Sirisena didn't keep word on resettling Tamil Catholics of Musali before 31 December

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2018, 22:59 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena promised to resettle the people of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam before the end of 31st December 2018. Despite the repeated pleas the people made through their political representatives in the SL Parliament and the Bishop of Mannaar taking up the matter with the SL President and his secretariat in Colombo, nothing has taken place, complained Rev Fr Lawrence Leon on Monday. The SL Navy was refusing to release the lands and is still putting up constructions while the people are languishing without infrastructure and roads. Last year, a bus transporting people narrowly escaped from a fatal accident during the Christmas time. The new year mass at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption at Mu'l'li-ku'lam has therefore been moved to the morning on 01st of January 2019, the parish priest further said.
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Heritage-genocide was motive behind scrapping of Tamil centre at Nalloor, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 December 2018, 22:58 GMT]
The SL Governor to North Reginald Cooray in November instructed to remove the plaque off the wall of the Tamil Heritage Centre, which had been launched by the democratically elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC) under the former Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran in October 2018. The initial set of cultural artefacts that were showcased inside the building have been dumped at an abandoned room of the Teachers Training College at Koappaay. Although the plaque was removed, the board was still standing inside the premises of the Nalloor Stana C.C.T.M School near Muththiraich-chanthi in Jaffna in November. However, this too has been later removed from the locality.
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Exhumed human skeletons indicate fate of enforced disappeared: Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2018, 23:12 GMT]
“We could sense the fate of what had happened to the enforced disappeared people while witnessing the hundreds of human skeletons discovered under the grounds of the Sathosa building at the centre of the Mannar town,” said Bishop of Mannaar Rt Rev Emmanuel Fernando when asked to comment on the response of the Mannaar Diocese regarding the need for forensic analyses of the exhumed skeletal remains.
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Ilmenite exploitation targets Vaakarai, civic members on alert

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2018, 22:17 GMT]
Alchemy Heavy Metals Ltd, a Dambulla-based private mining and processing company has recently stepped up an exploitative move to obtain lands for mineral excavation in Vaakarai, which is located in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. The activity of the company, also known as Mirama Minerals, was unusually high during the recent soft coup in Colombo. There were indications of a similar trend in the past in 2010 and 2013, says Koa'ra'lap-pattu North (Vaakarai) Divisional Council Chairman Sivagnanam Konalingam. The democratically elected Divisional Council functioning since June 2018 is now tracing the background of the move to exploit ilmenite mineral, he told TamilNet on Thursday. The council is deploying the Right to Information Act in investigating the matter as the exploitation has been targeting two hotspots, Kathirave'li (40 acres) and Puchchaak-kea'ni (13 acres).
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Diocesan Authority over Madu Shrine should remain uncompromised: Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 December 2018, 22:30 GMT]
The Diocese of Mannar is still on a clarification and consultation stage in its engagement with the SL Presidential Secretariat on the proposal of declaring the locality of Madu Shrine as a sacred area, Bishop of Mannaar Rt Rev Emmanuel Fernando said in a video interview on Monday. “It is of utmost importance to preserve the authority of the Bishop of the Mannaar Diocese on Madu Shrine without any erosion, same as it has always been,” the Bishop said. “We have also urged the participation of the Administrator – the Holy Friar – of the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu in all the discussions,” he said. “We are still watching whether these would be properly met. Only if these concerns are appropriately met, we would be prepared to grant our permission to the move,” Bishop Fernando clarified. “We have also obtained advice to be able to refuse our permission if that is not the case,” he stressed.
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Racist UNP Minister from Ampaa'ari deploys ‘human rights’ to terminate Tamil school

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 December 2018, 11:06 GMT]
SL Minister of ‘Labour, Trade Union Relations and Social Empowerment’ Daya Gamage, widely known for his anti-Tamil politics in the district, has been working behind the scene to terminate the operation of the only government Tamil school in the town, Ampaa'arai Tamil Maha Viththiyaalayam, Tamil civil officials in the East told TamilNet this week. In 2016, the then Zonal Director of Education, Sunil Gunathilake, a Sinhalese, handed over the classrooms of the school to the ‘National Youth Corps’ under the influence of Mr Gamage without consulting the principal of the school, K Loganathan, they said. However, the racist minister has deployed a Sinhala journalist and the ‘Sri Lanka’ Human Rights Commission office in the district to harass the Tamil principal and a teacher to issue leaving certificates to the students in an apparent bid to cease the operation of the Tamil school, they said.
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SL State could tamper with skeletal evidence from Mannaar on the way to foreign labs, lawyers warn

