5 years today - Vanni starves, LTTE condemns genocide and calls on international community to support diaspora aid initiatives

05 May 2014

05 May 2009 - 5 years today - Vanni starves, LTTE condemns genocide and calls on international community to support diaspora aid initiativesA NGO providing food to civilians within Vanni, in a monthly situation update, said that over 100 Tamil people had died of starvation. See full report here. The LTTE in a statement condemning the Sri Lanka government’s denial of aid to No Fire Zone’s urged the international community to support diaspora initiatives to provide aid directly the Tamil civilian sin the No Fire Zone, reported TamilNet. Professor Boyle of University of Illinois College of Law, warned that the Sri Lankan government’s genocide against Tamils could exceed the atrocities of Srebrenica. Speaking to TamilNet he said,  “The World Court later found that the Serbian extermination of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica was genocide in violation of the Genocide Convention. Since the outset the latest crisis in January, the GOSL has exterminated about 7000* Tamils in Vanni, certainly a ‘substantial part’ of the Tamil population in Vanni and Sri Lanka. If not stopped now, the GOSL’ toll of genocide against Tamils could far exceed recent horrors of Srebrenica." (*The Internal Review Panel Report on Sri Lanka, published by the UN in 2012 estimated the total civilian death toll to be around 70,000.) Sonali Wickrematunge in a statement made after receiving her murdered husband’s UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, condemned the Sri Lankan government’s ‘racist war’ against Tamils. Highlighting dominant government war slogans relating to race, she said, “That this is a racist war is not a secret. The government itself has plastered the countryside with enormous placards lauding the military with the slogan, in Sinhala, the language of the Sinhalese majority which I too, belong, stating: ‘Soldiers, our race salutes you!’ Not ‘the people’, not ‘the country’, but the race. Interestingly, none of these hoardings are in Tamil, the language of the people the government claims it is seeking to liberate.”  “I beseech you and anyone who will listen not to allow Sri Lanka's government, under the cover of a war against terror, to engage in acts of terror or crimes against humanity. Soon it will be too late, and history will not forgive us if we do not act now,” she added.  5 Years Today - HRW, TAG Urge International Intervention, Ethnic Conflict Not 'War on Terror' Says UK Forei... by Thavam Ratna