Secret UN move sabotaging international investigations condemned

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2015, 15:50 GMT]
The Chief Minister of Northern Province Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) have condemned the recent UN moves hatched in secrecy to establish a domestic mechanism, which seems to have been solely negotiated between the Government of Sri Lanka and the office of the General Secretary of the UN as revealed by the Channel 4 News on Tuesday, based on a leaked UN document. The Channel 4 said the NPC CM was condemning the move as betraying the victims by undermining the calls for an international court. “The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, if he is to maintain the dignity of his office, cannot be silent anymore,” the TCSF said in statement issued on Wednesday demanding immediate response from the UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.
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Three dead bodies recovered in recent days in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2015, 23:48 GMT]
Three dead bodies of males have been recovered in recent days in Batticaloa, news sources in the district said. A 40-year-old Tamil man from Ellai Nakar Road in Chengkaladi, Konalingam Vadivel, who had gone to Kumpu'ru-moolai with his cattle was recovered dead in a shrub jungle near a Sri Lankan military post on 16 July. In the meantime, a 44-year-old Tamil-speaking Muslim was found dead on Sunday in an abandoned plot of land at Keechchaan-pa'l'lam in Kaaththaan-kudi and a 60-year-old Tamil male was found dead in the lagoon of Batticaloa, the sources further said.
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Former History academic of Jaffna University passes away

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 July 2015, 23:53 GMT]
Santasilan Kadirgamar, formerly, Senior Lecturer (1979-1983) and Head of the Department of History (1982-1983) at the University of Jaffna, passed away on Saturday at the age of 81. His notable academic contribution was his book on the Jaffna Youth Congress of the 1920s and 1930s, which is available both in English and Tamil. Inclined to Left politics in the island, Seelan was the chair of the Jaffna branch of the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE-Jaffna) in 1979 and was the co-founder of the Jaffna Citizens’ Committee, set up in 1981, after the burning of the Jaffna Public Library. At no stage of his life, family or political connections made him to get himself aligned with the regimes in Colombo or establishments outside.
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Sinhala policemen harass Tamil families in Kokkuththoduvaay, Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2015, 15:12 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Sinhala policemen, operating from Karunadduk-kea'ni police station in the strategic coastal strip, from Kokkuththoduvaay to Kokku'laay, which links the Northern and Eastern provinces, have been terrorising the resettled Eezham Tamil families in recent days, news sources in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district told TamilNet on Thursday. Under the pretext of searching for illegal brewers, Sinhala policemen without uniforms enter the houses of Tamil fishermen during the nights when the men have left their houses for fishing. The SL policemen have framed a young Tamil fisherman with false charges on Tuesday.
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Chadian parallel: dictator faces trial for war-crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2015, 22:04 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils are searching for international mechanisms to bring those who bear responsibility for the "Crime of the century" of killing more than 80,000 Tamil civilians in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, to justice, human rights activists are elated but reminded that the "march of justice can be slow" in the recent trial of Hissen Habre, a former dictator from Chad, in the courts of Senegal. The trial began on 20th July, for alleged crimes of mass killings, torture, disappearance as part of ethnic cleansing in the 1980s, crimes that have stark parallel to those committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka. US State Department, in their selective approach to dealing with International Crimes, saved former SL President Rajapakse in the US Courts of Law suggesting sovereign immunity, an archaic legal doctrine that allows the US Executive branch to protect even genocidaires from legal action.
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Saiva shrines subjected to Sinhala Buddhicization in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2015, 23:09 GMT]
A shrine of Saiva-Vedda tradition, located 12 km southwest of Paa'nama in Lahugala division of Ampaa'rai district at the hilltop of Channiyaasi-malai, has been subjected to Sinhalicisation and Buddhisization after the area has been seized by Colombo's military from the Tigers eight years ago. Tamil devotees from Ampaa'rai who retured home after a pilgrimage on foot from Thirukkoayil to Kathirkaamam Murukan temple, which is situated in Moneragala district, told TamilNet that the occupying Sinhalese have relocated the ‘divine javelin’ (veal) and built a Buddhist temple at the hilltop in Channiyaasi-malai, which is situated between Paa'nama and Ukanthai.
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Colombo's military red tape prevails over civil rule in occupied Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2015, 22:36 GMT]
The Defence Secretary of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, B.M.U.D. Basnayake this week demonstrated to the secretaries of SL Minister D.M. Swaminiathan in Jaffna that it was the SL military commanders in Jaffna, Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu, who were the ultimate decision makers on matters related to releasing back military-occupied lands to the civilians in the Northern province. The SL Defence Secretary, appointed by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, was on his first visit to North on Saturday and Sunday. In the meantime, EPDP leader Douglas Devananda has gone on record stating that the pockets of lands released so far by Maithiripala regime were those already prepared for release by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Tamil civil society calls for fundamentals-oriented participation in election

