torsdag 29. mars 2012

Sinhala land-grabbers trigger abduction of Tamil youth in Batticaloa.!!!

Sinhala land-grabbers trigger abduction of Tamil youth in Batticaloa
[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 March 2012, 07:22 GMT]

Armed men of allegedly Sri Lanka Army operated white-van squad Wednesday night have abducted a 20-year-old Tamil youth, Kishore Ramachandran, while the youth was at sleep at his house at mid-night. The abduction comes following threats to the Tamil family at Paalcheanai in Kathirave'li of Vakkarai region in Batticaloa district by Sinhalese to hand over their 8 acres of palm grove with more than 1,500 trees, owned by the family for more than 40 years. On 19 March, a police team claiming as investigative officers from 4th floor CID branch in Colombo came to their house and took away a copy of the land deed. Following the involvement of the CID on the land grab issue, the family lodged a complaint with Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in Batticaloa. After the abduction, the family has lodged a complaint with the SL Police.

The abductors had warned the family against any complaint and had instructed the family to remain tight-lipped on the abduction.

A number of Tamil land-owners in Paalchenai area have come under similar threats by Sinhalese intruders who were demanding the Tamils to either sell or hand-over the lands to them.

The Sri Lankan military, police and the intelligence establishment bring the intruders from South to the Vaakarai region of Batticaloa district.

Vaakarai, with a large backwater on the east coast, is an area with fertile fields, lagoons and virgin forests in the northern part of the Batticaloa district.


Copyright © 1997-2012 TamilNet URL: http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com

SriLanka could learn from Myanmar which has radically changed bringing Democratic Reforms in the country says SriLanka Ambassador to France, Dr.Dayan!

28 March, 2012 - Published 19:27 GMT

Sri Lanka needs to change says diplomat

Sri Lanka could learn from Myanmar which has radically changed bringing democratic reforms in the country says Sri Lanka Ambassador to France, Dr.Dayan Jathilleka.
He told Sandeshaya that in 2009, Myanmar came under vigorous international pressure over its human rights record and Myanmar was defeated in a vote brought in the UN Human Right Council.

Changing Myanmar

“A few weeks after Sri Lanka won our battle in Geneva in May 2009, Myanmar lost in the same forum. It had the votes of India, Russia and China,” said Dr.Jayathilleka.

But, he said, today there is nothing levelled against that country because it is changing.

With defeat in UN Human Rights Council, Myanmar rallied round its neighbours particularly Association of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) and worked towards improving its human rights record.

Since then, he said, Myanmar has been achieving tremendous and incredible progress towards establishing democratic reforms.

"It became a more liberal country and even took steps to release the Burmese opposition politician and the leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suuki", he said.

Dr.Jayathilleka said that it was how Myanmar had wisely got out of the trap of the powerful countries.

“Its success has even led Myanmar to become the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Countries ( ASEAN) next year”, he said.

Serious thoughts

Ambassador Jayathillka said that Sri Lanka should take the resolution passed by UNHCR seriously because that would not be the end and those countries which brought it may push it through in the future.

He said it would have long term effects on Sri Lanka as those powerful countries and organisations will use it as a tool and act accordingly.


Sandeshaya

BBC News

onsdag 28. mars 2012

Following the official announcement of the GoSL.’s stance pertaining to the resolutions adopted at the Geneva HR conference that it will not ABIDE.!!

Voluntarily inviting trouble: 3 months is the time frame – LLRC proposals are not like those of the IRC

Local and international Lawyers blame the moribund MaRa regime for its egregious stupidity

(Lanka-e-News-27.March.2012, 11.55PM) Following the official announcement of the Govt.’s stance pertaining to the resolutions adopted at the Geneva human rights conference that it will not abide by them no matter the consequences, a senior Minister of the very Govt. speaking to Lanka e news said, his moronic moribund Govt. has clearly demonstrated to the world what exists in SL is a Govt. of underworld criminals who are barbaric and allergic to lawfulness like the notorious goons and rowdies of the caliber of ‘Thummulle Padme’, ‘Kaduwela Vasanthe’ or ‘Army Jine’. This Minister who represented the Govt. at the Geneva conference added that the Govt. will be learning a bitter lesson by next March. If what the recent Geneva conference sent out was only a cyclone , next March it will transform into a tornado. , he warned.

Lanka e news did a survey gathering opinions of prominent citizens relating to the stupid arrogance and MaRa regime’s stubborn conduct :

First we sought the opinion of a senior SL Lawyer resident in Washington who is conversant in local and international laws . We must apologize to our readers that we are unable to disclose names because we cannot predict what venomous and vengeful action the MaRa regime of Idi Mahin which is panic stricken would take against those people who are expressing the stark truths .

Inviting trouble voluntarily
-----------------------------
According to the view of the above noted Lawyer it is voluntarily inviting trouble. All what the Geneva resolution insisted was to implement the recommendations made by the Commission appointed by the SL Govt. itself What is the Govt.’s stance now in this backdrop? It will not implement the resolutions. That means the Govt. appointed the Commission not to implement its recommendations. Hence , the Govt. itself proved to the world yesterday that it had appointed a Commission for purpose of cheating , the senior Lawyer pointed out.

If that is the case , imposing of sanctions against SL by the US is inevitable. After the American resolutions had been accepted by the whole world , those resolutions are not any longer America’s but those of the world. Hence transgressing the world proposals is very serious. Though the nincompoops of the MaRa regime are trying to laugh it off as a trifling issue on the ground it is only when they are passed at the UN Human rights security Council that action can be taken against SL , and at that stage , Russia which has veto power is a friend of SL will not allow that to take place . But , according to the senior Lawyer , that is wrong and will not happen the way they presume.

The same leading Lawyer explained that the US is fully aware of all this. The US took action against Iraq based on the resolutions of the Human rights Council without the security council approval because Iraq did not heed the resolutions. But here , the resolutions are of the world. Therefore if US takes a decision against any country for not implementing them , nobody can bar that , the Lawyer explained. The same Lawyer added that the US will not act without the concurrence of the NATO countries in a controversial manner.

US will wait for three months if it is necessary

As the world is of the view that this is a Govt. with a two third majority in Parliament and hence has no hindrance when recommending the proposals brought by it, and that the SL Govt. told at the Geneva conference it will implement the recommendations , but now stating something contradictory , is being viewed by the world as the incapacity of the Govt. to show concern for its people , and it is being dictated by its infinite capacity to dupe its own people and the world , the senior leading Lawyer noted.

India on the other hand is always been with the world stance , the US has no issue with it in the regional co operation, according to this Lawyer residing in Washington .


Because of some morons and Mongols in the Meda mulana gangster Govt. , this motherland is headed for a holocaust , and if the Rajapakses continue to act this way , they will have to face a worse fate than Gadaffi who hid in the culvert before he was killed like a dog by the people . It is alright Rajapkses hiding in the drain or drowning in cesspits for their criminal and foolish actions, but how about the innocent people ? , he asked. It is unfortunate that the people will also have to face disasters for Medamulana blunders , the Lawyer stated with concern.

The proposals of the LLRC are not those of the IRC
------------------------------------------------------------------
The views expressed by another senior SL Lawyer on human rights was similar . Speaking to Lanka e news , he said, the Govt. can dance for its own Baila until March , but if the situation does not change by then there will be embargoes. In his opinion , first the relief measures granted now will be withdrawn. The US even after the resolutions were adopted withdrew the ban on SL to import oil from Iran on whom sanctions have been imposed.
According to the human rights Lawyer , this relief and the GSP concessions will be first withdrawn. The financial Institutions like the world Bank and others which have given relief to SL out of its funds will be made to withdraw them by pressures brought to bear by the US.

MaRa regime which has all along behaved like beasts and brutes , and therefore followed only jungle laws , is now playing with the lives and destinies of the docile and gullible Si Lankans . Unlike the MaRa murderous brutes , the proposals of the LLRC are not like those of its IRCs who are in plenty in this Govt. swarming around Idi Mahin like flies around the excrements .These are recommendations of a Commission appointed by the Govt. itself and worthy of being abided by. They are not IRC proposals . It is therefore time there springs up a Force of the people demanding the implementation of these humane proposals of the LLRC defeating the Force of the Govt. IRCs, the human rights Lawyer asserted.

It was Dr. G L Peiris who was the Chairman of the Youth unrest Commission in the 1988 -89 period of youth insurgency. At that time no country forced Late R. Premadasa to implement the recommendations; and the implementation of the recommendations was a reason that had precluded another rebellion in the South for the last 23 years . It will be salutary if persons like Dr. Peiris who participated in those tasks at that time , instead of kowtowing to Govt.’s controversial and shortsighted stance now , at least follow their own conscience for heaven’s sake instead of following brutes and boors, in the larger interest of the people and the country, the Lawyer further pinpointed.



©lankaenews.com 2005-2012 E-Mail: info@lankaenews.com

A group of world leaders formed by Nelson Mandela has urged Sri Lanka to try and avoid another showdown in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).!!!

27 March, 2012 - Published 14:26 GMT

Avoid another resolution, urge Elders


Ms Robinson says the "very mild resolution" was not an attempt to "do down Sri Lanka"

A group of world leaders formed by Nelson Mandela has urged Sri Lanka to try and avoid another showdown in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by adhering to the recent resolution adopted by the body.
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson told BBC Sandeshaya that The Elders are very pleased that UNHRC adopted a resolution urging Sri Lanka to ensure a proper reconciliation process after decades of a brutal conflict.

Saying that the "quite mild resolution" was not a Western sponsored one, Ms Robinson insisted that it was not an attempt to "do down a country."

"We were particularly encouraged that large countries like India and Nigeria supported the resolution".

Accountability

The resolution adopted by majority vote last week in Geneva called on Sri Lanka government to implement the recommendations of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).


It is in the interest of Sri Lanka to accept that the majority of governments feel that Sri Lanka must do more for reconciliation


Mary Robinson

The former Irish president said The Elders also support the UN call for a proper accountability process.

"The scale of the violations alleged is really very grave by international human rights standards," added Ms Robinson.

It is advisable for Sri Lanka, she said, to adhere to the resolution in order not to "come under the radars of UNHRC once again next year," stressing that it is the responsibility of the government of any country to protect civilians, though LTTE is also responsible for gross human rights violations.

"It is in the interest of Sri Lanka to accept that the majority of governments feel that Sri Lanka must do more for reconciliation," said Ms Robinson.

Mary Robinson admitted that not only many countries that supported the resolution, India and United States among them, supported Sri Lanka government's war against the LTTE, but also provided Sri Lanka with arms.

"The elders are unequivocally worried about the extent of the arms race. Generally the supply of weapons that are causing such destructions the money that spent on weapons, the trafficking in weapons,"she said.

"The elders do feel strongly about these issues but the central factor here was the prolonged civil war and to the extent which civilians were not protected."


Sandeshaya

BBC

mandag 26. mars 2012

Compelled to engage in prostitution for their survival.!!! Over 85,000 women in the North have been widowed due to the war.!!!

Widows in the North have been pushed into prostitution .

Monday, 26 March 2012 13:57 Lanka News Web.COM


The World Fisher Folk Solidarity Movement has pointed out that women who have lost their husbands and sons in the war have been compelled to engage in prostitution for their survival. Over 85,000 women in the North have been widowed due to the war.

Gettha Lakmini from the Movement has said that one village in the Madhu area is infamous for prostitution because they have no male family members, no jobs and there is no other way of survival.

She has explained that the only way to feed their children is to sell their body

Many war widows still do not get any compensation announced by the government.

The executive director of Viluthu Centre for Human Resource Development, Shantini Satchitanandan said that many countries investigated alleged war crimes after a conflict mainly as an attempt to console psychologically impaired war-affected women.

“They say the reconciliation is a long process. It should go on. It should go on for these women to find out what exactly happen to their husbands, loved ones,” she has said.

LANKANEWSWEB.LK

The Person who ordered the Abduction and the Brutal Assault on me was a Senior Defence official.!!!

