Sri Lankan atrocities exposed: 'It's like Israel and Palestine'

Sunday, July 10, 2011

By Tony Iltis

Tamils mourn the dead in Jaffna.

A British TV documentary and a United Nations-commissioned report have confirmed long-standing Tamil allegations that the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) committed large-scale war crimes in the course of its May 2009 victory over the pro-independence Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Atrocities perpetrated by the army during and after its recapture of the rebel-held areas of Tamil Eelam (Tamil areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka) included shelling civilians, depriving civilians of access to food, water and medicine, executing and torturing prisoners of war, systematic rape and holding civilians in concentration camps.
The Channel 4 documentary, screened in Britain on June 14, catalogued how the army declared “no fire zones” ― areas behind rebel lines that they undertook not to attack if civilians gathered there ― and then bombed them relentlessly when they were overcrowded with displaced people.    Full Story>>>
===================================

RAJAPAKSA’S PSC-NO MARKET OUTSIDE SHRINKING SINHALA CONSTITUENCY

Nobody can fool everybody, all the time, unless everyone is Sinhala and the “nobody” is a Rajapaksa. That seems the philosophy of Mahinda Chinthana.
The Rajapaksa’s thus try to fool the Sinhala South again, but not the neighbours next door who know how many times the “lie” was taken home to Delhi, for want of diplomatic subtleties and not the Tamil Diaspora either, who are determined to square off with this Rajapaksa regime on war crimes first, before political solutions are spoken of.        Full Story>>>

New video - more confusion

 

By Namini Wijedasa                           Sunday 10 July 2011

Diverse government positions on footage of an alleged summary battlefield execution have befuddled even devout followers of this continuing saga.
Officials had insisted for months that the video clip first aired in August 2009 by UK’s Channel 4 was ‘fake.’ But they now say they are in possession of the ‘original’ clip which might be a genuine depiction of the Tigers killing Sri Lanka Army soldiers.
The film purports to show the execution of nine prisoners (some of whom are already dead) by men in uniform. It first surfaced in 2009 when Channel 4 ran a story around it. The broadcaster said the video - reportedly shot by a soldier on a mobile phone and obtained from Journalists for Democracy - was validated by experts.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, also concluded that the extracts were genuine. His successor, Christof Heyns, recently echoed his opinion. Both were backed by independent experts. Full Story>>>
==========================================================

 
The Indians play their shots

By Rajpal Abeynayake in New Delhi

India’s political compulsions with regard to Tamilnadu were made clear this week by the Secretary External Affairs Ministry Nirupama Rao, when she met Sri Lankan newspaper editors and senior journalists in New Delhi. She was incredibly frank about Tamilnadu pressure and India’s sensitivity to political compulsions in that state.
On the other hand, what was not said was easy to discern from the background that editors were privy to, not via Nirupama Rao but other sources. What she didn’t say for obvious reasons was the fact that the Indians cannot obviously say openly that they are supporting Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Commission for instance — in the eventuality — for the simple reason that the TN political leaders want Sri Lanka to be held to account for war crimes.
Saying that India will be behind Sri Lanka in any UN Human Rights Council resolution that targets Sri Lanka upsets TN sensitivities; however, appeasing Tamilnadu sentiment by making public any censure of Sri Lanka and her human rights record is also not viable, as that would endanger Indo Sri Lankan relations  which have most probably been better than during the tenure of any previous Sri Lankan regime. The studied policy therefore is to keep a silence on the question - ‘is India backing Sri Lanka in the eventuality of a UN resolution against Sri Lanka?’  Full Story>>>

Crisis after crisis here and abroad

Sy 10, 2011

Govt. keeping people in the dark or confusing them on arsenic in rice, contaminated petrol, cricket crisis and power cuts Future of PSC shaky as alleged war crime issue booms in more countries

