Sinhala occupation continues at gunpoint in East despite ‘regime change’ in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 19:39 GMT]
A Sinhala squad claiming as ‘forest guard’ raided the huts of Tamil cattle herders in their grazing lands situated in Koa'ra'laippattu-South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district Tuesday around 5:00 a.m. The squad assaulted the dairy farmers, burned down their huts, robbed off their belongings at gunpoint and separated the cattle herders from the cattle numbering around 1,000. “Although Maithiripala came to power securing Tamil votes, there is no change on the ground for the Tamil dairy farmers who are undergoing untold hardship caused by the occupying Sinhala settlers, who have encroached into the grazing lands that has been ours for years and years,” Nimalan Chelliah, the president of farm owners association, told TamilNet.
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Documentary on Tamil Muslims inspires approach to Tamil national struggle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 January 2015, 23:39 GMT]
While global and regional powers engineering new world order of corporate imperialist designs try to play the card of religion to deviate the question of oppressed nations without State all over the world, and try to confine the ideological questions of humanity in the post cold war era within the ambit of ‘Clash of Civilizations’ coloured by religions, Tamils who have evolved their identity and civilization in a different way over millennia due to their location have to be extra- cautious in facing the paradigm. The Tamil struggle that has seen the injustice of all the Establishments will be lost if it doesn’t come out with its own model, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics appreciating a documentary film on Tamil Muslims in Tamil Nadu, produced by Mr. S. Anwar.
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Mothers of forcibly disappeared persons demand action from SL State, TNA, IC

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 January 2015, 23:41 GMT]
The mothers of forcibly disappeared persons in Mannaar staged a silent protest on Monday demanding immediate attention from the Tamil National Alliance, the new Sri Lankan regime and the international community to establish the truth on the whereabouts of the persons who were made forcibly-disappeared by the occupying Sri Lankan military; to release the Tamil political prisoners from Sri Lankan jails; to continue the excavation of mass grave of Mannaar killing field and to continue the international investigations on Sri Lanka. The protesting mothers, who were talking to journalists said they were yet to see any constructive step from the new regime or the TNA. They also questioned why the new regime is asking for a ‘list’ of missing persons from the TNA instead of checking their own lists and coming with answers, the protesting mothers asked.
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SL military assaults family man after playground dispute in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 January 2015, 23:28 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala soldiers at Ellaang-ku'lam camp in Uduppiddi in Vadamaraadchi brutally assaulted a 29-year-old father of three from the same village Saturday evening around 5:15 p.m. The victim, Selvaratnam Jegan, was admitted to the Valveddiththu'rai (VVT) Hospital with serious injuries. The SL military on Sunday threatened the family not to reveal the news to media and exerted pressure on the hospital administration to send the injured patient home, news sources in VVT told TamilNet. The SL military camp at Ellang-ku'lam has been a notorious place for torture.
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Resettling Tamils silently expelled from Champoor in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2015, 23:43 GMT]
Following the election of Maithiripala Sirisena as new Sri Lankan President, the uprooted families from a section of the 5th Division and 7th Division of Champoor situated along both the sides of Champoor main road, started to clear their lands for resettlement. Their lands, seized by Colombo under the so-called ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) were to be handed over to a Chinese-owned corporate. The occupying Sri Lanka Navy was blocking the uprooted Tamils from resettling in their lands. Despite the ‘regime change’, the Sri Lanka Navy occupying Champoor and the Sri Lankan Police have chased away the 162 families, who were clearing their plots to prepare for resettlement in the 1,430 acres of lands appropriated by Colombo under the so-called SEZ.
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Protests erupt in Jaffna against continued militarisation, unemployment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2015, 23:44 GMT]
The owners of five houses and lands that have been illegally seized by the Sri Lankan military for more than two decades at Koozhaavadi, situated on Maanippaay Road at Aanaik-koaddai in Jaffna protested on Wednesday against the attempt by Colombo to transform their lands into State property with the motive of permanently sustaining a war-time military camp, which was notorious for extra-judicial interrogations, abductions and disappearances since 1996. At the same time, unemployed graduates staged a protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat demanding jobs.
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SL military in Batticaloa continues to exploit families returned from Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2015, 22:15 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State and its military intelligence in Batticaloa district continue to harass 1,080 families that survived the genocidal onslaught in Vanni in 2009. The families from Batticaloa returned to their native villages situated in 10 of the 14 Divisional Secretariat divisions in the district. The DS Secretaries in these divisions have also been instructed to refuse assistance to these families by the genocidal military. There is no change in the harassments on the ground despite the ‘changes’ taking place in Colombo, the families said. Even those affected by the recent floods have been neglected in the humanitarian assistance. Women-headed families continue to complain about targeted sexual harassments by the occupying Sinhala military in Batticaloa. Two of the 10 divisions where the families have resettled, Koa'ralaippattu South and Koa'ra'laip-pattu North are worst affected.
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UNP Batticaloa branch wants anti-people elements isolated from politics

