Posted June 6 2009

“Hindu Spiritual Centre India – A Partner in Sri Lanka’s Crimes against Humanity”

The Universe works in mysterious ways.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who once held so much power, lost pretty much everything. A few fundamental mistakes and a world order that doesn’t seem to approve freedom struggles saw to the collapse of that movement with a just liberation cause.

Meanwhile, many Sinhalese Sri Lankans are celebrating victory without knowing that their path to victory is scattered with bodies of thousands of innocent men, women and children – That their path to victory leads to camps imprisoning the wounded and children; where families are separated and countless atrocities happen freely.

While China and Pakistan made inroads into Sri Lanka by supplying all kinds of nasty weapons, it is mind boggling to the average Hindu that India did the same thing – against a majority Hindu community. The nation that many Tamils regard as their spiritual centre went against Dharma itself – and kept quiet while thousands of people were being massacred in war that was paraded as a “war on terror”. India with so much blood and dirt in its hands continues to watch the human suffering with half closed guilty eyes that refuse to acknowledge the guilt.

Worse to come, India joined a list of Human Rights Abusers and voted for a disgraceful UN resolution in which Sri Lanka congratulates itself. In doing so, India has not only disprove itself as a regional superpower but truly lost its place in History.

India, whose national flag carries the Dharma Chakra (Wheel of Dharma), will never be the same again.

Meanwhile, the Wheel of Dharma continues to turn.

 Posted MAY 19, 2009

“Prabhakaran”

The last few months have been one of the most painful in many Tamils lives while we watched the Tamil fighters wage a battle against waves of advancing Sinhalese troops with thousands of civilians caught up in “safe zone” – that proved to be hell on earth.  

The Sinhalese army was backed by superpowers. It had sophisticated weapons, fighter jets, unmanned vehicles that could spy from the sky. It destroyed anything on its way. It mercilessly targeted civilians and hospitals.  It used cluster bombs, white phosphorous and even chemical weapons which local termed as “gas bombs”. Its soldiers wore life saving protective gear. The Tamil “podiyal and pottaikal” fought with just guns, in their “bata” slippers, increasingly starving and without medicine for their wounded.

One thing they proved was they would rather die than give up on their cause. Their leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran is one Tamil who never “sold himself”.

His single minded determination was the movement’s strength. Or weakness (??), as the International community abandoned him and his fighters. Prabhakaran’s leadership is an unforgettable chapter in Eelam history. He build a conventional army with ground, sea and air units. He envisioned and built a society that went beyond traditional sex, caste, class barriers and was engrained with environmentally friendly values. Many children would remember tiger cadres advocating “tree planting” and distributing tree saplings. Under Prabhakaran’s leadership, most of the Tamils of Eelam felt great strength and hope.

 ”Ulakattamilarai uyaravaittavan Prabhakarane…””Ulakattamilarai ujaravaittavan Prabhakarane…”

Posted March 19th 2009

“Sri Lanka days away from another Srebrenica”

 UNICEF’s Executive Director Ann M. Veneman has spoken out on the situation in Sri Lanka. “Hundreds of children have been killed and many more injured as a result of the conflict in Sri Lanka. Thousands are now at risk because of a critical lack of food, water and medicines,” she said (http://www.unicef.org.uk/press/news_detail_full_story.asp?news_id=1288)

 UN Documents show 2,683 Civilian Killings from 20 January 2009 to 7 March 2009 alone – An astonishing 60 deaths a day (http://www.innercitypress.com/unsri1lanka031809.html). There could be more undocumented.
 
CARE International says worker killed in “no fire zone”, died due to unavailability of medicine (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/19/asia/AS-Sri-Lanka-Civil-War.php) – “We are deeply shocked and saddened by the news of the loss of our friend and colleague Sabesan,” Nick Osborne, CARE International Sri Lanka country director, said in a statement”. Sabesan, 24, was hit by a shell on Tuesday and later died because there was no medical care.
 
The Sri Lankan Armed Forces are estimated to be 10 kms away from the trapped 250,000 Tamil civilians. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces have a track record of massacres and other human rights violations such as ongoing disappearances and torture carried out with IMPUNITY against the Tamil population.
 
 
How are we going to prevent another Srebrenica - a genocide where armed forces killed 8000 Bosnian men and boys in an eerily similar situation and inside a “safe zone”?

Janani Barathy

Posted March 7th 2009

“This little fellow”

 photo credit – Tamilnet

While my 3 year old son gets to eat chocolate cake, this little fellow holds his bowl of “kanchi” carefully.

While my little one zooms around the house with a toy plane, this little fellow has to live to the sounds and terror of daily shell attacks.