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 December 2018, 21:20 GMT]
There must be a credible independent international mechanism to oversee and ensure that the human skeletal remains exhumed from the Mannaar killing fields get transported without the risk of tampering with the evidence by the SL State, the team of lawyers representing the families of enforced disappeared in Mannaar have cautioned. The lawyers, who didn't wish to be named, said they have urged the Bishop of Mannaar and are preparing to take up the matter with international actors once the exhumation commences again on 02 January 2019. The lawyers also told TamilNet that they would stand firm in their demand to be allowed to monitor the entire transportation process.
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Sinhala Navy pelts stones at Tamil fishers at Vadduvaakal lagoon in Mullaith-theevu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2018, 10:07 GMT]
The sailors of the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka's largest naval base in Mullaiththeev, SLNS Gotabhaya, which is located to the north of the narrow Vaddvaakal lagoon which links the largest Nanthik-kadal lagoon with the sea, have imposed an unofficial ban on fishing activities in the Vadduvaakal lagoon, complain the representatives of Mullaiththeevu Fishers Association. The SLN personnel started to warn the Tamil fishers to stay away from the lagoon which engulfs the SLNS garrison. When the fishers continued to engage in fishing and pleaded with the SLN that their families were dependent on the income from prawn fishing, the SLN sailors started to threaten the fishers away by pelting stones at them.
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Sinhala extremists set to install 25 Buddha statues in Tamil-Muslim division of Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2018, 15:12 GMT]
The extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment has increased activities of genocidal land grab in Trincomalee North through the SL Archaeology Department in the recent weeks. The monks are using Sinhala paramilitary (Civil Defence Force), Army and Navy personnel in civilian clothes to put up concrete structures in the seized lands. The intruders are waging heritage genocide as they aim systematic transformation of all hill-tops, and rocky or cave-areas with traditions of folk deities, Saivist or Tamil Mahayana Buddhist Saivist traces into Sinhala Theravada Buddhist installations through placing brand new Buddha statues. Twenty-five new Buddha statues are going to be brought into Kuchchave'li in Trincomalee North, a division with predominantly Tamil-speaking people, civil officials from Pulmoaddai said on Friday.
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USA welcomes India's USD 1.4 billion assistance to Maldives

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 December 2018, 23:34 GMT]
The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, David Ranz, has welcomed the latest announcement by Indian PM Narendra Modi that New Delhi would be assisting Malé with USD 1.4 billion in financial assistance. Mr Ranz recently visited the Maldives announcing USD 7 million in “foreign military financing” to maritime security and another USD 3 million for civil society and environment. Geopolitical observers interpret the Indian mega assistance as a move to bail out the archipelago nation struggling under Chinese debt burden and transform it as a strategic asset for the Quad formation.
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Sirisena showcases military-to-military relationship with China