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 July 2015, 13:18 GMT]
Coming out with a statement on Friday, the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) in the island has called upon Tamil politicians running for Colombo’s parliamentary elections to come out with an open and fundamental policy-oriented programme, keeping in mind the catalogue of deceptions in the past. The forum also called for the formation of Tamil National Council of civil societies, transcending political parties. Commenting, Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island said that if Tamils could succeed in orientating the voting to prove the demand for international investigation of genocide and prove at least in a small way their will for a shift in the polity to openly address the struggle against imperialist deceptions, that will perhaps make the only point in participating the elections in the given circumstances.
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SL Navy controls access to potable water in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2015, 22:17 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils who are beginning to resettle in the recently released 818 acres of lands in Champoor complain that there is still no assurance that they would not be chased away once again from their lands and properties. This is the fourth time they are told that they could commence their resettlement. Despite the prevailing uncertainty, they have started to clear the lands and put up temporary huts. Still the occupying Sri Lanka Navy controls the lands with access to potable water, resettling civilians told TamilNet on Thursday. “The SL Navy intends to sustain the militarisation while we expect the global community to exert pressure to sustain our livelihoods,” a resettling Tamil civilian said.
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New act of structural genocide seeks to uproot 3,500 Tamils from Mannaar islet

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
The civil officers working under the SL Government Agent in Mannaar have been exerting pressure on 500 Eezham Tamil families living in three GS divisions within Mannaar DS division to vacate from their coastal villages in the islet and settle in alternative lands 15 km away in the mainland. The war-affected poor families, comprising 3,500 to 4,000 people, are dependent on fishing as their livelihood. They were given land deeds in the three GS divisions in 2008 and 2009. Utilized with land deeds, the families have constructed permanent houses and huts in their villages. The move would severely affect their access to the coast and their livelihood. But, the officials receiving instructions from Colombo's administrative system, are bent upon uprooting the fishing families without any promising alternative arrangements, concerned civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Wednesday.
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Mannaar fishermen face prolonged existential crisis due to Indian poaching

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2015, 23:24 GMT]
The States of India and Sri Lanka are reluctant to resolve the conflict caused by poaching by Indian fishermen in the territorial waters of the Northern province for political reasons, says the Chairman of Federation of Mannaar District Fisheries Associations Mr Noor Mohamed Aalam. The intruding poaching trawlers, numbering from 1,500 to 3,000, have completely disabled 10,000 native fishermen from engaging fishing three nights a week. New Delhi and Colombo are not resolving the issue by locking the fishermen societies into a prolonged process of negotiations with hidden political motives, he said.
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Colombo intent on subjecting more Tamil GS officers to ‘military rehabilitation’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
While 6 Eezham Tamil Village Officers (GS) from Ki'linochchi, recently interdicted from their jobs by Colombo's Ministry of Public Administration, are now forced to undergo ‘military rehabilitation’, the occupying Sri Lankan military, which seeks to retain its control on the civil affairs has instructed Karu Jayasuriya's ministry to subject 12 more Tamil GS officers to the genocidal military rehabilitation, civil sources in Jaffna said. Mr T. Kanagarasa, the coordinator of SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna said he had sent a letter to the SL ministry of Public Administration seeking clarification after receiving a complaint from a young mother, who has been interdicted from her work. In the meantime, Mr S. Varathan, the president of the interest organisation of the GS officers in Jaffna accused that the SL Government Agents have failed to protect the interests of the GS officers.
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Ex-militant Tamil mother attempts suicide due to poverty, discrimination