25 March, 2012 - Published 14:08 GMT

Minister Mervyn in 'cover up of VVIP'


Mr Jayantha says he does not rule out Minister Mervyn Silva's involvement in the attack

The senior journalist union leader who was forced to flee Sri Lanka after being brutally attacked has accused a controversial minister of making public statements in order to protect the real perpetrators.
Poddala Jayantha was abducted by an unidentified group on 1 June 2009 taken to a hideout, brutally assaulted and left on the street with a broken leg, the next morning.

He was forced to leave the country having received death threats due to his refusal to speak up against threats and intimidation even after the attack.

After the US-sponsored resolution was passed in Geneva, Public Relations and Public Affairs Minister Mervyn Silva has said that he is the one who forced Mr Jayantha to leave Sri Lanka.

Investigation suspended

“I'm the one who chased Poddala Jayantha out of this country. I am telling you about this incident today. He went because of me," Mervyn Silva said.


I firmly believe that the person who ordered the abduction and the brutal assault on me was a senior defence official


Poddala Jayantha

But the former president of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA), says that the minister is working on "a contract" to get the real perpetrator released from the crime.

"I firmly believe that the person who ordered the abduction and the brutal assault on me was a senior defence official," he told BBC Sandeshaya from the United States.

Noting that Minister Mervyn Silva made similar statements few times, he says he was not surprised of the attempt given that the minister's past behaviour.

"I believe that I will be able to bring the real perpetrator who ordered to abduct and torture me when democracy and rule of law is re-established in Sri Lanka," added Poddala Jayantha.

Speaking to the BBC Sinhala service earlier, Police Spokesman Ajith Rohana said that people do make statements that implicate themselves in a crime in order to 'save someone else who committed a crime'.

The judicial investigation into the abduction and torture of Poddala has been suspended due to lack of evidence.

"Now the police have a good opportunity to re-open the case with the new evidence provided by Minister Silva," addedd Mr Jayantha.

He did not rule out the involvement of Minister Silva in the attack. However, he said he believes the order came from a top defence official.


Sandeshaya |

BBCSINHALA.COM

Provinces are yet to be given full Police& land powers legislated by the 13.amendment to the constitution adopted after Indo-Lanka agreement-1987.!!!

25 March, 2012 - Published 14:47 GMT

War displaced stopped from cultivating


The issue highlights the importance of land issues handled by the provinces, says the minister

The people in the former war-torn areas will not be able to enjoy the hard won freedom after decades of war if the government does not settle them back in their ancestral lands, says a provincial minister from the ruling party in Sri Lanka.
Wimalaweera Dissanayake, the land minister of the eastern province, made these remarks at a meeting people in Eravur to resolve land-related issues.

Residents of the area, mainly war displaced Muslims, informed the minister that they are prevented from re-cultivating their land by officials of the the central government.

Displaced people quoted government officials saying thousands of acres of paddy land has been set aside for grazing.

13 amendment

The minister said that the provincial government has not been informed of such action by the central government.


Although there should be areas reserved as grazing land for the cattle, the land issue of war displaced needs to be addressed as a priority


Provincial Minister Wimalaweera Dissanayake

Apart from issues faced by those who were forced to flee the war, the minister said there are many other frictions created due to ethnic differences.

Therefore, said Minister Wimalaweera, he could not agree with any action that once again forces these people to leave their ancestral lands.

"Although there should be areas reserved as grazing land for the cattle, the land issue of war displaced needs to be addressed as a priority," he said.

He added that the exclusion of people from their lands highlights the importance of the handing over of land powers to provincial governments.

Provinces are yet to be given full Police and land powers legislated by the 13 amendment to the constitution adopted after the Indo-Lanka agreement signed in 1987.


Sandeshaya |
BBCSINHALA.COM

NSS: Not Ready to implement all the Recommendations as Suggested by US led COALITION.!!! Not bound to reply to India or any other Nation.!!!

Monday March 26th 2012

Feasible LLRC recommendations will be implemented – Govt

No referendum, No role for Opp.
March 25, 2012, 11:29 pm

by Piyasena Dissanayake


The government has decided to continue the process of implementing the recommendations made by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission without the participation of the Opposition or holding a referendum on it.


Leader of the House and Irrigation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said yesterday that the government had decided to implement those recommendations long before the international community demanded it to do so.


It was wrong for some political parties and groups to interpret that as something the international community had got the government to implement and the government had succumbed to international pressure, Minister De Silva. "The Opposition has resorted to fish in troubled waters. We do not expect their participation in implementing the LLRC recommendations."


The minister said: "There are some others who talk of holding a referendum on it. There is no necessity for that as we have already commenced their implementation."


He said that the government was not ready to implement all the recommendations as suggested by US led anti Sri Lankan lobby at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva recently.


"We would implement only what we accept and consider feasible," Minister Silva said adding that the government was not bound to reply to India or any other nation in this regard.


www island.lk

lørdag 24. mars 2012

USA, along with Intl.community,Had Sent a Strong Signal that SriLanka will only Achieve Lasting Peace through Real Reconciliation& ACCOUNTABILITY.!!!

News » International
Washington, March 23, 2012

U.S. calls for quick response from Colombo
Narayan Lakshman

Adopting a softer tack following the condemnatory resolution against Sri Lanka passed at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. looked to the government of Sri Lanka to “implement the constructive recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and take the necessary measures to address accountability”.

Arguing that the next steps for Sri Lanka were clear, Ms. Clinton said the U.S., along with the international community, had “sent a strong signal that Sri Lanka will only achieve lasting peace through real reconciliation and accountability”.

Ms. Clinton's comments were echoed by other top administration officials, including U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Susan Rice and National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Urging a quick response, Ms. Rice said that while the LLRC recommendations acknowledged the need to address “key issues of accountability”, they also called upon the Sri Lankan government to present a plan to implement the recommendations and address alleged violations of international law. “The time for concrete action is now,” she added.

Mr. Vietor, a representative of the White House, underscored the importance of action by Sri Lanka's government for the well-being of that country's citizens.

He said, “The resolution, which received broad support from around the world, calls for a range of critical steps that would go a long away to advancing the rights and dignity of the Sri Lankan people.”



COURTESY: thehindu.com Copyright © 2012, The Hindu

SEE WHAT INDIA HAS DONE: Watered-down Resolution Passes in UNHRC, Stops Short of International Investigations.!!!



Watered-down resolution passes in UNHRC, stops short of international investigations
[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 March 2012, 13:57 GMT]

The UN Rights Council on Thursday approved the LLRC-based US-tabled resolution urging Colombo to probe Human Rights violations domestically with assistance and advice from the UN rights body. The resolution stopped short of calling for an international investigation. In the 47-member UNHRC, 24 countries including India, voted for the resolution while 15 voted against. 8 countries abstained. Meanwhile, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported SL minister Laksman Yapa Abeywardene as saying that Colombo's relationship with close neighbor India and powerful USA would not be changed despite the resolution passed in UN Human Rights Council. "Whatever decisions taken by India and the U.S. with regard to the resolution, that will be limited to that issue only," the Sri Lankan minister said.

The resolution has been watered-down further before the voting on point 3, especially on the role of Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and relevant special procedures mandate holders (click to enlarge the image):


Meanwhile, India's External Affairs ministry issued a statement echoing Colombo's concerns that the primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights lies with the States. “Consequently resolutions of this nature should fully respect the sovereign rights of states and contribute to Sri Lanka's own efforts in this regard,” the Indian statement said.



Full text of the final resolution (English)
“While we subscribe to the broader message of this resolution and the objectives it promotes, we also underline that any assistance from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights or visits of UN Special Procedures should be in consultation with and with the concurrence of the Sri Lankan Government,” the Indian statement said.



Tamil translation of the draft provided by the US Embassy in Colombo
Observers in Tamil Nadu said that the Indian statement contradicted the demands put forward by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. J. Jayalalithaa, who had demanded India to declare SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa complicit in genocide and war-crimes and to call for economic sanctions against Sri Lanka till the country ensured equal status to Tamils.

The Indian statement further said that a “democratic country like Sri Lanka has to be provided time and space to achieve the objectives of reconciliation and peace. In this Council we have the responsibility to ensure that our conclusions do contribute to this objective rather than hinder it. ”

Further, the Indian statement expressed hope in Sri Lankan measures saying that “this Council has also been briefed by the Government of Sri Lanka in this session on the series of steps taken to implement the report and other measures. We welcome these steps. We are confident that implementation of the report will foster genuine reconciliation.”

Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister G.L. Pieris, paramilitary leader and SL minister Douglas Devananda and Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe were present in Geneva to oppose the resolution.

China, Russia, Cuba, Bangladesh, Maldives, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Kuwait, Qatar, Congo, Mauritania and Ecuador are the countries that voted against the resolution while Malaysia, Senegal, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Djibouti and Angola abstained.

The countries that voted for the resolution are: United States, India, Norway, Switzerland, Benin, Cameroon, Libya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Moldova, and Romania.


Copyright © 1997-2012 TamilNet URL: http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com

fredag 23. mars 2012

MMS Stand as Evasive& Useless as it is not answering an earlier TN Assembly Resolution calling for Intl Investigation on the War Crimes & Genocide.!!!

Jayalalithaa blasts New Delhi supporting US-bailout of Sri Lanka
[TamilNet, Monday, 19 March 2012, 19:45 GMT]

Coming hard on Indian Prime Minister’s announcement in the parliament on Monday forenoon that India is inclined to vote in favour of the US-resolution at Geneva UNHRC, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa on Monday evening described the stand as evasive and useless as it is not answering an earlier TN Assembly resolution calling for international investigation on the war crimes and genocide. According to Jayalalithaa, both New Delhi and the DMK chief Karunanidhi once again enact a drama similar to the one in the last days of the Vanni war in hoodwinking Tamils. Leaving aside seeking a commitment from Sri Lanka to report to the UNHRC on progress, the US-tabled resolution at Geneva leaves everything in the hands of Sri Lanka and harps on only implementing Sri Lanka’s own LLRC recommendations.

India is now secretly working on watering down the resolution further before it goes for voting at Geneva, informed news sources said.

Even though the resolution has been tabled, India ostensibly says that it is yet to receive the final text, implying its attempts to alter it, the informed sources further said.

The New Delhi Establishment openly protected the Rajapaksa regime from any international scrutiny at the UNHRC in 2009 and at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in 2011.

India was among the leading countries that resolved congratulating the Rajapaksa regime on the conduct of the war in 2009 at the UNHRC.

Until Monday India’s stand was that it had no history of supporting country-specific resolutions at the UN.

Speaking at Lok Sabha on Monday, India’s PM, Manmohan Singh said: "As regards the issue of a draft resolution initiated by the United States at the on-going 19th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, we do not yet have the final text of the resolution.”

“However, I may assure the House that we are inclined to vote in favour of a resolution. That, we hope, will advance our objective, namely, the achievement of the future for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka that is marked by equality, dignity, justice and self-respect," he added.

In 2009, towards the end of the Vanni War, when there was public uprising in Tamil Nadu, the DMK chief and then Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanidhi announced a fasting campaign but withdrew it citing New Delhi’s assurances that Tamil civilians would be protected in the war.

The current Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalithaa was making an analogy of Mr. Karunanidhi’s announcement of a fasting campaign on the 22, if the centre was not taking a decision to vote against Sri Lanka at Geneva.

The entire resolution at Geneva is a farce and is a drama enacted by Colombo and its abetters in Washington and New Delhi, is the general opinion among Tamils.

Many Tamil organisations and political parties in the island, in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu have openly denounced the resolution for not aiming independent international investigation of the war crimes and for harping on the implementation of Sri Lanka’s LLRC recommendations, the thrust of which is annihilation of Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island.



Copyright © 1997-2012 TamilNet URL: http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com

torsdag 22. mars 2012

HRC VOTE:This is just a Start! We Need to Keep up the Pressure to Make Sure there is Real Change!Call for an Independent Intl Investigation Remains.!!

