Picture: Uthayan

Students at the University of Jaffna held a memorial event on the 27th death anniversary of hunger striker Lt Col Thileepan.

The event was held at a secret location, reported the Jaffna based daily, Uthayan

Residents of a Mullaitivu village were given back their lands, on the condition that the land would be re-seized by the Sri Lankan Air Forces if there was a resurgence of war.

Landowners in Kepapilavu, Mullaitivu had their lands returned to them, reports Uthayan, but only after being forced to sign documents acknowledging that the land would be returned to the air forces in the case of another armed conflict. The clause stated that the land should be returned willingly or seized by court order.

“Human rights are used as a tool to implement motivated agendas with no understanding or appreciation of the complexity of issues in the countries concerned. Human rights should be recognised by all as a moral and ethical concept rather than as a political tool. External intervention without adequate consideration of the structures in a society and cultural traditions of the countries where such intervention takes place, inevitably results in de-stabilisation, which is very much in evidence today, in most parts of the world.”

“Most of the incidents referred to by the oral update are part of a larger pattern aimed at creating the conditions of permanent subjugation of the Tamil people as a whole - a process of de-Tamilsation which we interpret as the structural genocide of the Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka. An honest and forthright appreciation of the problems that face the Tamil people is fundamental and we call upon the OHCHR to conduct the inquiry in this spirit.”