யாழ் திரைகடலோடி

Although the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) was pushing extremely hard for an international war crimes probe into the alleged accountability issues in Sri Lanka, with a major conference in the UK parliament scheduled for Feb. 27, the Canadian government had emerged as the leading campaigner against Colombo, ministerial sources told The Island. The target of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s campaign was the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in November this year, Foreign Service sources said last night. Responding to a query, they said that unlike the GTF campaign, the Canadian action had brought tremendous pressure on…

On Sri Lanka Murder of 12 Year Old, Ban's UN is Aware, Calls for National Process As news of the summary execution of a 12 year old boy by the Sri Lankan Army in May 2009 spreads worldwide, Inner City Press on Wednesday asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman about it, citing Ban's “two reports and a third one still ongoing. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky began with a correction, saying that this third report “is an internal task force looking at how recommendations will be carried out in the UN... it's not to do with looking into the actual events in Sri Lanka.” Some wonder how the UN can fully assess its inaction in Sri Lanka without taking in…

Sri Lankan Tamils Have Played A Bigger Role Than Other Groups In Globalizing Hinduism, Says Japanese Scholar Yamashita News East-West TORONTO: Prof Hiroshi Yamashita from Tohuku University in Japan must have been an Indian in his previous birth. Very few Indian scholars can match him in his knowledge of Indian civilization, culture and Hinduism. A Ph.D in Indian philosophy, Hinduism and Tamil literature from the University of Madras where he studied from 1981 to 1987, he is fluent in Tamil, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Pali. To boot, he has translated the dialogue of many Tamil films into Japanese and introduced Tamil cinema in Japan when he took the Rajnikanth starrer M…

At its March 2013 session, the United Nations Human Rights Council should authorize an independent, international investigation into war crimes committed during the final months of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to council members today. Since the council adopted a resolution on Sri Lanka at its March 2012 session calling for action, the Sri Lankan government has taken no significant steps to provide justice for victims of abuse and accountability for those responsible. “Over the past year the Sri Lankan government has alternated between threatening activists who seek justice and making small, cynical gestures to keep the internation…

ALMOST FOUR years ago, the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a decisive victory in a 26-year-long civil war with rebels from the island’s minority Tamil community. The cost was horrific: A United Nations investigation subsequently found that up to 40,000 civilians may have died in the government's final offensive. But the triumph made Mr. Rajapaksa a hero among the majority Sinhalese community and gave him an opportunity to modernize his country while healing its ethnic rift. Unfortunately, the president and his family — two brothers hold cabinet positions — have pursued just the opposite course. Having acquired a two-thirds parliamentary majorit…

Remis une collation, puis exécutés: le fils de 12 ans d'une Tigres tamouls Photographies garçon spectacle a eu lieu avant qu'il ait été tué à bout portant. Andrew Buncombe Lundi 18 Février 2013 Attention: Certains peuvent trouver la seconde image dans la galerie d'accompagnement pénible De nouvelles photos sont apparues, qui soulèvent de nouvelles questions sur la conduite des forces armées du Sri Lanka au cours des dernières étapes de l'opération contre les rebelles tamouls et ont conduit à revendique le fils de 12 ans de leader des militants ont pu être exécutés sommairement. Une série de photographies prises quelques heures d'intervalle, et sur…

Sri Lanka was for decades an example of how sectarian conflict can wreck an otherwise fortunate country. It has had three years to show how devolving power to an ethnic minority can bring about lasting peace. Now it looks as if the opportunity will be lost. Sri Lanka paid an enormous price to bring 26 years of civil war to an end. An estimated 40,000 people died in the last months of fighting in 2009, bringing the conflict’s final toll to more than 100,000. This includes a sitting president, Ranasinghe Premadasa, and a former Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who were killed in suicide bombings by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Yet there was h…

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told Lal Wickrematunge three times that his brother Lasantha, the founding editor of The Sunday Leader newspaper who was assassinated in January 2009 was killed by Former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka, exiled Sri Lankan Journalist Uvindu Kurukulasuriya told UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay in London yesterday. Pillay who delivered a lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on Friday on the Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech: What International Human Rights Law Says was informed of this publicly by Kurukulasuriya following her speech. Kurukulasuriya said that Lal Wickrematunge had informed him that …

