Sand mining mafia intimidates Divisional Secretary in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2019, 15:05 GMT]
Three Sinhala sand mining traders, scooping sands in Kathirave'li in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division, have threatened the Divisional Secretary M. Karan saying that they were capable of transferring him away from his division. One of the Sinhala sand mining traders from Kanthaa'laay in Trincomalee is demanding to increase the extent of the sand permit to cover the expenses to sponsor one of the leading presidential candidates, the officials further said. The latest threat has come as the DS was trying to limit the extensive scooping. The traders operate with the backing of the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, which comes under the unitary State system in Colombo.
Full story >>

Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2019, 21:22 GMT]
The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday.
Full story >>

Mobilisation stops surveying of lands for militarisation by SL Navy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2019, 22:37 GMT]
The people of Maathakal and Chuzhipuram put up stiff resistance against surveying of 40 perches of lands that belong to a private Eezham Tamil owner near Thiruvadi-nilai on Monday. Elected Divisional Council representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, as well as SL Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran of the UNP, visited the site of protest. The protesters handed over a written appeal to stop all surveying activities. Following the mobilisation of people on Maathakal - Punnaalai Road on Monday, the SL Survey Department officials were forced to cancel also the other planned surveying activities involving more significant extent of lands at Neduntheevu (Delft) on Tuesday.
Full story >>

“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2019, 23:02 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile.
Full story >>

Occupying Colombo resumes military land grab in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 October 2019, 20:14 GMT]
The occupying military of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has resumed appropriation of lands at several locations in Jaffna peninsula. The SL Survey Department officials have been instructed to carry out surveying activities on Monday and Tuesday for the SL Navy that wants to grab lands at Chuzhi-puram. The tendency is notably worse at Neduntheevu (Delft), the farthest islet off Jaffna, said Shageevan Shangmugalingam, an elected councillor of Valikaamam North and the chairman of Resettlement Committee in that division.
Full story >>

Gotabhaya's presidency would dash Musali people's hopes on incremental resettlement

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 October 2019, 22:27 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils in Musali division of Mannaar district fear permanently losing the militarised villages at the hands of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa if he becomes the next SL President. The Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam have been waiting for the SL Navy to honour its pledges on returning some of the occupied properties since 2017. It was Mr Rajapaksa who declared their village as a high-security naval area in December 2012. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Cardinal of Vatican, personally accompanied his friend, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to silence the then Bishop of Mannaar Rayappu Joseph and the Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in 2012.
Full story >>

Monks from South visit disputed Neeraaviyadi temple at Naayaa'ru

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 October 2019, 23:27 GMT]
A group of Sinhala Buddhist monks from the South visited the disputed ‘heritage site’ Neeraaviyadi at Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. The group was inspecting the Pi'l'laiyaar Hindu temple and the recently erected Buddha statue at the locality. Then, the group proceeded to the hut, where the late monk, Kolamba Thero, was preserving his collection of ‘artefacts’ claiming them as the remains of an ancient Sinhala Buddhist Chaitya. The collection of stones have been stored inside a small hut inside the SL military base located across the road, just opposite the disputed temple. The latest visit by the monks comes as the court is set to investigate the controversial cremation of the late Kolamba Thero, which took place near the Hindu temple in September.
Full story >>

Tamils in Musali fear intensified demographic genocide by SL ‘national security’ state

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 October 2019, 20:47 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy has continuously refused to vacate from Kondaichchik-kudaa, a Tamil village along the coast between Mu'l'lik-ku'lam and Chilaavath-thu'rai in Musali division of Mannaar district, since 2009. Apart from retaining 19 acres of residential lands that belong to thirty-six families for ten years, the Sinhala Navy has also seized two acres of land, which the Divisional Secretary allocated recently as the cremation ground for the use of the uprooted community. The people of the village fear that they would permanently lose their properties at the hands of the ‘national security’ state apparatus of the South, regardless of the future president being Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or Sajith Premadasa.
Full story >>

