Health of 2 hunger-striking political prisoners deteriorate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 September 2017, 20:30 GMT]
Two of the three Tamil political prisoners currently waging a hunger strike for 6th day at Anuradhapura prison have been transferred to prison hospital as their health condition has deteriorated. 30-year-old Sulaxan Mathiyarasan and Rasathurai Thiruvarul (Chengkan) reportedly fainted before being admitted to hospital. In the meantime, the third political prisoner Ganesan Tharshanan has been shifted back to his cell after being held for a while along with Sinhala criminal prisoners sentenced to death. On Monday, the remaining Tamil political prisoners are going on a one-day symbolic hunger-strike in support of the three, informed legal sources in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet.
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Colombo rushes ahead with military land grab of Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 September 2017, 23:13 GMT]
671 acres of residential, coastal and agricultural lands in Mu'l'livaaykkaal East GS division in Mullaiththeevu, containing crucial evidences and traces of genocidal onslaught against Eezham Tamils, are now being ‘officially’ appropriated by Colombo citing ‘public purpose’. The appropriation planned under Rajapaksa regime is being carried out by Maithiripala-Wickramasinghe regime. The lands have already been seized and fenced off by the SL military for years since 2009. Now these lands are being ‘legally’ transferred to the occupying Sinhala Navy for its largest navy cantonment in Mullaiththeevu named ‘SLNS Gotabhaya’. An extraordinary Gazette notice issued by SL Minister of ‘Lands and Parliamentary Reforms’ on August 04, 2017, only talks about ‘public purpose’ without mentioning the military purpose.
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Political prisoners resume hunger-strike as Colombo transfers hearings to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 September 2017, 19:22 GMT]
Three Tamil political prisoners who earlier abandoned their hunger-strike following assurances that their cases would be heard in Vavuniyaa High Court, resumed their protest on Monday as they learned that their cases were being transferred to Anuradhapura High Court on the instructions from SL Attorney General's Department. Mathiyarasan Sulaxan, Rasathurai Thiruvaran (Chengkan) and Ganesan Tharshanan who have been detained without their cases being heard for 8 years are now being prosecuted with manipulated witnesses produced by the SL ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division.
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Colombo's ‘State Land’ seizure to affect thousands in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 September 2017, 22:26 GMT]
Under the so-called expansion of Chu'ndik-ku'lam bird sanctuary at Vadamaraadchi East, Jaffna, the SL Wildlife Department is systematically choking Jaffna Peninsula and Vanni mainland. The expansion from 25,550 acres into 48,300 acres is set to affect more than one thousand families from Mu'l'liyaan, Poakka'ruppu, Keavil, Niththiyaaveddai and Va'n'naan-ku'lam and absorbes schools and churches. Sinhala guards belonging to SL Wildlife Department have stationed at the locality and are throwing GPS-fitted border stones while they ride in vehicle across the villages. The SL military has issued death threats to the people who have been protesting against the genocidal land grab on Thursday and Friday. Colombo has accelerated the seizure of lands with the aim of converting all non-residential lands in the North-East into ‘State Lands’ before coming up with the sham of constitutional changes.
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Tamil children massacred by CBK's Sinhala Air Force remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 September 2017, 09:46 GMT]
The people of Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna emotionally marked 22nd remembrance of Naakarkoayil school massacre on Friday. The massacre was carried out by ‘Sri Lanka’ Air Force during the times of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's (CBK) presidency in 1995. The SLAF targeted Naakarkoayil MV school by firing 8 rockets from Argentina-made Pucará ground attack aircrafts. 26 school children, aged between 08 and 17 years, and a 4-year-old child lost their lives. 20 more civilians were killed in artillery fire and air-attacks elsewhere in the village. The Catholic church at Ma'nal-kaadu was also destroyed in a separate air attack by the SLAF where 3 civilians were killed. More than 100 civilians including 42 students were injured due to air and artillery attacks that targeted innocent civilians on that fateful day.