While my little one indignantly covers his ears at the loudness of his sister’s shouts, this little fellow has to run to the roar of Kfir jets.

What are we doing?

66 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu

1 million Eelam Tamil Diaspora…

What are we doing?

Posted Feb 25, 2009

“Sonia…Mafia”

 photo credit :

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/2946671850/

 I have been reflecting back on the 2nd Canberra rally…

Right now, I am really mad at Sonia Gandhi (born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino). She could have prevented the deaths of the 2000 Tamils in the last 2 months. She could have saved hundeds of children from death, horrific injuries and trauma. She could have, at least, not helped Sri Lanka.

Instead she seeks revenge. She sends money and military aid to the genocidal Sri Lankan regime. Doesn’t she realise that her husband was responsible for the death of hundreds of Tamils during the IPKF times (and many other atrocities) and there is some justice behind his killing?

The Indian Embassy in Canberra was cold hearted in the face of the banners that were showing images of traumatised, dead and wounded Tamil children.

There is justification to the slogan that some in the frustrated crowd shouted, as we marched away from the Indian Embassy with a sick feeing:

“Sonia….” “Mafia…”

“Sonia….” “Mafia…”

“Sonia….” “Mafia…”

Janani Barathy

I am going to be working more on Tamilthinkers blog -> www.tamilthinkers.com

Hence this blog may go dormant for a little while…

***

(part from an email that I sent after attending another rally in Canberra)

Dear friends,
 
The rally in Canberra went well like the last one. There’s always the core 1000-2000 folks who always come but I think there might have been about 4000 today. The people from Melbourne had a long drive starting at midnight!
 
- Information and a photo package was given to the Embassies.
- The German, Norwegian and US embassies went out of their way to be courteous to us and talked to us and listened for a long time. The representatives acknowledged that there were widespread killings of civilians. The US embassy was the best.
- The Indian embassy, on the other hand, just said that they will pass the message! The Japanese embassy talked to the reps of TYO, standing behind the closed gates!!!!
- Later, TYO reps stayed behind to talk to the UN representatives.
 
- An interesting thing that happened was Sri Lanka sent a little plane with the message “Save Sri Lanka from Tamil Tigers”. The plane was doing many rounds above us and the crowd got a bit unsettled at that point!

Imagine our people back home who are continuously bombed, who have no democratic means of expressing themselves….How lucky are we that we can shout and protest???

***

Right now, I am really mad at Sonia Gandhi (born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino). She could have prevented the deaths of the 2000 Tamils in the last 2 months. She could have saved hundeds of children from death, horrific injuries and trauma. She could have, at least, not helped Sri Lanka.

Instead she seeks revenge. She sends moneny and military aid to the genocidal Sri Lankan Regime.

Doesn’t she realise that her husband was responsible for the death of thousands of Tamils during the IPKF time and there is some justice behind his killing?

The Indian Embassy was cold hearted in the face of the banners that were showing images of traumatised, dead and wounded Tamil children. There is justification to the slogan that some in the frustrated crowd shouted, as we marched away from the Indian Embassy with a sick feeing…

 ”Sonia….” “Mafia…”

 ”Sonia….” “Mafia…”

 ”Sonia….” “Mafia…”

Albums/pictures

Sri Lanka’s Atrocities - click here to see pictures. warning – viewer discretion advised

Swedish Tamil Forum site - click here to see pictures. warning – viewer discretion advised

The desperation of a father?

Who is he?

What hopes does he have for his child, surrounded by death?

What choices does he have?

This side:  he his with his people, but living with unrelenting shell attacks and Kfir attacks…no medicine…no proper shelter…

That side: detention camps, disappearances, separation of families…

Reporters without Borders says that the killing of Tamil journalist Punniyamurthy Sathyamurthy in a bombardment amounts to a “war crime”.
 
Mr. Mangala Samaraweera, former foreign minister of Sri Lanka, in an interview with journalist Peter Foster, says “The killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge, along with the claymore bomb attack on MTV [a private Sri Lankan TV station] 48 hours prior to it, are a part of a systematic campaign to destabilise democratic institutions and to intimidate/silence and eliminate dissenting voices in Sri Lanka by supporters of the Rajapakse administration. Although there isn’t any concrete evidence so far, it is an open secret that extra judicial death squads have been operating with impunity since 2006″
 
 
Meanwhile, TamilNet has released pictures of victims of Napalm like fireballl attacks by the Sri Lankan Army/Air force -

Warning: unedited photos 
 

And, as an ultimate act of cruelty, the Sri Lankan Regime has ordered ALL medical staff out of the conflict zone – as reported by BBC Sinhala Service
In this case, what will happen to the wounded among the 200,000 -300,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone?
Tamil Sources say that many among the trapped civilians are afraid to come out due to the “detention camps”, disappearances, other serious abuses and human rights violations taking place in the Government controlled areas of Vavuniya – where there is no UN, Media presence.