SL Navy silently extends occupation of coastal lands at Kirimichchai in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2019, 23:24 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military’s naval detachment in Batticaloa, “SLNS Kashyapa,” has silently extended the appropriation of lands at Kirimichchai, a coastal cashew farming area located 44 km north of Batticaloa city. The military land grab has been going on for the last ten months. However, the SL Navy has not obtained necessary permissions from the civil authorities at the district or divisional level, informed administrative sources said. In the meantime, residents in the area have witnessed accelerated construction activities inside the military zone. It is not known whether the SL Navy is converting the coastal stretch into a military-operated tourist resort or an industry, they said.
Full story >>

Sinhala supporters of Gotabhaya encroach into pasturelands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 October 2019, 23:58 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary affiliated colonists (also known as home-guards), who encroached into the pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa during the Rajapaksa regime, have again started cultivation activities in the area, Tamil dairy farmers complain. When contacted by TamilNet, Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division, confirmed the intrusion. At least fifteen encroachers have sown seeds clearing the pasturelands in Mayilaththa-madu within the last ten days, he said. The activity comes in the wake of killing around 1,500 cattle that belonged to Tamil dairy farmers in the area during the past ten months, he said.
Full story >>

Pentagon steps up maritime defence trade with India, UK seeks IOR opportunities

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 October 2019, 23:31 GMT]
The bilateral defence trade between the USA and India is expected to reach an estimated USD 18 billion by the end of 2019, said US Department of Defence Undersecretary Ellen Lord in a press conference at the Pentagon on Friday. The defence trade was almost zero back in 2008, she said. India has gained same authorisation as USA’s NATO allies, Japan, South Korea and Australia, she said. In the meantime, India has requested the UK to place a liaison officer at the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to explore opportunities under the “Make in India” initiative, media reports from India said.
Full story >>

Monk backing Gotabhaya wants Tamil owners to stay away from their lands in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2019, 23:43 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk engaged in hostile colonisation activities in Batticaloa district along the border to Ampaa'rai district has threatened Tamil farmers who were levelling lands at Maalaiyar-kaddu village to stay away from the ‘reservation’ lands on Friday. The Tamil landowners were stopped by the SL Police who accompanied the monk while they were cleaning the property using a bulldozer. The SL Police has instructed the Tamil farmers to come to Vellaa-ve'li police station on Monday. The Tamil families have been doing agriculture in three acres of lands beside the plot which they were levelling. They had purchased six acres of lands from another Tamil landowner 15 years ago, the families said. However, the monk from Chinna-vaththai was claiming that the SL State had reserved the three acres of lands.
Full story >>

SL Police resorts to violence in grabbing lands of Tamil fishers in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 October 2019, 19:14 GMT]
The livelihood of thirty resettled Tamil fisher families have been severely affected as the occupying Sinhala police have dismantled their centre for marketing and exchanging the fish produce says T. Uthayakumar, the chairperson of Challith-theevu Fisher Association. Challith-theevu is located 66 km north of Batticaloa city and comes under the administrative division of Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai). The occupying SL military is also staging amusement activities for their visitors from the South, and the SL Police is accompanying them, causing cultural disharmony between the communities of the occupiers and the occupied.
Full story >>

Colombo destroys dairy-farming economy of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 23:50 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary men have shot and killed around 1,500 of cows in the interior pasturelands of Paduvaan-karai region in Batticaloa district within the last ten months, complains Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division. In the meantime, the SL State-owned Milk Industries of Lanka Company, also known as Milco Private Limited, is buying the produce at low rates from the Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa. The payments also get severely delayed, he says.
Full story >>