By Our Political Editor

It seems a case of literally falling from the frying pan to the fire for the UPFA government this week. For months now, it has been plagued by the fallout from the report of the UN Advisory Panel of Experts on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. In its wake came Britain's Channel 4 video titled Sri Lanka's Killing Fields. The multi-pronged official responses to the issues raised by them, though contradictory, have dominated the local media much more than it should have those abroad.   Full Story>>> ======================================= ‘War of the invisible enemy’- UK Defence Secy We all have a stake in combatting terrorism Lakshman Kadirgamar would have investigated HR violations The following is the 5th Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Lecture delivered by Dr. Liam Fox, MP, Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom, yesterday, at the Sri Lanka Foundation Auditorium in Colombo. It was 16 years ago that I first met Lakshman Kadirgamar. In 1995 I was the new Parliamentary Undersecretary of State at the Foreign Office and he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka. An accomplished lawyer, sportsman and politician, there was virtually no subject on which he did not have an informed opinion or an interesting anecdote. In the time that we worked together we became close colleagues and good friends. He was a kind, thoughtful and brave man who enriched public life with principle and integrity.      Full Story>>>

Don't turn a blind eye to the killing fields of Sri Lanka

Gordon Weiss  July 10, 2011

m with breakfast and airport transfer

Mariya Baskalin hangs laundry at her bombed out home in Sri Lanka's north. She has been home a year, but hasn't the money to repair her home. Photo: Ben Doherty

Australians will not tolerate cruelty to animals. Less clearly defined is our tolerance for cruelty towards people, writes Gordon Weiss.
AUSTRALIANS will not tolerate cruelty to animals. Less clear is our tolerance for bestiality towards people. Or so one might think from the stony silence after a British documentary aired on Australian TV last week. The film proved that Sri Lanka's ''rescue'' of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians in 2009 was a bloody and cruel affair. Read more: 
======================================

Human suffering comes second place to sacred cows

HeraldSun

The reaction to last week's Four Corners report on the Sri Lankan massacre did not draw the same response as scenes from an Indonesian abbatoir. Source: AdelaideNow

THERE can be no better proof that people care more about brown cows than they do about brown people than the reaction to last week's report on the massacre's in Sri Lanka. Last month, the same program broadcast distressing scenes of slaughter in an Indonesian abattoir.
The outrage was immediate, with letters' pages across the nation full of violent denunciations of the appalling way the beasts were treated.        Full Story>>>

Warning on Games venue

Cosima Marriner

July 10, 2011

Subtle message ... the vice-president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Tunku Imran, left, with the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, the Gold Cost mayor, Ron Clarke, and Eve Lutze, the Gold Coast youth representative. Photo: Reuters

REPRESENTATIVES of the 71 Commonwealth nations assessing the Gold Coast's bid for the 2018 Games are being advised not to ''take a risk'' by awarding the event to the developing Sri Lankan city of Hambantota.
''After the difficulties in Delhi, it's not the time to take risks; that's the subtle message we'll be sending the delegates,'' the chief executive of the Gold Coast 2018 bid, Mark Peters, said.

Delegates are rotating through the Gold Coast in regional blocs: the Africans were on the Gold Coast last weekend for the city's marathon, and in 10 days the Oceania region arrives, and will be treated to a Titans rugby league match.

Read more:
================================================================

Man behaves worse than a dog !

08 Jul 2011 /

Country where love to animals is most preached gone to the dogs !

(In the pictures is shown the dog that was killed and dog’s head that was hung on the gate.)

(July 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Yesterday night , a most strange and disgracefully despicable vindictive action was launched on a TNA candidate in Jaffna. The dog reared in the house of C . Sivakumar ,Tamil National Alliance (TNA) candidate for the Waligamam municipal council elections , Jaffna had been cruelly killed and its decapitated head hung on the gate of this candidate by his opponents in order to take political revenge on him.                     Read More

Looking forward to LLRC report- Fox

Saturday, 09 July 2011

Addressing the Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial lecture today, visiting British Defence Secretary Liam Fox stated that he looked forward to the publication of the LLRC report on November 15th.

