Sri Lanka News First - Government contracts Chinese firm to destroy bodies buried in Nandikadal lagoon
Diplomatic sources say that the government has permitted a Chinese firm to commence a project at the Nandikadal lagoon where Sri Lankan security forces had buried thousands of bodies of LTTE cadres during the final stages of the war last May.
The Chinese firm has been assigned to exhume the bodies and destroy them beyond recognition. More
IPS – How the War Gave Tamil Women More Space
By Feizal Samath
Whenever Sri Lankan rights activist Shereen Xavier attends a meeting related to her work in this war-battered northern capital, she makes sure to be dressed in a sari, a traditional gown worn by South Asian women.
“To be accepted by society here, you need to be seen in a sari,” says Xavier, executive director of the Home for Human Rights (HHR). But back in the confines of her office, the Western-educated Xavier feels comfortable enough to wear trousers. More
Yahoo News – Sri Lankans hit Tamil Tiger tourist trail
AFP
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka (AFP) – The wreckage left by a brutal war has created a new tourist trail in Sri Lanka just a year after the Tamil Tiger rebels were crushed by government forces.
A giant water tower smashed to the ground is a star attraction for hundreds of people driving through the former war zone where the rebels once had their de facto capital.
Situated along the highway that links the island’s northern Jaffna peninsula to the south, the white cement tower was a prominent landmark in Kilinochchi, but was blown up by the rebels during a battle with army troops.
Such fighting is now a thing of the past after government soldiers seized all territory controlled by the Tigers and wiped out their leadership one year ago this week.
The guerrillas had been fighting for an independent homeland for the island’s minority Tamil population concentrated in the island’s northeast — a decades-long conflict that the UN estimates cost 100,000 lives.
Surrounded by destroyed buildings and army camps, the water tower provides an irresistible backdrop for amateur photographers. It is also covered in graffiti written by the soldiers who marched in last year on their way to victory. More
The Age (18/05) – Military blamed in Sri Lanka
ABC Radio Australia (18/05) – Calls for new probe into end of Sri Lankan civil war – Read transcript & listen to interview
The Independent (UK 18/05) – Sri Lanka accused of war crimes in final onslaught
The Telegraph (UK 19/05) - A year after the defeat of the LTTE, human rights are still pivotal in Sri Lanka
Al Jazeera English (18/05) – Fighting impunity in Sri Lanka
The Australian – Report damns Tamil returns
A DAMNING international report rejects the Rudd government’s assertion that it is now safe for Tamil asylum-seekers to return home and says that tens of thousands of unarmed Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war – a toll far higher than previous estimates.
And it urges several countries including Australia not to deport suspected former Tamil Tiger fighters, saying that would put their lives in danger.
The report by the International Crisis Group alleges after an eight-month war crimes investigation that industrial-scale slaughter of civilians by the Sri Lankan government included targeting of hospitals, safe havens and foreign aid groups to remove foreign observers and crush the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).
The Sri Lankan government had a long history of intimidation of critics and those with knowledge of atrocities, said the ICG, a major Brussels-based conflict resolution group funded by several governments.
The report includes a specific recommendation to Australia, Canada, the US, Britain, France and the EU that they: “Do not extradite LTTE suspects to Sri Lanka unless guarantees of humane treatment and fair trials are in place.”
Business Week – Sri Lanka War Abuses Killed Thousands, Group Says
Indian Express – US-based rights group claims Lankan forces killed civilians
Financial Times - Pressure on Sri Lanka for war crimes probe
The New York Times – Sri Lanka Forces Blamed for Most Civilian Deaths
by Lydia Polgreen
Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians died in the last, bloody months of Sri Lanka’s civil war, the International Crisis Group said in an investigative report to be released Monday, most of them as a result of government shelling of areas that were supposed to be safe zones.
The report, which cites witness testimony, satellite images, documents and other evidence, calls for a wide-reaching international investigation into what it calls atrocities committed in the last months of the Sri Lankan government’s war against the Tamil Tiger insurgency.
The war ended a year ago, when the Tigers’ top leadership was killed on a narrow strand of beach in northeastern Sri Lanka, capping a two-decade armed struggle by a group that pioneered some of the ugliest insurgent tactics in the world, including female suicide bombers and child soldiers.
Because the government barred independent journalists and most humanitarian workers from the war zone, the death toll of the final months of fighting, when at least 300,000 Tamil civilians were pinned down on a beach, caught between the rebels and government forces, is not known. More
Croydon Guardian – Tamil Tiger pensioner gets election go-ahead
A pensioner has been given the go-ahead to run candidates in the upcoming elections despite his links to a banned terrorist organisation.
Nadarajah Balasubramaniam, 69, hopes to persuade people the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are freedom fighters, despite years of suicide bombing and reports they used child soldiers to fight the Sri Lankan army.
The Electoral Commission has reinstated his People’s Front of Liberation Tigers party to its register, having removing it pending investigation on March 19. More
LankaNewspapers (13/12/2006) – UK backed Israeli deal to enhance Lanka’s firepower
The controversy over the alleged irregularities in a multi-million US dollar deal, to upgrade the firepower of Fast Attack Craft (FACs), has taken a shocking turn with the revelation that the British Government assured Sri Lanka that the transaction was above board.Britain also offered the Sri Lankan government an opportunity to inspect the 30 mm KCB cannons at a US government bonded store in St. Louis.
The British High Commission made representations on behalf of the British supplier S.G.E. Limited to facilitate the deal worked out by Rafael Armament and Development Authority Limited of Israel. The UK based supplier specialises in the supply of naval equipment, tools and services.
