World Wide Eelam Tamils Mourn for the Sacrifices made by Valiant Warriors with ...

Eelam Tamils Call For War Crimes Tribunal

As Tamils gathered this week to remember those who died in the civil war, the call for an independent investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka is getting louder, writes Brami Jegan

Yesterday I joined hundreds of thousands of Tamils across the world — in the UK, France, Germany Switzerland, America and India — to remember those who died in the 26-year struggle for our independence. It was day of haunting sadness.

The day is called "Maaveerar Naal". Veerar in Tamil means "warrior or hero". Maa means "great". Naal means "day".

It is held each year on 27 November, the date the first Tamil Tiger, Shankar, died in combat in 1982. I was two years old.

Alongside 2000 Tamils at a park in Silverwater in Sydney’s west, I wept for the 40,000 Tamils that were massacred by the Sri Lankan Government in 2009. I paid my respects to those who sacrificed their lives for my freedom.

I remembered the months of paralysing fear my family went through while my father was in the former conflict zone. I went to bed each night petrified of waking up to news he had been killed in an aerial attack by Sri Lankan Kfir jets or drones.

I honoured my dearest friend K, and the hours of laughter we shared together. A night I will never forget is when we sat under monsoon stars in Tamil Eelam in 2006, talking about life and love, war and peace till 4am in the morning. He kept the electricity generator running for me, even though it would have cost him more than he could afford because he knew I was scared of the dark. He died fighting for my identity.

The Sri Lankan Government is on a witchhunt to silence anyone that dares speak out about the atrocities committed against the Tamils. I have the honour of being on their list. This has only strengthened my resolve.

When people ask me where I am from, I say "I am Tamil". I am not a Sri Lankan. A regime that has brutalised, terrorised and murdered, does not speak in my name.

The Mahavamsa, the great chronicle of Sri Lanka, is interpreted by the country’s rulers as "proving" that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese Buddhist island. It can equally be read as the story of how the Sinhalese and Tamils founded the country together. In the story, the Tamil King Elara ruled with equal justice and was accepted by both communities.

As a diaspora Tamil I have struggled to understand my privileged place in the west. There is nothing I want that I can’t have. But since I first returned to Sri Lanka in 2002, I have had no peace of mind.

At the age of 22 I came face to face with the horrors of war: orphaned children; adults and children who had lost their arms, legs and eyesight; Tamil women who had been raped by the Sri Lankan army; men who had been tortured. The memories are endless and terrifying.

How do I reconcile my fortunate life with these stories? How do I explain to my western friends the pain and suffering I have witnessed? How do I not let their pain become a part of me?

I feel incredibly lost in post-war Sri Lanka as do many other diaspora Tamils. What is our role now?

Two and a half years ago genocide was committed against the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the entire international community did nothing to stop it.

The horrifying images of war crimes and crimes against humanity shown in Channel Four’s ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ were a stark wake up call to the world. The broader understanding and perception of the Tamil struggle is shifting.

UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, our former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser have come out strongly in favour of an independent war crimes tribunal for Sri Lanka. As has the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group, and Human Rights Watch.

Shamefully our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister won’t add their voice to this call for an independent investigation.

I don’t know if there will ever be an independent war crimes tribunal for Sri Lanka. But the Arab Spring has shown the world that anything is possible. Hope must continue in some form.

The war no longer defines me. But the struggle forever will. I am a Tamil and with that comes a responsibility. A responsibility to myself, to my father, to K and to the Maveerars to honour the sacrifices and strength of my ancestors: "Because you died, we continue to live".

Sinhala KING threatened Buddhist Mottai Monks with Bomb attacks...

“The Fonseka arrest has led to a rift between the Rajapaksa leadership and four mahanayakas (chief monks) of the largest Buddhist sects. The arrest sparked the monks to raise broader issues of democratic governance and to call a Sangha Sabha (council of clergy) to discuss the situation. But the council was indefinitely postponed after the monks received bomb threats. Government apologists retaliated by promising that 500 temples would be split off from the main Buddhist sects and re-aligned with a lesser-known sect from Rajapaksas’ home region in the south.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.

A leaked US unclassified diplomatic cable recounts the reaction of the Buddhist monks after the arrest of the opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka followed by the presidential election 2010. The Colombo Telegraph found the cable from WikiLeaks database. The cable was written on February 26, 2010 by the US Ambassador to Colombo Patricia A. Butenis.

