Families of enforced disappeared mark international day in Mannaar, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 August 2018, 23:20 GMT]
The families of enforced disappeared, who have been staging continuous protests beyond 500 days in the North-East, marked International Day of Enforced Disappeared in Mannaar and in Ampaa'rai on Thursday. The coordinators of the five districts in North said they decided to hold the protest in Mannaar this time to draw international attention towards the mass grave excavations and said the global community should bring international investigations to establish what had happened to their kith subjected to enforced disappearances during the war and in the final days of the onslaught in Vanni in 2009. The protesters from the three districts in the East, led by Ms Selvarany Thambirasa, asked how the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, which is the offender, investigate itself and urged the international human rights community to realise the realities on the ground before it is too late.
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NPC Minister wants international excavations of war-time SL military camps in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 August 2018, 22:48 GMT]
Excavations must be carried out at the direct presence of international monitors wherever the SL military was stationed with camps during the times of war in the North-East, said Ananthy Sasitharan, who is the NPC Minister of Women’s Affairs and Rehabilitation. Thousands of Tamils, subjected to forced disappearance and arrests during the times of war, are still unaccounted for and their trauma and dismay has aggravated at the scale of the recent discovery of mass graves in the North, Ms Sasitharan said. The NPC Minister is one of the thousands of survivors, who are yet to receive a clear answer from the SL State on the whereabouts of their loved ones. Furthermore, Ms Sasithran said international mediation was necessary to achieve a political solution to the conflict and blamed the Colombo government for marring the NPC with a hostile attitude.
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Vanni mobilises against structural genocide with anti-Mahaweli rally

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 21:18 GMT]
Around 4,000 Tamil-speaking people of all walks of life mobilised on Tuesday in one of the biggest protests to take place after 2009 in Mullaiththeevu. The protesters came with six concrete demands: Mahaweli projects within the limits of the Northern Province should be scrapped; The land permits issued to encroaching fishers from South in Kokku'laay, Kokkuth-thoduvaay and Karunaadduk-kea'ni should be withdrawn; The lands of 2,000 Tamils, who were evicted from their village in 1984 should be handed back to them. The SL Archaeology Department, which is seizing the sites of heritage at wanton from Tamils to distort the history, should be restrained. The Sinhala colonisation, de-linking the territorial contiguity of the North-East, should be stopped forthwith. The ban on livelihood activities in the lagoons that are unilaterally declared as natural-reserves by Colombo, should be lifted.
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SL military incites gang-violence, hate-campaigns in East to divide Tamils and Muslims

