In reports published Friday, the International Crisis Group detailed and condemned the "deepening militarisation" and "Sinhalisation" in the Tamil area of the Northen Province, that the report concludes are part of a strategy to ""change the facts of the ground", as has already happened in the east, and make it impossible to claim the north as a Tamil-majority area deserving of self-governance."

See here for Sri Lanka’s North I: The Denial of Minority Rights.

See here for Sri Lanka’s North II: Rebuilding under the Military.

Extracts reproduced below:

"Major new military bases require the seizure of large amounts of public and private land and the continued displacement of tens of thousands. The growing involvement of the military in agricultural and commercial activities has placed further obstacles on the difficult road to economic recovery for northern farmers and businesses.

"When challenged by public protest, the military has shown itself willing to physically attack demonstrators and is credibly accused of involvement in enforced disappearances and other extrajudicial punishments."

"With the massive number of troops in the north have come various forms of Sinhalisation. The almost entirely Tamil-speaking north is now dotted with Sinhala sign-boards, streets newly renamed in Sinhala, monuments to Sinhala war heroes, and even a war museum and battlefields that are open only to Sinhalese."

"Sinhala fishermen and businessmen are regularly given advantages not accorded to Tamils."

"The slow but steady movement of Sinhala settlers along the southern edges of the province, often with military and central government support and sometimes onto land previously farmed or occupied by Tamils, is particularly worrying."

"These developments are consistent with a strategy – known to be supported by important officials and advisers to the president – to change “the facts on the ground”, as has already happened in the east, and make it impossible to claim the north as a Tamil-majority area deserving of self-governance."

In a statement released Wednesday, the TNA condemned the Sri Lankan government's catalogue of broken promises of political settlement and human rights, urging the member states of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to act.

See here for full statement.

Extracts reproduced in full below:

"The Sri Lankan government has persistently claimed that, if provided time and space, it will evolve homegrown processes that will address the need for a political solution, improvement in human rights and accountability. This claim must be evaluated against the chronic unwillingness of the government to honour its own commitments to the people of Sri Lanka and the international community. Some of these commitments have been repeated for many years, with no progress made on the ground."

"Moreover, the trajectory of the government’s conduct indicates that, if given time and space, that time and space will be utilized to pursue the agenda that the government has brazenly undertaken despite assurances to the contrary. That agenda entails the silencing of the democratic voice of the Tamil people, the entrenching of power at the centre and the transformation of the linguistic, cultural and religious composition of the North and East so as to negate the need for a political solution."

"Sri Lanka's failure to make good on its own assurances requires that the Council act now. The principle of complementarity in international law requires that where a state is unwilling or unable to institute credible measures to advance justice in keeping with its commitments, international mechanisms must be activated."

"The TNA states that the failure of the Council to act will enable governments, which in fact demonstrate no commitment to change, to escape their obligations by merely making empty promises of reform. This will entrench a dangerous and harmful precedent of Council sanctioned impunity."

"The TNA therefore fully supports action by the Council at its 19th Session as a first and necessary step towards ensuring peace, justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka."

"The TNA believes that action by the Council would be in the larger interest of all the constituent Peoples of Sri Lanka."

"There was a bit of a diplomatic dance around all this, with everybody knowing that the end of this was going to be an inevitable military victory for the government and the inevitable defeat of the LTTE, and it was a question of waiting for that to happen, hoping it happened as quickly as possible and that it happened with as few civilian casualties as possible."

He then paused for a moment, as though considering what he had just said. Then he added:

"That may sound a bit cynical, but that is the reality of what I was observing."

"they really can achieve peace and security and not sow anger in their own community that could give rise to new violence."

“Experience in many civil conflicts around the world has shown that countries that don't take adequate measures to address reconciliation and accountability frequently experience a regeneration of the insurgency that they faced.

We could see very much that similar situation in Sri Lanka."

"The entire world knows about the war crimes against Sri Lankan Tamils. The Tamil Nadu chief minister has raised this issue with the prime minister. We want an answer from the prime minister... will they support the UN resolution."