***

Email to Media – one of many that I send daily.  Activities like these is my full time job now…who would have thought it’ll come this? I feel very sad and outraged about what’s happening to my people

Dear Media, NGOs
 
When Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) reported about the seperation of families in the govermnet controlled Vanni areas, it rarely got reported.http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=3403&cat=field-news&ref=tag-index
 
When Australia’s Save the Children reported that children are in detention camps – some without even parents, it rarely got reported.
http://www.alertnet.org/thepeople/members/109161617235.htm
 
When a democratically elected Tamil MP warned about atrocities such as disappearances and sexual abuse of detained civilians, it rarely got reported.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28413
 
Even when,
UNICEF reported about the killing and maiming of children in the ongoing fighting and LTTE’s history of child soldiers, most media gave prominence to the child soldier issue completely ignoring the atrocities that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces are indulging in.
 
Ok. Let’s tackle the issue head on,
 
Do Tamils regard LTTE as their sole representative?
yes, many do.
 
Do the LTTE have child soldiers?
Of course they do. Even LTTE political head says that “LTTE has always been favourably responding to the international concerns in desisting from child-recruitment”, without denying it.
 
Do we, Australian Tamils, care about the child soldier issue?
Of course we do. This is our people.
 
But we feel that many in the Western Media fail to understand the options available for many (if not all) Tamil teenagers in the war torn and impoverished North East
 
If teenagers can be raped or tortured, imprisoned or killed, aren’t they better off being “child soldiers”?
 
Check out the Amnesty International Archive for story of 14 year old Thangiah Vijayalalitha  – raped by 10 Navy personnel and imprisoned to this very day without trial
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA370012002?open&of=ENG-2S4
 
If a teenager has seen his/her family member massacred before his/her own eyes, couldn’t that explain why that teenager/child might eventually become a “child soldier”????
 
Check out the latest pictures – Feb 2009
http://picasaweb.google.com/tamilnational
 
Now having said all that and being a mother of two children, I do find the child soldiers issue abhorrent, but I am also lost at finding safe alternatives for Tamil teenagers presently caught in the conflict zone. They are not at all safe in the hands of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces  – this is the terrible reality. Children as young as few months old are getting killed and maimed in this genocidal campaign by the Sri Lankan regime. Ample evidence in the link – http://picasaweb.google.com/tamilnational
 
Please do not lose sight of the fact that the Sri Lankan Army recruited 17 year olds and the EPDP and TVMP paramilitaries carried on with forced conscription with the full blessing of this murderous Sri Lankan Regime.
 
True, The LTTE should be called upon to correct its record, but frankly right now…SAVE OUR CHILDREN from this genocidal war. Entire families are being killed in relentless artillery shells attacks. Even today, names have been released. And the pictures makes one cry…….
http://www.tamilsydney.com/content/view/1873/37/

***

Dear Media,
 
I urge you report on the unfolding tragedy…. There is no point “discovering” this genocide after thousands have died.
 
The links have pictures in them. I am familliar with these areas. These are remote village settings with many treess, jungle hideouts.
Hence there is NO one mass death scene.
 
Breaking news : Massive air attack on fleeing civilians, more than 100 feared killed
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28451
 
SLA artillery fire hits new ‘safety zone’, 108 killed, 200 wounded
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28449
 
260 killed, SLA shells and boxes civilians, preventing movement to safer areas
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28439

***

Dear Tamil Diaspora,
 
While our traumatised people flee the relentless artillery barrage and the blood of Tamil children continue to spill on the soil of Vanni, Sun TV continues to give minimal coverage on the genocide of Tamils.
 
When a martyr like Muthukumar gives his life for the cause of our people, and the entire Tamil Nadu is agitating for our brethren, Sun TV continues to present superficial news.
 
I call on viewers to unsubscribe SunTV until it changes its coverage and presents the truth.
 
We’ll have to fight this battle on many fronts. We live in a world of consumerism and marketing. We live in the Information Age. Let’s take our freedom struggle to a new level and do our part by fighting with every democratic method that is available to us. This is just one step.

“Siru thuli peru vellam”
 
Thank you,
Janani Barathy

I am posting this for those who still say ”civilian casualties? what civilian casualties? Sri Lankan Army is only killing LTTE”

Are they all LTTE cadres?

