SLA exerts pressure on ex-LTTE members to act as informants after Easter attacks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 April 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Army in Jaffna is trying to set Tamils against the Muslims in the peninsula by attempting to recruit former LTTE members to work as informants. On Tuesday, more than fifty ex-LTTE members were instructed to attend a meeting at the SL Army's 512 Brigade camp at the Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya in the city of Jaffna. The SLA officers were offering biscuits with a soothing talk, an ex-LTTE member who attended the meeting said. A former LTTE political division member openly stated in the meeting that he had joined the movement to serve the cause of the people and not to operate against any people. However, the SLA officers were attempting to turn the argument to their favour saying that the Tiger members knew their society well and it should be in their interest to serve the public interest by detecting the strangers, who were infiltrating to seek safe havens in the North.
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Muslims fear next wave of attacks could target Sufi Dargahs in Mannaar, Musali under cordon

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 April 2019, 17:52 GMT]
Security has been beefed up at the five pilgrimage sites in Mannaar district as the Muslim religious leaders expressed fear of the next wave of externally influenced Islamist attacks could target their traditional pilgrimage sites as the ring leader of the terror attacks on Easter Sunday was also opposed to such worship as “anti-Islamic” practice. In the meantime, the occupying SL Army, SL Navy, the STF commandos and the SL Police have subjected the entire 107 km coastal road from Puththa'lam in the North Western Province to Mannaar in the Northern province with ten check posts since Saturday. The security beef-up has increased the travel time from Mannaar to Puththa'lam from two hours to six hours. The SL forces are mainly targeting the Tamil-speaking Muslims in Musali division with three large cordon-and-search operations for the past three days, civil sources in Musali said.
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Trauma, uncertainty escalates following shootout, explosions in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 April 2019, 15:30 GMT]
It was the Muslim house-owners in Kalmunai, Chaayntha-maruthu and other places in Ampaa'rai, who cooperated with the security establishment to detect the residences of the renters behaving suspiciously or absconding on Friday. At least six suicide bombers have reportedly blown themselves up during the cordon and search operations reported from Friday to Saturday morning. At the same time, the news of three innocent children getting killed in gunfire while no military or police getting harmed and the subsequent reports claiming that it was the terror suspects who shot the children, have raised suspicion among the people, said Moulavi AJM Ilyas, a leading Islamic religious leader in Batticaloa. Moulavi Ilyas reiterated that the entire Muslim community in the island stood united in condemning the terror attacks on Easter Sunday.
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West influencing regime-change politics responsible for worsening situation: Fr Sakthivel

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 April 2019, 23:46 GMT]
The serial terror attacks on the churches and the hotels during the Easter Sunday has sparked fear of repercussions among the Muslims in Colombo, Negombo and the suburbs of the capital. They fear that a preplanned backlash could come from the forces operating among the other communities, Colombo-based human rights activist and Tamil Catholic priest Fr M. Sakthivel told TamilNet on Monday. In general, the people are also afraid that there might be other bombs as a bomb went off in Colombo on Monday while the SL Police was about to defuse it, he said. The priest who knows the grassroots situation prevailing in the South of the island said that the outside forces, particularly the West, which has been heavily intervening in the affairs of the island with a regime-change agenda, was to be blamed for the deteriorating security conditions of the non-Sinhala-Buddhist peoples in the island.
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207 killed, 450 wounded, series of bomb blasts target churches, hotels on Easter Sunday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 April 2019, 09:17 GMT]
At least 207 people, including foreign tourists, have been killed in Colombo and Batticaloa in a series of bomb blasts that targeted worshippers, who were attending Easter Sunday services at three Christian churches. Most of the victims at the churches were Tamils. The bomb blasts have also targeted three hotels in Colombo. Thirty-five victims were foreigners. Around 450 people have sustained injuries. Fourteen of the 28 victims killed at the Zion Church in Batticaloa were children playing outside the church, medical sources at Batticaloa Teaching Hospital told TamilNet. Two more attacks have been reported at Dehiwale and Dematagoda in Colombo. The attacks on Christians and foreign nationals almost coincide with US - Sri Lanka naval exercise along the Hambantota port, which is owned by China under a 99-year lease.
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Tamil journalist released on bail fears targeted persecution by SL military