RESPONSE TO HRC VOTE

Sri Lanka Campaign Newsletter srilankacampaign@lists.srilankacampaign.org



Commenting on the vote in the Human Rights Council in favour of a motion criticising Sri Lanka's shortcomings on accountability, Fred Carver, Campaign Director for the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, said:


"This is a very good start, but it is just a start. We need to keep up the pressure to make sure there is real change. The call for an independent international investigation remains, and will until it is answered.




"Many of the nations that supported Sri Lanka in 2009, such as Nigeria, Cameroon, and India, have realised that they were lied to and today took the courageous step of supporting the resolution. We particularly thank them. The Government has tried to paint this issue as one of east vs west - whereas in reality it has been the Sri Lankan regime vs its own people. Today that was demonstrated, as nations from all over the world joined with Sri Lanka's internal critics to tell the government it is wrong, and its policies are flawed."




ENDS




NOTES TO EDITORS




Text below:


Human Rights Council

Nineteenth session

Agenda item 2

Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner

for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the

High Commissioner and the Secretary-General

United States of America: draft resolution

19/… Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka

The Human Rights Council,

Guided by the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights and other relevant instruments,

Recalling Council resolutions 5/1 and 5/2 on institution building of the Human Rights Council,

Reaffirming that States must ensure that any measure taken to combat terrorism complies with their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, as applicable,

Taking note of the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission of Sri Lanka and its findings and recommendations, and acknowledging its possible contribution to the process of national reconciliation in Sri Lanka,

Welcoming the constructive recommendations contained in the Commission’s report, including the need to credibly investigate widespread allegations of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, demilitarize the north of Sri Lanka, implement impartial land dispute resolution mechanisms, re-evaluate detention policies, strengthen formerly independent civil institutions, reach a political settlement on the devolution of power to the provinces, promote and protect the right of freedom of expression for all and enact rule of law reforms,

Noting with concern that the report does not adequately address serious allegations of violations of international law,

1. Calls upon the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the constructive recommendations made in the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and to take all necessary additional steps to fulfil its relevant legal obligations and commitment to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans;

2. Requests the Government of Sri Lanka to present, as expeditiously as possible, a comprehensive action plan detailing the steps that the Government has taken and will take to implement the recommendations made in the Commission’s report, and also to address alleged violations of international law;

3. Encourages the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant special procedures mandate holders to provide, in consultation with, and with the concurrence of, the Government of Sri Lanka, advice and technical assistance on implementing the above-mentioned steps;, and requests the Office of the High Commissioner to present a report on the provision of such assistance to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-second session.




voting as below

24...15.....8
Yes..No.....Abst




--
The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice
http://srilankacampaign.org

Visit our website for more information on the situation in Sri Lanka http://www.srilankacampaign.org

onsdag 21. mars 2012

Inform, Educate& Provide Clear,Convincing Evidence that,with the Explicit Backing of the MR-REGIME, State-Sponsored Sinhalisation Increased in NESL!!!

DearFriends

This article that appeared in Tamil Canadian, throws light on the extent of colonisationand changing of the landscape in the Tamil Homeland. Please read it to understand the subjugation the Tamils are undergoing in their homeland.

Visvanathan
............................................................
Salt on Old Wounds:Post-War Sri Lanka

By The Social Architects

March 20, 2012

Disclaimer:The following document was anonymously submitted to International Policy Digest(IPD) by The Social Architects (TSA).

‘Salt onOld Wounds: The Systematic Sinhalization of Sri Lanka’s North, East and HillCountry’ the first study published by The Social Architects (TSA), seeks to setout the systematic, increasing and widespread process of Sinhalization that istaking place in historically Tamil areas in the North, East and Hill Country inpost-war Sri Lanka. While focusing on the process of Sinhalization that iscurrently being implemented, this monograph seeks to situate it within thebroader historical process of Sinhalization that has been carried out bydifferent governments spanning a number of decades.

Thereport argues that even though Sinhalization is not a new phenomenon, thesweeping changes which continue to occur in historically Tamil areas inhibitthe country’s ability to heal after nearly three decades of civil war. Althoughthe current government’s rhetoric gives importance to building bridges betweencommunities by ensuring those affected are able to fully and freely exercisetheir rights, in reality, its actions are evidence of the Sri Lankan State’slack of respect for the rights of all its citizens, particularly the Tamilpeople.

Thispaper will show that the concept of Sinhalization extends well beyond thesubjects of strategic state-planned settlements, land, military intrusion,boundary changes and the renaming of villages. Sinhalization has made its wayinto Tamil cultural events, religious life, economic activity, public sectorrecruitment and even the Sri Lankan education system. Since the Tamil communityis attempting to recover from the devastating impact of the civil war andrebuild social networks and community structures, attempts to control anddemolish socio-cultural aspects of their lives, such as the take over anddestruction of temples, inhibit their attempts to engage in emotional healingand community regeneration even minimally.

The mostimportant element of the process of Sinhalization is the continuedmilitarization of many aspects of civilian life. While this is a nationalphenomenon, it is most aggressively practiced in the Tamil majority areas ofthe country. Even though at present it is the North and the East that are mostmilitarized, creeping militarization is also evidenced in the Hill Country. Asset out in the report, militarization is an effective tool used by the State togain and maintain both government and Sinhala monopoly of various aspects ofday to day life, including the provision of services by civil administration,economic activities and civic activities in Tamil majority areas. It also helpscreate and maintain a sense of fear within the Tamil community.

Nearlythree years following the end of the civil war, state polices such as thosediscussed in this report have deepened existing feelings of fear, suspicion andmistrust between and within communities rather than creating more understandingamongst them, exacerbated ethnic tensions and further polarized the country.The current government which has exploited the war victory, a weak andfragmented opposition, and a two-third’s majority in parliament, is no longerbeholden to its constituents. Instead, it has evolved into a semi-authoritarianpopulist regime with little tolerance for dissent. In this context, risingSinhala nationalism and the concomitant disregard for Tamil rights means thatmembers of this community are unable to even voice their needs and concerns,let alone express dissent and protest against restrictions imposed upon them.

Thispaper is not meant to be an exhaustive discourse on Sinhalization or ExtremistSinhala Buddhist ideology. Rather its purpose is to inform, educate and provideclear, convincing evidence that, with the explicit backing of the MahindaRajapaksa administration, State- sponsored Sinhalization has been increasing in Tamil majority areas in post-war Sri Lanka.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/86040164/Salt-on-Old-Wounds-The-Systematic-Sinhalization-of-Sri-Lanka%E2%80%99s-North-East-and-Hill-Country

tirsdag 20. mars 2012

Many war widows still do not get any compensation announced by the SINHALA govt! Over 85,000 TAMIL Women were Widowed in the NESL after the war.!!!

War widows 'forced into prostitution'


'The only way to feed their children is to sell their body'
Women who have lost their husbands and sons in Sri Lanka's decades-long conflict have been forced to turn to prostitution, say women's rights activists.
Geetha Lakmini of World Fisherfolk Solidarity Movement said over 85,000 women were widowed in the north and east after the war.

"One village in Madhu area is infamous for prostitution because they have no male family members, no jobs and there is no other way of survival," she told journalists in Colombo.

"The only way to feed their children is to sell their body."

Many war widows still do not get any compensation announced by the government, she added.

Accountability

A conference on war affected women also heard that thousands affected women are currently suffering from serious physical illnesses including headaches, high blood pressure as well as psychological illnesses such as depression.


Accountability is demonstrating to the world that we are human beings


Shantini Satchitanandan, Viluthu

The executive director of Viluthu Centre for Human Resource Development, Shantini Satchitanandan said that many countries investigated alleged war crimes after a conflict mainly as an attempt to console psychologically impaired war-affected women.

"They say the reconciliation is a long process. It should go on. It should go on for these women to find out what exactly happen to their husbands, loved ones," she said commenting on the need for accountability after a civil war.

"Accountability is demonstrating to the world that we are human beings," she added.

The conference was organised by he Women's Movement for Social Justice.

Sandeshaya

BBC News

PROTEST MARCH-1992 was led by MR as an active HR-DEFENDER! IT was against Abduction,Torture& Killing of 60000 Sinhala Youth BY PREMADASA(UNP) REGIME!

Lanka News Web.COM

President gets angry when reminded about the Pada Yatra(WALK/Procession) .

Monday, 19 March 2012 18:34 NewsEditor Hits: 798 .


The President has shouted at several state media heads who have suggested that an event be organized to mark the 20th anniversary since the holding of a pada yatra against the government by him during the tenure of President R. Premadasa on March 16, 1992.

“Are you people mad to remind me of that at this time? The NGO fellows who are in Geneva would use it and make statements about what I said at the time. Don’t even remind about this to our fellows. You people don’t have what is called a common sense,” the President has shouted at the media heads.

The pada yatra organized in 1992 was led by Mahinda Rajapaksa who was an active opposition politician at the time. The protest march was against the abduction, torture and killing of over 60,000 young men and women in the South by the Premadasa regime and the complete breakdown of law and order.

The pada yatra commenced from the Viharamahadevi Park on March 16th and reached Kataragama on April 1st following a march on foot through Katura, Ambalangoda, Galle, Matara, Tangalle and Hambantota.

Since the march ended on April Fool’s Day, the final religious rituals and dashing of coconuts against the Premadasa regime was held on April 2nd. The campaign was a great strength at the time to the opposition politicians.

The parents’ association against the controversial killing of the Embilipitiya students, the mothers’ front, Vasudeva Nanayakkara’s front for missing people and other associations participated in the protest campaign. The pada yatra gave a great strength to topple the 17 year UNP regime and to ensure the victory of the SLFP led People’s Alliance in 1994.

It is ironical to see the organizer of the pada yatra holding the office of the President and trying to cast aside the event 20 years later.

The reason to cover up the pada yatra is the fact that the slogans used 20 years ago are once again being used in the country.


editor@lankanewsweb.com

Oh You,The United Nations, World Leaders, the International Mass-media! Please hasten to come forward at least now,even at this stage to intervene.!!!

From: lalitha.brodie7@hotmail.com
CANADA
Subject: DEMAND
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:49:04 -0400

Hello Friends,

The Writers Group of Older Womens Network wanted members to wrte something on two words for March - DEMAND & MIND - and I am going to read this to them on Tuesday March, 20 1.30 - 3.30 pm at OWN Office at 115 The Esplanade in front of St. Lawrence Market and I am circulating this for your informaion
.....................................................

DEMAND

Conditioned by our Eastern culture, we feel

that we are so lucky to be thus blessed,

with more than what we will ever need.

So why fan our desire for more and more

as we cannot take anything with us at death?



Desires of our untamed mind running wild,

breaking every rein and bridle to gallop free,
demanding this or that at every whim and fancy,
without placing a ceiling to curb our thoughts

I believe, are the reasons which precipitate
so many different types of conflicts and wars,
that destroy peace to plague our life today.
It is the insatiable ego of the me and the mine

without empathy, thinking only of the victory

that starts the revenge seeking conflict

that continues demanding the eternal tit for tat.



However see what is happening now?

The Channel Four 2 Broadcast, documents

the pathetic plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka again,

making me bristle with anger and dismay!

Forgetting principles, I join Tamils world-wide

to demand in anguish, "Where is justice?

Why is the world still so silent when Tamils

continue to suffer so much as refugees

in their own land and crowded State camps,

even after the war ended two years ago.

Thousands of innocent children and adult

civilians have been killed or still missing

and are not accounted for! Who will heal

the trauma and pain of those left behind

all injured and broken physically and mentally?

I feel so sad that I do nothing else but write . . .



Oh you,The United Nations, World Leaders,

the International Mass-media! Please hasten

to come forward at least now, even at this stage

to intervene and initiaite all what is essential

to demand negotiations for justice and harmony

between Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

søndag 18. mars 2012

There needs to be a paradigm shift in the thinking of the administration in Colombo and unfortunately they seem incapable of that task.!!!

International Community is responsible for Sri Lanka’s present crisis
March 17, 2012, 4:13 pm

Dushy Ranetunge in London


The present crisis facing Sri Lanka is not an exception; it is one that has been played out repeatedly across the world.


In South America, Africa, Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia powerful nations, primarily the United States, has over the last century armed and trained local militaries as a bulwark against their perceived Great Satan. For most of last century the great Satan was communism, and after 9/11 it was replaced by terrorism.


