group who had abducted him with the intention of extorting money.
Several EPDP members had been accused in the case and EPDP member and Jaffna Deputy Mayor T. Illango alias Regan had allegedly threatened Prabhakaran.
Meanwhile, Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja at the time of his transfer had been under threat and had been asked to withdraw an open warrant issued by him on several suspects in a murder case.
According to Sri Ranga, the suspects in all these cases have been identified as members of the EPDP.
EPDP Leader and Minister Douglas Devananda when contacted by The Sunday Leader on Friday (18) asked us to call him in 10 minutes and did not answer the numerous telephone calls made to his mobile phone afterwards.
Freed Sri Lankan journalist Tissainayagam arrives in U.S. http://cpj.org/2010/06/freed-sri-lankan-journalis…
good news
Freed Sri Lankan journalist Tissainayagam arrives in U.S. http://cpj.org/2010/06/freed-sri-lankan-journalis…
good news
My dear Tamil observers,
A telling compilation of testimonies, your above detailed & glaringly illuminating commentaries !!!
Testaments to the Tamil Calvary, still wending its way to Golgotha…
Shova's barren battlescape of weedgrown bunkers, & soldiers destroying the masses of skeletal remains in them…this is a picture that is indelible, unforgettable, harrowing …
Param on the criminalisation of Tamil ritual mourning for the war dead … Remindful of the stark classic Greek tragedy "Antigone", where the tyrrant King Creon has forbidden anyone to bury or perform the funerary ceremonies for Antigone's rebel brothers, whose corpses lie decomposing before the walls of Thebes … ( But even Creon seems more open & honest than the slinking Rajapakse, who's trying to totally obliterate the mass evidence of his genocide !!! ) !!!
Rama on the parallel obliteration of Tamil signs in the North … Remindful of Jerusalem today, where Arab names & signs are rubbed out in favor of Jewish / Hebrew signs …
Vani's scathing satire on the "mass marriages" inside the Gulag …Surely without any parallels in its absurdity .. with Shree Vi. Oberoi acting as notary public to the goings on, & a boohooing brigadier lending Bollywoodesque bathos to this maudlin "scene" we're supposed to choke up on !!!…
Jaffnakovil in a rigorous showing up of the socalled Commission on Lessons Learnt … which is determined NOT to look at the very events whose very lessons we are supposed to be learning !!!
All of you, & those unnamed, continue to illuminate sri lanka's raging Heart of Darkness for a socalled "international community" that still refuses to look at what you reveal.
You are making this blindness increasingly unbearable for the world.
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels
The Tamil Prisoners Of War are being used for cheap Sinhala propaganda. This is against the Geneva Convention and can be used against the Sinhala war criminals.
These POWS's are being subjected to the indignity of marrying in front of the killers of their kith and kin. They should be allowed to go home and marry in their villages with the blessing of their parents and relatives. What will happen to them after this drama? Will their Sinhala masters allow them to go and live happily ever after or will they drag them to their separate cells.
Why didn't they allow any independent foreign journalists to witness this wedding ceremony for propaganda?
Will they allow any independent journalist to verify the condition of their lives in the barbed wire Sinhala camps under the Sinhala thugs in uniform who killed and raped so many Tamil women.
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
Using prisoners of war for propaganda purposes is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and organizations which monitor compliance of international law. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have requested that both the Iraqi and Coalition forces refrain from releasing images of POWs to the media. Now the pictures of all these Tamil POW's are all over the world. Can anyone guarantees the privacy of these people now.
By parading the images of Tamil POW's on television, news papers and Internet forums Sri Lanka has violated the Geneva Convention. According to the Geneva Convention any function related to the POW's must be conducted in front of the members of neutral humanitarian organization, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. But these POWS's are being subjected to the indignity of marrying in front of the killers of their kith and kin.
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
I don't think they should be used for Sinhala propaganda. I think they should be allowed to go to their homes and villages and start their new life. Nobody will know their plight in the Sinhala prisons after this ceremony and the photo ops.
Can you guarantee that the Sinhala regime will allow any independent journalist to verify the condition of their lives in the barbed wire Sinhala camps under the control of Sinhala thugs in uniform, who killed and raped so many Tamil women?
It is pathetic to see the hooligans of Peelam trying to give credit to AI for Thissa's release.
As for AI, good to see that you have started another blog to allow the Apes of Peelam to post all sorts of none sense which are way off topic.
Sad to see that the person who actually pardoned Thissa is not thanked in the bogs. He still could have kept him under lock for the breach of Law – but he has proven to the world he is a great humanitarian !!!
Guess I will have to write off topic in future in this blog as from the looks of it, there will be no posts of relevance to topic in the future – good work AI – keep blogs that would discuss everything and anything under the Sun – Oh BTW, the 21st June 2 Sun rises is a Hoax !
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
Will the Sinhala government allow some independent journalists to verify this " wedding for ex-rebels in prison" claim. Everyone knows the lies of the Sinhala regime and their minions. First of all why is the army in the business of rehabilitation of the Prisoners of War. Don't you think some neutral humanitarian organization should be in charge of training and rehabilitating.
Sinhala government and many Sinhala racist organizations trying to brain wash these Tamil youths in prison. That is also against the Geneva Convention. Can be used against the Sinhala war criminals.
Sri Lanka holds mass wedding for ex-rebels
Sri Lanka propaganda to eye eash the world and get more funds 🙂
Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe, said most of the ex-combatants had been living together without formalising their partnerships
—————-
Brigadier ???
Concentration camps or rehab centres ??
It's fake marriage (like the bride's fake flowers), in a concentration camps, to make Sinhala regime's " pom pom cheer leaders go gaga " !! 🙂 🙂
Param Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 2:43 am
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
This post by the mentally challenged Ape Param goes on to further showcase how stupid he is. Actually, there were several posts in this regard by many other Apes in this column meant for Thissa's release. Anyways, the humans with brains will always understand that rehabilitation doesn't happen overnight and it is a timely process. At least the 53 couples who had to ensure that their lives were in tact some time back, now express their love to each other in safe heavens where their food and lodging is taken care of. They are also in a society that is willing to accept them and let them live decent lives instead of living in jungles with cyanide capsules around their necks not knowing whether they would see their lovers instead of living with them.
Sad to see the people who sent money to make their lives miserable won't let them live in peace at least now…… What these Apes of Peelam needs to understand is that it's not their fault that you are impotent and are not in a position to experience this beauty of marriage which they are experiencing – At least they are happy and moving on with their lives – as for you apes – you will be miserable for the rest of your lives if you don't intend to move on !!
Disappearances, sexual abuse and extortion by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Vanni where people have been allowed to resettle have increased and the victims are helpless as there are no authorities to complain against the violence except to the SLA in Vanni, a government officer in Vanni said. Meanwhile, SLA earmarks properties with Reserved for SLA notice boards and the owners of the marked properties have to pay large sums of money to claim their properties back.
LOL – Lot's of Apes seem to be fascinated with the idea of Mass weddings…. Probably because it will be something that they will never experience in their lives as impotent farts. – LOL…. All seem to be visiting Tamil nut and pasting the same article over and over again – Interesting – Probably what this blog is meant for by AI !!!
Complaints of rape, like other complaints of torture, are often not effectively dealt with by police, magistrates or doctors. Deficiencies in the early stages of the criminal investigation process have repeatedly contributed to the ultimate collapse of the investigation of the alleged rape and the prosecution of the alleged perpetrators.
It also stated that 'every case of alleged criminal conduct committed by the armed forces and police has been investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted, although there may have been unavoidable legal delays'. Contrary to the government s assertion not a single member of the security forces has been brought to trial in connection to incidents of rape in custody although one successful prosecution has been brought in a case where the victim of rape was also murdered. An analysis of the cases in which investigations were conducted and trial proceedings initiated suggests that the authorities are far more inclined to take action if there is a considerable amount of public pressure.
government announced that seven indictments had been presented to the High Courts with regard to the alleged perpetration of torture and that the 'Prosecution of Torture Perpetrators Unit' in the Attorney General s department had in addition processed investigative material in another six cases. However, despite these initiatives, the fact remains that to date no one has been found guilty by a court of law in relation to charges of torture or rape in custody in Sri Lanka.
There are many additional reasons why criminal investigations into complaints of rape are generally unsuccessful. Among them are:
– threats by the perpetrators against the victim and/or the witnesses
– inadequate medical evidence due to poor quality of initial medical examination (in itself sometimes caused by threats to the doctor) or due to delay in taking the victim to a doctor
– lack of independence of the investigating authority: police investigating police or members of the security forces
– slow action by the local authority (normally the police) to investigate
– political or other pressure brought to bear on the investigators
– the victim withdraws the complaint or stops her cooperation with the investigations, under pressure from her family or community in the context of a traditional stigma associated with rape
– transfer of the case to a court a long distance away from the victim s home
– the police fears to act against alleged perpetrators belonging to the security forces.
even the magistrate was theretend
If he is released it is a good news.
Thanks AI, JIM MD for your continuous voice to pressure the sri lankan Government.
Still 1000’s of victim are waiting for the Justice.
Judiciary In Jeopardy in sri lanka
Two magistrates from the Chavakachcheri and Vavuniya Magistrates’ Courts have been transferred with immediate effect to different areas for no specific reason.
Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja have been transferred with immediate effect to Akkaraipattu and Colombo respectively.
When contacted by The Sunday Leader, Prabhakaran confirmed that he had indeed been transferred with immediate effect and has been requested to report to work at the Akkaraipattu Magistrate’s Court tomorrow (21).
He said that Thursday (17) was his last working day at the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court and he has to now move to Akkaraipattu along with his family within a few days.
Alex Raja was not available for comment.
However, the sudden transfers of the two Magistrates are speculated to have taken place following a speech made in parliament by UNP Parliamentarian Jaya Sri Ranga during the last parliamentary sessions.
Sri Ranga in his speech during an adjournment debate directly accused the EPDP, a constituent party in the governing UPFA, of abducting and extorting money from Tamil people in the North while threatening the judges who heard the relevant cases in court.
He has specifically mentioned the names of Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja saying that they were hearing cases against members of the EPDP for alleged threats, abductions, extortion and even murders.
Sri Ranga in his speech called for the independence of the judiciary in the North saying that the judges were under constant threat by members affiliated to the government if they delivered a judgment against alleged extortion.
At the time of the transfer, Chavakachcheri Magistrate Prabhakaran was hearing a case of abduction and murder of a teenager that had taken place in Chavakachcheri during the general election period.
A 19-year-old schoolboy from the Chavakachcheri Hindu College was allegedly abducted and later killed by the group who had abducted him with the intention of extorting money.
Several EPDP members had been accused in the case and EPDP member and Jaffna Deputy Mayor T. Illango alias Regan had allegedly threatened Prabhakaran.
Meanwhile, Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja at the time of his transfer had been under threat and had been asked to withdraw an open warrant issued by him on several suspects in a murder case.
According to Sri Ranga, the suspects in all these cases have been identified as members of the EPDP.
EPDP Leader and Minister Douglas Devananda when contacted by The Sunday Leader on Friday (18) asked us to call him in 10 minutes and did not answer the numerous telephone calls made to his mobile phone afterwards.
Freed Sri Lankan journalist Tissainayagam arrives in U.S.
http://cpj.org/2010/06/freed-sri-lankan-journalist-tissainayagam-arrives.php
good news
My dear Tamil observers,
A telling compilation of testimonies, your above detailed & glaringly illuminating commentaries !!!
Testaments to the Tamil Calvary, still wending its way to Golgotha…
Shova’s barren battlescape of weedgrown bunkers, & soldiers destroying the masses of skeletal remains in them…this is a picture that is indelible, unforgettable, harrowing …
Param on the criminalisation of Tamil ritual mourning for the war dead … Remindful of the stark classic Greek tragedy “Antigone”, where the tyrrant King Creon has forbidden anyone to bury or perform the funerary ceremonies for Antigone’s rebel brothers, whose corpses lie decomposing before the walls of Thebes … ( But even Creon seems more open & honest than the slinking Rajapakse, who’s trying to totally obliterate the mass evidence of his genocide !!! ) !!!
Rama on the parallel obliteration of Tamil signs in the North … Remindful of Jerusalem today, where Arab names & signs are rubbed out in favor of Jewish / Hebrew signs …
Vani’s scathing satire on the “mass marriages” inside the Gulag …Surely without any parallels in its absurdity .. with Shree Vi. Oberoi acting as notary public to the goings on, & a boohooing brigadier lending Bollywoodesque bathos to this maudlin “scene” we’re supposed to choke up on !!!…
Jaffnakovil in a rigorous showing up of the socalled Commission on Lessons Learnt … which is determined NOT to look at the very events whose very lessons we are supposed to be learning !!!
All of you, & those unnamed, continue to illuminate sri lanka’s raging Heart of Darkness for a socalled “international community” that still refuses to look at what you reveal.
You are making this blindness increasingly unbearable for the world.
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
—————–
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
We are only getting some verbal diarrhea from the Shameless Sri Lankan Rajapaksa, the Liar who said there were ZERO civilian casualties in the Tamil War !!!
Why doesn’t the Sri Lanka government allow him to talk to the Free press ?
No one is foolish enough to fall for Mass Murderer Mahinda's lies!! 🙁
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 4:32 am
Hello there Mannr Monkey !!!!!
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
This might come as a surprise to you un-evolved Apes and Monkeys, but, yes, KP has agreed to many more things as well. Eat more bananas for you to understand where KP is coming from.
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
See the following article and picture – this was after his capture – looking good for a person under custody noh? This is how we treat our prisoners – political, terrorist or not. We don't kill those who oppose us like you do. We are still waiting for you to say sorry to all those Tamils you murdered.
http://www.google.lk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.bl…
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 4:32 am
Hello there Mannr Monkey !!!!!
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
This might come as a surprise to you un-evolved Apes and Monkeys, but, yes, KP has agreed to many more things as well. Eat more bananas for you to understand where KP is coming from.
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
See the following article and picture – this was after his capture – looking good for a person under custody noh? This is how we treat our prisoners – political, terrorist or not. We don't kill those who oppose us like you do. We are still waiting for you to say sorry to all those Tamils you murdered.
http://www.google.lk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.bl…
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 4:32 am
Hello there Mannr Monkey !!!!!
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
This might come as a surprise to you un-evolved Apes and Monkeys, but, yes, KP has agreed to many more things as well. Eat more bananas for you to understand where KP is coming from.
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
See the following article and picture – this was after his capture – looking good for a person under custody noh? This is how we treat our prisoners – political, terrorist or not. We don't kill those who oppose us like you do. We are still waiting for you to say sorry to all those Tamils you murdered.
http://www.google.lk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.bl…
Common… JG
Don’t spread the lies here !! 🙂
It was last picture of him.
It was done in the hotel elevator after the Chanel 4 interview
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa's departure from Sri Lanka. See http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/safe-passa…
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels
The Tamil Prisoners Of War are being used for cheap Sinhala propaganda. This is against the Geneva Convention and can be used against the Sinhala war criminals.
These POWS’s are being subjected to the indignity of marrying in front of the killers of their kith and kin. They should be allowed to go home and marry in their villages with the blessing of their parents and relatives. What will happen to them after this drama? Will their Sinhala masters allow them to go and live happily ever after or will they drag them to their separate cells.
Why didn’t they allow any independent foreign journalists to witness this wedding ceremony for propaganda?
Will they allow any independent journalist to verify the condition of their lives in the barbed wire Sinhala camps under the Sinhala thugs in uniform who killed and raped so many Tamil women.
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
Using prisoners of war for propaganda purposes is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and organizations which monitor compliance of international law. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have requested that both the Iraqi and Coalition forces refrain from releasing images of POWs to the media. Now the pictures of all these Tamil POW’s are all over the world. Can anyone guarantees the privacy of these people now.
By parading the images of Tamil POW’s on television, news papers and Internet forums Sri Lanka has violated the Geneva Convention. According to the Geneva Convention any function related to the POW’s must be conducted in front of the members of neutral humanitarian organization, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. But these POWS’s are being subjected to the indignity of marrying in front of the killers of their kith and kin.
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
I don’t think they should be used for Sinhala propaganda. I think they should be allowed to go to their homes and villages and start their new life. Nobody will know their plight in the Sinhala prisons after this ceremony and the photo ops.
Can you guarantee that the Sinhala regime will allow any independent journalist to verify the condition of their lives in the barbed wire Sinhala camps under the control of Sinhala thugs in uniform, who killed and raped so many Tamil women?
It is pathetic to see the hooligans of Peelam trying to give credit to AI for Thissa’s release.
As for AI, good to see that you have started another blog to allow the Apes of Peelam to post all sorts of none sense which are way off topic.
Sad to see that the person who actually pardoned Thissa is not thanked in the bogs. He still could have kept him under lock for the breach of Law – but he has proven to the world he is a great humanitarian !!!
Guess I will have to write off topic in future in this blog as from the looks of it, there will be no posts of relevance to topic in the future – good work AI – keep blogs that would discuss everything and anything under the Sun – Oh BTW, the 21st June 2 Sun rises is a Hoax !
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
Will the Sinhala government allow some independent journalists to verify this ” wedding for ex-rebels in prison” claim. Everyone knows the lies of the Sinhala regime and their minions. First of all why is the army in the business of rehabilitation of the Prisoners of War. Don’t you think some neutral humanitarian organization should be in charge of training and rehabilitating.
Sinhala government and many Sinhala racist organizations trying to brain wash these Tamil youths in prison. That is also against the Geneva Convention. Can be used against the Sinhala war criminals.
Sri Lanka holds mass wedding for ex-rebels
Sri Lanka propaganda to eye eash the world and get more funds 🙂
Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe, said most of the ex-combatants had been living together without formalising their partnerships
—————-
Brigadier ???
Concentration camps or rehab centres ??
It’s fake marriage (like the bride’s fake flowers), in a concentration camps, to make Sinhala regime’s ” pom pom cheer leaders go gaga ” !! 🙂 🙂
Param Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 2:43 am
Sri Lanka holds sham mass wedding for ex-rebels in prison
This post by the mentally challenged Ape Param goes on to further showcase how stupid he is. Actually, there were several posts in this regard by many other Apes in this column meant for Thissa’s release. Anyways, the humans with brains will always understand that rehabilitation doesn’t happen overnight and it is a timely process. At least the 53 couples who had to ensure that their lives were in tact some time back, now express their love to each other in safe heavens where their food and lodging is taken care of. They are also in a society that is willing to accept them and let them live decent lives instead of living in jungles with cyanide capsules around their necks not knowing whether they would see their lovers instead of living with them.
Sad to see the people who sent money to make their lives miserable won’t let them live in peace at least now…… What these Apes of Peelam needs to understand is that it’s not their fault that you are impotent and are not in a position to experience this beauty of marriage which they are experiencing – At least they are happy and moving on with their lives – as for you apes – you will be miserable for the rest of your lives if you don’t intend to move on !!
Disappearances, sexual abuse and extortion by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Vanni where people have been allowed to resettle have increased and the victims are helpless as there are no authorities to complain against the violence except to the SLA in Vanni, a government officer in Vanni said. Meanwhile, SLA earmarks properties with Reserved for SLA notice boards and the owners of the marked properties have to pay large sums of money to claim their properties back.
