SL Army continues to rob material remains of houses before releasing Valikaamam lands

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 April 2018, 22:13 GMT]
The occupying Army of genocidal Sri Lanka makes it a routine to rob the remaining roof tiles, wooden door and window frames off of their houses every time it releases a pocket of land to the uprooted people of Valikaamam in Jaffna. The stolen material is transported into the military zones fenced away for civilian access. Also this time, a widespread pattern of robbing of structures has been witnessed by the people, who are preparing to resettle near the coast of Mayiliddi. In the meantime, the SL Resettlement Ministry is set to channel 830 millions of rupees of foreign aid to the SL military for further consolidation of military bases in the name of releasing lands. The people who get their lands are also left with the burden of cleaning the jungles. The SL authorities have no concern for the infrastructure of the resettlement.
Full story >>

Uprooted Tamils to launch mass struggle against SL military housing deception

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 March 2017, 20:50 GMT]
The organizations representing the uprooted people from Valikaamam North in Jaffna, who are all fed up by decades of deceptions by the changing regimes in Colombo that refuse to de-militarize and allow the people to resettle in their fertile villages, have resolved this week to step up their struggle by joint action in the future. Only some of the occupied lands were returned at Keappaa-pulavu and at Puthukkudiyiruppu. The occupying military is undeterred in its project of militarization. The human rights politics in Geneva advanced primarily by Obama’s USA bandwagon had completely neglected Tamil demands. While deploying Tamil victims and activists at side-events, the discourse targeting regime change through appeasing the genocidal State of Sri Lanka, has only contributed to accelerated militarization of Tamil homeland.
Full story >>

Wigneswaran urges SL State to respect international principle on resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2015, 12:04 GMT]
“Unless Grama Sevaka Divisions 244 and 252 are released in full as promised earlier, what has been gingerly granted today would hardly be of any use to the few families now selected to enter their erstwhile denied lands,” Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran said in his address at Vazhalaay during the visit by SL President, Prime Minister and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. “It may not be out of place for me to mention here of the land grabs taking place in the Vanni not only by the military but also by certain Politicians who wielded power earlier and who continue to wield power now, may be more so. They still influence in selecting inappropriate beneficiaries for the Indian Housing Schemes,” the CM said, urging the SL State to adhere to the UN Principles for Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs, which is known as the Pinheiro Principles.
Full story >>

Tamil civil society seeks clarification from Zeid on reasons cited for OISL deferral

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2015, 13:07 GMT]
The High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein needs to clarify as to how he envisages OISL receiving new information, given the fact that the Sri Lankan Government does not promise cooperation with the OISL inquiry. The possibility of the OISL inquiry receiving important new information will only be credible if the OISL team is given access to Sri Lanka and given full freedom and access to engage in evidence gathering. But, SL Foreign Minister’s letter to the High Commissioner dated 13 February 2015 does not promise engagement with OISL specifically, Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) said in a statement issued on Friday. “Why should the SL Government's willingness to act on present day human rights issues be a bar to releasing a report on accountability for the past,” the TSCF has further asked in the statement.
Full story >>

Activists from homeland, diaspora address UNHRC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 March 2014, 15:34 GMT]
The Deputy Chairman of Valikaamam North Piratheasa Chapai (PS) and the president of Vali North Displaced Peoples Rehabilitation Organisation, S. Shageevan spoke at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday demanding global focus on the ideology-driven genocide against Tamil people in the North and East of the island. In the meantime, Tamil diaspora activist Krisna Saravanamuttu from the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) addressing the Council on the same session said that Tamil people are enduring a slow, but relentless, genocide. “The Tamil struggle today is about the survival of our people against genocide by the Sri Lankan state to destroy our sovereign national existence in the island’s NorthEast,” Krisna Saravanamuttu said.
Full story >>

SL military steps up harassment on IDPs as US draft drops ‘de-militarisation’ in Geneva

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 March 2014, 23:20 GMT]
As the US draft that already failed Tamils by dropping international investigation on Sri Lankan State gets further watered down in its demands at the corridor discourse at Human Rights Council in Geneva, the occupying SL military in North and East of the island has strengthened its grip on Tamil people who have been determined with seeking justice on the ground. While those demanding the SL State to reveal the whereabouts of their missing family members in the North are subjected to harassments by the intelligence wing of the SL military, the uprooted Champoor Tamils still languishing in temporary huts in four camps in Moothoor East in Trincomalee are left to rotten with deteriorating health conditions in their camps, the women in the camps complain.
Full story >>

USA ignores requests of Mannaar Bishop on UNHRC Resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 March 2014, 14:57 GMT]
Bishop of Mannaar Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph had sent a model resolution to the foreign diplomatic missions, including the Embassy of USA in Colombo, well in advance of the draft resolution by the USA was leaked in Geneva this Monday. The proposal presented by Mannaar Bishop was demanding international investigations on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prepared by the Tamil Civil Society Forum, the proposal also called upon the “UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council to activate procedures that will lead to a UN sponsored international mechanism to assess the democratic aspirations of the Tamil People, both in the homeland and in the diaspora for a permanent political solution.”
Full story >>