When the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam met their demise in 2009 at the hands of the Sri Lankan army, no right minded person mourned their fall. Before the war, the Tigers ruled the Tamils of the north and east of the island with an iron fist and brutally murdered countless civilians. During their campaign for independence they took terrorism to new levels of barbarity; it was the LTTE, after all, which pioneered suicide bombing. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated a truly reprehensible terrorist organizations with great severity. While the exact number is disputed, the UN Panel of Experts concluded that thousands of civilians died during the end of the war…

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay tells Channel 4 News that she is "deeply disturbed" by the shooting of a Sri Lankan journalist and calls on the Sri Lankan government to protect him. In an exclusive interview with Channel 4 News, Navi Pillay urged the Sri Lankan government to "provide immediate protection" for Faraz Shaukatally, who is currently in intensive care after being shot by three unidentified gunmen on Friday night. Ms Pillay said: "It's an act of attempted assassination so he needs to be protected immediately." Mr Shauketaly, 52, who holds joint British and Sri Lankan citizenship, is a reporter for the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunda…

The Tamil Tigers. http://youtu.be/e3167Wc4kW0

Australia's top two newspapers, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (from Melbourne) have editorials asking for boycott of Sri Lankan cricket! What should Tamils in India and elsewhere do? http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/australia-must-go-in-to-bat-for-tamils-20121210-2b5hg.html http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/when-deception-goes-well-beyond-a-joke-20121210-2b66t.html

The Buddhist Crusade Driving Sri Lankan Muslims Into Radicalism ( February 13, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The nationalist chauvinist sections of the Sinhala polity suffer from the worst form of inferiority complex. They have to be constantly a party to the oppression of another race, society or religion to feel euphorically superior. The leaders who can afford this to them can continue to be in power notwithstanding any other shortcoming however grave. The Muslims, the majority of whom speak the Tamil language do not seek their collective identity in language or culture but in their religion----Islam. The early Muslim immigrants were mostly traders who mar…

Commenting that “[t]he promotion of Sanath Jayasuriya is a dark day in Sri Lanka’s cricket history,” following the appointment of Jayasuriya, a Government MP and close ally of Rajapaksa, to head the 5-member selection panel of the Sri Lanka cricket team, Australia’s most respected cricket author and journalist Gideon Haigh, said in his website that Colombo's "growing authoritarianism and hubris" will likely "buttress the case for a boycott of Sri Lankan cricket," the group Boycott Sri Lanka Campaign, headed by another well-known Australian journalist Trevor Grant, said in a press release. Full text of the press release from Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket Campaign issued…

What’s Behind Resignation Of Pope? | by John Newland and Claudio Lavanga, NBC News When the next Papal Conclave meets to replace the retiring Pope Benedict XVI, the United States will have an unprecedented voice in the process. Franco Origlia / Getty Images, file Wisconsin native James Harvey, right, was amongh six new cardinals installed during a ceremony on Nov. 24. Eleven cardinal electors, almost 10 percent of the Conclave, will be Americans -- the largest share the country has ever had, even though it has historically had a large Catholic population. The retiring pope gets credit for the greater influence of the U.S. Last year, he …

Sri Lanka has failed to honour promises to investigate serious rights abuses and allegations that thousands of civilians were killed in the final stages of its ethnic war, a UN report says. The report by human rights experts, which was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday, found that investigations by local authorities were inconclusive and were not independent or impartial. "The steps taken to investigate allegations of serious violations of human rights have been inconclusive, and lack the independence and impartiality required to inspire confidence," according to the report seen by AFP on Wednesday. The document, compiled by …

Nuclear weapons of mass destruction – an end of everything The nuclear club consists of nine nations out of which 5 (USA, Russia, UK, France and China) are internationally recognized nuclear weapons states conferred by nuclear non proliferation treaty. India, Pakistan and Israel have declined to sign the treaty and have tested their nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the treat in 2003. The global nuclear disarmament campaigns are gaining momentum with many NGOs actively involved in creating a global awareness. Nuclear disarmament is not just a wish, it is a legal commitment agreed upon and signed by the five official nuclear states under the nuclear non- Prol…