LOL – Lot’s of Apes seem to be fascinated with the idea of Mass weddings…. Probably because it will be something that they will never experience in their lives as impotent farts. – LOL…. All seem to be visiting Tamil nut and pasting the same article over and over again – Interesting – Probably what this blog is meant for by AI !!!
Complaints of rape, like other complaints of torture, are often not effectively dealt with by police, magistrates or doctors. Deficiencies in the early stages of the criminal investigation process have repeatedly contributed to the ultimate collapse of the investigation of the alleged rape and the prosecution of the alleged perpetrators.
It also stated that ‘every case of alleged criminal conduct committed by the armed forces and police has been investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted, although there may have been unavoidable legal delays’. Contrary to the government s assertion not a single member of the security forces has been brought to trial in connection to incidents of rape in custody although one successful prosecution has been brought in a case where the victim of rape was also murdered. An analysis of the cases in which investigations were conducted and trial proceedings initiated suggests that the authorities are far more inclined to take action if there is a considerable amount of public pressure.
government announced that seven indictments had been presented to the High Courts with regard to the alleged perpetration of torture and that the ‘Prosecution of Torture Perpetrators Unit’ in the Attorney General s department had in addition processed investigative material in another six cases. However, despite these initiatives, the fact remains that to date no one has been found guilty by a court of law in relation to charges of torture or rape in custody in Sri Lanka.
There are many additional reasons why criminal investigations into complaints of rape are generally unsuccessful. Among them are:
– threats by the perpetrators against the victim and/or the witnesses
– inadequate medical evidence due to poor quality of initial medical examination (in itself sometimes caused by threats to the doctor) or due to delay in taking the victim to a doctor
– lack of independence of the investigating authority: police investigating police or members of the security forces
– slow action by the local authority (normally the police) to investigate
– political or other pressure brought to bear on the investigators
– the victim withdraws the complaint or stops her cooperation with the investigations, under pressure from her family or community in the context of a traditional stigma associated with rape
– transfer of the case to a court a long distance away from the victim s home
– the police fears to act against alleged perpetrators belonging to the security forces.
even the magistrate was theretend
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa's departure from Sri Lanka. See http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/safe-passa…
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa's departure from Sri Lanka. See http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/safe-passa…
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
—————–
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
We are only getting some verbal diarrhea from the Shameless Sri Lankan Rajapaksa, the Liar who said there were ZERO civilian casualties in the Tamil War !!!
Why doesn’t the Sri Lanka government allow him to talk to the Free press ?
No one is foolish enough to fall for Mass Murderer Mahinda’s lies!! 🙁
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 4:32 am
Hello there Mannr Monkey !!!!!
KP agrees to cooperate in rehabilitation ???
This might come as a surprise to you un-evolved Apes and Monkeys, but, yes, KP has agreed to many more things as well. Eat more bananas for you to understand where KP is coming from.
We have not even seen a single photograph of KP since he was kidnapped by Sri Lanka !!
See the following article and picture – this was after his capture – looking good for a person under custody noh? This is how we treat our prisoners – political, terrorist or not. We don’t kill those who oppose us like you do. We are still waiting for you to say sorry to all those Tamils you murdered.
http://www.google.lk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BPTyebgsZfQ/Snt7AUwyIbI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/1qiC9OB38gs/s1600/pathma_20090807002.jpg&imgrefurl=http://bailaman.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-tamil-tiger-leader-pathmanathan.html&usg=__R90F-isAVF_ngEmK7BrQIzKXoAM=&h=587&w=445&sz=53&hl=en&start=6&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ioTV_OuVFqGjTM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkumaran%2Bpathmanathan%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1
Tissa has to thank Jim.
Japan backs U.N. bid to probe Sri Lanka abuses+ http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GET1A00…
is Yasushi Akashi really saying?
Govt. silent now, but Rambukwella hits out http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100620/News/nws_02.html
Common… JG
Don’t spread the lies here !! 🙂
It was last picture of him.
It was done in the hotel elevator after the Chanel 4 interview
Tissa has to thank Jim.
Japan backs U.N. bid to probe Sri Lanka abuses+ http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GET1A00…
is Yasushi Akashi really saying?
Govt. silent now, but Rambukwella hits out http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100620/News/nws_02.html
Tissa has to thank Jim.
Japan backs U.N. bid to probe Sri Lanka abuses+ http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GET1A00…
is Yasushi Akashi really saying?
Govt. silent now, but Rambukwella hits out http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100620/News/nws_02.html
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa’s departure from Sri Lanka. See http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/safe-passage-for-tissainayagam-just-one-step-toward-free-media-in-sri-lanka
Tissa has to thank Jim.
Japan backs U.N. bid to probe Sri Lanka abuses+
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GET1A00&show_article=1
is Yasushi Akashi really saying?
Govt. silent now, but Rambukwella hits out
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100620/News/nws_02.html
Dear Jim,
I'd expect at least a modicum of accuracy in your post, but given your previous form on the false claims of cluster bombs, I'm not surprised by your omissions and distortions.
Tissa's release had nothing at all do with any pressure from AI. It was due to geo-politics, gaining good PR and just plain old-fashioned politics. AI have burnt their bridges and boats in SL and are not in a position to demand or threaten the legitimate govt of SL in the current post-war phase.
For the record:
You say: "after an unfair trial" How do you know that it was 'unfair'? Do you have all the transcripts to prove your assertion? It was a fair trial and Tissa had (by all accounts) a poor defence attorney. It was a straightforward trial.
You say: "criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war:
Not true. He was on trial for "for inciting communal violence through his writings and receiving money from the LTTE, a banned terrorist group in SL"
The story about the disappeared 'journalist' Prageeth is shrouded in mystery, double dealing and some very odd goings on. It's not a clear cut 'good' vs. 'bad' that you try to claim.
Repealing the PTA and other Emergency Regs will be determined by the legitimate govt of SL and not at the behest of an increasingly hysterical and irrelevant international HR caucus. Remember, it wasn't HR activists who had to shoulder the burden of LTTE terrorism. It was the ordinary people of SL, whether Tamil, Sinhalese, soldier, terrorist (willing or unwilling) and civilians.
And this is especially for the Distraught Donkeys of Eelam (and their 'Human Rights' supporters),
White Masters are unable to take revenge against Sri Lanka, on behalf of Donkey Diaspora 🙂
A good summary of the failure of morally compromised Western bloc and its hysterical 'human rights' groups to punish SL for having dared to vapourise the LTTE, albeit with heavy civilian casualties.
As always, 'facts on the ground', (the term favoured by the LTTE when it held all the cards) do not favour the West and the INGO HR circus.
http://www.lakbimanews.lk/special/spe2.htm
"Akashi made Japan’s position on war crimes allegations clear on Monday, in comments to media after his meeting with External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris. The international community should not dwell on the past, he said. If there were reasonable allegations that international norms of combat were violated, it was for Sri Lanka to define the precise role of an inquiry. “It is not for other governments or international organizations to dictate to Sri Lanka what it should be doing in this highly complicated and sensitive area,” he said.
….at a press conference on Thursday, Pascoe showed no signs of tension with the government. He said he was “very impressed” by the government’s efforts to provide basic facilities for the internally displaced and showed appreciation for the difficult task Sri Lanka faced in recovering from the trauma of a 25-year-old war.
Pascoe confirmed … Ban Ki-moon will set up a panel next week to advise him on international standards and comparative experiences with accountability. He said it will also be available as a resource Sri Lankans can turn to. He indicated that the panel’s members would have a broad mandate. The indication was that the panel would be more of a body that Sri Lanka could rely on for assistance rather than one that would query the military’s actions during the final stages of the war.
In Pascoe’s own words last week, there have been “many misunderstandings about what the panel will do”. He said there was “no cause for concern” and that it would be “very useful for the government”. So much for Ban Ki-moon’s sensational panel.
Meanwhile, Pascoe, when questioned about Sarath Fonseka’s detention, emphasised that it was an internal matter that should be left to the Sri Lankan legal system. This, it is understood, is also the position of the US which is now placing great emphasis on domestic process.
So repeat after me: it is a domestic matter. Once that's penetrated your Eelamish mindset, you'll lead much happier and more fulfilling lives.
And also, Oh, you might want to remember these preceptive words from Mahinda Mama:
"One cannot succeed in liberating the motherland by keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight. When we came forward to liberate the motherland, it was not done thinking that the leader, the people and the country were separate from each other, but was a single entity."
That is the failure of the pro-LTTE diaspora distilled into 12 words. Keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight.
Dear Jim,
I'd expect at least a modicum of accuracy in your post, but given your previous form on the false claims of cluster bombs, I'm not surprised by your omissions and distortions.
Tissa's release had nothing at all do with any pressure from AI. It was due to geo-politics, gaining good PR and just plain old-fashioned politics. AI have burnt their bridges and boats in SL and are not in a position to demand or threaten the legitimate govt of SL in the current post-war phase.
For the record:
You say: "after an unfair trial" How do you know that it was 'unfair'? Do you have all the transcripts to prove your assertion? It was a fair trial and Tissa had (by all accounts) a poor defence attorney. It was a straightforward trial.
You say: "criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war:
Not true. He was on trial for "for inciting communal violence through his writings and receiving money from the LTTE, a banned terrorist group in SL"
The story about the disappeared 'journalist' Prageeth is shrouded in mystery, double dealing and some very odd goings on. It's not a clear cut 'good' vs. 'bad' that you try to claim.
Repealing the PTA and other Emergency Regs will be determined by the legitimate govt of SL and not at the behest of an increasingly hysterical and irrelevant international HR caucus. Remember, it wasn't HR activists who had to shoulder the burden of LTTE terrorism. It was the ordinary people of SL, whether Tamil, Sinhalese, soldier, terrorist (willing or unwilling) and civilians.
And this is especially for the Distraught Donkeys of Eelam (and their 'Human Rights' supporters),
White Masters are unable to take revenge against Sri Lanka, on behalf of Donkey Diaspora 🙂
A good summary of the failure of morally compromised Western bloc and its hysterical 'human rights' groups to punish SL for having dared to vapourise the LTTE, albeit with heavy civilian casualties.
As always, 'facts on the ground', (the term favoured by the LTTE when it held all the cards) do not favour the West and the INGO HR circus.
http://www.lakbimanews.lk/special/spe2.htm
"Akashi made Japan’s position on war crimes allegations clear on Monday, in comments to media after his meeting with External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris. The international community should not dwell on the past, he said. If there were reasonable allegations that international norms of combat were violated, it was for Sri Lanka to define the precise role of an inquiry. “It is not for other governments or international organizations to dictate to Sri Lanka what it should be doing in this highly complicated and sensitive area,” he said.
….at a press conference on Thursday, Pascoe showed no signs of tension with the government. He said he was “very impressed” by the government’s efforts to provide basic facilities for the internally displaced and showed appreciation for the difficult task Sri Lanka faced in recovering from the trauma of a 25-year-old war.
Pascoe confirmed … Ban Ki-moon will set up a panel next week to advise him on international standards and comparative experiences with accountability. He said it will also be available as a resource Sri Lankans can turn to. He indicated that the panel’s members would have a broad mandate. The indication was that the panel would be more of a body that Sri Lanka could rely on for assistance rather than one that would query the military’s actions during the final stages of the war.
In Pascoe’s own words last week, there have been “many misunderstandings about what the panel will do”. He said there was “no cause for concern” and that it would be “very useful for the government”. So much for Ban Ki-moon’s sensational panel.
Meanwhile, Pascoe, when questioned about Sarath Fonseka’s detention, emphasised that it was an internal matter that should be left to the Sri Lankan legal system. This, it is understood, is also the position of the US which is now placing great emphasis on domestic process.
So repeat after me: it is a domestic matter. Once that's penetrated your Eelamish mindset, you'll lead much happier and more fulfilling lives.
And also, Oh, you might want to remember these preceptive words from Mahinda Mama:
"One cannot succeed in liberating the motherland by keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight. When we came forward to liberate the motherland, it was not done thinking that the leader, the people and the country were separate from each other, but was a single entity."
That is the failure of the pro-LTTE diaspora distilled into 12 words. Keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight.
Dear Jim,
I'd expect at least a modicum of accuracy in your post, but given your previous form on the false claims of cluster bombs, I'm not surprised by your omissions and distortions.
Tissa's release had nothing at all do with any pressure from AI. It was due to geo-politics, gaining good PR and just plain old-fashioned politics. AI have burnt their bridges and boats in SL and are not in a position to demand or threaten the legitimate govt of SL in the current post-war phase.
For the record:
You say: "after an unfair trial" How do you know that it was 'unfair'? Do you have all the transcripts to prove your assertion? It was a fair trial and Tissa had (by all accounts) a poor defence attorney. It was a straightforward trial.
You say: "criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war:
Not true. He was on trial for "for inciting communal violence through his writings and receiving money from the LTTE, a banned terrorist group in SL"
The story about the disappeared 'journalist' Prageeth is shrouded in mystery, double dealing and some very odd goings on. It's not a clear cut 'good' vs. 'bad' that you try to claim.
Repealing the PTA and other Emergency Regs will be determined by the legitimate govt of SL and not at the behest of an increasingly hysterical and irrelevant international HR caucus. Remember, it wasn't HR activists who had to shoulder the burden of LTTE terrorism. It was the ordinary people of SL, whether Tamil, Sinhalese, soldier, terrorist (willing or unwilling) and civilians.
And this is especially for the Distraught Donkeys of Eelam (and their 'Human Rights' supporters),
White Masters are unable to take revenge against Sri Lanka, on behalf of Donkey Diaspora 🙂
A good summary of the failure of morally compromised Western bloc and its hysterical 'human rights' groups to punish SL for having dared to vapourise the LTTE, albeit with heavy civilian casualties.
As always, 'facts on the ground', (the term favoured by the LTTE when it held all the cards) do not favour the West and the INGO HR circus.
http://www.lakbimanews.lk/special/spe2.htm
"Akashi made Japan’s position on war crimes allegations clear on Monday, in comments to media after his meeting with External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris. The international community should not dwell on the past, he said. If there were reasonable allegations that international norms of combat were violated, it was for Sri Lanka to define the precise role of an inquiry. “It is not for other governments or international organizations to dictate to Sri Lanka what it should be doing in this highly complicated and sensitive area,” he said.
….at a press conference on Thursday, Pascoe showed no signs of tension with the government. He said he was “very impressed” by the government’s efforts to provide basic facilities for the internally displaced and showed appreciation for the difficult task Sri Lanka faced in recovering from the trauma of a 25-year-old war.
Pascoe confirmed … Ban Ki-moon will set up a panel next week to advise him on international standards and comparative experiences with accountability. He said it will also be available as a resource Sri Lankans can turn to. He indicated that the panel’s members would have a broad mandate. The indication was that the panel would be more of a body that Sri Lanka could rely on for assistance rather than one that would query the military’s actions during the final stages of the war.
In Pascoe’s own words last week, there have been “many misunderstandings about what the panel will do”. He said there was “no cause for concern” and that it would be “very useful for the government”. So much for Ban Ki-moon’s sensational panel.
Meanwhile, Pascoe, when questioned about Sarath Fonseka’s detention, emphasised that it was an internal matter that should be left to the Sri Lankan legal system. This, it is understood, is also the position of the US which is now placing great emphasis on domestic process.
So repeat after me: it is a domestic matter. Once that's penetrated your Eelamish mindset, you'll lead much happier and more fulfilling lives.
And also, Oh, you might want to remember these preceptive words from Mahinda Mama:
"One cannot succeed in liberating the motherland by keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight. When we came forward to liberate the motherland, it was not done thinking that the leader, the people and the country were separate from each other, but was a single entity."
That is the failure of the pro-LTTE diaspora distilled into 12 words. Keeping your son at home and getting another's son to fight.
Jim McDonald Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 8:35 am
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa’s departure from Sri Lanka.
So what ???????
It's done and over with – is it such a Huge deal for you to brag on about over and over ?? don't you have any other important HR aspects to look in to ????
Why not try to solve the Kaveri River issue in Tanilnadu ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_Water_D…
May be you will get more support from the target audience you are trying to gain – as the Apes who write in these blogs !
Dear Jim,
I’d expect at least a modicum of accuracy in your post, but given your previous form on the false claims of cluster bombs, I’m not surprised by your omissions and distortions.
Tissa’s release had nothing at all do with any pressure from AI. It was due to geo-politics, gaining good PR and just plain old-fashioned politics. AI have burnt their bridges and boats in SL and are not in a position to demand or threaten the legitimate govt of SL in the current post-war phase.
For the record:
You say: “after an unfair trial” How do you know that it was ‘unfair’? Do you have all the transcripts to prove your assertion? It was a fair trial and Tissa had (by all accounts) a poor defence attorney. It was a straightforward trial.
You say: “criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war:
Not true. He was on trial for “for inciting communal violence through his writings and receiving money from the LTTE, a banned terrorist group in SL”
The story about the disappeared ‘journalist’ Prageeth is shrouded in mystery, double dealing and some very odd goings on. It’s not a clear cut ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ that you try to claim.
Repealing the PTA and other Emergency Regs will be determined by the legitimate govt of SL and not at the behest of an increasingly hysterical and irrelevant international HR caucus. Remember, it wasn’t HR activists who had to shoulder the burden of LTTE terrorism. It was the ordinary people of SL, whether Tamil, Sinhalese, soldier, terrorist (willing or unwilling) and civilians.
And this is especially for the Distraught Donkeys of Eelam (and their ‘Human Rights’ supporters),
White Masters are unable to take revenge against Sri Lanka, on behalf of Donkey Diaspora 🙂
A good summary of the failure of morally compromised Western bloc and its hysterical ‘human rights’ groups to punish SL for having dared to vapourise the LTTE, albeit with heavy civilian casualties.
As always, ‘facts on the ground’, (the term favoured by the LTTE when it held all the cards) do not favour the West and the INGO HR circus.
http://www.lakbimanews.lk/special/spe2.htm
“Akashi made Japan’s position on war crimes allegations clear on Monday, in comments to media after his meeting with External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris. The international community should not dwell on the past, he said. If there were reasonable allegations that international norms of combat were violated, it was for Sri Lanka to define the precise role of an inquiry. “It is not for other governments or international organizations to dictate to Sri Lanka what it should be doing in this highly complicated and sensitive area,” he said.
….at a press conference on Thursday, Pascoe showed no signs of tension with the government. He said he was “very impressed” by the government’s efforts to provide basic facilities for the internally displaced and showed appreciation for the difficult task Sri Lanka faced in recovering from the trauma of a 25-year-old war.
Pascoe confirmed … Ban Ki-moon will set up a panel next week to advise him on international standards and comparative experiences with accountability. He said it will also be available as a resource Sri Lankans can turn to. He indicated that the panel’s members would have a broad mandate. The indication was that the panel would be more of a body that Sri Lanka could rely on for assistance rather than one that would query the military’s actions during the final stages of the war.
In Pascoe’s own words last week, there have been “many misunderstandings about what the panel will do”. He said there was “no cause for concern” and that it would be “very useful for the government”. So much for Ban Ki-moon’s sensational panel.
Meanwhile, Pascoe, when questioned about Sarath Fonseka’s detention, emphasised that it was an internal matter that should be left to the Sri Lankan legal system. This, it is understood, is also the position of the US which is now placing great emphasis on domestic process.
