Tamils should guard against from being misled by IC, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2013, 19:45 GMT]
"Based upon my first-hand personal experiences working with the Palestinians at their peace negotiations and the Bosnians at their peace negotiations, the Tamils cannot trust the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, the European Union and its Member States to do the right thing for them. The Tamils can only trust in themselves,” responded Professor Francis Boyle on Monday, when TamilNet asked him what would be his advice to the Tamil diaspora in engaging with the ‘International Community’. TamilNet posed the question to Professor Boyle following his recent interview on Bosnian ‘peace’ negotiations to the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada.

[Full text of Prof Boyle's interview to the Institute for Research of Genocide is here.]

Prof. Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois College of Law

When asked whether ethnicity or nationalism, or socio-economic problems was the main issue of the conflict, Boyle said, "it was outright genocide by Yugoslavia and Milosevic against the Bosnians. They proclaimed independence as was requested by the European Union. The EU put out guidelines and said to Bosnia and Croatia that they needed to have elections. They had elections and they voted for independence and they were hit with genocide and aggression," Boyle told the Canadian organization on Genocide research.

On the behavior of the British representative at the peace negotiations for Bosnia, Boyle said, "I dealt personally with David Owen. He is a typical British, imperialist, establishment, racist individual who believed Muslims were an inferior race of people. We were just supposed to do what he told us to do. I made it clear that that was not going to happen on my watch."

"Europe just did not want a Muslim state in Europe. It was that simple. It went back to the crusades.

[…]

This has to do with anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe going back to the crusades, at least. At that time, before 9/11 2001, we really didn’t have that in the United States. We didn’t have experience with the crusades and all the rest of that. But eventually, Clinton would go along with a carve-up too," Boyle said.

On the conduct of US representative in the talks, Boyle said, "Cyrus Vance was running the show. That was clear. He was the de facto representative of the US Government. Everyone knew that. Even though he technically represented the United Nations, everyone knew that Vance was there speaking pretty much on behalf of the US Government. He had been former Secretary of State. That’s the way people looked at Vance, that he had the backing of the US Government behind him. Of course Vance never said that, to the best of my knowledge, but that is the way people looked at Vance."

External Links:

IRG:

Interview with Francis Boyle

Malaysia should boycott CHOGM, IC should call for referendum: Penang Dy-CM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2013, 19:31 GMT]
Malaysia should not participate in CHOGM in Colombo simply because what took place in 2009 was a genocide against Tamil people. Unless the Sri Lankan government is taken to task on the genocide against Tamils, I think the Commonwealth countries should boycott CHOGM in Colombo this year, said Malaysia’s Penang State Deputy Chief Minister, Prof Ramasamy in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. While the Tamil issue has been so much internationalised, countries like India try to go back to the 13th Amendment. Rather than undemocratically imposing a solution, I suggest that the International Community should call for a referendum among Tamils, whether they want a separate state or not, because it was the Tamils who were victimised. Let’s not judge from what others say, let’s ask what the Tamils want, he further said.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yNTnr-7rZ4A Prof Ramasamy came hard against the Malaysian government for its police and immigration disrupting the screening of Callum Macrae’s “No Fire Zone” in Malaysia earlier this month.

The Channel 4 video has brought out the atrocities committed during the Vanni war. A few NGOs in Malaysia have joined together and arranged the screening of the video at the Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur. During the screening the police interrupted and the Malaysian immigration also was there, Prof Ramasamy said.

The Penang Deputy Chief Minister alleged that the Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Kuala Lumpur prompted the Malaysian government in this regard, by saying that some foreigners have come illegally into Malaysia. But there was no such thing. It was clearly a work of the Sri Lankan government, he said.

The Sri Lankan government is a paranoid government. They want to stop the screening of such videos because they don’t want the world to know what really happened, Prof Ramasamy said.

He questioned the practice of the Malaysian government and its agencies for getting directives from the Sri Lankan High Commission in such instances.

“I hope the Malaysian government would desist from getting directives from Sri Lanka embassy from now on,” Prof Ramasamy said.

