The night of May 31, 1981 Jaffna library burned in Sri Lankan

Remembering the sad saga of Tamils in Sri Lanka, a cultural genocide of Tamils, the burning down of the Jaffna library, one of the biggest and finest in Asia, on the night of May 31, 1981? On that fateful night Sri Lankan paramilitary forces set ablaze this grand library as part of the pogrom against Tamils of Jaffna. Some 97,000 volumes of books, excluding rare and important Ola manuscripts, went up in flames. http://tamilnational.com/news-flash/1213-remembering-jaffna-library.html

Rajapaksa extremism cannot be changed: Lee Kuan Yew

Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, in a newly released book titled "Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew,' says that Tamils have been in the island of Sri Lanka as long as the Sinhalese, and that Sri Lanka is not a happy "united" country. The present president of Sri Lanka believes he has settled the problem now that the Tamil Tigers are killed, and wants others to believe that too," and Lee observes:"I don't think they [Tamils] are going to be submissive or go away." Referring to the Sri Lankan president he said: "I have read his speeches and I knew he was a Sinhala extremist. I cannot change his mind." http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31857

Five bodies unearthed in Kilinochchi (Sri Lankan)

Five bodies recovered from a toilet pit in Ganeshapuram, Kilinochchi has been sent to Vavunia for further identification. Tamil National Alliance, Jaffna District Member of Parliament S.Sridharan said that the gender of the five bodies were unidentifiable due to their state of decomposition. The post-mortem was carried out by the Judicial Medical Officer Balachandran Sridharan of Vavunia. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2010/05/100531_kilinochchi.shtml

War-Affected Women Bewail Their Plight

By Suvendrini Kakuchi,(IPS) - Although unmarried, Rajini Padamaraj, 32, is burdened with the responsibility of looking after the needs of her entire household, composed of her mother and two younger siblings. The slightly built woman who is of Tamil ethnic origin and originally from the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, found a job last October as a sewing instructor in a training centre for women funded by a Japanese women’s group. Association of War-Affected Women (AWAW) represents some 2,000 women across Sri Lanka whose sons or husbands were either disabled or killed during the war against the LTTE rebels, who were fighting for a separate homeland for the Tamil minority. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51575

'Name the detainees' Govt. urged

(BBC) Many people have been disappeared in Sri Lanka since the end of the conflict with the Tamil Tigers, human rights activists say. Convenor of Committee for the Investigation of Disappearances (CID) Chamil Jayanetti told BBC Sandeshaya that the government should reveal the names of nearly 12,000 suspected LTTE members currently detained. "We don't know what the fate of these disappeared people are. They may be detained, killed of disappeared. If the government announce the names of those detained then the relatives would have a clue," he said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2010/05/100524_war_missing.shtml

Don’t interfere in internal affairs: Sri Lanka to UN chief

Sri Lanka on Monday asked UN chief Ban Ki-moon not to interfere in its internal affairs and not to go ahead with the probe into alleged war crimes by its Army against the defeated LTTE, amidst an international clamour by rights groups for an independent inquiry. "...There is no justification legal or moral for this step (UN probe) to be taken at this time," Foreign Minister GL Peiris said ahead of his maiden meeting with Ban. http://www.zeenews.com/news628888.html

New Evidence of Wartime Abuses

(New York-hrw) - New evidence of wartime abuses by Sri Lankan government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the armed conflict that ended one year ago demonstrates the need for an independent international investigation into violations of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said today. Recently Human Rights Watch research gathered photographic evidence and accounts by witnesses of atrocities by both sides during the final months of fighting. http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/05/20/sri-lanka-new-evidence-wartime-abuses

New Accusations of War Crimes in Sri Lanka

May 19, 2010, By ROBERT MACKEY(nytimes) One year after Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, declared victory and hailed his military for ending a decades-long separatist rebellion by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a British news organization aired new accusations that the country’s soldiers committed war crimes during the war’s final months. On Tuesday, Britain’s Channel 4 News presented what it said was testimony from two former members of Sri Lanka’s military who claim that the government ordered the execution of Tamil prisoners captured at the end of a separatist rebellion last year. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/new-accusations-of-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka/

Sri Lanka Tamil killings 'ordered from the top'

Exclusive: a senior Sri Lankan army commander and frontline soldier tell Channel 4 News that point-blank executions of Tamils at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war were carried out under orders. In August 2009 Channel 4 News obtained video evidence, later authenticated by the United Nations, purporting to show point-blank executions of Tamils by uniformed Sri Lankan soldiers. Now a senior army commander and a frontline soldier have told Channel 4 News that such killings were indeed ordered from the top. One frontline soldier said: "Yes, our commander ordered us to kill everyone. We killed everyone." http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/sri+lanka+option/3652687