"Traditional position of India has always been, not only in respect of this case, that we normally do not support any country-specific resolution. But what view on this issue will be taken will be determined as and when the time will be finalized in respect of the meeting of the Human Rights Commission."

In a report, 'Locked away: Sri Lanka's security detainees', released Tuesday, Amnesty International (AI) highlighted the ongoing arbitrary, illegal and often incommunicado detention of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka.

Sam Zarifi, AI’s Asia-Pacific Director said,

“A lack of accountability for alleged war crimes gives the green light to Sri Lankan authorities to act with impunity. Meanwhile the message coming from the Sri Lankan government is that those who dare criticise it risk harassment, or even disappearance.”

If Sri Lanka is serious about ending impunity and committed to reconciling communities torn apart by conflict, the rule of law needs to be a large part of that equation.  While governments have the right to address national security concerns, human rights abuses are never justified.

“The war crimes alleged in Sri Lanka in the final stages of the war are of such magnitude that if unchallenged risk fundamentally undermining international justice mechanisms - the UN must support an independent international investigation into these alleged crimes.”

In a statement, AI said,

"Reports of illegal detentions persist. Since October 2011, 32 people have been ‘abducted’ or subjected to abduction-style arrests."

"Many of these people are still missing."

"Today many hundreds of Sri Lankan security detainees remain in facilities ranging from prisons to ‘rehabilitation’ camps. The country has no central registry of detainees, making it difficult to gain information on those still detained."

In a statement released Monday, Reporters Sans Frontieres, detailed the "violence, threats and propaganda aimed at journalists and media defenders seen as government critics" since 2011.

Extracts reproduced below:

"On 5 November, the information and media ministry ordered news sites to register with the government, yet another restriction on the free flow of information – and a step toward heavier government control of the media."

"One day after the registration order, the ministry blocked access to four major independent news sites critical of the government – Sri Lanka Mirror, Sri Lanka Guardian, paparacigossip9 and lankawaynews."

"On 25 February, the TamilNet news site was hit by Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. The site’s personnel are trying to keep it on line. Lanka News Web and Lanka-e-News faced similar attacks last year."

"At the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last February, Reporters Without Borders called for adoption of a resolution condemning Sri Lankan government attacks on freedom of information".

In a joint statement and resolution, 12 Tamil diaspora organisations, called for an independent, international investigation as the only mechanism to ensure accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as a lasting political solution that reflected the nationhood of Eelam Tamils.

Organisations included: National Council of Canadian Tamils, Tamil Coordinating Committee - United Kingdom, Maison du Tamil Eelam France, Cultural Organisation of Tamils - Belgium, Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils, Danish Tamil Forum
Dutch Tamil Forum, Council of Eelam Tamils in Germany, Swiss Tamil Coordination Committee, Italian Council of Eelam Tamils, Tamil Coordinating Committee - Australia and Tamil Youth Organisation - global.

See here for statement.

See here for resolution.

"There are friends as well as enemies of the United States. We are ready to join the anti-U.S. allies if it is for forcing us to extremes."

Writing in the online site, OpenDemocracy, Sivakami Rajamanoharan from the Tamil Youth Organisation UK argues that the failure of reconciliation in Sri Lanka is as a result of "Sri Lanka’s refusal to accept the Tamil identity as a rightful and equal part of the island" and that the Tamil nation's desire for self-determination is "denounced as an inherent threat to the majority and vilified as 'terrorist ideology'."

Instead, in Sri Lanka today, "in the name of reconciliation, an escalation of ethnic polarisation is unfolding, as the state strives to impose a Sinhala Buddhist hegemony over the Tamil areas."

See here for article in full.

Addressing a public meeting in Colombo, Sri Lankan government Minister Wimal Weerawansa has called for a boycott of all American products, including the use of Google.

The Minister also called for a boycott of brands such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC and McDonalds. Weerawansa pledged to the crowd that he would personally stop using Google products, stating,

"We must show our protest even in a small manner to U.S. for the ill-treatment they are throwing at us."