This strategy gave rise to despotic dictatorships, which had popular support initially, before turning out to become some of the greatest human rights abusers the world had seen.


Sri Lankan’s are the latest victims of this global strategy.


As others across the globe battled communist/nationalist rebels for most of the last century, Sri Lanka continually battled "insurgents" every 20 years, for its entire existence since independence.


Like the other nations with similar crisis, Sri Lanka had, and continues to have its share of internal, inherent, structural weaknesses that sparks rebellion.


Approximately 20 years after independence in 1948, Sri Lanka faced its first insurgency in 1971. The Sri Lankan state "dealt" with it and tens of thousands of its citizens were slaughtered by the armed forces in the process. Sri Lanka received military aid from across the world to aid in this slaughter of the perceived "Communist/Marxist" great Satan. Civilians, who were perceived as "insurgents" were given third degree treatment even then, the Premawathi Manamperi case being the most famous.


Another 20 years later in 1989, another insurgency was ruthlessly crushed, with the state slaughtering tens of thousands of its own citizens. Civilians faced the brunt of the onslaught.


Another 20 years later we have 2009, and the "insurgents" have been renamed "terrorists" as a strategy, to hitch the Sri Lankan anti-insurgent wagon to the US led global anti-terrorism initiative.


But in 2009, things are different. There are mobile phones carried by almost everyone to record atrocities, advanced sophisticated satellites which could focus into your house through the window and watch you drinking coffee, and the international legal framework in respect of human rights and war crimes have advanced exponentially since 1971 and 1989.


The quality and quantity of evidence available, advanced investigative techniques and the robustness and the advances in international humanitarian law is what Sri Lanka faces today.


Pinochet was lucky as he was at the tail end to face the full force of these developments. Milosevic and others since then have not been so fortunate.


Like in Chile, Afghanistan and Vietnam, the Sri Lankan government and its security forces were in one sense fighting a proxy war on behalf of India and the United States to dispose of "terrorists" who were destabilizing their turf.


They encouraged and assisted in Colombo’s war against "terrorism". Colombo was somewhat unsophisticated and naïve in interpreting that encouragement and assistance. They saw it as a blank cheque, a wink and a nod to do as they please.


Today as the full evidence of the horrors of war emerge, India and the United States will find it difficult to disassociate themselves from their "ally".


The outrage in the Indian parliament last week and the massive lobbying of the human rights organizations in the West are challenges in those democracies to self-correct their trajectory and to force those governments to hold Colombo accountable.


In Sri Lanka there are no such mechanisms for self-correction, as it has an impotent rubberstamp parliament and a harassed human rights lobby. The press has been firebombed, abducted, murdered and assaulted. The opposition has been dismantled.


Considering the sudden activity in Sri Lanka, with the military investigating itself and human rights championing by the government, the squeeze in Geneva seems to be giving rise to some window dressing in Colombo. But these are too little too late, only for the consumption by the gullible.


After having battled the LTTE in Geneva on many occasions in the past, this month the Sri Lankan government is battling the United States, the European Union and most of the UNHCR.


In Sri Lanka, political bankruptcy is on display as government ministers are clowning trying to show the power of the nation by boycotting Google!


With the Sri Lankan economy dependant on the West for their exports in tea, garments as well as tourism, and now indirectly even oil, it is difficult to see what options they have.


Channel 4 in London, had an "expose" on Wednesday well timed for the vote in Geneva. It was no "expose" as these issues were highlighted on the day the war ended in an article titled "Was Prabakaran and his entire family executed?" It was not published in Sri Lanka for obvious reasons. The article was published on the www. It was regarded by the defence establishment in Colombo as a "party spoiler" as commented by Prof Rohan Guneratna.


Anabarasan of the BBC said that he was surprised as to what I had written. Now its on Channel 4.


There needs to be a paradigm shift in the thinking of the administration in Colombo and unfortunately they seem incapable of that task.


www island.lk

UPALI NEWSPAPERS (PVT) LTD
Copyright © Upali Newspapers (Pvt) Ltd.

The Crimes Of An Unaccountable State...!!!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Crimes Of An Unaccountable State

By Tisaranee Gunasekara.........THESUNDAYLEADER.LK

“Kill them out of the way… And let me hear their everlasting grunts and whines no more!”
Shelley (Œdipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyrant)

Abductions in the South continue unabated, even as the Resolution on Sri Lanka awaits a vote in Geneva.
Can there be a more damning measure of Rajapaksa-addiction to abuse and impunity?
While the regime hails its own commitment to human rights and howls against diabolical international conspiracies, anonymous men in mysterious vans roam the country unfettered, abducting citizens at will. Not even Colombo is secure from their boundless reach; nor members of the ruling coalition safe from their limitless capacity. As last week’s blotched abduction of Ravindra Udayashantha, the UPFA Chairman of the Kolonnawa Urban Council, demonstrates.
Mr. Udayashantha lost a brother to a white van last month. He was saved from a similar fate because his supporters, assisted by the people of the area, intervened and apprehended some of the would-be-abductors. The men in civvies “…initially confessed that they were army deserters… Then they said they came looking for an army deserter… Then they said they are in the army…attached to a camp in Vavuniya” (Ceylon Today – 13.3.2012). The would-be-abductors were handed over to the police. Instead of being investigated and charged, they were liberated from police custody (reportedly via intervention from on-high) within hours. The Wellampitiya OIC, who resisted this unlawful deed, was allegedly rewarded with a punishment-transfer, with immediate effect!
Can such barefaced violations of the law happen without sanction from the power-wielders? Was not the punishment-transfer of the OIC a signal to all other police officers not to interfere with white vans, as they attend to their grisly duties mandated from on-high?
The inability/ unwillingness of the police to properly investigate disappearances/abductions was an important critical point mentioned in the regime’s own LLRC Report. The aftermath of the Kolonnawa incident clearly indicates that police dilatoriness stems from political intervention. As Senior Counsel Karunaratne Herath informed the NCP Appeal Court, “the Attorney General’s Department is providing security for officials and politicians who commit crimes” and some lawyers in the AG’s Department “are trying to mislead the country by submitting illegal documents” (Ceylon Today – 15.3.2012). The nexus between this unethical conduct and the imposition of presidential rule on the AG’s Department by Mahinda Rajapaksa is too obvious to be belaboured.
Most Rajapaksa-opponents/critics live with the possibility of unjust incarceration or violent death. But in this land awash with abuse and impunity, even Rajapaksa-supporters and politically uninvolved citizens are not safe from such a brutal fate. Like Dante’s Hell, the Rajapaksa Security State consists of several concentric circles of power. The innermost and the most potent circle is occupied by the three Ruling Siblings; the degree of power decreases as one moves outwards from this omnipotent centre. The law of the jungle is applicable here: the big eats the small, the powerful targets the powerless, with varying degrees of impunity. Every institution tasked with impeding the powerful and protecting the powerless has been degraded and corrupted into effeteness. The 18th Amendment provided a constitutional cover for this process of denudation, rather like Herr Hitler’s very constitutional Enabling Law.
The vast majority of Lankan citizens exist outside these circles of power and thus are both impotent and vulnerable. They are safe only so far as they do not incur the wrath of someone within a circle of power. A horrendous death can become their fate if they displease a ‘powerful one’, as the Kahawatte dual-murder demonstrates, again. Those who occupy the outer rings of power too can meet a grisly end, if they fall foul of those who occupy the inner rings of power, as the murder of Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and the attempted abduction of Ravindra Udayashantha prove.
In the end, no citizen is safe under a regime addicted to abuse and impunity. What happened to a presidential advisor or almost happened to a UC Chairman yesterday can happen to a parliamentarian or a minister tomorrow.
The LLRC Report, while weak on accountability issues, does advocate several preventive measures which, if implemented, can marginally impede Rajapaksa excesses. For instance, a Special Commissioner might make worrisome inquiries about abductions; and stringent new laws might discourage some uniformed men from becoming involved in such illegal activities. Little wonder then that the Rajapaksas are so resistant to the time-bound implementation of the LLRC Report.
The interests of a country’s rulers and its people do not always coincide. There are occasions when the interests of the rulers (and their cohorts) and those of ordinary masses conflict. The Rajapaksas cannot but fight tooth and nail against the Geneva Resolution, because the right to abduct and punish with impunity is an indispensable pillar of Familial Rule. But if international pressure in Geneva compels the regime to implement some of the LLRC recommendations, it will limit the Rajapaksas’ right to impunity while strengthening the right to life and liberty of not just Rajapaksa-opponents but also Rajapaksa-supporters and politically uninvolved Lankans.

Wages of Occupation

Last week, in the North, a soldier murdered two of his comrades and killed himself, reportedly as a result of a personal conflict.
Just as the ongoing economic upheavals demonstrate the financial costs of militarization; this murder-suicide indicates the psychological costs of maintaining the North as a de facto occupied territory. What this incident revealed was but the tip of an iceberg of myriad problems which, if left unattended, can cause far greater disasters like the wanton murder of sixteen Afghan civilians (including nine children) by an American sergeant in Panjwai.
The regime’s response was laughably inane: it banned the dissemination of “any news related to national security, security forces and the police” without official approval.
The blanket censorship imposed during the Fourth Eelam War did not prevent news of crimes and misdeeds from getting out. The latest Channel 4 video, with its horrific allegation that Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s 12 year old son was shot, execution style, at point blank range, is the best possible indication of the inefficacy and the counterproductive nature of censorship. Whenever news is censored, the logical assumption is that the censor has something to hide. Thus censorship rather than debunking lends credence to charges of rights violations and even war crimes.
Impunity, as we in the South are beginning to comprehend, is a cancer which does not respect borders – geographical, ethno-religious or socio-economic. An army accustomed to arbitrariness, habituated into thinking that power plus democracy and freedom flow from the barrel of a gun and regards violence as an efficacious mode of conflict resolution (including internecine disputes) is unlikely to act with restraint or moderation simply because it is stationed in the South.
In his magisterial work on the Algerian War of Independence, Alistair Horne writes of a French police inspector who tortured his own wife and children because of “what he had been required to do to Algerian suspects” (A Savage War of Peace). Criminality is limitlessly corrupting and blindly addictive. The Tiger-chickens took torture and murder home to fellow Tamils. It is in the South’s interests to ensure that those patriotic-chickens accustomed to violence, brutality and abuse do not come home, to us, to roost.

CHINA HELPS! SL's large Military estblts that choke Jaffna TAMILS & Threaten Indian Security! Sinhala colonisation is carried out in TAMIL Places.!!!



Sri Lanka's large military establishments that choke Jaffna peninsula and threaten Indian security. Sinhala colonisation is carried out in places no 11, 13, 14, and 16. The locations: 1. High Security Zone, Valikaamam North, 2. Kaarainakar naval base, 3. Vallan, Pungkudutheevu, 4. Periyathu'rai and Saamiththoadda-munai, Delft (Key location for Kachchatheevu and Rameswaram), 5. Kunthavadi, Delft, 6. Thalai-mannaar, 7. Mannaar Fort, 8. Tha'l'laadi, 9. Poonakari Fort, 10. Elephant Pass, 11. Vettilaikkea'ni, 12. Naakarkoayil, 13. Ariyaalai East and the opposite sandbar Ma'n'niththalai, 14. Naavatkuzhi, 15. Ma'ndaitheevu,16. Jaffna city, 17. Kachcha-theevu and 18. Naachchik-kudaa. The innumerable small military posts and the newly planned cantonments in Vanni are not shown in the map. [Satellite Image courtesy: NASA, Visible Earth. Legend by TamilNet]

Chinese-helped new SL Naval base comes up in Vanni, targeting Palk Bay
[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2012, 09:45 GMT]

Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils opened a new naval base in the western coast of Vanni at Naachchik-kudaa facing the Palk Bay in a commanding position to target movements from the Tamil Nadu coast of India. Construction of the new naval base received Chinese help. SL navy commander Somathilake Tissanayake inaugurated the base on Monday. Meanwhile, journalists who have gone for the annual church fete at the uninhabited islet Kachcha-theevu in the Palk Bay has noticed a permanently built SL naval base there. The construction material of this base and a newly coming up jetty there were found with Chinese markings. Two SL naval ships are always stationed near Kachcha-theevu. The attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen deploying Sinhala gangs from the south are operated by SLN in Kachcha-theevu.