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 April 2019, 22:18 GMT]
The SL Police in Mullaith-theevu was acting on a false accusation filed by a Sinhala navy sailor who was blaming Tamil journalist Shanmugam Thavaseelan in Mullaiththeevu as having assaulted him and insulted him on 07th April at Vadduvaakal. “It was the intervention by journalists like me that prevented the situation getting into worse when the people protesting at Vadduvaakal caught him for suspiciously photographing them,” the 33-year-old journalist told media on Saturday after being released on bail. The hearing of the case is scheduled for April 30.
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Colombo closing down schools with less than 50 students tantamounts to educational betrayal

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2019, 23:23 GMT]
The education of the students living in the rural and remote villages in the North-East would be severely affected if the SL Government goes ahead with the proposed move of closing down schools with less than fifty students in the island, said former Education Minister of Eastern Province S. Thandayuthapani on Friday. The resettlement has not been fully completed even though ten years have elapsed since the end of the war. It also takes time for the people to resettle in a meaningful way. The move to cut down the access to education is an educational betrayal, Mr Thandayuthapani said. The international actors, such as the World Bank and the IMF who provide ‘development’ assistance to the SL State are also betraying the Tamils in the North-East if they were giving input to the SL Government to close down the schools with fifty or less of students, he said.
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Journalist harassed after exposing SLN surveillance on peaceful protest in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 April 2019, 23:18 GMT]
The SL Police in Mullaith-theevu has instructed Tamil journalist, Shanmugam Thavaseelan, to attend questioning at its station on Thursday. The move is interpreted as harassment against the Tamil journalists covering the peaceful protests in the district. A Sinhala intelligence operative of the SL Navy, who was caught red-handed by the Tamil protesters while taking close-up photos of the participants of a peaceful protest at Vadduvaakal, was behind the complaint. The Sinhala operative was claiming that he belonged to the SLN Intelligence Wing. However, he was not in possession of papers or identity card to document his military identity. The people handed him over to the naval base, Gotabhaya SLNS, after verifying his identity. He was also forced to delete some of the surveillance photos during the intervention.
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Uprooted Tamils in Karanthaay enter their lands in dispute with SL authority

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 April 2019, 22:20 GMT]
The Coconut Development Authority (CDA), which comes under the unitary occupying system of Colombo was claiming 90 acres of lands that belong to private land-owners at Karanthaay village near Mukamaalai, which was a ‘Forward Defence Line’ during the times of war. The lands were to be released back to the rightful owners in 2012-2013 when mines clearance in the area came to an end. However, the SL CDA was quick to claim the lands despite the owners proving their ownership. On Tuesday, the land-owners entered their lands and put up temporary huts. They said the SL authority was trying to convert their properties into state-owned farm without resolving the dispute of ownership.
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Colombo schemes new settler colony for intruding Sinhala fishers in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 April 2019, 22:43 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DFAR) has recently permitted twenty-six migrant fishers from outside the Mullaiththeevu district to put up huts as season settler fishers along the Chaalai lagoon in Mullaiththeevu district. None among these 26 settlers are Tamils. Eighteen of them are from Negombo, Chilaw and Puththa'lam while eight are Tamil-speaking Muslims from Trincomalee, informed civil sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The scheme is going to be a Sinhala colony as the one in Mukaththuvaaram in Kokku'laay, Tamil civil sources said.
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Tamil youth in Batticaloa irked by SL State-backed southern company bent on ilmenite mining

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 April 2019, 08:01 GMT]
Tension prevailed in Kathira-ve'li, and the surrounding villages located 75 km north of Batticaloa city on Wednesday when Tamil youth went on a motorbike rally opposing the move for mineral excavation by a corporate from the South. Protesters were riding around 60 motorbikes from Verukal Bridge to Vaakarai through Panichchangkea'ni. The residents of three villages, Kathirave'li, Puchchang-kea'ni and Puthoor have been protesting against the exploitative ilmenite excavation project launched with the backing of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. “Now, the people here are outraged, especially the youth. Recently, one youth wanted to self-immolate himself to protect his soil. We struggled to stop it,” Kathirve'li Fisheries Society leader M Subramaniyam told TamilNet. “We are finding it difficult to control the youth, and they could resort to extreme response any time,” he warned.
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SLA deployed Tamils as human shields in 1990, activists allege mass graves in Jaffna islet

