Colombo’s brutal suppression of Tamil Heroes’ Day counter-productive to stated objectives: Tamil MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 December 2020, 15:44 GMT]
Emboldened with a two-thirds majority in the SL Parliament, the regime of Rajapaksa has chosen to suppress Tamil remembrance days, particularly the Maaveear Naa'l (Tamil Eelam Heroes’ Day) this year. The Rajapaksa regime was short-sighted in using the opportunity to showcase to its southern audience that it was more determined than its predecessor in blocking November 27 Remembrance. However, the brutal manner in which the SL State and its judiciary suppressed the collective remembrance events received more attention not only among the Tamil youth in the North and the East but also in the South, said ITAK (TNA) Parliamentarian from Batticaloa Shanakiyan Rasamanickam. “I received phone calls from Up-Country Tamil youth from Deniyaya and Matara in the down south to Kandy and Colombo,” he said adding that even fifteen and sixteen-year-old youth were posing questions.
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Tamil nation-oriented parties challenged in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2020, 17:22 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is set to win six of thirteen seats of the Northern province in the SL Parliament. The competing Tamil national rights-oriented parties, the TNPF (Tamil Congress) and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) would be securing one seat each, electing a federalism-oriented majority of eight Tamil parliamentarians from the province. However, in the most populous Eastern province with a significant mix of Sinhala and Muslim voters, the TNA is gaining only three of sixteen seats, two in Batticaloa and one in Trincomalee, entirely losing Ampaa'rai. Former paramilitary operative Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna waged an anti-Muslim campaign in Ampaa'rai to woo the voters, making his opportunistic politics out of the collective failure by the TNA, TNPF and the TMTK in the East.
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Increasing pattern of Sinhala officials controlling civil affairs in North-East: Wigneswaran, Mavai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 March 2020, 23:21 GMT]
The previous regime in Colombo was employing Sinhalese from the South to the vacancies of unskilled labourers in the North. For example, Sinhala youth were deployed in large numbers for the job of electricity meter reading in households in the North. However, the present regime has gone a step further installing Sinhalese also in the top positions of the civil administration in the North-East, observed former Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. He was responding to a question from TamilNet on the recent trends of Sinhalicisation and militarisation of the civil administration in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils at the prolonged absence of the elected provincial councils.
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Colombo rushes ahead with exploitative expansion of salterns in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 September 2019, 23:50 GMT]
The occupying Colombo’s unitary state mechanism is alienating large tracts of lands, both officially and unofficially, for commercial actors from the South of the island. Tamil agents, including one paramilitary organiser of Karuna Group, are being used as the proxies to showcase that the SL State is ‘ethnically impartial’ in the allocations, informed Tamil servants at the Ki'linochchi District Secretariat said. They suspect the involvement of SL military corporatism in the schemes. In the meantime, Chairman of Karaichchi Divisional Council (PS), A. Velamalikithan, when contacted by TamilNet, described the extent of illegal construction work that has already commenced without securing the required permissions from the elected Council and the Divisional Secretariats concerned.
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Protests on International Day of Disappeared signal emboldened resolve for justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitaries in the past staged two coordinated demonstrations in the North and East on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared on Friday. More than 500 people, including the grassroots activists and supporting politicians, marched for two hours from Pa'nrik-keytha-ku'lam to Oamanthai, the former entry point to the erstwhile de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. Those handed over to the occupying Sinhala military at the entry point in Vavuniyaa, and at Vadduvaakal in Mullaiththeevu were taken to undisclosed detention camps, and their whereabouts are since not known. The wives and the mothers of the missing persons denounced the reparations mechanisms of the so-called Office of Missing Persons (OMP) and demanded international justice.
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State discrimination causes death of 1000 cows, milk production drops by 5,500 litres in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2019, 23:27 GMT]
The drought has taken a big toll on dairy farmers as the SL State has been systematically neglecting their repeated requests for drinking water reservoirs for the cattle. The occupying Colombo has also been desisting from safeguarding the pasture lands in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district targeting Sinhala colonisation through the Mahaweli scheme. Nimalan Kanthasamy, the Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, told TamilNet on Tuesday that the milk production supplied to the SL State-owned dairy Milco (Pvt) Ltd from the region has dropped from 6,000 litres to just 400 litres on average between January and July 2019. It is a human-made disaster intended to obliterate the particular livelihood, say the grassroots activists in the district.
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Ploy of monks and bigotry of politicians critical to TNA's Quisling politics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2019, 17:05 GMT]
A section of Tamil politicians, who claim that they are opposed to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on principles grounds regarding Tamil rights, have fallen right into the sophisticated trap laid by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment in the district of Ampaa'rai. The Tamil politicians, who were attending the hunger-strike in which the role of Ven Ranmuthugala Sangharathana Thero had become the ‘foremost’ attention-drawer, were contributing to severing the ties between the Tamils and Muslims in the future. By making their presence at the platform promoted by the Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Gnanasara Thero, JHU Parliamentarian monk Athuraliye Rathana Thero and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, they were betraying the legitimate cause, including their objective criticism of the Quisling hierarchy of the TNA.
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SL military deploys paramilitary against Tamils in rural areas of Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
SL Military Intelligence has re-introduced Tamil paramilitary personnel who interfere in the day-to-day civil affairs of the poverty-stricken Eezham Tamils in the rural areas, situated 45 km northwest of Batticaloa in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division. The occupying SL Army wants to know everything in detail from private gatherings involving relatives of the families to public events and land usage of the resettled people through the paramilitary personnel who were previously on the pay-list of Karuna and Pillayan groups, informed sources said.
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Occupying Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhist settlement in Chemmalai-East, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2019, 21:30 GMT]
The controversial erection of the giant Buddha statue at Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East of Mullaiththeevu district is to be further expanded into a Buddhist enclave encapsulating 33,376 hectares of land area to the southeast of Naayaa'ru lagoon, reveals a poster put up by Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the ‘chief incumbent’ of the so-called Gurukanda Purana Rajamaha Vihara at the disputed heritage site. The monk is groomed by the occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarter-base at Naayaa'aru. Scheming a large hermitage under the name of Gurukanda Purana Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda PRMV), the SL Archaeology Department, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development and Environment’ are backing the scheme, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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Metanarrative of Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal, geopolitics and secularism: Jude Lal Fernando

