Reject engagement with genocidaire Gotabaya

Tamil message goes contrary to realpolitik of world powers: Premachandran

Tamil people have cast their votes indicating their sharp opposition to génocidaire Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is the SL president-elect. The voting pattern of Tamils must be interpreted as a message to the South as well as to the international community, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran in a comment to TamilNet on Sunday. However, the USA and India are preoccupied with the thought of how best they could engage with the new SL President, because they consider China as having established deeper inroads into the island through trade, infrastructure-development and the 99-year lease of Hambantota harbour in the South, he said. Suresh Premachandran was implying that the powers that embrace the new president must be regarded as accountable for continued injustices against the Eezham Tamils in the island. Full story >>

Forest officials from Ampaa'rai intervene to free land encroachers in Batticaloa

Sinhala officials of the SL Forest Department attached to the Ampaa'ari office seem to have released the Sinhala encroachers who were initially detained by the forest guards from Batticaloa on 05 November. The Sinhala officials from Ampaa'rai had taken the encroachers from the Tamil officials to avert legal action. There has been no legal against them in Ampaa'rai, and the encroachers are still seen engaging in various activities in Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththai-madu, particularly in Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkaladi) division, Tamil dairy farmers who have been fighting against illegal encroachment. Full story >>

Shivajilingam responds to Sampanthan: no withdrawal without written assurance

If the TNA Leader negotiates with Sajith Premadasa and secures a written assurance in which the SL presidential candidate commits to fulfil two specific demands, Tamil presidential candidate M.K. Shivajilingam was prepared to withdraw from the race for SL presidential candidate. However, such a move has not taken place, said Mr Shivajilingam in a comment to TamilNet on Wednesday. He was responding to Mr Sampanthan’s public appeal to Mr Shivajilingam to step down from the presidential race without any preconditions. Full story >>

Independent Tamil committee appointed by TPC backs Tamil candidate in principle

The ideal option available to the Tamil people was to cast their votes for a Tamil candidate, who is acceptable to most of the Tamil parties, said the independent committee appointed by the Tamil Peoples’ Council in a written statement issued in Tamil on Monday. The committee was not pointing at anyone by name since it had failed to field a common candidate acceptable to most of the Tamil parties. However, it was indirectly pointing at Mr Shivajilingam, who has the backing of at least two of the Tamil parties and alliances. Full story >>

Jaffna TELO branch contradicts party stance on SL presidential election

The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Jaffna branch of Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), a constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has issued a statement against the decision made by its hierarchy on supporting Sajith Premadasa in the forthcoming SL Presidential election. The party should not back a candidate who fails to genuinely honour the thirteen-point demands put forward by the six major Tamil parties, the Jaffna branch of the TELO said in a media statement issued after discussing the matter at a meeting held in Jaffna on Saturday. Full story >>

Student leaders fail to pinpoint ITAK, blame all five Tamil parties for ‘approach failure’

The leaders of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) have passed the blame of the failure to stipulate the choices to be made if and when the actors in the South fail to meet the thirteen-point terms in the document articulated by the mainstream Tamil political parties last month. The document articulated by six parties and agreed in full by five of them in the signature was about vetting the mainstream candidates in the forthcoming SL presidential elections. The SLPP candidate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has stated unitary state as the solution and wants to consolidate it further. The NDF candidate Sajith Premadasa has rejected Tamils Right of Self-Determination and their distinct sovereignty in principle through stating ‘undivided and indivisible Sri Lanka’ in his manifesto. Full story >>

SL military warns Tamils against protesting land-grab along Pooneryn sandbar

The commander of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in Ki'linochchi, Major General GV Ravipriya, has threatened the people of Kauthaari-munai and the nearby villages along Ma'n'nith-thalai sandbar of Poonakari (Pooneryn) not to object SL Governor's plan of alienating lands to a planned hotel by an Australia-based Tamil trader collaborating with the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. The SL military is fully backing the land grab, which is promoted by the SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (UPDATE)

ITAK betrays Tamils once again: Suresh Premachandran

The leading Sinhala presidential candidates have categorically rejected the thirteen-point joint demands, which were articulated by the main six Tamil parties and unanimously accepted in whole by five of them, including the ITAK. Furthermore, it is evident to anyone that the UNP is not going to deliver the constitutional changes. What happened to the constitutional discourse of the same regime during the past four and a half years? The proposals were dumped into the dustbin. How could then the ITAK, which is also a signatory to the joint declaration make a unilateral decision of extending support to Sajith Premadasa, asked EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran. Full story >>

Eezham Tamil fishers detained by Indian Coast Guard return home

Eighteen Tamil fishermen from Jaffna who were detained by the Indian coastguard that trespassed into the waters off Jaffna on 03 October 2019 reached Colombo airport on Wednesday morning after 27 days of detention in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Coastguard entered the territorial waters off Jaffna, near Ezhuvai-theevu, and towed their vessel for five nautical miles inside the Indian border before getting onboard, the fishermen who reached Jaffna on Thursday said. The investigators from the SL Defence Ministry were harassing the fishers for almost six hours at Colombo airport, Annalingam Annarasa, the secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Federation who had gone to Colombo to receive the returning fishers said. Full story >>

Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday. Full story >>

“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile. Full story >>

Gotabhaya's presidency would dash Musali people's hopes on incremental resettlement

The uprooted Tamils in Musali division of Mannaar district fear permanently losing the militarised villages at the hands of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa if he becomes the next SL President. The Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam have been waiting for the SL Navy to honour its pledges on returning some of the occupied properties since 2017. It was Mr Rajapaksa who declared their village as a high-security naval area in December 2012. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Cardinal of Vatican, personally accompanied his friend, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to silence the then Bishop of Mannaar Rayappu Joseph and the Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in 2012. Full story >>

Monks from South visit disputed Neeraaviyadi temple at Naayaa'ru

A group of Sinhala Buddhist monks from the South visited the disputed ‘heritage site’ Neeraaviyadi at Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. The group was inspecting the Pi'l'laiyaar Hindu temple and the recently erected Buddha statue at the locality. Then, the group proceeded to the hut, where the late monk, Kolamba Thero, was preserving his collection of ‘artefacts’ claiming them as the remains of an ancient Sinhala Buddhist Chaitya. The collection of stones have been stored inside a small hut inside the SL military base located across the road, just opposite the disputed temple. The latest visit by the monks comes as the court is set to investigate the controversial cremation of the late Kolamba Thero, which took place near the Hindu temple in September. Full story >>