Fox  added that the freedom of expression, accountability and positive attitudes should be developed in the post conflict era and noted that the former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar who served Sri Lanka wanted a political solution to the ethnic conflict. (Rifthi Ali)  
========================================================

South Sudan's flag raised at independence ceremony

Africa

Will Ross describes the scene as the South Sudanese flag is raised in Juba

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have watched the raising of the new country's flag at an independence ceremony in the capital, Juba.

Salva Kiir signed the constitution and took his oath of office in front of the jubilant crowds, becoming president of the world's newest nation.
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and UN chief Ban Ki-moon were among dignitaries watching the events.
Sudan earlier became the first state to officially recognise its new neighbour.
The world's newest nation was born at midnight local South Sudanese time (2100 GMT), the climax of a process made possible by the 2005 peace deal that ended a long civil war.
The south's independence follows decades of conflict with the north in which some 1.5 million people died.
 Continue reading the main story

Weiss gets wiser: denies 40,000 figure

Sunday 10 July 2011

By H. L. D. Mahindapala

Gordon Weiss, former UN spokesperson in Colombo, who claimed that 40,000 died in the last stages of the Vadukoddai War between January 2009 and May 18, 2009, has revised his figures again.
When he was in Sri Lanka he put the figure at 7,000. After he left his UN job and went to Australia he jacked it up to 40,000 to sensationalize his book, The Cage. At a book launch held in Melbourne last week, he changed his figure again and came down to 10,000 under questioning by Chanaka Bandarage, a lawyer.
Bandarage then asked why the brochure had mentioned 40,000. Weiss had disowned responsibility and passed the buck to the Deakin University which produced the brochure.
This denial by Weiss blows up the fictitious figure of 40,000 mentioned in the report of the Advisory Panel of Experts (APEs) appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General. It also blasts the myths of the anti-Sri Lankan NGOs and pundits who went to the town with Weiss’s figure of 40,000.
In addition to the rubbery figures of Weiss, the Tamil lobby claims that the figures quoted by all sources are conservative. Prof. Francis Boyle, the most vociferous propagandist for the Jaffna Tamils, claims 50,000 died. The Tamil spokesperson in Australia, Dr. Victor Kulendran, told an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) programme, in reply to LAKBIMAnEWS questioning these figures that, all the figures quoted are conservative and that the figure is around 120,000. The UN, however, is on record saying that it has distanced itself from Gordon Weiss and also that there was no way of counting the casualties.
Embarrassed by his claims under questioning, Weiss even pleaded at one stage not to spoil his book launch with questions. His book has come under fire from several critical quarters. The book is teeming with inaccuracies.

India’s role vital for Lanka: Govt.

Saturday, 09 July 2011 By Yohan Perera
The government yesterday said Sri Lanka would not be able to achieve its development goals without India which was going to play a vital role in achieving such targets.
Speaking during an adjournment debate, External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris told Parliament that no country could formulate its economic development goals in isolation. Therefore he pointed out that it is vital for Sri Lanka to work with the neighbouring countries to achieve its economic goals.
Prof. Peiris said Sri Lanka would not be able to achieve its set target of becoming a shipping hub in South Asia without the support of India. Therefore he said the shipping industry in Sri Lanka was vastly dependent on India as 70 percent of container transshipment that reach the Colombo Port is from that country.
He also said the Colombo Dockyard had managed to secure a massive order from an Indian company to build 11 vessels.
Dockyard will gross a revenue of US $ 240 million out of this order alone, he told the House.
The Minister further stated that India was one of the biggest tourism markets which Sri Lanka was looking to and thereby pointed out that 25 percent of tourists that visit Sri Lanka would be from India by 2015. He said the situation was the same when it came to people to people contacts and thereby said a programme would be launched soon to enable low income groups to visit India on pilgrimages by train.
Minister Peiris also pointed out that the allegation made by the opposition with regard to the joint statement issued by India and Sri Lanka was false. He said there was no signing of a pact as it was only a media statement. This was released at the end of the minister’s visit to India recently.
“The outpouring of venom by the opposition on India is totally unnecessary,” he said adding that 43,000 houses out of 50,000 which India had offered to build would be ready soon.
However Prof. Peiris said the government was not afraid of raising its voice whenever necessary, referring to the fishermen’s issue.