On February 14, Mahanayake of Asgiriya Rev. Udagama Sri Buddharakkitha, Mahanayaka of Malwatte Rev. Thibbotuwawe Sri Sumangala, Mahanayake of Ramanna Nikaya Rev. Weveldeniye Medhalankara, and Mahanayake of Amarapura Nikaya Rev. Divuldena Ganissara in a joint statement said the arrest of Fonseka was unjustified and unacceptable” the Ambassador wrote. Placing a note she said “In the recorded history of over two thousand years of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, there have been very few such councils of monks. A Sangha Sabha was summoned only when the king exceeded his limits, and the monks felt duty-bound to ask for governance.”

US Ambassador wrote “ The mahanayaka of the Malwatta Chapter went further to criticize attacks on journalists and the current state of democracy in the country.” “Statements by the monks criticizing the Fonseka arrest and warning that democracy on the island was at risk reportedly enraged the Rajapaksas. Two days before the Sangha Sabha was to open, Buddhist contacts from the provinces informed us that temples had been told that bombs would be hurled at buses transporting monks to the council. On February 16, the mahanayake of Malwatte announced the assembly had been indefinitely postponed due to security concerns.”

Placing a comment Butenis wrote “Contacts have told us that the monks’ rebellion against the Rajapaksas was unprecedented insofar as monks disregarded their traditional cast differences to come together against what they saw as abuses by the Rajapaksas.”

Sinhala asses play gambling on friendly stocks using the Gullible workers hard earned money.....

EPF loses, gaming stock market for friends

Trade unions charge that the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has incurred a loss of Rs1000 million investing in the stock market, and through two transactions that took place recently.

Inter Company Employees Union Secretary, Janaka Adikara said that the EPF has a fund amounting to Rs one trillion at present and has seen increased investing in the stock market, from five per cent of this sum (Rs50 billion) last year, to seven per cent (Rs75 billion) in 2011.

“Our main concern is that due to the influence of certain high ranking persons, the EPF is buying shares in underperforming companies that belong to friends and relatives, and is making heavy losses. But their friends are making millions by way of profits every day  thanks to the EPF funds that have been invested. For example a share of Grain Elevators Company (GEC) was trading at Rs75 and it was artificially brought up to Rs238 for a short period recently. When the GEC shares were at a peak, the EPF bought five million shares of GEC at Rs238 a share. After few days share prices dropped to Rs98. The loss is Rs700 million from that transaction alone,” Adikara charged.

“In another transaction, a share of Laugfs Gas Company was trading at Rs38 for two months and the prices went up to Rs48 on October 10 around 11 am. The EPF then bought Rs1800 million worth of shares and on the same day, at around 2.30 pm the price of Laugfs shares dropped to Rs40. So the loss for a single day was Rs300 million,” he added.

He says that similar losses have been incurred after purchase of shares in Browns and The Finance Company, and adds the EPF fund is in danger of being drowned in losses due to these imprudent investments.

When contacted, the superintendent of the EPF, Rupa Deerasinghe said that share prices fluctuating in a short run is usual, and explained that the EPF is making long term investments in shares in good companies after evaluating their performance. “It is wrong to say that EPF investments in shares have made losses because we are a long term investor in shares. A well qualified panel of investment advisors recommends purchasing shares, and nobody takes individual decisions. They carefully analyze the strengths and growth potentials of companies and recommend purchasing of shares. The decision of our team is subject to questioning by the Monetary Board as well.”

Will Stupid Sinhala lanka also take over these "Under Performing" asse(t)s...!

Unpaid Sri Lankans give rise to fixing fear

Fears of corruption in cricket were again raised yesterday as it emerged that Sri Lanka's players have not been paid since February. Although they have played several Test and one-day series in the last seven months and reached the World Cup final, none of the players has received any of their agreed salaries or match fees from the board.

The amount owing is believed to be almost $6 million (£3.9m). There is no suggestion that there has been any sharp practice in the matches but the team's form has dipped alarmingly recently.

Since reaching the World Cup final, when they lost to India, Sri Lanka have lost all their Test and one-day series, to England, Australia and Pakistan. The players have been silent until now, determined to give the board every chance to keeptheir repeated promise that the money was on the way.

The International Cricket Council are profoundly concerned that unpaid players can become disaffected and more open to the approaches of illegal bookmakers or others seeking to make money from the outcome of matches.

Tim May, the chief executive of Fica, the international players' body, said: "The players have been very patient, they are proud to represent their country and their people, but this situation is now becoming very worrying. It will serve as a warning sign for many other countries."

The case of Sri Lanka shows the vast gap between the haves and have-nots in cricket. The board are broke after over-spending on stadiums built or renovated to stage their part of the 2011 World Cup.

Without any large dividend from TV rights, Sri Lanka cricket is dependent almost entirely on ICC funding or loans from other cricketing bodies. It is hardly helped by having a perpetually unstable administration, with new elections due in January.