This week, petrol bombs thrown by a gang coming in a boat destroyed a Tamil Nadu fishing boat near Kachcha-theevu.

The new naval base, located in a cove at the fishing port Naachchik-kudaa in the Kariyaalai-Naakappaduvan division of the Ki’linochchi district, has been given with a Sinhala name Bhuvaneka.

The location of Naachchikkudaa

From the location the base could monitor the fishing villages from Mannaar to the Devil’s Point coast in the Vanni, as well as movements from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and the Ira’nai-theevu and Kachcha-theevu islets.

SL defence secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa put the naval division in this part of Vanni to operation in August last year. The new naval division will function under Sri Lanka’s North Central Command.

Apart from the KKS naval base, already there are three more major SL naval bases in the north at Kaarainakar, Veala’nai and Ma’ndai-theevu to conduct surveillance of movements in the Palk Bay from Tamil Nadu. Besides, there are many small naval detachments all along the coasts of the north.

Right from 1960s Colombo was systematically following a naval policy of choking the coasts of the north in the pretext of checking smuggling. A former Sinhala Government Agent of Jaffna has put it on record that this naval policy in the 1960s itself was actually in anticipation of checking Tamils in the island, because the Colombo government was very much conscious that its policies on Tamils would eventually bring in trouble.

Now the mushrooming naval bases directly target Tamil Nadu, strategic analysts said.



Related Articles:
10.03.12 SLA re-confiscates land ‘declared’ resettled in Jaffna HSZ
07.03.12 Tamil Nadu Catholic Church reminds umbilical cord relations ..
22.02.12 Rajapaksa secretly inaugurated China project in Jaffna
05.02.12 China to build airport in Poonakari to balance India’s Palaa..
13.12.11 China announces Indian Ocean naval base in Seychelles
05.12.11 Maathakal protests Sri Lanka’s Naval base
19.11.11 China proxies get India's closest coast in Jaffna
16.07.07 Naachchikkudaa


Copyright © 1997-2012 TamilNet URL: http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com

Visiting TAMIL Students from Schools of Jaffna were attacked by fellow Sinhala students in a cadet camp in the South! SINHALA ARMY IGNORED THIS!

Sinhala school students attack visiting Tamil counterparts from Jaffna
[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2012, 08:51 GMT]

Nations divided at the grassroot in the island despite machinations of global powers, reflected in an episode this week in which visiting students from leading schools of Jaffna were attacked by fellow Sinhala students in a cadet camp at Randamba in the Southern Province. The Sinhala military officials in the camp, rather than attending to complaints, chose to send the Jaffna school students back, with a warning not to tell anyone what had happened to them in the camp. During the decades of war, Colombo had stopped cadet programmes in the schools of Jaffna. Now as a part of its militarisation and structural genocide programme Colombo has conceived the idea of obligatory military training to all university entrants and reintroduction of cadet programme in the leading schools of Jaffna.

Accompanied by teachers, school cadets (or rather children as they are under 18) from St. John’s College, Jaffna Hindu College, Kokkuvil Hindu College and Central College of Jaffna were among those who were taken for the cadet training camp of both Sinhala and Tamil students at the Randamba SL military facility in the Southern Province.

During the camping, verbal exchanges between the two sections snowballed into an attack on visiting Tamil students by the Sinhala students, on Tuesday.

The accompanying Tamil teachers brought the matter to the notice of the military officials conducting the cadet camp. But no disciplinary action was initiated against the attackers.

Again on Wednesday, when the students of Jaffna Central College went to collect their food, they were attacked by the same group of Sinhala students in the locality of their hostel.

Jaffna Central College students returned on Thursday and principals of the other schools have asked for the safe return of their students.

Colombo restarted the cadet programme in the Jaffna schools with great fun-fare last year. The occupying Sinhala military has allocated a school building near Kaakkai-theevu in Jaffna for this purpose.

For advanced training the Jaffna students were taken to Randamba military facility.

School administrations and education officers in Jaffna are highly concerned of the indifferent attitude of the SL military towards the attack on Tamil students. In future they would resist sending their students for any training programme in the South, education circles in Jaffna said.

All the Jaffna institutions mentioned above became degraded into high schools long back, despite their ‘college’ nametags and more than a hundred years old history.

But as high schools they are monumental institutions of Jaffna society and all of them have alumni associations all over the world.

Genocidal Colombo nowadays has a particular sinister eye on the educational institutions of Eezham Tamils and their alumni associations in the diaspora.


* * *


As all school students in the island are under 18, they are children according to international reckoning.

The world establishments and international human rights organisations that are worried about child soldiers among non-state combatants never raise a finger to the cadet programme to the school children that is conducted all over the world by the Establishments to prepare and recruit soldiers.

Schools usually take in children for cadet training from 14 –15 years onwards.

The very idea of cadet programme that originates from British imperial and colonial schooling system, and that is now found pampered in the schools of India and the USA, has the motive of orientating the school children into militaristic thinking, exposing them to the military of the Establishment and luring them for recruitment.

Copyright © 1997-2012 TamilNet URL: http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com

lørdag 17. mars 2012

Hindus of the area are shocked & grieved over the preparations being made by the Army to remove 2 ancient Hindu deities TO PUT BUDDHA.!!!

Two ancient statues of Hindu deities to be removed and a Buddha statue to be erected in that place.

(Lanka-e-News-16.March.2012, 11.50PM) Hindu prelates of the area are shocked and grieved over the preparations being made by the Army to remove two ancient statues of Hindu deities which have been there at Kokilai Hospital junction , Mulaitivu , and had been objects of worship of Hindu pilgrims for a very long time , and in that place build a Buddha statue.

The two Hindu statues are of their highly respected deities , Pillayar and Vairavar.

In addition to the construction of the Buddha statue , seven plots of ancestral lands of seven residents in the vicinity of the Hospital junction have been acquired for the Army. The residents say on those lands so acquired a Buddhist Vihara is to be erected .

In these districts , except the soldiers who have come there from outside , there aren’t any Buddhists. In the circumstances , there is no national religious unity being created by these atrocious and obnoxious actions. All what is being done by these atrocities is planting seeds of another war.


©lankaenews.com 2005-2012 E-Mail: info@lankaenews.com

The ICG:By adopting policies that will bring fundamental changes to the culture, demography & economy of the North,SINHALA GOVT SOW SEEDS OF VIOLENCE!

16 March, 2012 - Published 18:59 GMT

Crisis group warns northern militarization


The International Crisis Group, a human rights group based in Brussels warns that the militarization in the former war zone in Sri Lanka could have negative consequences.
It claims that the government is trying to change the demography of the North by creating settlements with a Sinhalese majority.

“ Most of powers of Tamil civil servants such as Government Agents and Divisional Secretaries have been taken away by local Commanders and Presidential task force,” said International crisis group analyst Alan Keenan in an interview with Sandeshaya.

Analyst Alan keenan said that military involvement in the north has limited the ability of humanitarian organisations to operate effectively and deliver relief to people who needed support.

Responding to a question, he said that there is no serious co-operation between the Tamil National Alliance and other elected parliamentarians from smaller parties. But he said that government is working closely only with the Eelam People's Democratic Party and others already with the government.

The International Crisis Group say that by adopting policies that will bring fundamental changes to the culture, demography and economy of the Northern Province, the government of Sri Lanka is sowing the seeds of future violence there.

Sandeshaya

BBC

Even though SL has all the 4 World-Religions, it is Unfortunate that Political Chauvinism & Religious Fundamentalism have Overtaken RELIGIOUS VALUES!

Religion, ethics & politics


“Even though [Sri Lanka] has all the four world-religions, it is unfortunate that political chauvinism and religious fundamentalism have often overtaken religious values such as respect for human life and human rights.”


In sharing some thoughts triggered by the above words, I acknowledge my debt to works such as Alice Greenwald’s article, ‘The Relic on the Spear: Historiography and the Saga of Dutthamgamani’ (included in ‘Religion and Legitimation of Power in Sri Lanka’ edited by Bardwell Smith, USA, 1978), and to Bruce Lincoln’s ‘Holy Terrors’ (Chicago, 2003). The oxymoronic nature of the latter title relates to the core of what follows. In his poem, ‘On The Nature of Things’, written over two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that religion, rather than leading human beings to piety, has more often excited them to “foul impieties”. Yet all religions enjoin virtues such as forgiveness, non-violence and compassion. The claim of those who are brutal in the name of religion can be couched in the following lines: “I hate them more than you hate. I’m prepared, in the name of our religion, to be more violent and cruel than you. Therefore, I’m religiously superior.” Hate, and not love, becomes the hallmark of religiosity. Reinhold Niebuhr, in his ‘Moral Man and Immoral Society’ pointed out that we, accepting vague generalisation; mistaking myth for literal truth (the basis of true democracy is a well-informed public), act as a group, as a collective, in ways which are a contradiction and a shame to our private moral code, to our ethics as individuals. (Niebuhr, President Barack Obama writes, is one of his favourite philosophers: see the review in my ‘Public Writings on Sri Lanka’.)

If one simply understands a “terrorist” attack as one that unleashes violence on civilians (not on military personnel), then 9/11 was an act of terrorism, one that included children, women and fellow Moslems. Yet the final instructions to those who carried out this merciless act commence with the customary invocation to God, “the most merciful”. ‘The Mahavamsa’ relates that when Viharadevi was expecting Dutthagamani, her ‘pregnancy desires’ (lotus-blossoms, honey) included the longing to drink the water that had washed off the blood from the sword that killed the first of Elara’s warriors - while standing on that very head. Many will find this uncivilized, sickeningly gruesome and pathological, but the lady is presented as a paragon of piety. Like the Christian crusaders who, along with their weapons of war, carried holy relics, including the Roman spear believed to have pierced Christ’s side while on the Cross, so Dutthagamani placed a relic of the Soul of Great Compassion in his lance. Though the Buddha had forbidden monks to even witness military parades and reviews, Dutthagamani took along with him five hundred of them. Worried about the safety of his soul because he had caused the death of thousands, Dutthagamani is reassured by monks that he has killed but one and a half men: the one was a Buddhist; the other, on the path to becoming a Buddhist. All the others, being non-Buddhist, were but beasts. In other words, one is human only if one is a Buddhist. (As it has been observed, Sinhalese society is highly text-bound, ‘scriptural’, that is, written texts carry authority, and heavily influence both the literate and the illiterate.) But even if this inhumane degrading of humans to beasts is accepted, it is still an affront to Buddhism because the Buddha’s compassion encompassed animals and birds, as did the concern of the Emperor Asoka: see, Rock Edict 1 and Pillar Edict V. (On similar lines, it is said that the Prophet Mohammed never killed a fellow Muslim – unless the man had murdered another Muslim; was a married man who had illegal sexual intercourse; was one who fought against Allah and His Apostle or had deserted Islam and became an apostate. During the Inquisition, human beings were publicly burnt alive, in the name of “gentle Jesus”.) So it has been observed that while Asoka’s approach was tolerant and inclusive, Sri Lankan Buddhism is violent, restricted and excluding in that it identifies religion and “race”.

On the very last page of his autobiography, ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, Gandhi declares: “those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means”. Gandhi’s steps to this conclusion seem to be as follows. God is Truth, and Truth is God. To see Truth, one must love not only all on earth (animals, birds, insects included) but also love them in every aspect of life. Therefore, love, and the sense of care that arises from love, must draw one to politics because politics affects life. (Gandhi’s emphasis on love reminds me of one of the Prophet Mohammed’s Hadiths: “You will not enter Paradise unless you believe. And you will not believe until you love one another.”) But, as we have seen above, if to Gandhi politics and religion were an expression of love, these two could also be made to serve as justification for hatred and violence. Cruelty in the name of a compassionate God is not a contradiction: on the contrary, it is a manifestation of piety. If God created humanity, it is humanity which interprets and gives expression to religion. In that sense, blasphemous though it may seem, one could say that it is human communities (led by those with religious, political and social power) who create the “image”, that is, the actual nature and expression, of God. This is done through selection (which implies omission) and the tendentious “reading” of texts and tradition. The latter includes myth and, as Bronislaw Malinowski (one of the most important of 20th century anthropologists) observed, myth serves to establish, justify and reinforce a sociological order.