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 August 2018, 22:52 GMT]
The intelligence wing of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has been inciting violent incidents between Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims in Moothoor division of Trincomalee district in the recent days, informed ex-paramilitary. The SL military wants to divert public awareness away from Colombo's massive-scale land-grab of residential and agricultural lands, which is carried out through various departments and authorities operated by the ministries of the occupying unitary State, informed ex-paramilitary sources in Trincomalee said, confirming the involvement of the military-aspect behind the latest trends of violence in the district.
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Sajith Premadasa's ministry revives Sinhala colonisation of Kevu'liyaa-madu in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2018, 12:49 GMT]
SL Minister for Housing and Construction Sajith Premadasa is creating ethnic disharmony in the district of Batticaloa by launching ‘model villages’ with housing and infrastructure, allege grassroots Tamil activists in Batticaloa. Similar to the controversial projects in Trincomalee district, the SL Minister, the son of the late SL President R. Premadasa, is creating conflicts by scheming one of the four ‘model villages’ in Batticaloa district at Kevu'liyaa-madu. The ‘model village’ projects have become places of ethnic tensions as Tamil-speaking Muslim beneficiaries were brought into traditional Tamil villages and Sinhala settlers into predominant Muslim and Tamil areas, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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Occupying Sinhala military schemes second Buddhist vihara at Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 August 2018, 18:44 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka is scheming to erect the second Sinhala Theravada Buddhist vihara at Mu'l'livaaykkaal where it concluded its genocidal war with a massive onslaught on Eezham Tamils in May 2009. The Sinhala soldiers are currently deployed to expand the military-installed Buddha temple at Kappaladi, eyewitnesses told TamilNet providing photographic evidence. The first Vihara was put up during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa at Vadduvaakal in May 2012. Vadduvaakal, which is the entrance to the strip of Mu'l'livaaykkaal located 5 km southeast of Kappaladi.
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Wickramasinghe's ‘national policy’ ministry practices Sinhala Only policy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 August 2018, 17:11 GMT]
The SL Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs, which is led by SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, has issued appointment letters in the Sinhala language to Eezham Tamil applicants in Batticaloa, who applied to the positions of ‘development officers’ which is offered to unemployed graduates at a district level. The applicants who struggled to find out the details of their appointment letters were shocked to learn that they had been posted to Sinhala areas in Polonnaruwa and other districts. Those who received positions in Polonnaruwa district in the North Central Province said they would have to spend 21,000 rupees a month to commute to work. Wickmrasinghe's ministry has only promised “an all-inclusive monthly allowance of Rs 20,000”.
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Maithiripala's ministry escalates Sinhala-Tamil coastal disputes in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 22:19 GMT]
The Colombo-based Mahaweli Authority, which is the implementation agency coming under SL President Maithiriapala Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, has recently allocated permit lands in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils to two main violent proponents of SL Navy backed Sinhala occupation at Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu. Mr Maithiripala's ministry and its implementing authority were intervening to sustain their conflict of fisheries occupation by allocating new public lands to the violators after the three judges of SL Supreme Court in February defended the initial verdict of Mullaiththeevu District/Magistrates’ Court that had instructed the encroachers to vacate from the public lands used as their base.
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Vavuniyaa protesters: Colombo wages new war through genocidal archaeology

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2018, 22:56 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in Vavuniyaa took to the streets on Tuesday, opposing the move by the SL Archaeology Department to seize their hilltop of ancient heritage at Vedukku-naa'ri. The protesters vowed to fight against the unilateral move by the unitary state to Sinhalicise their ancestral heritage. “From annihilation of Language through setting fire to Jaffna Library to the slaughter in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, the process was genocide,” a placard said. “Today, it is Vedukku-naa'ri, tomorrow it will be Nedunkea'ni Aiyanaar,” questioned another slogan.
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Excavation of Mannaar mass grave resumes, media access restored

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 August 2018, 23:02 GMT]
Sixty-six human skeletons, including children and women, have been spotted so far and fifty-six of the skeletal remains have been exhumed, said journalists who accessed the site of mass grave excavations at the premises of the premises of former CWE building in the city of Mannaar on Monday. The excavation had been suspended for a few days due to the annual feast at Madu church. In the meantime, journalists in Mannaar have secured access to news coverage of the mass grave site.
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SL Forest Department seizes permit lands of 600 Tamil families in Madu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 August 2018, 23:10 GMT]
The SL Forest Department has started to grab the lands of more than six hundred Eezham Tamil families, who have been residing in their permit lands for more than three decades in Madu Divisional Secretariat division of the district of Mannaar district. The grounds had been appropriately allocated to the families through Land Kachcheari forty and fifty years ago, and many of the families have seen their third generation in the residences located in the lands. However, the SL Forest Department, which comes under the direct rule of the occupying unitary state in Colombo, has systematically deployed Sinhala forest officers and field assistants from South to seize the lands of Eezham Tamils, say grassroots activists in the division.
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Drought-stricken Tamil farmers in Vanni abandoned by authorities, politicians, NGOs

