Tamil Affairs

Tamil News

Latest news from and about the homeland

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The number of skeletal remains identified at the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna has risen to 366, as excavators uncovered further remains of children on Tuesday, at one of the largest mass graves unearthed on the island and a site long tied to the enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan military. Six sets of skeletal remains, including those of children,…

Come and 'die like dogs', minister threatens US

Sri Lanka's public relations minister, Mervyn Silva expressed his thoughts on a US resolution at the UNHRC.

According to BBC correspondent Charles Haviland, Silva said Monday, 

“Americans, if you want to die like dogs as Prabhakaran did, come to Sri Lanka.”

HRW produces new evidence of torture, as TAG fights deportations

Human Rights Watch (HRW) produced fresh evidence of Sri Lanka’s torture of recent Tamil deportees, on Friday, which significantly bolsters ongoing litigation to halt the UK’s continuing deportations says Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) in a litigation update released Saturday.

Spokesperson from TAG, Jan Jananayagam said,

We have dealt with accountability issues' - Sri Lanka tells Navi Pillay

Sri Lanka's delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva due to begin Monday, assured the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, that "we [Sri Lanka] have dealt with accountability isses".

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Sri Lanka's irrigation minister, Nimal Siripala de Silva, said when Pillay has raises the issue of war crimes and the UN expert panel report, they responsed promptly.

“We corrected her immediately. We have dealt with accountability issues.”

Sri Lanka outraged at Silva humiliation

Sri Lanka has expressed outrage at the humiliating treatment meted out to Major General Shavendra Silva by a UN committee.

Silva, who is accused of war crimes, was ejected from the peacekeeping advisory panel to Bank Ki-moon earlier this week, after widespread criticism of his selection to the committee.

"To seek to exclude him from a position in the UN is unfair and contrary to the principles of the United Nations," the Sri Lankan government said in a statement issued in New York.

Silva 'not appropriate' for UN body

A UN peacekeeping committee reportedly barred Major General Shavendra Silva of the Sri Lankan Army from attending their meetings.

"Following careful consideration and consultation with other special advisory group members, the chair, Louise Frechette, has advised Major General Shavendra Silva of Sri Lanka, that his participation is not appropriate or helpful for the purposes of this group," said a statement released by Frechette.

Member states & Ban Ki Moon should endorse barring of Silva - HRW

Endorsing the "principled stand" of Louise Frechette, the chair of the UN body who made the decision to bar Major General Shavendra Silva from the UN's Special Advisory Group on Peace Keeping Operations, Philippe Bolopion, the UN director for Human Rights Watch, called on UN member states and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, to publicly back her decision.

In a statement released Thursday, Bolopion said,

Sri Lanka vows large protests against any UN call for independent probe

The Sri Lankan government vowed to conduct large scale rallies against the "Western forces" that are calling for an independent probe into the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The government's spokesperson, Susil Premajayantha, told reporters,

"We will organise demonstrations to show that the people of this country are with the government. They are against the Western forces."

Conservative MP calls for UK boycott of a Sri Lankan Commonwealth summit

The Conservative MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon, writing on the ConservativeHome website, endorsed the Canadian pledge to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit in 2013, if held in Sri Lanka, and urged the UK government to considering doing the same.

US want ‘concrete steps’ by Sri Lanka

The United States have reiterated their demand for Sri Lanka to take ‘concrete steps’ on reconciliation.

State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said Sri Lanka had not attempted to implement any of the LLRC report’s recommendations.

"To date, frankly, we've not seen a detailed action plan from the government of Sri Lanka on how it's going to implement these recommendations," Toner told reporters.

"We still encourage the government of Sri Lanka to move forward, to take concrete steps on this implementation plan,"

Sri Lanka capable of dealing with domestic issues – Russian ambassador

The Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka dismissed calls for an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes.

Vladimir Mikhaylov was speaking at a conference marking 55 years of diplomatic relations between Russia and Sri Lanka, where he expressed Russia’s view that larger, more powerful nations cannot dictate to smaller countries how to govern or what type of leader should be in power.

He argued that the legitimately elected governments should be allowed to solve internal matters themselves.