99.4 percent vote for Tamil Eelam in Australia

99.4 percent of those who cast votes in the Tamil referendum across Australia last weekend said “yes” to the formation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the contiguous north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. The results were announced Thursday at a press conference held at NSW State Parliament in front of state and national media. 8,272 out of the registered, numbering around 10,000, participated in the polls. The number of eligible Eezham Tamil voters in Australia is estimated to be around 15,000. The formation of Tamil Eelam was assented by 8,154. The negative votes were 51 and 67 were invalid.




CPI Strategic, an independent body engaged by event organisers to coordinate and process the ballot, announced the results.

The results of the referendum, the first in the eastern hemisphere, is being touted by Diaspora circles as evidence for the aspiration of Tamil Eelam in the diaspora across major parts of the world.


Members of the national press and human rights activists were addressed by a panel consisting of Greens Senator Ian Cohen, who launched the event alongside TRCA representative Dr Gowri Palan, Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) national spokesperson Sam Pari and CPI Strategic spokesperson Steven Newnham , who announced the results at 2:30 p.m. AEST.

“The Tamil referendum employed a far more rigorous process then AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) elections, and we are very confident that the numbers are an accurate indication of voter opinion” said Newnham, citing the need for all voters to provide photographic I.D before casting their vote as opposed to a standard voters list used in Australian political elections.

Dr Sam Pari, national spokesperson for the Australian Tamil Congress told reporters that the result of the mandate and overwhelming support for Tamil independence merely “backs what has been seen as the general consensus for the many decades”.

“If a similar procedure was to be held on the island of Sri Lanka without voters fearing intimidation, we believe the same trend shown in these results and in similar referendums held across the world, would be evident” she said, before again calling upon the U.N to facilitate a similar referendum in Northern and Eastern provinces of the island of Sri Lanka to assess the will of the people and their political aspirations.

TRCA Spokesperson Dr Gowri Palan, citing the fact that over 200,000 “yes” votes had been registered in similar referendums across the globe, said the results were a clear indication of the Diasporas desires held under a transparent and democratic framework.

Representatives from the ATC and TRCA also highlighted the inaction of successive Australian Governments throughout the armed conflict and the current administrations’ decision to refuse asylum to Tamil refugees as reaffirming the importance of the Diaspora voicing its opinion in a transparent and unquestionable manner as embodied by the voting process.

"These results show that the Australian Government failed in its responsibility to listen to its citizens by refusing to condemn its Sri Lankan counterparts, despite vociferous protests from Tamils across the country," said TRCA spokesperson Adrian Francis.

“The inhumane policies taken up by the federal government in dealing with the issue of Tamil refugees, after years of ignoring their plight in their homeland illustrates the need for a paradigm shift within the political landscape, and we hope this referendum can kick start the process” he continued.

British Tamils must pick candidate, not party

With Britain’s general election less than two weeks away, campaigning is in full swing. In an election that is too close to call and with many constituencies where British Tamils' vote can be decisive, the vital question facing expatriate Tamils is where best to place their votes? "As British Tamils, we have in this country, every opportunity to make our voices heard. By participating with enthusiasm in the forthcoming general elections British Tamils can work towards a just and stable future for Tamils in Sri Lanka," argues TamilNet political commentator in UK.



Leaders of British Parties: Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats), David Cameron (Conservative) and Gordon Brown (Labor)The commentator further writes:

The simple answer is that Tamils should pick the candidate in each constituency who is the best on the Tamil issue. In the absence of a clear policy position from any of the three main parties, Tamils should not make their decision on the basis of party platforms.

Voting by candidate rather than party also makes the most sense given that none of the parties is assured a strong majority in the next parliament. Opting for the best candidate on the Tamil issue can ensure that there is a strong cross party voice for Tamils in the next parliament.

At the official policy level there is very little to choose between the three parties. However, the governing party for the past thirteen years, the Labour party, has of course the most to answer for. Since Labour came to power in 1997 British policy towards Sri Lanka has steadfastly backed the Sri Lankan state despite the visible cost to the Tamils.

The Labour government enthusiastically supported President Chandrika Kumaratunga's disastrous 'war for peace', proscribed the LTTE while the Norwegians were exploring peace, and also lobbied strongly for EU proscription of the LTTE while the peace process was ongoing.

Britain also led international efforts to give President Mahinda Rajapakse the green light to resume the war in 2006 and stood idly by while Sri Lanka massacred Tamils in Vanni and the East, including using British-supplied armaments.

Both Prime Minister Tony Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, held well publicized meetings with President Rajapakse, even as human rights abuses spiralled.

Finally, when the slaughter in the Vanni reached a crescendo in the early months of 2009 the UK government did not make an unequivocal statement – in contrast to the United States. Not even when tens of thousands of Tamils demonstrated in front of parliament.