So should one, leaving religion, turn to Ethics for “salvation”? While in the rest of Germany pupils have a choice between Religion and Ethics, since 2006 (as the result of a referendum), lessons in Ethics are compulsory in Berlin. The sub-title of the work, ‘The Moral Landscape’, by Sam Harris (2010), neuroscientist and philosopher, is ‘How Science can determine Human Values’. “Morality” is a concern for the well-being of all, and the objectivity of science, Harris argues, must be brought to bear on it. In as much as there is no Christian chemistry or Islamic physics, there should be a neutral, universal, code of Ethics based, not on myth and feelings, but on reason and science, keeping in mind the desideratum of the well-being of all. The emphasis by Harris on a code of Ethics that is trans-national and trans-cultural reminds me of what Stephane Hessel, one of those who helped draft the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writes in his ‘Time for Outrage’. (Published last year when Hessel was ninety-three, the essay has been translated into over 40 languages.) The member states of the UN had to commit to respecting not merely inter-national but universal (emphasised) rights: “That is how to forestall the argument for full sovereignty that a state likes to make when it is carrying out crimes against humanity on its soil.”

But it is not easy to separate religion and morality because those who commit violence in the name of religion claim to believe they act in the cause of a much-higher morality, on the lines of: “Our enemies are the enemies of God (or of the Compassionate One). Therefore, it is right to annihilate them”. The 9/11 hijackers’ first victims were to be killed as sacrificial beasts whose throat should be slit in ritual fashion. Prior to the advent of Islam, what obtained was “jahiliyyah”, a state of ignorance and barbarism. ‘The ‘Thupavamsa’ says that the ‘Soul of Great Compassion’ came to Sri Lanka and, remaining in the sky, terrified the ‘Yakkhas” (the aborigines) with rain and gales and darkness so that they surrendered the Island to him. Immediately preceding is a description of Dutthagamani’s victory over the Tamils. The parallel is clear: for the Buddha to vanquish the Yakkhas was to overcome the primitive, the less-than-human. Similarly, Dutthagamani’s killing of the Tamils is necessary, good and justified. It can be seen, if so wished, as marking the end of a “jahiliyyah”. (The present President, because he exterminated the Tamil Tigers, is claimed to have ushered in a reign of decency and righteousness, of peace and prosperity.) When it comes to territory and people; to power, economic and social advantage, religion is brought in not only to justify but to compel and sanctify violence. Religion becomes the weapon to hegemony, with those who perpetrate violence in its name (and the suffering it inflicts; the pitiful tragedy it leaves behind) seeing themselves as being highly righteous and pious.

Religion cannot be equated with doctrine and sacred text for it exists with the paraphernalia of discourse, interpretation, story, myth, priesthood, institution, history etc. Thomas More in his ‘Utopia’ (1516) observes that there cannot be a perfect system until and unless there are perfect human beings to administer it. On somewhat similar lines, perhaps one can say that a religion is as good as the goodness (“goodness” measured by universal, objective criteria) it not only espouses in theory but expresses in practice? If so, a religion can be “bad” at certain times and in certain places, and “good” at, and in, others. If God created us in His image (The Bible), we continually create religion in ours.


Charles Sarvan charlessarvan@yahoo.com

torsdag 15. mars 2012

BROKEN PROMISES: TNA response to the position of the Government of Sri Lanka at the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council..!!!

BROKEN PROMISES: TNA response to the position of the Government of Sri Lanka at the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council


Full statement release by TNA below:

14 March 2012



1.0 The Government of Sri Lanka has serious issues with regard to telling the truth and keeping its promises


1.1. In response to Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe’s statement to the 18th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council [UNHRC] on 12 September 2011, the Tamil National Alliance [TNA] issued a statement the very next day correcting the record and urging the Sri Lankan government “to be more forthright and honest in its representation of the situation in Sri Lanka to the international community.” Unfortunately, the government continues to mislead the international community at the ongoing 19th Session of the UNHRC sessions as well.

1.2. As Sri Lanka approaches the three-year mark since the end of the war, which lasted almost three decades, and though nearly six decades have lapsed since the commencement of exclusionary policies targetting the Tamil people, various pledges made by the Government of Sri Lanka with regard to human rights, accountability and evolving a political settlement have not been fulfilled. The post-independence history of Sri Lanka contains stark reminders of the disturbing ramifications of broken promises and recurring violence.

1.3. Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) gained independence in 1948 under the ‘Soulbury Constitution’. The ‘Soulbury Constitution’ provided for some minimal safeguards to minorities. Section 29 contained prohibitions on discriminatory legislation. In particular, Section 29(2)(b) and (c) prohibited Parliament from passing any laws that (i) made persons of any community or religion liable to disabilities or restrictions that persons of other communities or religions were not subject to; or (ii) conferred on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage that is not conferred on persons of other communities or religions. Yet, notwithstanding the operation of section 29(2), Sri Lanka’s legislature passed a number of discriminatory laws. The Citizenship Act of 1948, which denied citizenship to Tamils of Indian origin who constituted approximately 11 percent of the country’s total population at the time, and the Official Language Act of 1956, which made Sinhala the only official language, were the most notable of these laws. Similarly, the government began to intensify the practice of altering the demographic composition of the Eastern Province by actively supporting Sinhala colonization in areas inhabited by the Tamil speaking people.

1.4. Between 1947 and 1981, while the national increase of the Sinhala population was 238 percent, the increase of the Sinhala population in the Eastern Province was 883 percent.

1.5. The Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact of 1957, and later the Dudley Senanayake– Chelvanayakam Pact of 1965 intended to resolve the festering inter-ethnic disputes between the constituent Peoples of the country through legislation that recognized and preserved the linguistic and cultural identity of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. However, under pressure from an extremist fringe within the Sinhala community, the first of these agreements was abrogated while respective Prime Ministers did not implement the second.

1.6. In 1972, a new Constitution that formally sanctioned policies targetting the Tamil speaking people was promulgated. This Constitution entrenched the unitary character of the state, conferred on Buddhism the foremost place in the Republic, and gave constitutional primacy to the Sinhala language. This was enacted without the consent or participation of the Tamil people.

1.7. The 1972 Constitution also dispensed with the salient minority safeguards found in section 29(2) of the ‘Soulbury Constitution’. In fact, the Privy Council, the apex court until 1971, described the minority safeguards in section 29(2) as representing “the solemn balance of rights between the citizens of Ceylon, the fundamental conditions on which inter se they accepted the Constitution: and these are therefore unalterable under the Constitution.” [Lord Pearce, Bribery Commissioner v. Ranasinghe (1964) 66 NLR 73, at 78].

1.8. The repeal of this historic compact, the very basis on which the constituent Peoples of Ceylon accepted the ‘Soulbury Constitution’, which in turn led to independence, heaped scorn on legitimate Tamil aspirations. The 1978 Constitution followed in the footsteps of the 1972 Constitution and entrenched the foremost place given to Buddhism, continued to give primacy to the Sinhala language, and by entrenching the unitary character of the State, excluded the Tamils from the democratic exercise of political power.

1.9. A disturbing feature of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history was that of organized violence in the form of racial pogroms being periodically unleashed on the Tamil People in 1956, 1958, 1961, 1977, 1981 and 1983. These attacks were a direct response to the articulation of their political aspirations by the Tamil people.

1.10. The consistent democratic verdicts of the Tamil people since 1956, expressing their political aspiration for substantial self-rule in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, were denied under the above two constitutions. This factor, together with the discriminatory policies pursued under these two constitutions, particularly in education, employment and economic opportunities, the state-aided Sinhala settlements in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and the anti-Tamil racial pogroms gave birth to armed resistance by Tamil youth.

1.11. International concern that followed from the massive anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983, led to the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. While this established Provincial Councils and devolved a measure of legislative power to the Provinces, it fell far short of meaningful power-sharing. Nevertheless, it represented an initial minimal step towards devolution of power to the Provinces. A significant provision of the Indo-Lanka Accord – an international treaty – providing for the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces has since been violated for spurious reasons.

1.12. Although public officials, members of the judiciary and elected representatives swear or affirm to uphold the Constitution, the Thirteenth Amendment has not been fully implemented. Even the limited provisions relating to the devolution of land and police powers to the Provincial Councils are deliberately violated.

1.13. Moreover, commitments made both domestically and internationally with regard to a political solution have not been honoured. Similarly, commitments made relating to human rights and accountability have been routinely dishonoured.

1.14. It is in this context that Minister Samarasinghe’s recent statement on 27 February 2012 at the 19th Session of the UNHRC rings hollow.



2. Broken Promises on Political Settlement


2.1. The Sri Lankan government has for many years promised a power-sharing arrangement to share power equitably with the constituent Peoples of Sri Lanka. President Rajapaksa’s Joint Statement with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon explicitly contained a number of assurances relating to a promised political solution, one of which was where:
“President Rajapaksa expressed his firm resolve to proceed with the implementation of the 13th Amendment, as well as to begin a broader dialogue with all parties, including the Tamil parties in the new circumstances, to further enhance this process and to bring about lasting peace and development in Sri Lanka.” [Joint statement by UN Secretary-General, Government of Sri Lanka, 26 May 2009].

2.2. Even before the conclusion of the war, at the inaugural meeting of the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) and its multi-ethnic Experts Committee appointed by the President to assist the APRC, on 11 July 2006, the President enunciated his vision for constitutional change, stating:
“People in their own localities must take charge of their destiny and control their politico-economic environment. Central decision-making that allocates disproportionate resources has been an issue for a considerable time. In addition, it is axiomatic that devolution also needs to address issues relating to identity as well as security and socio-economic advancement, without overreliance on the centre … In sum, any solution needs to as a matter of urgency devolve power for people to take charge of their own destiny. This has been tried out successfully in many parts of the world. There are many examples from around the world that we may study as we evolve a truly Sri Lankan constitutional framework including our immediate neighbour, India … Any solution must be seen as one that stretches to the maximum possible devolution without sacrificing the sovereignty of the country given the background of the conflict.”

2.3. In confirmation of the above, President Rajapaksa gave the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, in November 2006, details of the work being done by the APRC and the multi-ethnic group of experts to provide a framework for the resolution of the ethnic problem.

2.4. The multi-ethnic experts committee - appointed by the President - through a majority report made its proposals to the APRC. The deliberations of the APRC, which was set up in July 2006, were repeatedly held out by the Government of Sri Lanka as the mechanism by which a political settlement would be achieved. The APRC met 128 times for almost three years. But its final report has not even been made public. Significantly, however, the TNA was not invited to the APRC and did not participate in its deliberations.

2.5. The President’s commitment to implement the Thirteenth Amendment, while also initiating a process that would take into account the aspirations of the Tamil people, was also repeatedly made at the UNHRC. At the 10th Session of the Council held three years ago, in March 2009, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe reiterated the President’s pledge, stating:
“Our national discourse has been dominated for decades by an ethnic issue, which requires a political solution as a means to resolve problems. This political solution could never be imposed by force of arms and certainly not gained by acts of terrorism. It is for this reason that we are also trying to forge a sustainable political solution acceptable to all Sri Lankans … [o]n a recommendation of the All Party Representatives Committee, we are able to properly implement the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in 1987.”

2.6. A few months later, in his statement made at the 11th Special Session of the UNHRC on 26 May 2009, Minister Samarasinghe stated:
“We have always said that the only durable and lasting solution is a political process which addresses the socio-economic and political grievances and expectations of our citizens through a home grown process acceptable to all sections of our multicultural society. The efforts in this direction Mr. President have already commenced.”