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Champoor Tamils’ security, livelihood threatened by US military partnership with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 September 2017, 22:14 GMT]
The occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka has put up 25 new coastal sentry posts, 75 meters at distance from each other along the coast of Champoor in Trincomalee. The naval build up taking place since August 2017 has raised security concerns among the native Eezham Tamil fishermen, who are also caught up in anxiety over fishing restrictions occurring again. The fortification has also come amidst increased reports of surveillance and harassment on resettled Champoor Tamils in the recent times. The military installations in Champoor were being beefed up as foreign trainers, particularly those from the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy based in Japan and South-Korea, use to visit Trincomalee to train the marine corps of genocidal Sri Lanka, informed sources in the East port city said.
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Tamil village in Batticaloa-Polonnaruwa border Sinhalicized by Mahaweli authority, Survey Dept

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 September 2017, 22:53 GMT]
SL Mahaweli authority has alienated lands belonging to 300 uprooted Eezham Tamil families to Sinhala settlers in Oamadiyaa-madu village, which is situated near the district border of Polonnaruwa-Batticaloa in the East, Tamil civil officials in Batticaloa district said. Oamadiyaa-madu comes under Batticaloa district. But, SL Survey Department officials marked it as falling under Polonnaruwa district in an irrigation survey, marking the village as catchment area of a tank of Mahaweli system in Polonnaruwa. Omadiyaa-madu village is located 58 km north of Batticaloa city and 10 km north of Welikanda, a bordering Sinhala town in the Polonnaruwa district. SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who has been in charge of Mahaweli ‘development’ for several periods since 1997, hails from Polonnaruwa district.
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Uprooted people find houses destroyed by SL Navy in Ira'nai-theevu after 2008

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 September 2017, 18:18 GMT]
There were almost 190 concrete-built houses, which stood in good shape when the SL Navy occupied Ira'nai-theevu twin-islands, which are situated 12 nautical miles west of Muzhangkaavil along the coast of Vanni in the Palk Bay. There was no military confrontations wihtin the islands in 2007-2008 when SL Navy occupied the islets. However, last week, three representatives of the protesting villagers, who went to witness the surveying of the lands, were shocked to see majority of their houses being razed to the ground by the occupying SL Navy. Only around 45 houses have standing structures. Among these, 15 to 20 houses could be reconstructed without much investment. The occupying SL Navy should bear the responsibility for the full and partial destruction of 187 houses, they said. Prior to 2007, the owners had dismantled only 3 houses, the villagers further said.
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Muslims oppose Colombo's ‘Sinhala-only’ policy in public administration of Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 September 2017, 22:07 GMT]
Tamil-speaking Muslims in Ampaa’rai have blamed the Colombo regime, its ministries and the SL Government Agent of Ampaa’rai for failing to implement official language policy in Ampaa’rai district, where more than 61% of the population are Tamil-speaking people. All official administrative communiqués, letters and circulars coming from the District Secretariat to public offices and to the divisional secretariats are in Sinhala. The SL Government Agent and the District Secretariat are deploying Sinhala-only policy with a long-term Sinhalicisation agenda, say Tamil-speaking Muslim activists in Ampaa’rai. They have taken up the issue through the National Council of Muslims criticizing the failure of Maithiripala and Wickramasinghe regime.
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30th remembrance of Lt Col Thileepan strengthens resolve among Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 September 2017, 23:30 GMT]
Lt Col Thileepan (Rasaiah Parthipan), who was LTTE's political head in Jaffna, sacrificed his life through a 12-day long fast-unto-death without food and water in September 1987. He had put forward five demands to the Indian Establishment following the signing of Indo-Lanka accord in July 1987 and his fast-unto-death exposed New Delhi and its Colombo-centric geopolitical dealings with the SL State among the grassroots of Eezham Tamils. Three decades on, Eezham Tamils are still dealing with almost the same demands as that were put forward by Thileepan in 1987. The Eezham Tamils waging protests demanding whereabouts of their kith and kin subjected to enforced disappearances and the protests demanding de-militarisation, resettlement and release of political prisoners, are again exposing the Colombo-centric geopolitics of the ‘Strategic partners’, political observers in Jaffna said.
