Audio: Detention Camps and Hospitals Overflow with Victims of GOSL's Safe Zone Assault

Healthcare workers, including MSF, struggle to cope with 1000s of maimed and injured civilians following the Sri Lankan government's assault on the Safe Zone.

MSF Coordinator Lisbeth List working in Vavuniya Hospital in the securitized frontier Tamil town (where government Boer-style concentration camps are located) recounts the overwhelming casualty load inundating hospitals on a daily basis; they’re still bracing for the anticipated full scale assault on the Safe Zone.


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Opinion: Who’s Afraid of the Tamils? Qui a Peur Des Tamouls?

Who’s Afraid of the Tamils?

by Mark Bradley

Doctoral student

Religious Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal

Member of GRIMER and CRIDAQ*
Dear federal Ministers and MPs of Canada,

The time for hesitation is over. Immediate action is required. Over 100,000 Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka¹ are the victims of a humanitarian disaster that should not have occurred in the first place.²

For several months, the Sri Lankan government has run a campaign of indiscriminate bombardment and artillery fire against civilian targets like schools and hospitals in the Tamil community. Moreover, the Sri Lankan government has blocked humanitarian organizations from entering the combat zone to deliver aid to the non-combatant population. For over six months, the government has also impeded independent journalists, Sri Lankan and foreign alike, from reporting on the nightmare people in the north of what was formerly Ceylon³ are being forced to live through. Dozens of thousands of civilians are imprisoned in camps encircled by barbed wire⁴, undernourished, unprotected and uncared for.⁵
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Opinion: Hero or Villain, Velupillai Prabhakaran’s Revolution in Sri Lanka Draws to a Close

By Bruce Matthews

Bruce Matthews is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Religion at Acadia University, Nova Scotia. He was a member of the Independent International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP, under the Chairmanship of P.N.Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India), which worked in Sri Lanka for fourteen months as observers of a Presidential Commission on Human Rights Abuses. IIGEP resigned in April 2008, aware that its advice was ignored by both the Presidential Commission and the Government of Sri Lanka




Whatever else might be said about Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) founder Velupillai Prabhakaran (cold-blooded opportunist, mass assassin, megalomaniac – none of which is very helpful), for over three decades he has successfully fuelled a civil war in Sri Lanka with his unique blend of charisma and occasional strategic brilliance.
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News: Censorship in the World's Largest "Democracy"?

By Reza

Is India censoring news on Sri Lanka?

Sources in India say they are not able to access the following videos of Anita Pratap, CNN's former South Asia bureau chief.
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Video: Sri Lankan Civilians Escape Civil War

Civilians are fleeing in the tens of thousands from the "Safe Zone", in which thousands of civilians have been killed, many more wounded, hospitals bombed, and the latest reports indicate cluster bombs being used. Most of the fleeing civilians are escaping via land, crossing the lagoon by bridges or wading neck-high waters. Their numbers, their casualties, and their horrors are not fully reported. A small percentage are escaping to military-controlled "safety" elsewhere by sea. This is footage of one such group:



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Opinion: Food for thought

A succinct response to the often empty rhetoric from the mainstream media and commentators surrounding the Tamil protests.

This was found in the comments section for this article in the Ottawa Citizen.

Food for thought:

1. Labels are a political gimmick: Western governments followed South Africa's characterization of the ANC as a terrorist organization.


2. Claims do not equal justification: We do not ban a group for pioneering the atomic bomb. We do not ban a list of many nations with weapons on their flag.


3. Common practice does not equal right: Slavery was common and legal, until the minority stood up against the majority belief of the time.


4. No us and them: Almost everyone in North America can be considered an immigrant. Telling a group of people to take their problems elsewhere is pure arrogance.

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Opinion: Canada is our Home, too — Photos & Reactions from the Recent Protests (Part II)

You can view part I here: Canada is our Home, Too (Part I)

You can also view an earlier video photo essay of the Toronto protests here.