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The District Organiser of the United National Party (UNP) in Batticaloa Mr Arasaretnam Sasitharan said that a resolution has been passed at the UNP Batticaloa District Executive Committee to the effect that anti-people elements and former paramilitary operatives, who were deployed under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, should not be absorbed into the UNP or the polity associated with the UNP in the new regime in Colombo. The resolution has named four persons who should be kept away from the politics of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramaisnge if UNP needs to win credibility among the Tamil public in Batticaloa district, Mr Sasitharan further said.
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Sinhala prisoners threaten Tamil inmates in Anuradhapura prison

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2015, 23:12 GMT]
Nine political Tamil prisoners jailed in Anuradhapura prison complain harassments by criminal prisoners from South after they have been transferred since Saturday to cells where murder convicts stay, said Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan citing a mother of one of the prisoners. The Tamil prisoners have alleged racial discrimination by an assistant jailor known as Upuldeniya and a Superintend of Police, Chandraratne, according to the families of the 9 prisoners in Anuradhapura prison.
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Sampanthan polity interdicts Ananthy Sasitharan from ITAK

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2015, 16:54 GMT]
The Jaffna District General Secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) K. Thurairasasingam has sent a registered letter to Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, the popularly elected provincial councillor in the North, stating that she had been interdicted from the ITAK for having acted against the decision of the ITAK to support Maithiripala Sirisena in the Sri Lankan Presidential Election, informed TNA sources in Jaffna said. Ms Sasitharan has ‘violated’ the party discipline by issuing statements, conducting a press conference and by making opinion contrary to what the party had decided, the letter dated 11 January 2015, states.
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Extra-government authority to supersede government in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 January 2015, 14:24 GMT]
Tamil ‘National’ Alliance Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan and genocidal Sri Lanka's former military commander Sarath Fonseka, who led the onslaught during the war, being together in a superseding extra-government authority constituted in Colombo would mean nullifying genocide investigation and even war crime investigation, as well as endorsing the unitary Sri Lankan State of US-Indian interests, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, responding to SL president Maithiripala Sirisena, constituting a 11-member ‘National Executive Council’ that would be superseding his newly formed cabinet. The TNA earlier said that it would not participate in the SL government's cabinet. But, now Mr Sampanthan is a member of a Colombo-centric arrangement, higher than the cabinet.
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New Tamil-Muslim equation engineered for Colombo-centric agenda

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 January 2015, 23:37 GMT]
Negotiations are under way for bringing in a new alliance among the political forces of Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims in the North and East that are orientated for collaboration with the Washington - New Delhi - Sinhala State agenda, reconfirming the Colombo-centric genocidal State, informed sources told TamilNet. This follows the electoral engineering in the island in which Tamils victimised in the US-designed war ending in genocide and Muslims internationally at loggerheads with the US views of imperialism were brought together to vote for a regime change that has put the USA at the helm of affairs. The follow-up ‘ground operations’ now take place in the North and East provincial councils and the first victim is likely to be the EPDP, which would be losing its opposition leadership in the NPC to Rishard Badurdeen's All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC), the sources further said.
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New SL cabinet to be sworn in on Monday evening

