The main event of remembering the victims of 26 December 2004 that claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island, most of the victims from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland, is to be held at Veerasingkam Hall in Jaffna. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the Tsunami. Most of the victims along the coastal belts of Vanni and elsewhere have been denied of proper resettlement as Colombo waged a genocidal war on them, killing and maiming thousands of the Tsunami victims. The West, which had equal humanitarian access to North-East as well as to the South, failed to course correct the Sri Lankan state in addressing the post-Tsunami reconstruction. Instead, it relied upon appeasement tactics towards Colombo at that time and is still harping on the same string, said TamilNet commentator in Colombo responding to the latest comment by US spokesman, P J Crowley.
When a reporter asked Mr. Crowley on US views regarding the demand by human rights watchdogs that the Sri Lankan president should be held responsible for war crimes and investigated by the International Criminal Court, he responded: "[…] We continue to engage the Sri Lankan Government. As we’ve said many times, it has a significant opportunity to transform the country, lift it above and beyond the recent conflict, and we certainly hope that the government will take advantage of that opportunity.”
The war on Tamils was waged after Colombo unilaterally nullified the Norwegian brokered Tsunami agreement, P-TOMS, signed between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The P-TOMS agreement reached after much efforts to the credit of the Norwegians was nullified by the Sri Lankan state as the West failed to take constructive steps in enforcing Colombo not to choose the destructive path, TamilNet commentator said.
"Surprisingly, it was a statement from the US government of legal restrictions it was facing in contributing to the PTOMs fund that was to be in the custody of the World Bank, and the US ‘engagement’ of extremist JVP, which were interpreted completely differently by the Colombo establishment," the commentator further said.
The nullification of P-TOMS and the passive ‘engagement tactics’ adopted by the West eventually led Colombo to de-merge North and East and unilaterally scrap the February 2002 Ceasefire.
The Tamils who placed faith in the international system were again failed when Sri Lankan state waged a full-scale genocidal war on them last year.
Colombo is now seriously embarking upon closing down the remaining international agencies in the North and East.
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