The Malaysian government claims that this is a democratic country. People are free to screen videos or movies on human rights or on genocide. Malaysia was in the forefront in supporting the struggle of the Bosnians, the plight of Muslims. Why can’t the Malaysian government allow the screening of videos such as the “No Fire Zone” also, showing the plight of innocent people, Prof Ramasamy questioned.

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TNPF urges mass struggle to course-correct IC imposed devolution deviation

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 May 2013, 21:14 GMT]
Sinhala State and IC should be brought to a point to concede Tamil sovereignty through a democratic, non-violent mass struggle with sacrifices, said Tamil National People's Front leader Gajendrakumar Pomnnambalam, addressing media in Jaffna on Monday, and clarifying the position taken by the TNPF at the tripartite deliberations facilitated by the Mannaar Bishop on Saturday. The IC that is not prepared to accept a separate State cannot reject an alternative either. It cannot impose a specific path. It is up to us to formulate the path without compromising fundamentals. Negotiation between two nations of distinct sovereignties is different from walking the path of devolution within a unitary State. But the TNA had been ‘instructed’ by a powerful country to choose the path of the 13th Amendment, the TNPF leader said.

We are legally prohibited from talking about a separate State. We are only talking about a viable alternative, Gajendrakumar said.

Negotiations for the viable alternative should be based on the recognition of Tamil nation, sovereignty and right to self-determination. Otherwise, all decisions will be one-sided, taken only by the Sinhala State. This is why we insist that recognition of nation, sovereignty and right to self-determination should precede any negotiation for a lasting solution, the TNPF leader clarified.

However, some members of the TNA, citing IC’s unpreparedness to concede even the alternative, argue for a ‘step by step’ approach through the path of devolution. Tamils have rejected the devolution deception for the last 26 years. When the TNPF explained to the TNA of the fundamental difference in the approach, TNA parliamentarian Mr Sumanthiran attempted to argue that there was no difference, Gajendrakumar said.

As a stalemate prevailed arriving at a common understanding, a four-member committee, comprising of Mr Sumanthiran representing the TNA, Mr Gajendrakumar representing the TNPF and senior lawyer Mr Puvindran and law faculty lecturer Mr K Guruparan representing the civil society have been formed for further deliberations, Gajendrakumar revealed.

On a common approach to the PC elections, Gajendrakumar said that in order to be true to the political aspirations of the Tamil Nation, the TNA leadership should publicly denounce the so-called path of devolution based on the 13th Amendment. The TNA could present an independent proxy to take part in the PC election after denouncing the 13th Amendment, the TNPF leader said.

* * *

The TNPF leader has welcomed the idea to form Tamil National Council.

A common working programme should focus on people's struggle that seeks to defend the Tamil nation from the genocide and at the same time guide the Tamil polity to arrive at a lasting solution. Focus on the struggle against genocide, and a concerted effort towards a political solution, are like two sides of the same coin, Gajendrakumar said.

* * *

It is exactly for that matter Tamils have to be firm in not only rejecting the devolution deception imposed by the USA and India, but also in rising up in full strength against it in the island, in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora, as the ‘devolution’ path had already proved itself to be the path of structural genocide in the Eastern Province, commented Eezham Tamil activists for alternative polity in the island.

Tamil polity, rather than saving the East from the structural genocide by a fresh struggle approach, should not drag the North also to fall in line as desired and schemed by the local and international adversaries, the activists said.

The diaspora, looking upon the USA and the West despite a catalogue of open and repeated deceits, has already failed miserably in countering the deception when the foundations were laid at Geneva.

The ground prepared now allows New Delhi also to play active games in the diaspora.

At least now, the diaspora should wake up in sending the message in strongest possible terms to the powers that are haunting the Tamil national polity and the TNA.

Delegation of a power that visited the island on 21-22 September 2009 ‘instructed’ the TNA, Gajendrakumar said, exposing the role played by outside forces in deciding the Tamil polity and the current plight of Tamils. There are many others outside of the island too, ‘instructed’ by the powers to ‘articulate’ among Tamils.