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 January 2015, 12:48 GMT]
The cabinet of the newly installed Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena is to be sworn in on Monday evening at 6:00 p.m., according to SL presidential media unit. In the meantime Monday's Virakesary carried a news item quoting Mr M.A. Sumanthiran that TNA will not be accepting ministerial portfolios in the ‘national government’.
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Ananthy urges Pope to see genocide, get answers from local, international players

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 2015, 13:59 GMT]
As Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the island from Tuesday to Thursday, NPC Councillor Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, urged him to grasp the underlying factor of the conflict in the island, i.e. genocide and sought his help in getting answers from the government in Colombo and the international players, including the UN, the Co-chairs and India. “I hope Your Holiness is aware that there is an ideology behind the genocidal process,” she wrote in a letter addressed to the Pope on Saturday. She was citing a key case of Fr Francis Joseph towards the end of the war in perceiving the dimensions and said: “The Catholic Church, having witnesses among the people, has a moral duty to safeguard the people from the protracted crime of genocide.”
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‘LLRC’ Palihakkara expected to replace Military Governor of North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 January 2015, 20:17 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Governor of North, Major General (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri, on Saturday told his staff that he would resign his job before anyone on the top coming with the instruction of transfer to him, informed civil sources in Jaffna said adding that Colombo's regime-changers have proposed HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists earlier appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which was aimed at buying space and time for Sri Lanka to escape international investigations. Colombo-centric agenda-setters are replacing a military governor with a more sophisticated diplomat concerned with safeguarding the unitary state of Sri Lanka.
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Tamil-speaking voters decided new SL President, says JVP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 January 2015, 14:19 GMT]
The major share of the victory of Mr Maithiripala Sirisena as the sixth president of the country belongs to Tamil-speaking people although the JVP had a ‘little say’ in the outcome of the result, said Anura Dissanayake MP, the president of the Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), at a media briefing held in Colombo on Friday evening. Currently, the JVP is prepared to give ‘pressure’ from outside to ensure ‘good governance’ via the new SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, the JVP leader further stated.
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Sirisena sworn in as 6th SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 14:06 GMT]
The SL President-Elect Maithiripala Sirisena was sworn in as the 6th Executive President of ‘Sri Lanka’ before Justice K. Sripavan on Friday at the Independence Square in Colombo on Friday evening around 6.20 p.m. Mr Maithiripala had declined to take oath before the current Sri Lankan Chief Justice Mohan Peiris, who is considered as a political appointee after the impeachment motion against the 43rd Chief Justice Ms Shiranee Bandaranayke, news sources in Colombo said. Later, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president of the United National Party and the leader of the opposition in the current SL parliament took oath as the Prime Minister before the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena at the same venue.
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Sirisena declared SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 09:50 GMT]
Sri Lankan Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya has officially declared Maithripala Sirisena as the new President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka around noon at his secretariat. Except the UPFA candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, all the other presidential candidates were present at the event.
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Sinhala elite succeeds proving Rajapaksa a liability for genocidal State