Warning – Disturbing images of the dead and wounded Tamils

Videos from the frontlines are not available, amidst reports that dead civilians are buried (along with their belongings in plastic bags) by fellow civilians

The below vidoe (posted by TamilSydney) is the latest one.  Looks like it is from a “relatively ok” pocket of the LTTE controlled area,  away from the frontlines. Still terrible though…

Sri Lankan Cluster Bomb attack on PTK Hospital 07th Feb 2009 (below)

bomb attack – warning (must be 18 years or older)

Cluster bomb attack on TAMILS by Sri Lankan Air Force  - rather long video

Images of children killed (not too grusome) and an unexploded Cluster bomb – older video but an important one (below)

Skynews – Use of cluster bombs in Sri Lanka as confirmed by UN staff on ground - A good summary, as of Feb 4th 2009 (below)

While dead LTTE fighters are commemorated in the “Great martyrs”/Maveerar day and to this day around 20,000 names has been published by Tigers, the Sri Lankan army causalities often gets hushed up.

While the Tigers voluntarily join and die for the cause, the Sinhalese soldiers join the Army mainly due to the pay check to sustain poor rural families – though I recognise the fact that some of them also ardently believe in the  “We are Aryans and a lion race” rhetoric-  based on the mythical historical Mahavamsa that has caused this bloodbath on the first place.

Having experienced the war first hand, the horrible attacks on hospitals and civilian targets in the Vanni region indicate to me a very high number of causalities in the Army.

What deal are they (soldiers and their families) going to get from Rajapakse? Already we are seeing demonstrations in Colombo where parents of missing soldiers want to know the fate of their sons given the lavish celebrations in the south of  “the sweeping and victorious military campaign”.

The Government has brainwashed the South for 3 decades – censoring news of massacres and bombardments carried out in Tamil areas. Will their censorship of Army casualties and the raw deal handed out to the Army trigger the military rise against the Government?

The “democratically elected” governments for 3 decades have been unable to deliver peace since they never got the 2/3 majority that they needed to pass a resolution – that’s always been their excuse. Rajapakse has the support but is bent on a genocidal military campaign.

So, my friend asked “Given this deadlock, could a military government be good for the Tamils on the long run especially wrt international implications? What do we have to lose? Our areas are already under military control; there is no press freedom and for that matter, no respect for basic human rights and human dignity?”

Feb 9^th 2009 – 11.15pm

Once, Now

Once, when I was a child, I ran away from a firing helicopter.

I never really figured out where or at what the helicopter was firing

But terrified by that unbelievably close hovering monster,

I could only think of the bullets creating deep wounds in my skin

So I ran and ran and ran – aimlessly along the road

Coming to think of it, it was not the smartest thing to do

I should have just taken shelter under a concrete structure

Maybe someone’s verandah?

But I was 12 years old and that was my first encounter

with a firing helicopter.

Now, I wonder how your children are coping with mortar shells, artillery shells, Kfir jets and cluster bombs?

Once, I got really scared when the Army rounded up my village.

They took away some of the youth

I was very grateful to God that I was a child,

and so was my little brother.

How shortsighted I was – didn’t I realise

that all children grow up and eventually become youth!

Now, I wonder how you and your children are feeling, surrounded by 50,000 Sri Lankan “Army kaarar”?

Once, I got unbelievably helpless and angry, when the EPDP paramilitary took away my 13 year old brother – forced conscription!

Hey, we managed to get him out

But that day, I thought I’ll never see him again

That day, I half died

Now, I wonder how you and your little ones are feeling when the Sri Lankan Army “screens” and separates brothers and sisters, daughters and sons?

Once, A tank turned and pointed its gun straight at me.

They were just practicing

But I instinctively ducked

That was at Navatkuli SL Army camp and I was inside the school bus,

waiting to get down and walk the 50 yards to the “check point”.

- one of our daily rituals back and forth to school

Now, I wonder how you are feeling when tanks after tanks are rolling in?

Once, I was in a refugee camp, and it was that time of the month.

One well was serving 5000 people

Luckily, I was there only for 3 days

Later we were herded and put in lorry

by not-so-polite SL Army soldiers

Looking back, I am so glad that my indignant proud father kept his cool

I am so glad that we were rich enough to catch a train to Colombo

Now, I wonder how you are coping being displaced multiple times, and for many months?

And I also wonder how it feels like to be in detention camps indefinitely…

Once, I fled my homeland for good, amidst aching grief

Tears were blurring the receding palmyras

In the Pooneryn Jetty, I slowly came to realise

that I was leaving my homeland for a long time to come

Then there were flare lights, and guess what? A helicopter came.

Not a good feeling when you are in a boat in deep waters!

But these things have to be faced when you are fleeing to a safe place.

Now, I wonder what it feels like for you, to have nowhere – absolutely nowhere – safe to go?