Some articulating TNA leaders should be mindful of their historic responsibility in not committing historical blunders.

Right politicians taking right decisions at the most wanted times could make a big difference, but it is ultimately people who should come forward to mobilise in large numbers to tell them what is right and what is wrong, or who is right and who is wrong.

Voting in an election deception that is imposed, compromised, guided and manipulated is not the exact way of telling right and wrong to the politicians in our context. Get to the streets and get at their throat before they take you for a ride, or otherwise forget everything and sulk forever, commented the activists for alternative polity.

Chronology:

13.05.13  TNPF urges mass struggle to course-correct IC impo..

13.05.13  Tamil polity forced to focus on Indo-US agenda of ..

01.05.13  TNPF prepared to join TNA, if pre-2009 goals uphel..

28.04.13  Indo-US manoeuvrings impact TNA's political future

28.04.13  Justice Wigneswaran delivers ITAK’s Chelva Memoria..

Related Articles:
11.05.13   Challenging enforced self-deceit
11.05.13   Genocide could be mandated by democracy of West: Malathy
26.03.13   Tamils should resist being taken into current western agenda..

diaspora should come forward: Gajendrakumar

TN responded, diaspora should come forward: Gajendrakumar urges addressing IC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 08:14 GMT]
“Just 25 miles away, across the sea, there are 70 million people in Tamil Nadu prepared to give their voice for our struggle […] At the same time, the Tamils living across the world who constitute the global Tamil Diaspora, should also come forward to strengthen this struggle by taking it forward in their countries, demonstrating their strength, as they voiced for us during the last phase of the war,” said TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam on Wednesday, urging the Tamils in the West and in Tamil Nadu to address the concerned States that allowed the genocide in war, to remind their responsibility when the process of genocide reaches its peak four years later. He was addressing people demonstrating against SL military seizing an entire region of their lands in Jaffna.

We went to the IC during the war and told them that it was genocide. But in reply we were told that the LTTE is terrorist and the SL State’s war can’t be stopped, but they had warned the State against bloodbath. What happened is known today, Gajendrakumar said.

Four years after the war, the genocidal process has reached to its peak, with the destruction of all the pillars of the identity of the Tamil nation. The official take-over of the fertile lands of Valikaamam North that also have access to the resourceful seabed, is one such act of structural genocide, the former TNA parliamentarian and the TNPF leader said.

If we simply look at it only as a land struggle of Valikaamam people, we are only abetting our own genocide. The only power we have to day is people’s power, he further said.

Translated excerpts from Wednesday’s speech of Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in Tamil follows:

“We went to the international community while our people were being slaughtered in massive numbers during the last phase of the war. We explained to them sharply that what was taking place on the ground was a massive slaughter of genocidal character. Today it is [known as] a massive slaughter. But, after the conclusion of this war, they [the SL State] would target - one by one - all the pillars sustaining the identity of our nation. So, don’t expect that we will have a solution after the war, we told the IC. We pleaded with the IC to take constructive actions to stop the war and to pave a way for peaceful resolution of the conflict.”

“What the international community told us at that time was that the LTTE was a terrorist organization and that they cannot act to stop a legal government fighting them. However, the IC also told us that they had clearly conveyed their opinion to the Sri Lankan government that the Sri Lankan State and the Government of Sri Lanka would have to face serious consequences if there was a blood bath.”

“Today, four years after the war, the genocidal process, which comprises of the destruction of all the pillars of the existential identity of our nation, has reached its peak.”

“What we witness today in the official takeover of lands in Valikaamam North is one such act.”

“The Sri Lankan military seizure and occupation of lands in one of the most fertile areas of cultivation in the Jaffna peninsula and depriving the people of Valikaamam North accessing their resourceful sea-beds in the region, cannot be viewed as an isolated act affecting the people of Valikaamam North or as something that only affects their livelihood. It is a systematic and planned act of destruction targeting the economy of the Tamils as a whole. Therefore, the struggle being waged by the people of Valikaamam should be seen as a struggle to prevent the structural destruction of the entire nation of Tamils.”

