Occupying Sinhala military reminds Eezham Tamils of whose elections they partake

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 August 2020, 20:57 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has been harassing the Tamil candidates contesting in the general elections, particularly Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) led by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Koottani (TMTK) led by CV Wigneswaran in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The SL Army has been deploying surveillance teams and field-bike units during their campaign meetings. The TNPF has publicly alleged that SL military intelligence operatives were behaving in a threatening manner in their election meetings. The SL military intelligence had also threatened its candidates in Batticaloa to withdraw from the elections, the TNPF blamed. TMTK Leader and former Chief Minister of Northern Province, Justice Wigneswaran, was harassed by the field-bike group of the SL Army recently, when he went for an election meeting to Kurunakar, a suburb of Jaffna.
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Colombo aims to get back 20 Trinco oil tanks from India

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2020, 17:27 GMT]
A ministerial delegation was visiting Trincomalee last week to inspect the possibility for getting back twenty of the Trincomalee oil tanks from the Indian Oil Corporation, according to Colombo-based Sunday Times. “We have made a request for 20 tanks, but we hope we can at least start with 15,” the paper reported SL Power and Energy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera as saying on Sunday. New Delhi, which is a major strategic partner of the USA, has been pushing for joint operation of the oil farm, especially during the rule of the previous regime under Maithiriapala Siriseana and Ranil Wickramasinghe.
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CBK, Kadirgamar condemned at Navaali genocidal massacre remembrance event

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2020, 03:40 GMT]
SL Foreign Minister in 1995, the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil, denied that Colombo had carried out the massacre targeting St Peters Church in Navaali. It has taken 25 years for the then SL President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) to admit it to some extent, and that too as an incidental one 4 km away from the battlefield, Rev Fr SJ Emmanuel observed in his speech. He blamed not only Kadirgamar and CBK but also the Sinhala Catholic establishment as well as sections of Tamil Catholic priesthood for failing to speak the truth about the attack. Tamil politician MK Shivajilingam said CBK had failed to admit the nature of the crime. “It is not an accidental event of dropping a parcel. The bombers targeted the church with 13 bombs,” he said. Former NPC Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan said the chain of attacks including Chemma'ni mass graves establishes that they were premeditated.
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SL TID interrogates outspoken Tamil activist VS Sivakaran in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 May 2020, 22:09 GMT]
A five-member team of the notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) that from Colombo to Mannaar carried out an intimidating interrogation of VS Sivakaran, the chairman of Thamizh Theasia Vaazhvurimaich Changkam on Wednesday. The SL TID personnel led by an inspector-rank officer were posing questions in the two-and-a-half-hour investigation about Mr Sivakaran’s role in Maaveerar-Naa’l (Heroes’ Day) marked on 27 November 2019. They also warned the outspoken critic of genocidal Colombo that he was on a watchlist for organising remembrance days for people whom the TID blamed as “terrorists”. The harassment comes two days after Eezham Tamils braved SL military and police harassments in North and East marking Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance and Awakening Day against Tamil Genocide on Tuesday. Sivakaran was formerly the secretary of the youth wing of Ilankai Tamil Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK).
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Trump Administration politicises MCC assistance: US policy analyst

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2020, 19:34 GMT]
The Millennium Challenge Corporation “issued a blow to its own model by using its programs in Kosovo as a political bargaining chip,” writes Sarah Rose, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development, a think-tank based in Washington DC. Describing the last week development as an unprecedented move, the CGD analyst writes that the US foreign policy goal of exerting pressure on Kosovo to remove its tariffs on Serbian goods was “decidedly out of sync with the agency’s model.” The MCC, a US government agency intended to independently work to reduce global poverty through economic growth since its inception in 2004, has come under fire as being a strategic tool to advance foreign policy interests also in the Indo-Pacific and a hot topic in Kathmandu and Colombo.
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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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Gotabaya seeks US investment in big development of IT, high-tech

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 January 2020, 22:51 GMT]
Alice G Wells, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, who met SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday delivered a letter from US President Donald Trump to Mr Rajapaksa. At the meeting, Mr Rajapaksa was hinting on a possible renegotiation of the terms of the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact. He told the visiting diplomat that the MCC agreement would be evaluated considering the views of the public. The Daily Mirror reported that Gotabaya “invited the US to invest in technology-based industries since Sri Lanka is also ready to develop its IT-based sectors.” The Daily News in its report said that Sri Lanka was planning to develop the “IT and other technology-related industries in a big way” with US support.
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Gotabaya deploys PTA against protesting families of missing persons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 January 2020, 22:53 GMT]
The coordinator of the continuous protest in Vavuniyaa Jeyavanitha Kasippillai is again facing harassment from the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of the SL Police which is compelling her to appear for an investigation under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The cabinet of Gotabaya Rajapaksa has recently refused to withdraw the PTA. The latest harassment comes as the attempts by Douglas Devananda, an ex-paramilitary collaborator of Rajapaksa regime, miserably failed to end the continuous protests in the North and East. The families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military have spent more than 1,055 days in continuous protests in the North and East.
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Gotabaya's China visit postponed as Russian FM's visit to Colombo coincides with schedule