2.7. When the Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris visited New Delhi in May 2011, a joint press statement with the Minister of External Affairs of India stated as follows:
“… the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka affirmed his government’s commitment to ensuring expeditious and concrete progress in the ongoing dialogue between the government of Sri Lanka and representatives of Tamil parties. A devolution package, building upon the Thirteenth Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation.”

2.8. More recently on 17 January 2012 – subsequent to his meeting with the President of Sri Lanka – visiting Indian Minister for External Affairs, Hon. S. M. Krishna speaking at a joint press conference with Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris, said:
“The Government of Sri Lanka has on many occasions conveyed to us its commitment to move towards a political settlement based on the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, and building on it, so as to achieve meaningful devolution of powers. We look forward to an expeditious and constructive approach to the dialogue process.”

2.9. The assurances made to the Government of India in January 2012 are not novel. Many such assurances have been made to the Prime Minister and Government of India, as well as to the Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Conference. To quote Indian External Affairs spokesman on 25 December 2011:
“[I]n this context we have been assured by the government of Sri Lanka on several occasions in the past, of its commitment towards pursuit of a political process … leading to the full implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, and to go beyond, so as to achieve meaningful devolution of powers and genuine national reconciliation.”

2.10. While Minster Samarasinghe now claims that the government has “commenced bilateral discussions with Tamil political parties,” the reality is that bilateral discussions commenced between the government and the TNA in January 2011 and continued for over a year without progress, consequent to the government reneging on its own commitment to respond to the TNA proposals made in February/March 2011.

2.11. Consequent to the government’s lack of response, at a meeting held on 2 September 2011, between the President and the Leader of the TNA, it was agreed that a number of past proposals for constitutional reform, including the Mangala Moonesinghe Select Committee Report, the 1995, 1997 and 2000 Proposals for constitutional reform and the majority Report of the multi-ethnic APRC experts committee appointed by the President, be brought into the negotiation process.

2.12. It was also agreed at this meeting that the consensus reached between the TNA and the government delegation at the bilateral talks would be presented to the Parliamentary Select Committee [PSC] as the position of the government or as the joint position of the government and the TNA; and that the TNA would participate at the PSC on substantial consensus being reached at such bilateral talks.

2.13. The said agreement was recorded in the minutes of the bilateral talks of 16 September 2011, stating: “once agreement was reached with the government delegation at these talks, which can be placed before the PSC as suggested, they [TNA] would join the PSC process.” These minutes were confirmed at the meeting held on 20 October 2011.

2.14. However, in January 2012, in direct violation of the said agreement, the government unilaterally withdrew from discussions with the TNA, introducing a precondition that the TNA nominate its members to the PSC for the continuation of the bilateral talks. This was not only in violation of the agreement arrived at, but would also have nullified the opportunity of arriving at a measure of consensus at the bilateral talks.

2.15. The cumulative actions of the government, therefore, do not evince any honest commitment on its part to engage the Tamil people in a serious process of dialogue that would lead to a meaningful and durable resolution of the national problem. Thus Minister Samarasinghe’s claims regarding the government’s efforts to evolve a solution to the national problem are not true and are meant to mislead the international community.



3. Broken Promises on Human Rights


3.1. The government’s callous disregard for fulfilling its own promises applies equally to the government’s assurances on human rights. In 2006, the Udalagama Commission of Inquiry [CoI] was mandated with the power to investigate a number of grave human rights abuses including the killing of five Tamil students in Trincomalee and the massacre of 17 aid workers in Muttur. On 13 May 2008, Mr. Yasantha Kodagoda, a senior officer of the Attorney General’s Department and a member of the Sri Lankan delegation at the UNHRC made the following assurances to the Council:
“Mr. President, let me assure you that all cases involving human rights violations will continue to be impartially and comprehensively investigated and inquired into by the several agencies entrusted with that task including the CoI, and their findings made public and perpetrators prosecuted in court.”

3.2. Contrary to the government of Sri Lanka’s assurances to the Council made in 2008, the findings of the CoI were never made public and the perpetrators of the violations it was tasked to investigate were never brought to justice. Instead, after a tortuous three-year process during which the CoI did not even complete its investigations into all the human rights abuses included in its mandate, its proceedings came to an end. It is not known whether a Report of the CoI was handed over to the President. In these circumstances, assurances by the government that the recommendations of the CoI report would be implemented are highly questionable.

3.3. The CoI was designed to fail. Four of the Commissioners resigned during the course of its sittings. Moreover, there were major conflicts of interest involving the office of the Attorney General. On the one hand, officers of the Attorney General’s Department led evidence of the victims at the CoI. On the other, these same officers advised and defended the government at international fora, despite the fact that the government’s security forces were accused of those crimes. The absence of victim and witness protection laws also posed serious challenges to the credibility of the CoI.

3.4. In light of the fact that most key witnesses had sought refuge overseas, the CoI commenced recording their evidence, including that of Dr. Manoharan, the father of one of the five students executed in Trincomalee, through video conferencing. This was arbitrarily discontinued and brought to an abrupt end. Thereafter, the government tabled a weak Victim and Witness Protection Bill in Parliament, which was not proceeded with and subsequently abandoned. The lack of witness and victim protection mechanisms has severely undermined the work of Commissions of Inquiry in Sri Lanka, including the Udalagama CoI and the LLRC.

3.5. An International Independent Group of Eminent Persons [IIGEP] chaired by former Chief Justice of India, J. N Bhagwati, was charged with observing the proceedings of the Udalagama CoI, to offer suggestions, and to assess the conduct of the proceedings against international norms and standards. In March 2008, however, the IIGEP terminated their involvement with the CoI, stating:
“… the IIGEP concludes that the proceedings of inquiry and investigation have fallen far short of the transparency and compliance with basic international norms and standards pertaining to investigations and inquiries. The IIGEP has time and again pointed out the major flaws of the process: first and foremost, the conflict of interest at all levels, in particular with regard to the role of the Attorney General’s Department. Additional flaws include the restrictions on the operation of the Commission through lack of proper funding and independent support staff; poor organisation of the hearings and lines of questioning; refusal of the State authorities at the highest level to fully cooperate with the investigations and inquiries; and the absence of an effective and comprehensive system of witness protection … These inherent and fundamental impediments inevitably lead to the conclusion that there has been and continues to be a lack of political and institutional will to investigate and inquire into the cases before the Commission. The IIGEP is therefore terminating its role in the process not only because of the shortcomings in the Commission’s work but primarily because the IIGEP identifies an institutional lack of support for the work of the Commission.” [IIGEP Public Statement, 6 March 2008].

3.6. In 2006, the centrally controlled Police Force in Sri Lanka became impotent in the face of a spate of abductions and ransom demands exclusively targetting Tamil speaking people in the capital city of Colombo. A one-man Commission of Inquiry, known as the ‘Mahanama Tillekeratne Commission’, was tasked to inquire into these abductions and disappearances. After the Commissioner issued a string of glib public statements - contrary to normal practices - dismissing many of the allegations of disappearances, in most cases made by families of the disappeared themselves, he is supposed to have handed over a Report to the President that has not been made public. To date, no one has been charged or prosecuted for these crimes.

3.7. Furthermore, repeated assurances made by the Sri Lankan government at the 17th and 18th Sessions of the UNHRC that the interim recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) would be implemented through the Inter Agency Advisory Committee have been dishonoured.

3.8. These modest interim recommendations were made in September 2010 and included the publication of a list of detainees and the disarming of armed paramilitary groups. Notably, the LLRC in its final Report commented on the non-implementation of these recommendations, noting:
“The Commission regrets that full effect has not yet been given to its Interim Recommendations. Delay in taking effective remedial action would only result in a breakdown of law and order and the consequent erosion of the Rule of Law and the confidence of the people in the reconciliation process.” [LLRC Report, para.8.190].

3.9. In fact, in Chapter 2 of the TNA’s analytical response to the LLRC Report, we highlighted the fact that many of the constructive recommendations made by the LLRC were near identical to recommendations made by various Commissions in the past, such as the 1994 Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Disappearances Commission, the 1994 Northern and Eastern Disappearances Commission, the 1994 Central, North Western, North Central and Uva Disappearances Commission and the Commission of Inquiry into Involuntary Removal and Disappearance of Certain Persons (All Island) (1998). What has been clearly and persistently lacking is the political will to implement these recommendations.

3.10. This lack of political will is demonstrated by the fact that a simple recommendation made in the LLRC’s Report – the singing the National Anthem at state functions in both Sinhala and Tamil – was ignored at the recent National Day celebrations held on 4 February 2012. The non-implementation of this simple step – which required virtually no effort or time to implement – is again indicative of the negative attitude of the government towards the recommendations of the LLRC.

3.11. Thus, while Minister Samarasinghe assures the UNHRC that Sri Lanka is “best placed to successfully conclude a homegrown process of reconciliation,” the reality on the ground is very different. In fact, that reality is better reflected in the comments of Minister Samarasinghe’s cabinet colleague Minister Champika Ranawaka, who is reported in the ‘Daily Mirror’ of 11 August 2008 as having said:
“The government’s path is based on a three dimensional approach towards a solution – demilitarization, democratization and development. It is the old paradigms that believed in political solutions. This vocabulary exists only within the NGO, INGO and embassy officials of western nations … This will ensure that the dream of Tamil Eelam of the TNA or the dreams of the Muslim parties will not be realized when our approach works … The Sinhala nationalist movement has finally taken the reigns; the others will simply have to fall in line.”

This Minister, other Ministers and other organizations have denounced the LLRC Report and demanded that its recommendations should not be implemented. This is the continuing refrain of such persons within Sri Lanka.

3.12. It is this agenda, and not the platitudes and promises trotted out by Minister Samarasinghe in Geneva, that the Tamil people of the North and East are forced to contend with.

3.13. Despite the LLRC identifying the EPDP as an illegal armed group and recommending that armed paramilitary groups be investigated and disarmed, Minister Douglas Devananda (Leader of the EPDP) – whose attitude was condemned by the LLRC as being inimical to the rule of law - continues to function as the Cabinet Minister for Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development. In fact, in a further show of disdain, he was chosen as a member of Sri Lanka’s delegation to the ongoing 19th UNHRC sessions.

3.14. The National Action Plan on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights that the government has publicized in Geneva has come under heavy criticism from members of the human rights community in Sri Lanka, who in fact contributed their ideas to the formulation of this Plan at the initial stages. However, their suggestions and recommendations have reportedly been omitted from what is now a watered down draft. More troubling, however, is the fact that this Plan has not been tabled in Parliament or publicly presented before the citizens of Sri Lanka. This failure gives rise to the legitimate apprehension that the Plan is a mere device for overcoming questions on human rights at international fora, and not a genuine roadmap for the promotion and protection of human rights.

3.15. The spate of killings and abductions, even in the last few months; the intrusive presence of the military in governance, on the streets, in trade and business as well as in the day-to-day lives of citizens; the negation of effective civilian administration in the North; the expropriation of private lands; the arbitrary utilization of state lands for sectarian purposes; the erection of massive military cantonments in areas where people should have been allowed to resettle; and the abuse of women and children, are all manifestations of how the social and political freedom of the Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka are being severely jeopardized.

3.16. Just in the last five months, over 32 persons have been abducted or have gone missing. At least ten bodies, most of which bear marks of execution, have been found in public places. Women from the North are increasingly being rendered vulnerable to paramilitary run prostitution rackets and trafficking, while many are coerced into playing the role of comfort women to military personnel stationed in the North.