ICG: War Crimes in Sri Lanka

ICG:-17 May 2010 The Sri Lankan security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) repeatedly violated international humanitarian law during the last five months of their 30-year civil war. Although both sides committed atrocities throughout the many years of conflict, the scale and nature of violations particularly worsened from January 2009 to the government’s declaration of victory in May. Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths. http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/191-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka.aspx

SRI LANKA NAVY MURDERS PASSENGERS ON KUMUTHINI - MAY, 1985

INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA Kumuthini is the name of the passenger ferry between the island of Delft and Punguduthivu, via Nainathivu. On the 15th May 1985, Sri Lankan Navy personnel stopped her at mid-sea, and the government Navy personnel bludgeoned and cut to death all her passengers, including women and children. 7 June 1985In respect of the allegations that navy personnel may have been responsible for the killings of unarmed Tamil passengers travelling on 15 May on a ferry boat between Delft and Nainativu, I would like to draw your attention to the account, which Amnesty International received after writing to His Excellency the President, of a survivor who gave details of how the killings took place and identified one of those participating in the killings as belonging to the Nainativu Island Naval Camp. According to this account:"We boarded the government launch "Kumudini" at about 7.45 a.m. on 15 May 1985...........On the said day when the boat had proceeded towards Nainativu Island for about half an hour, it was ordered stopped by some men who came in a fibre glass boat. About six men boarded "Kumudini" while about two remained in the fibre glass boat which they tied on to "Kumudini". The six men who boarded "Kumudini" had rifles as are carried by naval and army personnel. All of them were dressed variously in blue longs or shorts and T-shirts. However, the blue longs and shorts worn by them made me realise that these men were navy personnel.All the passengers and crew were ordered to enter the forepart of the boat and ordered below deck there, leaving the aft section and the driving cabin completely free. All the pasenqers thus forced into the aft section were made to repeatedly shout out their names, status, locality and where bound to. One man pointing out a gun shouted out such an order in broken Tamil. If anybody lowered his voice the man would threaten to shoot him unless he raised his voice. As the passengers were made to shout in this manner, one from the crowd of passengers was called at a time and led into the aft section.I nor the others in the fore section knew what was happening to each person who was led away in this manner owing to the din created by the forced shouting of passengers. After about 12 persons had been called into the aft section in this manner we heard the report of a gun and I saw a body falling overboard and being washed alongside the boat. I was able to see this as I was standing...........When it came to my turn I went towards the aft section. On approaching it I saw blood all over and the cut pieces of human bodies. At this juncture I shouted and refused to move. I was then hit on the head and I fell. I felt that I was dragged and cut on my head by some kind of a hatchet. I received further injuries on my stomach and legs and fell between the boards of the bottom of the boat. I pretended to be dead and lay there. I felt further bodies falling over mine and the cries of distress of men and women.About 45 minutes later I heard the fibre glass boat being started and going away...... Of the men who were engaged in this attack I was able to identify one of them as a navy personnel whom I have seen in the said area and is from Nainativu Island Naval Camp."

On Sri Lanka, ICG Calls for Investigation of UN Inaction, Ban Panel Still Delayed

By Matthew Russell Lee:- UNITED NATIONS, May 16 -- At the one year anniversary of Sri Lanka's bloodbath on the beach, the UN which pulled out of Kilinochchi before the slaughter, then funded internment camps for Tamils after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "victory tour," has come under questioning. http://www.innercitypress.com/sri6unfollow051610.html

IDPs In Need Of Permanent Housing Facilities

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema:- One year after the end of the war between the security forces and the LTTE, 73,000 displaced persons still remain in IDP camps in the North. Following the end of the war, the resettlement of the war-displaced became a post war crisis faced by the country, which also raised widespread international concern. The announcement and celebrations of liberation were soon overcome by calls to rehabilitate and resettle thousands of persons displaced in the North and East due to the three decade-long war. http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/05/16/idps-in-need-of-permanent-housing-facilities/

Children affected by Genocidal War Crimes of Sri Lanka

Tamils all over the world mark 18 May as Genocidal War Crimes Day, observing one year remembrance of thousands who perished in the war, waged by the Sri Lankan state and its abettors, on the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. Despite its repeated pledges to the International Community, the Sri Lankan state and its military machine vowing to erase 'separatism demand' from Tamils for generations, to turn heavy arms on civilian population claiming the lives of thousands of children and women in addition to depriving them of food, medicine and medical evacuation on time. The conduct of the Sri Lankan state, which disregarded all norms of humanity in the war, has posed a civilisational question, and justice remains undelivered. TamilNet releases 14 of 512 photos taken by a humanitarian worker to mark the Genocidal War Crimes Day. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31753

(Tuesday, 12 May 2009) Sri Lanka Army attacks hospital, 47 massacred

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells killing at least 47 civilians, patients and the Administrative Officer K. Tharmakulasingam Tuesday morning around 8:00 a.m. At least 55 patients sustained serious injuries in the attack on the makeshift hospital which was functioning at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal junior school. The attack came while around 2,000 wounded patients within the last 3 days were waiting for the ICRC to be transported in the ship. More than 2,600 civilians were killed within the past 3 days in Sri Lankan attacks in Vanni. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29337

