[ BBC ]

Sri Lanka has dismissed calls for an independent inquiry into claims of human rights abuses by the military, saying its own courts will investigate. Foreign minister Rohita Bogollagama said the claims were being used to boost accusations of genocide against the country’s Tamil minority. Aid agencies and the United Nations have called for an inquiry. The exact number of civilians killed in the final weeks of the long-running war has not been established, but one report put it as high as 20,000.

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[AFP]

Thousands of Tamils marched in Paris on Saturday to denounce what they termed the Sri Lankan government’s genocide of the island’s ethnic minority in its bid to wipe out Tamil Tiger rebels. Police put the number of marchers at 2,500 while organisers said some 3,000 participated in the demonstration. The marchers shouted slogans such “EU impose a truce”, and “The Sri Lankan president is a murderer”, and “Stop the Tamil genocide”.

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[The Hindu]

Tamils in the US will hold a demonstration in front of the State Department and the White House here on Friday protesting against the “genocide” against their community in Sri Lanka. ‘Tamils Against Genocide’, a pro-Tamils organisation, will organise a rally and hunger strike to urge US President Mr Barack Obama to bring an end to the “genocide” in northern Sri Lanka, where the Army and LTTE are engaged in a war.

“Tamils have been systematically attacked and brutalised since the government ordered international aid agencies out of the region last September,” the group said in a statement.

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[Boston Globe]

THE BARRAGE of media reporting of the grim conflict in Sri Lanka has captured popular imagination, but has overlooked the grisly Sinhalese Buddhist genocide of innocent Hindu or Christian Tamil civilians by a US dual citizen and US green card holder. The two should be investigated and prosecuted in the United States. As a preliminary to the horror, roads and medical aid were blocked, and humanitarian workers and all media were expelled. During a BBC radio interview on Feb. 2, Rajapaksa declared that outside the “safety zone” nothing should “exist.”

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[Toronto Star]

Sharannya Mohan looked back and forth on Front St. As far as she could see, Tamils stood shoulder to shoulder denouncing what they call genocide in Sri Lanka. “We can’t all be terrorists,” the 21-year-old York University student said with a twisted smile. Thousands of Tamils from across greater Toronto, a crowd estimated at from 40,000 to 45,000, lined Front St. from Yonge St. to University Ave. and stretched up Yonge to near Bloor St., across Bloor to University and down again to near Front for four frigid hours yesterday afternoon to beg the world’s help. Police estimated some 30,000 protesters were gathered on Front St. alone.

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[ Toronto Star ]

Thousands of Tamils from across Greater Toronto formed a human chain stretching along Front Street and up University Avenue this afternoon to protest against what they call the genocide of the Tamil people in their homeland, Sri Lanka.About 45,000 people took part in the protest throughout the day, according to Staff Sgt. Deb Abbott of 52 Division, with about 30,000 on Front St. alone.

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[AlertNet]

One of the harsh realities of the humanitarian field is that some crises capture public attention, while others do not. The patterns are rather rigid. Crises in Europe and the Middle East, especially Palestine, make headlines. Large-scale natural disasters, even in obscure places, attract interest due to the inherent human fascination with immense forces beyond our control. But crises due to “complex” political conflicts outside the zones of proven public engagement are doomed to obscurity, unless it rises to such a level that “genocide” (read “another Holocaust”) can be invoked.

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[Al Jazeera]

Aid organisations say a major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Sri Lanka where government forces are engaged in fierce fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels. Around 350,000 Tamil civilians are crammed into the area where fighting is taking place, forcing them to endure heavy bombardments and acute food shortages. Foreign journalists are prevented from entering the conflict zone, but Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive pictures showing civilians fleeing the fighting as buildings burn and craters from heavy shelling pockmark the earth.

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[Canwest News Service]

Genocide and other mass atrocities are underway or risk breaking out in at least 33 countries, says a new comprehensive watch list slated for release Tuesday - the 60th anniversary of the United Nations prevention of genocide convention. “Red alert” countries include Afghanistan and Iraq alongside commonly known regions currently experiencing genocidal conflict such as Sudan’s Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These and Myanmar, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka all made the list’s top eight because they appear in each of the five “expert” indexes.

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[Full Report]

[The Watchlist]