David Clay Large , professor of history at Montana State University, writes in the New York Times (see full article here ): Few Olympics are as famous as the 1936 Berlin Games, whose 75th anniversary falls this month. The publicity that accompanied the competition, held under the watchful eye of Adolf Hitler, supposedly tamed the Nazi regime. But much of that story is myth. Indeed, the Olympics gave the Nazis a lesson in how to hide their vicious racism and anti-Semitism, and should offer today’s International Olympic Committee a cautionary tale when considering the location of future events...
This statement in Tamil by a senior leader of the Tamil National Alliance, Suresh Premachandran, after his party swept the local government elections in the Tamil areas, was translated by groundviews.org . This election was concluded at an important time where the United Nations and the international community are pressuring the government over claims that they committed war crimes and that a fair investigation is necessary. In an effort to escape this difficulty, the Government worked hard to win these Local Government elections and demonstrate that the Tamil people are on its side. The...
Based on a speech at the vigil in London on July 23, 2011 to remember the victims of Black July. Every year, for 28 years, the Tamil people and our friends across the world have come together in July to remember a crucial turning point in our history. Black July was the largest and most significant of Sri Lanka’s pogroms, more horrific and unrestrained in its violence than the Nazis’ Kristallnacht. In just six days starting on July 23, 1983, Sinhala mobs supported by police and troops attacked the Tamils in the island’s south, killing several thousand and driving the survivors into camps...
Despite growing international outrage over the Sri Lankan military’s mass killings of over 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009, the Sri Lankan government is defiantly refusing to heed international demands for an independent investigation into the atrocities. Instead it is escalating a range of discriminatory and repressive policies towards the Tamil people. Australia’s cricketers should take a principled stand in defence of human rights and justice, and boycott play with Sri Lanka until the government there conducts itself according to the rules of international society . In doing so, they will...
This is the statement by ANC National Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu on the occasion of South Sudan's independence day celebrations on July 9. South Sudan has emerged as the newest state in the world, 54th state in Africa and the UN's 193rd member state. This marks the formal attainment of freedom for the people of South Sudan, after over five decades of painful struggle, war and carnage that cost millions of lives and displaced many others and left them destitute.
In a welcome rejection of the often-made claim that sport and politics are, and should be, separate, Sri Lanka’s star cricketer, Kumar Sangakkara, argued in his 2011 MCC Cowdrey Lecture that “the spirit of cricket can and should remain a guiding force for good within society.” We share Sangakkara’s assertion that “cricketers [have] bigger responsibilities than merely playing on the field.” It is this very belief that has inspired our call for an international boycott of Sri Lankan cricket until the government there agrees to a credible and independent investigation into the war crimes, crimes...
Despite the mounting evidence of mass killings of over 40,000 Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces in 2009, the Sri Lankan government is defiantly refusing to allow an impartial and independent investigation into the atrocities. Instead, like repressive regimes elsewhere, it is attacking those making the growing demands for justice, dismissing these as a ‘separatist, terrorist agenda’. Britain is amongst the countries also calling for a thorough investigation of the mass killings – something the Tamil people and international human rights groups have long been calling for. So is the...
Sports writer of the year and former England captain Mike Atherton wrote in The Times Tuesday June 28: “And there are still those who say that sport and politics do not mix. Since Sri Lanka have been in England, I have twice written about the broader issues affecting the country and its cricketers: the political interference on the one hand, which has blighted selection to the extent that an entire leadership team resigned after the World Cup, and the alleged human rights abuses at the fag end of the civil war. “The reaction has been mostly indifferent. Yet, with Sanath Jayasuriya’s recall...
Following Channel 4’s documentary on Sri Lanka’s war crimes, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, writes : The video showing summary executions during the final days of Sri Lanka's war in May 2009 provides clear-cut evidence of war crimes. Beyond what is evident in the video, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has gathered information on the likely time and place of the executions, the identity of one of the victims, and the specific army unit likely to have been involved. The need for a criminal investigation is obvious, yet the Sri Lankan government has refused to conduct one, even when confronted by such disturbing footage. In fact, the Sri Lankan government has increasingly made it clear that it does not intend to investigate this or any other allegations of wrongdoing by its forces during the decades-long conflict with the Tamil Tigers.
TYO-UK (Tamil Youth Organisation - UK) welcomes the broadcast of the documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ by Channel 4 as a harrowing but vital insight into the truth of the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka during 2009. It is an outstanding example of investigative journalism that has uncompromisingly presented the horrors that occurred. The documentary’s irrefutable evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity serves as a reminder to all journalists of the responsibility they carry to highlight such atrocities wherever they occur. The horrors that the documentary exposed, were repeatedly and clearly voiced by many, including the Tamil Diaspora, and international human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, throughout the first half of 2009, as events unfolded. Serious concerns were repeatedly raised regarding credible accounts of daily rape, torture, abduction and mass killings of Tamil civilians. Yet sadly, these calls were dismissed as mere rhetoric and propaganda.