Is Sri Lanka guilty of war crimes?

July 8, 2011

A Channel 4 documentary shows graphic details of atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Army on Tamils in 2009.                                              

Is Sri Lanka guilty of war crimes?  Video

===========================================================

British MPs support international investigations of Sri Lanka mass killings

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 July 2011, 18:33 GMT]
The need for an international investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sri Lanka’s war was reiterated Tuesday at a Parliamentary reception in Britain, attended by 40 MPs as well as representatives from leading NGOs, embassies and High Commissions in London, British, Tamil, Sinhala and Indian media organisations, and senior Tamil activists. The event was hosted by parliamentarians Lee Scott (Conservative) and Siobhain McDonagh (Labour), Chair and Vice-Chair the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamil (APPG-T) and was facilitated by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF). In a statement Friday, Mr. Scott said: “There will be no hiding place for the senior people in the Government of Sri Lanka. We will not stop until justice for the victims of war crimes is served.”

APPGT Chair Lee Scott [Left], UK Foreign Minister Alistair Burt [centre] and GTF’s Joan Ryan at Tuesday’s reception.  Full story >>

Lanka war crimes: ‘Killing Fields’ steps up pressure on Delhi

Saturday, Jul 09, 2011

One of the many gory visuals of the dead civilians in the final phases of the Eelam war in north Lanka shown in ‘Killing Fields’ video of Channel Four.

 

The horrific visuals of the British Channel Four video, ‘Killing Fields’, repeatedly telecast by a TV channel to stunned homes across the country have brought fresh pressure upon the Indian Government to act firmly against Colombo for delivering justice to the minority Tamils in the island nation.
The outrage was particularly loud in Chennai where the news channel held a public ‘hearing’ along with the screening, where some well-known persons shared the dais and hotly contested the defence put out by the Sri Lankan spokesman Maj Gen Ubaya Medawale, linked on satellite line from Colombo, that the video was a fake.
“I sat through the Killing Fields video. The gross inhumanity unleashed on the civilians was shocking to say the least. What were the UN and other international agencies doing, apart from watching on helplessly? For some strange.
reason, I wanted the dead souls to know that I know what they went through. This is the least I could do for them”, said Jyoti.
Swaroop, a senior education consultant in Chennai. “Will there be a fall out? Will something be done to get Sri Lanka to pay in some way? I can’t get over the fact that my life went on when close by,
such atrocities were happening”, she said, reflecting what went through thousands of minds watching the TV show on Friday night.
The video is being simultaneously shown in several cities across the world in a new ‘offensive’ by the Tamil Diaspora in a bid to bring pressure on the UN and prominent nations to launch war crimes prosecution against the offenders in the Sri Lankan Government.
“Many newspapers, TV channels and radio stations are commenting on this gruesome video”, said Pirabhakaran of Inba Tamizhan radio in Sydney, Australia. ‘Questions are being asked, loud and clear, what the international community is going to do now”, he said.
“We are grateful to Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa for strongly taking up our cause and demanding that Delhi get more pro-active to help the Tamils in Sri Lanka. She has got resolutions passed in your state legislature that even called for economic embargo by India until the Tamils in the island got equal rights and the war criminals punished. The Tamil Diaspora is looking to her to lead the campaign in India to get us justice”, said Charles Antonidas of the Global Tamil Forum.
The GTF conference on July 5 in London saw top British parliamentarians pledging support.
Having been wary of DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s ways—for instance, his very brief fast during the final phase of the gory Eelam war—the Diaspora now hopes to have a strong Indian ally in Ms Jayalalithaa for exerting.
pressure on New Delhi to join the international campaign for quick rehabilitation of the war-displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka and to launch war crimes prosecution against the Lankan rulers.
“We are hoping to meet the TN chief minister soon to thank her”, Mr Antonidas told Deccan Chronicle.