"We should boycott American products in order to show them the strength of our nation, they will feel the effects of our actions.

I also used a Gmail account and from today I will stop using it.”

See our earlier post:

Threats to US, whilst appealing for concessions (13 March 2012)

The Tamil people should not keep quiet anymore. Their mass organisations and civil groups should realise their duties and the fact that the unfolding scenario has no room for individual issues.

It is futile for the Tamil political leadership, positioning itself against the aspirations of the people, to again and again get trapped in the old ways of polity. The next stage should be a mass struggle.

In the given context of political vacuum, the Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF) should function as an alternative force, is a demand that comes from certain sections in our homeland as well as in the diaspora.

But we try to avoid becoming another political party. Our politics has to be a mass movement. At the moment, the contribution of civil groups in our society is historic. Such a civil movement has to be built up in every part of our homeland. We only like to function participating with the civil movement.

There is an on-going campaign that the US-resolution at Geneva is against Sri Lanka and it would benefit Tamils. But, the resolution completely harps on the LLRC recommendations of Sri Lanka.

The LLRC was conceived only as an escape route for Sri Lanka. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has earlier rejected it completely.

We want to categorically state that the USA has disappointed Tamils by basing the resolution on the LLRC recommendations.

During the war, when I was part of the TNA and its foreign affairs committee, the international diplomats whom we met have assured us and wanted us to believe that they had warned the Colombo government of dire consequences if there were a bloodbath.

Now, after 3 years of what had happened [in Vanni] the resolution comes in Geneva, exploiting the sufferings of Tamils. To muffle the escalating criticism, an excuse is said that it is a ‘first step’ and the process should go ‘step by step’.

Tamils have to be careful.

While Tamils face day-to-day structural genocide and annihilation of their nation from various angles in the post-war context, to what extent such a resolution could exert pressure on Sri Lanka is doubtful.

Sri Lanka knows this well, but its efforts will be to dilute the resolution further, far below the level of any Tamil aspirations. In such an eventuality, the possibilities of enhancing the resolution are doubtful.

Besides, the resolution envisages the accused to become the investigator. The UNSG panel experts have pointed out that the LLRC recommendations are too weak.

When the LLRC report was out, the TNA rejected it. But when the USA based its resolution on the implementation of the LLRC recommendations, the TNA leadership in a written statement sent to the 47-member countries of the UNHCR, has not only welcomed the report but has also argued that the recommendations contain all the unfulfilled promises of earlier Sri Lankan governments and the implementation of them would satisfy all Tamil aspirations.

Once the TNA has taken this stand, it would be difficult for Tamils to come out of the bindings of this resolution, if it is going to be passed at Geneva. This is a big challenge for our future.

The whole exercise seems to be ruining Tamils with the permission of Tamils. Even after the truth becoming explicit, Tamils cannot be aloof by handing over their polity to politicians. They should be awake at least at this juncture.

Mr. Gajan Ponnambalam is the leader of Tamil National People's Front (TNPF). The above is a translated summary of comments in Tamil to press conference on Saturday March 10. Courtesy TamilNet. 

“What is happening in Sri Lanka is a systematic genocide. It has been happening for the last 60 odd years. What happened in the last stages of the war was taking that genocidal project to its extreme.

“It has been three years since the war ended. There are several steps that are being taken currently that carry on the structural genocide of our people. What is happening in Sri Lanka ... is the dismantling of the existence of the Tamils as a distinct nation of people.

“That is what is happening and it is that what has to be investigated and our belief is that if there is any prospect of justice to be met, it can only happen through one international independent investigation.”

- Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, leader of Tamil National People's Front (TNPF), speaking to media on March 10, 2012.

See his comments in full below:

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“We have been to various countries like United State of America, Great Britain, Canada and South Africa, and we requested those countries that there must be an international investigation on the accountability, because [Sri Lanka’s] report does not have anything about the accountability as such.”

- Suresh Premachandran, senior parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance, speaking to media on March 10, 2012.

See more of his comments here and below: