Nullified ownership of lands not revoked by Colombo: resettled Champoor Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 June 2017, 23:40 GMT]
Occupying Colombo has once again proved its systematic violation of traditional land ownership rights of Eezham Tamils to their private lands in Champoor, complain representatives of Vinaayakar Community Centre (Chana-chamooka-nilaiyam) from Champoor in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The families in Champoor had residential and agricultural lands as combined tracts of lands that measured from 0.5 acre to 2 acres per family before they were uprooted from their village in September 2006. Now, the occupying Colombo wants to limit their ownership rights to just 20 perches per family, the representatives of Vinaayakar Community Centre told TamilNet on Friday.
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Quisling politics of ITAK seeks to contain protests against SL military land grab

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 June 2017, 22:11 GMT]
Politicians of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) are engaged in a new round of exercises in containing the protests of uprooted people by arranging a meeting between Ruwan Wijewardene, the SL Deputy Minister of Defence and the protesting people of Ira’naitheevu in Ki’linohchci on Wednesday. In the meeting, Mr Wijewardene went on record promising to take action within 2 weeks. What happened to the promised actions of resettling people of Mu’l’lik-ku’lam, who were given a similar 2-weeks promise by SL Naval Commander two months ago, asked the protesting families. In the meantime, SL President Maithiripala Sirisena avoided to meet the protesting families of Keappaa-pulavu, who staged a protest on Tuesday outside the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo with the support of solidarity groups in South.
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Multi-pronged ‘Intelligence’ harassment on CBOs, local NGOs in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 June 2017, 21:41 GMT]
Officers of the occupying Sinhala military intelligence are again harassing the Community Based Organisations and local Non Governmental Organisations that have been assisting the war-affected and poverty-stricken families in the rural areas of Batticaloa district. On Friday an event organised by a local NGO, Akam, was suspended at Thannaamunai village located 5 km north of Batticaloa city, NGO circles in Batticaloa said. The District Coordinator of Akam was almost interrogated by the visiting Ea'raavoor Police and Military Intelligence officers of occupying Colombo. The event scheduled to distribute assistance to beneficiaries from Thannaamunai village was cancelled at the last minute due to repeated harassment from the ‘interrogators’ on Friday.
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Uprooted Mu'l'lik-ku'lam fishermen blocked from fresh-water fishing

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 June 2017, 23:12 GMT]
The uprooted families of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam, who are languishing without access to their village, which has been seized by the occupying Sinhala Navy, complain that the SL fisheries authorities were also blocking them from fishing in the Mudar-kaama-aa'ru river, where they use to fish when the winds were not in favour of fishing in the high seas in the Gulf of Mannaar. Two representatives of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam fishermen, Anthony Cruze and Antony Lambert, addressed media in Jaffna on Saturday detailing the destitute situation of the uprooted people of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam.
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SL State Intelligence targets families of Diaspora Tamil activists in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 June 2017, 23:27 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe's State Intelligence Service (SIS), which was formerly known as the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), is now going after the families of Tamil diaspora activists, who are living in the island, particularly in the North and East. Instead of operating white-vans and issuing TID notices, the SIS interrogators send couple of Sinhala policemen prior to their arrival. After reaching a house, the interrogators, who are in civil, start to ask questions filling out the details to the questions they have with them. Often, they come up with direct threats creating conditions of mental torture. 72-year-old Kumarasamy Navaratnarajah, from Navaali West in Maanippaay, Jaffna, was assaulted on 04 June.
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Tamil fishermen in Vanni warn of confronting intruding Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 June 2017, 20:31 GMT]
Eezham Tamil fishermen’s societies in Mullaith-theevu and in Vadamaraadchi East complain that more than 400 trawlers from the South have been deployed along their coast from Chaalai to Naakar-koayil in Jaffna district, exploiting their livelihood and marine resources almost on daily basis in the recent weeks. The occupying Sinhala fishermen were telling the local fishermen in the beginning that they would not be disturbing the livelihood of the local fishermen and that there were only 40 trawlers engaging in the fishing from a distance of 4 nautical miles beyond the coastline. But, the intrusion has now exceeded completely out of proportion, causing destruction to the fishing nets of local fishermen. The Sinhala fishermen are deploying prohibited methods of fishing at the presence of SL Navy.
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Colombo wants Sinhalicised village to be annexed with Vavuniyaa Division

