Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Chavuinism, Civil War, Francis Boyle, Genocide, IDPS, Internment camps, Iran Elections, Lebensraum, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Nation-State, Nationalism, Nazi, Nazism, Racism, Self-Determination, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Army, State Terror, Tamil Diaspora, Tamils
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30 June 2009
Source: Open Democracy
What kind of violence has the Sri Lankan state been committing against its Tamil civilian population as the island‘s civil war ended; on what scale and with what intentions? Martin Shaw explores the difficult terrain where war, atrocity and genocide meet.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his “victory speech”, told Sri Lanka’s parliament that “our heroic forces have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians”, and he took “personal responsibility” for protecting Tamils. Yet his government is now scandalously confining this huge population – who have already suffered not only from the LTTE but from Sri Lankan bombardments which caused probably tens of thousands of deaths and injuries – in squalid conditions. The government has officially backtracked, under international pressure, on plans to hold the displaced, while screening them for potential “terrorists”, for up to three years; it now says that 80% will be resettled by the end of (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Colonialism, Genocide, IDP, IDPS, Imperialism, Internally Displaced Persons, Nation-State, Racism, Sinhala, Sinhala Chauvinism, Sri Lanka, State Terror, Tamil, Tamil Civilians, Tamil Diaspora, War
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( Dated Piece |03 June 2009 )
Source: Tamil Guardian
Desperation is rife among the 280,000 Tamil civilians imprisoned in internment camps in northern Sri Lanka with countless civilians unable to locate or contact relatives missing or separated during the bloody chaos that ensued during the final weeks of the Sri Lankan military onslaught.
Many clutched a razor wire fence, desperately searching the crowds on the other side for a familiar face as they tried to discover whether their loved ones were still alive and at liberty, or in another of the camps, a British newspaper reporter describing the plight of the civilians in one of the camps wrote.
Some are still hoping to find relatives amid the rows of tents that provide a temporary home.
But others say relatives were separated out by the military, suspected of being Tamil Tigers.
One refugee said that thousands of fleeing civilians were (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: AIADMK, Anti-Tamil Pogroms, Armed Resistance, Bandaranayaka-Chelvanaagam, Britain, British Colonialism, Buddhist Clergy, Chemical Weapons, Colombo, Colonization, Congress Party, DMK, Ethnic Cleansing, Freedom Struggle, Genocide, Imperialism, Indian Imperialism, Insurgents, Internally Displaced Persons, Jaffna LIbrary, Karunanidhi, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Liberation, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, PMK, Prabakaran, Racism, Resistance, Saddam, Self-Determination, Self-Governing Authority, Sinhala, Sinhala Chauvinism, Sinhalese Eelam, Sovereignty, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Sri Lankan Army, Sri Lankan Government, State Terror, Tamil Diaspora, Tamil Eelam, Tamil Nadu, Terrorism, United Nations, United States, War Criminal, War on Terror
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June 2009
Source: Liberation
On May 18 2009, the Sri Lankan Government declared its ‘final victory’ over the LTTE, by displaying the body of the slain LTTE chief Prabakaran. Since then, the Sri Lankan regime and its army have indulged in an obscene orgy of humiliation. The body of Prabakaran, an international icon for the Tamil movement for self-determination, was displayed by jeering soldiers as a trophy – reminiscent of the manner that Saddam’s capture and killing was displayed by the US. Not content with months of unremitting shelling and chemical assaults on thousands of Tamil civilians, nor with the extermination of the Tamil self-determination struggle’s leadership, the Sri Lankan government is determined now to humiliate the surviving Tamils and flaunt the victory of its racist war. Prabakaran is being slandered as a psychopath and a coward, and his body is being cast into a mass, unmarked grave – to obliterate and tarnish the very memory of the Tamil struggle. And the Sri Lankan State is sponsoring (more…)