Those protests did, however, open a new era of interaction between British Tamils and the UK’s political parties and state.

Although there is now a growing engagement on the Tamil question by the Labour party this cannot readily compensate for the wreckage of the past thirteen years.

There is therefore no longer a question of a block Tamil vote. However, the Tamils do have strong friends in the Labour party and they should be supported as a means of urgently addressing Labour's utterly discredited Sri Lanka policy.

As the main UK opposition party the Conservatives have not fared much better. Although they cannot be held directly responsible for the disasters of British policy they have also failed to oppose Labour's position on Sri Lanka in any serious way.

If anything, the Conservatives have been even more insistent in viewing Sri Lanka purely through the anti terror framework and have, therefore, until recently, been utterly insensitive to the issue of Sri Lanka’s structural genocide.

The recent progress in engagement between the Conservative party and Tamils should be encouraged, and Tamils should give every support to those Tory candidates who have taken a principled position on the Tamil issue – just as they should support those Labour candidates with a clear stance on the same.

The Liberal Democrats have traditionally been more outspoken against Sri Lanka’s violence against the Tamils. There are a number of Lib Dem MPs who have taken clear and consistent positions on the Tamil issue who also deserve the Tamils' ongoing support and encouragement. However, the Liberal Democrats can do more, a clear commitment in favour of Tamils’ self determination. Such a position is in keeping with the larger Liberal Democrat ethos.

As the campaign heats up, many candidates in areas with a significant number of Tamil electorate are directly canvassing Tamil voters. In locations where the Tamil vote can make a real difference, Tamils ought to vote for the candidate who has the best record on the Tamil issue, irrespective of party.

Tamils should support candidates who will be effective voices on the Tamil issue not just in parliament but also within their own parties. Those candidates who have worked hard to lobby their own party leaderships in support of the Tamil issue should especially be supported.

Conversely, those candidates who have been associated with the anti-Tamil polices of the UK government in the past thirteen years should not be able to call upon Tamil support. This applies especially to those who served as ministers and thus actively supported Sri Lanka.

The most important thing however is that British Tamils' participation in British politics continues its upward trajectory. Whatever the outcome of the election and whichever candidates wins in any particular constituency, if British Tamils participate in large numbers that alone will take the Tamil issue forward in the coming years.

As British Tamils, we have in this country, every opportunity to make our voices heard. In contrast to the situation faced by our people in Sri Lanka, we can freely participate in the electoral process, make our opinions known, vote in full confidence of a rigorous and fair electoral mechanism, lobby our representatives and canvass support for the Tamil cause without fear of intimidation and oppression.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka have no such luxury and as the results of the last parliamentary elections on the island shows most Tamils have lost faith in the democratic process. In Britain the reverse is true: Tamils are engaging in democratic processes as never before, as exemplified by the massive turnout for Jan Jananayagam's electoral campaign and the Vaddukoddai referendum.

By participating with enthusiasm in the forthcoming general elections British Tamils can work towards a just and stable future for Tamils in Sri Lanka. By voting here, now and in the coming years, we will make a difference over there.

Tamils From Ireland

TamilNet.Com

India had larger plans when it backed genocidal Colombo in the UN Human Rights Council. India is now embarked upon a greater genocidal war against its own tribal nations, picking up the footsteps of Colombo, making use of its partnership experience in crushing Eezham Tamils, exploiting the impotency of international community and encouraged by the electoral endorsement from Tamil Nadu. The precarious dimensions of the ongoing war in Central India, vividly brought out by Arundhati Roy in Outlook India this week, need careful study by all Eezham Tamils to device apt political moves for them and for the benefit of entire humanity. The IC, Tamils in India and progressive Sinhalese have to realise that acknowledging Eezham Tamil independence is a test case in reconstructing State outlook that is messing up life in entire South Asia and in achieving wider solidarity of peoples in the region.

One of the grievances of Eezham Tamils at the height of war was about information sabotage in the Age of Information – how successfully the powers managed a war without witnesses, twisted the cause and came out with lies. Some Indian Ministers went on record on this ‘achievement.’

One of them, P. Chidambaram as home minister now, is commandeering a war in similar lines against the long-oppressed tribal nations of his own country and the world as usual is not caring in the name of state sovereignty.

In a setting where the Indian Establishment used Sikhs and Gurkhas to fight a war against Eezham Tamils in 1987, used Kerala diplomats to sabotage the Tamil cause and uses Tamil soldiers to fight Kashmiris and Assamese in the frontiers, it is not surprising that the Eezham Tamils and their diaspora is not paying enough attention to understand what is going on in Dandakaranya in Central India. This is the success of the Establishment ‘for the corporates, by the corporates, of the corporates,’ in the name of democracy.