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2018, 11:33 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena on Saturday gave prominence to a photo session with Chinese military officers and Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan staging a grand opening ceremony to a Chinese military constructed auditorium at Diyatalawa military academy of genocidal Sri Lanka. The publicity stunt was aimed at passing a message to India and the West, observers in Colombo said. Mr Sirisena was using the opportunity in an attempt to balance out his setback in the constitutional with the military relation stunt with China, the observers said adding that Sirisena, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the SL military, was also passing a warning signal to the USA and India. Similarly, Chinese were giving a message by appointing Major General Shen Jun to lead their military delegation to the event, a diplomatic source in Colombo told TamilNet.
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Protest spoils SL Police move to protect Sinhala sand-scooper causing fatal accident in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2018, 07:02 GMT]
A 29-year-old young Tamil-speaking Muslim man, identified as Mahrub Mahzoom succumbed to fatal injuries caused by a speeding vehicle, which was transporting sand through Batticaloa Moothoor road on Friday. The driver of the tipper vehicle, a Sinhalese, went into a police post and was trying to escape legal action. The Tamil-speaking Muslims launched a spontaneous protest demanding immediate legal action against the driver of the sand scoop vehicle. The people blocked roads and assaulted a police post at Periya-paalam, and the Sinhala policemen were forced to fire shots into the air to control the tense situation.
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Sinhala officials intimidate Tamil, Muslim land-owners at Kuchchave'li in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2018, 13:16 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Deputy Land Commissioner has demanded 17 Tamil and Muslim landowners at the agricultural village of Vaazhai-oottu to share their lands with Sinhalese and has claimed that the Tamil-speaking people have seized the properties of Sinhala land-owners. A similar claim was made five years ago, and the case was resolved at the courts in favour of the Tamil land-owners. However, the land officials are now exerting political pressure, the Tamil farmers said.
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SL military threatens to re-introduce discriminatory pass system in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2018, 22:09 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military is trying to re-introduce the discriminatory pass system which it deployed against the dairy farmers in the interior villages of Batticaloa district. The move is aimed at colonising the area with Sinhala settlers, and the SL military wants to chase away the Tamil farmers and the cattle herders through various harassments. The SL Army stationed at Tharavai military base has started to harass the Tamil cattle owners this week and instructed the cattle herders to register the details of cattle owners at their camp. Tharavai is located 40 km northwest of Batticaloa city.
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Ex-Land Commissioner observes systematic ethnic discrimination in issuing land documents in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2018, 22:42 GMT]
The SL Government in Colombo has been issuing circulars instructing the provincial land authorities to release land documents to displaced and uprooted war-affected people. Such circulars were attempting to document ‘adherence’ to the recommendations of the so-called ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’. These circulars were also intended to convince the UN Human Rights Council and the international community that the SL State was implementing reconciliatory measures without discrimination. However, the Tamil people in the Eastern Province have been systematically and ethnically discriminated in the delivery of land documents even after the issuance of specific circulars, former Land Commissioner of Eastern Province Kathirgamathamby Kurunathan told TamilNet this week.
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SL military erects giant Buddha statue at controversial heritage site in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Mullaith-theevu installed a small Buddha statue, which was covered with glass at the disputed heritage site of Neeraaviyadi-eattam in Chemmalai in November. The SL military has now hurriedly replaced it with a huge Buddha statue disregarding the interim order and the protests of Tamil residents. The move comes after a delegation from the SL Archaeology Department in Colombo visited the SL military prompting it to accomplish the mission, civil sources in Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat told TamilNet. An extremist Buddhist monk, Kolamba Medhalankara Thera, staying with the SL Army's 593rd Brigade at Naayaa'ru is operating with the thinking that once the giant statue has been successfully erected, Tamil protests, as well as the interim orders, would lose their impact as the SL Constitution accords ‘foremost place to Buddhism’, the sources further said.
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SL military wants Cooray to liaise with Tamil diaspora industrialists from islets off Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2018, 22:31 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Navy and its intelligence wing have drawn a plan to recruit and deceive the business elite among the Tamils in the Northern Province, particularly the Tamil diaspora industrialists who hail from the islets off Jaffna, with the propaganda of ‘development’, informed sources at Ooraath-thu'rai (Kayts) told TamilNet this week. Under the pretext of facilitating infrastructure investment from the Tamil diaspora, the SL Navy wants to maintain its hold and open up the islets for more Sinhala tourists from the South with a large-scale trade and cultural Sinhalicisaiton of the islands. As part of this military conceived programme, the SL Governor is actively engaged in collecting details of Tamil diaspora industrialists and business owners, who are exiled in the West from the islets, the sources further said.
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HR Day protests in North-East met with violence, SL Police displays hostility