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 May 2019, 00:28 GMT]
The outside powers, be it USA, UK, China or India, are always pre-occupied with the geo-strategic location of the island. During the British colonial period, the Sinhalese were made to believe that they were closer to the British than to the Tamils (Tamils were the ‘invaders’). This resulted in a religiously defined Sinhala Buddhist unitary, which sought to consolidate itself after the ‘independence’. The genocidal process was the outcome. The Tamil liberation struggle, which was a secular nationalist struggle, culminated into the Tamil Eelam state and stopped the genocide. The 2009 onslaught not only destroyed the human lives, but also the secular nationalist liberational ethos. After the Easter Sunday attack in 2019, religious conflicts have been imposed with global implications. Professor Jude Lal Fernando explains the metanarrative and proposes an action to overcome the challenges.
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Senior TELO leader urges DMK to withdraw Hambantota investment

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 March 2019, 22:04 GMT]
M.K. Shivajilingam, the senior political leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) and former TNA parliamentarian, has urged DMK politician Samikannu Jagathratchagan in Tamil Nadu to reconsider the decision of his family to invest in the big business of building an oil refinery and cement factory in Hambantota in the South. “I urge Mr Jagathratchagan to reconsider his decision [...] Eezham Tamils have not yet gained justice to the genocide committed against them. A political solution is still far away [..] At this juncture, the investment move is also contradictory to the unanimous position of Tamil Nadu State Assembly which had called for economic sanctions on Sri Lanka until these issues are resolved,” Shivajligam told TamilNet on Friday.
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Religious leaders in Mannaar lack statesmanship

