TNA loses civic council to UPFA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2014, 22:22 GMT]
Four members of Pachchilaip-pa'l'li civic council, elected on TULF ticket, have defected to the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) of genocidal Sri Lanka on Wednesday, a day after TNA's Parliamentary Group leader R. Sampanthan urged Tamils to vote for the common opposition candidate in the South. In the meantime, the occupying SL military intelligence officers, who are loyal to SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa and UPFA politicians are trying to woo the support of leading TNA civic members in other civic councils in North by paying large sums of money to them, news sources in Jaffna told TamilNet.
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Sampanthan announces decision to back Sirisena in SL presidential elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 December 2014, 09:25 GMT]
Despite strong opposition from various sections of Eezham Tamils against giving explicit support to any of the two main contestants in the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential elections, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan has decided to support the Opposition Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena. Mr Sampanthan announced the stance of the TNA Tuesday morning at a media briefing held at Hotel Jananaki in Colombo. Mr Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran have been blamed for striking a clandestine deal with Chandrika Kumaratunga on backing Maithiripala Sirisena.
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Sampanthan arrives from India, meets constituting party leaders

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 December 2014, 23:12 GMT]
R.Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance, who arrived in Colombo Sunday morning from his visit to India presided over a crucial meeting of the TNA co-ordinating committee at Madiwela parliamentary complex on Sunday night, news sources in Colombo told TamilNet.
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SLMC demanded Muslim coastal district in Ampaa'rai: UPFA minister

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 December 2014, 19:07 GMT]
SL Minister Hakeem wanted the Sri Lankan government to agree to carve out a coastal Muslim district from the present Ampaa'rai district, including Kalmunai, Chammaanthu'rai and Poththuuvil, before defecting to the common opposition front, said SL Environment and Renewable Energy Minister Susil Premajayantha. Mahinda Rajapakasa was opposed to the demand as it will affect the “territorial integrity and unitary character of the country,” the SL minister said. Commenting, Tamil activists in Vanni said Tamil-speaking people and their political parties should be concerned of the territorial integrity of the North-East and oppose both the SLFP and the UNP, who have been Sinhalicising and militarising the Tamil homeland for decades.
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SLMC to support Sirisena, Hakeem resigns ministerial portfolio

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 December 2014, 09:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a constituent of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's United Peoples Freedom Alliance on Sunday said it has decided to support the Opposition Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena at the forthcoming SL Presidential Election.
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Shivajilingam urges TNA to avoid backing any particular presidential candidate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 December 2014, 23:00 GMT]
If the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) asks the Tamil people to back a presidential candidate, who is not committed to federalism and international investigations, it would only backfire on Tamils as the global powers representing the international community could cite our own stand against ourselves in the future, said former parliamentarian and TNA councillor at the Northern Provincial Council M.K. Shivajilingam, who addressed the press in Jaffna on Friday. The TNA should avoid backing a candidate, Mr Shivajilingam said. “The Tamil people are intelligent. Let them decide on their own without giving them any hint,” he said.
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Tamil youth brutally assaulted for questioning Pillayan at Rajapaksa campaign

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 December 2014, 13:12 GMT]
A Tamil youth from Ka'luthaa-va'lai in Batticaloa district, who questioned ex-paramilitary operative and former chief minister of Eastern Provincial Council Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan at a pro-Rajapaksa campaign meeting at Ka'luthaava'lai on Thursday, was brutally assaulted after the youth questioned Pillayan on his merits. “We know the genocidal record of Rajapaksa, what is your record,” the 23-year-old youth had questioned the former EPC chief minister at the meeting where Chandrakanthan was eulogising SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa. The youth, Anthonipillay Atputharasa, has been admitted at the Teaching Hospital of Batticaloa in a serious condition, news sources in Ka'luthaa-va'lai told TamilNet.
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New Delhi mission traps Tamil Nadu film director

