Accomplishing genocide while evading IC intervention: Dayan’s dilemma

2ND LEAD (Adds video)

Land acquisition by occupying military challenged in Sri Lanka Courts

Following a writ-application filed at the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal by 1,474 Eezham Tamils owning lands in Valikaamam North on 14 May, which was an initiative taken by Colombo-based lawyers, including those belonging to the Tamil National Alliance, a group of lawyers based in Jaffna have filed legal action in Sri Lankan Supreme Court on 22 May, challenging the publication of the Section 2 notice to acquire lands from the owners in Valikaamam North. In the meantime, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, who recently faced questions from the visiting United Nations representatives on the acquisition of lands in the former High Security Zone (HSZ), was attempting to play down the scale of the Sinhala militarization by hiding the extent of land acquisition outside the Valikaamam North area. Full story >>

Gotabhaya statement reconfirms emptiness in PC model

While New Delhi and Washington harp on either the 13th Amendment or holding Northern Provincial Elections (NPC) as solutions to the national question in the island of Sri Lanka, a statement coming from SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa reconfirms the unworkable nature of the Provincial Council (PC) model in a unitary constitution of the Sinhala state, Tamil political observers in the island said. Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was warning the government of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa that giving police and land powers to the provinces meant that the Northern Province comprising the districts of Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa, Mannaar and Ki'linochchi could pose a ‘major security challenge’, reported the Island on Thursday. Full story >>

Genocidal military gets into white garb to observe Vesak in Jaffna

The commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, together with all of his senior officers and a section of soldiers, observed a ‘Sil’ campaign on Thursday, according to a news release by the SL military in Jaffna. At the event, the SL commander Hathurusinghe and his personnel were all clad in white. In contrast, the occupying SL commander and his officers have been wearing military uniform while entering Hindu temples, an act considered as showing disrespect to the deities and as desecrating the shrines, observers in Jaffna commented. One of the topics discussed by the Buddhist clergy and the academics at the Buddhist religious event on Thursday was ‘music therapy as a remedy to youth unrest’, the news release by the SL military further revealed. Full story >>

Occupying STF seizes 600 acres of farmland in Poththuvil

Sinhala Buddhist extremists, with the backing of the occupying Sri Lankan government in Colombo, have planned to appropriate about six hundred acres of paddy fields belonging to Muslims and Tamils in Pasarich-cheanai in Poththuvil electorate in Ampaa'rai district, claiming that the said lands belong to Sinhala Buddhists. The paddy fields are located east of Naavilaa'ru at Poovarasadith-thoaddam in Poththuvil DS division. The Tamil-speaking farmers have been doing cultivation in these lands for more than five decades, civil sources said. Full story >>

Colombo brings 1500 Sinhalese from South to Mannaar

Stepping up the process of colonisation of the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sri Lanka has brought in 1,500 Sinhalese in buses to Musali DS division in Mannaar District, which is bordering the North Western and North Central provinces. The occupying Colombo government had already planned to settle down five thousand Sinhalese families from the South in Mannaar district in an attempt to change the demography of the district before holding the Northern Provincial Council election, according to a confidential document received by the Mannaar district secretariat. Full story >>

Chennai event challenges ICE complicity in Tamil Genocide

Articulating right demands and slogans in Genocide Remembrance events is crucial at a time when the Eezham Tamils in their homeland are barred from even silently mourning their heroes and civilians who sacrificed their lives in the culmination of the genocidal war at Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, said a Tamil political activist from Jaffna commenting on the slogans used by protestors at the May 19 event at Marina beach in Chennai. Civil society activists, artists, political leaders and ordinary people had participated a mass gathering near the Kannagi statue in the honour of those Eezham Tamils who perished in Sri Lanka’s genocidal war despite dissuasion by the police. Speaking to TamilNet from the gathering, Umar, an activist from the May 17 criticized the failure of UN in preventing the genocide, stating that Sri Lanka must be hauled in the UNSC. Full story >>

Jaffna University remembers Vanni genocide amidst SL military oppression

Sri Lankan military harassments continue at Jaffna University where a memorial event was silently observed by hundreds of students on Friday, news sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. The occupying SL military is on a continuous war with the university community of students and teachers in the last four years on the issue of remembering the slain. It took a serious turn on the Heroes Day last November. The arrests and the military ‘rehabilitation’ of the student leaders didn't deter the students from paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the genocidal war at Vanni. Despite refusal by the University administration to provide a hall to the event this year, hundreds of university students and teachers gathered at the Paramesvara temple premises in the university on Friday for a silent memorial without any speeches. Full story >>