Sections of Eezham Tamils may think that they are not tribals and the Indian Establishment will treat them differently by taking them as partners. So why jeopardize the Establishment by showing solidarity to the oppressed others? There are some who harp only on Tamil Nadu and don’t extend their vision beyond. There are also sections that believe sooner or later India will be forced to recognize Tamil Eelam due to China’s inroads into the Island. Some envisage that India will ‘empower’ them by giving fresh ‘training.’

All of them have to carefully read what Arundhati Roy portrays in Dawn / Outlook India this week to realise that nothing is more important than Eezham Tamils evolving their own independent polity with wider and progressive outlook, to meet any unfolding eventuality.

Excerpts of the article "Walking With The Comrades" by Arundhati Roy appeared in Dawn and Outlook India this week follow:

The deadly war that is unfolding in the jungle is a war that the Government of India is both proud and shy of. Operation Green Hunt has been proclaimed as well as denied. P. Chidambaram, India’s home minister (and CEO of the war), says it does not exist, that it’s a media creation. And yet substantial funds have been allocated to it and tens of thousands of troops are being mobilised for it. Though the theatre of war is in the jungles of Central India, it will have serious consequences for us all.

On one side is a massive paramilitary force armed with the money, the firepower, the media, and the hubris of an emerging Superpower. On the other, ordinary villagers armed with traditional weapons, backed by a superbly organised, hugely motivated Maoist guerrilla fighting force with an extraordinary and violent history of armed rebellion.

Each time, it seemed as though the Maoists (or their previous avatars) had been not just defeated, but literally, physically exterminated. Each time, they have re-emerged, more organised, more determined and more influential than ever. Today once again the insurrection has spread through the mineral-rich forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal—homeland to millions of India’s tribal people, dreamland to the corporate world.

The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land.

Over the past five years or so, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have signed hundreds of MoUs with corporate houses, worth several billion dollars, all of them secret, for steel plants, sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminium refineries, dams and mines. In order for the MoUs to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved.

Therefore, this war.

Tamils From Ireland - Facebook

The panel of experts being set up by the United Nations as part of an accountability process following the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka will not infringe on the country’s sovereignty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday. Mr. Ban told journalists that the establishment of the panel is in line with a joint statement he issued with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to the country last May after Government forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to UN News Centre press release Tuesday

Irish Tamil Forum

Rasaratham Suresh, a Tamil from Jaffna in Sri Lanka travelled a long way from his home town to a country he had hardly heard about before. His story illustrates how a mixture of political turmoil and economic hardship drives people from their home countries. It also shows how travel destinations unexpectedly change.

Interview by Jakub Boratynski

On a chilly February morning, the refugee reception centre in Debak near Warsaw is nearly empty. The day before, a large group of Somalis was moved to another centre in southern Poland. That's why Rasaratham Suresh does not have too many customers in the canteen where he sells cigarettes, candies and beer so we sit at an old wooden table and talk.

Last autumn, the 31-year-old Tamil arrived in a country he had hardly heard of before. Coming from a well-off middle class family in Jaffna, Rasaratham earned a degree in electronic engineering from the University of Colombo. He later married Kalevani, his high school sweetheart, who teaches the traditional Indian dance Bharatha Natiyam. Rasaratham says he never wished for anything extraordinary, just a simple, peaceful existence and a happy family life. He took seriously what his father, a former political activist, used to tell him: "Tamils do not have it easy. So study hard and find a good job." But it did not quite work out that way.

"Problems started when I was looking for my first job," he recalls now. "Any employer who realized that I was a Tamil no longer wanted to talk to me. Any young Tamil like me was automatically suspected of being a member of the Tamil Tigers" – the army of the separatist movement in northern Sri Lanka.

Rasaratham, like many Sri Lankans of his generation, eventually found a job in one of the Persian Gulf countries. But he returned home after he received more and more worrying news about the safety of his family in Jaffna. In October 1991, his house was bombed. Kalevani survived by chance because she had gone to the kitchen just before the blast. "Before that incident we had problems but we could still stay in our house," Rasaratham said. "When that was destroyed and we lost everything, I really felt like a refugee." After that, as the frontlines continually shifted, so the Rasarathams were constantly forced to move from one place to another in search of safety.

In June 1994, during a routine police check in Colombo, Rasaratham was arrested and held for two weeks. He was released after his family paid the equivalent of $1,000, only to be arrested again in similar circumstances in August 1995. He says as a young Tamil, he was doomed to have problems either with the government or with the Tigers who tried to recruit young Tamils. "I neither wanted to work for the government nor was I keen on fighting for the Tigers," he says.

