Outside the Bishop's residence about a hundred Tamil women are crying and wailing, many of them clutching copies of death certificates or missing person's reports to their chests. Crumpled up in their fists are photocopies of ID cards belonging to their husbands, their sons, their fathers-all murdered, abducted, or officially classified in a log somewhere as 'missing.' These women have all come here with the same intention: to try and gain an audience with the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to tell their story and to plead for justice. In Jaffna, when someone disappears, they unfortunately have a way of never turning up again. Making the atrocities known is often the only solace these women can have.Wife with late husband's photo
On Activists in Australia March with Aboriginal Flag
On January 8, 2008, the Sri Lankan Minister for Nation Building, DM Dassanayake was killed when his convoy was hit by a powerful roadside bomb blast, allegedly planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) near the capital, Colombo. The killing follows the murder of LTTE's Political wing chief S.P. Tamilselvam and the Intelligence wing chief "Colonel" Charles by the Sri Lankan security forces. On New Year's Day, a Tamil Parliamentarian Thiagarajah Maleswaran was assassinated inside a Hindu temple in Colombo. These deaths bring Sri Lanka's escalating conflict into sharp focus. Sri Lankan Special Task Force
The continued mastery of death in Pakistan politics was evident in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 after her electoral campaign speech at Liaquat Square. The square is named after the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated in 1953. Liaquat Square is close to the Rawalpindi jail where Benazir's father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979. The jailhouse has now been torn down least it become a pilgrimage goal for devoted members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which Zulfikar Bhutto headed. Benazir Bhutto
A major propaganda front has swept the Western media decrying the unprecedented sexual violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. As this story goes to press the war in Congo-claiming 1000 lives a day in the East and more than 7 million people since 1996-is escalating yet again. More than 1.2 million were reported displaced in June, with at least 8000 additional displaced persons on October 22 after fighting escalated-as Western-backed forces perpetrate genocide and terrorism to depopulate and secure the land for multinational mining interests. Mining in DRC, Photo: KH Snow
On Destruction in Palestine
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