Lanka war crimes: Govt can't sit on the fence, says Jaswant Singh

Chennai, July 8, 2011

Former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh.

Sri Lanka's killing fields detailing the atrocities perpetrated by the Lankan army has sent shockwaves across nations. After Headlines Today showed the Channel 4 documentary - a clinching evidence of genocide caught on camera - it asked a probing question: Has the Indian government failed in its response?

"The government must act constitutionally and politically. No government can afford to sit on the fence," former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told Headlines Today.
The UN report on Sri Lanka had recommended an international investigation, but the Sri Lankan government has done nothing.
Former UK foreign secretary David Miliband said that the report is shocking. Sri Lanka must allow international probe into the war crimes. "There is a need to give Lanka a deadline to look into the war crimes and see to it that the deadline is fulfilled," Miliband told Headlines Today.  The video is a graphic account of crimes against humanity, with hundred of Tamil civilians being mercilessly killed. Amid all this, the Lankan military remained unfazed, with spokesperson Maj Gen Ubaya Medawale maintaining there is "no need for international probe".  "The video, done by individuals who come from the ranks of refugees spread over different parts of Lanka seeking international assistance, is fake," Medawale said. 
"Today people have free food and all amenities. There is no fear in Lanka," Medawale claims.
============================================================

A Tamil national who came from UK to SL arrested on suspicion of transmitting information to channel-4

Saturday 9 of July 2011 But Govt. media personnel who sold war information to foreign sources is scot free
(Lanka-e-News -2011.July.08, 11.30P.M.) The CID had taken into custody a Tamil national as a suspect on the ground that he had transmitted false information to the Channel 4. This Tamil national had been residing in England and had returned to Sri Lanka on the 30th. of last month.

The individual who has been so arrested is Kandavanam Jegeeshwaram from Kandy. After he was produced before the Additional Magistrate Tikiri K Jayathileke today (08), the latter remanded him and gave permission to the police for further questioning..

Following information passed to the police by a Muslim trader residing in Colombo district , the CID special investigation unit arrested him.

However , the Govt. media personnel who committed high treason by selling the war secrets to foreign sources about whom Lanka e news reported in detail earlier on is still scot free . According to reports reaching Lanka e news, this traitorous media personnel is free because he is a young leader in the Rajapakse regime. It is through him the Rajapakse regime had taken possession some of the most important television devices and equipments of the LTTE. He had collected these items by claiming that he was going to start a television station on behalf of youths. When this media personnel was bringing Laptops from the war zone he was seized by the Security division. But on the intervention of the Defense Secretary he was released. Prior to this, television equipments and devices had been collected as mentioned above via this Govt. media personnel . Some of these items were given to the regime’s youth leader , while the media personnel has kept some others with him.

Owing to this background ,the Govt. media personnel is still held in high esteem as a ‘patriot’ despite his high treason of selling the war information and materials. No investigations have therefore been instituted against him.

Why should we care about the suffering of Tamils?