So repeat after me: it is a domestic matter. Once that’s penetrated your Eelamish mindset, you’ll lead much happier and more fulfilling lives.
And also, Oh, you might want to remember these preceptive words from Mahinda Mama:
“One cannot succeed in liberating the motherland by keeping your son at home and getting another’s son to fight. When we came forward to liberate the motherland, it was not done thinking that the leader, the people and the country were separate from each other, but was a single entity.”
That is the failure of the pro-LTTE diaspora distilled into 12 words. Keeping your son at home and getting another’s son to fight.
Jim McDonald Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 8:35 am
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa’s departure from Sri Lanka.
So what ???????
It's done and over with – is it such a Huge deal for you to brag on about over and over ?? don't you have any other important HR aspects to look in to ????
Why not try to solve the Kaveri River issue in Tanilnadu ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_Water_D…
May be you will get more support from the target audience you are trying to gain – as the Apes who write in these blogs !
Jim McDonald Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 8:35 am
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa’s departure from Sri Lanka.
So what ???????
It's done and over with – is it such a Huge deal for you to brag on about over and over ?? don't you have any other important HR aspects to look in to ????
Why not try to solve the Kaveri River issue in Tanilnadu ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_Water_D…
May be you will get more support from the target audience you are trying to gain – as the Apes who write in these blogs !
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 6:16 am
Hey Mannar Monkey !!
He is still looks the same – hasn't changed since then. I thought that you had never seen him and want's to see his picture !!!! He looks more civilized noh ?? Doesn't look an Ape like Sockinlingam !!
Two magistrates from the Chavakachcheri and Vavuniya Magistrates’ Courts have been transferred with immediate effect to different areas for no specific reason ??
Strange ??
Sri Ranga in his speech during an adjournment debate directly accused the EPDP, a constituent party in the governing UPFA, of abducting and extorting money from Tamil people in the North while threatening the judges who heard the relevant cases in court.
He has specifically mentioned the names of Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja saying that they were hearing cases against members of the EPDP for alleged threats, abductions, extortion and even murders.
————————–
In my opinion, once again the judiciary has come second the EPDP has won the day.
The cunning spineless president has once again shown the world that intimidation and thuggery is the way to be in the land of the lawless.
He has taken over the Justice ministry under his wingless wings and what does he do ?.
A joke this paradise in hell is turning out to be. 🙂
Mannar Monkey !!
Re. your post June 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
I would have loved to have heard your comments when your kind of justice prevailed with the LTTE governance. I don't know the truth behind your post, but, at least the judges were transferred and not KILLED by a bunch of Apes. Do you agree that your law of Killing those who oppose" is a better system of justice ?? Like to hear your thoughts on the Murder of Hon. Lakshman Kadiragamar – a Tamil himself and Neelan Thiru another Tamil. I can actually give you a list of Tamils that were killed under your judiciary. I guess you still would be a good Monkey and say that those killings were right. check out the link..
http://www.spur.asn.au/prominent_tamil_leaders_ki…
Please leave the Joke and go to a place where there are no jokers for you Apes who anyways don't have any kind of sense of humour. We prefer the hell now than the heaven that was before 18th May 2009. I would rather be a joker in the current situation than an Ape in your heaven.
Mannar Monkey !!
Re. your post June 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
I would have loved to have heard your comments when your kind of justice prevailed with the LTTE governance. I don't know the truth behind your post, but, at least the judges were transferred and not KILLED by a bunch of Apes. Do you agree that your law of Killing those who oppose" is a better system of justice ?? Like to hear your thoughts on the Murder of Hon. Lakshman Kadiragamar – a Tamil himself and Neelan Thiru another Tamil. I can actually give you a list of Tamils that were killed under your judiciary. I guess you still would be a good Monkey and say that those killings were right. check out the link..
http://www.spur.asn.au/prominent_tamil_leaders_ki…
Please leave the Joke and go to a place where there are no jokers for you Apes who anyways don't have any kind of sense of humour. We prefer the hell now than the heaven that was before 18th May 2009. I would rather be a joker in the current situation than an Ape in your heaven.
Mannar Monkey !!
Re. your post June 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
I would have loved to have heard your comments when your kind of justice prevailed with the LTTE governance. I don't know the truth behind your post, but, at least the judges were transferred and not KILLED by a bunch of Apes. Do you agree that your law of Killing those who oppose" is a better system of justice ?? Like to hear your thoughts on the Murder of Hon. Lakshman Kadiragamar – a Tamil himself and Neelan Thiru another Tamil. I can actually give you a list of Tamils that were killed under your judiciary. I guess you still would be a good Monkey and say that those killings were right. check out the link..
http://www.spur.asn.au/prominent_tamil_leaders_ki…
Please leave the Joke and go to a place where there are no jokers for you Apes who anyways don't have any kind of sense of humour. We prefer the hell now than the heaven that was before 18th May 2009. I would rather be a joker in the current situation than an Ape in your heaven.
130 Tamil civilians reported disappeared in Batticaloa district since 200
One hundred thirty Tamil civilians are reported disappeared during the last three years in the Batticaloa district since 2007, relatives of the disappeared told Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians at a discussion held Sunday at Batticaloa American Mission Hall.
They requested the TNA parliamentarians to help trace the disappeared. Most of the disappeared were between the ages 20 and 35.
In mid 2005 hundreds of youths seeking employment and students were abducted by Para military group led by Karuna (present Deputy Minister for Resettlement, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan), Pilliayan group and military intelligence group.
In mid 2005 hundreds of youths seeking employment and students and supporters of the LTTE were abducted by Para military group led by Karuna (present Deputy Minister for Resettlement, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan), Pilliayan group and military intelligence group.
They further said that some of the disappeared had been given weapon training and made them cadres of the Para military group TMVP, Karuna group.
Relatives have complained to several non-governmental organizations including Batticaloa Regional Office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, UNICEFand International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC).
The resettled Tamils continue to suffer without drinking water, facilities for health, transport, electricity, insufficient number of teachers, permanent houses, road reparations and employment opportunities.
Meanwhile, 5792 million rupees allocated to them to provide basic facilities to the resettled persons uprooted from areas in Batticaloa district have not been utilized by the Sinhala authorities.
Selvarasa’s accusation comes when reports are issued claiming that the needs of the resettled civilians have been considerably met which written by Depurty minister, Vinayagamoorhty Murlitharan aka Karuna.
Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Jim Brown who was taken away by SLN soldiers and EPDP paramilitary men ( Douglas Devananda group) operating with SLN on his way to Allaippiddi in August 2006 has disappeared since then and so far his fate remains unknown.
The parents of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown who had disappeared without trace in August 2006 after being taken away by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) paramilitary men in Allaippiddi in the islets of Jaffna, recently opened the ‘Jim Brown Memorial School’ built in the premises of St. Peter’s Church in Ma’ndaitheevu, sources in Jaffna said. The school was built by the HUDEC – Caritas Jaffna in remembrance of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, the parish priest of Ma’ndaitheevu St. Peters Church, who had strived to save the remaining residents of Allaippiddi massacred by Sri Lanka Armed forces in August 2006.
Hundreds of children and people of Ma’ndaitheevu participated in the opening ceremony along with the Catholic clergy of the islets of Jaffna.
Government of Sri Lanka is having a long record of "disturbing pattern of incomplete or ineffective investigations" of the extrajudicial killings and there are credible reports that Sri Lanka Navy personnel and armed cadres affiliated with Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), were present at the massacre site on Kayts islet.
Thirteen civilians were massacred in three spots on the Kayts islet controlled by the Sri Lanka Navy. The EPDP, a paramilitary and a political party in the ruling UPFA alliance of the SL President Mahinda Rajapakse, had exercised tight control of the Jaffna islets before the Ceasefire Agreement.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
Jim Gona and others are just 'pipers' to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say " Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other"
The Sri Lanka is on the list of 'worst of the worst' on Human Rights Abuses
Hello there Monkey of Mannar !!
I couldn't help laugh when I read your last post and was wondering whether you are thinking from your rear end than head.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
The government's stand is that there are no Minorities. But, if your intention is to separate the Tamil and Muslim Sri Lankans from the Singhala Sri Lankans, crimes against them have been carried out by the Tigers.
I trust you checked out the link I sent. How many tamils did the tigers kill??? I will give you another link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attr…
These are from credible sources – so have no doubt.
How many Tamils fled Jaffna with fear of their lives because of your Tiger activities? How many Muslims were killed and chased off these areas and how many Singhalees were chased off these areas???
You really got to think from your A$$ not to call these crimes. Now, all Sri Lankans live peacefully and happily in this land as one nation – so, better shove your head up your A$$ to figure out the "Crimes" carried out against any party…
Jim Gona and others are just ‘pipers’ to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
I'd rather be a piper to a worthy cause of bringing a nation together than to be a fart for a dead terrorists who killed their own kind. I know that it would be beyond your power of thinking to fathom it out, but, I don't care, because, your type – the mentally underdeveloped – are small in numbers. So, keep being a smelly fart of the dead Terrorist.
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Like the Tamilnet ????
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say ” Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other”
Better than your 9 year old children with a gun in one hand and a Cyanide capsule around the neck noh ??? Again your fart brain mught not be able to reason it out – but, the humans reading this post will realize – I am writing for their benefit – as for you, I would not care a fart 🙂 !!
The Sri Lanka is on the list of ‘worst of the worst’ on Human Rights Abuses
Yes – it is all because of you farts who went on to abuse HR. The finger will always point to a legitimate government and not a fart terrorist organization of Apes. The world will say Sri Lanka and not Tigerland or Apeland or the Apes and tigers are trying to form a land.
At least now the farting apes are not there – so will see a proper country that respects all rights.
I know that you still will not understand what I say – but that is your problem – I hope that you will gradually start developing your brain and the processing capacity over time before it's too late.
Hello there Monkey of Mannar !!
I couldn't help laugh when I read your last post and was wondering whether you are thinking from your rear end than head.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
The government's stand is that there are no Minorities. But, if your intention is to separate the Tamil and Muslim Sri Lankans from the Singhala Sri Lankans, crimes against them have been carried out by the Tigers.
I trust you checked out the link I sent. How many tamils did the tigers kill??? I will give you another link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attr…
These are from credible sources – so have no doubt.
How many Tamils fled Jaffna with fear of their lives because of your Tiger activities? How many Muslims were killed and chased off these areas and how many Singhalees were chased off these areas???
You really got to think from your A$$ not to call these crimes. Now, all Sri Lankans live peacefully and happily in this land as one nation – so, better shove your head up your A$$ to figure out the "Crimes" carried out against any party…
Jim Gona and others are just ‘pipers’ to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
I'd rather be a piper to a worthy cause of bringing a nation together than to be a fart for a dead terrorists who killed their own kind. I know that it would be beyond your power of thinking to fathom it out, but, I don't care, because, your type – the mentally underdeveloped – are small in numbers. So, keep being a smelly fart of the dead Terrorist.
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Like the Tamilnet ????
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say ” Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other”
Better than your 9 year old children with a gun in one hand and a Cyanide capsule around the neck noh ??? Again your fart brain mught not be able to reason it out – but, the humans reading this post will realize – I am writing for their benefit – as for you, I would not care a fart 🙂 !!
The Sri Lanka is on the list of ‘worst of the worst’ on Human Rights Abuses
Yes – it is all because of you farts who went on to abuse HR. The finger will always point to a legitimate government and not a fart terrorist organization of Apes. The world will say Sri Lanka and not Tigerland or Apeland or the Apes and tigers are trying to form a land.
At least now the farting apes are not there – so will see a proper country that respects all rights.
I know that you still will not understand what I say – but that is your problem – I hope that you will gradually start developing your brain and the processing capacity over time before it's too late.
Hello there Monkey of Mannar !!
I couldn't help laugh when I read your last post and was wondering whether you are thinking from your rear end than head.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
The government's stand is that there are no Minorities. But, if your intention is to separate the Tamil and Muslim Sri Lankans from the Singhala Sri Lankans, crimes against them have been carried out by the Tigers.
I trust you checked out the link I sent. How many tamils did the tigers kill??? I will give you another link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attr…
These are from credible sources – so have no doubt.
How many Tamils fled Jaffna with fear of their lives because of your Tiger activities? How many Muslims were killed and chased off these areas and how many Singhalees were chased off these areas???
You really got to think from your A$$ not to call these crimes. Now, all Sri Lankans live peacefully and happily in this land as one nation – so, better shove your head up your A$$ to figure out the "Crimes" carried out against any party…
Jim Gona and others are just ‘pipers’ to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
I'd rather be a piper to a worthy cause of bringing a nation together than to be a fart for a dead terrorists who killed their own kind. I know that it would be beyond your power of thinking to fathom it out, but, I don't care, because, your type – the mentally underdeveloped – are small in numbers. So, keep being a smelly fart of the dead Terrorist.
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Like the Tamilnet ????
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say ” Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other”
Better than your 9 year old children with a gun in one hand and a Cyanide capsule around the neck noh ??? Again your fart brain mught not be able to reason it out – but, the humans reading this post will realize – I am writing for their benefit – as for you, I would not care a fart 🙂 !!
The Sri Lanka is on the list of ‘worst of the worst’ on Human Rights Abuses
Yes – it is all because of you farts who went on to abuse HR. The finger will always point to a legitimate government and not a fart terrorist organization of Apes. The world will say Sri Lanka and not Tigerland or Apeland or the Apes and tigers are trying to form a land.
At least now the farting apes are not there – so will see a proper country that respects all rights.
I know that you still will not understand what I say – but that is your problem – I hope that you will gradually start developing your brain and the processing capacity over time before it's too late.
Jim McDonald Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 8:35 am
The International Federation of Journalists has issued a press release noting Tissa’s departure from Sri Lanka.
So what ???????
It’s done and over with – is it such a Huge deal for you to brag on about over and over ?? don’t you have any other important HR aspects to look in to ????
Why not try to solve the Kaveri River issue in Tanilnadu ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_Water_Dispute
May be you will get more support from the target audience you are trying to gain – as the Apes who write in these blogs !
Mannar Monk Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 6:16 am
Hey Mannar Monkey !!
He is still looks the same – hasn’t changed since then. I thought that you had never seen him and want’s to see his picture !!!! He looks more civilized noh ?? Doesn’t look an Ape like Sockinlingam !!
Two magistrates from the Chavakachcheri and Vavuniya Magistrates’ Courts have been transferred with immediate effect to different areas for no specific reason ??
Strange ??
Sri Ranga in his speech during an adjournment debate directly accused the EPDP, a constituent party in the governing UPFA, of abducting and extorting money from Tamil people in the North while threatening the judges who heard the relevant cases in court.
He has specifically mentioned the names of Chavakachcheri Magistrate T.J. Prabhakaran and Vavuniya Magistrate Alex Raja saying that they were hearing cases against members of the EPDP for alleged threats, abductions, extortion and even murders.
————————–
In my opinion, once again the judiciary has come second the EPDP has won the day.
The cunning spineless president has once again shown the world that intimidation and thuggery is the way to be in the land of the lawless.
He has taken over the Justice ministry under his wingless wings and what does he do ?.
A joke this paradise in hell is turning out to be. 🙂
Mannar Monkey !!
Re. your post June 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 am
I would have loved to have heard your comments when your kind of justice prevailed with the LTTE governance. I don’t know the truth behind your post, but, at least the judges were transferred and not KILLED by a bunch of Apes. Do you agree that your law of Killing those who oppose” is a better system of justice ?? Like to hear your thoughts on the Murder of Hon. Lakshman Kadiragamar – a Tamil himself and Neelan Thiru another Tamil. I can actually give you a list of Tamils that were killed under your judiciary. I guess you still would be a good Monkey and say that those killings were right. check out the link..
http://www.spur.asn.au/prominent_tamil_leaders_killed.htm
Please leave the Joke and go to a place where there are no jokers for you Apes who anyways don’t have any kind of sense of humour. We prefer the hell now than the heaven that was before 18th May 2009. I would rather be a joker in the current situation than an Ape in your heaven.
130 Tamil civilians reported disappeared in Batticaloa district since 200
One hundred thirty Tamil civilians are reported disappeared during the last three years in the Batticaloa district since 2007, relatives of the disappeared told Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians at a discussion held Sunday at Batticaloa American Mission Hall.
They requested the TNA parliamentarians to help trace the disappeared. Most of the disappeared were between the ages 20 and 35.
In mid 2005 hundreds of youths seeking employment and students were abducted by Para military group led by Karuna (present Deputy Minister for Resettlement, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan), Pilliayan group and military intelligence group.
In mid 2005 hundreds of youths seeking employment and students and supporters of the LTTE were abducted by Para military group led by Karuna (present Deputy Minister for Resettlement, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan), Pilliayan group and military intelligence group.
They further said that some of the disappeared had been given weapon training and made them cadres of the Para military group TMVP, Karuna group.
Relatives have complained to several non-governmental organizations including Batticaloa Regional Office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, UNICEFand International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC).
The resettled Tamils continue to suffer without drinking water, facilities for health, transport, electricity, insufficient number of teachers, permanent houses, road reparations and employment opportunities.
Meanwhile, 5792 million rupees allocated to them to provide basic facilities to the resettled persons uprooted from areas in Batticaloa district have not been utilized by the Sinhala authorities.
Selvarasa’s accusation comes when reports are issued claiming that the needs of the resettled civilians have been considerably met which written by Depurty minister, Vinayagamoorhty Murlitharan aka Karuna.
Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Jim Brown who was taken away by SLN soldiers and EPDP paramilitary men ( Douglas Devananda group) operating with SLN on his way to Allaippiddi in August 2006 has disappeared since then and so far his fate remains unknown.
The parents of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown who had disappeared without trace in August 2006 after being taken away by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) paramilitary men in Allaippiddi in the islets of Jaffna, recently opened the ‘Jim Brown Memorial School’ built in the premises of St. Peter’s Church in Ma’ndaitheevu, sources in Jaffna said. The school was built by the HUDEC – Caritas Jaffna in remembrance of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, the parish priest of Ma’ndaitheevu St. Peters Church, who had strived to save the remaining residents of Allaippiddi massacred by Sri Lanka Armed forces in August 2006.
Hundreds of children and people of Ma’ndaitheevu participated in the opening ceremony along with the Catholic clergy of the islets of Jaffna.
Government of Sri Lanka is having a long record of “disturbing pattern of incomplete or ineffective investigations” of the extrajudicial killings and there are credible reports that Sri Lanka Navy personnel and armed cadres affiliated with Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), were present at the massacre site on Kayts islet.
Thirteen civilians were massacred in three spots on the Kayts islet controlled by the Sri Lanka Navy. The EPDP, a paramilitary and a political party in the ruling UPFA alliance of the SL President Mahinda Rajapakse, had exercised tight control of the Jaffna islets before the Ceasefire Agreement.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
Jim Gona and others are just ‘pipers’ to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say ” Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other”
The Sri Lanka is on the list of ‘worst of the worst’ on Human Rights Abuses
Hello there Monkey of Mannar !!
I couldn’t help laugh when I read your last post and was wondering whether you are thinking from your rear end than head.
It seems that the GoSL still keeping alive the Tiger Story to cover up the worst ever crimes they committed to minorities.
The government’s stand is that there are no Minorities. But, if your intention is to separate the Tamil and Muslim Sri Lankans from the Singhala Sri Lankans, crimes against them have been carried out by the Tigers.