Fica and the ICC fear that problems could easily occur in the West Indies and other smaller nations, while India control 80 per cent of the game's revenue.

Balless Buddhist racist Stinkala army prevents Hindu Tamils from exercising their religious freedom...

Exposing SLA temple sanctions to BBC brings in attack on house in Jaffna

Attackers believed to be from the Sri Lanka Army opened fire and lobbed grenade and petrol bomb on the house of the head of the civic council (Piratheasa Chapai) of Kaarainakar, Mr Anaimukan Velayutham, a TNA member and a leading trader in Jaffna in the early hours of Saturday, causing minor injuries to his aged mother. The attack comes hours after an interview by Mr. Anaimukan to BBC Tamil, Friday evening, in which he exposed that the occupying SLA had instructed temples in his civic division not to toll bells, not to light torches and to cease any use of loudspeakers during the Heroes Day observation week. His house situated in Thirunelveali in Jaffna was attacked by 1:30 a.m., Saturday. Mr. Anaimukan when contacted by journalists in Jaffna on Saturday condemned the attack and said whoever the attackers were, he was not going to allow himself to get threatened by such acts.

In the Interview to BBC, Friday evening, Mr. Anaimukan said that he had personally witnessed seeing the worshipers at Kaarainakar Ma'natkaadu Kumpanaayaki Muththumaari Amman temple in a disturbed situation while attending the prayers these days. The occupying SLA at Aaladi had given the instructions to the priest of that temple, he confirmed to the BBC.

Mr. Anaimukan also told the BBC that he objected to military threat against religious freedom and said such threats had come even when the temple or community leaders like himself were not involved in observing Heroes Day at the temple.

When asked by the BBC whether any political action on the military threat had been taken up by him through his party (TNA), he replied in negative citing the non availability of TNA leaders in Jaffna. Mr. Mavai Senathirajah had gone to India, he said, adding further on the futility of taking up any complaints against the SL military.

Earlier, speaking to media, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, had denied military ordering any sanctions against temples during the week.

Tamils in the island increasingly feel that their postwar subjugation through occupying Sinhala military, aimed at making them accept structural genocide and any nondescript political solution, is a joint agenda of Colombo as well as the powers that give tacit support to it.

The SL Army established camps in Kaarainakar since last December, while the old base of the SL Navy also continues.

According to legends and old records, Ma'natkaadu Maariyamman temple was the only temple in Kaarainakar that was not touched by the Portuguese who destroyed all the other temples in the islet, after the conquest of the Kingdom of Jaffna in the early 17th century. Legends say that the Portuguese, who were then suffering from the epidemic of Small Pox, spared the temple fearing the fury of the deity.

Sinhala lanka, THE Miracle of Asia became Laughing Stock of Asia...

Sri Lanka stx down 2.8 pct to 14-mo low

Sri Lanka's stock market closed down 1.04 percent on Friday, bouncing back after an erroneously entered trade triggered a panic selloff that forced a 30-minute trading halt when the sensitive Milanka Price Index dropped more than 5 percent.

Investors dumped shares amid fears of higher inflation and interest rates after this week's currency devaluation, and an erroneous trade in Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC triggered panic.

The plantation sector index fell 2.53 percent on Friday, extending its weekly fall to 13.24 percent in reaction to a budget proposal to redistribute 37,000 acres of unused state planting land to small farmers.

The bourse has fallen 14.4 percent since Oct. 1 and it is Asia's 11th-best performer with a year-to-date loss of 12.5 percent.

The bourse saw a net foreign inflow of 18.2 million rupees on Friday ending six straight outflow sessions, but thus far in 2011, offshore investors have sold 17.3 billion, and a record 26.4 billion in 2010.

Two currency dealers Reuters spoke to said the central bank had sold at least $120 million since the devaluation to defend the currency at the new level amid depreciation pressure.

Stinkies can run, but not hide from war crime charges...

Sri Lanka said on Thursday it was counting on its own how many civilians were slain at the end of its bloody civil war to counter claims that tens of thousands were killed and fend off international calls for a war crimes probe.

Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa also acknowledged for the first time that soldiers may have committed unspecified 'crimes'. He promised to investigate and punish them.

Both the count of the killed and the admission of misconduct were a major shift for a government that had sworn its soldiers were beyond reproach and insisted for more than two years that not a single civilian was killed by its forces during the final stages of the war.

Rajapaksa's speech to a conference on postwar ethnic reconciliation was the government's latest attempt to show it was taking action on its own and blunt the calls for outside investigations into the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels

Rajapaksa said the census department's count, which is near completion and will be released soon, shows a very small number of civilians died because of military action. He said deaths due to natural causes, accidents, those who fled the country illegally, died fighting for the rebels or were killed by the rebels were also counted in order to reconcile the number of people unaccounted for.

