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HM the Queen invites Sri-Lankan war criminal to tea

Reclaim the Jubilee! | 05.06.2012 12:03 | Repression | Social Struggles

Tamil and human rights activists to protest tommorrow outside Commonwealth Economic Forum at Mansion House against attendance of Sri Lankan War Criminal President Rajapaksa, who is speaking at the event
Protests are ongoing outsidePark Lane Hilton Hotel where he is reported to be staying (address: 22 Park Lane, London, W1K 1BE).
Streetmap url:  http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=528481&y=180140&z=0&sv=W1K+1BE&st=2&pc=W1K+1BE&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf

1). Protests against Sri Lankan War Criminal President Rajapaksa's invitation to
the Queen's Jubilee Lunch and Wednesday morning speech to the Commonwealth Economic Forum at Mansion House

2). RECLAIM the JUBILEE!/Why the Majority won't be celebrating this Diamond
Jubilee

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1).
President Rajapaksa visit to London draws protests
Ref:  http://tamilweek.com/news-features/archives/3033
`Why is British Queen to lunch with Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa, unapologetic
overseer of atrocities and war crimes', Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights queried on his twitter feed on Friday, June 1.

Rajapaksa has apparantly attended the British Monarch's Diamond Jubilee celebrations and is giving a planned speech at Mansion House, to the Commonwealth Economic Forum on Wednesday 6th June, at 10am (arrival 8am), organized by the Commonwealth Business Council. he is also scheduled to attend an official lunch at the Commonwealth Secretariat at Marlborough House on the same day.

In 2009 the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) carried out a genocidal slaughter against the Tamil-speaking people in the north and east of the country.

The Sri Lankan military massacred more than 40,000 people in the final phase of the war that ended in May 2009. They constantly bombed hospitals, schools, temporary shelters and so-called `no fire zones'. Every single one of 400,000 refugees was then taken to `detention camps' with no proper facilities. Deaths and gross humanitarian abuses took place during the transportation and in the camps.

A few months back, before passing resolution on Sri Lanka at the Geneva UNHRC,
some US officials meeting civil society in Jaffna told its members that there was no likelihood of war crimes investigations, as enough pressure has not come from the affected people.

The affected people in the island are gagged. In the free diaspora, claimants for leadership afraid of raising any voice against the erring international community, are sitting on any democratic struggle of the masses, even when the people are prepared.

A reminder of the genocide of Tamil people in Sri Lanka in Spring 2009:

Sri Lanka War-Crimes Accountability The Tamil Perspective 15/01/2010
Ref:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/12/470208.html

Genocide in Sri Lanka (11/04/209)
Ref:  http://london.indymedia.org/articles/1108

UN concealed carnage to keep Sri Lanka goodwill (30/05/2009)
Ref:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/05/431282.html

Channel 4's documentary "Sri Lanka: The Killing Fields" broadcast on Tue 14 June
2011 forensically investigated allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed as Sri Lankan Government forces moved in to destroy the Tamil Tiger army in April/May 2009. The program provides evidence that while the 'Tigers' used civilians as human shields, the Government forces repeatedly shelled civilians who had been offered sanctuary in "no fire zones". The footage contained in the documentary allows you to judge for yourself.

The documentary includes harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan Army video footage, and satellite imagery.

"The most important film that I have ever reported" – Jon Snow - Renowned British Journalist.

Channel 4 broadcast the 2nd part of this documentary on Wednesday 14th March 2012, alleging that several war crimes suspects are now in senior government posts.
Ref: "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished" - available on the following url:  http://srilanka.channel4.com/index.shtml

*****************************************************************

2).
Why the Majority won't be celebrating this Diamond Jubilee

IIn the midst of an economic downturn and resulting widespread unemployment, as families struggle to make ends meet in austerity Britain by an onslaught on public spending cuts, with the poorest sections of society a risk of being crippled by housing benefit cuts and other changes to welfare, we witness the grandiose spectacle of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee as a icon of the British people’s deference to the privilege and pomposity of our monarchical hierarchy and the unquestioned centrality of the ruling class which it represents.

The celebration of Queen Liz’s Diamond Jubilee is a mock feudal ceremony, dressing our system of democracy up in fancy clothes and giving the masses bread and circuses so as to draw attention away from the real issue – where power lies in our constitution and how it is exercised.

The Crown is a fusion of Monarch with body politics (the law) and the Royal Perogative on constitution means significant aspects of the state’s activities are exempt from parliamentary scrutiny, such as the Queens’ Order in Council to overturn a Judicial Review into forced migration of the indigenous population of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean where the USA has an large army and naval base.

Additionally, our Monarchical centrist semi-democracy means the Prime Minister has the powers of a King (for eg. Tony Blair entering into prior arrangement with George Bush to commit the UK to the Iraq War, or David Cameron ruling out referring Minister Jeremy Hunt to a ministerial code inquiry after the exposure of Hunt’s clear breach of that code in his non-disclosure to Parliament of communications he had with James Murdoch of News International in advance of his quasi-judicial role deciding on regulatory approval of NI’s bid for BSkyB).