3.17. The democratic voice of the Tamil people, repeatedly expressed through their electoral verdicts for well nigh sixty years, has continuously resisted these attacks on their dignity and way of life; and now, the government is attempting to silence that voice. The government is engaged in irreversibly altering the demographic composition of the North and East through the establishment of Sinhala settlements, the entrenchment of the military, and the systematic exclusion of Tamil people from the civil service. Thus, while Minister Samarasinghe states that “the civil service in the North and the East is largely representative of the Tamil and Muslim communities,” the reality is that 94 percent of the civil service is Sinhalese, when, according to the Government’s submission at the Universal Periodic Review at the UNHRC in 2008, the Sinhalese constitute 74 percent of the country’s population. The Tamil-speaking people thus constitute a mere 6 percent of the civil service. Moreover, the Governors of the Northern and Eastern Provinces – who wield executive power and are directly answerable to the President in terms of the Thirteenth Amendment – are retired military officers from the Sinhala community. The Government Agent/District Secretary of the Trincomalee District is a Sinhalese retired military official, and the Government Agents/District Secretaries of Amparai and Mannar Districts are also from the Sinhala community, though the majority population in each of these three Districts is Tamil speaking. Sinhala speaking officials also hold other key positions, both at the Provincial and District levels in the North and East. Moreover, though the government claims that there has been recruitment of Tamil police officers recently, Tamil police officers constitute less than 2 percent of the total Police Force. These are perhaps the reasons why the Sri Lankan government has defaulted on its obligation to submit a 10th Periodic Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination since 2003.

3.18. The demographic changes that have taken place in what was known as the Koddyar Pattu Assistant Government Agent’s division in the Trincomalee District, is only one example to illustrate the point. The census of 1881 recorded the ethnic distribution of the Koddyar Pattu division as follows: 3027 Tamils, 1673 Muslims, 11 Sinhalese. Today, this Koddyar Pattu AGA’s division has been divided into three divisional secretary’s divisions – Muttur, Seruvila and Echchilampattai. The total Tamil population is 43,638, the total Muslim population stands at 32,275 and the total Sinhalese population at 8,586. The Seruvila divisional secretary’s division of 13,886 persons who are predominantly Sinhalese is given a total of 377 square kilometers of land, while the Echchilampattai division, where the population of 11,923 is exclusively Tamil, is given a mere 98 square kilometers. The Muttur divisional secretary’s division, which has a total population of 63,690 predominantly Tamil speaking people, has only been given an extent of 179.4 square kilometers of land. The vast majority of Sinhalese in this area are settlers who have been brought into the territory after independence, and the allocation of maximum land to the majority Sinhala Seruvila division is to facilitate further Sinhala settlement. This pattern is replicated in the demarcation of divisional secretaries’ divisions in other areas as well.

3.19. The government and the military are also relentlessly engaged in transforming the cultural, linguistic and religious composition of the North and East and forcibly imposing the dominant culture on those areas. This is evident in the destruction of numerous Hindu places of worship, and the proliferation of new Buddhist shrines.

3.20. Thus, the government’s claim that it has not been given sufficient time and space since the publication of the LLRC Report to implement its recommendations is wholly untenable. As the Report itself bears out, many of the positive recommendations have been in the public domain for many years. The TNA contends that the time and space sought by the government is not to implement the recommendations of the LLRC, but to pursue the agenda of permanently and irreversibly altering the demographic composition of the North and East.



4. Concealing the truth and promises not kept on the conduct of the war


4.1. The shocking rate of civilian casualties caused during the last stages of the war was a direct consequence of the failure of the Sri Lankan government to fulfill not merely its international legal obligations, but also the specific assurances it made to the international community in late 2008 and early 2009. The LTTE’s conduct during the war – however reprehensible and violative of international humanitarian and human rights laws – does not exculpate the government of its responsibilities for its conduct.

4.2. Notwithstanding the assurances made by the government, as representatives of the people who were trapped in the Vanni during the last stages of the war, the TNA repeatedly raised its voice in Parliament and placed on record the fact that atrocities were being committed, as and when they occurred. On one such occasion the leader of the TNA, Mr. R Sampanthan told Parliament:
“There is constant aerial bombing, continuous aerial bombing, sometimes several bombings per day. There is constant artillery fire, all into civilian populated areas. Is this happening in any other part of the world? Are civilian populated areas being bombed aerially and are multi-barrel rocket launchers and heavy artillery being fired into civilian populated areas in any other part of the world? People are being killed in several numbers every day … There is death; there is devastation; there is destruction; our houses are being destroyed. We are losing both our residential and occupational assets. Our farming equipment, our fishing equipment, our livestock, our plantations have all been destroyed. We have been reduced to a state of penury and destitution.” [Hansard, 21 January 2009].

4.3. In the TNA’s analytical response to the LLRC, it was noted that based on the testimony of witnesses who appeared before the LLRC, the estimated number of civilians who were trapped in the Vanni in late 2008 was between 360,000 and 429,000. Thus, given that only 282,380 civilians came out of the Vanni into government-controlled areas, the number of persons unaccounted for remains between 75,000 and 146,000.

4.4. Towards the last stages of the war, the Sri Lankan government estimated that the number of civilians trapped in the war zone did not exceed 70,000, and repeatedly assured the world, including the UNHRC, that it was supplying sufficient food and humanitarian supplies to those civilians. Eventually, however, when 282,380 civilians emerged from out of the Vanni area, it was clear that the figure of 70,000 stated by the government was a deliberate underestimation.

4.5. The UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka characterized this underestimation as giving rise to credible allegations of the war crime of starvation, which in light of the widespread and systematic nature of the practice, also gave rise to credible allegations of the crimes against humanity of extermination and persecution.

4.6. The testimony of Ms. Imelda Sukumar, Mullaitivu Government Agent before the LLRC clearly established that even the government’s own officials were aware that the number of persons trapped in the Vanni exceeded 360,000. The TNA now notes that when the results of the Statistical Handbooks of 2004, 2005 and 2007 - which are published by the Department of Census and Statistics – are collated, the number of those who inhabited the Vanni in the years preceding the war appears to exceed 402,000. All this evidence suggests that the government had every reason to believe and indeed was aware that the number of civilians trapped inside the Vanni was in excess of 350,000, while they cynically claimed that number to be no more than 70,000.

4.7. The government was not truthful about the nature of their operations during the last stages of the war either. In an interview on BBC HARDtalk dated 2 March 2009, Minister Samarasinghe – speaking from Geneva - responded to a question on the justifiability of using heavy weapons. The Minister stated:
“There is absolutely no justification to use heavy weapons and, in fact, about ten days ago, the armed forces took a conscious decision not to use any heavy weapons. We have not been using heavy weapons; we are fighting man-to-man, door-to-door and street-to-street. This is the way that we are going to ensure that terrorism is wiped out because, as you know, the LTTE is now restricted in fact to a very small area of about 48 sq. km. and we cannot use heavy weapons.”

4.8. Yet, as even the LLRC acknowledged, heavy weapons were in fact used to fire into the ‘Nofire zones’ during the last stages of the war, up until hostilities ceased in May 2009. As noted at page ii of the Executive Summary of the United Nations Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka: the government “shelled in spite of its knowledge of the impact, provided by its own intelligence systems and through notification by the United Nations, the ICRC and others. Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by Government shelling.”

4.9. The government with cynical indifference to the assurances it gave the international community persisted in military action that resulted in massive civilian casualties.

4.10. The government is now claiming that a ‘census’ has determined that the number of casualties is close to 8,000. However, the methodology adopted by those involved in carrying out this ‘census’ is deeply suspect. No official census has been carried out in the North and East since 1981. In early 2011, when it came to the TNA’s attention that members of the armed forces together with members of the civil administration were involved in illegally collecting data from families in the Jaffna District, five Members of Parliament representing the TNA petitioned the Supreme Court [SC FR 73/2011] to stop any illegal data collection from taking place. In the Supreme Court, a Deputy Solicitor General representing government officials gave an undertaking to stop such data collection forthwith.

4.11. The carrying out of this ‘census’ in direct violation of this undertaking, is not only in contempt of the Supreme Court, but is also illustrative of the breakdown of law and order in the North and East, and the intense militarization of governance in those areas. The circumstances described above also fatally undermine the credibility of the ‘census’ process. Furthermore, in the context of the information presented above, the outcome of the purported ‘census’ is highly suspect and questionable.

4.12. The harsh reality that all of Sri Lanka must urgently reckon with, is that the government – which is now struggling to explain away emerging evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity - took deliberate steps to ensure that its conduct of the war would be without witness. On 5 September 2008, just prior to the final assault on the Vanni, the government ordered all NGO and INGO personnel who were not permanent residents of the Vanni to withdraw all their assets and leave the area immediately. Only the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] – who are committed to maintaining confidentiality – were permitted to remain. Furthermore, the said order also prohibited any travel by humanitarian workers beyond the Omanthai checkpoint. Ultimately, in February 2009, even the ICRC was forced to remove its presence from the Vanni. This forced evacuation of all aid workers from the Vanni not only exposed the besieged population to terrible starvation and deprivation – particularly in the context of the government having grossly underestimated the total population of the Vanni - but was also calculated to remove all potential independent witnesses to the crimes that would ensue.

4.13. The exclusion of media personnel and journalists from the theatre of war was also designed to prevent information on the nature of the government’s conduct being known to the outside world. However, this silencing of the media was not restricted to denying journalists access to the Vanni. The systematic targetting of journalists and human rights defenders who sought to report independently on the situation in the North was aimed at preventing exposure and criticism of the government’s conduct. Many journalists were killed and abducted. In fact, as early as 2006, Reporters Sans Frontieres, an international media rights organization, identified Sri Lanka as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists. Moreover, even TNA Members of Parliament representing constituents who were caught inside the Vanni were prevented from entering the area, despite numerous requests made to the government.

4.14. When the civilian population eventually came out of the war zone, they were rounded up and interned in makeshift camps and were prevented from having any contact with the outside world. A fundamental rights application [SC FR 521/2009] supported in July 2009 before the Supreme Court on their behalf challenged the legality of their detention. Thirtytwo months hence, this matter still awaits the Court’s pronouncement on the threshold question of whether it would grant leave to proceed with the application.

4.15. Minister Samarasinghe’s recent statement only briefly alluded to the question of accountability. He stated that the Army and the Navy had initiated Courts of Inquiry to investigate into the incidents earmarked for further investigation by the LLRC, as well as the Channel 4 video footage. The tasking of the military to conduct investigations into its own conduct - despite vehement and repeated denials of wrongdoing by senior officials of the military establishment - epitomizes the government’s utter lack of commitment to investigate credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.



5. The importance of UNHRC Action


5.1. As the opportunities for post war peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka gradually slip away, the members of the UNHRC must act urgently to prevent an ominous slide towards a recurrence of the tragedies of the past.

5.2. The Council must ensure that the Sri Lankan government immediately takes steps to offer a political solution to the Tamil people to resolve the long-festering and deep-seated national problem and also address serious concerns about human rights and governance.

5.3. The Council must also urgently address questions of truth and justice relating to grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, in order to transform the culture of impunity prevailing in the country to one of accountability.

5.4. The Sri Lankan government has persistently claimed that, if provided time and space, it will evolve homegrown processes that will address the need for a political solution, improvement in human rights and accountability. This claim must be evaluated against the chronic unwillingness of the government to honour its own commitments to the people of Sri Lanka and the international community. Some of these commitments have been repeated for many years, with no progress made on the ground.

5.5. Moreover, the trajectory of the government’s conduct indicates that, if given time and space, that time and space will be utilized to pursue the agenda that the government has brazenly undertaken despite assurances to the contrary. That agenda entails the silencing of the democratic voice of the Tamil people, the entrenching of power at the centre and the transformation of the linguistic, cultural and religious composition of the North and East so as to negate the need for a political solution.

5.6. Sri Lanka's failure to make good on its own assurances requires that the Council act now. The principle of complementarity in international law requires that where a state is unwilling or unable to institute credible measures to advance justice in keeping with its commitments, international mechanisms must be activated.

5.7. The TNA states that the failure of the Council to act will enable governments, which in fact demonstrate no commitment to change, to escape their obligations by merely making empty promises of reform. This will entrench a dangerous and harmful precedent of Council sanctioned impunity.

5.8. The TNA therefore fully supports action by the Council at its is" Session as a first and necessary step towards ensuring peace, justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

5.9. The TNA believes that action by the Council would be in the larger interest of all the constituent Peoples of Sri Lanka.

R. Sampanthan
Leader, Tamil National Alliance.
[Signed]

Courtesy: TamilCanadian
Published on: Mar 14, 2012 18:09:50 GMT

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