I trust you checked out the link I sent. How many tamils did the tigers kill??? I will give you another link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attributed_to_the_LTTE
These are from credible sources – so have no doubt.
How many Tamils fled Jaffna with fear of their lives because of your Tiger activities? How many Muslims were killed and chased off these areas and how many Singhalees were chased off these areas???
You really got to think from your A$$ not to call these crimes. Now, all Sri Lankans live peacefully and happily in this land as one nation – so, better shove your head up your A$$ to figure out the “Crimes” carried out against any party…
Jim Gona and others are just ‘pipers’ to the Rajapaksa , the ruthless and criminal brothers in Sri Lanka
I’d rather be a piper to a worthy cause of bringing a nation together than to be a fart for a dead terrorists who killed their own kind. I know that it would be beyond your power of thinking to fathom it out, but, I don’t care, because, your type – the mentally underdeveloped – are small in numbers. So, keep being a smelly fart of the dead Terrorist.
Some of the media in the subcontinent is also bought out by the corrupt regime.
Like the Tamilnet ????
Did anybody watch the recent interviews by the Sri Lankan 5th graders.
With the media and others shut out, he went on to say ” Our armed forces went to battle carrying a gun in one hand, the Declaration of Human Rights on the other”
Better than your 9 year old children with a gun in one hand and a Cyanide capsule around the neck noh ??? Again your fart brain mught not be able to reason it out – but, the humans reading this post will realize – I am writing for their benefit – as for you, I would not care a fart 🙂 !!
The Sri Lanka is on the list of ‘worst of the worst’ on Human Rights Abuses
Yes – it is all because of you farts who went on to abuse HR. The finger will always point to a legitimate government and not a fart terrorist organization of Apes. The world will say Sri Lanka and not Tigerland or Apeland or the Apes and tigers are trying to form a land.
At least now the farting apes are not there – so will see a proper country that respects all rights.
I know that you still will not understand what I say – but that is your problem – I hope that you will gradually start developing your brain and the processing capacity over time before it’s too late.
The European Union threatened Tuesday to withdraw by August trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka unless the island makes a written undertaking to improve its human rights record. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, has insisted on "significant improvements on the effective implementation of the human rights conventions" for the island to continue enjoying the trade benefits. The GSP+ scheme gives 16 poor nations preferential access to the vast European market in return for following strict commitments on a variety of social and rights issues. http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/srilanka-rights…
HARD TALK
Many readers may have seen if not read about Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa’s interview with Stephen Sackur of the BBC HardTalk programme in which he calls Sarath Fonseka a liar and threatens to hang him for his position on a war crimes investigation. Local opinion, not surprisingly, given the current political context, has been divided on the propriety of Mr Rajapaksa’s outburst and the damage it could do to the image of the regime and of the country internationally. There are the shocked and perturbed, albeit mostly in private, on the one hand and on the other, the hallelujah chorus of the apparatchiks. http://www.groundviews.org/2010/06/21/hard-talk/
Failure of international system results in slave camps for POWs http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&art…
The plight of the captured LTTE cadres and alleged supporters numbering more than 10,000 in the slave camps of Colombo is a direct result of the deliberate failure of the international system in not recognising them as Prisoners of War. The war broke out by Colombo breaching an internationally enacted peace. The war against the LTTE was internationally abetted. Personnel of some countries, especially India, were known for directly operating in the ground, proving the international dimensions of the war. The call for the surrender of the LTTE was made internationally. The Norwegian peace facilitator publicly made the call. Yet, the international system tries to maintain the issue as ‘internal’. The failure of the system in either not taking direct responsibility of the cadres or declaring them as POWs questions the credibility of the powers dominating the system, Tamil circles said.
By doing so, the system now abets Colombo to politically blackmail the Tamil nation. Colombo and some powers, by roping in some collaborators, are conspiring to link the issue of the cadres with permanent political enslavement of the Tamil nation. Voice should be raised internationally to pre-empt the conspiracy, to relieve the POWs away from manipulation and to bring in the issue under international law and norms of human civilisation, Tamil circles said.
At the close of the war in May 2009, the UN said that Colombo could be permitted to keep the captive-cadres in its custody for a year. No list of captives has been made available to the world then or now. Many cadres are feared slaughtered in the meantime. The captives kept alive perish as slaves in camps while Colombo hoodwinks the world by performing marriages to a few couples.
What the international system is doing in the island will seriously discredit all future peace initiatives anywhere in the world. It is widening the rift between global Tamils and some powers of the system. It is late, but not too late for the international system to approach the national question as a national question and to come out with bold remedies, at least in order to save its own credibility, observers said.
Reports reaching from the camps indicate that many inmates have told their relatives not to visit them. Because they don’t want their relatives pained at seeing their plight. Relatives are permitted to meet them only during the weekends.
The captives are kept in the prison camps in Vavuniyaa in the North, Seruvila in the East, Velikkanthai at the border of Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts, and Thirukkoa’namadu and Kanthak-kaadu located in a reserved forest in Polonnaruwa district, bordering Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts.
The captives at Kanthak-kaadu are kept in the custody of Sri Lanka Army while the inmates of Thirukkoa’namadu are in the custody of the Sri Lanka Air Force.
The Kanthak-kaadu camp, 25 km interior of Velikkanthai, where about 1000 are kept is almost a slave farm of Karuna, the Deputy 'Rehabilitation' Minister of Colombo, reports said.
Dirty drinking water, that too very little, unpalatable food cooked for them by the army cooks, restricted bathing, conditions of mosquitoes and flies so that even while eating they have to be inside nets, forced labour in farming and in doing menial work to the army, denied or restricted medical facilities are reported from this camp, said to be for the ‘rehabilitation’ of the cadres.
Medical treatment is provided only when the patient is totally collapsed.
Visitors have noticed their relatives in the camps further emaciated.
The Thirukkoa’namadu camp is in forest area, 20km from Velikkanthai, and is of roughly 1.5 km wide area. There are three divisions, A, B, and C.
Inmates do the work of clearing the forest. In camp C, each gets only 15 litres of water once in two days for all purposes. In other divisions inmates have dug their own wells.
Visitors on weekends have to register their names with the air force and then have to contact volunteers among the inmates to meet their relatives.
Inmates are forced to work all six days except Sundays.
Full text of the report from eyewitnesses reaching from so-called rehabilitation camps of Velikkanthai and Thirukkoa'namadu, follows:
Condition of Velikanthai, Thirukkoa’namadu ‘rehabilitation’ camps
Persons who had been arrested during the offensive on Vanni by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or persons worked for them or supported them and others who had surrendered themselves later on the assurance that arrangements would be made to rehabilitate them are all being held in the detention camps in Vauniyaa and ‘rehabilitation’ centres in Thirukkoa’namadu, Kanthak-kaadu claimed as Velikkanthai Rehabilitation Centres and in the detention camp in Cheruvila for the past one year. The relatives of these POWs can visit them only during week-ends.
The condition of POWs detained under Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thirukkoa’namadu and those under SLA in Kanththak-kaadu was found to be so very deplorable.
Kanththak-kaadu detention centre seems to belong to present Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation Vinayagamootrthy Muralitharan. It is located in a deserted jungle area around 25 km interior from Velikkanththai junction.
Maavilaa’ru is 0.5 km from this centre and around one thousand persons are being held here. They have to live in very adverse conditions.
The conditions in Kanthak-kaadu are as follows:
There has been no drinking water for the past one month and the detainees have to drink the river water from Maavilaa’ru which is contaminated with dirt and yellow coloured, as there is no facility to boil it before drinking.
Half an hour for bathing is given to those detained who are taken to Maavilaa’ru from each tent by eight or ten SLA soldiers. The second group is taken only after the first group returns and half an hour is hardly enough to bathe and wash clothes.
In the beginning, meals had been cooked by groups of ten detainees on rotation and now the meals are cooked by persons brought in by the SLA. What they get now is half cooked rice and curries, which are not prepared properly, making the food uneatable.
The entire camp is infested with flies and other insects which sometimes are found in their food. The inmates have to take their meals seated within mosquito nets and one of them had told a relative that he no longer could eat anything as he had found a big beetle in the rice.
Though it had been claimed that rehabilitation measures will adopted in the camps so far nothing of that sort has taken place. On the contrary the inmates are made to clear the jungle in the area and to cultivate vegetables. They appeared like slaves being taken to do forced and hard labour.
It was observed that the detainees were taken to work in places far from the detention camp and when relatives come to visit them they are brought to camp at once.
The detainees have to cut grass and erecting tents for the soldiers who constantly watch them.
The food is served at 1:30 p.m. and if one fails to reach the place on time one has to go without food.
A wife said that her husband held in the detention camp appeared to be in worse physical condition than during his time in Vavuniyaa detention centre.
Medical treatment is not given when needed. Only when one’s condition gets worse the person is taken to the hospital.
Recently a detainee had refused to work and when a quarrel ensued with the SLA officer the soldiers had tried to assault the detainee but his tent mates intervened and stopped the army. Later, the person had been transferred from the camp after a stone thrown by him missed the target and hit the Sri Lankan flagpole in the camp.
The visitors to Thirukkoa’namadu detention camp located 20 km for Velikkanthai said conditions were worse than what they had seen in Kanthak-kaadu detention camp.
They are as follow:
The inmates in this camp, which is controlled by SLAF said that they had to erect the tents for themselves and there were three divisions in the camp called A, B and C. They had to clear the thick jungle, felling and burning trees before erecting their tents.
On the way to this detention camp many POWs were seen toiling in the hot sun setting fire to felled trees, digging wells and erecting tents.
This detention camps is set in an area around 15 sq km.
The C division, being constructed only two weeks ago, lacks drinking water. SLAF personnel give a person 2 liters of water once in two days for all purposes. The inmates in other divisions draw water from wells they had dug.
Rice is provided for all three meals of the day.
The detainees request their visitors not to come again to visit them as they do not want to cause pain to their relatives seeing them in such abject condition.
The visiting relatives are taken to the inmates after having registered their names and particulars with the SLAF authorities at the entrance by detainee-volunteers who work on rotation every week-end.
The detainees have to work six days in a week and are free only on Sundays.
UN Sri Lanka Panel To Include Steven Ratner and Yasmin Sooka of S. Africa, Reconciliation or Accountability? http://www.innercitypress.com/sri4bantor062110.ht…
29,035 Canadian Tamils vote in election, results announced http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293680
On Father's Day, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils cast their vote to elect national, provincial and regional representatives to the National Council for Canadian Tamils. The election has been described by many voters and officials as "historic." On Sunday, from Montreal to Edmonton, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils casted their vote at 37 different polling stations to elect officials that best represent them in the National Council for Canadian Tamils (NCCT).
The European Union threatened Tuesday to withdraw by August trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka unless the island makes a written undertaking to improve its human rights record. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, has insisted on "significant improvements on the effective implementation of the human rights conventions" for the island to continue enjoying the trade benefits. The GSP+ scheme gives 16 poor nations preferential access to the vast European market in return for following strict commitments on a variety of social and rights issues. http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/srilanka-rights…
HARD TALK
Many readers may have seen if not read about Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa’s interview with Stephen Sackur of the BBC HardTalk programme in which he calls Sarath Fonseka a liar and threatens to hang him for his position on a war crimes investigation. Local opinion, not surprisingly, given the current political context, has been divided on the propriety of Mr Rajapaksa’s outburst and the damage it could do to the image of the regime and of the country internationally. There are the shocked and perturbed, albeit mostly in private, on the one hand and on the other, the hallelujah chorus of the apparatchiks. http://www.groundviews.org/2010/06/21/hard-talk/
The European Union threatened Tuesday to withdraw by August trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka unless the island makes a written undertaking to improve its human rights record. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, has insisted on "significant improvements on the effective implementation of the human rights conventions" for the island to continue enjoying the trade benefits. The GSP+ scheme gives 16 poor nations preferential access to the vast European market in return for following strict commitments on a variety of social and rights issues. http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/srilanka-rights…
HARD TALK
Many readers may have seen if not read about Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa’s interview with Stephen Sackur of the BBC HardTalk programme in which he calls Sarath Fonseka a liar and threatens to hang him for his position on a war crimes investigation. Local opinion, not surprisingly, given the current political context, has been divided on the propriety of Mr Rajapaksa’s outburst and the damage it could do to the image of the regime and of the country internationally. There are the shocked and perturbed, albeit mostly in private, on the one hand and on the other, the hallelujah chorus of the apparatchiks. http://www.groundviews.org/2010/06/21/hard-talk/
Failure of international system results in slave camps for POWs http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&art…
The plight of the captured LTTE cadres and alleged supporters numbering more than 10,000 in the slave camps of Colombo is a direct result of the deliberate failure of the international system in not recognising them as Prisoners of War. The war broke out by Colombo breaching an internationally enacted peace. The war against the LTTE was internationally abetted. Personnel of some countries, especially India, were known for directly operating in the ground, proving the international dimensions of the war. The call for the surrender of the LTTE was made internationally. The Norwegian peace facilitator publicly made the call. Yet, the international system tries to maintain the issue as ‘internal’. The failure of the system in either not taking direct responsibility of the cadres or declaring them as POWs questions the credibility of the powers dominating the system, Tamil circles said.
By doing so, the system now abets Colombo to politically blackmail the Tamil nation. Colombo and some powers, by roping in some collaborators, are conspiring to link the issue of the cadres with permanent political enslavement of the Tamil nation. Voice should be raised internationally to pre-empt the conspiracy, to relieve the POWs away from manipulation and to bring in the issue under international law and norms of human civilisation, Tamil circles said.
At the close of the war in May 2009, the UN said that Colombo could be permitted to keep the captive-cadres in its custody for a year. No list of captives has been made available to the world then or now. Many cadres are feared slaughtered in the meantime. The captives kept alive perish as slaves in camps while Colombo hoodwinks the world by performing marriages to a few couples.
What the international system is doing in the island will seriously discredit all future peace initiatives anywhere in the world. It is widening the rift between global Tamils and some powers of the system. It is late, but not too late for the international system to approach the national question as a national question and to come out with bold remedies, at least in order to save its own credibility, observers said.
Reports reaching from the camps indicate that many inmates have told their relatives not to visit them. Because they don’t want their relatives pained at seeing their plight. Relatives are permitted to meet them only during the weekends.
The captives are kept in the prison camps in Vavuniyaa in the North, Seruvila in the East, Velikkanthai at the border of Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts, and Thirukkoa’namadu and Kanthak-kaadu located in a reserved forest in Polonnaruwa district, bordering Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts.
The captives at Kanthak-kaadu are kept in the custody of Sri Lanka Army while the inmates of Thirukkoa’namadu are in the custody of the Sri Lanka Air Force.
The Kanthak-kaadu camp, 25 km interior of Velikkanthai, where about 1000 are kept is almost a slave farm of Karuna, the Deputy 'Rehabilitation' Minister of Colombo, reports said.
Dirty drinking water, that too very little, unpalatable food cooked for them by the army cooks, restricted bathing, conditions of mosquitoes and flies so that even while eating they have to be inside nets, forced labour in farming and in doing menial work to the army, denied or restricted medical facilities are reported from this camp, said to be for the ‘rehabilitation’ of the cadres.
Medical treatment is provided only when the patient is totally collapsed.
Visitors have noticed their relatives in the camps further emaciated.
The Thirukkoa’namadu camp is in forest area, 20km from Velikkanthai, and is of roughly 1.5 km wide area. There are three divisions, A, B, and C.
Inmates do the work of clearing the forest. In camp C, each gets only 15 litres of water once in two days for all purposes. In other divisions inmates have dug their own wells.
Visitors on weekends have to register their names with the air force and then have to contact volunteers among the inmates to meet their relatives.
Inmates are forced to work all six days except Sundays.
Full text of the report from eyewitnesses reaching from so-called rehabilitation camps of Velikkanthai and Thirukkoa'namadu, follows:
Condition of Velikanthai, Thirukkoa’namadu ‘rehabilitation’ camps
Persons who had been arrested during the offensive on Vanni by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or persons worked for them or supported them and others who had surrendered themselves later on the assurance that arrangements would be made to rehabilitate them are all being held in the detention camps in Vauniyaa and ‘rehabilitation’ centres in Thirukkoa’namadu, Kanthak-kaadu claimed as Velikkanthai Rehabilitation Centres and in the detention camp in Cheruvila for the past one year. The relatives of these POWs can visit them only during week-ends.
The condition of POWs detained under Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thirukkoa’namadu and those under SLA in Kanththak-kaadu was found to be so very deplorable.
Kanththak-kaadu detention centre seems to belong to present Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation Vinayagamootrthy Muralitharan. It is located in a deserted jungle area around 25 km interior from Velikkanththai junction.
Maavilaa’ru is 0.5 km from this centre and around one thousand persons are being held here. They have to live in very adverse conditions.
The conditions in Kanthak-kaadu are as follows:
There has been no drinking water for the past one month and the detainees have to drink the river water from Maavilaa’ru which is contaminated with dirt and yellow coloured, as there is no facility to boil it before drinking.
Half an hour for bathing is given to those detained who are taken to Maavilaa’ru from each tent by eight or ten SLA soldiers. The second group is taken only after the first group returns and half an hour is hardly enough to bathe and wash clothes.
In the beginning, meals had been cooked by groups of ten detainees on rotation and now the meals are cooked by persons brought in by the SLA. What they get now is half cooked rice and curries, which are not prepared properly, making the food uneatable.
The entire camp is infested with flies and other insects which sometimes are found in their food. The inmates have to take their meals seated within mosquito nets and one of them had told a relative that he no longer could eat anything as he had found a big beetle in the rice.
Though it had been claimed that rehabilitation measures will adopted in the camps so far nothing of that sort has taken place. On the contrary the inmates are made to clear the jungle in the area and to cultivate vegetables. They appeared like slaves being taken to do forced and hard labour.
It was observed that the detainees were taken to work in places far from the detention camp and when relatives come to visit them they are brought to camp at once.
The detainees have to cut grass and erecting tents for the soldiers who constantly watch them.
The food is served at 1:30 p.m. and if one fails to reach the place on time one has to go without food.
A wife said that her husband held in the detention camp appeared to be in worse physical condition than during his time in Vavuniyaa detention centre.
Medical treatment is not given when needed. Only when one’s condition gets worse the person is taken to the hospital.
Recently a detainee had refused to work and when a quarrel ensued with the SLA officer the soldiers had tried to assault the detainee but his tent mates intervened and stopped the army. Later, the person had been transferred from the camp after a stone thrown by him missed the target and hit the Sri Lankan flagpole in the camp.
The visitors to Thirukkoa’namadu detention camp located 20 km for Velikkanthai said conditions were worse than what they had seen in Kanthak-kaadu detention camp.
They are as follow:
The inmates in this camp, which is controlled by SLAF said that they had to erect the tents for themselves and there were three divisions in the camp called A, B and C. They had to clear the thick jungle, felling and burning trees before erecting their tents.
On the way to this detention camp many POWs were seen toiling in the hot sun setting fire to felled trees, digging wells and erecting tents.
This detention camps is set in an area around 15 sq km.
The C division, being constructed only two weeks ago, lacks drinking water. SLAF personnel give a person 2 liters of water once in two days for all purposes. The inmates in other divisions draw water from wells they had dug.
Rice is provided for all three meals of the day.
The detainees request their visitors not to come again to visit them as they do not want to cause pain to their relatives seeing them in such abject condition.