“We will be giving the space to the Sri Lankan government if we continue to look at this struggle only as a struggle of Valikaamam people to get back to their lands. It will only be like abetting our own genocide.”

“It is said that political power stems from the armed power and people’s power. The only power we have today is the people’s power.”

“Just 25 miles away, across the sea, there are 70 million people in Tamil Nadu prepared to give their voice for our struggle.”

“We today witness that the uprooted people of Valikaamam North are fully prepared to continuously wage the struggle. We need to devise a platform [of a mass struggle] where not only the people of Valikaamam North, but all the other uprooted people are joining the struggle.”

“At the same time, the Tamils living across the world who constitute the global Tamil Diaspora, should also come forward to strengthen this struggle by taking it forward in their countries, demonstrating their strength, as they voiced for us during the last phase of the war.”

“Today, even after the end of war, the people are subjected to genocide.”

“This message should be taken up by the Tamil people living in the West and by the people of Tamil Nadu, passing the message sharply to the concerned States. Why? Because, those governments had also allowed [the SL State] to commit the genocide through the war. They could have acted earlier in stopping the war, but they didn’t. It was a cruel act. Since they failed to stop it at that time, again today, they have a responsibility in not failing to protect at least this time.”

Chronology:

25.04.13  TN responded, diaspora should come forward: Gajend..

25.04.13  People rise up against SL military seizure of Vali..

23.04.13  Geneva resolution responsible for genocidal milita..

23.04.13  6,400 acres of civilian land to be seized for mili..

22.04.13  Colombo begins legal appropriation of former HSZ l..

26.03.13  Colombo's land appropriation to be accelerated in ..

15.02.13  SL military operatives attack peaceful protest aga..

12.02.13  SL commander admits converting HSZ into permanent ..

11.02.13  SL military demolishes Hundreds of Tamil houses in..

08.02.13  Poonakari becomes another major hub of Sinhala mil..

03.02.13  Colombo converts Jaffna ‘HSZ’ into zone of Sinhala..

14.01.13  Sinhala military opens ‘holiday resorts’ in occupi..

30.07.12  SLA restricts access to temples, churches in Jaffn..

15.07.12  SLA appropriates more lands for militarisation of ..

14.07.12  SL military grabs more lands in Maathakal

Plight of UAE refugees expose human rights deception of IC, UN

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 April 2013, 08:08 GMT]
No country in the West should have any problem with providing political asylum to the fleeing Tamil Journalist Ms Lokini Rathimohan, currently held at detention in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), rights activists in the island concerned with the protection of journalists fleeing genocidal Sri Lanka told TamilNet. As the journalist's name and photos have been published in the international media now and as there have been write-ups in the hostile press in Colombo suggesting to the SL government to get her deported to Colombo to ‘disprove’ the killing of Isaippiriya, a colleague of Lokini at the National Television of Tamileelam (NTT), the need to assure Lokini's security has become much more important than ever before, the activists further said. In the meantime, a former administrative official at the NTT confirmed that Ms Lokini was not an LTTE member, but was an employed journalist.

Despite the UN refugee agency the UNHCR recognising the refugee status, the group of Eezham Tamils face prolonged detention and threat of deportation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is a pro-USA confederation in the Arab World.

Commenting on the situation, and comparing it with the attitude of some the diplomatic missions of the West in Colombo, the activists in the island involved in protecting the fleeing journalists told TamilNet Saturday that there were particular instances in which some Western diplomatic missions in Colombo acted in the most inhuman way in rejecting visa to some of the most-needing victims.

This happens because they want to avoid the victims’ evidences independently reaching the world public, leading to the indictment of the genocidal regime in Colombo and to the embarrassment of the Establishments in complicity, at a time when they try to save the regime in international forums such as the UNHRC, the activists in the island said.

