Unprecedented P2P uprising paves the way for rights-oriented politics of Tamils and Muslims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 February 2021, 23:16 GMT]
The Tamil-speaking people in the North-East have waged an unprecedented post-2009 march from Poththuvil in Ampaa’rai in the East to Polika’ndi in Jaffna. Confronting the legal barriers and the roadblocks put up by the SL Police and the notorious Special Task Force (STF) commandos, the people across the eight districts of the North-East mobilised outmanoeuvring the ‘disciplining mechanisms’ of the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocratic rulers in Colombo. The five-day march, named as “Poththuvil to Polika'ndi” (P2P), was organised ahead of the 46th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The rally concluded on Sunday demanding international justice for genocide reiterating the fundamental principles, the Right of Self-Determination and Eezham Tamils’ nationhood. The P2P mobilisation also demanded an immediate end to the discriminatory forced cremation of COVID-19 Muslim victims.
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Colombo resumes surveying of lands for Sinhala colonisation in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2020, 18:26 GMT]
Officials claiming to be from SL Forest Department and Mahaweli Authority have been surveying of pasture lands in Mayilaththa-madu this week. The process was resumed despite repeated objections from the dairy farmers belonging to all three communities, said Seenithamby Nimalan, the chairman of Mayilaththamadu Dairy Farmers Association. “Those involved in the surveying of lands say they belong to SL Forest Department. Sometimes they also claim to be from SL Mahaweli Authority. They say the surveyed lands would be transferred to Sinhala settlers who are agricultural farmers,” Mr Nimalan said.
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Impunity continues amidst stiff resistance against illegal encroachment of pasturelands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 June 2020, 21:34 GMT]
One of the three main livelihoods of Tamils in Batticaloa district is dairy farming with 300,000 registered cattle. One of the central pastureland tracts, Mayilaththamadu-Periyamaathava'ani, falls within two of the fourteen administrative divisions of the district. Although this area doesn't officially belong to SL Mahaweli Authority, it is being claimed by it in addition to the SL Forest Department. After 2009, Sinhala intruders, with SL military backing, have used every opportunity to seize the area and convert it into agricultural lands. Tamil dairy farmers have been resisting the colonists without active support from their politicians and local authorities, who are reluctant to act against the intruders. However, the dairy farmers managed to thwart the previous attempt two years ago after a prolonged agitation. One month ago, the invasion was renewed.
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Occupying Colombo resumes Sinhala colonisation in Batticaloa’s interior

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 May 2020, 22:21 GMT]
Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa complain that SL Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority has recently resumed Sinhala colonisation of Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa, particularly the pasturelands at Periya-maathava’nai and Mayilaththa-madu in the administrative divisions of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) and Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkalai). The Mahaweli authority has identified land plots to settle more than one thousand Sinhala colonists, and a preparatory meeting has taken place in this regard on Tuesday, said Nimalan Kandsamy, the president of the association of dairy farmers. Sinhala officials belonging to the Mahaweli authority have stepped up their visits into the region. Chamal Rajapaksa, a sibling of SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is the SL Minister of Mahaweli as well as the State Minister of Defence in the ‘caretaker’ cabinet of the Rajapaksa regime at the moment.
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SL Police blocks journalists covering SL Navy-led quarantine transportation

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 May 2020, 22:43 GMT]
Occupying SL Navy and Police are blocking journalists in the North from exposing the use of Tamil areas as large-scale COVID-19 quarantine centres. Two Tamil journalists were recording video of a convoy of seventeen buses that were bringing individuals from South to SL military-operated quarantine centre at Pampai-madu in Vavuniyaa on Sunday. The SL Navy responded by blocking the A9 Road with the convoy until the SL Police negotiated with the journalists not to publish the video.
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Remembrance event urges Tamils to own justice project, establish genocidal intent of Sinhala state

