tamilweek.com/news-features

by Jeremy Corbyn

The lack of news coverage on Sri Lanka has been absolutely extraordinary. The war has been going on since 1983. It has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people in the north and east of Sri Lanka, where Tamils have suffered at the hands of the army, and in attacks on the capital Colombo and elsewhere.

It has also damaged civil liberties in Sri Lanka, leading to the deaths of a number of politicians and the disappearance of journalists.

[About 100,000 Tamil protesters marched through the streets of London on Jan 31st, 2009 to highlight the need for an intervention in Sri Lanka-pic: robert kaleta]

Last Saturday saw an enormous demonstration in London which, with the honourable exception of the Morning Star, many papers simply refused to cover at all – despite the fact that well over 200,000 people were present, overwhelmingly from the Tamil diaspora.

The protesters have also occupied Parliament Square and two of them have been on hunger strike in order to force the pace of British demands for a ceasefire.

The British government has appointed ex-defence secretary Des Browne as its peace envoy, but even his appointment has been rejected by the Sri Lankan government. Norway, which has played a positive role in the past and once negotiated a ceasefire, has been told that it can no longer speak to the Sri Lankan government.

The rally on Saturday demanded an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as a prelude to negotiations. The Sri Lankan government has announced a two-day new year ceasefire, but couched its announcement in terms of allowing civilians to leave the enclave at Varina rather than as part of a longer-term peace process.

The Sri Lankan government has pursued the war with incredible intensity and ferocity over the past few months, with ominous reports of civilian targets being bombed and the use of illegal weapons.

The UN security council found itself able to meet at a few hours notice after North Korea launched a rocket which was apparently a mechanism to put a satellite into orbit. The launch killed no-one, no-one was injured and no country was attacked.

But the continuous death toll in Sri Lanka has so far not yet warranted a special meeting of the security council, although one is now apparently to be scheduled.

Sri Lanka is well armed with weapons purchased from all over the world and its economy has been buoyed in recent years by huge tourist income, despite a raging war a few hundred miles away from the Europeans sunning themselves on the beaches.

The war in Sri Lanka is in effect a legacy of the British colonial period and while the Sri Lankan army clearly has succeeded in reducing the military capability of the Tamil Tigers, it has not solved the basic cause of the problem or put forward any strategy for doing so.

The very least that Britain can do is halt tourism and any strategic weapons supplies to Sri Lanka and assist in promoting talks and recognition of the Tamil people.

It’s tragic that the Tamil people should turn out in such huge numbers in London last week but very few others seem willing or able to show their support. [morningstaronline]

[Full Text by OprahGiveUsAVoice]

We are a group of students from various Canadian colleges and universities determined to bring much-needed attention to the humanitarian crisis happening around the world, namely in Sri Lanka. We have begun a campaign in which we will walk from the US Consulate in Toronto to the Oprah Winfrey Show at Harpo Studio in Chicago, Illinois. The trip is 840 kilometres and is expected to take approximately 2 months. We hope to turn Oprahs attention much earlier to our efforts, and spotlight the sufferings of Tamils in Sri Lanka and innocent civilians who are experiencing similar hardships around the world. We will continue our campaign tirelessly until we get an audience with Ms. Winfrey.

In December of 2008, the Genocide Prevention Project labeled Sri Lanka as a country on red alert for possible or ongoing genocide, yet the Government of Sri Lanka has banned independent witnesses to the war, barring NGOs and media access to the conflict areas. The only information available to the public about the conflict is filtered through the media controlled by the government. Many journalists in the country critical of the governments handling of the war have been kidnapped or murdered. On many occasions, these journalists have been labeled as traitors or terrorists. There is yet to be a single prosecution for any of the disappearances and murders on journalists. Consequently, the Government of Sri Lanka has created an atmosphere of impunity for these perpetrators. Reporters Without Borders has ranked Sri Lanka 165 of 173 in its 2008 World Press Freedom Index, the lowest ranking of any democratic country in the world.

Freedom of speech and free press lay at the heart of democracy. We believe that Ms. Winfrey is a person that has the will and desire to use her heart. Her long history of providing a voice to people has inspired us to seek her out. Given Ms. Winfreys magnitude and stature and being only a small group of young students, we understand the enormity of the task before us. However, young David did not allow the sheer size of Goliath to dissuade his determination, and neither shall we.