‘Idea of the Tamil struggle cannot be killed’: Kashmiri Leader

“Using military operation, they can silence the voice for a time being, they cannot kill the ideology and idea. They cannot defeat ideology and ideas with military means,” Yasin Malik, Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Saturday. Speaking from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu where he had gone to address the public in solidarity with the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day event organized by the Naam Tamizhar party, he further said that if the international community thinks that it can suppress people’s movement through military means, peace and security cannot be achieved in the world. “If they want peace and stability in the world, then they will have to resolve the people’s issues. Otherwise, the people across the globe, who are the voiceless people, they will get together and they will form their own strategy,” the Kashmiri leader said. Full story >>

Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal survivor speaks out

Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, who personally witnessed Sri Lanka military taking away her husband, Mr Elilan, a political leader of the LTTE, at the end the Vanni War in May 2009, speaks out her experience from a civilian point of view and as a mother caring for her children during the war and the genocidal onslaught. Still living in Vanni, at Ki'linochchi, the 46-year-old mother of three is also running an organization that seeks to establish what had happened to their beloved ones. The SL State is still refusing to reveal the fate of those who were filtered away from the civilians and taken into buses to undisclosed detention camps. The narration of the survivor of the genocidal massacre, told with courage from Ki'linochchi, brings out the spirit and courage of a people who stood with their liberation fighters until the last moment. TamilNet brings out a 40-minute recount by Mrs Sasitharan. Full story >>

German Kurdish federation demands justice for Tamil genocide, condemns powers

YEK-KOM, a Germany based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, demanding justice for the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, condemned the world powers who rejected “the just demands of the Tamil people, turned their backs and have instead supported a military solution” in a solidarity statement sent on the occasion of Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day. Emphasising the need for the state terror against the Tamils in the homeland to be halted, the federation further called on the German government and the European Union to “take diplomatic measures and exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government till the self-determination of the Tamils is recognized.” They also called for revoking the ban on the LTTE in the EU to ensure equality of parties and for a just peace. Full story >>

TN Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance meeting condemns Indian-West complicity in genocide

Speakers at the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance meeting in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on Friday came down strongly on the Indian and Western establishments for their complicity in the genocidal war on the Eezham Tamil nation. While veteran Tamil nationalist activist Pazha. Nedumaran condemned the holding of CHOGM in Sri Lanka, MDMK leader Vaiko criticized India’s contribution to the genocide of the Eezham Tamils from the IPKF days to the present. Periyarite leader Kolathur Mani spoke extensively about the structural genocide under unitary Sri Lanka. Criticising the complicity of the International Community of Establishments, Thirumurugan Gandhi from the May 17 Movement stated that the role of the US and India in the war on the Tamils must also be probed. Full story >>

BTF's call for genocide remembrance focuses on CHOGM boycott

The British Tamil Forum’s (BTF) call for a mass rally in London on Saturday, remembering the 2009 Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal genocidal massacre, focuses on urging Britain and the Commonwealth to boycott the Sri Lanka CHOGM meet in November. Earlier this month, the British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his decision to attend the meet. “It is ridiculous as well as painful to find that Cameron has decided to attend CHOGM in Sri Lanka,” said a BTF statement on Thursday, adding that the meet, leading to Sri Lanka chairing the Commonwealth for the next two years, “will not only be disgraceful to the Commonwealth and Britain, but will also create a permanent blot in their history.” Full story >>

UK Sikh group calls for solidarity in anti-genocide rallies

1984 Genocide Coalition, a UK based Sikh group, has called for solidarity among diasporic Sikhs and Tamils for anti-genocide rallies on 18 May and 9 June in a release on Thursday. Stating that such protests “are an opportunity for these heroic struggling nations to unite their power of protest and unite their campaign resources”, the release further said that “the enduring, courageous struggles of Tamil and Sikh peoples against brutal states like Sri Lanka and India; epitomise the struggle of small nations around the world.” The activists from the Coalition and Nations Without States further urged small nations across the world to unite in a common movement for global justice and freedom. Full story >>