BTF to push for genocide investigation: HR activist

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2012, 00:18 GMT]
Palaka'ni interviews Human Rights Coordinator of British Tamils Forum (BTF), Kana Nirmalan, on the significance of the recent conference held by All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG-T) and the BTF, with the participation of Tamil politicians and representatives from the Tamil homeland, Tamil Nadu and the diaspora. The resolution of the conference has demanded international independent investigations on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.



On the immediate activities of the BTF after the passing of the resolution, Mr. Nirmalan said that they would be pushing for a venue change of the CHOGM meeting, which is scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in 2013. As another course of action, they would also urge the leaders of UK, India and Australia to boycott the event.

Responding to a question on what the British foreign office thought about the demand that talk about war crimes is not enough without addressing the issue of genocide, Mr. Nirmalan, citing Tamil political leaders who had met the British officials in the course of their visit to the conference, said that they had opined that what happened in the island was not war crimes but genocide and that Britain had responsibility to the Tamils for the creation of the unitary Ceylon state that privileged the Sinhalese.

“The frustration of everyone is that what is happening there (in Sri Lanka) is genocide, a genocide which is being silently watched by the international community. Now we have placed questions on the plate of the Foreign Office in order to bring a change in their principles. It is up to them to debate and deal with these that what is happening there (in Sri Lanka) is genocide and it should be stopped somehow, with a just solution,” he said.

Speaking on the significance of the event he said that the conference is a major step towards the recognition of the genocide of the Eezham Tamils.

“From here, the British Tamils’ Forum, working at all stages with all organizations, will consistently expose to the world that what happened there (Sri Lanka) was genocide,” he affirmed.

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Tamil delegates interact with London Tamils, affirm support for genocide investigation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2012, 23:37 GMT]
Concluding the three day global conference organized by the BTF and APPGT, politicians and civil society activists from the island and Tamil Nadu participated in an interactive session with an Eezham Tamil diaspora audience in London, on Friday. This event follows a meeting among the Tamil delegates in the British parliament on Thursday, where they had arrived at a consensus on the resolutions proposed on the day before calling for an independent international investigation into the genocidal war crimes of the Sri Lankan state.

The organizers of the conference expressed their condolences to Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias Parithi, a political organizer with the Tamil Coordinating Committee in France, who was assassinated in Paris on Thursday.

Pragasen Padayachi an activist working with solidarity groups in South Africa, said that the SA government and the ANC were giving mixed signals on the question of the Tamils. Calling the LLRC a joke, he opined that Tamils need to figure out the path forward.

Claiming that the talk of resettlement, rehabilitation and reconciliation is a farce in unitary Sri Lanka, Thirumurugan Gandhi from the May 17 Movement asked why the world powers that used one standard for South Sudan why not for Tamil Eelam. He also said that an international peace force not involving India, China, Pakistan and the USA should be deployed in Sri Lanka.

Saravanan from Save Tamils said that his organization would involve other youth organizations in India on the resolutions.

D. Raja and D Pandian from the CPI restated the commitment of their party to the democratic demands of the Eezham Tamils, Mr. Krishnaswamy from the Puthiya Tamizhagam party told the audience that he would take the resolution to the Tamil Nadu assembly.

Viduthalai Rajendran opined it was very important at the moment to understand the nuances of world politics and to make political moves accordingly.

TNA MPs Sritharan and Suresh Premachandran talked about the repression that the Tamils faced in the island. Mr. Premachandran was of the opinion that as much as Washington and London were important, Delhi was more important to the Eezham Tamils. Mavai Senathirajah of the TNA was also present in the meeting and responded to the questions raised by the participants.