"My little daughter had a serious hearing problem as a result of the shelling. I was really afraid for her," he said. It finally made him decide to get out of Sri Lanka. This cost him $20,000, practically all the savings his brother had made while working in a restaurant in the mountain resort of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The money went to a smuggler in Colombo who euphemistically called himself a 'travel agent.'

Everything then happened very quickly. He recalls taking a taxi to the airport, where he showed his brand new passport and ticket. "The 'travel agent' had told me that everything was O.K. and I shouldn't worry," Rasaratham laughs sarcastically, "I really was not worried at that point. I thought that the $20,000 would get me to Zurich." To his astonishment the signs at the airport where he and his family landed read MOSCOW. In the arrival area, they were approached by a Russian who spoke little English but nevertheless collected the 'balance' of the money owed the so-called travel agent.

They spent five days in total isolation in a house on the outskirts of Moscow before being bundled into a car for 36 hours and finally dumped at another large house already full of Sri Lankans, Indians and Bangladeshis. "We were crammed into this house like sardines in a tin can," he says. "A guy brought us some water and biscuits. The 'Made in Poland' label on the packet of biscuits told me where I actually was."

Rasaratham was finally taken by the Polish police to a reception centre in the town of Debak where he "spent the first three months just sleeping and eating. It was very depressing." Eventually one of the centre's social workers, Mrs. Ania, asked him to run the canteen where he now earns 200 zloty ($70) per month and escapes the boredom just a little. His wife and daughter Anushika have joined him and life is getting better. "It's very simple," he says. "Here, we don't hear bombs and machine guns."

Asked whether he would like ever to return home, he responds, "Sri Lanka is my only mother country. One day I will go back there. We still have 50 acres of land which is now in the war zone." He points to his friend who has joined us at the canteen's table and says emphatically: "He is a very, very rich man. For generations they had accumulated so much land. Do you believe that if our country was peaceful we would have any economic problems?"

Rasaratham talks a lot about the future. A Polish businessman offered him a job. Mrs. Ania has told him that he could have his engineering degree recognized in Poland. And as more Sri Lankans start to settle in Poland, his wife could perhaps start giving dancing classes. At heart, whether in Sri Lanka or Poland, Rasaratham is an optimist. That is in sharp contrast to many asylum-seekers striving to make it to western Europe.

Sri Lanka soldiers remanded over rape of 9-year old Tamil girl.TamilNet.com

Six Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were taken into custody for allegedly molesting a nine-year-old Tamil girl at Ki'raan Vaazhaichcheani in the eastern Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said. The victim identified one of the perpetrators during an identification parade held in Batticaloa Magistrate Court. Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reported that the soldiers of the Digiliwatiya camp had threatened the protesting villagers, and the body of one protester was recovered in a pond near the SLA camp after the protests.


The victim "was returning home in the company of two of her friends when soldiers bathing near a well chased after her and raped her. The girl was admitted to a hospital and the medical reports confirmed that she had been sexually abused. It is also reported that the girl who is still being treated at the hospital is being questioned constantly by commando officers," AHRC report said.

The alleged incident happened on the 12th of February. The suspects have been remanded by the Batticaloa Magistrate until 3rd of March, legal sources in Batticaloa said.

When the issue of rape by SLA soldiers was raised by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry website carried a refutation, saying "such sadistic allegations are far from the existing realities: far from the truth," and added that "there was no basis whatsoever even to suggest Sri Lankan forces had involved in such gross violence during its three-year humanitarian campaign."

British weekly, The Observer, in December 2009 said that "Tamil women interned after escaping the horrors of the civil war in Sri Lanka were sexually abused by their guards who traded sex for food," reporting on an interview with Vany Kumar, a British medic who was released from internment in September from the camps run by Sri Lanka military.

"Systematic rape of Tamil women in custody and in areas under control of Security forces, and sexual abuse of LTTE women cadres caught during combat, had occured from as early as September 1996 when Krishanthy Kumarasamy, a 17-year old highschooler, was murderd after being stopped and raped at an SLA sentry point at Kaithadi, Jaffna. Horrendous videos showing Sri Lankan soldiers abusing women cadres stripped naked have routinely surfaced," said activist for a Washington-based pressure group.


UN Resolution 1325
The link between maintaining international peace and security, and preventing and responding to sexual violence used as a tactic of war to target civilians was first laid out in last year's United Nation's Security Council resolution 1325.

United Nations charged 114 Sri Lankan soldiers who were on peace-keeping missions to Haiti in March 2008 with sexual exploitation and abuse against children. After an investigation into pending charges against Sri Lankan troops in Haiti, the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) concluded that “acts of sexual exploitation and abuse [against children] were frequent and occurred usually at night, and at virtually every location where the [Sri Lankan] contingent personnel were deployed.”