Reactions from Another Protester

By KG

Photos by Freelancer RJ

Both the Canadian media and the blogosphere are teeming with articles and comments from those who seem inclined to use Tamil Canadians as an example of the failure of Canada's multicultural experiment. Much of this has come in response to the protests in Ottawa and Toronto. Tamil Canadians have been accused of everything from being terrorists to thoughtlessly clogging up roadways in these two cities. These sentiments were unequivocally articulated in Raphael Alexander's recent comment piece in the National Post entitled "Tamils tie up Ottawa for days in support of Tiger terrorists".
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Opinion: Canada is our Home, too -- Photos & Reactions from the Recent Protests (Part I)

You can view Part II here

Reactions from One Protester:

By Anand Sri

Photos by Freelancer RJ.

Today, as many as 30,000 Tamil Canadians gathered at Parliament Hill in solidarity. They were speaking out against atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan government and calling for a permanent ceasefire in the teardrop isle (Sri Lanka). Prior to this, a fourteen day non-stop protest was ignored by the Canadian government. The government rationalizes this by claiming they will not speak to individuals carrying the national flag of Tamil Eelam although waving this flag is not against the law and is simply a demonstration of the right to freedom of expression.

Tamil Canadians put away their flags today in order to appease their government. Despite this gesture of loyalty to the government, Stephen Harper, as well as every other Parliamentarian (excluding NDP leader Jack Layton), still continued to ignore the pleas of Tamil Canadian citizens. The crowd continued to stand in unity and literally begged for someone to step out of Parliament Hill and offer at least some semblance of hope for peace in Sri Lanka; that moment never came. What did come about was the recognition that the entire Tamil Diaspora had been cheated by the Canadian government. Chants of "Canada, Help us!" turned into "Stephen Harper, Where are you?!". Some even began to fly the national flag of Tamil Eelam after realizing that they had been lied to. People left the protest feeling betrayed, shamed, and embarrassed by their own government.

The Canadian government preaches peace, yet they sit back in silence as thousands are slaughtered in Sri Lanka.
Do they expect us to give up and go home just because they lied to us and continue to ignore the truth??
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Slideshow: Trapped and Under Fire - Human Rights Watch

Click here to see Human Rights Watch's slideshow on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Sri Lanka:

http://www.hrw.org/en/features/sri-lanka-trapped-and-under-fire
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Opinion: Dialogue Isn't Just One Way - Questions We Should be Asking

By Abbi and Gogol G

http://www.urlzen.com/bnv

Clarifying Questions from a Friend

Here are some questions one of my friends asked me in order to better clarify what's going on:

* We have to be careful in how we frame our arguments...i.e. isn't it funny that in order to kill supposedly 200 remaining Tamil Tigers the government is killing 100 civilians a day?

* Why are we asking whether Tamils should be supporting the LTTE without also asking why they're supporting it in such large numbers?


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Opinion: Traffic, Bills, & Protests

By Abbi

In the comments to "See no Tigers", Macleans' Michael Petrou takes the Ottawa Citizen to task for photo cutlines that refer to the "alleged genocide" of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Below you will find posted comments by Michael Petrou and Drew Gragg (of the Ottawa Citizen). Our questions to both are below and follow their comments.

Drew Gragg:

Mike, I wasn’t at the protest, but I’ve reviewed the 15 pictures posted on our site. I have to conclude that to say virtually every protester waved a Tiger flag or wore a Tiger shirt is not accurate. References to the Tamil Tigers are in the third and fourth paragraphs in the print edition story. They appear in other places in the various online versions we posted.

Michael Petrou:

Hi Drew,

I was at the protest and stand by my description of it. Indeed, it’s possible to find at least one and usually many Tamil Tiger flags or banners or t-shirts in every one of the 15 photos you posted. Your stories do mention the Tamil Tigers in the context of the war in Sri Lanka but say nothing about support for the Tigers among the protesters. Finally, your photo cutlines refer to the “genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka” as if such an alleged genocide is an established fact. Is this really the Citizen’s position?

Best wishes,

Michael

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Review: Worldwide Daily Tamil Protests - Week 1

by Gogol G.