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 January 2020, 23:46 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s scheduled visit to China on 14 and 15 January 2020 has been postponed, media reports in Colombo said on Friday. Mr Rajapaksa visited New Delhi, a major strategic partner of the USA within two-weeks since getting elected as the SL president in November 2019. In the meantime, Chinese President Xi Jinping dispatched a special envoy in December 2019 to invite Mr Rajapaksa to China. The trip, scheduled to take place in January, has now been postponed due to the coinciding visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is expected in Colombo on 14 January. However, media reports in Colombo were trying to give the impression that the re-scheduling was taking place at Beijing’s request.
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Tamil Political Prisoner passes away after 26 years of SL imprisonment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2020, 23:07 GMT]
A 45-year-old Tamil Political Prisoner (TPP) from Batticaloa, Mahendran Sellappillai, passed away after suffering from a life-threatening illness (cancer) in the custody of genocidal Sri Lanka on Thursday. He was 19-year-old when the occupying Sinhala military detained him under the notorious so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) during a cordon-and-search operation in Batticaloa on 27 September 1993, just three days after he had lived together with his newly married wife. The SL Army and its much-feared paramilitary operatives tortured Mahendran, who was illiterate. His family was poverty-stricken, and its livelihood was dependent on toddy-tapping. His life ended after twenty-six years, three-months and six days of custody in the various prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka. His story exposes not only the tragic fate of the TPPs but also the mindset of the SL regimes in Colombo.
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After Hambantota ‘clean-up’, US-India alliance expects Gotabaya to reconsider China’s ICT

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2019, 23:48 GMT]
After getting ‘US-citizen’ Gotabaya Rajapaksa to sort out Hambantota port-related security concerns of the Quad partners, the US-India strategic partnership is aiming to contain what it considers as a risky cybersecurity infrastructure in India’s backyard. The US-India alliance is posed to ‘discipline’ the SL State to abandon or phase out China’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in the island, a highly-placed Tamil source within the mobile technology sector in Colombo told TamilNet this week. India’s Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh is holding the stick, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be under pressure to deliver in favour of US-preferred ICT to be favoured instead of China’s ICT in the island, the source further revealed.
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Gotabaya: Only concerned about security aspects of Hambantota

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2019, 23:15 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was only seeking to ensure the security aspects of the Hambantota port and he doesn't intend to renegotiate the commercial deal as a whole, reported Xinhua, the state-operated news agency of China this week. "I am now not here to renegotiate the agreement as it is a commercial contract and I am not worried about the commercial aspect. But I am concerned about the security aspect as to whether there are any security lapses. That is what I am discussing with China,” Xinhua quoted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as saying on Thursday.
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US think-tank lists India's strategic assets in Indian Ocean Region

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 December 2019, 13:47 GMT]
New Delhi is “heavily, albeit quietly,” expanding its naval and air power across the Indian Ocean, a study by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) of the Washington DC based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) revealed on Friday with an interactive map that shows the various locations across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) where India has recently made investments and expanded presence and access. The study lists four kinds of assets: Offshore military bases, coastal radar networks, access to foreign military facilities such as the French naval base on Réunion Island and strategic commercial ports as the deep-water East Container Terminal in Colombo, a joint venture by Japan and India. “From US perspective, this is all good news,” comments CSIS AMTI Director Gregory B. Poling in a video introduction of the study.
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UNF schemes Sinhalicisation as ‘development’ transforming Jaffna into ‘megacity’

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 September 2019, 16:40 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and SL Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera were visiting Jaffna during the weekend along with SL minister for Megapolis & Western Development, ‘Patali’ Champika Ranawaka, the secretary of Sinhala-Buddhist ultra-nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). Mr Wickramasinghe was reciting the mantra of ‘development’ and was repeating the talk of ‘devolving more powers’ to the provincial councils through securing a majority in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. However, Mr Ranawaka, who is opposed to the concept of Sinhalese sharing political power with Tamils in a federal arrangement, was claiming that a ‘megacity’ project would be transforming the city into one of the four main economic hubs in the island. Furthermore, Ranawaka contended that the plan was part of an integrated ‘national physical plan’, which conceived at Battaramulla in Colombo.
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Buddhist monks whip up anti-Muslim hate twisting facts on coastal lands in Poththuvil: Civic Chairman