A unified voice is needed to make our journey successful and help bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka and around the world. We ask for your support in making this endeavour a success by providing a voice. Please send your e-mails to the Oprah Winfrey Show encouraging them give an audience to our collective voice.

“I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.” – Oprah Winfrey

[monsoonjournal.com] Humanitarian agencies have reported of dire need for urgent medical supplies and infant feeding essentials. Drinking water and food needs continue to be scarce. The people in the narrow strip of area in Mullaithivu, in Sri Lanka’s North-East have dangerously taken refuge close to the sea shore.

Tamils around the world have been calling The United Nations and the leaders of the countries they live in to halt the war in Sri Lanka that is killing innocent Tamil civilians in the hundreds on a daily basis. Several prominent social activists too have joined in calling to alleviate the suffering of the Tamil people by calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Indian author, Arundhati Roy, who won the Booker prize in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things, recently said the horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible “because of the silence surrounding it”. Regardless of who is at fault there, The Government of Sri Lanka or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelem, the solution to what is going on in Sri Lanka cannot be solved by “ethnic cleansing and genocide”, renowned author Arundhati Roy said in an interview with BBC.

Dr. Ellyn Shander, a humanitarian worker from Connecticut who travelled to Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami, has likened the Sri Lankan government’s attacks on its Tamil citizens to other genocides such as those committed by the Nazis, former Cambodian leader Pol Pot and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Several world leaders and United Nations officials too have been calling for ‘humanitarian truce’ and ‘safe passage’ for civilians etc., but no concrete action has been taking place with this regard on a serious manner with the Government of Sri Lanka.

Appeals have been made to Government of India primarily by the people of India and several political parties in Tamil Nadu.

A high ranking official of United Nations too has called on India to speak on “alarming right violation conditions” in the South Asian region.

“I encourage India to speak out on its own, as well as in concert with others, whenever the human rights agenda that it cherishes and seeks to pursue domestically becomes of concern elsewhere,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said.

In an address to the National Human Rights Commission in Delhi recently, she urged India “to continue to support freedom and rights wherever they are at stake, and particularly regarding the alarming situations in its own region, such as those in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.”

Yet for the powers of the world, the debate as who is right and wrong on the Tamil humanitarian crisis and even some questioning if the killings in Sri Lanka amount to “genocide” continue while thousands of innocent Tamil civilians continue to perish in Sri Lankan government artillery barrages.

The Monsoon Journal along with the Tamil diaspora around the world urges the International community to put the words of humanitarian calls into action and bring about an unequivocal and determined way to enforce a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, to alleviate the plight of Tamil civilians.

by T. Earakan

As Sri Lanka Government is now beginning to be exposed of their guise in continuing to uproot Tamils into ‘internment camps’ in several international newspaper editorials etc., many readers and humanitarian citizen activists around the globe too are reacting strongly against the Sri Lankan government’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ agenda.

The unprecedented number of sentiments in the internet can be observed especially from blog responses in one of most UK’s prestigious newspapers, The Times.

Here are few comments that appeared in the past few days on Times UK:

well, tamils are not ready to believe srilankan governments
promises. so please send the international peace keepers or
UN observers to war zone to watch the srilankan army doing there and safe th innocent civilions. Also I would like to tell that we tamils have the ability stand alone.

krishna, toronto, canada
*
Even during ceasefire several people have been killed by the Srilankan Armed forces today. What Tamils need now is a permanent ceasefire and an independent Tamil Eezham state. Why uproot Tamils from their homeland? It is like Russians telling English to leave England else we will be nuked.

M Ramanan, Southampton, UK
*
UN is not showing the same compassion for civilians as it did in Gaza for Sri Lanka North Tamils. Uprooting Tamil civilians from their traditional habitats and putting them in internment camps is inhuman, and particularly when Sri Lanka is doing ethnic cleansing under the guise of ‘war on terror’.

David G, Punta Gorda, FL, USA
*
I think right now the figures and arguments by both Government of Sri Lanka is not any better than LTTE. GoSL is uprooting an unwilling populace under a guise of “war on terror” into “internment camps”-as described by HRW and this genteleman expects the civilians to come rushing to them.

David G, Punta Gorda, FL, USA
*
I am not supporting uprooting of civilians in North of the failed state sri lnaka. As they are lived in the LTTE de-fact government at the time of Peace and they feel safe under LTTE rather than SLA or GoSL. The UN and IC need to bring permanent Peace to them rather than uprooting the civilians.