The visiting relatives are taken to the inmates after having registered their names and particulars with the SLAF authorities at the entrance by detainee-volunteers who work on rotation every week-end.
The detainees have to work six days in a week and are free only on Sundays.
Failure of international system results in slave camps for POWs http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&art…
The plight of the captured LTTE cadres and alleged supporters numbering more than 10,000 in the slave camps of Colombo is a direct result of the deliberate failure of the international system in not recognising them as Prisoners of War. The war broke out by Colombo breaching an internationally enacted peace. The war against the LTTE was internationally abetted. Personnel of some countries, especially India, were known for directly operating in the ground, proving the international dimensions of the war. The call for the surrender of the LTTE was made internationally. The Norwegian peace facilitator publicly made the call. Yet, the international system tries to maintain the issue as ‘internal’. The failure of the system in either not taking direct responsibility of the cadres or declaring them as POWs questions the credibility of the powers dominating the system, Tamil circles said.
By doing so, the system now abets Colombo to politically blackmail the Tamil nation. Colombo and some powers, by roping in some collaborators, are conspiring to link the issue of the cadres with permanent political enslavement of the Tamil nation. Voice should be raised internationally to pre-empt the conspiracy, to relieve the POWs away from manipulation and to bring in the issue under international law and norms of human civilisation, Tamil circles said.
At the close of the war in May 2009, the UN said that Colombo could be permitted to keep the captive-cadres in its custody for a year. No list of captives has been made available to the world then or now. Many cadres are feared slaughtered in the meantime. The captives kept alive perish as slaves in camps while Colombo hoodwinks the world by performing marriages to a few couples.
What the international system is doing in the island will seriously discredit all future peace initiatives anywhere in the world. It is widening the rift between global Tamils and some powers of the system. It is late, but not too late for the international system to approach the national question as a national question and to come out with bold remedies, at least in order to save its own credibility, observers said.
Reports reaching from the camps indicate that many inmates have told their relatives not to visit them. Because they don’t want their relatives pained at seeing their plight. Relatives are permitted to meet them only during the weekends.
The captives are kept in the prison camps in Vavuniyaa in the North, Seruvila in the East, Velikkanthai at the border of Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts, and Thirukkoa’namadu and Kanthak-kaadu located in a reserved forest in Polonnaruwa district, bordering Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts.
The captives at Kanthak-kaadu are kept in the custody of Sri Lanka Army while the inmates of Thirukkoa’namadu are in the custody of the Sri Lanka Air Force.
The Kanthak-kaadu camp, 25 km interior of Velikkanthai, where about 1000 are kept is almost a slave farm of Karuna, the Deputy 'Rehabilitation' Minister of Colombo, reports said.
Dirty drinking water, that too very little, unpalatable food cooked for them by the army cooks, restricted bathing, conditions of mosquitoes and flies so that even while eating they have to be inside nets, forced labour in farming and in doing menial work to the army, denied or restricted medical facilities are reported from this camp, said to be for the ‘rehabilitation’ of the cadres.
Medical treatment is provided only when the patient is totally collapsed.
Visitors have noticed their relatives in the camps further emaciated.
The Thirukkoa’namadu camp is in forest area, 20km from Velikkanthai, and is of roughly 1.5 km wide area. There are three divisions, A, B, and C.
Inmates do the work of clearing the forest. In camp C, each gets only 15 litres of water once in two days for all purposes. In other divisions inmates have dug their own wells.
Visitors on weekends have to register their names with the air force and then have to contact volunteers among the inmates to meet their relatives.
Inmates are forced to work all six days except Sundays.
Full text of the report from eyewitnesses reaching from so-called rehabilitation camps of Velikkanthai and Thirukkoa'namadu, follows:
Condition of Velikanthai, Thirukkoa’namadu ‘rehabilitation’ camps
Persons who had been arrested during the offensive on Vanni by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or persons worked for them or supported them and others who had surrendered themselves later on the assurance that arrangements would be made to rehabilitate them are all being held in the detention camps in Vauniyaa and ‘rehabilitation’ centres in Thirukkoa’namadu, Kanthak-kaadu claimed as Velikkanthai Rehabilitation Centres and in the detention camp in Cheruvila for the past one year. The relatives of these POWs can visit them only during week-ends.
The condition of POWs detained under Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thirukkoa’namadu and those under SLA in Kanththak-kaadu was found to be so very deplorable.
Kanththak-kaadu detention centre seems to belong to present Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation Vinayagamootrthy Muralitharan. It is located in a deserted jungle area around 25 km interior from Velikkanththai junction.
Maavilaa’ru is 0.5 km from this centre and around one thousand persons are being held here. They have to live in very adverse conditions.
The conditions in Kanthak-kaadu are as follows:
There has been no drinking water for the past one month and the detainees have to drink the river water from Maavilaa’ru which is contaminated with dirt and yellow coloured, as there is no facility to boil it before drinking.
Half an hour for bathing is given to those detained who are taken to Maavilaa’ru from each tent by eight or ten SLA soldiers. The second group is taken only after the first group returns and half an hour is hardly enough to bathe and wash clothes.
In the beginning, meals had been cooked by groups of ten detainees on rotation and now the meals are cooked by persons brought in by the SLA. What they get now is half cooked rice and curries, which are not prepared properly, making the food uneatable.
The entire camp is infested with flies and other insects which sometimes are found in their food. The inmates have to take their meals seated within mosquito nets and one of them had told a relative that he no longer could eat anything as he had found a big beetle in the rice.
Though it had been claimed that rehabilitation measures will adopted in the camps so far nothing of that sort has taken place. On the contrary the inmates are made to clear the jungle in the area and to cultivate vegetables. They appeared like slaves being taken to do forced and hard labour.
It was observed that the detainees were taken to work in places far from the detention camp and when relatives come to visit them they are brought to camp at once.
The detainees have to cut grass and erecting tents for the soldiers who constantly watch them.
The food is served at 1:30 p.m. and if one fails to reach the place on time one has to go without food.
A wife said that her husband held in the detention camp appeared to be in worse physical condition than during his time in Vavuniyaa detention centre.
Medical treatment is not given when needed. Only when one’s condition gets worse the person is taken to the hospital.
Recently a detainee had refused to work and when a quarrel ensued with the SLA officer the soldiers had tried to assault the detainee but his tent mates intervened and stopped the army. Later, the person had been transferred from the camp after a stone thrown by him missed the target and hit the Sri Lankan flagpole in the camp.
The visitors to Thirukkoa’namadu detention camp located 20 km for Velikkanthai said conditions were worse than what they had seen in Kanthak-kaadu detention camp.
They are as follow:
The inmates in this camp, which is controlled by SLAF said that they had to erect the tents for themselves and there were three divisions in the camp called A, B and C. They had to clear the thick jungle, felling and burning trees before erecting their tents.
On the way to this detention camp many POWs were seen toiling in the hot sun setting fire to felled trees, digging wells and erecting tents.
This detention camps is set in an area around 15 sq km.
The C division, being constructed only two weeks ago, lacks drinking water. SLAF personnel give a person 2 liters of water once in two days for all purposes. The inmates in other divisions draw water from wells they had dug.
Rice is provided for all three meals of the day.
The detainees request their visitors not to come again to visit them as they do not want to cause pain to their relatives seeing them in such abject condition.
The visiting relatives are taken to the inmates after having registered their names and particulars with the SLAF authorities at the entrance by detainee-volunteers who work on rotation every week-end.
The detainees have to work six days in a week and are free only on Sundays.
UN Sri Lanka Panel To Include Steven Ratner and Yasmin Sooka of S. Africa, Reconciliation or Accountability? http://www.innercitypress.com/sri4bantor062110.ht…
29,035 Canadian Tamils vote in election, results announced http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293680
On Father's Day, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils cast their vote to elect national, provincial and regional representatives to the National Council for Canadian Tamils. The election has been described by many voters and officials as "historic." On Sunday, from Montreal to Edmonton, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils casted their vote at 37 different polling stations to elect officials that best represent them in the National Council for Canadian Tamils (NCCT).
UN Sri Lanka Panel To Include Steven Ratner and Yasmin Sooka of S. Africa, Reconciliation or Accountability? http://www.innercitypress.com/sri4bantor062110.ht…
29,035 Canadian Tamils vote in election, results announced http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293680
On Father's Day, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils cast their vote to elect national, provincial and regional representatives to the National Council for Canadian Tamils. The election has been described by many voters and officials as "historic." On Sunday, from Montreal to Edmonton, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils casted their vote at 37 different polling stations to elect officials that best represent them in the National Council for Canadian Tamils (NCCT).
The European Union threatened Tuesday to withdraw by August trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka unless the island makes a written undertaking to improve its human rights record. The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, has insisted on “significant improvements on the effective implementation of the human rights conventions” for the island to continue enjoying the trade benefits. The GSP+ scheme gives 16 poor nations preferential access to the vast European market in return for following strict commitments on a variety of social and rights issues.
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/srilanka-rights.59p
HARD TALK
Many readers may have seen if not read about Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa’s interview with Stephen Sackur of the BBC HardTalk programme in which he calls Sarath Fonseka a liar and threatens to hang him for his position on a war crimes investigation. Local opinion, not surprisingly, given the current political context, has been divided on the propriety of Mr Rajapaksa’s outburst and the damage it could do to the image of the regime and of the country internationally. There are the shocked and perturbed, albeit mostly in private, on the one hand and on the other, the hallelujah chorus of the apparatchiks.
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/06/21/hard-talk/
Failure of international system results in slave camps for POWs
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=32029
The plight of the captured LTTE cadres and alleged supporters numbering more than 10,000 in the slave camps of Colombo is a direct result of the deliberate failure of the international system in not recognising them as Prisoners of War. The war broke out by Colombo breaching an internationally enacted peace. The war against the LTTE was internationally abetted. Personnel of some countries, especially India, were known for directly operating in the ground, proving the international dimensions of the war. The call for the surrender of the LTTE was made internationally. The Norwegian peace facilitator publicly made the call. Yet, the international system tries to maintain the issue as ‘internal’. The failure of the system in either not taking direct responsibility of the cadres or declaring them as POWs questions the credibility of the powers dominating the system, Tamil circles said.
By doing so, the system now abets Colombo to politically blackmail the Tamil nation. Colombo and some powers, by roping in some collaborators, are conspiring to link the issue of the cadres with permanent political enslavement of the Tamil nation. Voice should be raised internationally to pre-empt the conspiracy, to relieve the POWs away from manipulation and to bring in the issue under international law and norms of human civilisation, Tamil circles said.
At the close of the war in May 2009, the UN said that Colombo could be permitted to keep the captive-cadres in its custody for a year. No list of captives has been made available to the world then or now. Many cadres are feared slaughtered in the meantime. The captives kept alive perish as slaves in camps while Colombo hoodwinks the world by performing marriages to a few couples.
What the international system is doing in the island will seriously discredit all future peace initiatives anywhere in the world. It is widening the rift between global Tamils and some powers of the system. It is late, but not too late for the international system to approach the national question as a national question and to come out with bold remedies, at least in order to save its own credibility, observers said.
Reports reaching from the camps indicate that many inmates have told their relatives not to visit them. Because they don’t want their relatives pained at seeing their plight. Relatives are permitted to meet them only during the weekends.
The captives are kept in the prison camps in Vavuniyaa in the North, Seruvila in the East, Velikkanthai at the border of Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts, and Thirukkoa’namadu and Kanthak-kaadu located in a reserved forest in Polonnaruwa district, bordering Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts.
The captives at Kanthak-kaadu are kept in the custody of Sri Lanka Army while the inmates of Thirukkoa’namadu are in the custody of the Sri Lanka Air Force.
The Kanthak-kaadu camp, 25 km interior of Velikkanthai, where about 1000 are kept is almost a slave farm of Karuna, the Deputy ‘Rehabilitation’ Minister of Colombo, reports said.
Dirty drinking water, that too very little, unpalatable food cooked for them by the army cooks, restricted bathing, conditions of mosquitoes and flies so that even while eating they have to be inside nets, forced labour in farming and in doing menial work to the army, denied or restricted medical facilities are reported from this camp, said to be for the ‘rehabilitation’ of the cadres.
Medical treatment is provided only when the patient is totally collapsed.
Visitors have noticed their relatives in the camps further emaciated.
The Thirukkoa’namadu camp is in forest area, 20km from Velikkanthai, and is of roughly 1.5 km wide area. There are three divisions, A, B, and C.
Inmates do the work of clearing the forest. In camp C, each gets only 15 litres of water once in two days for all purposes. In other divisions inmates have dug their own wells.
Visitors on weekends have to register their names with the air force and then have to contact volunteers among the inmates to meet their relatives.
Inmates are forced to work all six days except Sundays.
Full text of the report from eyewitnesses reaching from so-called rehabilitation camps of Velikkanthai and Thirukkoa’namadu, follows:
Condition of Velikanthai, Thirukkoa’namadu ‘rehabilitation’ camps
Persons who had been arrested during the offensive on Vanni by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or persons worked for them or supported them and others who had surrendered themselves later on the assurance that arrangements would be made to rehabilitate them are all being held in the detention camps in Vauniyaa and ‘rehabilitation’ centres in Thirukkoa’namadu, Kanthak-kaadu claimed as Velikkanthai Rehabilitation Centres and in the detention camp in Cheruvila for the past one year. The relatives of these POWs can visit them only during week-ends.
The condition of POWs detained under Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thirukkoa’namadu and those under SLA in Kanththak-kaadu was found to be so very deplorable.
Kanththak-kaadu detention centre seems to belong to present Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation Vinayagamootrthy Muralitharan. It is located in a deserted jungle area around 25 km interior from Velikkanththai junction.
Maavilaa’ru is 0.5 km from this centre and around one thousand persons are being held here. They have to live in very adverse conditions.
The conditions in Kanthak-kaadu are as follows:
There has been no drinking water for the past one month and the detainees have to drink the river water from Maavilaa’ru which is contaminated with dirt and yellow coloured, as there is no facility to boil it before drinking.
Half an hour for bathing is given to those detained who are taken to Maavilaa’ru from each tent by eight or ten SLA soldiers. The second group is taken only after the first group returns and half an hour is hardly enough to bathe and wash clothes.
In the beginning, meals had been cooked by groups of ten detainees on rotation and now the meals are cooked by persons brought in by the SLA. What they get now is half cooked rice and curries, which are not prepared properly, making the food uneatable.
The entire camp is infested with flies and other insects which sometimes are found in their food. The inmates have to take their meals seated within mosquito nets and one of them had told a relative that he no longer could eat anything as he had found a big beetle in the rice.
Though it had been claimed that rehabilitation measures will adopted in the camps so far nothing of that sort has taken place. On the contrary the inmates are made to clear the jungle in the area and to cultivate vegetables. They appeared like slaves being taken to do forced and hard labour.
It was observed that the detainees were taken to work in places far from the detention camp and when relatives come to visit them they are brought to camp at once.
The detainees have to cut grass and erecting tents for the soldiers who constantly watch them.
The food is served at 1:30 p.m. and if one fails to reach the place on time one has to go without food.
A wife said that her husband held in the detention camp appeared to be in worse physical condition than during his time in Vavuniyaa detention centre.
Medical treatment is not given when needed. Only when one’s condition gets worse the person is taken to the hospital.
Recently a detainee had refused to work and when a quarrel ensued with the SLA officer the soldiers had tried to assault the detainee but his tent mates intervened and stopped the army. Later, the person had been transferred from the camp after a stone thrown by him missed the target and hit the Sri Lankan flagpole in the camp.
The visitors to Thirukkoa’namadu detention camp located 20 km for Velikkanthai said conditions were worse than what they had seen in Kanthak-kaadu detention camp.
They are as follow:
The inmates in this camp, which is controlled by SLAF said that they had to erect the tents for themselves and there were three divisions in the camp called A, B and C. They had to clear the thick jungle, felling and burning trees before erecting their tents.
On the way to this detention camp many POWs were seen toiling in the hot sun setting fire to felled trees, digging wells and erecting tents.
This detention camps is set in an area around 15 sq km.
The C division, being constructed only two weeks ago, lacks drinking water. SLAF personnel give a person 2 liters of water once in two days for all purposes. The inmates in other divisions draw water from wells they had dug.
Rice is provided for all three meals of the day.
The detainees request their visitors not to come again to visit them as they do not want to cause pain to their relatives seeing them in such abject condition.
The visiting relatives are taken to the inmates after having registered their names and particulars with the SLAF authorities at the entrance by detainee-volunteers who work on rotation every week-end.
The detainees have to work six days in a week and are free only on Sundays.
UN Sri Lanka Panel To Include Steven Ratner and Yasmin Sooka of S. Africa, Reconciliation or Accountability?
http://www.innercitypress.com/sri4bantor062110.html
29,035 Canadian Tamils vote in election, results announced
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293680
On Father’s Day, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils cast their vote to elect national, provincial and regional representatives to the National Council for Canadian Tamils. The election has been described by many voters and officials as “historic.” On Sunday, from Montreal to Edmonton, tens of thousands of Canadian Tamils casted their vote at 37 different polling stations to elect officials that best represent them in the National Council for Canadian Tamils (NCCT).
The Earth belongs to every Man and Woman equally – period!
The Earth belongs to every Man and Woman equally – period!
Sri Lanka celebrates victory anniversary with foreign VIPs: Tamils still victims of State terrorism http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?cat=5&i…
Last week was a remarkable one for the Sri Lankan government. They celebrated the first year of victory over the Tamils, what Sri Lanka is calling peace and reconciliation celebrations. The envoys from the U.S. and Japan, as well as the UN, made a surprise visit to the island last week. Although Sri Lanka announced its victory in the war against the LTTE in May last year, the government was not able to hold the event as earlier scheduled on May 18 due to inclement weather. Torrential rain that caused flooding made hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
After the Sri Lankan president’s first visit to neighbouring India, where several agreements including monetary aid from that country were signed with Indian leaders, Rajapaksa returned home just few weeks ago. On his return home, he met with the Chinese deputy prime minister in Sri Lanka. Both leaders signed six agreements.
The Sri Lankan government seemed to be very excited over the last few weeks, especially at a time when international pressure was mounting on Sri Lanka to conduct an impartial third party investigation into last year’s war abuses, as it is getting widespread support unlike in the past few years. In the outset, the Sri Lankan president was doubly happy last week with the diplomats’ visits and the victory celebrations which took place on Friday, June 18, 2010 at the Galle Face green in Colombo.
When speaking at the event, Rajapaksa said: “The people should have complete faith and confidence that the land that was liberated from terrorism through great sacrifice of life will not be handed over to the forces of separatism again…As long as we remember that those who sacrificed their lives now rest in the soil of our land, I declare with pride that our people shall not leave room for anyone to divide this motherland of ours.”
All the words from Mr. President are just to win the hearts of the diplomatic community. There are some sections of the diplomatic community who do buy the words of those who caused deaths to tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Mr. President and the Sinhala successive governments declared war against the Tamil community in general, and killed their own citizens using internationally banned chemical bombs. Just as Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have done against civilians. This was the exact wording from former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He further said, in order to stop such genocidal war, it is mandatory to educate through elementary schools.
In this context, it is significant to discuss the visit of senior diplomats of the U.S., Japan, and United Nations.
What is the message?
