Occupied Tamil Eelam marks Heroes' Day indoors, SL military detains seminary principal

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2020, 16:44 GMT]
The Police of the occupying state of genocidal Sri Lanka detained a Tamil Catholic priest, S. Baskaran, who is the principal of St. Martin’s Seminary while conducting Tamil Eelam Heroes’ Day remembrance at the entrance of the seminary, located near the Bishop’s House in Jaffna. Amidst tightened harassment from the SL military and the police against public remembrance events, the people and their political representatives resolvedly and emotionally marked the commemoration lighting flames of sacrifice inside their premises. The mobilisation for indoor remembrance has drawn the attention of the younger generation of Tamils like never before in the post-2009 context, journalists in Jaffna said. All the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the police personnel were deployed in the public places, junctions and along the road everywhere, reminding the people the level of military occupation.
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Commemorating sacrifices of Tamil struggle is an inalienable right, not a subject for ‘SL permission’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 September 2020, 09:10 GMT]
Veteran human rights activist and Catholic priest Fr M. Sakthivel has condemned Tamil political parties for having lowered their moral standards to the level of seeking permission from the SL State to commemorate the sacrifices made in the Tamil struggle. His comments come following the members of the political parties writing a letter to the head of the occupying state of genocidal Sri Lanka to lift the ‘ban’ enforced through its judiciary and police on marking Lt Col Thileepan’s 33rd commemoration. Tamils held all their struggle related remembrance events, including all the Mu’l’ livaaykkaal Remembrance events after 2009, as part of their inalienable right as they regard such remembrance as an inalienable exercise of their right of self-determination, Fr Sakthivel observed.
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Diaspora youth group re-aligns Tamil narrative on enforced disappearances

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2020, 22:13 GMT]
The misrepresentation and interpretation of enforced Tamil disappearances and Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs) represent an extension of Colombo’s genocidal agenda which continues to be mirrored through the engagements of the genocidal state’s global counterparts. In that regard, the Swiss-based Tamil Youth group – “Phoenix – the Next Generation” have condemned such internal and external diversions away from the contextualisation of enforced Tamil disappearances as a component of Colombo’s genocidal agenda through a social media initiative coinciding with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
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Criminals banished from South deployed for Sinhala colonisation in Musali, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2020, 20:09 GMT]
Criminals and former military men absconding from law enforcement authorities for crimes committed in the South, particularly those with a previous military background, have been provided with an escape route if they agree to take part as settlers in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The tendency has been observed in Ko'ndaichchi in Musali division of Mannaar district, informed sources in the division said. In addition to Sinhala workers who previously worked in Ko'ndaichchi cashew farm, there are tens of Sinhala colonists with criminal background from Colombo, Kegalle, Matara and Gampaha districts in the South. Although only twenty-seven families are registered in the voters' registry, and they were provided with housing scheme, there are scores of other Sinhalese living in the so-called “Sinhala Gammana” village in Ko'ndaichchi.
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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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Gotabaya institutionalises heritage genocide, Sinhala-military to supersede policing islandwide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 June 2020, 22:08 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed an 11-member all Sinhala Presidential Task Force (PTF) for “Archaeological Heritage Management” in the Eastern Province. The PTF team comprises of SL military, extreme Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks, director-generals of archaeology, surveying and land affairs, a Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police as well as handpicked academics who are all Sinhalese. The PTF is to be headed by SL Defence Secretary, Major General (Retired) Kamal Gunaratne. Mr Gotabaya has also appointed another 13-member team comprising mostly of military commanders and intelligence directors as well as police and customs directors. The second PTF is to build “Secure Country, Disciplined, Virtuous and Lawful Society,” which is also led by Kamal Gunaratne.
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Gotabaya’s 19 May speech, outcome of defeatism, irresponsibility, say Colombo-based Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2020, 18:34 GMT]
The political struggle of the Tamil people in the North-East was waged independent of the external powers, and it continues to remain so as the people who braved the military restrictions demonstrated it on 18 May. It is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is talking from the political backyard sustained by the external powers, notably the powers at loggerheads, the US and China. His speech on 19 May was a defeatist response to the political resolve demonstrated by the Tamils on the previous day, commented veteran human rights activist and Colombo-based Tamil Catholic priest Fr M. Sakthivel. In the meantime, Colombo-based Tamil politician Mano Ganesan questioned whether Mr Rajapaksa was transforming the SL State into a rogue state as Myanmar, North Korea and what Zimbabwe. He characterised Rajapaksa’s threat to withdraw from global bodies as an irresponsible stance.
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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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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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Denying doctors to inspect isolation centres, yet another violation of human rights: Fr Jeyakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2020, 19:13 GMT]
Colombo government has failed to evolve a mechanism involving the doctors in the North in the effort to contain the pandemic, says Rev Fr C.G. Jeyakumar, a former director of Caritas Human Development Centre (HUDEC) of the Catholic Church of Jaffna diocese. The operation of security centres without involving the civil doctors is a fundamental human rights violation, he said. The SL government has also avoided involving stakeholders from the public sector and the civil society in the North. The daily wage earners and the families dependent on their income have been severely affected during the curfew. Particularly affected were those in Vanni with limited access to local organisations or diaspora connections to sustain their families throughout the lockdown, he said.
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COVID curfews hurt livelihood of resettled people of Ira'nai-theevu twin-islet