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 December 2014, 11:50 GMT]
By trapping him into a meeting with SL Minister Douglas Devananda in Jaffna last Saturday and by circulating photos of the meeting, a sinister attempt has been made to discredit his image among global Tamils, accuses leading Tamil Nadu film director P. Bharathiraja. While in Jaffna, Bharathiraja was told by the Indian High Commission over phone that an SL Minister would be visiting him, and he obliged. Addressing a function at Kiraan-ku'lam in Batticaloa on Tuesday, Bharathiraja, who was invited to the island by Akilan Foundation to meet and felicitate artists, said that he had to clarify the circumstances by which he had been duped.
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Teachers oppose political pressure on Jaffna University to back Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 December 2014, 23:04 GMT]
The administration of the University of Jaffna is under pressure from the Colombo government and its occupying military in Jaffna to issue a statement supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa at the forthcoming SL presidential elections. The members of the Jaffna University Teaches Union have opposed the move after seeing the draft letter that has been on private circulation among a few Deans and Heads of Departments, informed sources at the University told TamilNet.
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Ex-LTTE members forced to vote for Rajapaksa at postal voting in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 December 2014, 21:17 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has forced around 4,000 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are under the captivity of the so-called Civil Security Division (CSD) in Vanni, to vote for the incumbent SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa through postal voting, which concluded on Wednesday. In the meantime, a special unit of SL military personnel, led by the officers handpicked by the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has been monitoring the rank and file of the SL military stationed in the North. A section of the Sinhala soldiers, who have been advocating against the re-election of Mahinda Rajapaksa have been subjected to investigations by this special unit, informed sources told TamilNet.
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Tamils can't endorse Sinhala-centric presidential election: TCSF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 16:07 GMT]
As long as Sri Lanka’s democratic practice and culture is driven by chauvinist Sinhala Buddhist politics no change of form of Government is going to benefit the Tamil people,” the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) said in a statement issued on Tuesday. The denial of democracy that the Sinhalese suffer now is result of them being by-standers, endorsing the anti-Tamil agenda of successive Governments. “[T]he Tamil people do not have to take a collective stance at the forthcoming elections. To explicitly call for a vote for either of the main candidates will be tantamount to accepting a unitary constitution and to rejecting international investigations,” the TCSF further said noting that both the main candidates election are in denial of the problems being faced by the Tamil people and that they have taken positions contrary to Tamil interests.
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TNA agrees to hijack Tamils for ‘unconditional’ support to Maithiri

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 18:50 GMT]
At a so-called high-level meeting held Monday in Colombo between the main delegation of the Sri Lankan opposition and the constituent parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the national list parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran has promised TNA's unconditional support to Maithiripala Sirisena, informed TNA sources told TamilNet. “The opposition was not prepared to provide any assurance to Tamils. Suresh Premachandran of the EPRLF raised certain questions that on what promises the opposition is expecting the support of the Tamils. There was none from the opposition. The discussion on the topic was knocked down by TNA's national list parliamentarian in front of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe,” the source further told TamilNet.
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SLMC likely to back Sirisena in SL presidential election

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 14:08 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) has appealed to public servants that they should cast their votes according to their conscience giving 'preference' to 'democracy'. Mr. Rauf Hakim, the SL minister of Justice has said that the SLMC had not taken any decision as to whom the Muslim voters should cast their votes in the SL presidential election to take place on January 08. Postal voting of government servants is to begin on Tuesday.
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Controversial SL minister Badurdeen backs Sirisena

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 13:21 GMT]
Rishad Badurdeen, a cabinet minister in the Rajapaksa regime, who has been causing ethnic unrest between the Muslims and Tamils in the North has defected from SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA and joined hands with the joint opposition on Monday, news sources in Colombo said. Mr Badurdeen, who is elected from North and Amir Ali, elected from East, together with many other All Ceylon Muslim Congress (ACMC) members have pledged their support to common opposition’s presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena a short while ago in Colombo.
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Mavai wants Tamils to vote at SL presidential elections

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 December 2014, 22:04 GMT]
Tamil people should use their voting rights without fail in the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential election. The Tamil National Alliance is in the process of preparing statement to be issued very shortly in this regard in few days, said Mr. Mavai Senathirajah, Jaffna district parliamentarian and the President of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK), a constituent party of the TNA.
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Uprooted Champoor people stranded by heavy rains