‘If UK-USA do not stop genocide of Tamils, they are still complicit in it’: Denis Halliday

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 February 2014, 09:17 GMT]
Noting how the UK-USA governments helped the GoSL during the genocidal war on the Eezham Tamil nation owing to geopolitical interests, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Dr. Denis Halliday said that “as long as they don’t stop the genocide and block the land grabs, and help us to turn it around, they are still complicit in my book.” In an exclusive interview to TamilNet, Dr. Halliday, who was also one of the judges at the Bremen-PPT, condemned Britain’s historical role in “creating a problem” that is the unitary state of Sri Lanka noting that “there was no reason, no justification, to conclude that you need a unitary state.”He also emphasised that Britain should relook its neo-colonial policies and own responsibility for the Tamils soon. “This genocide is going to destroy Tamil Eelam if we do not stop it soon,” he said.
Full story >>

Veteran lawyer urges China to ensure UN investigation on Tamil plight

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2014, 23:49 GMT]
A veteran legal and social activist in Malaysia, Mr A. Kanesalingam urged the government of China on Thursday to ensure international conventions that could facilitate an independent international investigation conducted by the UN on the genocide in Sri Lanka. “I ask that China as a world leader and permanent member of he UN Security Council propose that an investigation be conducted by the UN under Chapter 7 of the Charter of the United Nations,” said, Mr A. Kanesalingam, in a letter sent to the Foreign Minister of China, Mr. Wang Yi. The Malaysian Tamils beseeching China on the issue is significant, commented diaspora Tamil political observers.
Full story >>

SL military robs IDP registry from Thellippazhai DS Secretariat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2014, 16:56 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Monday evening entered the Divisional Secretariat of Valikaamam North, situated at Thellippazhai, and robbed the registries containing the details of uprooted civilians from the civil officials at gunpoint. The SL military officers then instructed the DS and his officials not to talk about the incident. Informed sources told TamilNet that the robbery was carried out on the instruction by the new Jaffna commander of the occupying Sinhala military, Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, who is trying to manipulate the statistics of uprooted people of Valikaamam North, the area where former ‘High Security Zone’ is being transformed into a Sinhala Military Zone by the SL military permanently seizing the fertile lands and properties of the Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

‘Abuse of Tamil women part and parcel of intended genocide’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 11:02 GMT]
The abuse of Eezham Tamil women committed by the Sri Lankan state apparatus should not be seen as individual human rights violations but as a part and parcel of an intended genocide of a protracted nature, write Dr. N. Malathy, key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’ and RM Karthick, research scholar at University of Essex, UK. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati’s 6th issue for 2013, the authors, criticizing international organizations for their failure to properly deal with the issue of genocidal rape by Sri Lankan forces, also call on the Tamil community to have a change of social approach towards rape survivors, noting how violence against Tamil women is deeply intertwined with communal identity.
Full story >>

Occupying SLA hoodwinks resettlement of uprooted people in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 July 2013, 14:55 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army and the Trincomalee district Government Agent, who is also a retired Major General in the army, have been spreading false information via media regarding the resettlement of uprooted Tamil villagers from Champoor area in Trincomalee. Uprooted people are not resettled in their original villages in Champoor area. Some selected displaced who preferred to move out of the IDP camps due to personal reasons are settled in alternative sites that are not fit for habitation, according to reports emerging from the area.
Full story >>

TNA MP alleges 'planned sinhalicisation' of punaanai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 12:11 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance MP C Yogeswaran on Sunday demanded that immediate steps be taken to stop the aggressive and meticulously planned sinhalicisation of Punaanai East, situated 52 km northwest of Batticaloa city. During the times of the LTTE, the presence of the Tiger forces from Kudumpimalai in the South to Vaakarai in the North had thwarted the earlier attempts of sinhalicisation. In the absence of LTTE, sinhalicisation is now rapidly taking place along the Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa border, where Punaanai is situated. Besides occupation by Sinhala families, Punaanai has also witnessed various instances of Sinhalicisation such as demolition of Saiva temples in the guise of archeological excavations and the deity in the sanctum sanctorum of a Pi'l'laiyaar temple missing.
Full story >>

Congress parliamentarian invokes zombie of Indo-Lanka Accord

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2013, 09:16 GMT]
“We believe that discussing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987) to be a proper solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka will be beneficial to the Sri Lankan Tamil People,” says Sonia-led Congress parliamentarian from Tamil Nadu, Dr E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, who convenes ‘Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders’ Conference 2013 in New Delhi, from 5th to 6th June. Saying that the conference is a follow up of the 2011 New Delhi meet of 8 Tamil political parties, including 5 parliamentarians from the island, Natchiappan this time has also invited “leaders from the diaspora Tamil community and the leaders from the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India […] to discuss strengthening and fully implementing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987).” Natchiappan recently visited London.
Full story >>

