யாழ் திரைகடலோடி

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa rejected claims yesterday that civilians had gone missing in the North during the last stages of the war, insisting that all records maintained by the Army and the ICRC tallied with no discrepancies. Responding to a question posed by a journalist, the Defence Secretary said that the people who came to the Army by sea, during the final stages of the war were registered with the ICRC and with the “Indian hospitals manned by the Indian Army, and not a single person is missing from that list”, when tallied. “This is another factor that many people have forgotten. Take the large number of people who were coming by sea. Where did …

Tamils and the difference between immigrants and refugees By Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun August 28, 2010 A common refrain regarding the arrival of the Tamil refugees aboard the MV Sun Sea is that they have "jumped the queue" and taken the place of "legitimate" immigrants who await entry to Canada. The accusation is emotive but it is just plain wrong. Immigrants and refugees are entirely different groups. Each has its own stringent set of rules for admission to Canada. Immigrants are people who want to come to Canada and have the opportunity to meet with officials at a Canadian embassy and apply under the criteria established by law. They must me…

Despite government claims of peace, torture and abductions continue to be used to stifle ethnic and political dissent. The civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009 with the victory of President Rajapaksa's forces over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but there are claims that abduction, torture and even rape of suspected former fighters or sympathisers continues today. In November 2013, Commonwealth leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, converged on Colombo for the bi-annual heads of government meeting. It was a big moment for Sri Lanka, signalling its emergence from post-war turmoil and acceptance as a functioning democratic state …

16 November 2013 A film of alleged war crimes … how I became Sri Lanka's most hated man Callum Macrae: The reaction of the people I met in Sri Lanka is at odds with the intimidation against me engineered by a despotic government. A film shot in January 2009 allegedly shows a Sri Lankan soldier executing a Tamil Tiger prisoner. Photograph: Journalists For Democracy/AFP/Getty Images They haunt our every move, on their motorbikes in their silver hatchback and on their tuk tuks. Sri Lanka's intelligence officers are a tenacious lot, but there's another group perhaps even more tenacious in their pursuit of us: "spontaneous", pro-government demonstrators. …

The British Government, in a statement issued by the British High Commission in Colombo, said that land issues continue to prevent some communities from rebuilding their lives in Jaffna. British Deputy High Commissioner Laura Davies visited the Jaffna town and called on Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, District Secretary Suntharam Arumainayagam and Bishop Thomas Saundaranayagam and also visited the Sabapathipillai Welfare Centre, the British Council and the Jaffna Public Library. Laura Davies said: “My first visit to Jaffna was an opportunity to see how infrastructure developments – including the Yaal Devi train – have the potential to bring real economic b…

By Jonathan Power Foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune for 20 years and guest columnist for New York Times Not since the early Cold War days, when the US and NATO effectively encircled the Soviet Union, feeding Stalin’s paranoia, has America moved to be so profoundly counterproductive. It is now beginning to encircle China - at least that is how China is seeing it. Of course “encircling” is a bit of an exaggerated notion since the Soviet Union was too large ever to be totally encircled. Likewise today China is content with the state of affairs on its long Russian, Mongolian and North Korean borders. But “encircling” does suggest a proces…

சுதந்திரம், அபிவிருத்தி, தன்னம்பிக்கை கொண்ட தன்னிறைவு DEVELOPED INDIA Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. The President of India I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the…

[size=5]As the Israelis lay siege to Gaza, killing children by the score, our newsroom received a whole new batch of images from the Genocide in Sri Lanka that ended just a little over three years ago. The subject, as you will see at the bottom of this report, is one I have covered for years in great detail. In fact, past articles exposing these horrific slaughter photos of dead and twisted human bodies, are some of Salem-News.com's most viewed pages right now, even though they were written months ago. The writings and multi-media reports are a sad and terrible tribute for tens of thousands of ethnically cleansed Tamils- the minority group in Sri Lanka forever under …

Obvious discrimination by the International Community Source: TCHR/CTDH Ref : GJ098/PR/2006 25 May 2006 "It would seem to International Educational Development that the Tamil people are not viewed as worthy of attention and this must be viewed as rank and despicable discrimination. What other conclusion is possible when in the face of this long and protracted war, neither the Commission nor the Sub-Commission has issued a resolution since 1987? Have these bodies not paid any attention to the reports of the Commission's Working Groups and Rapporteurs? Are these bodies unaware that Sri Lanka is just behind Iraq in disappearances and that almost all the disapp…

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…

A judge has ruled that the U.N. refugee agency unfairly punished one of its investigators for documenting a rape case in Sri Lanka a decade ago. U.N. Dispute Tribunal Judge Coral Shaw says former investigator Caroline Hunt-Matthes lost her job at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees due to retaliation and suffered other damages after she collected evidence in 2003 that an agency employee had raped a refugee in Sri Lanka. Wednesday’s twin rulings, which can be appealed, are critical of the U.N.’s accountability system, including its ethics office, and award Hunt-Matthes a year’s salary and benefits, plus $58,000 for her damages and suffer…

One Word: Christopher Columbus (Native Americans) https://www.facebook.com/storiesbycut/videos/522456597917232/