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Sirisena’s Mahaweli ministry twists old records to Sinhalicize Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 September 2017, 22:52 GMT]
SL Mahaweli Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena has recently sent a letter to the Planning Director of Batticaloa District secretariat claiming that there were 136 agricultural/farming [Sinhala] families residing in the past at Mayilaththamadu, which comes under Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. Between 2007 and 2014, at least 16,000 acres of lands in Paduvaankarai were illegally encroached by 300 Sinhala colonists from Polonnaruwa, the home district of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena. They went to the extent of constructing a Buddhist temple (hut). However, after protests the colonists were withdrawn towards the end of 2016. Now, Mahaweli Ministry is attempting to twist the old records to facilitate a fresh claim that there were Sinhala settlers in Paduvaankarai region of Batticaloa in the past, informed civil sources said.
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EPRLF opposes 20A to SL Constitution, ITAK duo wrongs again says Premachandran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 September 2017, 16:39 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has completely failed to conduct an internal democratic discussion on the consequences of the so-called 20th Amendment and the latest amendments to the 20th Amendment, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran at a press conference held in Jaffna on Tuesday. Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who has started to lament the situation of the current regime that has failed to deliver justice and power sharing, has not publicly articulated his position. The ITAK has even failed to address the Tamil media. Meanwhile, the ITAK councillors in the Eastern Province have been tricked to vote in favour of the amendment, he said. In the meantime, M.A. Sumanthiran is staging selective campaigns and invitees-only briefings advocating for the amended 20A.
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Mano Ganesan’s NGO Secretariat restricts freedom of organisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 September 2017, 23:29 GMT]
Community organizations, civil groups and local NGOs operating in Batticaloa have been recently instructed not to undertake any humanitarian assistance project without informing and securing permission in advance from the district-level officials of the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka. The move is being spearheaded through the NGO Secretariat, which SL Minister Mano Ganesan claims as being organized under his ministry of “National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Language”. However, the move is being controlled by the so-called State Intelligence Service (SIS) of occupying Colombo, informed sources in Batticaloa said. The latest move has also connections with certain Colombo-based NGO outfits that are funded by the West. In recent times, Special Task Force (STF), the notorious counter-insurgency arm of occupying Colombo, has also been harassing the organisations in the district.
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I'rakkaamam Police behaves as occupying Sinhala Force: Muslims

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 September 2017, 19:23 GMT]
The SL police in I'rakkaamam was behaving as an occupying Sinhala force taking the side of the encroaching Sinhala Buddhist monks, blame Tamil-speaking Muslims in Ampaa’rai. The Sinhala police was blocking the Muslim villagers who protested against the extremist Buddhist monks who were attempting to expand an access route to the foothill of Maayakkalli-malai, where the monks placed a Buddha statue last year amidst opposition from Tamils and Muslims. The president of the Federation of Mosques in I'rakkaamam, Mr A.H.M. Aswar said the SL Police was blocking the Muslim protesters while allowing the intruding monks and their supporters to continue with their aggression. The SL Police was also refusing to register a complaint. Maayakkalli-malai is located between the Tamil village of Maa'nikka-madu and the Muslim village of Varip-paddaagn-cheanai, 14 km southwest of Ampaa'rai town.
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SL Attorney General's Dept., TID continue to conspire against Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 September 2017, 18:03 GMT]
Three Tamil political prisoners, including an Up-Country Tamil, ended their short-lived hunger-strike in August as they were given an assurance by their lawyers that the High Court Judge B. Sasi Mahendran was determined to proceed with their cases in Vavuniyaa as the fasting prisoners had demanded. Earlier, the so-called ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of genocidal Sri Lanka, was trying hard to transfer their cases to a high court in the South, where chances for a Sinhala judge to accept the forcibly obtained confessions by the TID were high. As it became evident that their cases were going to be heard in Vavuniyaa, the TID has recruited a prisoner, recently released from Bossa, to testify against the three with a false confession, the families of the three prisoners told TamilNet on Thursday.