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 December 2014, 23:18 GMT]
Normalcy has been completely disturbed as the monsoon rains are continuing to wreak havoc in the North-East. Around 30,000 people have been displaced in Paduvaan-karai area of the Batticaloa district. The uprooted people from Champoor, languishing in the so-called welfare centers in Moothoor East have been fully affected by the floods, reports from Trincomalee said.
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Tamil people should reject both Mahinda and Maithiripala: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 December 2014, 18:55 GMT]
The global and regional powers locked in a geopolitical gambling have brought a contest between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithiripala Sirisena. Rajapaksa is backed by China while the West and possibly India back Rajapaksa's former associate Sirisena, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) on Thursday. Declared that there is no use for Tamil people by going behind any of the two mainstream candidates of the South in the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential election, the former Tamil parliamentarian, who addressed the press on behalf of the TNPF and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, urged the Tamil people to refrain from backing any of the two candidates. The TNPF leader blamed the TNA for betraying the Tamil people for the second time as it did by backing Sarath Fonseka in 2010.
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Colombo attempts to deceive Muslims in Trincomalee with makeshift ‘mosque’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 December 2014, 21:17 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which demolished a key mosque of Muslims in Trincomalee Town and Gravets division in August this year has now put up a temporary structure at the locality and allowed the Muslims to visit and pray at the ‘mosque’ with a false propaganda of constructing the mosque. The land where the mosque was situated at Ve’l’lai-ma’nal has been already given to China under a ‘defence related development’ project by Colombo. After visiting the temporary structure, the uprooted Muslim people from Karumalai-oottu said the Colombo government was deceiving the Tamil-speaking Muslims ahead of the upcoming SL presidential elections.
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SL presidential race brings violence between EPDP, TNA in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 December 2014, 18:11 GMT]
A District Development Council (DDC) meeting, which was co-chaired by Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister C.V Wigneswaran and SL Minister Douglas Devananda, ended in violence at Jaffna District Secretariat on Tuesday, when the EPDP paramilitary leader Mr Devananda faced objections from the NPC councillors of the TNA for turning the DDC meeting a venue for Rajapaksa's election propaganda. The paramilitary goons of the EPDP began to assault the TNA representatives who objected the conduct of the EPDP leader at the meeting. EPDP goons assaulted five TNA members, including NPC Ministers Aingaranesan and Sathiyalingam. The EPDP has also claimed that five of its personnel had sustained injuries in the violent episode.
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TNPF to reveal position on SL presidential election on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2014, 23:47 GMT]
Tamil National People Front (TNPF) led by former parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam is to announce its position on the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential election at a media briefing scheduled to be held on December 17 in Colombo, Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnamblam said in response to journalists in Jaffna on Monday.
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1,500 acres of lands seized for Sinhalicisation in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 December 2014, 20:50 GMT]
In a closed-door meeting held at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat on Friday, the divisional secretaries of Mullaiththeevu district were informed that 1,500 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils had been transferred to Sinhala settlers in Kokkuththoduvaay of Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district. While the Tamil landowners, chased away from their villages in 1980, are in possession of documents of ownership and have been demanding resettlement in their villages, the Land Commissioner of Northern Province, Ponnambalam Dayanandan, has transferred the lands to 600 Sinhala families, civil sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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Displaced people from Vanni languish in Trincomalee villages

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 December 2014, 19:30 GMT]
78 families displaced from Ki'linochchi district in 1990 into Trincomalee district and 67 families displaced after 2009 are languishing without permanent housing in the villages of Ki'lik-kugnchi and Naavach-chaalai in Kuchchave'li division in Trincomalee district, civil sources in the district said.
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SL Court to hear mother's challenge on military seizure of land

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 December 2014, 23:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) that had moved into the lands of an old mother, Mrs Maheswary Thambirasa at Mirusuvil in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, had relocated the notorious 52-2 Division Headquarters of the SLA, which was earlier situated in Vara'ni into the new locality situated along the A9 road. SL presidential sibling and SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa opened declared the 52 Division HQ on January 08. Later, the SL military wanted to encroach further lands and the mother was protesting against the illegal seizure. Now, the case has been accepted for hearing at the Court of Appeal in Colombo, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Premachandran denounces clandestine TNA deal with NDF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 December 2014, 18:15 GMT]
The basic strength of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by the incumbent Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the National Democratic Front (NDF) led by the Common Opposition Presidential candidate Mr Maithiripala Sirisena, has been solely depending on the Sinhala communal mindset South in the upcoming presidential election and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) cannot enter into an agreement with any of them, said the TNA media spokesman and Jaffna district TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachchandran on Thursday. However, responding to Premachchandran, NDF's Maithiripala Sirisena said ‘individual politicians’ could make ‘different’ statements.
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Mannaar magistrate orders remand for 7 suspects in Nakuleswaran case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 December 2014, 18:41 GMT]
The Mannaar Magistrate Anananthy Kanagaratnam on Wednesday ordered 90 days remand for seven suspects, including the village officer (GS) of Ve'l'laangku'lam, who are under the custody of the Sri Lankan Police in connection with the investigations on the assassination of ex-LTTE member and former Tamil Eelam policeman Nakuleswaran in Ve'l'laang-ku'lam in Mannaar last month. The SL police has been trying to protect the real culprits who gave the orders and weapons to assassinate the Tamil activist, who was struggling for the resettlement of Tamil villagers of Eekam-kudiyiruppu (the settlement of sacrifice), the villagers complain.
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Tamil civil society formalises TCSF organisation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2014, 10:12 GMT]
A loosely organised network of Tamil Civil Society Activists from the North-East of Sri Lanka who had been functioning for the past five years under the leadership of the Mannaar Bishop have now formally constituted themselves as an organization – the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF). A policy document setting out the aims, objectives and core beliefs of the organisation and a constitution were adopted by more than 60 Tamil Civil Society Activists who took part in the Annual General Meeting of the forum held in mid-November 2014. The aim of the TCSF forum is to protect and promote the existential rights of the Tamil people and the exercise of their right to self determine their social, political, linguistic, cultural and economic future. TCSF is a network of Tamil Civil Society Activists living and/or working primarily in the North-East part of the island.
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Rajapaksa, Sirisena, 17 others hand over nominations for SL presidency

