Salem-News.com's Tim and Bonnie King Arrive in Baltimore for FeTNA Conference

Oregon journalist to speak about his reports on Sri Lanka War Crimes in front of an estimated audience of 3000.

(BALTIMORE, MD.) - Salem-News.com's Tim King and Bonnie King have arrived in Baltimore, where Tim is speaking Friday at 7:00 p.m. to a gathering of Tamil American, Canadian and Indian citizens 3000 strong, about his news articles revealing the horrors of the genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Tim was asked to be a keynote speaker at this weekend's FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Maryland. He will also speak at a parallel event being held by USTPAC (United States Tamil Political Action Council) Friday afternoon.

The event is a who's who of Tamil culture and it is rich with incredible Indian dialects and bright colors and attitudes. The festivities that will take place over the weekend are highly rated, educational and by all counts entertaining. Politics and Sri Lanka are only a part of the discussion, however they are important points.

Having written approximately 50 articles about this recent event that was allowed to take place without world intervention, Tim says he is particularly driven by the elimination of reporters who represented or wrote fairly or sympathetically, of the Tamils. The journalists who refused to be silent about the crimes against Tamils were indeed, silenced.

Today, this knowledge of what took place is grating on the nerves and morals of U.S. politicians and other world leaders. Tim says it is true that all governments are corrupt to a degree, but he says there is a big difference when it comes to mass murder of human beings selected for a death sentence due their religious and cultural heritage.

That is what Sri Lanka did; it was a calculated human slaughter and a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many use the term genocide and it is hard to deny, but the crimes that Sri Lanka will very likely face in the future, are war crimes; not nearly as difficult to prove as genocide.

With regard to the question of genocide, some agencies place the number of Tamil dead at 40,000, but records indicate that 160,000 Tamils in Sri Lanka disappeared or were killed.

Under the world leadership of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, the government of Sri Lanka President Majinda Rajapakse had the military and political organization that fought for the Tamils, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), declared a terrorist organization and this laid the groundwork for Sri Lanka's decision to break a ceasefire agreement and launch a final military assault against the Tamil Tigers and the Tamil people.

In April 2011, Tim King began writing his series of articles about the terrible ethnic killings in Sri Lanka that led to a bloody slaughter of civilians and Tamil Tiger resistance fighters, in May 2009. This was the deadliest period in a three-decade old civil war but the suffering and heartbreak and unanswered questions endure. His article, World Ignores Genocide of Sri Lanka's Tamil Population, has dozens and dozens of interesting comments and also a sizable amount of Facebook-related activity. It started a path that Tim has stayed with steadily. His most recent article, Did a Ghost Crawl Inside My Laptop? , brings new, irrefutable evidence of war crimes into perspective.

The Sri Lanka army's work between 2005 and 2009 was highly orchestrated; well documented, sick, depraved, and effective.

The Sinhalese Buddhist majority has been a deadly political opponent of the Tamil Hindu and Christian minority who reside mostly in the country's north since this island nation was released from British colonialism in 1948. After thirty years of non violent resistance, the Tamil Tigers were formed in the early 1970's to guard Tamils from years of political strife and state terrorism.

Tamils and their supporters view the north of Sri Lanka as Tamil Eelam, essentially a breakaway state that refused to participate in the political persecution of Tamils which included elimination of their language. A new government is working around the clock to regain control of this disputed real estate; the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam is working steadily to regain what was once theirs.

In the meanwhile, the Sri Lanka army is maintaining a full scale military occupation of the north and they are seizing land as this is written; refusing in other cases to allow Tamils to return to their former properties at all. A few weeks ago a Canadian Tamil citizen was murdered while trying to reclaim his own land.

During his keynote address Friday evening, Tim will explain what obstacles prevent media from connecting the American public with shocking world events like the Sri Lanka war crimes. The fact that Tim was invited to speak at this particularly important, 25th annual Jubilee FeTNA event, proves that independently owned Internet news media like Salem-News.com has substantial outreach and influence.

Rarely on the east coast, the Kings were visited by Tim's fellow Salem-News.com writer and Co-Author Bob O'Dowd, who made the trip to Maryland from New Jersey.

Tim and Bonnie say it was a wonderful opportunity and they appreciate the chance FeTNA and USTPAC have given Tim to speak about these unpunished world crimes against humanity. They both believe that allowing Sri Lanka to abscond from justice is a travesty of justice that sends the wrong message to governments around the world who need to fear world courts and international laws.

Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from The Associated Press the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs, Electronic Media Association and The Red Cross In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005.

Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 20+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide with an emphasis on Palestine and Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Marines. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)

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COLLI July 10, 2012 7:18 am (Pacific time)

Well deserved accolades folks! Keep up the excellent work. It is obvious that the saying "Lead by example" has meaning for both of you.

Sterling July 8, 2012 12:25 am (Pacific time)

Congrats Tim and Bonnie!!! You guys are awesome!!!!

Anonymous July 7, 2012 10:55 am (Pacific time)

Good luck Tim! You will probably do a follow up story on how this event went, please keep your eyes open at the airports also, TSA etc., it might be something interesting to add to your follow upif you write one.

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