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2018, 23:08 GMT]
Four Tamil protesters were admitted to Trincomalee hospital as unknown masked men assaulted the Tamils from Moothoor East, who rallied in front of the Trincomalee Bus stand Monday morning for a peaceful protest in connection with International Human Rights Day. The families of the enforced disappeared, and the villagers from Padu-kaadu and Muthalai-madu, whose lands have been seized by the occupying SL military, were staging the protest. In the meantime, the SL Police at Chunnaakam in Jaffna threatened the Tamil villagers of Uduvil who protested in front of the DS office on Monday urging it to not hand over a private property, which the police wants to seize for its use. Later, on Monday night, a petrol bomb was thrown at the property. The people suspect that the SL police was behind the attack, in an apparent threat to force the owners of a fitness centre to vacate the lands.
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Monks incite SL paramilitary to Sinhalicise Tamil heritage site in Trincomalee North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
An extremist section of the Sinhala-Buddhist Theravada monks establishment, which has been trying for more almost ten years to claim the ancient Tamil village of Thennai-maravadi as a heritage and archaeology site of Sinhala Buddhism, abandoned their attempt to erect a Buddhist temple at the lands of the Tamil village deity of Kanthasaami. However, the monks left behind noticeboards claiming the Saiva (Hindu) temple lands, where they conducted the excavations, as coming under the purview of the SL Department of Archaeology. Recently, on 30th November, Sinhala paramilitary personnel of the so-called ‘Civil Defence Force’ have put up foundations for a building inside the demarcated lands. If the seized properties of the Hindu temple come under the SL Archaeology department, how could the CDF personnel start constructing structures inside the grounds, the resettled Tamils questioned.
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Occupying Colombo reintroduces war-time harassments in North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2018, 22:19 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and the SL police, tightly coordinated by the unitary state defence establishment in Colombo, have deployed armed patrols and started to harass former LTTE members across the eight districts of the North and East citing the recent slaying of two police constables in Batticaloa. Widespread harassments, as those prevailed during the war-time in Tamil areas, are again reported from Ampaa'rai to the south of Batticaloa to Mannaar in the west of the Northern province. The SL military in Jaffna has deployed much-dreaded commando field-bike units with soldiers covering faces with black masks to patrol the streets in the peninsula. In the meantime, ex-LTTE members in Vanni are under heavy pressure to organise and take part in proxy demonstrations condemning the attacks to create a public impression that the attack was a politically motivated one.
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Skeletal remains with shackled legs exhumed in Mannaar mass grave

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2018, 23:31 GMT]
Skeletal remains of legs belonging to two different victims were found locked together into a single iron shackle at Mannaar mass grave on Thursday, eyewitnesses in Mannaar told TamilNet. The excavation continued amidst rains for the 112th day and bone remains of 266 different victims, believed to be slain by the SL military during the times of war, have been discovered so far, and 260 of these have been exhumed and boxed for forensic investigations. The legal activists witnessing the excavation fear that Colombo and its justice system would never subject the remains to forensic analyses with an independent international third party. A female ring was also discovered this week at the mass grave site, which is located at the premises of Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (Sathosa) at the entrance to Mannaar city. Since 1990, and until recently, the premises was under SL military control.
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Colombo withdrew Wigneswaran's security after his Remembrance Day statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Inspector General of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara instructed his Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in Jaffna W.F.U. Fernando to immediately withdraw the personal security provided to the former Tamil Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran when Fernando reported to the IGP that Wigneswaran had issued a statement supporting the commemoration of Tamil liberation fighters. His statement was released on 26 November, a day before Tamil Heroes Day and the occupying Colombo withdrew his security on 28 November. A Tamil-speaking source with close links to the SL Defence Establishment in Colombo revealed the details on condition of anonymity. The IGP had also told the Jaffna DIG to instruct the two police personnel who were with Justice Wigneswaran in Colombo to report to a police station in Colombo with immediate effect, the source further said.
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SL State becomes prime reference for ‘debt trap diplomacy’ of China in US rhetorics

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2018, 19:03 GMT]
The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has become the de-facto reference case for Chinese debt-trap diplomacy, which is being increasingly referred in the US political, military and financial discussions. USINDOPACOM Commander Admiral Philip S. Davidson made a reference to ‘Sri Lanka’ when he faced a question on what he found as the most problematic with the Belt and Road initiative on 30 November. In the meantime, Roland de Marcellus, the acting deputy assistant secretary for international finance and development within the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, testifying at a US Senate subcommittee hearing on “multilateral economic institutions in foreign policy,” on 27 November said ‘Sri Lanka’ had become “a campaign issue in many elections around the world where opposition groups are criticizing the volume of Chinese lending and the terms and all of the other drawbacks”.
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Occupying Colombo intentionally targets ex-LTTE members for murder of SL policemen

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2018, 14:17 GMT]
The investigating squad of SL Police that had come from Colombo to investigate the killings of two police constables on Friday has interrogated at least seven former LTTE members and one of them involved in organising Tamil Heroes Day Remembrance at Thaa'ndiyadi on November 27 has been detained, informed sources in Batticaloa said. The interrogators were mostly investigating how Heroes Day was organised braving SL Police harassment at Thaa'ndiyadi Heroes Cemetery, which comes under the supervision area of the SL Police at Vavu'natheevu. The investigating police squad is particular in interrogating the organisors of the memorial event at Thaa'ndiyadi Heroes Cemetery. The investigating squad has also deployed hundreds of agents clad in civil clothes in Vavu'na-theevu area. The SL policemen have also assaulted four onlookers on Friday.
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