Tamil Sydney

UK (Britain) to get tough with war savvy Sri Lankan Government – News report

Full Text of TamilNet News Report:
Britain will be pressing Sri Lanka’s hardline government for greater access for senior UN officials and would join European allies in taking a stronger position against Colombo over human rights abuses. In a meeting with Tamil Diaspora representatives at the British Foreign Office on Monday, Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said he would personally be attending the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva next week to press the point. The government of President Rajapakse had “made political process secondary to military process,” the British Tamil Forum, a Diaspora advocacy group which attended the meeting, quoted the Minister as saying.

Popular Tamil Writer 'Sujatha'alias Rangarajan passed away today at the Apollo Hospitals here after brief illness.He was 72. He is survived by his wife and two sons.Sujatha, whose real name was S Rangarajan, was born in Triplicane in Chennai on May 03, 1935 but spent his childhood in Srirangam near Tiruchirapalli under the care of his paternal grandmother owing to his father's frequent transfers in his government job. Mr Rangarajan attended Srirangam Boys High School.

Eight innocent civilians riding in tractors were killed in two different Claymore attacks carried out by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Deep Penetration Unit teams that had infiltrated into Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) controlled areas on either sides of the A9 road, north of Vavuniyaa on Wednesday. The first attack, in which four civilians were killed, was reported at Panangkaamam in Moon'ru Mu'rippu GS area of Maanthai East division in Mullaiththeevu district at 1:50 p.m, TamilNet said.

*Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services* Results from a survey of the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) reveal the majority of respondents found their classes were enjoyable, improved their confidence to learn English and helped them to get used to Australian teaching. The results show a marked improvement in key areas from the survey conducted in 2000.
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Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations 2008

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, and the Minister for Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, today announced that Australia will host the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) in Canberra on 23 February 2008.United States Secretary of Defence, Dr Robert Gates, and Deputy Secretary of State, Ambassador John Negroponte, will lead the US delegation to AUSMIN. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and Commander US Pacific Command, Admiral Timothy Keating, will also attend.

The UN and NGOs working in the conflict-ridden north and east are warning of a mounting humanitarian toll in 2008 due to the escalation in hostilities between Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Agencies should be prepared to assist "up to 500,000 conflict-affected individuals comprising IDPs, returnees and economically affected persons", according to the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP) 2008, prepared by the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) country team for Sri Lanka and released on 22 February.

The Federal Administrative Court has tightened regulations on sending rejected asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka. It said it could no longer be taken for granted that Tamils from the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka can live peacefully in the region around the capital, Colombo.The decision follows a resurgence of violence between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels over the past two years.

Full text of the press release;
"United Nations Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) Angela Kane had a telephone discussion with Civil Monitoring Commission Convener and Western People Front leader Mano Ganesan MP immediately before she left the island. During the discussion Ms. Kane had expressed her regrets for not being able to meet Mano Ganesan for discussions and requested Ganesan send her a situation report.

Melbourne : Kamban Kalazham Australia presents - Valakkaadu Mandram - 02nd March 2008
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Tamil victims in Sri Lanka - Satheesh Thadchanamoorthy,The Washington Times

Sri Lankan Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke cites a few Sri Lankan court cases to create the illusion that justice prevails in Sri Lanka ("Tamil homeland fantasy," Commentary, Sunday). Noticeably, cases like that of Kirishanthy Kumarasamy are absent from Mr. Goonetilleke's list. Kirishanthy was an 11th-grade Tamil schoolgirl who was abducted by the Sri Lankan State Army, gang-raped and buried in one of the many Tamil mass graves. Kirishanthy's mother, brother and a neighbor who subsequently went looking for Kirishanthy also ended up in mass graves.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) unequivocally condemns actions by senior Sri Lankan police to intimidate, abuse and humiliate journalists who report in the public interest.The Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, reports that a senior police officer, Inspector Mahesh Perera, abused and assaulted Sugath Dharmapriya, a news producer of Derana TV, who was reporting from the scene of a bomb blast in Colombo on February 23.

Mano Ganesan, Leader of Western People’s Front (WPF) Convener of Civil Monitoring Commission (CMC), in a press release issued Saturday, said that "[T]he Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has very clearly contravened the accepted norms, rules and regulations in conducting this arrest [of two tamils] let alone the civility and decency. They have failed to inform the police of the area where the ‘arrested’ persons were living at the time of ‘arrest,' and questioned whether the arrests were "deliberately done on purpose to put fear into the minds of Tamil Citizens."

by Izeth Hussain
A mob of citizens clamouring for injustice – Horace translated by James Michie.
The main focus of this article is on the external aspect of the Rama Mani case, more specifically on the damage that it can do to our foreign relations. But it is relevant for my purposes to begin with a brief observation on its internal aspect. Reportedly Ms Mani had received a letter dismissing her with immediate effect from the post of Director at the ICES.

Hoisting of the Flag : 12th March 2008 Poongaavanam: 22nd March 2008
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Genocide : 8 Tamil civilians including 6 month infant killed in Sri Lankan Air Force indiscriminate

Eight civilians including a 6-month-old infant, a 4-year-old boy, their mother, a 8-year-old girl and an English teacher were killed, 14 including four children and another teacher were wounded in a Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) aerial bombardment of a civilian settlement at Kiraagnchi in the Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi district Friday at 8:10 a.m. Three houses were fully destroyed and many houses have sustained damage in the indiscriminate aerial bombardment in which more than 20 bombs were dropped by four bombers. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan ministry of defence in Colombo claimed that the SLAF had attacked "an inland sea tiger base" at Kiraagnchi.

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