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 August 2018, 23:06 GMT]
The resettled Eezham Tamil families in Madu division of Mannaar district complain that the SL authorities have wholly abandoned them. None of the Tamil politicians has helped them to address their grievances caused by the drought that had rendered 4,300 families who are struggling without the proper livelihood in the absence of agricultural income. The families say they have been complaining since the monsoon rains failed towards the end of 2017. Now, the people are struggling even without potable water.
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SL military, police engineer land disputes between Tamils and Muslims in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 August 2018, 20:48 GMT]
A systematic pattern of SL Police encouraging Tamil-speaking Muslims from Ki'n'niyaa division to seize the lands of Eezham Tamils and the intelligence officers of the occupying SL military instigating Tamil land-owners to act against the Muslim settlers engaged in clearing agricultural lands, owned by Tamils in Mahaweli river delta. A recent dispute went to the extent of a physical clash in Ve'l'lai-ma'na'l area, sources in Trincomalee said. Some of the disputed lands belong to the Tamil farmers from Kaddai-pa'richchcaan, Cheanaiyoor and I'raal-kuzhi in Moothoor division. SL Police in Ki'n'niyaa was backing the Muslim settlers, while Sinhala military intelligence unit from the SLA camp located near Kaddai-pa'richchaan bridge in the northeastern sector of Moothoor division was instigating Tamil owners to confront the Muslims.
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Arson attack in Naayaa'ru by intruding Sinhala fishers causes 5 million in damage

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 08:03 GMT]
The associations of Eezham Tamil fishermen in Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththevu have tentatively estimated the property damage caused by the arson attack carried out by the intruding Sinhala poachers Monday night into 5 million rupees. The representatives of the fisheries associations said they had restrained the Tamil fishermen, who are provoked by the violent act, which seems to be a premeditated one. The attack has come in the aftermath of the assurances made by SL Minister of Fisheries Wijith Wijayamuni Zoysa that his ministry would revoke the licenses of the intruding fishermen from the outside districts. If he fails to implement his promise, the situation would be out of control beyond, they said.
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Tension prevails in Naayaa'ru, intruding Sinhala fishers set fire to fishing huts of Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 August 2018, 22:32 GMT]
Sinhala fishers from South, who are occupying the coast of Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu district have set fire to eight fishing huts Monday night around 11:30 p.m. causing destruction to millions of rupees worth fishing equipment, including three boat engines and fishing nets of Eezham Tamils. The coordinated attack comes one day after SL Fisheries Minister visited the protesting Tamil fisher associations in Mullaiththeevu and promised to revoke the fishing licences provided to fishers from external districts to engage in fishing along the coast of Mullaiththeevu. Despite the promise from the SL Minister, Sinhala poachers continued to engage in diving using lights on Monday, and the Tamil fishermen blocked them.
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Tamil Nadu police detaining leader of May 17 Movement condemned in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 August 2018, 21:43 GMT]
Thirumurugan Gandhi of May 17 Movement, who has been in Europe for almost three months closely working with Eezham Tamil diaspora and exiled Sinhala activists in Europe, was detained twice in India this week when he returned home from Europe. The right of Tamil Nadu activist is being oppressed in his own country because he was standing up for the rights of Eezham Tamils and other oppressed nations, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of Tamil National Peoples Front. The TNPF organised a protest to raise awareness on the matter among Eezham Tamils in front of the bus stand in the city of Jaffna on Friday.
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SL Court clamps down on media coverage of mass grave excavations in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 August 2018, 18:34 GMT]
The Police of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has managed to secure a motion at Mannaar Magistrates’ Court, which was prohibiting local as well as foreign television, print and social media personalities from entering, photographing or videotaping the mass graves. Mannaar Magistrate T.J. Pirapaharan has also restricted people from accessing the site without permission from the officer in charge of the excavation at the site. Sources close to the SL Police in Mannaar said they filed an application following the instructions coming from their headquarters in Colombo on Tuesday. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet that the Buddhist Establishment was getting annoyed as Sinhala visitors touring Mannaar started to visit the excavation site and discuss it in the social media.
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Autopsy: Jaffna University students, slain by SL Police in 2016, not shot from behind

