22 December 2004 Dear friends and colleagues: I am delighted to announce that the application for the 2005 session of the annual Human Rights Advocates Program at Columbia University is now available. I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to disseminate this information and application to human rights advocates based in developing… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Human Rights
Revisiting Rwanda’s Horrors
With an Ex-National Security Adviser By JOHN DARNTON, The New York Times, December 20, 2004 It was “shameful,” he added, that his administration refused to employ the term “genocide” for a period of six weeks. “It was based on the belief that if you used the word, then you’re required to take action,” he said…. Read more »
Human Rights Watch and Tamil Children
by S. Makenthiran, B.A., FCCA, Canada, December 19, 2004 There have been some reports by interested parties about the so-called seminar held on December 12, by Human Rights Watch in Toronto. It is made to appear that those who spoke out at the Seminar were Tamil Tigers. It was nothing like that. Many of us… Read more »
Child Soldiers and Sunny Beaches
by Ravi Gowribalan, December 16, 2004 Many Tamils once believed that the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play an important role in helping the people in the war-affected areas of Tamil Eelam. During the ceasefire, we have seen a dramatic upsurge in the number of international NGOs in Tamil areas and their interest in Tamil affairs… Read more »
A Rigged Dialogue with Civil Society
by Charlemagne, The Economist, London, October 2004 Does any of this sound familiar from the NGOs that comment and try to influence ‘ethnic’ affairs in Sri Lanka? — Editor How independent are the civil-society organisations beloved by the European Commission? THE European Commission knows it has an image problem. To try to fix things, it… Read more »
‘In the Name of the Buddha’ in New York Dec. 5
The controversial film is at another film festival in New York City – the South Asian International Film Festival and is sponsored by India Abroad and Salaam Theater. It will be showing at Chelsea Clearview Cinema at 12:00 noon on Sunday, December 5. For more information check http://www.saiff.org/program/program_day5.asp [The Sangam is most gratified that India Abroad, a New York… Read more »
Asylum Seekers Allowed to Sue Private Firms
for Human Rights Abuses by M. Chooki, News-India Times, New York, November 26, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/655.html A [US] federal judge ruled that asylum-seekers, who suffered beatings, unsanitary conditions and humiliation at the Elizabeth detention center in New Jersey in the mid-1990s may go ahead with a lawsuit alleging human rights violations against the private company that… Read more »
Plantation Tamils – The Oppressed People of Sri Lanka
By S. Makenthiran, B.A., FCCA, November 21, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/653.html Immigration in the nineteenth century In Sri Lanka live one of the most oppressed communities in the world. They are the plantation Tamils living in the central hill country. This unfortunate community has been treated like sub-humans by the successive Sinhalese governments that have been in… Read more »
A Set of Killings in the East
To The Editor, Sangam.org — The TamilNet news website of 18th November reported two killings in the East within a space of 14 hours. The first was the killing of a political worker of the LTTE at 9.45 PM on Wednesday by gunmen suspected to be paramilitary operatives working with the Sri Lanka military intelligence… Read more »
A Victory, But Little Is Gained
by DARYL G. PRESS and BENJAMIN VALENTINO, The New York Times op-ed, November 17, 2004 Does any of this sound familiar to Sangam readers? sangam.org/articles/view2/644.html Hanover, N.H. — The textbook urban assault on Falluja reflected well on the dedication, training and equipment of the American military. Unfortunately, it has not brought the United States appreciably… Read more »
Let the Tamils Go
Make Up Your Mind Forthwith to Let the Tamils Go by V. Navaratnam, Daily Mirror, Colombo, October 7 and 8, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/594.html People used to cite the trio: Professor G. L. Peiris, President Bill Clinton, and Premier Bob Rae, all contemporary Rhodes Scholars at Oxford, as examples for high level of intellectual calibre among national… Read more »
by a former child soldier – a Poem
by Peter P. sangam.org/articles/view2/583.html We are the people We are the leaders And they They say it’s their rights We say it’s their rights They say release We say releasing them They say don’t recruit We say stop recruiting them They say protect We say protecting them They say education We see ruined schools They… Read more »
Back to Basics for S.Lanka’s ‘Mine Sweepers’
By Simon Gardner sangam.org/articles/view2/579.html THADDUVANKODDY, Sri Lanka, Oct 5 (Reuters) – In a remote sun-baked corner of northern Sri Lanka, farmers are pioneering an unlikely new weapon in the fight to clear hundreds of thousands of landmines strewn during two decades of civil war. Across a no man’s land littered with mines, small groups of Sri… Read more »
The Worst Weapon of Mass Destruction
Thinakural Editorial, Colombo, Sept. 22, 2004 Translation by M. Thiru sangam.org/articles/view2/573.html A Summit among world leaders to discuss World Hunger took place at the UN Headquarters last Monday (20/09/04), the day before the commencement of the United Nation’s 59th General Assembly session. More than 100 nations participated in this summit, of which more than 50… Read more »
The International Community Sharpens its Knives Against Tamils
by Sachithanandam Sathananthan*, New Delhi, September 3, 2004 Sri Lankan Tamils took note of a newspaper article titled “Ending the regional drift,” published in India recently. Its author, Dr Raja Mohan, is a foreign policy analyst who is close to the Indian establishment, and he accurately reflects its thinking. He lauded “the muscular message” New… Read more »
Tamils Alone in Hostile World
Tamils Should Realise They Stand Alone in a Hostile World An Editorial from Northeastern Monthly Every few months or so, accusations of human rights violations are flung at the LTTE by various local and international actors whose concern for human suffering knows no bounds when it gives them an opportunity to cause the Tiger rebels discomfiture…. Read more »
Letter to RSF on Nimalarajan’s Killer
Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations, Inc. P O Box 215 Enfield NSW 2136 Email: tamand /A_T/ ozemail.com /D_O_T/ au 24 August 2004 International Secretariat : Reporters sans frontières 5, rue Geoffroy-Marie 75009 Paris – France Dear Sir, We are alarmed and dismayed that the main suspect in the murder of the journalist and BBC correspondent… Read more »
Black July – The Ghosts of Chemmani
Review – From Pogroms to Massacres and Mass-Graves by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Sunday Leader, June 20, 1999 [Editorial comment: Tamils have endured a multitude of atrocities under the rule of the majority in Sri Lanka. It is critical to review these historic events (massacres and mass graves) since the latent emotions – based on myths or… Read more »
Black July – Riots That Led to War
Twenty years on by Frances Harrison, BBC, July 23, 2003 BBC correspondent in Colombo Twenty years ago, this week, saw the outbreak of anti-Tamil riots in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo that changed the course of the nation’s history The riots, triggered by the killing of a group of soldiers in the Tamil north of… Read more »
Black July – Culture of Silence
The Accomplice in Crime The Shameful Shadows of Macabre July ’83 By Oswald B. Firth OMI, July 29, 2004 Director, Centre for Society and Religion Editor Social Justice How could a community of people, steeped in the traditional values of compassion and ‘ahimsa’, ever break loose into uncivilised behaviour? “We shall have to repent in… Read more »