Jaffna becomes 'high security' transit hub for drug smuggling

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 March 2016, 21:27 GMT]
The occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka has transformed two sea spots adjacent to the so-called military High Security Zone in Jaffna peninsula as hubs for narcotic smuggling, according to informed fishing society sources in Jaffna. The daily narcotic trafficking through the hub is estimated to be between 8 to 12 kilograms. Most of the drugs are being smuggled from Kerala State in India. There have been competing smuggling rings and that has resulted in some arrests in recent times.
Full story >>

SL Presidential ‘Commission’ continues to deceive families of enforced disappeared

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 March 2016, 23:29 GMT]
The ‘Presidential Commission to Investigate Complaints regarding Missing Persons’ (PCICMP) has held 3-day long public sittings at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat last week and proceeded to Mannaar on Monday with the second session of sittings. The mothers and wives of persons, who have been subjected to enforced disappearances during the genocidal war and its immediate aftermath, blamed the occupying Sri Lanka Navy as the major culprit behind many disappearances that have taken place in Mannaar. In the meantime, the PCICMP ‘Commission’, which lacks credibility among the population, was engaged in deceiving the families through prompting them to consider receiving ‘death’ certificates. “We were handled as beneficiaries and not as witnesses,” a mother in Mannaar told TamilNet adding that Maithiripala Sirisena's ‘Commission’ was trying to substitute justice with ‘supplies’.
Full story >>

Colombo systematically discriminates uprooted Tamils in Ampaa'rai: EPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 March 2016, 23:24 GMT]
While the current regime of genocidal Sri Lanka is engaged in propaganda activities through donating houses to sections of Eezham Tamils to showcase its ‘one-way reconciliation’, especially through media involving journalists from South, the majority of uprooted Tamils are being systematically kept away from resettling in their villages, accused T. Kalaiyarasan, an elected member of the Eastern Provincial Council, on Sunday. The Tamil families who resettled on their own effort in are being systematically harassed in Ampaa'rai. Not a single journalist from South has ever exposed this systemic neglect, the EPC Councillor said. Colombo government's Archaeology Department, Forest Department and Wildlife Departments are working closely with Buddhist monks and the occupying Sinhala military to keep the Tamils away from their traditional villages in Ampaa'rai district, he said.
Full story >>

UN Resident Coordinator lies to NPC Councillor: Inner City Press

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 March 2016, 13:11 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan was the first one to react in the island after the journalist of Inner City Press (ICP), Matthew Russell Lee, who is renowned for reporting on the inner workings of the UN system was expelled on two-hour notice from the UN Headquarters on 19 February. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information had revoked Mr Lee's resident correspondent pass and his access to the press office. On Tuesday this week, Ms Ananthy, who came back to Jaffna after addressing the Human Rights Council session in Geneva, received a written reply from Una McCauley, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNICEF Resident Representative in Colombo that Mr Lee is now provided non-Resident Correspondent access. ICP Journalist Matthew Russell Lee, after seeing the letter received by Ananthy, commented it as an “untruthful and Kafka-esque response”.
Full story >>

SL Police instructed to cover up investigations on Mannaar killing fields

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 March 2016, 23:33 GMT]
Colombo has instructed the Sri Lankan police officers in Mannaar to do their maximum to cover up further exhumation of the alleged killing fields at Thirukkeatheesvaram in Mannaar, informed sources told TamilNet on Monday. The SL Police officials are working hard to twist the facts that the exhumed remains were from a burial site while the two burial sites used by the villagers are situated far away from the mass grave site. In the meantime, Sri Lankan Special Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Colombo is unnecessarily dragging the process of determining the institution outside the island to determine the characteristics of the victims who died, how they died and how long ago they died.
Full story >>

SL State launches ‘heritage genocide’ projects in Jaffna circumventing NPC

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 March 2016, 14:08 GMT]
The occupying unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka, which has been adamantly refusing to hand over the affairs of looking after the cultural heritage of North and East into the hands of provincial councils, on Friday launched a new project with foreign funding with the aim of bringing the affairs of cultural heritage, heritage management and cultural tourism into the hands of Colombo run ministries. Combining the funding through ‘Colonial heritage’ masters in Europe, Maithiri – Ranil regime is advancing the ‘Army and Archaeology’ paradigm of Rajapaksa regime into new genocidal heights, commented political observers in Jaffna after witnessing the way of the launching of ‘Historical Monuments of the Jaffna Fort’ with a politicized ‘antiquities replica shop’ and the Nalloor office for ‘Jaffna Project’ of ‘Central Cultural Fund’.
Full story >>

