Times of India – US gives India policing power in the Indian Ocean
Taking note of India’s “growing influence” in global affairs, the US has said the country will be a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond with the growth of its military capabilities.
Expressbuzz (17/01) - ‘Rajapaksa helped Congress-DMK win LS polls’
by P K Balachandran
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa helped the Congress-DMK alliance win the Lok Sabha elections in the State, in May last year, by acceding to New Delhi’s request to suspend the use of heavy weapons in the final phase of the Eelam war.
President’s secretary Lalith Weeratunga told Daily Mirror on Thursday (January 14) that New Delhi feared that if it did not stop, what the rest of the world wrongly thought was the massacre of Tamils in Lanka’s war zone, the Tamils would not vote for the Congress-DMK alliance.
“They (India) said, please stop this. But the President said, sorry, I cannot do that.
But he added, ok what do you want me to do to ensure the victory of the Congress party? They requested that the use of heavy weaponry be stopped.” The President agreed. More
Tamilnet (17/01) - Weeratunge statement proves India’s complicity in Sri Lanka’s genocide, says Prof. Boyle
If the statement of Lalith Weeratunga, a top aide to Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse, that Sri Lanka’s use of heavy weapons was eventually stopped as part of a political deal with the Indian government, was true, “then it proves India’s complicity in the GOSL’s [Government of Sri Lanka's] genocide against the Tamils,” says Professor Boyle, expert in International Law in a note sent to TamilNet. “The Government of India temporarily stopped the GOSL’s genocide against the Tamils, thus proving it could do so…. India therefore violated its obligation under article 1 of the Genocide Convention “to prevent” the GOSL genocide against the Tamils,” asserts Prof. Boyle.
Full text of the statement from Prof. Boyle follows:
If this report is correct on the facts, then it proves India’s complicity in the GOSL’s genocide against the Tamils. Under basic principles of criminal law that are recognized and applied internationally, when there is an obligation to act to prevent the death of a human being that is incumbent upon a person in a position of trust with respect to that human being such as a policeman, fireman, medical doctor, lifeguard etc., and that person fails or refuses to act to prevent the death of that human being, that person becomes legally responsible for the homicide of that human being. More
Dawn.Com – Peace is as elusive as its more agreeable definition
by Jawed Naqvi
Excerpt – “There is nothing wrong about the vision except that there is nothing in it that helps the votaries of peace seize the initiative from the entrenched system that works against the vision. Finally, we need to stop choosing our injustices. We can’t campaign to liberate Kashmir or Balochistan or to bring greater democracy there while telling the Tamils in Sri Lanka to go to hell. I asked Gen Musharraf once about his duplicitous approach to people seeking independence or autonomy in different parts of South Asia.
Why would he support the government in Colombo with arms and military advice that would suppress the Tamils in Sri Lanka, while he was all for a so-called political and diplomatic support (he would disown giving military help, wouldn’t he?) to the Kashmiris. How was the Kashmiri struggle any different from the bludgeoned Tamil campaign? “I do not interfere in other countries’ affairs,” he said cleverly. We can either be clever or work for genuine peace globally, regionally and between India and Pakistan. We also need to define peace to distinguish it from President Obama’s take on it.” Read full article here
AFP – S.Lanka govt ‘helped’ India’s ruling party in poll
Sri Lanka stopped using heavy weapons against Tamil Tiger rebels to help the re-election bid of neighbouring India’s ruling party, a top official in Colombo said Thursday.
Lalith Weeratunga, senior aide to President Mahinda Rajapakse, said New Delhi requested the complete halt in the offensive against the Tamil Tigers because it affected the Tamil vote in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Weeratunga said Rajapakse did not want to stop the offensive against Tamil separatists, but was ready for a compromise to help Congress retain power.
“OK, what do you want me to do to ensure victory of the Congress Party?,” the president had asked, Weeratunga said in a video interview with Colombo’s Daily Mirror website.
“They requested that the use of heavy weaponry be stopped… With the halt in use of heavy weaponry, the Congress gained strength and the victory in Tamil Nadu can be attributed to this decision by the government of Sri Lanka.” More
Truthdive (11/01) - Separation of Andhra / Telangana and Non-Separation of Sri Lanka / Tamil Eelam
The present ruling Congress party under Sonia’s leadership has proved time and again that it lacks democratic decision making capability and basic common sense to solve sensitive issues be it within India or outside India. Recent flare up of events in Andhra – Telungana is one more feather in its “clown” cap. Many political observers accused Congress has a tacit hand behind the recent Sri Lankan government’s genocidal war on Tamils. In the final phase of the war alone, hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and many more maimed due to unrestrained use of banned weapons on the densely populated civilian areas. More
World Socialist Web Site (11/01) – Sri Lankan election: Tamil politicians line up behind warmongers
By Subash Somachandran
In what amounts to a damning indictment of its own politics, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)—the party that functioned as the political mouthpiece for the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)—is supporting General Sarath Fonseka in the country’s January 26 presidential election.