SL Governor's latest land grab poses danger to archaeological traces of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2019, 22:15 GMT]
SL Governor to North Mr Suren Raghavan is attempting to alienate 115 acres of lands at Kauthaari-munai in Ma'na'niththa'lai sandbar of Poo-nakari (Pooneryn) division to a private Tamil diaspora business person from Australia before his Governor term expires. Mr Raghavan is deceptively suppressing objections from the Tamil civil sources and the grassroots activists in Ki'linochchi district, informed grassroots activists in Poonakari told TamilNet. The 25 km long sandbar, which extends towards the Jaffna Peninsula from Poonakari in the main island, is of immense natural beauty and archaeological value to the Eezham Tamils. The area is dotted with archaeological remains ranging from microlithic/megalithic times to the times of the Dutch, covered by massive sand dunes.
Full story >>

Monks step up campaign against Muslims, want to carve out Sinhala colony in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2019, 22:23 GMT]
Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks in robe have again started to escalate a land dispute along the coast in Poththvuil division of Ampaa'rai district in the East. The elected Divisional Council (PS) was prepared to allocate three acres of lands to the Buddhist vihara, which the monks had put up in illegally seized plot of three-quarter of an acre. The vihara was erected four years ago with the backing of the SL Navy and the presidential election in 2015. Now, the monks want a large tract of land, up to 42 acres and more, MS Abdul Wazeeth, the chairman of the elected Divisional Council told TamilNet on Saturday. The Tamil-speaking Muslims in Poththuvil fear that the monks were scheming a Sinhala colony at the locality, which is known as Mathuragn-cheanai in Tamil. Using the presidential race, the monks seek to secure additional resources for a future Sinhala colony there, they complained.
Full story >>

SL Police intensifies restrictions on Saiva devotees at disputed ‘chaitya’ hilltop in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 October 2019, 23:31 GMT]
The SL Police has started to impose restrictions on Tamil devotees putting up a temporary shed during the annual six-day fast of Kantha Shasti which is to take place between 28 October and 02 November 2019 at Kun'raththoor-malai Murukan temple in Choodaik-kudaa in Trincomalee. The chairperson of the board of trustees of the temple of Murugan deity at Maththa'la-malai, Mr T Jegatheesan, said the SL Police was demanding the board to utilise direct permission from the SL Archaeology Department.
Full story >>

Indian Coast Guard trespassed into waters off Jaffna, 18 fishers detained since 03 October

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2019, 20:17 GMT]
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to host an informal summit, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has stepped up patrol activities in the Palk Straits and the Bay of Bengal. On 03 October, the ICG has trespassed into the waters off Jaffna peninsula and detained eighteen poor Eezham Tamil fishers, who were engaged in crab fishing off Ezhuvai-theevu island in an offshore vessel with 18 feet fishing bay. The families are yet to hear from the detained fishermen who are believed to be in the custody of Tamil Nadu Police in Puzhal prison, Annalingam Annarasa, the deputy chairman of Jaffna Islets Fisheries Federation said on Tuesday. Ezhuvai-theevu is the island that is seen first when coming from the Indian coast to Kayts Harbour.
Full story >>

Divisional Secretary, TNA MPs must act to release Chegnchoalai lands: civil activist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2019, 18:43 GMT]
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) seems to have blindly applied the 2013 Circular of the SL State to arrive at its recommendation to reverse the ownership of Chegnchoalai orphanage lands at Malaiyaa'la-puram in Ki'linochchi. The circular proposes that the original landowners, displaced during the times of war, were the rightful owners to their properties. However, the HRCSL has failed to take all the facts regarding the Chegnchoalai lands, says civil activist from Karaichchi, Mr Murugiah Thamilchelvan. The Divisional Secretary and Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarians should take responsibility and cancel the decision mooted by the HRCSL, he said.
Full story >>

Heinous act by HRCSL: former orphans of Chegnchoalai on the brink of losing lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The so-called Human Rights Commission of genocidal Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has proposed to the Divisional Secretariat office in Karaichchi in Ki'linochchi to evict the resettled former orphans of Chengchoalai who are living at the lands which were bought by the orphanage from the original landowners during the times of war. Cheng-choalai was one of the civilian orphanages operated by the LTTE run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. It was well known for bringing up children in an exemplary way producing artists and experts within various fields. The lands were allocated to the former orphans through proper purchases during the de-facto civil administration of the LTTE. However, the grounds are now being claimed by greedy elements with vested interests and the SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna has proposed to do away the arrangement.
Full story >>