Chronology:

10.11.12  Tamil delegates interact with London Tamils, affir..

07.11.12  Sri Lanka must be investigated for crime of genoci..

Dublin tribunal takes up genocide investigation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2012, 01:22 GMT]
“In April 2013, a panel of international experts will be convened as Judges of the 'Permanent People's Tribunal' to examine reports submitted by many specialised working groups on the accusation of the crime of Genocide against the Government of Sri Lanka and on the accusations against various international actors who had supported and prepared the conditions for the Sri Lankan Government to implement this alleged crime,” said a joint statement issued by the 'Permanent People's Tribunal' (PPT) based in Rome on Friday. The move is supported organisationally by the 'Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka' (IFPSL) based in Dublin and the International Human Rights Association based in Bremen (IMRV). Dublin Tribunal was the first independent international undertaking that recognised the need to look into the case of genocide in the island as early as in January 2010.

Full text of the press statement follows:

Dublin Tribunal Follows Up on Genocide and International Complicity
The People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka-Session II

[L-R] Nicolai Jung of IMRV (Germany), Gianni Tognoni of PPT (Rome) and Jude Lal Fernando IFPSL (Dublin) announce genocide investigation in a joint statement on 02 Nov 2012

The People's Tribunal on Sri Lanka - which took place in Dublin in January 2010 – in its determination, had acknowledged the 'importance of continuing investigation into the possibility of genocide'.

This possibility has become a necessity now, due to the mass of new evidence (substantial, quantitative and qualitative) that has come to light since then. At the time we held the 'Dublin Tribunal', the real casualty figures remained largely hidden. The official UN figure did not exceed 8000 civilian casualties, while some of the British and French press carried reports estimating the total number of casualties at 'up to 20,000'. In fact, the Sri Lanka Government maintained a position of ‘zero civilian casualties’ for the full period of the final military offensive!

However, soon after the Dublin Tribunal, like a dam bursting, details of terrible atrocities and a more realistic estimation of the magnitude of the massacre started surfacing in media. The effective embargo in the international media that existed during the eight months of the military offensive – which had helped to prevent a humanitarian opposition to the war to emerge – was starting to break down, eight months after the end of the military project. One month after the Tribunal - in February 2010 - appearing on Australia’s ABC Television, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss contradicted the UN estimate of 'no more than 8,000 casualties' stating that ‘anything between 10,000 to 40,000’ civilians may have died during the final siege. Sometime later the Experts’ Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General used the 40,000 figure as its own estimate. On January 2011, the Catholic Bishop of Mannar made a submission to the Sri Lankan Government's own 'Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission' (LLRC) that according to his calculation, 146,679 people are unaccounted for (he used the Government's own statistics to show this).

It is clear that the difference between estimate of 8,000 to an estimate of 146,679 is a significant one. The casualty figure issue is just one factor – which we have highlighted to emphasise our point. Various other factors - such as an examination of the historical background which had laid the basis to the events that led to the military operations in 2009, as well as, whether or not the continuing issues that the Tamil people in the area concerned are facing at the moment are related to this history, needs to be carried out properly to deal with the overall reality.

• Dublin war-crimes tribunal final report

Due to the fact that substantial, quantitative and qualitative new evidence has become available, we believe that there are compelling reasons to organise a follow up to the 'People's Tribunal on Sri Lanka' to examine the case of Genocide against the Tamil people.

In April 2013, a panel of international experts will be convened as Judges of the 'Permanent People's Tribunal' to examine reports submitted by many specialised working groups on the accusation of the crime of Genocide against the Government of Sri Lanka and on the accusations against various international actors who had supported and prepared the conditions for the Sri Lankan Government to implement this alleged crime.

This follow on session of the People's Tribunal on Sri Lanka (PTSL) will be held in Germany under the auspices of the 'Permanent People's Tribunal' (PPT) based in Rome and supported organisationally, by the 'Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka' (IFPSL) based in Dublin and the International Human Rights Association based in Bremen (IMRV).

2. November. 2012

Gianni Tognoni, Secretary General, Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), Rome
Jude Lal Fernando, Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL), Dublin
Nicolai Jung, International Human Rights Association (IMRV), Bremen e.V

Contact: irishpeaceforum@gmail.com