The Establishments that were in complicity with Sri Lanka in the genocidal war against Eezham Tamils, and that are continuing in abetting the structural genocide, now play a double game by posing themselves as saviours of human rights, but systematically prodding the victimised Tamils towards the genocidal State, the activists told TamilNet, urging the Tamil diaspora lobbyists, who claim to have bargaining leverage with their host countries, to take up the issue locally with the Establishments of their countries.

Ms Lokini Rathimohan

In the meantime, the Tamil Action Front, New Zealand, (TAFNZ), in a letter to New Zealand’s Minister of Immigration, Mr Nathan Guy, has requested him to consider grating asylum to the 19 Eezham Tamils facing deportation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into Sri Lanka where their lives are endangered. The group of Tamils are accredited by the UNHCR as refugees and some among them are most vulnerable, the letter signed by TAFNZ Coordinator, Mr A Theva Rajan said, citing the case of Ms. Lokini and nine others.

The 30-year-old Lokini Rathimohan, a journalist, has worked with the National Television of Tamil Eelam (NTT), a satellite TV station that was run by the de facto state.

Ms Lokini, who served as a media worker for several years, was an anchor in NTT in the last year of its operation, replacing Isaipriya, who was an LTTE member, a journalist as well as an artist in the movement.

It is also significant to note that ITN, a Sri Lankan TV media organization, that staunchly stands by the policies of the genocide-accused Rajapaksa regime, in a broadcast on 4 April, said that if deported to Sri Lanka, Lokini must be “compelled” to “reveal the truth” about Isaipriya’s death.

It was against such a backdrop, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and several other journalists have called on the offices of UNHCR to prevent the deportation of the refugees to Sri Lanka.

In a joint release on Friday, the RSF and JDS urged the office of the UNHCR “to do everything possible to prevent this expulsion, which would constitute a total violation of international law and the right protection that the UN Refugee Agency granted to Lokini.”

"UNHCR is looking for a solution to resettle the 19 refugees in other countries. We have full cooperation from the UAE government and there is no threat of the refugees being sent back to Sri Lanka," Times of India quoted Babar Baloch, spokesperson for UNHCR in Geneva, in a report on Friday.

"We have been working sincerely to settle them in other countries. Fifteen of the 39 recognized refugees left UAE and 12 are in the process of departing. Resettlement for others may take time. The UAE government has been supporting UNHCR in sheltering the refugees," he had further said, adding that he wasn’t sure on how long the UAE government would keep them.

Chronology:

14.04.13  Plight of UAE refugees expose human rights decepti..

06.04.13  UAE Tamil deportees face torture, HRW raises alarm

IC should no longer accept empty promises by Sri Lanka: Amnesty says after UPR session

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2012, 03:03 GMT]
“Sri Lanka’s promises on human rights should no longer be accepted by the international community, Amnesty International said in a press statement after the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Thursday. “Sri Lanka has been making empty promises about human rights for decades. This was made clear by a number of countries which questioned Sri Lanka’s lack of progress in ending human rights violations during the review,” said Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International’s expert on Sri Lanka.

“Three years after the end of the civil war, the government continues to stifle dissent through threats and harassment, and has failed to take steps to end enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions,” Ms Foster told Amnesty.

“Four years after the UN’s first review of human rights in Sri Lanka, there has been virtually no progress – as shown today - on any of the commitments the government made to end arbitrary detentions,” said Foster.

The UN examines the human rights situation in each member state every four and a half years, and Sri Lanka has yet to follow up on important commitments made during its first UPR in 2008 when it was engaged in war with the LTTE.

Amnesty International continues to receive reports of torture and resultant deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.

The findings of a 2007 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into both cases have yet to be released, the statement further said.

“The persistent lack of justice in these cases is shocking and flies in the face of repeated promises by the government for the past six years that it would investigate them properly. Victims’ families won’t believe the government until some practical action is taken. As a very basic first step the 2007 commission’s findings should be made public,” Ms Foster said.

In the lead up to this UPR, Sri Lanka’s Attorney General claimed to have directed the police to investigate the two cases.

“Why did it toke so long for the Sri Lankan authorities to order an investigation into cases this grave, and what will happen to the police inquiry when international interest sparked by the UPR dies down?,” Foster questioned.