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 April 2019, 21:01 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy harassed 25 Tamil protesters who had mobilised to wage a peaceful protest against the seizure of their lands at Ma’ndai-theevu, an islet off Jaffna, by photographing and recording them. However, the protesters successfully blocked the survey officials for the second time in two years. After the last attempt in June 2018, on Thursday the SL Survey Department tried again to measure the eighteen acres of residential and agricultural lands belonging to eleven families. The lands in question are already fenced off within the premises of SLNS Welusumana naval base and are declared as a no-go zone by the SL Navy, which wants to militarise them permanently. Ma’ndai-theevu, an islet located at a strategic locality towards the entrance from the Palk Bay into the Jaffna lagoon, needs to be subjected to excavations for alleged mass graves, say Tamil rights activists in Jaffna.
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Analyst: Transitional justice will never work, SL State institutionally genocidal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 April 2019, 17:20 GMT]
Eezham Tamils should not fall prey to the advocacy coming from the Western countries that prod them into the roadmap of unworkable transitional justice in the island, Jaffna-based Senior Lawyer and Political Analyst S.A. Jothilingam told TamilNet on Tuesday. The Tamils have almost lost their trust in the UN institutions after witnessing the events unfolding at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. If the UN system, also politically siding with the political establishment, could not deliver justice to the crimes committed against the Tamils in the island, it would not be able to resolve the political conflicts anywhere else, he reiterated. The Western states involved in the geopolitical race against China want to make concessions to the UNP government. In their greed for securing strategic interests, they are sacrificing the justice owed to Tamils, he said.
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Employment discrimination in educational sector in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 April 2019, 23:39 GMT]
Tamil teachers in Batticaloa complain that the unitary system of the SL State is institutionally discriminatory as it wants to favour employment and infrastructure to Sinhala language schools while satisfying Tamil-speaking Muslims with compromises at the expense of allocations to Tamils in the Eastern province. Out of 349 teaching appointments provided to graduates in the Eastern province, 278 went to schools operating in Sinhala language and a further 7 were bilingual Sinhala medium teachers. Only 7 were Tamil medium teachers while 57 were bilingual Tamil medium teachers.
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SL State appropriates lands of Tamils in Batticaloa under ‘Mahaweli’ scheme

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 April 2019, 22:31 GMT]
Eezham Tamil land-owners in four interior GS divisions in Kiraan and Chengkaladi divisions of Batticaloa district are facing an imminent threat of losing upto 90 per cent of their paddy lands and 99 per cent of other lands which they owned for decades. Their areas are being absorbed into the Mahaweli colonisation programme under cover of ‘development’, say Tamil farmers. Agrarian Services Centre official at Kiraan T. Jeyaraj has informed the farmers that they would be only allowed to retain 2.5 acres of paddy lands and 0.5 acres of lands for homestead per adult person in their families as their lands were being taken over by the Mahaweli authority, the farmers said.
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Colombo's next step of genocide: urbanising and linking Mannaar-Trinco belt with South

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 April 2019, 23:46 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe was talking about the process of urbanisation and about setting up an economic corridor linking Colombo and Trincomalee. Mr Wickramasinghe was addressing media, intellectuals, and public servants on Wednesday. “The region from Mannar to Trincomalee would be brought under development. The road network linking Mannar, Trincomalee through Kandy and Dambulla and Colombo and Hambantota, would promote developed economic zones,” Daily News reported Wickramasinghe as saying. Responding, Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna said the UNP regime, after consolidating itself in Colombo and Geneva with the collaboration of ITAK, is now going to accelerate the structural genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils through so-called urbanisation.
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‘Silver Park’ boosting Hambantota not linked to China: Norwegian agency

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 April 2019, 23:41 GMT]
"Hambantota got a new boost that was nothing to do with China or the BRI," reported a global shipping news service on Monday. The reporting agency, TradeWinds, is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The China Merchants Port Holdings (CMPH) which controls the Hambantota port has conveyed to Indian and US diplomats who visited the port that its security was led by retired Sri Lankan admiral Jayantha de Silva and not by China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the report further observed. In the meantime, UPFA MP Asanka S Semasinghe was alleging that Tamil Nadu DMK Politician S. Jagathrakshakan's family-owned business could be a money laundering project. SL Minister of ‘Development’ Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrema (UNP) was rejected his allegations on Tuesday.
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