The U.S. National Defence Council’s war crime and National Security Director, David Bushman, as well as the U.S. President Barak Obama’s special envoy, Samantha Power, who is the special advisor to Obama, the Senior Director for the Human Rights and National Defence Council, were the two envoys landed in Colombo on Monday (June 14).
Both envoys, along with U.S. high commissioner for Sri Lanka, Patricia Putninaz, met with the Sri Lankan President on June 15 where they discussed various issues including bilateral relations between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. They both discussed the recent bitter events between the two countries over the war crime abuses. The U.S. is putting pressure on Sri Lanka to accept an international team to investigate the last year’s war abuses while Sri Lanka is adamant not to appoint international team, but is willing to appoint its own team of experts to go into the ‘Reconciliation and lessons learned in terms of recent conflict’.
Also, Japanese special envoy, Yasushi Akashi, landed at Colombo on the evening of June 15. He stayed in Sri Lanka until June 20. During his five-day official visit, he met Sinhala and Tamil-speaking leaders and he paid a visit to Jaffna to oversee the projects initiated by the Japanese government for the war-affected people. Akashi has made numerous visits to Sri Lanka after he was appointed by the Japanese government for Sri Lanka as a special envoy to facilitate talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government after they entered into peace agreement in 2002.
Akashi made several unsuccessful attempts to stop the war against the Tamils when governments led by Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa were in power. As a special envoy, he was not able to influence the Sri Lankan leaders. In this backdrop, he made another visit last week.
Before he left Sri Lanka, Akashi held a press conference and gave contradictory statements. Once, he admitted that the UN should cooperate with Sri Lanka in investigating last year’s abuses through the investigative team appointed by Sri Lanka itself. Also, he said that the panel of experts should be allowed to investigate the matter and they should provide the advice to Ban-ki Moon. Akashi advised Sri Lanka to cooperate with the U.N. He also asked Sri Lanka to work with the UN in the reconciliation process and offer a meaningful political solution to Tamil-speaking people.
The next important visit was by the United Nation Organization’s political division Deputy Secretary, Lyne Pascoe, who arrived on June 16 for a two-day official visit. He met with Sinhala and Tamil politicians. On the day he arrived in Sri Lanka, he paid a visit to Mullaitheevu where the final days of the last phase of the war took place. He met with the relocated people. Soon after, when he returned to Colombo from Vanni, he met with the Sri Lankan President and discussed the efforts of resettlement, political reconciliation, and the human rights abuse issues.
There is no doubt that Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo and other areas received the senior diplomats well. The Sri Lankan government appears desperate to do anything possible to curb the international community’s move to establish international war investigations against Sri Lanka.
Victory parade a showcase to visitors
Some of the visiting diplomats got the chance to see the ‘victory parade’ commemorating the victory over the LTTE last year. Nearly 10,000 Sri Lankan soldiers, who directly participated in the war with the LTTE, took part in the parade.
This parade was a showpiece to the world that the Sri Lankan government is in a good position with the support of two giants of Asia, neighbouring India and its rival China. Sri Lanka is getting enormous monetary and material support from both countries. Each of these countries has a vested economic interest in Sri Lanka. Although these senior diplomats did not take part directly in the parade as guests, they had a great view of the parade preparations and how the decorations were done in Colombo and its suburbs to mark the victory parade.
China is also planning a massive investment in the fishery industry which is to be inaugurated in Mullaitheevu where the final days of the war took place. Former southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa leaked out shocking news that over 25,000 Chinese nationals, who were held in jails in China for crimes, have been brought to Sri Lanka under the guise of working in Sri Lanka. She said these Chinese nationals are a direct threat to South India in particular and throughout India in general. Jayalalithaa further said if these criminal elements, who are the spies of China, launch criminal activities against Tamils in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of Tamils would be victimized.
Obviously, the reason for the parade was to bring credibility to Sri Lanka by showing the might of Sri Lankan military. Due to the victory day event, Sri Lanka announced a public holiday so that people would get the chance to see the event and to pay their respect to their fallen ‘heroes’ who killed over 150,000 Tamil civilians in the three-decade war as well as they conducted numerous rights abuses against Tamils.
However, this was a good showpiece for the Sri Lankan government to show the world that the people are with the government and they are happy that their government succeeded to crush the Tamil Tigers who, as it was said, were posing threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka for more than three decades.
Mr. President said at the parade event that some countries which were being battered by terrorism had gathered strength from Sri Lanka’s victories over the menace and it was time that they looked back to see what had gone wrong with their strategies while Sri Lanka had succeeded.
He further said: “It is a grave error of judgment to think, while being opposed to terrorism targeting you, that terrorism that is no threat to you is good. The world has so far trodden this wrong path. Terrorism remains unvanquished because of this incorrect thinking. The countries that show sympathy towards terrorism and separatism will be the victims of terrorism. This is the lesson of history.”
Political observers argue that Mr. President must also be aware that the modern political scientists have come up with the three types of terrorism; one of which is State Terrorism. Also, Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
Hence, the special envoys from the U.S., Japan, and the UN are another milestone of political success. The question is whether these envoys will keep up their mandates or will they fall into the trap of the Sri Lankan leaders whose hands are soaked in the blood of Tamils
Sri Lanka celebrates victory anniversary with foreign VIPs: Tamils still victims of State terrorism http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?cat=5&i…
Last week was a remarkable one for the Sri Lankan government. They celebrated the first year of victory over the Tamils, what Sri Lanka is calling peace and reconciliation celebrations. The envoys from the U.S. and Japan, as well as the UN, made a surprise visit to the island last week. Although Sri Lanka announced its victory in the war against the LTTE in May last year, the government was not able to hold the event as earlier scheduled on May 18 due to inclement weather. Torrential rain that caused flooding made hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
After the Sri Lankan president’s first visit to neighbouring India, where several agreements including monetary aid from that country were signed with Indian leaders, Rajapaksa returned home just few weeks ago. On his return home, he met with the Chinese deputy prime minister in Sri Lanka. Both leaders signed six agreements.
The Sri Lankan government seemed to be very excited over the last few weeks, especially at a time when international pressure was mounting on Sri Lanka to conduct an impartial third party investigation into last year’s war abuses, as it is getting widespread support unlike in the past few years. In the outset, the Sri Lankan president was doubly happy last week with the diplomats’ visits and the victory celebrations which took place on Friday, June 18, 2010 at the Galle Face green in Colombo.
When speaking at the event, Rajapaksa said: “The people should have complete faith and confidence that the land that was liberated from terrorism through great sacrifice of life will not be handed over to the forces of separatism again…As long as we remember that those who sacrificed their lives now rest in the soil of our land, I declare with pride that our people shall not leave room for anyone to divide this motherland of ours.”
All the words from Mr. President are just to win the hearts of the diplomatic community. There are some sections of the diplomatic community who do buy the words of those who caused deaths to tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Mr. President and the Sinhala successive governments declared war against the Tamil community in general, and killed their own citizens using internationally banned chemical bombs. Just as Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have done against civilians. This was the exact wording from former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He further said, in order to stop such genocidal war, it is mandatory to educate through elementary schools.
In this context, it is significant to discuss the visit of senior diplomats of the U.S., Japan, and United Nations.
What is the message?
The U.S. National Defence Council’s war crime and National Security Director, David Bushman, as well as the U.S. President Barak Obama’s special envoy, Samantha Power, who is the special advisor to Obama, the Senior Director for the Human Rights and National Defence Council, were the two envoys landed in Colombo on Monday (June 14).
Both envoys, along with U.S. high commissioner for Sri Lanka, Patricia Putninaz, met with the Sri Lankan President on June 15 where they discussed various issues including bilateral relations between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. They both discussed the recent bitter events between the two countries over the war crime abuses. The U.S. is putting pressure on Sri Lanka to accept an international team to investigate the last year’s war abuses while Sri Lanka is adamant not to appoint international team, but is willing to appoint its own team of experts to go into the ‘Reconciliation and lessons learned in terms of recent conflict’.
Also, Japanese special envoy, Yasushi Akashi, landed at Colombo on the evening of June 15. He stayed in Sri Lanka until June 20. During his five-day official visit, he met Sinhala and Tamil-speaking leaders and he paid a visit to Jaffna to oversee the projects initiated by the Japanese government for the war-affected people. Akashi has made numerous visits to Sri Lanka after he was appointed by the Japanese government for Sri Lanka as a special envoy to facilitate talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government after they entered into peace agreement in 2002.
Akashi made several unsuccessful attempts to stop the war against the Tamils when governments led by Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa were in power. As a special envoy, he was not able to influence the Sri Lankan leaders. In this backdrop, he made another visit last week.
Before he left Sri Lanka, Akashi held a press conference and gave contradictory statements. Once, he admitted that the UN should cooperate with Sri Lanka in investigating last year’s abuses through the investigative team appointed by Sri Lanka itself. Also, he said that the panel of experts should be allowed to investigate the matter and they should provide the advice to Ban-ki Moon. Akashi advised Sri Lanka to cooperate with the U.N. He also asked Sri Lanka to work with the UN in the reconciliation process and offer a meaningful political solution to Tamil-speaking people.
The next important visit was by the United Nation Organization’s political division Deputy Secretary, Lyne Pascoe, who arrived on June 16 for a two-day official visit. He met with Sinhala and Tamil politicians. On the day he arrived in Sri Lanka, he paid a visit to Mullaitheevu where the final days of the last phase of the war took place. He met with the relocated people. Soon after, when he returned to Colombo from Vanni, he met with the Sri Lankan President and discussed the efforts of resettlement, political reconciliation, and the human rights abuse issues.
There is no doubt that Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo and other areas received the senior diplomats well. The Sri Lankan government appears desperate to do anything possible to curb the international community’s move to establish international war investigations against Sri Lanka.
Victory parade a showcase to visitors
Some of the visiting diplomats got the chance to see the ‘victory parade’ commemorating the victory over the LTTE last year. Nearly 10,000 Sri Lankan soldiers, who directly participated in the war with the LTTE, took part in the parade.
This parade was a showpiece to the world that the Sri Lankan government is in a good position with the support of two giants of Asia, neighbouring India and its rival China. Sri Lanka is getting enormous monetary and material support from both countries. Each of these countries has a vested economic interest in Sri Lanka. Although these senior diplomats did not take part directly in the parade as guests, they had a great view of the parade preparations and how the decorations were done in Colombo and its suburbs to mark the victory parade.
China is also planning a massive investment in the fishery industry which is to be inaugurated in Mullaitheevu where the final days of the war took place. Former southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa leaked out shocking news that over 25,000 Chinese nationals, who were held in jails in China for crimes, have been brought to Sri Lanka under the guise of working in Sri Lanka. She said these Chinese nationals are a direct threat to South India in particular and throughout India in general. Jayalalithaa further said if these criminal elements, who are the spies of China, launch criminal activities against Tamils in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of Tamils would be victimized.
Obviously, the reason for the parade was to bring credibility to Sri Lanka by showing the might of Sri Lankan military. Due to the victory day event, Sri Lanka announced a public holiday so that people would get the chance to see the event and to pay their respect to their fallen ‘heroes’ who killed over 150,000 Tamil civilians in the three-decade war as well as they conducted numerous rights abuses against Tamils.
However, this was a good showpiece for the Sri Lankan government to show the world that the people are with the government and they are happy that their government succeeded to crush the Tamil Tigers who, as it was said, were posing threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka for more than three decades.
Mr. President said at the parade event that some countries which were being battered by terrorism had gathered strength from Sri Lanka’s victories over the menace and it was time that they looked back to see what had gone wrong with their strategies while Sri Lanka had succeeded.
He further said: “It is a grave error of judgment to think, while being opposed to terrorism targeting you, that terrorism that is no threat to you is good. The world has so far trodden this wrong path. Terrorism remains unvanquished because of this incorrect thinking. The countries that show sympathy towards terrorism and separatism will be the victims of terrorism. This is the lesson of history.”
Political observers argue that Mr. President must also be aware that the modern political scientists have come up with the three types of terrorism; one of which is State Terrorism. Also, Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
Hence, the special envoys from the U.S., Japan, and the UN are another milestone of political success. The question is whether these envoys will keep up their mandates or will they fall into the trap of the Sri Lankan leaders whose hands are soaked in the blood of Tamils
Sri Lanka celebrates victory anniversary with foreign VIPs: Tamils still victims of State terrorism http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?cat=5&i…
Last week was a remarkable one for the Sri Lankan government. They celebrated the first year of victory over the Tamils, what Sri Lanka is calling peace and reconciliation celebrations. The envoys from the U.S. and Japan, as well as the UN, made a surprise visit to the island last week. Although Sri Lanka announced its victory in the war against the LTTE in May last year, the government was not able to hold the event as earlier scheduled on May 18 due to inclement weather. Torrential rain that caused flooding made hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
After the Sri Lankan president’s first visit to neighbouring India, where several agreements including monetary aid from that country were signed with Indian leaders, Rajapaksa returned home just few weeks ago. On his return home, he met with the Chinese deputy prime minister in Sri Lanka. Both leaders signed six agreements.
The Sri Lankan government seemed to be very excited over the last few weeks, especially at a time when international pressure was mounting on Sri Lanka to conduct an impartial third party investigation into last year’s war abuses, as it is getting widespread support unlike in the past few years. In the outset, the Sri Lankan president was doubly happy last week with the diplomats’ visits and the victory celebrations which took place on Friday, June 18, 2010 at the Galle Face green in Colombo.
When speaking at the event, Rajapaksa said: “The people should have complete faith and confidence that the land that was liberated from terrorism through great sacrifice of life will not be handed over to the forces of separatism again…As long as we remember that those who sacrificed their lives now rest in the soil of our land, I declare with pride that our people shall not leave room for anyone to divide this motherland of ours.”
All the words from Mr. President are just to win the hearts of the diplomatic community. There are some sections of the diplomatic community who do buy the words of those who caused deaths to tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Mr. President and the Sinhala successive governments declared war against the Tamil community in general, and killed their own citizens using internationally banned chemical bombs. Just as Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have done against civilians. This was the exact wording from former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He further said, in order to stop such genocidal war, it is mandatory to educate through elementary schools.
In this context, it is significant to discuss the visit of senior diplomats of the U.S., Japan, and United Nations.
What is the message?
The U.S. National Defence Council’s war crime and National Security Director, David Bushman, as well as the U.S. President Barak Obama’s special envoy, Samantha Power, who is the special advisor to Obama, the Senior Director for the Human Rights and National Defence Council, were the two envoys landed in Colombo on Monday (June 14).
Both envoys, along with U.S. high commissioner for Sri Lanka, Patricia Putninaz, met with the Sri Lankan President on June 15 where they discussed various issues including bilateral relations between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. They both discussed the recent bitter events between the two countries over the war crime abuses. The U.S. is putting pressure on Sri Lanka to accept an international team to investigate the last year’s war abuses while Sri Lanka is adamant not to appoint international team, but is willing to appoint its own team of experts to go into the ‘Reconciliation and lessons learned in terms of recent conflict’.
Also, Japanese special envoy, Yasushi Akashi, landed at Colombo on the evening of June 15. He stayed in Sri Lanka until June 20. During his five-day official visit, he met Sinhala and Tamil-speaking leaders and he paid a visit to Jaffna to oversee the projects initiated by the Japanese government for the war-affected people. Akashi has made numerous visits to Sri Lanka after he was appointed by the Japanese government for Sri Lanka as a special envoy to facilitate talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government after they entered into peace agreement in 2002.
Akashi made several unsuccessful attempts to stop the war against the Tamils when governments led by Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa were in power. As a special envoy, he was not able to influence the Sri Lankan leaders. In this backdrop, he made another visit last week.
Before he left Sri Lanka, Akashi held a press conference and gave contradictory statements. Once, he admitted that the UN should cooperate with Sri Lanka in investigating last year’s abuses through the investigative team appointed by Sri Lanka itself. Also, he said that the panel of experts should be allowed to investigate the matter and they should provide the advice to Ban-ki Moon. Akashi advised Sri Lanka to cooperate with the U.N. He also asked Sri Lanka to work with the UN in the reconciliation process and offer a meaningful political solution to Tamil-speaking people.
The next important visit was by the United Nation Organization’s political division Deputy Secretary, Lyne Pascoe, who arrived on June 16 for a two-day official visit. He met with Sinhala and Tamil politicians. On the day he arrived in Sri Lanka, he paid a visit to Mullaitheevu where the final days of the last phase of the war took place. He met with the relocated people. Soon after, when he returned to Colombo from Vanni, he met with the Sri Lankan President and discussed the efforts of resettlement, political reconciliation, and the human rights abuse issues.
There is no doubt that Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo and other areas received the senior diplomats well. The Sri Lankan government appears desperate to do anything possible to curb the international community’s move to establish international war investigations against Sri Lanka.
Victory parade a showcase to visitors
Some of the visiting diplomats got the chance to see the ‘victory parade’ commemorating the victory over the LTTE last year. Nearly 10,000 Sri Lankan soldiers, who directly participated in the war with the LTTE, took part in the parade.
This parade was a showpiece to the world that the Sri Lankan government is in a good position with the support of two giants of Asia, neighbouring India and its rival China. Sri Lanka is getting enormous monetary and material support from both countries. Each of these countries has a vested economic interest in Sri Lanka. Although these senior diplomats did not take part directly in the parade as guests, they had a great view of the parade preparations and how the decorations were done in Colombo and its suburbs to mark the victory parade.
China is also planning a massive investment in the fishery industry which is to be inaugurated in Mullaitheevu where the final days of the war took place. Former southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa leaked out shocking news that over 25,000 Chinese nationals, who were held in jails in China for crimes, have been brought to Sri Lanka under the guise of working in Sri Lanka. She said these Chinese nationals are a direct threat to South India in particular and throughout India in general. Jayalalithaa further said if these criminal elements, who are the spies of China, launch criminal activities against Tamils in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of Tamils would be victimized.
Obviously, the reason for the parade was to bring credibility to Sri Lanka by showing the might of Sri Lankan military. Due to the victory day event, Sri Lanka announced a public holiday so that people would get the chance to see the event and to pay their respect to their fallen ‘heroes’ who killed over 150,000 Tamil civilians in the three-decade war as well as they conducted numerous rights abuses against Tamils.
However, this was a good showpiece for the Sri Lankan government to show the world that the people are with the government and they are happy that their government succeeded to crush the Tamil Tigers who, as it was said, were posing threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka for more than three decades.
Mr. President said at the parade event that some countries which were being battered by terrorism had gathered strength from Sri Lanka’s victories over the menace and it was time that they looked back to see what had gone wrong with their strategies while Sri Lanka had succeeded.
He further said: “It is a grave error of judgment to think, while being opposed to terrorism targeting you, that terrorism that is no threat to you is good. The world has so far trodden this wrong path. Terrorism remains unvanquished because of this incorrect thinking. The countries that show sympathy towards terrorism and separatism will be the victims of terrorism. This is the lesson of history.”
Political observers argue that Mr. President must also be aware that the modern political scientists have come up with the three types of terrorism; one of which is State Terrorism. Also, Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
Hence, the special envoys from the U.S., Japan, and the UN are another milestone of political success. The question is whether these envoys will keep up their mandates or will they fall into the trap of the Sri Lankan leaders whose hands are soaked in the blood of Tamils
Sinhala State Terrorism !!!!!!!!
