by Fred Carver, Independent Policy Digest, Washington, August 9, 2014 Jean-Marc Ferré/UN Photo To many external observers the Government of Sri Lanka appeared to lose the plot somewhat during the recent UN Human Rights Council (HRC) session. A series of overt and heavy handed attempts to silence dissent, even as the session was discussing a… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Military
Britain’s Dirty War Against the Tamil People 1979-2009
Britain’s_Dirty_War by Phil Miller This document, published by the International Human Rights Association Bremen, is an updated version of the evidence Phil gave to the Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka… 1. Introduction When Prime Minister David Cameron travelled to Sri Lanka in November 2013, his visit to the northern city of Jaffna was widely seen as British… Read more »
Proxy War Can Have Dangerous Consequences
In fact, notwithstanding states’ incredible material and power advantage relative to their proxy allies, states have often found themselves unable to control their proxies or drawn into unwanted conflict escalation. Rajiv Gandhi’s administration in India had to intervene in the civil war in Sri Lanka to forcibly suppress its proxy, the Tamil Tigers, because the latter had become too powerful and refused to accept Indian attempts to achieve a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
Civilians as Human Shields? Gaza War Revives Debate
GAZA CITY — Militant rockets can be seen launching from crowded neighborhoods, near apartment buildings, schools and hotels. Hamas fighters have set traps for Israeli soldiers in civilian homes and stored weapons in mosques and schools. Tunnels have been dug beneath private property. With international condemnation rising over the death toll in Gaza exceeding 650… Read more »
Written Evidence to FASC
Written evidence from Global Tamil Forum (GTF) (HRS0020) Introduction Global Tamil Forum (GTF) was established in 2009 by a number of grass-roots Tamil groups, following the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. It is the largest Tamil diaspora organisation with members drawn from across five continents. GTF is committed to non-violence and… Read more »
Military Presence in Sri Lanka’s North is Worrisome
by Meena Srinivasan, ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, June 12, 2014 File photo of Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council C.V. Wigneswaran. The Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council tells The Hindu that he has not been able to do much even after six months after the historic elections More than six months… Read more »
Nigeria Mulling Sri Lankan Example to Fight Terror
Abuja (AFP) – Nigeria’s military indicated on Thursday that it could follow the example of Sri Lanka in fighting terror, to bring an end to an increasingly deadly insurgency by Boko Haram militants. Related Stories Nigeria military studies Sri Lankan tactics for use against Boko Haram Reuters A high-ranking military delegation from the South Asian island… Read more »
‘Proliferation of Micronarratives Assists the Logic of Counterinsurgency’
In the context of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle, when a “micronarrative” discourse about gender, caste, region or other “special interest groups” claims autonomous status, “when it divorces itself from the primary contradiction between the Tamil nationalist metanarrative and the Sri Lankan state, it only ends up fracturing a resistance movement against genocide,” argues Karthick… Read more »
‘The Scene at First Light Was Devastating’
by Frances Harrison, ‘Huffington Post,’ Los Angeles, May 20, 2014 New photographs have emerged five years after the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka showing the aftermath of government attacks on a United Nations food distribution centre inside the war zone. The pictures, shot by a Tamil working for the media unit of… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Greatest War Criminal (Gotabaya) is a US Citizen
by Ryan Goodman, ‘JustSecurity.org,’ May 19, 2014 Monday, May 19th marks the five-year anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which claimed the lives of 40,000 to 70,000 civilians in its “catastrophic” final phase. In 2009, Congress asked the State Department to report on the humanitarian law violations during the war, and those reports make for gruesome reading…. Read more »
On Anniversary, a Victory Parade and a Crackdown in Sri Lanka
“The Tamil people should have the freedom to mourn collectively the untimely death of a large number of members of their community,” the Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association said in a statement.