The theme of this essay is the need for a multisided and flexible long-term approach that is free from narrow isms and prejudices in countering the threat to the rule of law, decency and democracy posed by the Rajapaksa Regime (RR). The essay distances itself from three categories of people, all good anti-RR folk, but I think tactically, strategically of psychologically a bit on the wrong track; the talk-&-write only verbal champions of democracy, the ultra-left radicals who proclaim that veedi satang (mass uprisings on the street) should be the exclusive focus, and thirdly the dispirited and pessimistic. I recognise allies and potential allies among all these fo…

The growing influence of the small clique led by members of Rajapaksha family threatens Sri Lanka's long-term institutional stability - EIU It is doubtful that much progress will be made on political solution. Isolated terrorist attacks could occur across the island Rajapaksa will be strongly placed to win a third term Relations between the UPFA and Western governments will remain tense Sri Lanka: Outlook for 2013-17 by Economist Intelligence Unit Political stability The president, Mahinda Rajapaksa of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), is idolised as the man who in May 2009 defeated the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, Tamil Tigers). He was re-electe…

The Commonwealth Secretary-General opened talks with Sri Lanka on Sunday by pushing for judicial independence on the island, as Canada renewed calls to boycott the bloc's summit in Colombo later this year. Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma is holding talks with Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo on the rule of law and the separation of powers after the island defied international appeals and sacked its chief justice in January, the bloc said. Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, opened talks with Sri Lanka on Sunday by pushing for judicial independence on the island. (Credit: ABC) Mr Sharma's four-day visit to Sri Lanka came as Ottawa urged others in the 54-m…

How Sri Lanka's inmates smuggle phones into prison By Iqbal Athas, for CNN A mobile phone and a hands free kit are seen in an X-ray of a Sri Lankan prisoner. Colombo, Sri Lanka (CNN) -- When 58-year-old G. Siripala, a Sri Lankan prisoner serving a 10-year sentence for theft, was escorted by armed prison officials to Colombo's National Hospital with severe back pain, doctors rushed him for an X-ray. Doctors thought he might have orthopaedic complications, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. "But the X-ray showed a cell phone and two hands-free kits." Medical staff prepared to carry out a surgical procedure on the prisoner, the source said. "However, th…

TN people’s concern on Sri Lankan Tamils legitimate: Tewari Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari said the Central Government was in no way “insensitive” to Lankan Tamil issues and the protest was in “sync” with the people’s concern in Tamil Nadu. “We understand the sensitivities which are involved with regard to the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils, especially in Tamil Nadu. We are absolutely in sync with some of the concerns which have been articulated...”, Mr. Tewari told reporters on Friday. Mr. Tewari was responding to questions on the protests by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a key UPA ally, against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s…

A political grouping pushing for devolution of power to the provinces yesterday estimated the number of LTTE cadres killed during eelam war IV at 15,000. Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne, of the Nava Samasamaja Party (NSSP), claimed that they were among 150,000 persons that perished in the war (July 2006 to May 2009). Karunaratne was responding to a query by The Island, at a media briefing called by former Deputy Mayor of the CMC, Azath Sally at No 122, Barnes Place, Colombo 7. Sally was acting on behalf of recently formed Muslim-Tamil National Alliance. Karunaratne lambasted President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government for subjecting Tamil speaking people to military op…

Sri Lanka dismisses Canada’s threat Souce:Xinhua Publish By Thomas Whittle COLOMBO, Feb. 6 — The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday dismissed a threat from Canada regarding the island’s human rights record. Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry said that the government was well aware of the importance of securing the rights of its own people and was acting accordingly. “Sri Lanka’s human rights record is much better than other countries. The government knows its responsibility towards its own people and has been working on maintaining a good human rights record,” Foreign Secretary Karunathilaka Amunugama told Xinhua. Canada on Sunday warned the Sri Lankan govern…

Sri Lanka may face a tight situation at the April meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) in London with the likelihood of the country being included in the Agenda for the meeting, informed sources said yesterday. As a preemptive measure External Affairs Minister G.L Peries met Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma on Tuesday in London with the intention of warding off such an inclusion. However, he received no confirmation from Mr. Sharma that Sri Lanka will not be included in the agenda. The situation has worsened for Sri Lanka because of heightened pressure from Canada, which is part of the present cycle of the CMAG and the threat …