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Cooray emerges as ‘civil’ guardian of Sinhala colonists wedging North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 September 2017, 23:21 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military forcibly evicted Eezham Tamils from strategic Mukaththuvaaram, the northern tip at the lagoon-mouth of Kokku’laay in 1983. After the 2009 genocidal onslaught, 350 Sinhala colonist families have encroached into Mukaththuvaaram. An extremist Sinhala monk has been constructing a Buddha vihara just 1 km north of Mukaththuvaaram. A Sinhalicised Catholic church is operating there already. In the meantime, the SL Governor to North, Reginald Cooray, has been harassing the Tamil officials of Karaithu’raip-pattu division and Mullaiththeevu District in a fresh drive to allocate more houses to Sinhala colonisers through Colombo’s National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) at the occupied lands belonging to uprooted Eezham Tamils. Mr Cooray is interacting with the colonists without involving the elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC), civil sources said.
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People fearing military repercussion, afraid to remove abandoned Buddha structures

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 September 2017, 21:21 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military, which was stationed in the village of Mu'raa-oadai, 5 km south of Vaazhaichcheanai town in Koa'ra'laip-pattu division of Batticaloa distrit, vacated its military base in 2014. When the military was stationed there, it had put up a Buddha statue worshipped by the Sinhala soldiers. The SL military had also planted a Bo tree. Almost 4 years have elapsed, but the owner of the land is still unable to remove the concrete structure, which was used to house the Buddha statue. In the meantime, Buddhist extremist monk based in Batticaloa city, Ampitiye Sumanarathna thero, has been scheming a plan to erect a Buddhist temple there. The move was halted after a complaint was lodged with the Divisional Secretary.
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Colombo revives hostility through controversial Buddha statue in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 September 2017, 22:17 GMT]
Sinhala extremist monks led by Ranmuthugala Dhammarathana Thero from Kalmunai deployed a fresh attempt on Saturday to put up a road link to Maayak-kalli hillock where they had forcibly placed a Buddha statue amidst opposition from Tamils and Muslims in October 2016. In the meantime, Sinhala officials comprising of SL Colonial Governor of Colombo, Provincial Land Commissioner of the Eastern Province, SL Government Agent of Ampaa'rai District and archaeologists of the SL State have been promoting the erection of Buddha statue and the project of establishing an access route to the hillock linking it with the main road. The project is also promoted by the extremist Buddhist Power Force (Bodu Bala Sena). The hillock, known as Maayak-kalli-malai is located between the Tamil village of Maa'nikka-madu and the Muslim village of Varip-paddaagn-cheanai, 14 km southwest of Ampaa'rai town.
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Northern fishermen oppose State moves to unconditionally release confiscated Indian trawlers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2017, 23:28 GMT]
The occupying Colombo regime, particularly its Ministry of Fisheries and the SL Navy are working closely with the Indian High Commission in Colombo to release 42 trawlers that were confiscated while trespassing into the territorial waters of Northern province two years ago. The owners of the bottom-trawlers, have been silently visiting the jetty under the control of the SL Navy and repaired their boats. The trawlers are going to be ceremonially released in the sea at an event between the Indian and SL Navies. The associations of the local fishermen societies in North have been demanding written statement from each owner of the bottom-trawlers being released stating that they would not trespass anymore and engage in bottom-trawling which has been legally banned in the island. But, the SL Ministry of Aquatic Resources has dodged their demands.
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Veteran Journalist Sinniah Gurunathan passes away

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2017, 16:01 GMT]
Sinniah Gurunathan from Trincomalee who has been committed to professional journalism during his 55-year-long career in the field, has passed away on Friday at the age of 79 in the east port city. With 40-year background in print media, Mr Gurunathan joined TamilNet in January 1999 and was its Trincomalee correspondent until his retirement in 2014. He was also a Sub-Editor filing translated reports from fellow correspondents on the ground under the guidance of the late Senior Editor, Maamanithar Taraki Sivaram. Gurunathan served the field of independent journalism of Eezham Tamils during the times of war with commitment, resilience and humbleness. He was also a fine example of an experienced bilingual journalist capable of adapting himself to changing technology from the pen to the personal computer and to the Internet-based reporting.
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