By Jody McIntyre   Friday, 8 July 2011

 

On Tuesday 14 June, a shocking, heart-wrenching documentary was shown on Channel 4.  ‘Sri Lanka’s  Killing Fields’, broadcast just after 11pm, displayed what presenter Jon Snow described as “devastating evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and a powerful case for bring those guilty of these crimes to justice.” I remember the massive Tamil demonstrations in London in April 2009, during what many of them viewed as genocide in progress.  Day after day, a Tamil community of hundreds of thousands would descend on Parliament Square, laying the Houses of Parliament to siege on several occasions.  For weeks on end, the Tamil community occupied the Square, in an attempt to raise awareness of the suffering and destruction their families were facing.  I slept in the Square on some nights, the air cold and the grass damp with dew, feeling inspired by their determination and resilience.        Full Story>>>
===================================

Time to treat Tamil people as equals - TNA

July 7, 2011


by Saman Indrajith

The TNA said in Parliament, on Thursday, that the Tamil people are willing to live as equal citizens within a united and undivided Sri Lanka.

TNA Group Leader R. Sampanthan, moving an adjournment motion on the current situation in the Northern and Eastern provinces, said that two years have lapsed since the armed struggle, demanding the right of self-determination, had been defeated and the time had now come for the government to provide just and equal treatment to Tamil people and consider them as citizens of Sri Lanka.

The dismal failure of successive governments to recognize and respect the democratic rights of the Tamil people and the persistent demand of the Tamil people for just and equal treatment as Sri Lankan citizens, that has been the root cause for such ethnic violence, to be unleashed against the Tamil people, he said.

The TNA leader invited the attention of the House, the Government and the country "to the imperative need to address the core issues of the conflict and to evolve an acceptable political solution that will bring about genuine reconciliation and harmony amongst the different communities and peoples who inhabit Sri Lanka. Indeed, the only way to ensure permanent peace to evolve an acceptable political solution that will address such genuine reconciliation and harmony amongst the different communities and peoples inhabiting Sri Lanka."

Sampanthan urged the government to address core causes of the conflict, to implement a structured programme to enable to displaced and affected people to rebuild and recommence their lives and to take immediate action to reverse, rectify and redress the several actions that have adverse political, economic, social and cultural consequences to the Tamil people.

Cricket must face up to political bouncers

      Peter Roebuck
July 9, 2011

"It's hard to know where sporting boycotts ought to start and stop" ... Tamil Tiger soldiers in 2004, and above, Sri Lanka and Australia play in the ICC Cricket World Cup in Colombo, March 5, 2011. Photo: AP/Reuters

The recent expose´ of the systematic execution, rape and abuse of Tamils in the closing stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka has provoked deep consternation among cricketers. One prominent player has been having nightmares since Four Corners aired the Channel 4 report this week, and the Players Association has been asked to intervene. Australia is due to visit Sri Lanka in August.                  Read more:
=====================================

Sri Lankan Premier League Postponed

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 

By Will Davies

The Sri Lankan Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament has been postponed and will be replaced by a provincial tournament featuring six local teams, an official from Sri Lanka Cricket said Friday.

Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara launched a scathing attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket administration.

The buildup to the SLPL, which was scheduled for July 19 to August 4, was dogged by problems, ranging from India’s refusal to let its national players participate to the dissolution of the Sri Lankan cricket administration last Friday.
“We are not playing the SLPL,” said Yamuna Pitigala, Sri Lanka Cricket’s public relations and marketing secretary.
She said the event could be played in August, but added that even this was unlikely. It certainly is, given that the Australian team is set to tour Sri Lanka from August 6 to mid-September.
Full Story>>>

Intellectuals and activists support the Tamil cause across the language divide

By Paul Newman   Bangalore09 Jul 2011

Posted 08-Jul-2011 Vol 2 Issue 27 One nagging question that cropped up at the Forum Against War Crimes and Genocide meeting on July 2, 2011 at Bangalore was: How could the media be a mute spectator to a gross human rights violation taking place in our immediate neighbourhood? It was a public meeting jointly organized by a federation of 12 organisations, including Karnataka students’ organization, All India Progressive Women’s Association, and National Coalition of Human Rights Organization, under the theme of “War Crimes and Genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka.” In memory: A youth led May 17 Movement in Chennai mobilized thousands on June 26, ‘International day in support of Victims of Torture’ in Marina beach to observe a candle light vigil for Tamil war victims  The Forum’s convener was well-known activist from Andhra Pradesh, Hargopal - famously known as one of the negotiators who secured the release of a district collector in Orissa from the Maoists. The meeting saw a plethora of questions from the audience on the Indian foreign policy making. When the whole world has read the UN Panel report on War Crimes in Sri Lanka, and some of the western powers have even reacted to it, why is India remaining silent?         Full Story>>>