Colombo proceeds unabatedly with military, STF deployment in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 March 2016, 23:00 GMT]
The ‘Defence Ministry’ of genocidal Sri Lanka has instructed the District Secretariat of Batticaloa through the SL Ministry of Public Administration and Management in Colombo to permanently transfer the ownership of the lands belonging to the Divisional Secretariat office of Eruvilpattu South at Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi. The STF units, formed during the times of late SL President J.R. Jayawardene and trained by the British, were further strengthened by his successor, the late SL President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The STF camped at the premises of DS office in 1990 is still stationed there despite the end of war in Batticaloa in 2007. A torture chamber is located inside this notorious camp where several Eezham Tamils abducted by the white-van squads in the past, have been subjected to ‘enforced disappearances’. Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi is located about 30 km south of Batticaloa on Kalmunai road.
Full story >>

Colombo accelerates Sinhaliciation, Buddhicisation in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 March 2016, 17:28 GMT]
After the Northern Provincial Council requested the SL Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government in Colombo twice in November 2015 not to proceed with changing the historical Tamil names of the administrative wards of Nayinaa-theevu (Nainathivu) islet situated off Jaffna into Sinhala, occupying Colombo, through its ministries and the Sinhala navy stationed in the islet have been renaming the Tamil names of the streets in the islet into Sinhala. In the meantime, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Buddhist monks and the SL Navy are jointly working to erect a 52-feet Buddha statue facing the Palk Bay. The Buddha statue will be overshadowing and completely hiding the view of the historical Saiva temple of Nainaa-theevu Naaka-poosha'ni Amman from the Palk Bay, civil sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

Maithiripala accelerates structural genocide against Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 March 2016, 23:47 GMT]
Maithiriapala Sirisene, the president of genocidal Sri Lanka, who visited his native district of Polonnaruwa last week, has vowed to ‘develop’ the villages that are being Sinhalicised along the border of Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa through ‘Mahaweli System B’, which is being accelerated according to his latest instructions. Hailing from Polonnaruwa, Mr Sirisena has been implementing a long-term Sinhalicisiation agenda within the System B, which is the largest of Mahaweli ‘Development’ programme, consisting of 75,441 ha., including 27,179 ha of irrigable lands.
Full story >>

Occupying SL military behind bringing extremist BBS monks to Kokku'laay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 March 2016, 08:47 GMT]
Officers of the occupying SL Army and Navy were operating behind in arranging Sinhala Buddhist extremist Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) to visit Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu district, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet on Wednesday. Ven Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the BBS was in Kokku'laay on Monday encouraging the extremist monk Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero for his occupation scheme, which is being projected through the construction of a Buddhist Vihara establishment in the lands illegally seized from Eezham Tamils at the strategic point linking North and East. In the meantime, the SL government in Colombo, through its Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, has issued hundreds of fishing permits to Sinhala fishermen occupying Kokku'laay.
Full story >>

Attacked Tamil students in Trinco campus under pressure not to talk to media

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 March 2016, 22:41 GMT]
The administration of Trincomalee Campus at the Eastern University has instructed the students not to talk to media. On Monday, the campus was temporarily shut down to avoid situation getting out of control. The administration has also appointed a three-member committee with the instruction not to bring out the racial motive behind the episode. The attacked students said they had complained for a long time about the hate crime tendency, but the university administration has ignored the early warnings. On Monday, the Sinhala students started to claim that the attack was in retaliation to ‘bullying behaviour’ from the Tamil students. The Tamil students from the Unit of Siddha Medicine have provided names of ten Sinhala students from the departments of Communication and Management to the Campus administration and the SL Police. No action has been taken against them, they said.
Full story >>

Sinhala students assault Tamil students at Trincomalee campus of Eastern University

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 March 2016, 18:45 GMT]
Nine of twelve Tamil male students attending the discipline of Siddha Medicine at Trincomalee Campus of the Eastern University were brutally assaulted on Thursday evening by Sinhalese students from the two mainstream faculties at the campus. The attacked Tamil students were also blocked by the Sinhala students from getting medical treatment. The administration of the University has been subjected to political pressure in covering up the incident not being portrayed as an ethnic assault. Although the name of 10 identified Sinhala male students have been provided to the SL Police, there has been no action against them, the affected Tamil students receiving medical treatment at Nilaave'li hospital told TamilNet on Sunday.
Full story >>