After Sri Lanka’s UPR session in Geneva on Thursday, the UPR panel is set to release its full report on Monday 5 November 2012.

The Human Rights Council is set to formally adopt the outcome of the review at its March session in 2013.

IC turns deaf ear to struggling Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 09:05 GMT]

The international community of establishments and their agenda-driven outfits continue to turn deaf-ear to the plight of the Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs), failing to accord the necessary international legal status to Eezham Tamil POWs, who have become the ‘pawns of genocide’, activists in the island blamed following the reports on Wednesday that a 28-year-old Tamil prisoner, Ganesan Nimalarooban from Nelukku'lam in Vavuniyaa, had succumbed to his injuries at Mahara prison in South. All the 122 prisoners who were inside the raided prison cell in Vavuniyaa last Friday were taken to Anuradhapura prison, where Sinhala prison guards and criminal inmates tortured them for more than 10 hours. 22 of these Eezham Tamil POWs were later transferred to Mahara prison and Nimalarooban, hailng from a poverty-stricken family in the suburb of Vavuniyaa, was one of them.

According to the family of the victim, he was only arrested on mere allegations that he was an LTTE member. The family was struggling to access the body of the victim for burial. The body of the victim is at the mortuary of Ragama government hospital, informed sources said.

Sri Lankan prison guards and Sinhala inmates in the prisons in the South, especially at the notorious Anuradhapura prison, have been torturing and harassing 122 Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War, who were forcefully relocated after the fatal commando attack on the protesting prisoners last Friday, the sources in the South said.

TNA parliamentarians Selvam Adaikkalanathan, Sivasakthi Ananthan and Suresh Premachandran visited Mahara prison on Wednesday. Six of the 22 prisoners transferred to Mahara prison have been admitted at the hospital in the prison, they said. Another four are admitted at public hospital outside the prison, they said. The victim is one of these four, they added.

Suresh Premachandran, the media spokesman of the TNA, speaking to TamilNet said he was concerned that the lives of Tamil ‘political prisoners’ are threatened at the hands of the Sri Lankan prison guards and Sinhala prisoners in Anuradhapura prison. He was counting on legal action in Sri Lankan courts on behalf of the family to get the body of the slain victim.

There were 32 confirmed political prisoners and prisoners of war in Vavuniyaa prison although there were 122 prisoners in total at the raided facility. It was these 32 prisoners who were severely attacked.

Mr Premachandran said he was only able to confirm that 3 prisoners were transferred to Bogombara prison in Kandy, 1 to Anuradhapura and 22 to Mahara.

In the meantime, Jaffna based rights activists have called for Eezham Tamil diaspora in Norway and Switzerland to take up the matter with their respective governments, which had the ‘opening’ to engage with the LTTE and the GoSL, the parties till the last moment of the failed peace process and the war in which they even attempted to assist and witness as remote third parties to white-flag surrender of certain LTTE officials and cadres.

“Why the establishments of the IC that seek to control the flow of Tamil asylum seekers taking boats through human trafficking agents, avoid focusing on the plight of the Tamil POWs,” one of the activists questioned.

Meanwhile, providing details of the raid on Vavuniyaa prison, the sources in Vavuniyaa said that the SL forces had also fired gunshots causing injuries to the suffering prisoners after firing more than 20 tear gas bombs into their cell on Friday.

Many of the prisoners were bleeding and were in unconscious state already when they were brought to Anuradhapura, where they were subjected to torture between 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. They were not provided any food or water.

The ill-treatment of the Tamil POWs were exposed to the global Tamils following the raid on Friday, which has come three years after the end of war.

The Tamil prisoners were peacefully protesting over a number of days, demanding to show them one of their inmates who was subjected to severe torture and allegedly taken away by the SL military.

However, their protest took the form of a ‘polite’ hostage taking drama, when three Sinhala officers attempted to forcefully feed them to end their hunger strike last week.