Bobby, CT, USA
*
Uprooting of Tamils by Sri Lana Government has been on under various guises over past 61 years. Today it is “war on terror”. LTTE ‘terrorism’ is a symptom arising from Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism, not the ’cause’ of current unfortunate turmoil that is killing civilians on all sides unnecessarily.

Tariq, North York, Ontario, Canada

by P Shantikumar

The fundamental problem with Sri Lanka today is that the good people of the majority community have lost interest in politics and thereby turning the country over to be run by ruffians and barbarians for decades now. The whole of the southern polity are beguiled to varying degree to one of most insidious form of dangerous, backward doctrine of Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism – its influence is subliminal and total on its target audience of Sinhala-Buddhists. The chief characteristic of this baneful supremacist doctrine is that its exponents believe that those who embrace this pernicious concept unreservedly are Believers, as opposed to unbelievers who should be persecuted and annihilated. Such a belief system has been cleverly packaged by racist monks in a vulgarised version of Buddhism at least since the days of Dutu Gemunu, circa 200 BCE. It is quite clear from historical records that the young Sinhala upstart was a more civilised person, despite challenging King Ellalan – the finest King ever to rule any part of the island – who was nearly fifty years older than him to a duel and killing the elderly Tamil king, than his monk-confessors who were nothing but a bunch of petty racists.

QUIT TAMIL EELAM: Based on irrefutable historical facts, Tamils have every right to secede from the fascist Sinhala State of Sri Lanka. What right have the Sinhala fascists to lay siege to over quarter of a million Tamils in a small sliver of land in the Vanni? How is even possible for these Hitlerite monsters to intern Tamil civilians in Concentration Camps, in their own homeland? What business does the fascist Sinhala Army have in Tamil homeland to occupy it? When is the fascist Sinhala Sri Lankan government going to demilitarize Tamil homeland?
The whole world want the Sinhala fascist barbarians in Colombo to give unfettered access to humanitarian agencies to the Tamil civilians under siege by the Sinhala fascist Army in the safe zone without food, water, medicine, sanitation and in an extremely unhygienic climate prone to epidemics of all kind. But, all that is happening is the Sinhala fascist barbarians in Colombo have given a free hand to the “Supreme Sinhala Coward” Sarath Fonseka to kill as many babies as possible to exceed the record of Atila the Hun, but not his courage, military prowess and generalship. This is over and above killing hundreds of men, women and children almost on a daily basis for at least the past three months. And, it wasn’t much better before that for the hapless Tamils civilians in their own homeland.

How can the international community allow the fascist Sinhala Army to lay siege to over quarter of a million Tamils in their homeland in this day and age and get away with it? It is even preposterous that innocent Tamil civilians should be allowed to be interned to deprive all manner of freedoms hard won by humanity world over, by making endless sacrifices, throughout the ages. These Sinhala barbarians should be brought to their senses and persuaded QUIT THAMIL EELAM, without shedding further Tamil blood in their own homeland!

It is precisely for these reasons and much more the invasion and occupation of Tamil homeland is illegal and more importantly immoral! The need to oppress, persecute and militarily subjugate a minority community into second-class citizenship in their own land by the majority cannot be justified legally and morally. Once the food convoys are given unfettered access to the Vanni, the Sri Lankan fascist government should be impressed upon in no uncertain terms of its illegal invasion of Tamil homeland and demanded to fully demilitarize Tamil homeland!

The UN says some of its staff as well as those of non-governmental organizations and their dependents who managed to flee the No Fire Zone have been prevented from leaving the Sri Lanka government run “welfare camps”, according to Colombo based newspaper, The Daily Mirror.

The camps have been described as internment camps by independent humanitarian workers and newspaper editorials.

The Guardian UK, in an editorial on April 11th said, “the government calls these camps “welfare centres”, but no amount sophistry can disguise the fact that these are internment camps, whose inmates are subject to indefinite confinement.”

The internally displaced persons (IDPs) are being detained depriving them of a livelihood and freedom of movement.

Farhan Haq, Associate Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General told reporters today that the United Nations has repeatedly asked the Government of Sri Lanka to allow them freedom of movement so that they can eventually resume their role as aid workers.

However she said while the Sri Lanka Government has repeatedly given assurances that this request would be met, the staff still remains in the camps.