Rafael won the contract worth US $ 10.8 million in December 2003 to upgrade 15 FACs. The Israeli and the British firms, according to documents submitted to the Tilakawardena Committee, had worked closely for two years on this particular deal. More
Tamilnet (03/05/07) – UK arms sale to Sri Lanka match tsunami aid
Britain licensed £7 million worth of weapons and military equipment for export to Sri Lanka this year alone, it was revealed during a debate in Parliament Wednesday. The sum matches the amount of British aid provided in the wake of December 2004 tsunami. On Thursday the UK government said it was holding back half its £3 million annual aid allocation for this year citing British concerns over human rights in Sri Lanka.
“Inquiries that I have made reveal that £7 million-worth of [UK] arms were licensed for delivery to Sri Lanka in the last quarter for which figures are available,” Joan Ruddock, a ruling Labour party MP, told the House Wednesday during a landmark debate on Sri Lanka.
“Licenses were for armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, components for heavy machine guns, components for military distress signalling equipment, and many other types of equipment, including military aircraft ground equipment and communications equipment, and small arms ammunition,” she said. More
Tamilnet (7/01/09) – Britain says Ki’linochchi’s fall calls for progress on political solution
The capture of the former administrative capital of the LTTE by Sri Lankan armed forces makes it even more urgent that all parties achieve progress on setting out a political solution that addresses the “legitimate concerns of all communities,” said a statement issued by the British High Commission on January 06. Tamil political observers note that the statement has come after two noteworthy observations in December: the British Defence Attache in Colombo taking part in a trip to Sri Lankan military command in Vanni on 15 December, and the British Minister of State at the Foreign Commonwealth Office, at an adjournment debate in British Parliament, exposing the fact that his government still had faith in the APRC myth created by the Rajapaksa regime.
The statement on the “Fall of Ki’linochchi” was made jointly by the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government Lord Maaloch-Brown and Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for International Development. More
AAP – Trio avoid jail over funding Tamil Tigers
THREE Australian men accused of supplying $1 million to Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger separatists have avoided immediate jail time.
Arumugan Rajeevan, 41, from NSW, and Melbourne men Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, 35, and Sivarajah Yathavan, 38, pleaded guilty last year to providing money to a terrorist organisation.
Vinayagamoorthy further pleaded guilty to providing electronic components to Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers.
The trio were arrested in 2007 following an Australian Federal Police investigation. More
Telegraph UK – Should Tamils vote for the General who crushed them?
by Dean Nelson
Who should Sri Lanka’s blighted Tamils vote for in this month’s presidential election – the politician who ordered a final offensive against their last stronghold or the general who called the shots?
There are other candidates, but only two stand a chance of winning – incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his former Army chief General Sarath Fonseka.
Both men claim credit for the final defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and bringing an end to Sri Lanka’s 26 year civil war. And now both men are fighting each other for the votes of the same Tamils they boast of defeating.
Neither see a contradiction. The Tamil Tigers were tyrants who sent children to their deaths and oppressed the people they claimed to represent, the military victory has now liberated them to live as Sri Lankans. More
Spero News - India: Sri Lanka: Refugees: the blood of more than 30,000 Tamils taint Sri Lanka’s elections
A Tamil refugee reaches this conclusion after years in exile. Most people do not expect much change to the Tamil problem. Many hope nevertheless to see Rajapaska lose; they see him as the architect of their genocide.
“Presidential elections are tainted by the blood of 30,000 Tamils,” a Tamil refugee told AsiaNews. As Sri Lanka’s election campaign gets into high gear, Tamil refugees in neighbouring India have little hope that it will bring any major change.
Living in India since 1996, the refugee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Tamil National Alliance backs opposition candidate and former Sri Lankan army commander General Sarath Fonseka.
He explained, “Whilst Fonseka has not made any concrete proposals to solve the Tamil question, he is still better than Rajapaska, the architect of the genocide of the Tamil minority with massacres, mass internment, and serious human rights abuses.” More
Reuters (21/12) – Sri Lanka says UN wants explanation on Tiger deaths
by Ranga Srilal
The United Nations wants the Sri Lankan government to explain allegations about the deaths of senior Tamil Tiger rebels in the closing stages of the country’s civil war, the president’s office said on Monday.
Earlier this month a weekend newspaper reported retired General Sarath Fonseka, who is challenging President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a January election, had said government soldiers were ordered to shoot surrendering Tamil Tiger rebels.
Fonseka subsequently said the paper had misquoted him and he denied any such shootings took place.
The statement from President Rajapaksa’s office said the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions “has asked the government to provide explanations with regard to the circumstances of the death of three senior LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) cadres and their families at the last stages of military operations to defeat the LTTE in May this year.” More
BBC News (21/12) – UN presses Sri Lanka over Tamil Tiger killings
The Sri Lankan government says the UN has asked it to explain allegations that Tamil Tiger rebel leaders were executed as they tried to surrender.
The president’s office said it was studying the request and would take any action necessary.
The claims – rejected by the government – were first made in a Sri Lankan newspaper and attributed to Sri Lankan ex-military chief Gen Sarath Fonseka. More
ABC News (21/12) – Surrendering Tamil Tigers ‘executed by soldiers’
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has received a letter from the United Nations seeking an explanation for the deaths of several high ranking Tamil Tigers.
The rebels were killed in the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war in May.
Earlier this month former army chief and now presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka repeated allegations the Tamil Tiger commanders were executed as they tried to surrender. More