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 September 2019, 18:16 GMT]
Poththuvil Divisional Council (PS) Chairman MS Abdul Wazeeth has blamed the extremist Sinhala Buddhist monks for waging hate-campaign against Poththuvil Muslims. An extremist monk based at the newly constructed vihara has claimed that the Muslim villagers were attempting to assault him and he keeps alleging that the ancient Buddhist monuments found close to the beach were being destroyed as the SL Government in Colombo, particularly the UNP led by Ranil Wickramasinghe, had allowed the Muslims to encroach the lands of the so-called Muhudu Maha Viharaya. The archaeological monuments and the monks are protected by armed Sinhala soldiers and the police round the clock. How could the villagers assault them, he asked. It was the monks who had encroached into the areas that come under the purview of the SL Archaeology Department, MSA Wazeeth said.
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SLA Jaffna commander refuses to release Palaali lands at meeting presided by Wickramasinghe

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2019, 23:08 GMT]
The commander of the SL Army in Jaffna Major General Ruwan Wanigasooriya, has openly refused to release the SL military-occupied lands in Palaali and Vasaavi'laan citing the expansion of Palaali airport. The revelation was made at the District Coordinating Committee meeting which was presided by the visiting SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at the District Secretariat of Jaffna on Saturday. The scheme is projected as ‘development’ by New Delhi and Colombo while the uprooted people of the villages demand their lands released back to them. The TNA is observing silence. However, the uprooted land-owners are not going to tolerate the military grabbing these lands anymore permanently, said Chairman of Valikaamam North Resettlement Committee Mr Shageevan Shanmugalingam, who is also an elected member of the Divisional Council of Valikaamam North.
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Wickramasinghe lacks courage to meet protesting Tamil mothers in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 August 2019, 21:39 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has started an election campaign trip to North using the funds and loans provided by the Western countries which uphold occupying Colombo's ‘development’ paradigm. The same powers are negotiating and backing both the camps in the election campaign as they are preoccupied with securing geopolitical access to the island regardless of those gaining control of the executive presidency. On Wednesday, Mr Wickramasinghe chose to take a different route to Vavuniyaa hospital when the protesting mothers of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying SL military attempted to lay siege to the entrance demanding a direct meeting with him. The SL Police confronted the mothers. SL military intelligence operatives without uniform were also present along with the police commandos.
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Tamil awareness urged on geopolitics-driven genocidal ‘development’ in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2019, 17:45 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has met stiff resistance from the people of Mannaar against its ‘development’ plan, which paves the way for industrialisation with a looming danger of Sinhala colonisation changing the demographic pattern of the Mannaar Island. The ‘transformation’ has been schemed to take place within 12 years before 2030. Colombo’s Urban Development Authority (UDA), an almost all-Sinhala ‘regulatory body’ had conceived the overarching plan in 2016. The SL Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development had been tasked to accomplish the construction of a controversial project of Fishery Harbour at Peasaalai as part of Northern Province Sustainable Fisheries Development Project (NPSFDP) with project funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2020. The Tamil Catholic residents in Peasaalai have been opposing the controversial harbour project.
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SL Archaeology must be reconfigured to respect Tamil parity on heritage: Ganesan

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 July 2019, 23:30 GMT]
The SL Archaeology Department is the evil of all heritage related tensions in the North and East, and thirty-two Sinhala only experts currently advise it. This ‘Sinhala’ Archaeology must be reconfigured, said SL Minister of ‘National Integration’ and Hindu Religious Affairs Mr. Mano Ganesan, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Monday. The conservation of the protected sites in the North-East, including the ancient traces of the Tamil Buddhist heritage, must be carried out with the advice of Tamil historians. Mr. Ganesan said he would be moving a cabinet paper to this effect. At least five Tamil experts must be assigned the specific task, he said. Ganesan also warned Tamils against falling prey to the heinous designs of the anti-Muslim extremist monks who want to set the Tamils against the Tamil-speaking Muslims.
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Suppression of Kanniyaa protest, yet another lesson for Tamils: Trinco councillor

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2019, 14:15 GMT]
The discrimination meted out to the peaceful protesters at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee on Tuesday was yet another lesson for Tamils, says elected Piratheasa Chapai (PS) Councillor Vipooshan Chandirarajah, who was reflecting upon the level of SL injustice he witnessed during the occasion. The way the SL State's security and justice system chose to deal with the rally has exposed the inherent militarised nature of the state apparatus. The system advances the chauvinistic Sinhala-Buddhist agenda as its foremost interest. The deployment of more than five hundred Army and Police personnel with riot control and STF commandos was uncalled for at a peaceful protest, he said. Five busloads of Sinahal goons had been brought into the venue in advance, and how could they be allowed to enter Kanniyaa heritage site while a restriction was in force limiting tourism to the ‘archaeological’ place, he asked.
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