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 05:24 GMT]
Sections of Sinhala elite have succeeded in removing Mahinda Rajapaksa as a liability for the continuation of the genocidal Sinhala State and its monopoly over the island, Tamil political observers commented on the outcome of the ‘presidential’ election for the Establishment in Colombo. According to latest reports on Friday morning, Mahinda Rajapaksa left the charge of his official residence in Colombo to the current opposition leader Ranil Wikramasinghe, who in turn is expected to invite the winning candidate Maithripala Srisena to become the next president. Rajapaksa was open in his campaign that the choice between the two main candidates was a choice between China and the USA. India had a tacit understanding with the USA, political observers said.
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Maithiripala expected to poll 4 to 6 times more than Rajapaksa in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 17:58 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena is expected to poll four to six times more votes than Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Jaffna Electoral District while the contest is reportedly tight in the South, sources monitoring the counting told TamilNet at 10:40 p.m. local time on Thursday. Voter turnout in the administrative district of Jaffna was at 61.14%. Mullaiththeevu recorded 74.78% voter turnout, Mannaar 68.25% and Ki'linochchi 70.1%. The voter turnout was at 72% in the administrative district of Trincomalee in the East. 70% turnout was registered at Ampaa'rai district and 60.93% in Batticaloa district in the East. Official results are expected to be released after midnight.
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SL Paramilitary operatives threaten TNA supporters in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 12:38 GMT]
Paramilitary operatives of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, the former UPFA-appointed Chief Minister of Eastern Province, have threatened monitors appointed on behalf of the common opposition to monitor the polling stations at Chiththaa'ndi in Batticaloa, news sources in Batticaloa said. In the meantime, Iniyabarathy's paramilitary operatives in Ampaa'rai district have assaulted a TNA divisional councillor P. Vijayarasa near Thirukkoayil Peoples Bank.
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More than 50% voter turnout in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 12:18 GMT]
Voter turnout was registered at 51% in Jaffna, 50% in Mannaar, 55.3% in Ki'linochchi, 68% in Mullaiththeevu and 60% in Vavuniyaa around 2:30 p.m., according to election department sources. The polling was peaceful in most of the places in the North apart form reports of a grenade explosion at Alvaay. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) canvassing for regime change in the South has arranged buses for the transport of the voters at many places in the North. In the meantime, SL military soldiers were instructed to distribute leaflets urging people to vote for Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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SL military divided over voting in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 08:06 GMT]
Despite the tension about possible violence in Tamil areas by the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitary, all arrangements necessary for brisk polling have completed in the two provinces, according to Sri Lankan Government Agents in the North and East. Voters were seen at many polling stations in queue. In the meantime, Sri Lankan military intelligence had stepped up disinformation campaign to divert the voting to another ‘Sirisena’ contesting the elections under the symbol of flag. While a section of the occupying military was hijacking the boycott call, thinking that it will be in favourable of Mahinda Rajapaksa, there were also SL soldiers encouraging the public to vote for the common opposition candidate Maithiripala Sirisena.
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‘Regime change’ drive reinvigorated Sinhala extremism: Tamil trade unionist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 January 2015, 19:26 GMT]
Sinhala extremist racist politics has again proved itself as being the driving force of the Sinhala politics in the South as demonstrated by the mainstream camps of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithiripala Sirisena in the run up to the presidential elections, said President of All Ceylon General Employees Union, S. Loganathan, a Tamil trade unionist who is based in Ampaa'rai in the Eastern Province. Explaining the problems of Tamils in the Ampaa'rai district in detail, the long-time trade unionist, now in the process of forming a new party, also blamed the Tamil National Alliance for its failure at the grassroots level in addressing the plight of oppressed Tamils.
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Ananthy's house stoned in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 January 2015, 08:18 GMT]
Unknown attackers stoned the house of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councillor in the Northern Province, Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, in the early hours of Tuesday, threatening the NPC councillor and her three children while they were sleeping at their residence located at Vadakkamparai in Chuzhipuram in Valikaamam West, Jaffna. Ms Ananthy and her children narrowly escaped from a stone that went through the window inside the house. The attack comes after Ms Sasitharan warned a local media, DAN TV, which backs Colombo regime, that she would be filing legal suit against misusing her name in their advertisement.
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Maithiripala denies devolution agreement with Tamils, Muslims