EPDP joins Jaffna protest against desecration of Neeraaviyadi temple

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2019, 12:21 GMT]
Representatives of the EPDP, a paramilitary which was collaborating with the Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka against the Eezham Tamils without course-correcting itself even during the height of genocidal onslaught in 2009, joined a common protest staged in Jaffna against the recent desecration of Neeraaviyadi Pi'l'laiyaar temple in Mullaiththeevu. Ex-militant Tamil parliamentarians in the TNA, which politically collaborates with the failed regime in Colombo also attended the protest. The demonstration demanded action against extremist Buddhist monks and condemned the Sinhala actors, including the SL Police extending tacit support to the ‘Buddhism foremost’ approach of the occupying SL State.
Full story >>

Families inheriting lands from parents refused of land registration in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2019, 22:06 GMT]
The authorities coming under the unitary system of occupying Colombo refuse to register title deeds for lands that are being inherited by newly married couples from their families in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The denial causes several other problems as the new families are unable to obtain bank loans or housing schemes without the proof of land ownership. Several appeals were made to resolve this issue since 2008 without any outcome, says I Raveendran, the deputy chairman of Vinaayakar Community Centre in Champoor. Now, the families fear that they would be permanently losing the lands if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa becomes the next SL President.
Full story >>

SL Archaeology, Police continue to disturb Tamils’ right to worship at Vedukku-naa'ri hilltop

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2019, 21:50 GMT]
The Sinhala Police stationed in Nedungkea'ni in Vavuniyaa North has stepped up its harassment of selected members of the trustee board of Vedukku-naa'ri Sivan temple. The SL Police, citing a case lodged by the ‘Sinhala Only’ SL Archaeology Department against the use of ladder during the recent temple festival, has asked the selected members to appear at the station for investigations. The SL Police was already harassing the organisers of the festival against the use of loud-speakers playing Saiva devotional song and issued instructions to remove the ladder, specifying deadlines for the removal.
Full story >>

Raghavan plans to distribute uncultivatable lands to Tamils to compensate for loss of fertile lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2019, 19:16 GMT]
SL Governor to Northern Province Suren Raghavan has come up with another deceptive offer to the uprooted Eezham Tamil land-owners in Mullaiththeevu. Raghavan is planning to release some plots of saline and brackish soil along the coast as compensation for their fertile lands, which the SL State had seized from the Tamil land-owners under the so-called ‘Mahaweli’ L system, civil sources at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat said. Suren Raghavan met the District Secretary and TNA Parliamentarian Mrs Shanthy Sriskandarajah at the District Secretariat in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. Mr Raghavan has proposed to de-gazette some plots that are retained under the System L. However, the plots coming under the planned release were only ‘tharavai’ lands, the officials said.
Full story >>

Genocidal Sri Lanka hits back at UN, claims it passed ‘litmus test’ on human rights in 2019

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 October 2019, 18:26 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena deployed his Foreign Secretary to tell the UN Department of Peace Operations (UNDPO) in New York that the 2011 Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability, led by Marzuki Darusman, was “so seriously flawed that the Human Rights Council at the time had rejected to issue it with a formal number, as a UN document.” Brushing away the criticisms being levelled against the SL State for promoting war criminals in the rank and file of the military, Ravinatha Ariyasinha ‘reminded’ the UNDPO that the 2015 OISL report was not an outcome of a criminal investigation. SL Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva has not been subjected to any criminal investigation and the public domain reports of the UN cannot be taken as substantive as establishing his culpability, Ariyasinha told the Under Secretary General of the UNDPO, Mr Jean-Pierre Lacroix.
Full story >>