"It has been possible to identify by name all such persons (dead or missing)," Rajapaksa said.
"As a result of the census we already know that the real number of the dead and missing is far too small to provide any substance to absurd allegations of genocide and war crimes that have been made."

A U.N. report released in April said tens of thousands of civilians may have been killed in the last months of the decades-long war that a final government offensive ended in May 2009.

The government had insisted there were 'zero civilian casualties' in that fighting, conceding only in August that civilian deaths did occur but they were unavoidable.
The U.N. report said most of the casualties came from government shelling and called for an independent international investigation into what it called credible allegations against the government and the Tamil Tigers, who fought for more than 25 years to carve out a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils.
The government has also dismissed as fabrications video footage apparently showing soldiers shooting bound, blindfolded prisoners. Christof Heyns, the U.N.'s independent investigator on extrajudicial killings, said the video was authentic and provided enough evidence to open a war crimes case. Human rights groups have also called for a war crimes probe.
The government appointed a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission last year, which submitted its report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa earlier this week. The government has said it will submit that report to Parliament before making it public.
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said while Sri Lankan soldiers in general act professionally, there could have been bad elements.
"It needs to be understood during the three and a half years of humanitarian operation, the Sri Lankan military had to be expanded at a rapid pace. In the circumstances, it is possible that a few individuals who lack the capacity to withstand the pressures of the warfare with the required composure may have been recruited," he said.
He said the government would carry out any recommendations by the Lessons Learnt commission to investigate military abuses and steps for ethnic reconciliation but ruled out any international involvement.

TNA decides to Boycott participating in time delaying tactics of Sinhala lanka...

Sri Lanka parliament on Wednesday passed a motion to set up a parliamentary select committee (PSC) to formulate a political solution to the country's ethnic issue.

The parliament announced that a motion to appoint a Select Committee of Parliament to recommend and report on political and constitutional measures to empower the people of Sri Lanka to live as one nation was passed by the House.

The political parties of the country are requested to name their representatives to the PSC.

The committee is expected to suggest steps to enhance the unity of people in the country and empower them and the country to promote socio-economic, political and cultural development.

Under the motion approved today, the PSC, which will have quasi-judicial powers, is to comprise 19 governing party members and 12 opposition members.

The 16 political parties in the ruling alliance each will have a one representative and the largest constituent, Sri Lanka Freedom Party will have altogether four representatives in the PSC.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which is engaged in a dialogue with the government, has earlier said the party would also participate in the PSC.

However, a TNA legislator Suresh Premachandran has told the AP news service that the Tamil party would not participate in the PSC as it would be another "time-buying tactic" of the government.

The PSC is to recommend constitutional measures that need to address the grievances of the minorities and provide solutions for all people that will "preserve and promote their respective identities and live with dignity and security as one nation,� within six months.

The PSC is expected to work a solution within the time frame with the input from all the political parties while the government continues to hold discussions with the Tamil National Alliance.

The government proposed the formation of the PSC stating that a unique opportunity has arisen for the people to unite and work together as one nation towards the economic, social and political development of the nation and its citizens.

The government says it is possible to find a solution by safeguarding the identities of all ethnic groups and preserving the territorial integrity through the initiatives of a parliamentary select committee.

UK warns Sinhala lanka to walk the talk about reconciliation with tamils....

The United Kingdom has urged Sri Lanka to publish the report handed over to the president by the government appointed war panel.
British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt has called upon Sri Lanka to "seize the opportunity" to demonstrate that the country is committed to reconciliation by making the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) public.
“Many hope this report will mark a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s recovery from conflict, and I call on the Government of Sri Lanka to seize this important opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to national reconciliation and accountability,” he said.
The report was handed over to President Mahinda Rajapaksa by the head of LLRC, CR de Silva, on Sunday.

'Prima facie evidence'

The United Kingdom said releasing the report as soon as possible is vital in demonstrating its commitment.
President Rajapaksa’s spokesman, Bandula Jayasekara, told BBC Sandeshaya on Sunday that the president will take the necessary action after studying the report.
“The president told the media that the report will be handed over to the parliament after studying it,” he said.
The LLRC appointed by the president in May 2010 has received 1000 oral testimonies since it began sessions in August.
More than 5000 written statements were also handed over to the panel.
LLRC spokesman Lakshman Wickremasinghe earlier told BBC Sandeshaya that the commission has forwarded some selected cases to the police “with good intentions” on what he called “prima facie” evidence.