Recent exposure of an uncomfortable lineage between the leadership of the Tory Party, a mafia-like newspaper corporation and corrupt police officials, as well as the suspicious, creepy death of a young man on secondment at MI6 have raised in the publics' consciousness a dark, sinister sub-text that exists under the radar of this country's national affairs. For a long time the establishment have long been able to get away with public exposure of crooked affairs by a deferential public; this is joined by a part of the public view also stymied with apathy. However, recent events in light of such a trying economic situation have increased critical distrust of the establishment. Whilst not necessarily translating to resentment of the Queen and Royal Family, it must be said that general ambivalence to the nationalism mood to celebrate the Diamond Jubille festivities is very much apparant.

The guardians of the status-quo openly celebrate that the monarchy is the “stabilising factor” which should ensure that the oligarchy never really loses control and celebrate that the monarchy might “step in” (ie: military rule/autocracy) if things get out-of-hand (ie: out of their hands).

However, this event not only raises the issue of our constitution. There is also the reality of how this country’s structure of elite privilege has as it’s foundation a jurisdiction of global reach that is host to an arrangement that is fundamental to the workings of a corrupt world financial system. In the midst of austerity and impending global economic depression, the Royal Family, which costs the UK taxpayer £37 million a year (on top of vast sums accrued through agricultural subsidies on account of land-holdings), under it’s figurehead’s jurisdiction as “the Crown” are owners of tax haven protectorates around the globe such as the Cayman Islands which have been central to the cause of the global financial crisis which taxpayers have had to bail out, which has conversely led to the wave of austerity. Tax-havens offer global capital ‘get out of regulation free-cards’, as well as freedom from tax. According to the IMF, elite corporations and individuals (popularly referred to as the 1%) hold a third of total wealth on the planet and as much as $18 Trillion in offshore banks (& that’s not counting Switzerland). [The City of London operates in the same way, under the jurisdiction of a private corporation – the Corporation of London; Cameron’s opt-out of a EU agreement on invoking a transaction tax across Europe appeared to serve the interests of his hedge-fund buddies and ruling-class constituency].

Off-shore tax havens are central to the liberalised international financial system, building into this system complex liability structures, which have allowed risks to build-up unseen, increasing vulnerability to sudden shocks. The financial-capitalist model is susceptible to collapsing in on itself, as it nearly did in 2008, because, in an increasingly interconnected world, with the banking system so intertwined across the globe, a severe crisis in one place will have a domino effect across the world. The system, which survives on a positive spiral of monetary value forever spiralling upwards, can just as easily spiral dramatically downwards at an accelerated speed with a financial collapse and run-on-the-banks, as happened in Argentina in 2001.

Tax havens are central to this process, and so, were instrumental in causing the global financial crisis of 2008 and it’s continuing crisis which the majority are paying for.

That is why part of the solution must be an overhaul of the Crown’s defacto autocracy in it’s jurisdiction of territories it holds which are central to the problem of how the world financial system is currently functioning. The only solution must be to close down these tax-havens across the globe, as well as introducing a tax of unearned income and to levy a tax on financial transactions.


[end]

Website:  http://www.reclaimthejubilee.org went live over the weekend


RECLAIM THE JUBILEE!

Leviticus 25: 13 – "In the year of Jubilee, each of you may return to the land
that belonged to your ancestors"

For a Jubilee celebrating a last chance of renewal on earth towards global
economic parity that wipes away unpayable gargantuan debt, including fictitious
capital, and ends global monopolies in land ownership to both encourage a
worldwide trend to land-based livelihoods aligned with progressive solutions to
help human society better achieve environmental equilibrium with Mother Earth
and puts all her inhabitants on a more equal footing.

This is nothing less than humanity's last exit strategy from self-inflicted ruin
and maybe the Earth's last hope of renewal on it's current life-cycle.

It is also a judgement on Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee and the privilege
and pomposity that our monarchical hierarchy represents, whose jurisdiction of
global reach encompasses tax havens which are fundamental to the workings of a
corrupt world financial system.



What is Jubilee?

This special year was the year according to Ancient Hebrew law in which slaves were freed and debts cancelled and land left untilled. In Greek this was translated to Iobelaias and in Latin Jubilee, meaning call-out or "Shout for Joy".

The Jubilee Year required
- the Forgiveness of all Debts
- Land left Fallow
- the Compulsory Return of all Land to its Original Owners or their
Heirs,(except the houses of laymen within walled cities)

In effect, Jubilee law meant land should not be leased for more than 50 years.


Origins
The term Jubilee derives from the hebrew word "Yobel" or "Yobhel", meaning ram. The term derives from the fact that the "Jubilee year" was announced by a blast on an instrument made from a ram's horn called a shofar, every 49* years on the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur. [every 49 years because the end of each cycle was the end of 7 cycles of a sequence of Sabbatical years (7x7=49)].

Debt forgiveness was also found in Ancient Athens, where in the 6th century BCE,
the lawmaker Solon instituted a set of laws called seisachtheia, and which canceled all debts and retroactively canceled previous debts that had caused slavery and serfdom, freeing debt slaves and debt serfs.

In addition, the Qur'an (the Muslim scripture) supports debt forgiveness unable to pay as an act of charity and remission of sins for the creditor. The injunction is as follows:
If the debtor is in difficulty, grant him time till it is easy for him to repay.
But, if ye remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if ye only knew.
—Qur'an 2:280





Reclaim the Jubilee!

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