Zeid replays Hashemites’ role as stooges after World Wars, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 March 2016, 23:49 GMT]
Noting that the general sentiment within the Tamils in NorthEast and the diaspora is frustration and disappointment at the inability and unwillingness of the international community led by the US and the UN to enforce accountability for the past crimes of the Sri Lankan State, and irked by the recent statements by UN's Human Rights Chief Zeid bin Ra’ad , that Sri Lanka has made "powerful symbolic gestures of reconciliation" in an attempt to whitewash Sri Lanka's crimes, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law, said that Mr Zeid is simply acting as an artificial puppet to the United States, in the same way his Hashemite family from Arabian Peninsula served under the British after the world war-I, and later became the stooges for the CIA and the United States after world war-II.
Full story >>

Whose ‘security’ was Zeid concerned of when he called Tamil prisoners ‘security detainees’?

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 March 2016, 23:44 GMT]
The North East Secretariat of Human Rights (NESoHR) has issued a snapshot drawn from 70 hand-written statements, which were in possession of the Tamil human rights group since early 2008. Presenting the cases of 18 Tamil prisoners who have been subjected extreme torture inside the New Magazine prison of genocidal Sri Lanka, the NESoHR statement dated 12 March 2016, questioned: “Can any human being think of any purpose in holding these Tamils in prison?” The report has come at a time when the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad finds it appropriate to call them ‘security detainees’. The question is whose security Mr Zeid was concerned of when he termed Tamil political prisoners that way, ask the kith and kin of Tamil political prisoners, who are on a hunger-strike for more than two weeks now.
Full story >>

Resettling Tamils confront SL Navy consolidating deployment along Northern cost

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 March 2016, 05:46 GMT]
The resettling villagers of Cheanthaan-ku'lam near I'lavaalai in Jaffna successfully blocked the occupying Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) from seizing the lands belonging to St. Anne's Church on Tuesday when the SLN of genocidal Sri Lanka brought Survey Department officials to survey 4 acres of lands situated between Maathakal and Keerimalai along the coast. The SL Navy from ‘Uttara’ naval cantonment in Kaangkeasan-thu'rai (KKS) was attempting for the fourth time to survey and seize the lands for a ‘coastal observation point’. The beach of Cheanthaan-ku'lam was a former Sri Lankan military ‘High Security Zone’, situated near Maathakal and Kaangkeasanthu'rai in Valikaamam North. The resettling people have blocked the SL Navy from carrying out the survey.
Full story >>

Senior Jaffna reporter Navaratnarajah passes away

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 March 2016, 17:21 GMT]
61-year-old N. Navaratnarajah (Navam GS) from Mallaakam in Jaffna, who briefly served in TamilNet as a reporter for Jaffna during the turbulent times in the past, has passed away in the early hours of Tuesday due to heart attack at the Teaching Hospital in Jaffna. Mr Navaratnarajah was a Village Officer (GS), a committed social activist and was engaged in news reporting as a freelance journalist for at least 2 decades. Despite his busy schedule, Mr Navaratnarajah remained committed as a full time journalist, working for Uthayan, Chudar-O'li, Veerakesari, Tamil Mirror and to certain Tamil language websites for a long time. He was born on 14 April, 1954.
Full story >>

Tamil political prisoners denounce compromise, intensify hunger strike

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 March 2016, 08:23 GMT]
Fourteen Tamil prisoners, who have been on a hunger strike inside the New Magazine prison for 15 days till Tuesday have vowed not to drop their demand of dignified release of all Tamil political prisoners from the Sri Lankan jails. On Monday, the 10 prisoners on hunger strike at Welikade prison and the remaining four admitted to hospital, vowed to continue their hunger strike refusing medical treatment anymore. Meanwhile, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians were urging the prisoners to drop their struggle giving false based on the promises from SL Minister of ‘Prison Reforms’ DM Swaminathan, who was working on a draft motion to be presented to SL Parliament on Tuesday. However, the prisoners have responded stating that they will not abandon their struggle with empty promises. They want to see actions based on a principled decision of releasing all political prisoners.
Full story >>