Toronto Tamil fears for wife in Sri Lanka

CBC News Canada

Roy Samathanam hopes the federal government will help him get his wife out of Sri Lanka. Priya Sankaran/CBC

A Toronto man of Tamil descent is asking the federal government to rescue his wife and children in Sri Lanka, claiming they are being harassed by the government there because of things he told a Canadian newspaper.
On the Labour Day weekend Roy Samathanam told the National Post his story of detention and torture by Sri Lankan authorities over a period of three years.
A few hours after the story appeared, he said Thursday, military police went looking for his wife in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. They didn't find her, and she remains in hiding, he said.
Samathanam is a Canadian citizen, as are his two young children, but his wife is a Sri Lankan national.
He was about to submit his wife's sponsorship application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada when his story appeared, and Sri Lankan police tried to find her.
"They are really scared. They don't even go out …. They are still inside the house," he said.
If his wife is picked up by the authorities, the children must go into detention with her, Samathanam said.
"I don't want my children to be in a Sri Lankan prison, and [my] wife being tortured, and my children watching that," he said.
He's worried that by the time his sponsorship application is processed in Canada, his family will have disappeared.
Contacted by CBC News, Citizenship and Immigration said Samathanam should submit his wife's application as soon as possible, and that reuniting families is the department's top priority.
===========================================================

Tamil detained on Channel4 video

08 July, 2011

	Channel4 television recently aired a documentary with video evidence of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka

Police in Sri Lanka say they arrested a Tamil man on suspicion of providing video footage to British Channel 4 television to be included in a documentary on alleged war crimes committed during the last stages of the war.

Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in a secret report to Colombo magistrate court said that Nandavanam Jegatheeswaran was arrested in Kandy on 30 June.

The suspect, who has arrived from UK, has provided British Channel4 television false video clips implicating Sri Lanka military in war crimes, police said.

The police were granted permission by the court to detain and question the suspect for 90-day period.

TNA making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’

Sunday 03 July 2011

- Dr. Amarasekera By a special correspondent

Veteran political commentator Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera says that recent allegations made against the government by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that one of their political rallies had been attacked by security forces in the North, could be far from the truth.
Speaking to LAKBIMAnEWS he said that the TNA was indulging in a gross misrepresentation of facts and charged that the party was trying to gain petty political mileage, being in a political limbo, domestically.
“The TNA is trying to twist the facts, and they are doing nothing but distorting the truth for their own political advantage,” Dr. Amarasekera, who is also the head of the Nationalistic Patriotic National Movement (PNM), said.
“You need to go there (North-East) and see for yourself whether the environment is conducive or not for both the politicians and the civilians to indulge in their day-to-day activities.
“The TNA is only trying to put into play the agendas of their political masters in the form of the United States, the UK, France and the overseas Tamil Diaspora.”
Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera said that the current climate in the former war-ravaged areas of the North, ahead of the first local government polls to be held there in 26 years (since the end of the war) is not one in which fear permeates.
“The government is trying its utmost to hold the first-ever local government polls in 26 years in the former war zone, since the end of hostilities,” he averred.
“And what does the TNA do? Instead of helping the government to bring about a climate that is conducive to hold elections they level all kinds of ridiculous allegations against the government because they are dancing to the tunes of their political masters in the US, UK, France, and the Tamil Diaspora.”
Dr. Amarasekera dismissed the suggestion that the government was using violence in the North in order to prevent the TNA from making an impact at the LG polls due to be held there on July 23.
“To my knowledge there is no truth to the comment that the government is trying to prevent the Tamil parties from contesting the election on a level playing field.”        Full Story>>>
======================================