Sri Lanka risks losing the peace

Paul Maley From: The Australian May 08, 2010 The government is not addressing Tamil grievances that led to war in the first place. More than 12 months after the end of Sri Lanka's bloody conflict there is growing concern among analysts that the reconciliation efforts needed to prevent the resurrection of Tamil militancy are being neglected. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/sri-lanka-risks-losing-the-peace/story-e6frg6zo-1225863648502

(Sunday, 10 May 2009) 1200 bodies counted, hundreds seriously injured, aerial bombing continues

Rescue workers within the Mullaiththeevu Safety Zone have counted more than 1200 bodies after the large scale slaughter Saturday night and Sunday morning (10 May 2009) by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) with the use of cluster ammunition, multi-barrel rocket launchers and cannons, sources from Vanni said. The workers fear that there may be additional bodies yet to be uncovered, and the numbers killed will likely rise. Rescue workers also said several hundreds were very seriously injured, and the critical shortage of medicine at the makeshift hospital in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal will lead to many more deaths. Meanwhile, Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Hospital staff said, until 3:00 p.m. the number of bodies brought to the hospital was 378, injured totaled 1122. The staffers added that 106 of the dead, and 251 of the injured were children. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29318

Sri Lanka: Government Proposal Won’t Address War Crimes,UN Secretary-General Should Establish International Investigation

(New York-hrw) - The Sri Lankan government's suggestion that a newly announced commission will provide accountability for laws-of-war violations during the armed conflict with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is yet another attempt to deflect an independent international investigation, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to take steps to ensure accountability through an independent international investigation into the alleged laws-of-war violations. http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/05/07/sri-lanka-government-proposal-won-t-address-war-crimes Every time the international community raises the issue of accountability, Sri Lanka establishes a commission that takes a long time to achieve nothing. Ban should put an end to this game of smoke and mirrors and begin a process that would ensure justice for all the victims of Sri Lanka’s war. Brad Adams, Asia director

On Sri Lanka, As UN's Ban Delays on Panel, Pascoe's Trip Delayed For "Goodies"

By Matthew Russell Lee UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- Two months after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would form "without delay" a panel of experts to advise him on possible war crimes in Sri Lanka, still no such panel has been named. In the interim, the UN has said that Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe will travel to Sri Lanka. But that has not happened or even been nailed down yet. A senior UN official told Inner City Press on May 5 that they think Sri Lanka is putting off the trip so that they can put certain things in place and show "goodies" to the UN. Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN Palitha Kohona continues to predict that Ban will never go forward and name the panel. "Ask them why they would name a panel," Kohona has urged Inner City Press, "for anything more than fundraising." Inner City Press has put Kohona's question to the senior UN official, who while not confirming that the panel idea is dead or dying, said the UN is happy to think that improvements are being made under the shadow of a visit. In fact, Inner City Press was told that an Austrians national was approached about being on the panel. But two month are two months. UN's Ban and Pascoe in Uzbekistan, Lankan follow through not shown Meanwhile in Sri Lanka itself, the Red Cross still does not have access to the so-called rehabilitation centers, and there are whispers of a slew of babies being born to women who were in government detention nine months before. The IMF has delayed the next tranche of its loan, as the government has not followed through on its commitments. The so-called CHAP was rejected by presidential brother Basil Rajaksa, NGOs complain. They do not complain loudly, threatened as they are with expulsion from the country. Watch this site. http://www.innercitypress.com/sri1unfollow050510.html

UN failed to protect Tamil civilians - Lord Patten

Noting British foreign policy is unlikely to change after the May 6th election, and that United Nations is better at "normative diplomacy than at launching action on the ground," Lord Patton, current chancellor of University of Oxford, and who as European Commission External Relations Commissioner visited Kilinochchi during the ceasefire, said, while having endorsed the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to prevent atrocities, "UN was paralysed when political and diplomatic intervention was required to protect Tamil civilians in the Sri Lankan government campaign to wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," in an article in Financial Times. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31682

(Saturday, 02 May 2009) Sri Lanka Army massacres patients with targeted shelling, 64 killed in hospital

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Saturday(Saturday, 02 May 2009) attacked the only remaining makeshift hospital twice, killing 64 patients and attending relatives, and causing injuries to 87. Two artillery shells fired by the SLA hit the hospital at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal around 9:00 a.m. killing 23 and maiming 34 and later several shells were fired at 10:30 a.m., killing 41 and maiming 53. The attack has taken place, after the Sri Lankan military was provided with the exact coordinates of the hospital premises three days back through the ICRC, and as Sri Lanka Air Force Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was monitoring the hospital area. The massacre is calculated to coerce the civilians said a rescue worker citing leaflets air dropped Friday with Mahinda Rajapaksa's message asking civilians to come to the SLA side. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29240