In the Tigers' lair Nov 20th 2008 | COLOMBO From The Economist print edition The martial mood intensifies INDEPENDENCE DAY is not celebrated until February. But flags are flying from buildings and lamp posts in Colombo in a show of public support for the government’s military campaign against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On November 15th, as his government faced a crucial parliamentary vote on the budget, President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced on national television that troops had seized the Tiger-held town of Pooneryn for the first time in 15 years. His generals are calling this a “turning-point” in the 25-year war. It places the entire west…

The person who gave information to US Embassy about the EPDP ‘s child trafficking rings in Jaffna was abducted on May 07, 2009 and since then, no information has been obtained concerning him. He told US Embassy Colombo on March 26, 2007; “The children are sold into slavery, usually boys to work camps and girls to prostitution rings, through EPDP’s networks in India and Malaysia. Sunthararaj maintains that children are often smuggled out of the country with the help of a corrupt Customs and Immigration official at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo.” Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa “Sunthararaj’s story was partially verified b…

ஒரு 6 வயது சிறுவனிடமும் ஒரு 16 வயது சிறுவனிடமும் இறப்பைப்பற்றி கேட்டால், எப்படி பதிலளிப்பார்கள்? How to talk to kids about death ABC Everyday By Shona Hendley Posted 11 hours ago Last year was a difficult one in terms of death and grief for my family. We had three people close to us pass away against the backdrop of ever-rising COVID numbers and deaths broadcast by the media. While my husband and I were equipped to manage it, my children, who were only six and seven at the time, were not. Death was a relatively new concept to them and something they hadn't had to deal with firsthand. At the time I th…

The foreign minister of Sri Lanka has confirmed that the support of United States of America was key to defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a war that ended with the massacre of at least 70,000 civilians. Tamil Tigers being proscribed in the European Union in 2006 was 'the biggest blow to the LTTE,' said Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in an open letter to the country's former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mangala Samaraweera had previously held the foreign ministry portfolio under Rajapaksa from 2005 to early 2007, before been appointed as foreign minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in 2015. "It was also thanks to my predec…

London-based Global Tamil Forum (GTF) has released a shocking video, from which this photograph has been extracted, to show that many children had been captured and shot dead towards the end of the Eelam war by the Sri Lankan troops. “They killed in cold blood not just LTTE chief Prabhakaran’s 12-year-old son Balachandran but several kids in similar fashion. This video nails the Sri Lankan government for serious war crimes”, GTF spokesman Suren Surendiran told Deccan Chronicle. He said the group in the picture included a little boy and a youth without a hand, all of them with their hands tied at the back. They were all later shot dead as seen in the video being re…

Human Rights Situation in Sri Lanka discussed at the UNHRC Side Event Today International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) and Human Rights Watch today (Friday March 9, 2012) held a informal meeting in UN Human Rights Council’s 19th session in Geneva, Switzerland. This side event presentation on Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka was moderated by award winning Human Rights activist Ms. Sunila Abeyesekara. The panel consisted of Dr. Pakiyasothy Saravanamuttu and Gary Anandasangaree . Dr. Pakiyasothy Saravanamuttu is the Executive Director for Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka. Mr. Gary Anandasangaree is a delegate to the…

16 August 2006 21:04 Sri Lankan army warns children can be targets By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent Published: 16 August 2006 The Sri Lankan government has defied growing condemnation and declared that it considered children and young people killed in an air strike to be combatants and legitimate targets. "If the children are terrorists, what can we do?" said a military spokesman, Brigadier Athula Jayawardana. The government claimed that children killed and injured in the bombing on Monday were child soldiers conscripted by the Tamil Tiger rebels. The United Nations children's organisation, Unicef, condemned the air strike as "shocki…

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The Plants Respond An Interview With Cleve Backster by DERRICK JENSEN TABLE OF CONTENTS DERRICK JENSEN’s most recent book is titled As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial (Seven Stories Press). He lives in Crescent City, California. www.derrickjensen.org Sometimes it happens that a person can name the exact moment when his or her life changed irrevocably. For Cleve Backster, it was early in the morning of February 2, 1966, at thirteen minutes, fifty-five seconds into a polygraph test he was administering. Backster, a leading polygraph expert whose Backster Zone Comparison Test is the worldwide standard for lie detection, h…

The on-arrival visa facility for visitors has been suspended, with regard to four African countries, with immediate effect. This has been done as a precautionary measure to prevent the entry of Ebola virus, the External Affairs Ministry said. External Affairs Ministry Public Relations Officer Satya Rodrigo said the privilege to obtain visas on arrival will not be offered to the four African countries- Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia until further notice. He said this decision had been taken in order to reduce the likelihood of persons infected with Ebola virus from entering the country. This action is consequent on a request by the Health Ministry. 'But people c…

One year forward for Rajapakse, twelve years backward for Sri Lanka [by Admin , Nov 25,2006] As he completes his first year as President, Mahinda Rajapakse has taken the country back to its bad and dangerous past that many of us thought ended for good in 1994. The People’s Alliance victory in 1994, after a decade of war and violence, had signaled a sea change in the Sinhala political leadership. The change was best exemplified by President Chandrika Kumaratunga who demonstrated a sincere readiness to address the Tamil question through a constitutional change. Alas, the sincerity and readiness could not be translated into peace as fighting between the army a…

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 …