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 June 2017, 22:40 GMT]
Kokkachchaan-ku’lam, a traditional Tamil village in Vavuniyaa district, was Sinhalicised into Kala-bogas-wewa and Colonized heavily during the Rajapaksa regime in 2013 and 2014 with an active role by the then SL Governor to North and Namal Rajapaksa, the son of former SL President. This village is now being demographically integrated with Kallik-ku’lam GS division of Vavuniyaa Tamil division. In the meantime, another part of the former Tamil village of Kokkachchaan-ku'lam is being demographically annexed with Kebithigollewa of Anuradhapura district of North Central Province, the civil sources in Vavuniyaa further said.
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Global ‘environment funds’ deployed by Colombo to seize lands in North-East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 June 2017, 17:26 GMT]
Global Establishments seem to be extensively involved in channelling funds to Colombo through the so-called ‘environmental’ and ‘forest preservation’ projects that are conceived by the SL State and Colombo- and Sinhala-centric NGOs, which derive their funds from global programmes associated with the programmes being promoted by global Establishments, particularly the outfits of the West. In order to secure such funds, the agent-State in Colombo is relentlessly seizing the lands of Tamil-speaking peoples in the North and East. Retired Land Commissioner of Eastern Province, Mr Kathirkamathamby Kurunathan, in an interview to TamilNet this week was citing Gazetted seizure of lands from Musali in Mannaar to Ampaa'rai in the East and illustrated how these appropriations were circumventing even the safeguards of the SL Constitution and the principles of natural justice.
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NGO activist in Jaffna urges Tamil diaspora to be vigilant on Colombo-centric manipulations

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 June 2017, 17:05 GMT]
NGO Secretariat functioning under SL Minister Mano Ganesan is a smoke screen operation of the Colombo-centric discourse seeking to suppress and manipulate the civil structures in the North and East. The so-called ‘National Secretariat for Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NSNGO), also known as NGO Secretariat, is trying to control the local civil and NGOs by creating ‘federations’ at district-level while SL Prime Minister's office seems to exercise full control over the outfit, says Vijayaratnam Kesavan, a civil rights activist in Jaffna. The NGO secretariat is being deployed during the last three months to eliminate the already compromised independency of NGOs and the civil groups in the North-East, he said, criticising the move to create NGO federations at district level while there are already well-functioning independent coordination mechanisms in existence for the last 25 years. 
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Colombo regime, West-funded CEPA, ITAK minister behind causing disunity in NPC

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 June 2017, 21:04 GMT]
There has been a systematic move by Colombo regime, particularly its foreign ministry, health ministry and the NGO outfits such as the Center for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), causing a division within the NPC by making its Health Minister Dr P. Sathiyalingam to collaborate along a Colombo-centric line of engineering so-called ‘development’, said Vinthan Kanagaratnam, an NPC councillor in an interview to TamilNet on Sunday. The move also aimed to divert external assistance to other provinces, particularly the North Central Province. The same move also seeks to involve sections of the Tamil diaspora, he said. NPC Health Minister was operating secretly, circumventing the routines and the democratically constituted NPC mechanisms. ‘Advisors’ appointed by Mr Sathiyalingam to his ministry and sections of the ITAK, are also complicit in the engineering of divisions, Mr Kanagaratnam further said.
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Jaffna at standstill, people rally at Nallloor in support of Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 June 2017, 07:41 GMT]
More than 2,000 Eezham Tamils, most of them students, gathered in front of Nalloor temple and marched towards the nearby residence of NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, expressing their solidarity with him on Friday morning. The protesters condemned Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), the main constituent party of the TNA for conspiring with the Colombo’s ruling sections in a move to oust Justice C.V. Wigneswaran from the position of Chief Minister. The peaceful rally received active support from Jaffna University Teachers Association and student groups. In the meantime, all the government offices were brought to a complete standstill and the private businesses remain closed in Jaffna and elsewhere in the North, observing a successful shut-down.
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Justice Wigneswaran vows to stay the course despite attempts to oust him

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 June 2017, 23:37 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister Justice Wigneswaran on Thursday said that he was not being deterred from continuing his work and service to the people of Northern Province. His comments came after hundreds of Tamil students gathered outside his office expressing their solidarity with him. “I was a silent observer elsewhere [before being elected as the CM] unconcerned about what was taking place here. I hardly knew that the people had so much of love for me, and expectations from me. Despite my age, it is my duty to reciprocate what they have been showing. Today was an eye-opener with so many people coming over and showing their love. It is my duty to continue to serve the people wherever they are to the best of my ability,” Justice C.V. Wigneswaran said.
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SL military-run preschool children in Vanni forced to wear ‘CSD uniforms’ again

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 June 2017, 22:04 GMT]
The controversial practice of making the children attending certain pre-schools in the Sinhala military-occupied Vanni to wear uniforms of the so-called Civil Security Department, a military outfit of genocidal Sri Lanka, has surfaced again, Tamil rights activists in Ki’linochchi told TamilNet on Tuesday. The CSD, which is an official SL military-outfit, is still operating the farms and pre-schools, where it has deployed around 10,000 enslaved ex-members of the LTTE as a slave workforce. Following strong criticisms, there was a brief period where the SL military kept a low profile in the practice of enforcing the uniform on pre-school children for some time. Now, there is another attempt of promoting CSD branded uniforms in the preschools in Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi districts.
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Deeds, not mere words, count: Families of enforced disappeared

