Auschwitz survivor recognizes Sri Lanka genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2013, 01:29 GMT]
Supporting Tamil activists efforts to raise the awareness of Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils, a noted holocaust survivor, 79-year old Eva Mozes Kor, told the activists, "Remembering is not enough, we must take all actions possible to stop, and prevent genocides such as in Sri Lanka today." Ms. Kor, who formed a close kinship with the Tamil group on the second workshop day of the "One Million Bones" rally in Washington last Sunday, is a tireless activist for prevention and stopping Genocide, and runs a holocaust museum, doesn't simply project the wrongs of the holocaust but is forward looking on using the past experiences to prevent and stop Genocide, the organizer of the Tamil protest said. 

The objective for the second day was to get signatures for a petition to President Obama for an independent international inquiry into the killings of Mu'l'livaaykkaal, according to the attendees to the protest rally. "We had 2 mobile versions of the poster, and broke into teams that started canvassing for signatures. Meeting with Ms Kor was the unexpected highlight of this effort," spokesperson for the Tamil group told TamilNet.

"The One Million Bones Project has for the first time brought together a critical mass of concerned people - mainly thousands of concerned Americans. Our initiative has, I believe, opened the door to them for the first time to critically examine what happened and continues to happen in the Genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka," the spokesperson added.

Young Ms Kor is coincidentally the child seen in the right side of the Auschwitz image.

13th Amendment dilution bid by Lanka worries India

By Devirupa Mitra -12th June 2013 07:59 AM

India is deeply worried about the seemingly determined efforts being made by the Sri Lankan government to dilute provisions of the 13th Amendment, a key to reach a political settlement with Sri Lankan Tamils, thus casting a shadow over the credibility of the forthcoming Northern Provincial elections there.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders have already said publicly that they will boycott the elections to the Northern Provinces if there is any dilution of powers of the provincial councils, as envisaged through the proposals of the Sri Lankan government.

Government sources asserted that the move by the President Mahinda Rajapaksa regime to dilute the 13th Amendment would be counter-productive.

The sources pointed out that while Colombo is tom-toming that it is going to hold the elections in the Northern Provinces, especially to the international community, it was also trying, on the other hand, to remove the powers of the councils.

Three weeks ago, alarmed at indications of such moves after media reports, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid had called up his Lankan counterpart G L Peiris, to inform him that they should not take any step to remove the powers under the 13th Amendment, especially since Colombo had spoken of going beyond this key provision of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka accord.

At that time, Khurshid had raised concerns about moves to remove land and police powers from the provincial councils, as then reported by the Lankan media. Eventually, the Lankan government changed tactics and decided to dilute the 13th Amendment on less emotive issues.

Last Thursday, two notes were circulated among the Lankan cabinet members for modifying the constitution, which would take away powers of the provincial councils under the 13th Amendment, which has been projected as a major tool for devolution of power and reaching a political settlement with Lankan Tamils after the civil war.

Firstly, the cabinet note proposed changes that would allow for a simple parliamentary majority to approve legislation related to subjects under provinces, provided a majority of the nine councils agree. It would change the current constitutional clause which called for a two-thirds majority.