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 January 2015, 12:41 GMT]
“We are firm in our stand that there is no place for Tamil Eelam demand and the Sri Lanka Army would not be withdrawn from the Northern Province,” said Common Presidential Candidate Maithiripala Sirisena on Monday. The statement comes after Mr Maithiripala has received unconditional backing from the TNA Parliamentary Group Leader Sampanthan and TNA's National List Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran. “My government will safeguard the unity and the territorial integrity of the country,” Mr. Sirisena added stating that he had not signed any agreement on devolution with Tamil and Muslim parties that are backing him.
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6-year-old child wounded in SL military assault on civilians in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 January 2015, 08:25 GMT]
A 6-year-old child was rushed to Ki'linochchi hospital at serious condition on Sunday when SL military soldiers at Paarathi-puram assaulted the Tamil civilians who were protesting against SL military violence on a tailor shop where a 46-year-old man from Paarathi-puram was brutally assaulted by a Sinhala soldier. The SL soldiers attacked the public when the public had gathered in front of the SL military camp demanding the arrest of SL soldier who went amok on the tailor shop. But, the SL military, which has been suppressing and exploiting the poverty-stricken resettled villagers, chose to assault the public in front of the military base.
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SL military targets TNA members waging Maithiripala propaganda in North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 January 2015, 22:48 GMT]
SL police arrested five health labourers of Valikaamam North civic council at A'laveddi on Saturday, when they were putting up posters in support of Maithiripala Sirisena. The chairman of Valikaamam North Piratheasa Chapai (PS), S. Sugirthan of TNA had asked them to put up posters, news sources said. The arrested were allowed to go on bail on Sunday. Similarly, three TNA members were arrested earlier in Maanippaay for putting up posters in support of Maithiripala. In the meantime, SL military operatives, who came in a white van were trying to abduct four TNA activists in Ki'linochchi while they were on a Maithiripala propaganda mission. The Tamil youth have managed to escape from the abductors, news sources in Ki'linochchi said.
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Mavai threatens Ananthy for BBC interview on election stand

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 January 2015, 14:10 GMT]
Popularly elected NPC Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan was taken to medical care at fainted state on Friday morning after she was threatened over the phone by ITAK leader and TNA parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah to resign from the ITAK and the TNA. The controversial threat comes following an interview to the BBC Tamil Service by Ms Ananthy on Thursday. In the interview, Ms Ananthy went on stating that she would be either abstaining from the voting or nullifying her vote as no Tamil with self-respect would be voting for any of the two mainstream candidates in the SL presidential race. Ignoring the opposition from the grassroots, the Establishment-centric hierarchy of the TNA last week decided to support the common opposition candidate Maithiripala Sirisena.
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9th Anniversary of STF killing of Trincomalee students

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 January 2015, 00:01 GMT]
Dr Kasippillai Manoharan and four other families will be commemorating the nineth anniversary of the murder of their sons extra-judicially executed by the Special Task force (STF) of the Sri Lanka Government on the 2nd January 2006. The high school students, all then nearly 20-years old, were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee when the allegedly planned crime took place. Dr Manoharan told TamilNet that the STF officers Kapila Jayasekera and Vas Perera, part of the STF contingent sent to Trincomalee on the orders of the Defence Secretary and President's sibling, Gothabaya Rajapakse, and Udawatte Weerakody, a naval officer, were the key players in the planning and execution of the murders.
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UPFA deploys ‘Jihad’ operatives to harass Tamils in Mannaar to vote for Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2015, 23:26 GMT]
Two village (GS) areas in Mannaar, surrounding the public ground of the Urban Council, where the visiting Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa is scheduled to stage his election campaign activities on Wednesday, have been rounded up by the Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) commandos, SL military soldiers and policemen since New Year eve. Government workers belonging to construction, road development and electricity departments are forced to work round the clock to finalise the stage for Rajapaksa. People from Chaavat-kaddu and Chinna-kaddu villages complain that normalcy has been disturbed and they were unable to observe New Year celebrations. The people have also been subjected to harassment by the operatives of SLFP ‘Blue Brigade’ that has occupied the city.
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Gotabhaya monitors Devananda's allegiance to Kumaratunga

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2015, 11:09 GMT]
While welcoming the incumbent SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to North and challenging the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in District Development Committee meetings with a pro-Colombo stance, SL minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, has also assured his personal allegiance to former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives under the direct command of SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa have been questioning the close associates of Mr Devananda for his lack of interest in putting up Rajapaksa posters ahead of Rajapaksa's scheduled visit to Jaffna.
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