As the country’s top general, Fonseka was responsible for ruthlessly prosecuting the civil war that was restarted by President Mahinda Rajapakse in July 2006 and ended with the LTTE’s defeat last May.
TNA leader R. Sambandan announced last week that the party’s majority had decided to back Fonseka—the “common candidate” of the opposition parties, the United National Party (UNP) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). According to media reports, some dissenting TNA parliamentarians are supporting Rajapakse. More
The Sunday Times (10/01) – ‘Ceylonkaran’ — a tale of Sri Lankans in India
by Isuri Kaviratne
Despite not having been to Ceylon for nearly 30 years and Sri Lanka having repatriated them to India, they still prefer to call themselves ‘Ceylonese’ but are referred to as ‘Ceylonkaran’ by the local populace.
This is a story of split families and broken hearts yearning for the country in which they were born –a country which did not accept them.Six lakhs of Sri Lankan Tamils of Indian origin were repatriated to India under the Sirima-Sastri Pact. They were resettled in Rehabilitation Plantations in Kollathupuzha, a Panchayat in Kerala; Sullia, a taluk in Karnataka and in Nilagiri in Tamil Nadu.
The repatriates were employed in rubber estates in Kerala and in Tamil Nadu. They were later joined by Tamils who fled Sri Lanka during the 1983 riots. Two estates in Kollathupuzha accommodate 7,000 people, a majority of whom still cherish childhood memories of ‘Ceylon’ and wish to visit the country they were born in at least once, before death. More
The Australian – India to add 29th state called Telangana
INDIA is to carve a 29th state out of the southern region of Andhra Pradesh, after a week of violent protests that closed business in its capital, the information technology hub of Hyderabad.
The ‘Aspects of India’s Economy‘ is said to have very good analysis on geo-politics.
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| The Indian visa of Dr Ellyn Sue Shander, a US-based humanitarian worker and a strong critic of the Sri Lankan government, was cancelled by the Indian mission at New York, her Indian host M. Natarajan alleged.The Stanford-based American woman activist was scheduled to tour India from September 13 and deliver talks on alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka.
The India mission in New York informed Ms Shander on Thursday about the cancellation of her visa. Ms Shander has vowed to protest against the visa cancellation. Her Indian host M. Natarajan, Chennai-based political activist and husband of Ms Sasikala, close friend of AIADMK leader Ms Jayalalithaa, has accused both the Central and state governments of curbing free speech in the country. He has organised a series of meetings in Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Madurai and Delhi till Sept. 20 with Ms Shander as the main speaker. Mr Natarajan said that the Chennai police had denied permission to conduct an indoor meeting with Ms Shander as the guest on September 16. “We have moved the Madras High Court against denial of permission to conduct indoor meetings on the human rights violations in Sri Lanka. The writ petition would be heard on Monday,” he said. Ms Shander was scheduled to address the Delhi Tamil Sangam in the national capital on September 20 along with MDMK general secretary Vaiko. She had a meeting scheduled at Bangalore Tamil Sangam on September 15. |
Express News Service : ‘India did PR for Rajapaksa govt’
5 July 2009
CHENNAI: Noted journalist Satya Sivaraman said India became just a public relations manager for the Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa government in their war against the LTTE.
Delivering a speech at a function on “What next in Sri Lanka”, he said instead of trying for a democratic solution for the ethnic crisis, India was protecting the Lankan government from the international community by whitewashing all the war crimes committed by that country.
He said India was directly involved in helping the Sri Lankan army along with nations such as Israel, Pakistan, and China. “But the Indian involvement were very secretive and would never come out,” he said.
The noted political commentator said India was trying to play up the China’s involvement “just to justify their action” in the island nation.
He said Indian government did not favour a separate Tamil Eelam in that country as “It feared that would have encouraged the sub-national groups demanding separate states in the country”.
Sivaraman said the political parties which were ruling at the Centre and the State were playing football game in the Sri Lankan ethnic issue, in which “the football was Lankan Tamils”.
K Balagopal, Human Rights Forum, Hyderabad, said the Rajapaksa government was taking it easy on the rehabilitation of the displaced Tamils. “They are in no hurry for it as they are in a victorious mode.
And they know well that there is nobody to put pressure on them,” he said.
Balagopal said there are serious doubts raised by the international community about the resettlement.
“Nobody is sure that whether they are going to be rehabilitated in their original habitats because most of the areas are given to International firms,” he said.
He said that the need of the hour was the democratisation of polity and not just the devolution of powers.
“Steps should be taken to ensure the ethnic communities, Tamils and Muslims, live with dignity, free of fear and with equal rights.”