Sinhala State terrorize the Tamil civilians in the Tamil war and continue to terrorize now with impunity !!
Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
Sri Lanka celebrates victory anniversary with foreign VIPs: Tamils still victims of State terrorism
http://www.tamilcanadian.com/page.php?cat=5&id=5921
Last week was a remarkable one for the Sri Lankan government. They celebrated the first year of victory over the Tamils, what Sri Lanka is calling peace and reconciliation celebrations. The envoys from the U.S. and Japan, as well as the UN, made a surprise visit to the island last week. Although Sri Lanka announced its victory in the war against the LTTE in May last year, the government was not able to hold the event as earlier scheduled on May 18 due to inclement weather. Torrential rain that caused flooding made hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
After the Sri Lankan president’s first visit to neighbouring India, where several agreements including monetary aid from that country were signed with Indian leaders, Rajapaksa returned home just few weeks ago. On his return home, he met with the Chinese deputy prime minister in Sri Lanka. Both leaders signed six agreements.
The Sri Lankan government seemed to be very excited over the last few weeks, especially at a time when international pressure was mounting on Sri Lanka to conduct an impartial third party investigation into last year’s war abuses, as it is getting widespread support unlike in the past few years. In the outset, the Sri Lankan president was doubly happy last week with the diplomats’ visits and the victory celebrations which took place on Friday, June 18, 2010 at the Galle Face green in Colombo.
When speaking at the event, Rajapaksa said: “The people should have complete faith and confidence that the land that was liberated from terrorism through great sacrifice of life will not be handed over to the forces of separatism again…As long as we remember that those who sacrificed their lives now rest in the soil of our land, I declare with pride that our people shall not leave room for anyone to divide this motherland of ours.”
All the words from Mr. President are just to win the hearts of the diplomatic community. There are some sections of the diplomatic community who do buy the words of those who caused deaths to tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Mr. President and the Sinhala successive governments declared war against the Tamil community in general, and killed their own citizens using internationally banned chemical bombs. Just as Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have done against civilians. This was the exact wording from former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He further said, in order to stop such genocidal war, it is mandatory to educate through elementary schools.
In this context, it is significant to discuss the visit of senior diplomats of the U.S., Japan, and United Nations.
What is the message?
The U.S. National Defence Council’s war crime and National Security Director, David Bushman, as well as the U.S. President Barak Obama’s special envoy, Samantha Power, who is the special advisor to Obama, the Senior Director for the Human Rights and National Defence Council, were the two envoys landed in Colombo on Monday (June 14).
Both envoys, along with U.S. high commissioner for Sri Lanka, Patricia Putninaz, met with the Sri Lankan President on June 15 where they discussed various issues including bilateral relations between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. They both discussed the recent bitter events between the two countries over the war crime abuses. The U.S. is putting pressure on Sri Lanka to accept an international team to investigate the last year’s war abuses while Sri Lanka is adamant not to appoint international team, but is willing to appoint its own team of experts to go into the ‘Reconciliation and lessons learned in terms of recent conflict’.
Also, Japanese special envoy, Yasushi Akashi, landed at Colombo on the evening of June 15. He stayed in Sri Lanka until June 20. During his five-day official visit, he met Sinhala and Tamil-speaking leaders and he paid a visit to Jaffna to oversee the projects initiated by the Japanese government for the war-affected people. Akashi has made numerous visits to Sri Lanka after he was appointed by the Japanese government for Sri Lanka as a special envoy to facilitate talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government after they entered into peace agreement in 2002.
Akashi made several unsuccessful attempts to stop the war against the Tamils when governments led by Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa were in power. As a special envoy, he was not able to influence the Sri Lankan leaders. In this backdrop, he made another visit last week.
Before he left Sri Lanka, Akashi held a press conference and gave contradictory statements. Once, he admitted that the UN should cooperate with Sri Lanka in investigating last year’s abuses through the investigative team appointed by Sri Lanka itself. Also, he said that the panel of experts should be allowed to investigate the matter and they should provide the advice to Ban-ki Moon. Akashi advised Sri Lanka to cooperate with the U.N. He also asked Sri Lanka to work with the UN in the reconciliation process and offer a meaningful political solution to Tamil-speaking people.
The next important visit was by the United Nation Organization’s political division Deputy Secretary, Lyne Pascoe, who arrived on June 16 for a two-day official visit. He met with Sinhala and Tamil politicians. On the day he arrived in Sri Lanka, he paid a visit to Mullaitheevu where the final days of the last phase of the war took place. He met with the relocated people. Soon after, when he returned to Colombo from Vanni, he met with the Sri Lankan President and discussed the efforts of resettlement, political reconciliation, and the human rights abuse issues.
There is no doubt that Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo and other areas received the senior diplomats well. The Sri Lankan government appears desperate to do anything possible to curb the international community’s move to establish international war investigations against Sri Lanka.
Victory parade a showcase to visitors
Some of the visiting diplomats got the chance to see the ‘victory parade’ commemorating the victory over the LTTE last year. Nearly 10,000 Sri Lankan soldiers, who directly participated in the war with the LTTE, took part in the parade.
This parade was a showpiece to the world that the Sri Lankan government is in a good position with the support of two giants of Asia, neighbouring India and its rival China. Sri Lanka is getting enormous monetary and material support from both countries. Each of these countries has a vested economic interest in Sri Lanka. Although these senior diplomats did not take part directly in the parade as guests, they had a great view of the parade preparations and how the decorations were done in Colombo and its suburbs to mark the victory parade.
China is also planning a massive investment in the fishery industry which is to be inaugurated in Mullaitheevu where the final days of the war took place. Former southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa leaked out shocking news that over 25,000 Chinese nationals, who were held in jails in China for crimes, have been brought to Sri Lanka under the guise of working in Sri Lanka. She said these Chinese nationals are a direct threat to South India in particular and throughout India in general. Jayalalithaa further said if these criminal elements, who are the spies of China, launch criminal activities against Tamils in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of Tamils would be victimized.
Obviously, the reason for the parade was to bring credibility to Sri Lanka by showing the might of Sri Lankan military. Due to the victory day event, Sri Lanka announced a public holiday so that people would get the chance to see the event and to pay their respect to their fallen ‘heroes’ who killed over 150,000 Tamil civilians in the three-decade war as well as they conducted numerous rights abuses against Tamils.
However, this was a good showpiece for the Sri Lankan government to show the world that the people are with the government and they are happy that their government succeeded to crush the Tamil Tigers who, as it was said, were posing threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka for more than three decades.
Mr. President said at the parade event that some countries which were being battered by terrorism had gathered strength from Sri Lanka’s victories over the menace and it was time that they looked back to see what had gone wrong with their strategies while Sri Lanka had succeeded.
He further said: “It is a grave error of judgment to think, while being opposed to terrorism targeting you, that terrorism that is no threat to you is good. The world has so far trodden this wrong path. Terrorism remains unvanquished because of this incorrect thinking. The countries that show sympathy towards terrorism and separatism will be the victims of terrorism. This is the lesson of history.”
Political observers argue that Mr. President must also be aware that the modern political scientists have come up with the three types of terrorism; one of which is State Terrorism. Also, Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
Hence, the special envoys from the U.S., Japan, and the UN are another milestone of political success. The question is whether these envoys will keep up their mandates or will they fall into the trap of the Sri Lankan leaders whose hands are soaked in the blood of Tamils
Sinhala State Terrorism !!!!!!!!
Sinhala State terrorize the Tamil civilians in the Tamil war and continue to terrorize now with impunity !!
Tamils are feeling alienated as the war brought nothing to them but sorrow. Tamils are still in grief after the war. The war left hundreds of thousands of people killed and same number of people still in camps despite the government’s claims that below 50,000 civilians are sequestered in camps, and they, too, will be released soon. All these statements are rubbish and have no validity at all.
Tamils argue that despite Sri Lanka failing to acknowledge how many Tamils are living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), how can they receive justice from this Sinhalese-dominated State which has no clear mandate in solving the political aspirations of Tamils? In a liberal account, over half a million Tamils are living under pathetic conditions, still living in the houses of their relatives and friends or in temporary shelters, as they cannot even move to their traditional villages, because they are declared by the Sri Lankan State as High Security Zones (HSZs), which are now being used by the Sinhalese from the South. This is the ground reality but the government gives contradictory account of the IDPs.
No GSP+ for Sri Lanka !!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
——————————————–
Dear EU , thank you for helping the Tamils !!
Home EU puts 15 conditions to extend GSP+ trade concession to Sri Lanka
The abrogation of Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the release of those detained held under the Emergency Regulations (ER) and the implementation of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution are among the fifteen conditions put forward by the European Union (EU) as a pre-requisite for the further extension of the GSP+ trade concessions to Sri Lanka from August this year. However, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who addressed cabinet meeting held Wednesday is reported to have rejected these conditions stating that he would not compromise the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state for the sake of USD 150 million.
Mr. Rajapaksa said all these were internal political matters and had no relevance whatsoever to international trade.
Denmark and Spain took a rigid stand against Sri Lanka while Italy supported the country on this issue at the EU.
Even Germany was very flexible, according to Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris.
Peiris explained to the ministers about the conditions laid down by the EU and added that it had agreed to extend GSP+ trade facility, but made it mandatory for the government to adhere to 15 demands within a stipulated period of six months.
He said constitutional amendments would be necessary if these conditions were to be implemented and added that it was impossible to do so within six months and as such there was no need to pursue further negotiations on the GSP+ facility with anyone.
G.L. Peiris stressed the need for Sri Lanka to explore ‘new market opportunities’ overseas.
No GSP+ for Sri Lanka !!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
——————————————–
Dear EU , thank you for helping the Tamils !!
Home EU puts 15 conditions to extend GSP+ trade concession to Sri Lanka
The abrogation of Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the release of those detained held under the Emergency Regulations (ER) and the implementation of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution are among the fifteen conditions put forward by the European Union (EU) as a pre-requisite for the further extension of the GSP+ trade concessions to Sri Lanka from August this year. However, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who addressed cabinet meeting held Wednesday is reported to have rejected these conditions stating that he would not compromise the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state for the sake of USD 150 million.
Mr. Rajapaksa said all these were internal political matters and had no relevance whatsoever to international trade.
Denmark and Spain took a rigid stand against Sri Lanka while Italy supported the country on this issue at the EU.
Even Germany was very flexible, according to Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris.
Peiris explained to the ministers about the conditions laid down by the EU and added that it had agreed to extend GSP+ trade facility, but made it mandatory for the government to adhere to 15 demands within a stipulated period of six months.
He said constitutional amendments would be necessary if these conditions were to be implemented and added that it was impossible to do so within six months and as such there was no need to pursue further negotiations on the GSP+ facility with anyone.
G.L. Peiris stressed the need for Sri Lanka to explore ‘new market opportunities’ overseas.
Tax payers of the donors/western/other coutries have to think whether money reach the poor or militray in sri lanka.
Sri Lankan rulers no longer tell the truth. According to them, the Sun raises in the West and the rooster crows only in the evenings. While murdering civilians with heavy weapons including tanks and missiles with unconventional war heads, Sri Lanka was lying to the world that they were only using light weapons.
Sri Lanka is the most militarised among the South Asian countries with 13000 military personnel per one million population. Every street corner of Sri Lanka is guarded by armed soldiers. Sri Lanka has 266K active armed personal (Total Troops 374K) which is much higher than many developed countries. [Australia (54k), Canada (65K), South Africa (56K), Norway (28K), United Kingdom (188K), Germany (248K), France (260K), Italy (230K)]
In terms of military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Sri Lanka spends the most in South Asia. The figure is 6% in Sri Lanka which is much higher than the amount spent by its neighbours. (3.5% in Pakistan; 2.5% in India and Nepal; and 1.5% in Bangladesh)
Sri Lanka has now become like another Myanmar in the region. Close associations with nuclear armed China and Pakistan and friendships with Iran, Libya, and Myanmar are already giving the danger signs. Iran has indicated that it is willing to share nuclear technologies with Sri Lanka for peaceful purposes. Those who follow the current trend in the world, very well know what these peaceful purposes are.
Sri Lanka is trying to get hold of nuclear technology (to supplement its power needs). Having been turned away by India, Sri Lanka is turning to States like Iran to fulfil its nuclear ambitions. This is why Sri Lanka always backs Iran’s nuclear program
It may not be well known that Sri Lanka was instrumental in Iran acquiring nuclear technology. Some Sri Lankan businessmen and engineers are among those whose names appear in a United States blacklist over the alleged involvement in the world’s worst illicit nuclear proliferation racket, the British media reported recently.
Although, Sri Lanka is a democratic country, the majority Sinhala people support Nazi Style right wing parties. Racist politicians and military leaders are looked upon as heroes and saviours of the country. Tamils who once had their own nation are now considered as aliens and invaders even though the majority of the Tamils are the original inhabitants of this land. Politics is driven by the powers of ignorance, greed, lies and deceptions.
Tax payers of the donors/western/other coutries have to think whether money reach the poor or militray in sri lanka.
Sri Lankan rulers no longer tell the truth. According to them, the Sun raises in the West and the rooster crows only in the evenings. While murdering civilians with heavy weapons including tanks and missiles with unconventional war heads, Sri Lanka was lying to the world that they were only using light weapons.
Sri Lanka is the most militarised among the South Asian countries with 13000 military personnel per one million population. Every street corner of Sri Lanka is guarded by armed soldiers. Sri Lanka has 266K active armed personal (Total Troops 374K) which is much higher than many developed countries. [Australia (54k), Canada (65K), South Africa (56K), Norway (28K), United Kingdom (188K), Germany (248K), France (260K), Italy (230K)]
In terms of military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Sri Lanka spends the most in South Asia. The figure is 6% in Sri Lanka which is much higher than the amount spent by its neighbours. (3.5% in Pakistan; 2.5% in India and Nepal; and 1.5% in Bangladesh)
Sri Lanka has now become like another Myanmar in the region. Close associations with nuclear armed China and Pakistan and friendships with Iran, Libya, and Myanmar are already giving the danger signs. Iran has indicated that it is willing to share nuclear technologies with Sri Lanka for peaceful purposes. Those who follow the current trend in the world, very well know what these peaceful purposes are.
Sri Lanka is trying to get hold of nuclear technology (to supplement its power needs). Having been turned away by India, Sri Lanka is turning to States like Iran to fulfil its nuclear ambitions. This is why Sri Lanka always backs Iran’s nuclear program
It may not be well known that Sri Lanka was instrumental in Iran acquiring nuclear technology. Some Sri Lankan businessmen and engineers are among those whose names appear in a United States blacklist over the alleged involvement in the world’s worst illicit nuclear proliferation racket, the British media reported recently.
Although, Sri Lanka is a democratic country, the majority Sinhala people support Nazi Style right wing parties. Racist politicians and military leaders are looked upon as heroes and saviours of the country. Tamils who once had their own nation are now considered as aliens and invaders even though the majority of the Tamils are the original inhabitants of this land. Politics is driven by the powers of ignorance, greed, lies and deceptions.
Surprising to see this blog still on !! AI – get over it… !! He is free and that's what matters – this post shouldn't have been there in the first place – running out of topics ?
UN Under Siege in Sri Lanka: Why Accountability for War Crimes Matters
There is a stunning anti-UN protest underway in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Nationalist protesters led by a government official have blockaded scores of UN employees inside a UN compound. Outside, protestors have burned Ban Ki Moon in effigy.
As police looked on Tuesday, [Housing Minister] Weerawansa and a group of ultranationalist Buddhist monks led men waving national flags on a march to the U.N. office. The protesters initially tried to break into the compound, which sits inside a high security zone protected by checkpoints and soldiers, but failed to breach the high walls.
Instead, they held a sit-in, blocking both exists, spray-painting the security camera at the gate — in an apparent bid not to be identified — and preventing employees working inside from leaving.
What would inspire such venom being directed against the UN and its Secretary General? Late last month, Ban Ki Moon appointed a three person panel, led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, to advise the Secretary General on issues relating to accountability for alleged war crimes that occurred in the waning days of a 20 year civil war.
Nationalist protestors and the government apparently think this is a very bad idea. And it is not hard to understand why the goverment would be chary. From January to May 2009, the Sri Lankan military dealt the final blows to a twenty year insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (Tamil Tigers, or LTTE). The military’s strategy was fairly straightforward: encircle the LTTE and drive them to the sea. With the Indian ocean to their back and superior government forces to the front, the LTTE would have no choice but to surrender.
They did not. Instead, the LTTE forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to remain in the conflict zone, ostensibly as human shields. The government, in turn, declared that certain areas of LTTE held territory would be safe for civilians. They called these “No Fire Zones.”
No fire zones became free fire zones for the Sri Lankan military. Hospitals and humanitarian convoys were also targeted as the small swath of territory held by the Tamil Tigers and their civilian hostages came under heavy bombing. At the time, UN figures put the civilian death toll at 7,000. Last month, a report from the International Crisis Group accused the government of deliberately targeting the no-fire zones and makeshift hospitals. It puts the death toll from the final weeks of fighting “in the tens of thousands.” When the Tigers were finally defeated, the Sri Lankan government held everyone in military run prison camps that were out of bounds for journalists and international NGOs.
So far, there has been no judicial accountability for the government or military officials that led this brutal campaign. Basic decency would demand that the people who ordered the strikes on no-fire-zones face some sort of justice. But the need for accountability goes beyond simply demanding justice for war crimes’ victims.
The sad truth is that the military’s brutal tactics worked. After suffering 20 years of suicide bombings, assassinations and terrorist attacks by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government took the gloves off and destroyed the insurgency. The bombing of civilians, and the terrorists who happened to be among them, succeeded as a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Sri Lankan military showed the world that it is possible to destroy even the most intransigent foes if you are also willing to kill very large numbers of civilian non-combatants. If these crimes go unpunished, what is stopping other countries with persistent insurgencies to adopt the “Sri Lankan method” of fighting terrorism? The answer is nothing. Unless, that is, the international community is willing to show that there are real consequences for waging this kind of brutal, indiscriminate warfare.
http://www.undispatch.com/node/10015
Mahinda's new cabinet comprises two ministers and thirty nine "doormats" for the "family" to wipe their feet on.
The Rajapakse administration has shown an uncanny ability to create world records in the last few years; prior to the General Election, Sri Lanka had the dubious honour of having the world’s largest number of Ministers and now we have created yet another world record by having the world’s smallest cabinet of two ministers.
As some say, the new cabinet consists of 2 Ministers and 39 door mats for the family, especially for the young Mr. Rajapakse to wipe his feet on while receiving on job training at the expense of the senior and experienced politicians holding the rest of the name board Ministries.
The Rajapakse triad consisting of the President as Minister of several key Ministries along with his super Minister brother and his super secretary brother control over 63% of the annual budget.According to the report presented to Parliament, out of the total expenditure of Rs.1.9 T, Rs.1.2 T comes under the direct purview of the Rajapakse triad.
However, due to the limited time available, I am not going to discuss the economics of the heads, which come under the Rajapakse triad. At a time when a three member panel of experts has been appointed to advise the UN Secretary General on Sri Lanka, I feel that it is appropriate to talk about the short sighted acts of commission and omission of some of the Ministries under discussion today, which has led to the sorry state of affairs, our country is facing today.
The appointment of the expert’s panel is the culmination of nearly four years of governance by the Rajapakse regime where the rule of law in our country was systematically undermined, using the war against terrorism as a basis or a justification for doing so.