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2015, 19:37 GMT]
An ex-LTTE female member and a mother of three children, Premalatha, was admitted to Batticaloa hospital on Saturday after a suicide attempt, news sources in Vaazhaich-cheanai told TamilNet. The discrimination and targeted isolation of former LTTE members from Batticaloa, especially those who survived the genocidal onslaught at Mu'l'livaaykkaal and resettled in Batticaloa after so-called military rehabilitation and prolonged incarceration, has not improved even after 6 years have elapsed and the regime in Colombo got a ‘facelift’ enacted by Washington and New Delhi.
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Sinhala fishermen behind assault on Indian trawlers: Fishermen's Federation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2015, 10:53 GMT]
While the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) was watching on, a group of Sinhala fishermen who operate trawlers in the seas off Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna attacked a group of Indian poaching trawlers that had entered into the seas off Chakkoadai in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna on Wedensday night. The assault was a calculated act to pass the blame on Eezham Tamil fishermen, S. Arulathas, the president of the Federation of Vadamaraadchi Fishermen Associations, told TamilNet on Saturday. The denial from Jaffna fishermen comes following the reports in Tamil Nadu media that Tamil fishermen in Jaffna were behind the attack on Tamil Nadu fishermen on Wednesday.
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New Delhi calls for registration of Hindi speakers in Northern Province

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2015, 15:18 GMT]
New Delhi’s Consulate General in Jaffna has asked people in the Northern Province, who could speak, read or write Hindi, to come forward to register them at the consulate before 30 July. The necessary registration form for this purpose could be found in the consulate’s website, a press release from the consulate said on Thursday. Meanwhile, New Delhi’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced the creation of a post of Joint Secretary at her ministry for the promotion of Sanskrit. Indian media reports wonder why this post at the ‘Foreign Ministry’.
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Swaminthan continues ‘facilitation meetings’ between SL military, Tamil actors in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2015, 10:07 GMT]
After the Sri Lankan regime led by Maithripala Sirisena had publicly stated that the continued occupation of civilian properties and any release of them are matters decided by its occupying SL military, D.M. Swaminathan, the SL Minister of Resettlement, has been visiting Jaffna and Ki’inochchi, conducting meetings involving the commanding officers of the SL military and Tamil politicians as well as the civil groups representing the interests of uprooted Eezham Tamils. At a ‘facilitation’ meeting chaired by Mr Swaminthan at Ki’linochchi District Secretariat on Wednesday, the representatives of uprooted people refused to accept the explanations given by the Sinhala military commanders for the delay in the resettlement.
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SL Police alleged of ‘protecting’ killers of Batticaloa social activist Mathisayan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2015, 23:48 GMT]
The police of occupying Sri Lanka, receiving instructions from Colombo, has suppressed details on the progress of the investigations on the killing of 43-year-old Eezham Tamil Social Service Officer (SSO) Mathisayan Sachchithanantham. The killing, which shocked the civil activists in Batticaloa, took place a month ago on 26 May 2015. Informed sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Wednesday that one person, having ‘high level’ connections was initially arrested from Thikkoadai and two others were later arrested on the information provided by the person arrested first. Although the entire village was aware of these arrests, the SL police has so far provided no information on the progress of the case to the concerned public, the sources further said.
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