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2020, 07:11 GMT]
The UN and the West, adopting a “soft approach” towards the “Sinhala state” have not only paved the way for diluting the gravity of its crimes. They also emboldened the SL State to wage unabatedly its post-2009 “structural genocide” against Tamils in the North-East, said the declaration of the main May 18 Remembrance event, held at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on Monday. One of the lessons learnt by the Tamils was that they must be careful in trusting anyone, who portray themselves as the saviours of Tamils. Demanding justice for the genocide must be a mechanism to pursue the cause of Tamil national question, especially by “proving the intent of the genocide,” the statement read by Fr Leo Armstrong proclaimed. Around three-hundred Eezham Tamils braved the seven-layered SL military blockade in their resolve to mark the eleventh May 18 Remembrance and Awakening Day against Tamil genocide emotionally.
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Pandemic underscores need for reviving Cooperative Societies in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2020, 21:36 GMT]
SL State-owned retail chain and private supermarket food cities have failed to provide critical supplies at subsidised prices to the people of North-East during the pandemic measures. However, the Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (MPCS’s), which were almost in stalemate for years, have again found their use invaluable during the pandemic curfew and lockdown in 2020. The cooperative societies played a crucial role in providing reasonably priced products for a long time, especially during the times of war. The MPCS’s were particularly active during the LTTE-run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam as they were effectively organised and managed without corruption.
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Occupying Colombo converts 6 Tamil colleges in North as quarantine centres for SL military

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2020, 21:53 GMT]
Occupying Colombo’s military has started to convert a Tamil college of teachers in Jaffna and five other schools in the Northern province as Quarantine Centres for military personnel stationed in the region. Civil sources in the North have condemned it as a high-handed move disregarding the safety of Tamil civilians in the densely populated areas. The top brass of the Sinhala military has not consulted the provincial and local authorities. They have not even asked the provincial health director for advice. Nirosh Thiyagarajah, the Chairman of Valikaamam East Divisional Council, has condemned the conversion of Jaffna National College of Education (JNCOE) at Koappaay into a military QC.
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Colombo brings 1,100 persons from South to military-operated Quarantine Centres in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 16:29 GMT]
Civil authorities in the North were not informed in advance about SL authorities in Colombo starting to bring a large number of people, around 1100 persons, to military-operated Quarantine Centres in the Northern Province. Northern Provincial Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) Dr A Ketheeswaran said he was yet to receive details when contacted by TamilNet on Wednesday. However, he was told by SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva that the office of the RDHS, as well as the Government Agents of the districts in the province, would receive the details. The SL military has started to quarantine ninety-nine persons in Palaali, informed sources said. Earlier, there were reports of cross infections due to “dormitory” type of isolation centres operated by the Palaali-based military at KKS.
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Occupying SL military instructed to prepare Secret Quarantine Centers in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2020, 22:16 GMT]
SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva has instructed his commanders in the North and East to transform the secret detention camps, which the occupying SL military used in the past to torture and kill former LTTE members as undeclared Quarantine Centers (QC). The undisclosed QCs would be used for “isolation purposes” if the COVID-19 pandemic was to take large proportions in the North-East, informed ex-paramilitary sources in the North said. Already, there are military-operated, publicly-declared QCs in the North-East and the South. The openly declared QCs used to house “Sri Lankans” and foreigners, are maintained as state-of-the-art facilities by the SL military. In contrast, the proposed secret QCs are intended to be used “to keep the situation under control in a worst-case scenario”, an informed source said.
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Forest officials from Ampaa'rai intervene to free land encroachers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 November 2019, 17:00 GMT]
Sinhala officials of the SL Forest Department attached to the Ampaa'ari office seem to have released the Sinhala encroachers who were initially detained by the forest guards from Batticaloa on 05 November. The Sinhala officials from Ampaa'rai had taken the encroachers from the Tamil officials to avert legal action. There has been no legal against them in Ampaa'rai, and the encroachers are still seen engaging in various activities in Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththai-madu, particularly in Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkaladi) division, Tamil dairy farmers who have been fighting against illegal encroachment.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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UN employed former Sri Lanka Army officer alleged of killing Tamils in Madu Church

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 September 2019, 16:50 GMT]
The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), tasked with providing security services to the UN system in delivering its programmes globally, has had a former Sri Lanka Army officer among its rank and file the security staff in the recent years. The ex-SLA officer has previously “killed Tamils in Madu church,” during the times of war, according to allegations made by New York based Inner City Press (ICP), a non-profit organization, which has critically exposed the wrongdoers within the UN system for almost 15 years. The former SL Army officer in question, Lt Col Parakrama Siriwardana, is currently the Head of Security and Emergency Unit at the China-led Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), since May 2018.
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SL Police, STF refuse Tamil devotees accessing Kachchatkodi hill-top for worship