Sri Lanka Blocks Tamil Memorials Amid War Parade
Official victory day celebrations were held in Sri Lanka’s south Sri Lanka has held a victory parade on the fifth anniversary of the end of its civil war, while stopping Tamils from commemorating their war dead. Security forces in the north surrounded party offices and religious sites, blocking memorial ceremonies for Tamils killed in the… Read more »
New Pictures Of Isaipriya Alive Emerge
New pictures of the LTTE media TV newsreader Isaipriya alive have emerged.The Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence claims 53 Division troops killed Isaipriya during the last battle. Her name is in the Ministry of Defence’s published list – “Identified LTTE leaders who were killed on 18 May 2009 by 53 Division troops“ – as “Lieutenant Colonel… Read more »
Beyond the Beach
by Marcelle Hopkins, AlJazeera, May 17, 2014 Five years after one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history, Sri Lanka hovers between war and peace, as a profoundly traumatised population grapples with creeping militarisation, continuing ethnic divisions and a crackdown on dissent. Interactive website at http://ajinteractive.businesscatalyst.com/srilanka/home_txt.html
The War That Wasn’t Live
There was no BBC or CNN inside the war zone, which is perhaps why Sri Lanka is one of the great untold war stories of this century. It is certainly one of the bloodiest…
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s legal advisers are, however, clear that “most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling,” which they described as “large scale.” They also accused the Sri Lankan Army of systematically, knowingly, and repeatedly shelling all hospitals in the war zone, depriving civilians of food and life-saving medicine, and attacking all safe zones it had declared for civilians…
Another reason that the world failed to take closer notice of the Sri Lankan civil war was Colombo’s successful rebranding of its decades-long ethnic-territorial conflict as part of the global “war on terror.” That meant the world signed off on the destruction of the rebels, wrongly assuming that without the troublesome Tigers there would be an equitable peace in Sri Lanka. The terror label made it easy to discredit all Tamils as Tamil Tigers, blurring the boundary between combatants and civilians. Scottish, Bangladeshi, Italian, and Australian eyewitnesses were denounced as “White Tigers” far too sympathetic to the “terrorists.” U.N. employees were intimidated, threatened, expelled, and spied on, with the result that the organization failed to speak up about war crimes its own staff had witnessed firsthand and failed to publicize the significant casualty numbers they had collected.
Inducing Fear
That this escalation in militarisation occurred at a time when the international community was scrutinising Sri Lanka is unsurprising. Intended to prevent a repeat of the protests even during the British Prime Minister’s visit to Jaffna, the arrests of prominent campaigners took place as the UN Human Rights Council began, effectively silenced any popular expressions… Read more »
Land Grabs Jeopardize Peace in Sri Lanka
Christina Williams is an attorney and founder of Reinventing the Rules, a website dedicated to covering the latest trends and lessons learned in the rule of law sector. She has worked on human rights campaigns related to Sri Lanka for several years and is currently focusing on women and land rights in the region. The end… Read more »
The Role of International Justice in Ending Military Oppression and Protecting the Rights of Tamil People
Militarisation ANU lecture MP Sumanthiran March 5 2014 Speaker: Mr. M A Sumanthiran MP Date: 5:30pm to 7:00pm, 05 March 2014 Venue: Seminar Room 1.04, Coombs Extension Building (8), Fellows Road, ANU Contact Nicci Coad Email: nichole.coad /A_T/ anu.edu /D_O_T/ au Mr. Sumanthiran did his LLM at the Monash University in 2001. Since returning to Sri Lanka,… Read more »
Demilitarisation, Human Rights and Indo-US Interests
by Dr. Parasaran, Rangarajan, ‘Eurasia Review,’ Oregon, USA, reprinted from South Asia Analysis Group, March 25, 2014 The United States is reported to have requested a military installation in Sri Lanka as part of its “Pivot Towards Asia” where the Pentagon has stated that approximately 60% of U.S. Navy assets will be in the Asia… Read more »
The Forever War?
by International Crisis Group, Brussels, March 25, 2014 The heavy militarisation of Sri Lanka’s northern province after the civil war’s bloody end in 2009 has been the subject of growing domestic andinternational concern. The large numbers of military personnel in the north, and the deep involvement of the military in the province’s governance, endanger the re-establishment of… Read more »