Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

By Philip Heymann and Martha Minow
November 28, 2008

THERE a legal basis for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for genocide?

The crime of genocide has been widely accepted as the most heinous offense against human dignity. Although the term can sometimes be used loosely in political debates, it has a very precise and narrow legal definition. And rightly so.

According to the Genocide Convention of 1948, the crime of genocide is `any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.`

Vaiko, the general secretary of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (MDMK) from Tamil Nadu, while addressing British parliamentarians of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Tamils on Wednesday in the British Parliament, said that the British Parliament has a moral responsibility to rectify the historic injustice caused on to the Eezham Tamils during the colonial rule. It was the British who statutorily put the Tamil and the Sinhala territories together in 1833, made Ceylon a unitary entity and refused to consider federalism in their constitutional reforms. When they left in 1948, they passed on the power to the Sinhala majoritarian rulers, he said.

Responding to the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) press release that the State has confiscated Rs. 71m from Tamil Rehabilitation Organization`s (TRO`s) bank account, TRO reiterated its denial of allegations that funds were mainly used for terrorist activies, and pointed out that the GoSL has never produced any proof of these allegations in a court of law and has not brought any criminal charges against TRO, and that Colombo has consistently denied TRO opportunity to defend against the allegations in the courts of law.

The APRC is a farce of the Sri Lanka government. It was always used to impress upon India and the International Community. The basic premise of the APRC not to go beyond unitary constitution of Sri Lanka, will not bring in any meaningful result. India and the IC know it well. Yet, if they continue to tolerate the farce, they will only be abetting the genocidal programme of Colombo, says Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

Sinhala Only is the Official language of Sri Lanka as it was never repealed. The Tamil Official language legislation has not been implemented.

In 1956 The LSSP leaders warned the Government that Only ONE Official language will create TWO countries and TWO Official languages will help to remain as ONE country, Ceylon.

S`pore has FOUR Official languages and peace and harmony and prosperity.