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 September 2019, 21:08 GMT]
Tamil villagers from Kachchatkodi-Swami-malai village, which is located 18 km southwest of Batticaloa, complain that the SL Police and the Sinhala Special Task Force (STF) commandos discriminate them from worshipping their village deity of Murukan represented at the hill-top in the form of a ‘divine javelin’ (Saiva Veal). The occupying Sinhala police and commandos are also blocking them from conducting rituals for Naaka-thampiraan deity at the foothills. The STF is providing security to the Sinhala monks who have established a Theravada Buddhist temple. The hill-top with ancient Buddhist remains from the times of Tamil Nagas have been Sinhalicised and projected as Sinhala heritage in the island, the Tamil residents complain.
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Foreign-funded ‘Sevalanka’ schemes Sinhala tourism in Tamil hinterland of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 September 2019, 23:10 GMT]
The ‘Sevalanka Foundation’ which operates with the hidden agenda of imposing Sinhala socio-cultural development on Eezham Tamils with the backing of countries like Norway is aiming at transforming Kudumpi-malai area in the hinterland of Batticaloa district into a Sinhala tourism hotspot, District Secretariat sources said. The outfit has proposed to convert the agriculture-dependent Tamil villagers to serve the Sinhala tourists in the name of ‘development’. Informed civil officials in the District Secretariat urged Tamil journalists and the civil society activists to expose the wrong intentions behind the scheme to the larger society. The Tamil diaspora should gain the ability to objectively confront the host countries that continue and promote genocidal ‘engagement’ despite repeated concerns expressed by the Tamils.
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Tamil-speaking Veddahs confront large-scale land grab in southeast Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 September 2019, 20:49 GMT]
The settlement pattern of the Tamil-speaking aborigines, who were looking after their own administrative affairs in the southeastern sector of Trincomalee district has been severely disturbed after 2010, says Nadarajah Kanagaratnam, the chairperson of Kuveani community organisation from the village of Nalloor. The villages of Veddahs are now riddled with various demographic changes carried out by the Sinhala-dominated SL State and the encroaching settlements facilitated by a section of the Muslim politicians in the East. The latest land grab was carried out by MLAM Hizbullah, the former SL Governor to East. After the controversial politician was forced to resign from the portfolio, the aboriginal people entered back into their lands in the hope of regaining them. However, a group of settlers from the nearby Thoappoor village have started to threaten the indigenous people in August 2019.
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Colombo's departments abet large-scale deforestation and hunting in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 September 2019, 15:19 GMT]
Widespread logging of forest trees, large-scale alienation of forest lands and hunting of spotted and sambur deers, as well as local buffaloes, continue unabated amidst persistent ignorance and possible collusion with the SL Forest and Wildlife Conservation Departments as well as the SL Police. Local Councillor Kandiah Soundararajan, who is elected from Vaddk-ka'ndal in Maanthai West Divisional Council (Piratheasa-chapai/PS), has exposed the extent of the destruction when contacted by TamilNet this week. In the meantime, the law enforcement authorities of the unitary state mechanism in Colombo are systematically depriving the resettled poverty-stricken and landless Tamils. It is the local population, which constitutes a nature-loving-society with excellent human-environment relationships, as history has witnessed in the past, Tamil activists in Mannaar observed.
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SL judiciary harasses Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 August 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The representatives of the largest dairy farmers association in Batticaloa complain that fifteen of their members had to spend 300,000 rupees on travelling forth and back between Dehiyattakandiya and Batticaloa throughout the last four years to face a case filed against them by the SL Forest Department in 2015. The Forest Department guards detained the cattle herders and filed a lawsuit against them at the Magistrate’s Court in Dehiattekandiya in Ampaa'rai. The representatives of the Live Stock Farmers’ Society in Mayilaththamadu and Periyamathava'nai (LSFS-MP) told TamilNet that the petitioner was failing to attend the hearings and that the case was being postponed every time. It is a form of systematic harassment meted out to Tamil dairy farmers, they complained. Every time, when the case is scheduled the group of farmers and their cattle herders have to travel 140 km both the ways.
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