The emergence of the white van culture of abductions and extra-judicial killings, political assassinations of MPs like Joseph Pararajasingham, Ravi Raj and Maheswaran and the increasing number of attacks on journalists and as aresult of the defence Ministries stubborn refusal to investigate such crimes and the governments inability to respond toserious allegations in a credible manner, the country started to lose the international goodwill we had harnessed. Hurling abuse in the style of a sarong raised village thug became the hallmark of this government in the face of mounting criticism both locally and Internationally.
UN Under Siege in Sri Lanka: Why Accountability for War Crimes Matters
There is a stunning anti-UN protest underway in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Nationalist protesters led by a government official have blockaded scores of UN employees inside a UN compound. Outside, protestors have burned Ban Ki Moon in effigy.
As police looked on Tuesday, [Housing Minister] Weerawansa and a group of ultranationalist Buddhist monks led men waving national flags on a march to the U.N. office. The protesters initially tried to break into the compound, which sits inside a high security zone protected by checkpoints and soldiers, but failed to breach the high walls.
Instead, they held a sit-in, blocking both exists, spray-painting the security camera at the gate — in an apparent bid not to be identified — and preventing employees working inside from leaving.
What would inspire such venom being directed against the UN and its Secretary General? Late last month, Ban Ki Moon appointed a three person panel, led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, to advise the Secretary General on issues relating to accountability for alleged war crimes that occurred in the waning days of a 20 year civil war.
Nationalist protestors and the government apparently think this is a very bad idea. And it is not hard to understand why the goverment would be chary. From January to May 2009, the Sri Lankan military dealt the final blows to a twenty year insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (Tamil Tigers, or LTTE). The military’s strategy was fairly straightforward: encircle the LTTE and drive them to the sea. With the Indian ocean to their back and superior government forces to the front, the LTTE would have no choice but to surrender.
They did not. Instead, the LTTE forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to remain in the conflict zone, ostensibly as human shields. The government, in turn, declared that certain areas of LTTE held territory would be safe for civilians. They called these “No Fire Zones.”
No fire zones became free fire zones for the Sri Lankan military. Hospitals and humanitarian convoys were also targeted as the small swath of territory held by the Tamil Tigers and their civilian hostages came under heavy bombing. At the time, UN figures put the civilian death toll at 7,000. Last month, a report from the International Crisis Group accused the government of deliberately targeting the no-fire zones and makeshift hospitals. It puts the death toll from the final weeks of fighting “in the tens of thousands.” When the Tigers were finally defeated, the Sri Lankan government held everyone in military run prison camps that were out of bounds for journalists and international NGOs.
So far, there has been no judicial accountability for the government or military officials that led this brutal campaign. Basic decency would demand that the people who ordered the strikes on no-fire-zones face some sort of justice. But the need for accountability goes beyond simply demanding justice for war crimes’ victims.
The sad truth is that the military’s brutal tactics worked. After suffering 20 years of suicide bombings, assassinations and terrorist attacks by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government took the gloves off and destroyed the insurgency. The bombing of civilians, and the terrorists who happened to be among them, succeeded as a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Sri Lankan military showed the world that it is possible to destroy even the most intransigent foes if you are also willing to kill very large numbers of civilian non-combatants. If these crimes go unpunished, what is stopping other countries with persistent insurgencies to adopt the “Sri Lankan method” of fighting terrorism? The answer is nothing. Unless, that is, the international community is willing to show that there are real consequences for waging this kind of brutal, indiscriminate warfare.
http://www.undispatch.com/node/10015
UN Under Siege in Sri Lanka: Why Accountability for War Crimes Matters
There is a stunning anti-UN protest underway in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Nationalist protesters led by a government official have blockaded scores of UN employees inside a UN compound. Outside, protestors have burned Ban Ki Moon in effigy.
As police looked on Tuesday, [Housing Minister] Weerawansa and a group of ultranationalist Buddhist monks led men waving national flags on a march to the U.N. office. The protesters initially tried to break into the compound, which sits inside a high security zone protected by checkpoints and soldiers, but failed to breach the high walls.
Instead, they held a sit-in, blocking both exists, spray-painting the security camera at the gate — in an apparent bid not to be identified — and preventing employees working inside from leaving.
What would inspire such venom being directed against the UN and its Secretary General? Late last month, Ban Ki Moon appointed a three person panel, led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, to advise the Secretary General on issues relating to accountability for alleged war crimes that occurred in the waning days of a 20 year civil war.
Nationalist protestors and the government apparently think this is a very bad idea. And it is not hard to understand why the goverment would be chary. From January to May 2009, the Sri Lankan military dealt the final blows to a twenty year insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (Tamil Tigers, or LTTE). The military’s strategy was fairly straightforward: encircle the LTTE and drive them to the sea. With the Indian ocean to their back and superior government forces to the front, the LTTE would have no choice but to surrender.
They did not. Instead, the LTTE forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to remain in the conflict zone, ostensibly as human shields. The government, in turn, declared that certain areas of LTTE held territory would be safe for civilians. They called these “No Fire Zones.”
No fire zones became free fire zones for the Sri Lankan military. Hospitals and humanitarian convoys were also targeted as the small swath of territory held by the Tamil Tigers and their civilian hostages came under heavy bombing. At the time, UN figures put the civilian death toll at 7,000. Last month, a report from the International Crisis Group accused the government of deliberately targeting the no-fire zones and makeshift hospitals. It puts the death toll from the final weeks of fighting “in the tens of thousands.” When the Tigers were finally defeated, the Sri Lankan government held everyone in military run prison camps that were out of bounds for journalists and international NGOs.
So far, there has been no judicial accountability for the government or military officials that led this brutal campaign. Basic decency would demand that the people who ordered the strikes on no-fire-zones face some sort of justice. But the need for accountability goes beyond simply demanding justice for war crimes’ victims.
The sad truth is that the military’s brutal tactics worked. After suffering 20 years of suicide bombings, assassinations and terrorist attacks by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government took the gloves off and destroyed the insurgency. The bombing of civilians, and the terrorists who happened to be among them, succeeded as a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Sri Lankan military showed the world that it is possible to destroy even the most intransigent foes if you are also willing to kill very large numbers of civilian non-combatants. If these crimes go unpunished, what is stopping other countries with persistent insurgencies to adopt the “Sri Lankan method” of fighting terrorism? The answer is nothing. Unless, that is, the international community is willing to show that there are real consequences for waging this kind of brutal, indiscriminate warfare.
http://www.undispatch.com/node/10015
Surprising to see this blog still on !! AI – get over it… !! He is free and that’s what matters – this post shouldn’t have been there in the first place – running out of topics ?
Mahinda’s new cabinet comprises two ministers and thirty nine “doormats” for the “family” to wipe their feet on.
The Rajapakse administration has shown an uncanny ability to create world records in the last few years; prior to the General Election, Sri Lanka had the dubious honour of having the world’s largest number of Ministers and now we have created yet another world record by having the world’s smallest cabinet of two ministers.
As some say, the new cabinet consists of 2 Ministers and 39 door mats for the family, especially for the young Mr. Rajapakse to wipe his feet on while receiving on job training at the expense of the senior and experienced politicians holding the rest of the name board Ministries.
The Rajapakse triad consisting of the President as Minister of several key Ministries along with his super Minister brother and his super secretary brother control over 63% of the annual budget.According to the report presented to Parliament, out of the total expenditure of Rs.1.9 T, Rs.1.2 T comes under the direct purview of the Rajapakse triad.
However, due to the limited time available, I am not going to discuss the economics of the heads, which come under the Rajapakse triad. At a time when a three member panel of experts has been appointed to advise the UN Secretary General on Sri Lanka, I feel that it is appropriate to talk about the short sighted acts of commission and omission of some of the Ministries under discussion today, which has led to the sorry state of affairs, our country is facing today.
The appointment of the expert’s panel is the culmination of nearly four years of governance by the Rajapakse regime where the rule of law in our country was systematically undermined, using the war against terrorism as a basis or a justification for doing so.
The emergence of the white van culture of abductions and extra-judicial killings, political assassinations of MPs like Joseph Pararajasingham, Ravi Raj and Maheswaran and the increasing number of attacks on journalists and as aresult of the defence Ministries stubborn refusal to investigate such crimes and the governments inability to respond toserious allegations in a credible manner, the country started to lose the international goodwill we had harnessed. Hurling abuse in the style of a sarong raised village thug became the hallmark of this government in the face of mounting criticism both locally and Internationally.
UN Under Siege in Sri Lanka: Why Accountability for War Crimes Matters
There is a stunning anti-UN protest underway in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Nationalist protesters led by a government official have blockaded scores of UN employees inside a UN compound. Outside, protestors have burned Ban Ki Moon in effigy.
As police looked on Tuesday, [Housing Minister] Weerawansa and a group of ultranationalist Buddhist monks led men waving national flags on a march to the U.N. office. The protesters initially tried to break into the compound, which sits inside a high security zone protected by checkpoints and soldiers, but failed to breach the high walls.
Instead, they held a sit-in, blocking both exists, spray-painting the security camera at the gate — in an apparent bid not to be identified — and preventing employees working inside from leaving.
What would inspire such venom being directed against the UN and its Secretary General? Late last month, Ban Ki Moon appointed a three person panel, led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, to advise the Secretary General on issues relating to accountability for alleged war crimes that occurred in the waning days of a 20 year civil war.
Nationalist protestors and the government apparently think this is a very bad idea. And it is not hard to understand why the goverment would be chary. From January to May 2009, the Sri Lankan military dealt the final blows to a twenty year insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (Tamil Tigers, or LTTE). The military’s strategy was fairly straightforward: encircle the LTTE and drive them to the sea. With the Indian ocean to their back and superior government forces to the front, the LTTE would have no choice but to surrender.
They did not. Instead, the LTTE forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to remain in the conflict zone, ostensibly as human shields. The government, in turn, declared that certain areas of LTTE held territory would be safe for civilians. They called these “No Fire Zones.”
No fire zones became free fire zones for the Sri Lankan military. Hospitals and humanitarian convoys were also targeted as the small swath of territory held by the Tamil Tigers and their civilian hostages came under heavy bombing. At the time, UN figures put the civilian death toll at 7,000. Last month, a report from the International Crisis Group accused the government of deliberately targeting the no-fire zones and makeshift hospitals. It puts the death toll from the final weeks of fighting “in the tens of thousands.” When the Tigers were finally defeated, the Sri Lankan government held everyone in military run prison camps that were out of bounds for journalists and international NGOs.
So far, there has been no judicial accountability for the government or military officials that led this brutal campaign. Basic decency would demand that the people who ordered the strikes on no-fire-zones face some sort of justice. But the need for accountability goes beyond simply demanding justice for war crimes’ victims.
The sad truth is that the military’s brutal tactics worked. After suffering 20 years of suicide bombings, assassinations and terrorist attacks by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government took the gloves off and destroyed the insurgency. The bombing of civilians, and the terrorists who happened to be among them, succeeded as a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Sri Lankan military showed the world that it is possible to destroy even the most intransigent foes if you are also willing to kill very large numbers of civilian non-combatants. If these crimes go unpunished, what is stopping other countries with persistent insurgencies to adopt the “Sri Lankan method” of fighting terrorism? The answer is nothing. Unless, that is, the international community is willing to show that there are real consequences for waging this kind of brutal, indiscriminate warfare.
http://www.undispatch.com/node/10015
US backs UN in Sri Lanka war crimes dispute http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/srila…
UN office under siege http://www.dailymirror.lk/index.php/news/4866-un-…
US backs UN in Sri Lanka war crimes dispute http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/srila…
UN office under siege http://www.dailymirror.lk/index.php/news/4866-un-…
US backs UN in Sri Lanka war crimes dispute http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/srila…
UN office under siege http://www.dailymirror.lk/index.php/news/4866-un-…
US backs UN in Sri Lanka war crimes dispute
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/srilankaununrestrightsus
UN office under siege
http://www.dailymirror.lk/index.php/news/4866-un-office-under-siege.html
Yoga Says:
June 24th, 2010 at 6:54 am
No GSP+ for Sri Lanka !!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
——————————————–
Dear EU , thank you for helping the Tamils !!
LOL @ the idiot !!
This also means that several thousands of Tamil workers would get effected – LOL !!
This showcases nothing but the low mentality and the ignorance the Apes of LTTE posses.
Anyways – all you Apes also should know that countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan did not have GSP + to get the economic growth they enjoy now…… !!
Your sick mentality and ulterior motives of separatism and terrorism are well known to the external world – so don't try to hide behind the innocent Tamils. You have no right to talk on behalf of Tamils or use their name as it is you Terrorist Apes who killed them the most – U killed all our good Tamil leaders because they denounced Terrorism.
I saw Rohan's article with dead fat piriba's picture asking whether its a war crime – the answer is that it would have been a crime to the human race if that bastard with a shit bucket mind would have not been killed. Damn good that fat ass died… I spit on his grave !!
One time shotgun terrorist is now terrorising the UN http://www.tamilcanadian.com/news/index.php?actio…
"Let the UN panel do their job and if it matters let it progress to the War Crimes Tribunal. What we need is real justice and perpetrators of war crimes apprehended and punished to ensure the curse of Sri Lanka progressing from democratic dictatorship into a well planned family tyranny of the Rajapakses is brought to an end."
Mrs. Wimala Kannangara M.P (1981)
“If we are governing, we must govern. If we are ruling, we must rule. Do not give into the minorities”
One time shotgun terrorist is now terrorising the UN http://www.tamilcanadian.com/news/index.php?actio…
"Let the UN panel do their job and if it matters let it progress to the War Crimes Tribunal. What we need is real justice and perpetrators of war crimes apprehended and punished to ensure the curse of Sri Lanka progressing from democratic dictatorship into a well planned family tyranny of the Rajapakses is brought to an end."
Mrs. Wimala Kannangara M.P (1981)
“If we are governing, we must govern. If we are ruling, we must rule. Do not give into the minorities”
One time shotgun terrorist is now terrorising the UN http://www.tamilcanadian.com/news/index.php?actio…
"Let the UN panel do their job and if it matters let it progress to the War Crimes Tribunal. What we need is real justice and perpetrators of war crimes apprehended and punished to ensure the curse of Sri Lanka progressing from democratic dictatorship into a well planned family tyranny of the Rajapakses is brought to an end."
Mrs. Wimala Kannangara M.P (1981)
“If we are governing, we must govern. If we are ruling, we must rule. Do not give into the minorities”
Yoga Says:
June 24th, 2010 at 6:54 am
No GSP+ for Sri Lanka !!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
——————————————–
Dear EU , thank you for helping the Tamils !!
LOL @ the idiot !!
This also means that several thousands of Tamil workers would get effected – LOL !!
This showcases nothing but the low mentality and the ignorance the Apes of LTTE posses.
Anyways – all you Apes also should know that countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan did not have GSP + to get the economic growth they enjoy now…… !!
Your sick mentality and ulterior motives of separatism and terrorism are well known to the external world – so don’t try to hide behind the innocent Tamils. You have no right to talk on behalf of Tamils or use their name as it is you Terrorist Apes who killed them the most – U killed all our good Tamil leaders because they denounced Terrorism.
I saw Rohan’s article with dead fat piriba’s picture asking whether its a war crime – the answer is that it would have been a crime to the human race if that bastard with a shit bucket mind would have not been killed. Damn good that fat ass died… I spit on his grave !!
One time shotgun terrorist is now terrorising the UN
http://www.tamilcanadian.com/news/index.php?action=full_news&id=14120
“Let the UN panel do their job and if it matters let it progress to the War Crimes Tribunal. What we need is real justice and perpetrators of war crimes apprehended and punished to ensure the curse of Sri Lanka progressing from democratic dictatorship into a well planned family tyranny of the Rajapakses is brought to an end.”
Mrs. Wimala Kannangara M.P (1981)
“If we are governing, we must govern. If we are ruling, we must rule. Do not give into the minorities”
Boycott my Rectum !
What kind of rule did your Piribaharan have to call Rajapakse a dictator ???
At least Rajapakse was elected by the people of the country through vote – who elected Praba ?? Your Grandma ??
Boycott my Rectum !
What kind of rule did your Piribaharan have to call Rajapakse a dictator ???
At least Rajapakse was elected by the people of the country through vote – who elected Praba ?? Your Grandma ??
U.S., EU and others condemn Sri Lanka over U.N. spat http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6683WZ20100…
The European Union and nine countries Friday warned Sri Lanka that a protest against a U.N. war crimes panel that blocked the world body's office could harm its international reputation. "We are deeply dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound this week in Colombo and the role played in it by a government minister," a joint statement said. "Peaceful protest is part of any democracy, but blocking access to the United Nations … as well as intimidating and harassing U.N. personnel is a breach of international norms and harmful to Sri Lanka's reputation in the world," it said.
Sri Lanka's feud with the UN turns acrimonious http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10536434.st…
On a leafy Colombo corner, surrounded by hundreds of his nationalist supporters and Buddhist monks, Sri Lankan cabinet minister Wimal Weerawansa burns an effigy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
U.S., EU and others condemn Sri Lanka over U.N. spat http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6683WZ20100…
The European Union and nine countries Friday warned Sri Lanka that a protest against a U.N. war crimes panel that blocked the world body's office could harm its international reputation. "We are deeply dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound this week in Colombo and the role played in it by a government minister," a joint statement said. "Peaceful protest is part of any democracy, but blocking access to the United Nations … as well as intimidating and harassing U.N. personnel is a breach of international norms and harmful to Sri Lanka's reputation in the world," it said.
Sri Lanka's feud with the UN turns acrimonious http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10536434.st…
On a leafy Colombo corner, surrounded by hundreds of his nationalist supporters and Buddhist monks, Sri Lankan cabinet minister Wimal Weerawansa burns an effigy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
U.S., EU and others condemn Sri Lanka over U.N. spat http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6683WZ20100…
The European Union and nine countries Friday warned Sri Lanka that a protest against a U.N. war crimes panel that blocked the world body's office could harm its international reputation. "We are deeply dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound this week in Colombo and the role played in it by a government minister," a joint statement said. "Peaceful protest is part of any democracy, but blocking access to the United Nations … as well as intimidating and harassing U.N. personnel is a breach of international norms and harmful to Sri Lanka's reputation in the world," it said.
Sri Lanka's feud with the UN turns acrimonious http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10536434.st…
On a leafy Colombo corner, surrounded by hundreds of his nationalist supporters and Buddhist monks, Sri Lankan cabinet minister Wimal Weerawansa burns an effigy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
U.S., EU and others condemn Sri Lanka over U.N. spat
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6683WZ20100709
The European Union and nine countries Friday warned Sri Lanka that a protest against a U.N. war crimes panel that blocked the world body’s office could harm its international reputation. “We are deeply dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound this week in Colombo and the role played in it by a government minister,” a joint statement said. “Peaceful protest is part of any democracy, but blocking access to the United Nations … as well as intimidating and harassing U.N. personnel is a breach of international norms and harmful to Sri Lanka’s reputation in the world,” it said.
Sri Lanka’s feud with the UN turns acrimonious
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10536434.stm
On a leafy Colombo corner, surrounded by hundreds of his nationalist supporters and Buddhist monks, Sri Lankan cabinet minister Wimal Weerawansa burns an effigy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.