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 August 2018, 17:07 GMT]
Civil rights activists based in Colombo have recently released post-mortem reports of two Jaffna University Tamil students, whom the SL Police in Jaffna shot and killed in October 2016 at Kokkuvil. The autopsy confirms earlier media reports of gunshot fire going through the chest of the motorbike driver, and the other student sitting behind succumbing to injuries caused by the crash immediately after the firing. The reports also disprove the allegations made by the SL Police that they had fired at the students only after they failed to stop. They were not shot from behind. It seems like they were shot from the front or from their right side by a policeman who aimed at them with his automatic rifle, probably after being tipped off from another check post in advance, commented fellow students at the University of Jaffna.
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Kalaignar Karunanidhi passes away at 94

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 August 2018, 16:58 GMT]
Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State and the Chief of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Muthuvel Karunanidhi, popularly known as ‘Kalaignar’, has passed away at the age of 94 in Chennai, TamilNadu, on Tuesday. Apart from his acumen in adjusting policy to the prevailing circumstances and persistent role in dialectically shaping the politics of Tamil Nadu, Kalaignar was also a veteran writer, playwright, scriptwriter, poet and an orator contributing to Tamil literature and cinema. His demise marks the end of a political era, represented along with the late former chief minister personalities such as C.N. Annadurai (Anna), M.G.Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, all of whom originated from the secular Dravidian movement, which emerged as a counter-hegemonic force in Tamil Nadu politics in the early 20th century.
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Colombo wants to seize lands of Muslims near Mannaar Fort

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2018, 21:41 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has now started to claim ownership to the lands of Tamil-speaking Muslim residents, who have been resettled in Koanthaip-piddi area, where the Dutch Fort of Manaar is situated. SL Archaeology Department and SL Wildlife Department have started to harass the Muslims after seizing the lands of Eezham Tamils under the so-called claims of protecting heritage and conservation. SL Cabinet Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and SL Deputy Minister for Rehabilitation & Resettlement K. Kader Masthan are equally powerless as the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran in safeguarding the land rights of the people against the occupation from the conservation agencies of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, Tamil-speaking political observers in Mannaar said.
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Occupying Colombo's persistent psyops banishes ex-LTTE members into a social outcast in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 August 2018, 17:53 GMT]
Former LTTE members in the district of Batticaloa are facing increased harassments from the military intelligence of the occupying genocidal state of Sri Lanka, the grassroots rights activist told TamilNet on Saturday. The former LTTE members who were attached to the formations, which were close to the LTTE leader, members of the Sea Tigers or those who served the intelligence wing of the LTTE, are particularly exposed to the systematic harassments, the sources said providing particulars of those affected.
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Tamil fishers continue to siege DFAR office in Mullaith-theevu amidst threats from SL Police

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 August 2018, 15:29 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamil fishers laid siege to the district office of the SL Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DFAR) in Mullaith-theevu on Thursday as the SL Assistant Director at the office has failed to take action against the destructive fishing and poaching by the fishers coming from other districts, and particularly those who come from outside the North-East. The protest, which started off with a march of demonstration, gained momentum as the protesters broke the fences of the district DFAR office, entered its premises and laid siege to the building. On Friday, the SL Police was preparing to file cases against the participants accusing them of causing destruction to public property, informed sources in Mullaith-theevu said. However, the protesters continue to keep the DFAR office besieged.
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Protesting grassroots Tamil activists targeted in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 August 2018, 18:12 GMT]
Unknown attackers, who are believed to be the operatives of the occupying SL military or the intruding Sinhala fishers in Vadamaraadchi East, Jaffna, have burnt down another boat of a Tamil fisherman activist in the early hours on Monday. Arulappu Nimal, a father of two, lost his boat at Thaa'laiyadi. This is the second incident within the last ten days in which the attackers have targeted the vessels that belong to Tamil fishers who staged a self-mobilised action against the Sinhala sea cucumber poachers in Vadamaraadchi East. In the meantime, the SL Police has acted against a leading Tamil woman activist in Keappaa-pulavu, Mullaiththeevu, allegedly on the instructions from the occupying SL military.
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