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2020, 14:06 GMT]
The SL fisheries authorities have neglected marketing arrangements for the fish caught by the recently resettled Tamil fishers of Ira'nai-theevu twin-islets that lie 12 nautical miles from the western coast of Ki'linochchi district. The prices have dropped from 1,000 rupees to 300 rupees for one-kilo crabs and from 800 rupees to 200 rupees for cuttlefish catch. More than sixty families are residing in Ira'nai-theevu without permanent housing. The people of the islets facing the Palk Bay are also deprived of community assistance during the curfew. In the meantime, there were reports of COVID-19 infections at the SL military-operated Quarantine Center at Muzhangkaavil, a coastal hamlet located near their temporary settlement, Ira'nai-maathaa-nakar in the mainland. Those infected were medical personnel brought for quarantine from the South.
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Uncertainty grips war-uprooted coastal village of mainland Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 April 2020, 23:45 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy, which is stationed at Mu'l'lik-ku'lam, a coastal village located 45 km south of Mannaar city, continues to keep more than one thousand acres of lands out of bound to the uprooted Tamils. SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa transformed the ancient Tamil village as the command headquarters of North West Naval Area of SL Navy when he was the SL Defence Secretary in 2013. The SLN is using only 35 acres of lands. Private title-lands, LDO permit lands and lands that belong to Catholic Diocese of Mannaar remain out of bounds for the uprooted Tamils. After 2015 regime change, Colombo handed back barely 77 acres of church lands deceiving the protesting people with a promise of freeing their properties in a “step-by-step” manner. The changes taking place within the SL Navy and the pandemic lockdown have further eroded the outlook for resettlement, the uprooted people complain.
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Gotabaya dissolves SL Parliament, fixes elections to coincide with Easter attack anniversary

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 2020, 23:46 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has dissolved the SL Parliament using the executive powers vested with him to do so, six months earlier than its expiry, on midnight Monday. Fixing 25 April as the date for the new elections, Mr Gotabaya has issued an extra-ordinary Gazette notification specifying 12 - 19 March as the nomination period for 22 electoral districts in the island. Rajapaksa siblings aim at consolidating their power through securing a two-thirds majority in the 225 seat House to strengthen their autocracy as well as the collective autocracy, which is the unitary state of the Sinhala South against the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in the North-East.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Tamils mobilise in Vanni exposing lopsided law enforcement of genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 September 2019, 15:06 GMT]
Tamil lawyers in North boycotted the courts on Tuesday condemning the failure of the law enforcement authorities of the unitary SL State that failed to respect the decision by the Magistrate of Mullaiththeevu Courts. Covering their mouths with black ribbons, the lawyers numbering around one hundred, gathered inside the premises of the Magistrates’ Court in Mullaiththeevu. In the meantime, the grassroots organisations including the Catholic and Saivaist dignitaries took to the street in Mullaith-theevu staging a protest march from Mullaiththeevu old hospital to the District Secretariat passing the court on their way. An overwhelming majority of those marched in the protest were young generation Tamils.
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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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SL Police shoots and kills young Tamil motorcyclist at Chuthu-malai in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 July 2019, 23:54 GMT]
The SL police has shot and killed a 23-year-old Tamil man who was riding a motorbike on Maanippaay - I'nuvil Road in Jaffna around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday. Another youth, injured in the incident, has managed to escape with fellow motorcyclists. The police was quick to claim that the man belonged to a criminal sword gang and that they had fired as the group of six in three bikes didn't adhere to the instructions to stop. However, the residents suspect the SL police was manipulating evidence by planting a sword at the site of the incident, especially before allowing the media to photograph the scene. The youth group had come from Kodikaamam in Thenmaraadchi 40 km away from Maanippaay. It is unlikely that the group had such a large sword visibly during their long trip across several police posts, the journalists who inspected the site and talked to the residents said.
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