Tamil Justice

The Earth Times : UN urges Sri Lanka to delay final assult until civilians rescued

The Sri Lankan government has been urged to hold back its final military battle in areas where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped, the United Nations’ chief humanitarian emergency coordinator said Friday.

The UN’s John Holmes recently visited the troubled island nation to gain first-hand information of the humanitarian situation in refugee camps. The battle between the government and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been raging since January, and the government was planning a final assault in the Vanni region held by the rebels. “The risks from hunger and diseases are growing rapidly, in addition to those from the fighting,” Holmes said in briefing to the UN Security Council.

SBS Sinhala : International appeal for safety of Civilians

UNHCR has requested the government to allocate more land for the Internally Displaced thousands who may cross over to government controled areas.

World Food Program : Sea Route Opened To Reach Hungry in Sri Lanka

A new sea route to deliver WFP relief to people in Sri Lanka is helping efforts to reach hungry people displaced by the recent escalation of hostilities in the northern Vanni region.

Democracy Now : Sri Lankan Civilians Caught Between Worsening Military-Tamil Rebel Clashes

The United Nations estimates that 215,000 Tamil civilians are trapped in northern Sri Lanka as intense fighting continues between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. We speak to Nirmala Rajasingham, founder of Sri Lanka Democracy Forum. In the early 1980s she was an active supporter of the LTTE and was the first woman to be arrested under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act. She later left the LTTE over their serious human rights abuses.

A suggested  compulsory reading by a supporter of  the fastuntoaction campaign. 

Learning Politics from Sivaram: The Life and Death of a Revolutionary Tamil Journalist in Sri Lanka

Tamilnation : Dharmeratnam Sivaram, was a regular columnist for the Sri Lanka Daily Mirror and was a Member of the Editorial board of  TamilNet. He has also written for the Sri Lanka Sunday Times under the penname “Taraki.”His work was regarded by many as the finest analysis of LTTE strategy and the Sri Lankan government’s strategic response. He closely followed Sri Lanka’s long war and its complex array of militant organizations. Sivaram  originally joined the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), which was formed following a split from the LTTE. He remained with PLOTE until 1990, when he took to journalism and became well known as Taraki.  His later writings were supportive of the LTTE.  He was  subjected to intimidation by the Sri Lanka authorities for several years – and with increasing intensity during the past year(s). He was murdered on 28 April 2005.

Click here for more videos of the protest

WASHINGTON 22nd Feb 2009: Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general speaks out against the Sri Lankan Governments current genocide against the Tamil civilians.

Click here for Bruce Fein’s blog.

Red Cross plans more medical evacuations in Sri Lanka. Click here to be taken straight to the interview.

Times : UN Security Council fight for Sri Lanka

The UN Security Council took up the fighting in Sri Lanka for the first time on Friday as a senior UN official reported that dozens of people, at least, were being killed every day.

AP : UK police say man apparently set himself on fire

A man apparently set himself on fire outside Britain’s Parliament on Friday and he was taken to a hospital with superficial burns, authorities said.

CNW Group  : Emotions run high at Sri Lanka related townhall

A forum was organized by South Asians for Human Rights Association (SAHRA) on Friday Feb 20th, 2009, at Markham City Hall, to create a dialogue between the Government of Canada and the Tamil Diaspora directly affected by the atrocities suffered by  250, 000 civilians stuck amidst cross-fire in the Northern Vanni region of Sri Lanka. 

Telegraph UK : Nations have failed to hear the voice of the dying Tamils!

MSF : Desperate and unacceptable situation for trapped population in Sri Lanka

Many are injured, some with infected wounds that are weeks old. As a result, many people have been maimed for life. Even those who have made it to Vavuniya have no freedom of movement, no access to information, and no options to look for lost family members.

The Hindu : Group of Indo-Americans seek Indian intervention in Sri Lanka

Concerned over the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, a group of Indians in the US have circulated a petition asking New Delhi to take “urgent and effective” action to stop the “unfolding humanitarian disaster” in the island nation.

Media watchdog Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) has accussed the Sri lankan government of supressing media outlets critical of the current administration.

The statement came hours after Tamil newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan was arrested by Sri Lankan police, after initially claiming his dissapearence was an abduction.

The arrest of Vithyatharan, editor of Sudar Oli and a range of Uthayan publications, has also been condemned by Reporters Without Borders, who described his detainment as “violation of the rule of law”  due to the abscence of a warrant.  

The statement by the CPJ follows its release of a damning report accusing the government of being behind a spate of attacks and assasinations of  journalists critical of the current war.

Sri Lankan Government hires lobbying firm to counteract Tamil Genocide indictment

February 26, 2009

Washington, DC- The Sri Lankan Government has hired lobbying firm Patton Boggs to counteract the indictment filed by Bruce Fein at the Department of Justice and to lobby Congress on their behalf.

The reported fees paid to Patton Boggs is a contract for $35,000 per month according to official records filed in the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration office in Washington, DC

Inner City Press : At UN, Sri Lanka Briefing Now Set for Friday, As Editor Arrested in Colombo

A UN Security Council briefing on Sri Lanka has now been scheduled for Friday, February 27, Inner City Press has learned. Three days after the spokesperson for the UN’s top humanitarian John Holmes told Inner City Press that “there is no request for a Council briefing,” and a week after the Council’s president, Yukio Takaso, said “there is no strong request” anymore, a Permanent Five Council member told Inner City Press on Thursday morning that the Sri Lanka briefing is set for Friday.

The (Malaysian) Star : The overlooked Lankan genocide

The world should rightly be outraged by the horrors inflicted on civilians caught in Sri Lanka’s war zone, but in Malaysia do we care?

AP : Official: Sri Lanka war zone conditions worsen

Conditions in Sri Lanka’s overcrowded war zone have rapidly deteriorated as stranded families packed fields filled with human waste, water supplies dwindled and a makeshift hospital ran out of essential medicines, the top health official in the region said Wednesday.

The Hindustan Times  : India to send emergency medical unit to Sri Lanka

India on Thursday said it would send a full fledged emergency medical unit to help civilians wounded in the conflict in Sri Lanka and work with Colombo to spur reconstruction process in that country.

Financial Times : Curtains for Tigers

One of the dirtiest wars of recent times may soon be over. The army of Sri Lanka has cornered the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in their last redoubt in the north-east of the island. After 25 years, the struggle for a separate homeland for the Tamil minority may soon be over – for now. As ever, whether the war is really won will depend on what happens after the victory. 

The Economist : Stoking the flames

WITH kerosene and a box of matches, Sivaprakasam, a 60-year-old former civil servant, turned himself into a screaming fireball on February 21st. He was the fifth resident of Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state that is home to 65m Tamils, to burn himself to death this year in protest at Sri Lanka’s brutal campaign against its Tamil Tiger rebels. Tamil Nadu is known for self-immolation. Chennai, its capital, is dotted with monuments to seven “martyrs” who died in 1965, in a successful protest against the encroachment of Hindi on the Tamil language, deemed by its speakers India’s oldest and richest.

U.S Senate inquest hears horrors facing Tamil Civilians in Sri Lanka.
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