Sri Lanka tour a delicate assignment

ESPNcricinfo

Daniel Brettig

July 8, 2011

Australia's tour of Sri Lanka is going ahead as scheduled, but the tourists are becoming acutely aware of the significance of their visit. Players and officials were equally moved by the footage shown in the Channel 4 documentary about the closing days of the Sri Lankan civil war and its aftermath, aired on Four Corners in Australia this week, but are resolved to carry on with their first Test series in the island nation since 2004.

The documentary showed graphic evidence of rape, torture and murder of civilians during the final months of the war. A United Nations investigation concluded last year that there was credible evidence for as many as 40,000 civilian deaths during the conflict.

The Australian department of Foreign Affairs and Trade raised no objection to Cricket Australia's plans during their most recent briefing. Central to CA's thinking are the ideas expressed by the former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara, who spoke of cricket's capacity to unite communities and countries during his Cowdrey lecture to the MCC in London.     Full Story>>>

Posted by Thavam

UN Won't Confirm Nambiar Present At Sri Lanka Meeting, Hasn't Sent Report

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 7 -- The UN on Thursday confirmed that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “discussed the report of the Panel of Experts on accountability in Sri Lanka in his meeting on Tuesday with Ranil Wikremesinghe” -- but refused to say if Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, involved in the so called White Flag killings of surrenderees in Sri Lanka in May 2009, was present at the meeting.

  “We don’t have to give lists of all the senior officials who were present at different meetings,” Ban's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told Inner City Press. “That’s not what we do.”

  But even in the past two weeks, the UN allowed independent media including Inner City Press to observe and photograph the beginning of the meeting of Ban and his aides with Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

  Yet when Sri Lanka opposition leader Ranil Wikremesinghe came, despite a timely request Inner City Press and all independent media were barred from even the beginning of the meeting.

  Only for that reason is it unclear if Nambiar, and Ban's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien who like Nambiar has rejected repeated previous requests to brief the press, attended the meeting with Ranil at which war crimes were discussed.

  The context is that Ban Ki-moon has not even transmitted his Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.      Full Story>>>

Basil-show ‘resettlement’ ends up in further misery and abandonment of IDPs

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 12:49 GMT]

The Raamaavil camp inmates, who were suddenly herded out in the middle of the night by the occupying SL Army to make a show of ‘resettlement’ during the visit of the presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa to Jaffna, are now facing further misery. Staying in two small schools in Vadamaraadchi East, without food or facilities they are left to their own ‘resettlement’ in their villages, where they find even the foundations of their houses had been dug out. They are abandoned, say TNA parliamentarians who with much difficulty got ‘permission’ from the SL Army to visit them Tuesday. But it is more than that: they are left in an open prison with discouragement to resettle, where thousands of Sinhala fishermen are ‘licensed’ to come, commented a social worker in Jaffna, pointing to the strategic significance of the area linking Jaffna with Vanni.
Full story >>
=====================================

Teachers forced to conduct SL military’s census hiding war deaths

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2011, 17:08 GMT]
While the Nazi-style registration of people in the north by the occupying SL military is challenged in the SL courts by Tamil politicians, the SL Army is now engaged in another way of registering people by a census it is conducting on its own, forcing Tamil school teachers and through them exploiting school students. Earlier the military tried the registration through village officers and in some instances military personnel directly conducted it. The forms now distributed by the military to teachers have no column on the cause of the death of family members and the teachers are embarrassed in facing people in taking the ‘census’. The SL Army is trying to bury facts through statistics, while it is estimated that more than 200, 000 Tamils have directly been killed in the war of 3 decades in the north alone, politicians in Jaffna allege.

Full story >>