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 December 2014, 11:17 GMT]
The incumbent Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance, common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena and seventeen other candidates on Monday handed over their nominations at the SL Elections Secretariat in Rajagiriya, news sources in Colombo said.
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Colombo's investigators, minister protect suspects in Nakuleswaran assassination

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 December 2014, 22:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) officers, who have detained four suspects in connection with the killing of ex-LTTE member Nakuleswaran in Ve'l'laang-ku'lam in Mannaar last month, are trying to protect the real culprits who gave the orders and weapons to assassinate the Tamil activist, who was struggling for the resettlement of Tamil villagers of Eekam-kudiyiruppu, the villagers complain. In the meantime, the Divisional Secretary of Maanthai West, who has been collaborating with the SL minister Rishad Badurdeen, has been given special protection by the controversial minister following the assassination of Nakuleswaran. The DS has been transferred away from Maanthai West.
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SL TID investigates Heroes Day lighting in Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 December 2014, 22:39 GMT]
The ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) of the occupying Sri Lankan State has instructed the security guards of the Jaffna University to submit the records of the lecturers and students, who were present inside the campus premises on Tamil Heroes Day on 27 November. The SL military was deployed in front of the destroyed Heroes memorial statue inside the campus on that day. It had even occupied storied houses and buildings in the neighbourhood of the Jaffna University to keep an eye on the campus. But, the students went on lighting the common flame of sacrifice at the Selvanayagam block amidst the prying eyes of the SL military. The University administration has also been instructed to comply with the TID to identify the students behind the move.
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Sivagnanam, Wigneswaran sabotage NPC move on genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 December 2014, 11:42 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) chairman C.V.K. Sivagnanam on Thursday ran away from the NPC sitting in an attempt to defend the position taken by NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, who wanted to postpone voting on a crucial motion on Tamil genocide at the 20th sittings of the NPC, news sources at the NPC Secretariat in Kaithadi told TamilNet. The NPC chairman has been postponing the resolution, which identifies the crimes that were committed and those that continue to be committed against the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan State as genocide. Initially, there was no objection at the council to commence voting on the motion, which was brought by M.K. Shivajilingam. At the last minute Mr Wigneswaran said he wanted to postpone the voting till after the SL presidential election.
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Tamil Nadu fishermen on hunger strike in Jaffna prison

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 December 2014, 23:49 GMT]
38 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, who have been jailed in the Jaffna prison, are on a hunger strike demanding their release since Tuesday, news sources in Jaffna said. The occupying Sri Lanka Navy arrested the Tamil Nadu fishermen from Rameasvaram and Puthuk-koaddai in the seas off Jaffna alleging them for illegal poaching.
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Colombo stages 'excavation' of massgrave in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 December 2014, 23:16 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military on Tuesday brought down a large number of journalists from Colombo and staged an 'excavation' of an alleged burial site in Puthukkudiyiruppu of Mullaiththeevu district in Vanni, describing the site as a place where Tigers had slain prisoners of the SL military persons. As there were no skeletal remains at the alleged site, the TID changed its version and claimed that there were traces of burnt bodies from 2006 at the site.
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Colombo threatens TNA civic members to crossover to UPFA

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 December 2014, 22:39 GMT]
The intelligence and political operatives who operate under the direct command of SL presidential siblings Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL defence secretary and Basil Rajapaksa, the economic minister have been trying to woo grassroots Tamil members of the civic bodies in the North and East to the side of the ruling UPFA in the South. US-trained SL military commander in Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera, who has been transferred to Colombo and promoted to the rank of Director General General Staff at the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff is attempting to woo TNA urban Council chairpersons and deputy chairpersons in North to the side of the UPFA through Colombo-based Tamil operatives, informed sources in Jaffna said.
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