UK author eulogising Sri Lanka COIN backfires exposing USA

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 May 2013, 20:02 GMT]
While Sri Lanka’s genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils architected by world powers, being reduced to only ‘human rights abuses’ in the criticism by political actors within the Establishments, it is studied by military experts within the same system to ‘learn lessons’ in counterinsurgency (COIN). The latest is a COIN literature on Sri Lanka, ‘Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers’ by British analyst Paul Moorcraft, which adds to the myth of a ‘successful innovative Sri Lanka COIN’, while covering up the genocide executed by GoSL. But, it exposes the various measures taken by the US-led powers to break the Tamils’ struggle, including advise by the Pacific Command to the GoSL as early as in 2002 to use cluster bombs. When the US-led West's military mindset is such an approval to the SL model, its ‘rights abuses’ talk is just a strategic façade, realize Tamil activists.
Full story >>

UK Tamils urged to boycott Conservative Party

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 May 2013, 06:17 GMT]
If the British Prime Minister David Cameron is not prepared to boycott CHOGM hosted by Sri Lanka setting a new global paradigm on genocide, then the UK Tamils should have the guts to demonstrate the same sentiments they had showed to Rajapaksa visiting London to the British Prime Minister too, commented new generation Tamils for alternative politics in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. As a first step, Eezham Tamils in the Conservative Party should resign, activists ‘instructed’ by the Establishment outfits should come forward to boycott them and the message should go to the Labour Party as well that was in complicity with the genocide. The individuals who continue in vain to cling to the Establishments and the ‘lobbyists’ in their service who do most of the lobbying on their own people have to be identified and ostracized, the alternative activists further said.
Full story >>

Norway Tamil politician questions continued ICE bias against democratic mandate of Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2013, 10:16 GMT]
Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, an Eezham Tamil youth politician of the ruling Labour Party in Norway, who states that her political engagement began with the agony of witnessing civil war in her homeland, questions the conduct of the world powers and the policy groups of the international community, for their continued bias against the democratically proven political mandate of Eezham Tamils, both in the island of Sri Lanka and in the diaspora. In a political column of the newspaper Dagsavisen, Ms Khamshajiny, a survivor of the brutal Utøya massacre carried out by the Norwegian killer Anders Breivik in 2011, also questions the conduct of the international community in leaving the responsibility of investigating the crimes committed by the Sri Lankan State to the very hands of that State, as seen in the recent resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2013.
Full story >>

Sinhala military takes over UN demining following Geneva resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 March 2013, 07:10 GMT]
One of the immediate results of the US-resolution at Geneva “welcoming and acknowledging the progress” of genocidal Sri Lanka in various avenues, including in demining the country of Tamils, is the UN entirely handing over demining and supervision of demining to the occupying Sinhala military. This will pave way for the genocidal SL military to make money, Sinhalicize even demining and to come out with excuses for years in handing back lands, news sources in Jaffna said. The last international organisation involved in demining the country of Eezham Tamils and has an office in Jaffna, i.e., a UN outfit of Tamil staff that was supervising, monitoring and issuing certificates on demining, will be closed down in June. The work will be handed over to the SL military and its Sinhala staff.
Full story >>

New US Secretary of State responsible for Geneva injustice: Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 March 2013, 15:15 GMT]
The New US Secretary of State John Kerry, who assumed office on 1 Feb 2013, was the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 2009 that brought out a report advising the USA to help Sri Lanka’s military without insisting on political solutions. Finding a clear link between the 2009 Kerry Report and Kerry’s State Department, US Professor of Law, Francis A Boyle said, "The callous and callow Kerry Report came right after the GOSL genocidal massacre of about 100,000 Tamils in Vanni, recommending that the United States government abandon all principles and instead aid and abet the continued GOSL repression and persecution of the Tamils. That is precisely the policy we now see in operation with Kerry as U.S. Secretary of State. This latest UNHRC Resolution sponsored by Kerry’s State Department and acting pursuant to his instructions proves it. Kerry should be fired," said Boyle.
Full story >>

Blake, architect of Tamil tragedy, spectator to genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 February 2013, 22:22 GMT]
Blinded by the 9/11 terror and impelled by the perceived need for swift action against "terrorism," the US-led International Community, made two serious miscalculations in Sri Lanka war: By allowing unhindered space for Sri Lanka's final military thrust, they misjudged Sinhala society's willing capacity to inflict bestial, savage crimes on fellow human beings; and the IC's belief that, once the Tigers are eliminated Rajapakses will “fill in the gaps” and provide an acceptable political solution, has been shown as embarrassingly flawed. Now, as the IC savors the dystopian-monster they created, the need to whitewash the atrocities by side-stepping accountability, and to focus on development, appear to be driving IC's actions. Tamils, now left defenseless, hold Ambassador Blake, as the key US official who shaped the US policy on Sri Lanka's war, responsible for the tragedy.
Full story >>