Tamil Affairs

Tamil News

Latest news from and about the homeland

Displaced residents of the Valikamam North region of Jaffna held protests on Monday, in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat and near Palaly Junction, marking 36 years since their forced displacement and demanding the right to return and resettle in their lands. The people of Valikamam North were displaced from their homeland on 15 June 1990 by the Sri Lankan military. Thirty-six years on…

Reconsider CHOGM2015 urge Malta's Greens over SL human rights concerns

Malta's Green party urged the government to reconsider offer to host the CHOGM 2015 stating that it ‘could be interpreted as condoning human rights abuse in Sri Lanka’. (See here for report in Malta Today.

The chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika, Arnold Cassola, said:

International investigation central to Tamil political demands - TNPF


Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) welcomed the boycott of CHOGM by the leaders of Canada, India and Mauritius.

Explaining TNPF's engagement with Mauritian officials, Ponnambalam said:
"We made very clear to the Mauritian envoy that what is happening here is a genocide,"
Criticising international claims that recent Northern Provincial elections were a marker of progress and reconciliation, he said:
"If the international community is pointing to an unwanted provincial council, that was forced upon the Tamil people, as a sign of progress, then Rajapaksa and Sinhala nationalists will be reassured that no matter what they do, the world will always fall at their feet,"

SL state media calls British Premier an 'unmitigated boor'

Sri Lanka’s state media referred to British Prime Minister David Cameron as a buffoon, a boor and a bully today, in response to his calls for an international independent investigation into war crimes should Sri Lanka fail to complete one by March.

Families of the disappeared hold candle-lit vigil

Families of the disappeared staged a candle-lit vigil in Vavuniya, Sunday

The event was organised by the Vavuniya civil monitoring group in a further attempt to raise awareness about the plight of the disappeared and their families.


Hundreds of effected families also staged demonstrations to raise awareness during the historic visit of the British premier, David Cameron, to the North-East on Friday.

Sri Lanka told to protect human rights by China

China has told Sri Lanka that it should "make efforts to protect and promote human rights", during a media briefing earlier today, PTI reports.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Qin Gang was responding to a question on the Commonwealth summit, human rights and British Premier David Cameron’s pledge to push for an international investigation through the UN Human Rights Council, if Sri Lanka doesn’t complete an independent, credible inquiry by March.

"Due to the differences in the economic and social development of different countries, there could be differences on human rights protection," Qin said.

CHOGM hotel occupancy ‘far below’ expectations

The average occupancy rates of the hotels in Colombo remained far below expectations during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the Daily Mirror reports.

A number of star-class city hotels including Taj Samudra, Cinnamon Grand and several other relatively small hotels carried out expensive refurbishments targeting CHOGM 2013.

David Cameron has to act on his threat to Sri Lanka – The Times

Welcoming British Premier David Cameron’s ultimatum to Sri Lanka over its forces’ wartime abuses, The Times newspaper Monday urged him to make good on his threat and to ignore charges of neo-colonialism in doing so.

Hailing Mr. Cameron’s ‘unequivocal’ warning to Sri Lanka’s government that if it does not conduct an independent inquiry into the last months of the civil war, he would push for one to be held under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the paper said in its editorial:

“[Mr. Cameron] should not stop there. His threat to challenge Sri Lanka at the UN should be acted upon.

Gotabhaya accuses Cameron of pandering to LTTE rump

The Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has accused the British Prime Minister David Cameron of being influenced by the “LTTE rump”.

Gotabhaya said that Cameorn was playing politics in Sri Lanka in order to ‘soothe’ UK-based organisations, such as the Global Tamil Forum, the British Tamils Forum and Tamils against Genocide.

Rajapaksa should accept international investigation - Gulf News

The Gulf News, a Dubai-based newspaper, has called on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to accept an international investigation, in an editorial published on Monday.

The paper said the government's campaign against the LTTE was 'marred by excesses', and that Rajapasa should admit that crimes were committed and establish responsibility for them.

See full editorial below.

In 2009, the Sri Lankan government won the decades-long struggle against the separatist Tamil Tigers, who had fought a particularly brutal war against the government with regular use of random acts of terror. The Sri Lankan army’s final campaign was marred by excesses, as the soldiers were desperate not to allow the terrorists to escape, even as they used tens of thousands of villagers as human shields to avoid the army’s assault.

Labour Party pledges support if Cameron government acts on accountability for Sri Lanka war crimes

Labour leader Ed Miliband said in the House of Commons today that Britain cannot let the human rights situation in Sri Lanka rest, and that his party would support any government moves to take action towards a war crimes inquiry.

"The Prime Minister of Canada and the Prime Minister of India decided not to attend this summit. In explaining his decision, Prime Minister Harper said this: 'In the past two years, we've seen a considerable worsening of the situation.