Tamil Affairs

Tamil News

Latest news from and about the homeland

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Mannar Urban Council Chairman Daniel Vasanthan has strongly condemned the arrest of Tamil rapper Sangeethsan Ganeskumar under Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), stating that the detention reflects a situation where "Tamils do not even have the freedom to sing". Speaking at a media briefing held at the Mannar Urban Council on Friday, Vasanthan criticised the decision to arrest the…

The ultimate leader…?

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been hailed by one of his Ministers as having “sparked a renaissance” on the island, reported the Daily Mirror.

Minister Mervyn Silva reportedly compared the war crimes accused President with Abraham Lincoln, Vladmir Lenin, Karl Marx, Mathma Gandhi, and Mao Zedong

Sri Lanka makes new friends

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa concluded a 3 day state visit to Uganda on Friday, aimed at strengthening the longstanding relations between the two nations.
 
The two delegations held bilateral discussions  regarding current developments in Sri Lanka.

Army teaches Sinhalese to Tamil schoolchildren

The Sri Lankan Army has been teaching Sinhalese to children in Kilinochchi, boasted the Ministry of Defence earlier this week.

In an article entitled “Serving the People”, the Ministry of Defence wrote on how the Army was conducting Sinhala lesson to Tamil schoolchildren, as part of their “Scouting, Sinhala and Road Sign awareness programmes”.

Report on UN actions in Sri Lanka released


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon receives a copy of a report on the actions of the United Nations in Sri Lanka on Wednesday morning. Picture courtesy of Inner City Press.

A report detailing the “grave failure of the United Nations” in Sri Lanka has been officially handed over to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, on Wednesday morning and released publicly later in the evening.

The full report can be downloaded here.

In a statement, the UN Secretary General said,
"I am determined that the United Nations draws the appropriate lessons and does its utmost to earn the confidence of the world's people, especially those caught in conflict who look to the organisation for help,"
He went on to say that the report had been released publically as,
"transparency and accountability are critical to the legitimacy and credibility of the United Nations".
However sections of the report had attempted to have been blacked out. The blacked out portions of the report could still be accessed and have been reproduced further below. See here.

Extracts from the report

(On February 7th 2009)
Some UN staff in Colombo expressed to the UNCT leadership their dismay that the UN was placing primary emphasis on LTTE responsibility when the facts suggested otherwise, and urged a more public stance.

Attempted censoring of UN internal report

Several sections of the recently released report United Nations report into the actions of the organisation in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the armed conflict were blacked out when the report was made public.

However, these sections of the report could still be accessed and have been reproduced in full below.

See our feature on the report here.

Page 11:
several USG participants and the RC did not stand by the casualty numbers, saying that the data were ‘not verified’. Participants in the meeting questioned an OHCHR proposal to release a public statement referencing the numbers and possible crimes.
Page 15:
Several participants noted the limited support from Member States at the Human Rights Council and suggested the UN advocate instead for a domestic mechanism, although it was recognized that past domestic mechanisms in Sri Lanka had not led to genuine accountability. One participant said that “[i]t was important to maintain pressure on the Government with respect to recovery, reconciliation and returns and not to undermine this focus through unwavering calls for accountability ...”

Foreign Affairs Committee call for boycott dismissed by FCO

A critical report by the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Commonwealth, which slammed the Commonwealth's decision to hold the 2013 Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo as "wrong", has received a dismissive response from the UK FCO.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said it was "too early" to talk about Britain's presence at the meeting, reported the BBC.

He is reported to have said:

Report on UN actions in Sri Lanka released


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon receives a copy of a report on the actions of the United Nations in Sri Lanka on Wednesday morning. Picture courtesy of Inner City Press.

A report detailing the “grave failure of the United Nations” in Sri Lanka has been officially handed over to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, on Wednesday morning and released publicly later in the evening.

The full report can be downloaded here.

In a statement, the UN Secretary General said,
"I am determined that the United Nations draws the appropriate lessons and does its utmost to earn the confidence of the world's people, especially those caught in conflict who look to the organisation for help,"
He went on to say that the report had been released publically as,
"transparency and accountability are critical to the legitimacy and credibility of the United Nations".
However sections of the report had attempted to have been blacked out. The blacked out portions of the report could still be accessed and have been reproduced further below. See here.

Extracts from the report

(On February 7th 2009)
Some UN staff in Colombo expressed to the UNCT leadership their dismay that the UN was placing primary emphasis on LTTE responsibility when the facts suggested otherwise, and urged a more public stance.

UN has not learned from failures in Rwanda'

Writing in The Independent, Scottish journalist Isabel Hilton has criticised the United Nations for allowing itself to be "bullied by a murderous government" and called for the organisation to punish those responsible for crimes in Sri Lanka.

Extracts have been reproduced below. See the full article here.


"Nothing can bring back the estimated 30,000 civilians who died in 2009 in the closing months of the war in Sri Lanka, but if the UN is to learn from its shocking failure to protect those civilians it must do more than mouth regrets and resolutions."

Wake-up call for member states' - Amnesty International

Amnesty International indicated that the self-critical United Nations report, released yesterday, further authenticates calls for an independent international investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Nationhood and sovereignty 'non-negotiable' says TNPF leader

Speaking in an interview on TamilNet's Palaka'ni channel, TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam asserted that Eelam Tamils were a nation and asserted their right to sovereignty, and outlined the Tamil National People Front's position as:

"The existence of the Tamil nation must be secured. The recognition of Tamil nationhood and its distinct sovereignty is non-negotiable, that is our party's position. As to how that status is going to exist, whether it is going to exist within a larger state, or within a larger country, so as in the country being a multi-national state, or whether the Tamil nation is going to exist as a nation state, is something the eventual peace process will decide. But our view, what is fundamental, is the recognition and the safe-guard of the Tamil nation."

 

See full video here.