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 March 2019, 23:21 GMT]
The forces seeking to escalate religious disharmony among Eezham Tamils in Mannaar have been both influencing and criticising the religious establishments of the Tamil Catholics and the Tamil Saivites in the district, trapping the two communities further into a prolonged conflict this week. The board of trustees of Thirukkeatheesvaram Saiva temple organised a protest on Thursday, a day before the SL Magistrate’s Court in Mannaar is set to hear the religious skirmish that took place in Thirukkeatheesvaram on 03 March. The protest drew four thousand participants from across the district bringing the traffic in the city to a standstill for two hours. In the meantime, SL Minister of Power, Energy and Business ‘Development’, Ravi Karunanayake, a Sinhala Catholic from Colombo, rushed to Madu shrine in Mannaar to discuss ‘development’ of the shrine.
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Tamil dairy farmers face two-frontal attacks in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2019, 17:11 GMT]
Ex-paramilitary Karuna Group, which is aligned with former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been gunning down the cattle belonging to dairy farmers at the pasturelands of Paalai-vaddavaan (Paalai-madu) in Paduvaan-karai, the interior northwestern part of Batticaloa district which was protected by the LTTE before 2007 from Sinhala colonisation coming from Polonnaruwa, the home district of Mr Sirisena. In the meantime, Sinhala encroacher ‘home guards’ paramilitary men have stolen eight calves within the last 20 days. The SL police are taking the side of the encroachers and demands the Tamil dairy farmers to identify the ‘thieves’ to register a complaint. The calve thefts have taken place at Mayilaththa-madu pasture land, which is located within two kilometres from the Paalai-madu tank, where the former paramilitary men who have been firing at the cows.
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Tamil, Sinhala policemen slain in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2018, 10:31 GMT]
Unknown attackers have killed two SL policemen, a Tamil and a Sinhalese, who were manning a check post near Valai-i'ravu bridge, 5 km south-west of Batticaloa city in the early hours of Friday. 23-year-old Ganesh Dinesh, a Tamil policeman from Periya-neelaava'nai in Ampaa'rai was found shot and killed and bound to his chair outside the check-post. 34-year-old W N L Prasanna from Udugama in Galle was found dead at his bed inside the post with cut injuries to his throat. Residents said the killings could be related to a dispute between the police and a criminal gang operating with its backing. However, Colombo media was quick to blame it on Rajapaksa-aligned ex-paramilitary V. Muralitharan alias Karuna.
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Colombo's NGO Secretariat trains NGO activists to collaborate with SL military

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 October 2018, 09:05 GMT]
The Director-General of Colombo's NGO Secretariat Shakya Nanayakkara, who was giving a lecture in Batticaloa to NGO and CBO activists on Thursday, was questioning the Tamil activists in Batticaloa why they were reluctant to collaborate with the SL military and police, NGO workers who attended the training programme said. The so-called ‘National Secretariat for Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NSNGO), also known as NGO Secretariat, has been trying to control the civil society, Community Based Organisations and local NGOs by creating ‘federations’ at district-level.
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Sinhala colonists resume occupation of pasture lands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, Nimalan Kanthasamy, said the Tamil farmers were facing the recurrence of violence from Sinhala colonists who have started to encroach into to Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththa-madu, a pasture land located in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. Sinhala colonists from Polonnaruwa, Badulla and Moneragala were withdrawn last year after repeated protests. The interior land was under the control of the LTTE before 2007.
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Pasturelands converted into agricultural lands through Karuna influence

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2018, 15:31 GMT]
The Divisional Secretariat of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South in the district of Batticaloa is under increased pressure to convert 550 acres of pasture lands traditionally used by the dairy farmers into agricultural areas. The lands are being allocated to the supporters of Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, alias Karuna, a former Tiger commander, who turned into a paramilitary leader operated by the Sri Lanka Army in the East and later a politician, who has been collaborating with the Rajapaksa establishment.
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Eezham Tamils confront SL military-surveying of lands aimed at expanding Buddhist vihara

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2018, 22:55 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarters at Naayaa'aru in Mullaith-theevu, silently brought in SL Archaeology Department workers on Friday morning in a move to put up border-stones to permanently grab lands for expanding a controversial, military-established Buddhist temple into a stupa establishment. The project also absorbs a traditional Hindu temple worshipped by Eezham Tamils at the heritage locality of Neeraavi-eattam, which lies sandwiched between Naayaa'ru lagoon and the sea. SL Military-hired land-surveyors also accompanied the group. They were carrying a letter that had been issued by one Kekulawala, a high ranking Survey Department official, three months ago. However, the move was vehemently opposed by the Tamil villagers, who confronted the group, chased it away and uprooted the GPS-fitted stones that were put by the group.
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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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New Delhis' suppression of Tamil Nadu equally detrimental as geopolitics of West

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 August 2018, 23:34 GMT]
The latest happenings in the quasi-federal state of Tamil Nadu in India, need to be perused in a broader historical context, grasping the ever-raging conflict between the Centre being the dominating New Delhi Establishment and Tamil Nadu. The oppressed people of Tamil Nadu have been unable to strike power of balance with it, argues Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan in a recent paper. The underlying hegemony has also been one of the significant impediments to finding a confederal or, at the least a federal, solution to the national question of Eezham Tamils in the island situated along the southern tip of India. The New Delhi Establishment is adamantly upholding the unitary character of the genocidal state of Sri Lanka, even at the cost of its national security, and it has no qualms in sacrificing the self-determination and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils.
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