SL ‘TID’ operatives threaten Tamil family in Mannaar at gunpoint

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 March 2016, 23:10 GMT]
Five Sinhala-speaking operatives of the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ who entered the house of 66-year-old Manikam Ilaiyathamby, situated near Mannaar Hospital Road Junction, have threatened his family on 26 February 2016 around 10:30 p.m. demanding the family to hand over their 36-year-old son who is residing in UK. The SL military intelligence and the TID division operatives have been harassing the family since the breakdown of the Norway-brokered Ceasefire Agreement between the Sinhala State and the Tamil Tigers. The Sinhala operatives under the direct command of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry in Colombo have been harassing the family for some time stating that they were having photos of Ilaiyathamby Kalaivanar, the son of Mr Ialaiyathamby garlanding LTTE Political Division members who arrived at Mannaar following the CFA.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka still precarious for returning Tamil asylum seekers, says Swiss NGO

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 18:34 GMT]
While Amnesty International and Swiss NGOs, including the Swiss Refugee Council, said that the situation for Tamils in Sri Lanka is still precarious and that it is too early for asylum seekers from Switzerland to be returned to Sri Lanka, the Swiss Government and the visiting Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera, signed a "migration partnership" the technical consulatations [on involuntarily returning Tamil refugees] of which is to take place soon, according to a Swiss Embassy press release.
Full story >>

Largest donor US orchestrates UN OHCHR actions, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 16:50 GMT]
"He who pays the piper calls the tune. That is why the UN Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have gone along with the U.S.-sponsored GOSL “domestic mechanism” that is designed to whitewash, cover-up and facilitate the ongoing GOSL war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Eelam Tamils," said Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law.
Full story >>

Colombo resumes surveillance of Eezham Tamils through ‘registration’ in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 11:11 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Sinhala police, the intelligence operatives of the SL State and military surveillance officers are conducting fresh ‘registrations’ of people living across the 14 divisions of Batticaloa district, citing section 76 of the SL ‘Police Ordinance’ which states that householders should furnish the officer of police of his or her division with a list of all the inmates in the house and that any change occurring in the households should be reported to the police or legal authorities of the SL State. The surveillance measure is now being systematically implemented in the entire district of Batticaloa. In addition, Sinhala military intelligence officers are visiting selected households every month and some others every third month. Those who have been in Vanni earlier are being harassed with ‘terrorist’ questions, Tamil civil sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Friday.
Full story >>

Veteran development activist Fr Sathiyapillai Guy de Fontgalland passes away

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 March 2016, 23:18 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil development activist Rev Fr Sathiyapillai Guy de Fontgalland, who has dedicated his life to the upliftment of the Upcountry Tamils in the island, passed away at the age of 69 on Monday after being hit by a sea wave in Trincomalee. Fr S Guy de Fontgalland, who hails from Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts) island in Jaffna, was the founder of Leo Marga Ashram (LMA) in Bandarawela, which is an alternative development-oriented action group, based in Badulla district. With a vision of liberating the plantation community and a mission of creating an alternative leadership in the plantation sector through conscientization programs aimed at a people’s movement.
Full story >>

Released Tamil prisoner says all inmates subjected to wrongful convictions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2016, 23:07 GMT]
The kith and kin of imprisoned Tamil prisoners of war and political prisoners staged a protest in front of Jaffna Bus Station on Wednesday morning expressing their solidarity with the political prisoners who are on hunger-strike at New Magazine prison in Colombo. Two Tamil prisoners recently released from the prison, attended the protest and one of the released prisoners, 32-year-old Komahan Murugiah, a former member of Jaffna Municipal Council, gave an emotional speech, in which he said all of the inmates languishing with him during the past 6 years were wrongfully convicted based on forced confessions in the past.
Full story >>

Protesters in Jaffna demand UN to restore media access to ICP at UN HQ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 March 2016, 14:20 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillors Ananthy Sasitharan and M.K. Shivajilingam along with the kith and kin of missing persons staged an emotional protest on Tuesday morning in Jaffna in front of UN's Sub Office (WFP office) demanding the United Nations Headquarters in New York to restore UN-accredited media access to Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, who has been continuously revealing how human rights affairs of Eelam Tamils are being handled at the United Nations HQ at New York. “On behalf of the stateless nation of Eelam Tamils, I am urging you to resolve the dispute and restore UN accreddited media access to Matthew Russell Lee and take disciplinary action against the elements threatening free speech at the esteemed world body,” Ms Ananthy Sasitharan said.
Full story >>