The enraged prisoners of war, most them former LTTE cadres, kept three of the prison officers as hostages causing the prison authority to enter into negotiations through a Judge. They were demanding the return of the tortured inmate, Saravanabhavan, for the release. The hostage drama and the ‘negotiation’ failed to produce any result. Later, on Friday, the SL Special Task Force commandos raided their cell.

The news was completely suppressed by the SL prison authorities. Even the southern media that wage a campaign against the ruling regime in Colombo failed to give coverage. The prisoners, using cell-phones, which they kept hidden in their possession, had communicated to the outside world through exiled Tamil journalists who are operating websites from outside the island.

The SL Defence establishment, in a hurried psy-ops manoeuvre twisted the story in its projection against the Tamil diaspora. While doing so it had admitted that there was a violent prison raid where STF commandos were deployed and that the prisoners were transferred. The SL defence establishment alleged that the prisoners were being ‘guided’ over satellite phone by the ‘LTTE diaspora’.

There was no update on the situation of those numbering around 100, who were allegedly being detained in Anuradhapura prison.

Chronology:

05.07.12  ‘IC turns deaf ear to struggling Eezham Tamil Pris..

29.06.12  SL forces fatally attack protesting Tamil Prisoner..

After messing up question of Eezham Tamils ‘IC’ embarks on Myanmar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 June 2012, 22:58 GMT]
After messing up the national question of Eezham Tamils into genocide, the so-called international community now conceives identical models for the struggling nationalities in the island of Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Burma). The basic message is that the struggling nations should abide by the existing constitutions, compromise with the genocidal militaries of the respective states, envisage only non-descript solutions to come eventually and now concentrate only on resettlement rehabilitation and reconciliation to facilitate the ‘development’ of the so-called international community. Following the peace initiation of Norway in Burma, Australia and Singapore embark upon to play a role there, resembling what the Co-Chairs did to Eezham Tamils.

The Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Friday announced that Australia would provide $ 5 million as initial contribution to promote peace in Myanmar’s conflict affected regions, said a report of the Australian Agency for International Development.

Australia will work with Norway and other international donors to create the necessary environment for the settlement of internally displaced people, the report said.

According to Bob Carr explaining the model, "While Australia strongly supports rapid assistance for peace-building efforts, we will also continue to work with international partners to expand the delivery of our substantial aid program to conflict-affected areas in Myanmar […] "With concrete improvements in their lives, people will have greater incentive to make enduring peace."

Australia is the second largest bilateral aid donor to Myanmar. Meanwhile Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) cited a source from a local humanitarian group saying on conditions of anonymity: “It is now clear to me that the intention of the plan is to back the Burma government to bring the ethnic groups under the 2008 constitution and not support the UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council] or KIO [Kachin Independent Organisation] requests to have dialogue outside of parliament.”

The policy also coerces exiled groups into registering as official NGOs in Burma, if they want funds. But they are not in a position to move back into Burma as legal entities, DVB commented on the peace initiative.

The Secretary of the Karan National Union, cited By DVB, did not want such programmes expanded before a political settlement was reached.

Without finding no solution at all to Eezham Tamils after the IC abetted genocidal war, and leaving them in the straits to face Sinhala militarisation, colonisation and structural genocide, the IC has now embarked upon peace facilitation in Myanmar. It is not peace facilitation but peace intimidation, commented Eezham Tamil political activists.

After ending the war in genocide and parading it, Myanmar was the first country visited by Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Meanwhile, Singapore has also sent a business delegation to Myanmar this week, reminding of a proverb in Jaffna on business greed putting the finger on hot pie (Aa’raatha soattinilum avukken’ru kaivaiththal).

Last month the Singapore Foreign Minister Shanmugam led a business team to Colombo too.

‘Slash and burn development’ is the term perceived by political analysts to describe the kind of activities practiced by the IC and peace facilitators operating at its instance, in various parts of the world in the name of international crisis management and conflict resolution.

Chronology:

09.06.12  After messing up question of Eezham Tamils ‘IC’ em..

04.06.12  IC-directed Norway stubborn on ‘development’ bulld..