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 June 2017, 21:14 GMT]
The representatives of the families of enforced disappeared from the 8 districts in the North-East, who met the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena at SL Governor’s office in Jaffna, told media after their meeting with Mr Sirisena that they would continue their protests until the SL President fulfills what he had assured them on Monday. “The protest continues for the 114th day and we want to see SL President fulfilling what he promised us today. He loudly read out our demands and said he agreed with all of the demands and promised to instruct the three armed forces at the security council meeting on Tuesday evening to act upon them,” Kanagaranjani Yogarasa, who represented the protesting families from Ki’linochchi district told TamilNet.
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SL Navy wants to evict Tamil sanitary workers from Manaiyaave'li, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 June 2017, 18:35 GMT]
Around 300 families of sanitary workers, who are all Tamils and are employed by the Trincomalee Urban Council, are being repeatedly threatened by the SL Police to leave from their residential area in Manayaveli, which is situated near the main SL Navy base in Trincomalee, the families complain. SL Policemen have been repeatedly telling the families to find other places as their lands were to be seized for ‘national security’ reasons. The poverty-stricken people, coming from the lowest echelon of the society, are now facing yet another forceful eviction if Tamil politicians, especially TNA Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan fails to attend their needs, Tamil civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Eezham Tamils in Jaffna demand release of Thirumurugan and activists detained in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 June 2017, 19:34 GMT]
“Tamil people were demanding international justice. But, the global forces were using the plight of Eezham Tamils and transformed the entire accountability process into a domestic one. As victims, Tamils are now again at the receiving end of injustice. The May 17 Movement and its coordinator Thirumurugan Gandhi have been carefully perusing the discourse in advance and alerting the Tamils ever since the resolutions being passed at the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2012”, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam while talking to media at a protest held in Jaffna on Thursday. The protest, organised by the TNPF condemning the arrest of Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu received the participation of Premachandran-led EPRLF, TELO, Tamil civil society activists, the federation of public organisations and the academic and a few students of the University of Jaffna.
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François Houtart passes away in Ecuador

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 June 2017, 23:33 GMT]
Belgian Marxist Sociologist Emeritus Professor François Houtart has passed away in Quito, the capital of Ecuador on Tuesday at the age of 92. Rev Fr Houtart's demise occurred while he was taking part in a conference on Eezham Tamils with German-based Viraj Mendis at Quito. Fr Houtart was one of the first world intellectuals to recognise the genocide on Eezham Tamils after the 2009 onslaught on Vanni. He chaired the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, which was held in Dublin in 2010. The investigation process was finally concluded in December 2013 at Bremen in Germany with the findings that Eezham Tamils have been subjected to Genocide. “He was a reference, a voice and a heart for hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, more particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, from heads of State to the most humble of landless peasants,” one of his colleagues wrote on Wednesday.
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Increased ethnic harassment by Sinhala police in Kaathaankudi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 June 2017, 15:31 GMT]
Sinhala policemen employed at Kaaththaan-kudi police station, which is located at Magnchan-thoduvaay in Batticaloa district are ethnically targeting Eezham Tamils subjecting them for harassment and extortion, Tamils from Ma’nmunaip-pattu and and Ma’nmunai North complain. Both the Criminal Investigation Division policemen and the Traffic police attached to the station are asking for favours from travellers on the road who are from nearby Tamil villages.
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Sinhala police blocks night-feast events at Tamil folk-temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 June 2017, 23:29 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala police of genocidal Sri Lanka has blocked Thiruk-ku'lirththi night-event, which is to be observed at Ka'n'naki Amman Temple on the night of 09 June, news sourcs in Batticaloa said citing the trustee board of the temple. Sinhala Officer-in-Charge of Kaaththaan-kudi Police Mr Wedagedara has refused the temple administration to proceed with the temple event which features devotional songs throughout the night. Ku'lirthi is a rituals observed to propitiate the deity as a remedy for drought, natural calamities and other miseries. It is performed during the Tamil month of Vaikaasi every year. The all-night event has not been blocked by the SL Police in the recent years after the war.
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Tamil Diaspora youth protest in front of Indian Embassy in Switzerland

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 June 2017, 21:41 GMT]
Eezham Tamil Diaspora activists in Switzerland mobilized a protest on Friday in front of the Indian Embassy at Bern, demanding the release of Tamil Nadu activists Thirumurgan Gandhi from the May 17 Movement, and Daison, Ilamaran and Arun from the Tamil Vidiyal Kadchi. The four activists have been detained without trial in Puzhal Jail by Tamil Nadu State Police under the influence by the New Delhi Establishment since 21st of May, following a peaceful candle vigil Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance at Marina Beach in Chennai. The Indian Embassy officials responded with ‘surveillance threat’ by taking photos of the activists.
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SL police, HR commission decline to register complaints on ‘white van’ activity in KKS

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 June 2017, 23:05 GMT]
Two motorbikes and a number-plate belonging to another motorcycle have been recovered from abandoned wells in recently released former ‘High Security Zone’ in Kaangkeasanthu’rai (KKS) in Jaffna. A torture chamber operated by the occupying Sinhala military was earlier discovered in the same area, which comes under KKS South, J-235, village area (GS). The rotten motorbikes were recovered while the owner of the land, Mr Niranjan from Kuru Veethi, was clearing his recently released land to reconstruct the well. As soon as the nearby SL Police station was notified on the discovery, a white-van emerged from the military zone and two men in civil clothes forcefully removed the number plates from the two motorbikes, eyewitnesses said.
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