Protests' Spark - Allegations of Chemical Weapon Attacks Killing Hundreds

Tamils around the world have been protesting simultaneously. These protests have started spontaneously, in various places, the earliest starting on April 4. The reason for the intensity of these protests is because of the rumours of chemical weapons deployed heavily by the SL military. Allegations of the chemical weapons attacks have been supported by ground reports from people near the battlefield, and pictures released by the military itself of the hundreds of Tigers it widely announced it killed from April 3 - 4. (Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4 Pic 5 Pic 6 Pic 7 Pic 8 Pic 9 Pic 10 Pic 11 Pic 12 ). There are also questions why the SL military websites decided to blur the faces in some of the pictures, which they have never done before. I.e., what are they trying to hide? There seems to be no suggestion of wounds, let alone any unsightly. And meanwhile, other pictures from the same set are shown in their originals. (Blurred pics 1 Unblurred pics 1) While the link and/or content may be altered later, this SL govt. military webpage is one of many sources for pics. Reports say that the Sri Lankan military is using mustard gas, and the pictures above look similar to other examples of mustard gas victims.

Protests - Day 1, April 4, 2009

Sri Lanka: Suspicions arise after SL military claims hundreds of killings in one day. Many rumours of huge SL attack swirling.
Paris, France: Athirvu: More than 1000 Take Part in Enormous March (in Tamil) More than 1000 Tamil protesters marched towards the areas where France's Foreign Ministry is located.
Melbourne, Australia: Protests by Tamils, counter-protests by Sinhalese, Tamils attacked when driving past the Sinhalese protest (video)
Melbourne, Australia: Sinhalese mob attacks Tamil demonstrators in Melbourne, TamilNet

Protests - Day 2, April 5, 2009

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Video: The War Comes Home - Toronto's Tamils Reach Out

A photo essay by freelancer RJ.

On Friday, January 30th, 45 000 protesters descended upon Toronto's downtown core; hand in hand, the young leading the old, they formed a human chain, crying for justice. These photos span three protests -- January's human chain protest, February's vigil in front of the Sri Lankan consulate, and the February 27th protest at Dundas Square.
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Opinion: Arundhati Roy Speaks to BBC on Sri Lanka

BBC Interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7973000/7973601.stm

It looks as though we have something like 200,000 people who are either in a war zone or being held in concentration camps. There isn't medicine; there isn't food. And there's an army bombing them and there are tanks and soldiers, and so the situation sounds as though it could easily turn into genocide. - Arundhati Roy, BBC

You can also read her editorial on Sri Lanka in the Boston Globe here: http://tiny.cc/nuFmp

Now, the question remains. Where are the other writers?
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Report: Law and War or War and Law?

The District of Vavuniya in a State of Lawlessness - Situation Report (August 2008)

By Sujith Xavier, B.A., LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D. Candidate

Osgoode Hall Law School, York University







Introduction

A recent visit to Vavuniya district (Vavuniya town, Vavuniya south, Vavuniya north and Cheddikulam) reveals troubling evidence of gross human rights violations. It is clear that the context is dire. The journey began in the early morning and by the time we reached Medawachiya some 5 hours later, we were officially ‘searched’ by the Police and Home Guards (now known as the Civil Defence Force1), on four different instances. In Medawachchiya, we registered at the train station with Police Officers and Home Guards (as requested we provided our destination address and home address). They ‘searched’ through our possessions rigorously, not even an elderly woman with a child of 5 years of age was spared. As no other means of transport were available, all travelers on their way to Vavuniya were forced to take a three wheeler to the bus station from the Medawachchiya train station (at a cost of approximately 200 Sri Lankan Rupees). At the ‘bus stand’, Special Task Force (STF) personnel searched our belongings again; while being searched, we noticed the presence of two youths, in civilian clothing, assisting the STF to identify potential risks. These ‘youths’ according to some members of our team were members of the paramilitary groups operating in the region;
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Opinion: From M.I.A. to George Galloway - How the West Encourages Silence

by Gogol G.

Am I afraid to talk about Sri Lanka in public, to reveal my thoughts? To brave the logical dichotomy of "you're with us, or against us"?

Yes.

Do I feel afraid to speak out if I my perspective is more nuanced than strident Tiger-bashing?

Yes.

Cannot I defend the rights of Tamils who are living and dying as we speak, in the Tamil-speaking Northeast, and give a nuanced explanation that includes the fact that the LTTE exists and is very much a part of the equation?

No.

Why?

Let's take a look...


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