Lawyers in Mannaar seek external assistance on mass grave investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 August 2015, 23:39 GMT]
Colombo-based Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department officer H. Ranasinghe was confronted last Wednesday by leading lawyers from Mannaar, when the case on continued exhumation of the alleged killing fields of Mannaar was taken at Mannaar Magistrate Court. Colombo's CID officers were trying to annul further investigations by sabotaging DNA based forensic investigations to judge the exact time when the victims were slain and by projecting a false claim that the skeletons belonged to a graveyard. However, Judge Aseervatham Gracian Alex Raja, after hearing the arguments from both the Colombo's Police and the lawyers representing the missing persons in Mannaar and the lawyers association in Mannaar, ordered for further excavation of another site, which is believed to be a well, where the SL military is believed to have dumped slain Tamils, 14 years ago.
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Deployment of SL Intelligence operatives triggers fear among villagers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 August 2015, 21:10 GMT]
Sri Lankan military has increased the deployment of Sinhala military intelligence troopers in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa district, news sources in Kokkaddich-choalai told TamilNet on Wednesday. The sudden deployment of intelligence operatives has caused tension and fear among the public in Kokkaddichchoalai and other rural environs in Paddippazhai division of the district. The freedom of civilian movement has been severely restricted ahead of the SL Elections and the SL military has deployed a former Tamil paramilitary operative as a tactic to divide the Tamil votes, the sources further said.
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War-affected Tamils in North resolve to boycott SL Parliamentary Election

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2015, 23:47 GMT]
The representatives of uprooted Eezham Tamils from the former ‘High Security Zone’ in Valikaamam have stated that they are going to boycott the elections. In the meantime, the main organisation representing the kith and kin of the missing persons in North has condemned the North-based political parties and alliances as well as the South-based parties, for subjecting the plight of the war-affected victims to the ‘use and throw’ politics. SL President Maithiripala Sirisena who visited Jaffna a week ago and SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe who visited Jaffna on Friday have failed to deliver anything concrete, the representatives of both the missing persons associations and the uprooted people from Valikaamam told TamilNet on Saturday.
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Turkey resumes war against Kurds with US approval

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2015, 12:57 GMT]
The Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has authorized the state armed forces to carry out air strikes against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) positions in Southern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), North Iraq (Southern Kurdistan) and Northern Syria (West Kurdistan). On 23 July and 26 July, Turkish war planes pounded PKK bases in North Iraq and South-Eastern Turkey. Whereas Turkey claims to have launched attacks on the IS (Islamic State) in Syria, reports indicate that it is the PKK and YPG/YPJ who are the prime targets of the Turkish aggression. On 21st July a NATO Security Council meeting was called for by Turkey, and the Washington centred defence alliance granted its approval to its allies in Ankara, promising political support for Turkish military efforts. Consequently, on 29th July, the Turkish government annulled the ceasefire with the PKK.
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Chadian parallel: dictator faces trial for war-crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2015, 22:04 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils are searching for international mechanisms to bring those who bear responsibility for the "Crime of the century" of killing more than 80,000 Tamil civilians in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, to justice, human rights activists are elated but reminded that the "march of justice can be slow" in the recent trial of Hissen Habre, a former dictator from Chad, in the courts of Senegal. The trial began on 20th July, for alleged crimes of mass killings, torture, disappearance as part of ethnic cleansing in the 1980s, crimes that have stark parallel to those committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka. US State Department, in their selective approach to dealing with International Crimes, saved former SL President Rajapakse in the US Courts of Law suggesting sovereign immunity, an archaic legal doctrine that allows the US Executive branch to protect even genocidaires from legal action.
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Colombo's military red tape prevails over civil rule in occupied Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2015, 22:36 GMT]
The Defence Secretary of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, B.M.U.D. Basnayake this week demonstrated to the secretaries of SL Minister D.M. Swaminiathan in Jaffna that it was the SL military commanders in Jaffna, Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu, who were the ultimate decision makers on matters related to releasing back military-occupied lands to the civilians in the Northern province. The SL Defence Secretary, appointed by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, was on his first visit to North on Saturday and Sunday. In the meantime, EPDP leader Douglas Devananda has gone on record stating that the pockets of lands released so far by Maithiripala regime were those already prepared for release by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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SL Navy controls access to potable water in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2015, 22:17 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils who are beginning to resettle in the recently released 818 acres of lands in Champoor complain that there is still no assurance that they would not be chased away once again from their lands and properties. This is the fourth time they are told that they could commence their resettlement. Despite the prevailing uncertainty, they have started to clear the lands and put up temporary huts. Still the occupying Sri Lanka Navy controls the lands with access to potable water, resettling civilians told TamilNet on Thursday. “The SL Navy intends to sustain the militarisation while we expect the global community to exert pressure to sustain our livelihoods,” a resettling Tamil civilian said.
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Geopolitics of the Hegemons and Genocide of the oppressed

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 July 2015, 11:56 GMT]
“The Eezham Tamils occupying the strategic coasts in North-East Sri Lanka facing the Bay of Bengal, the Baloch occupying the coasts where the Persian Gulf meets the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, the Kachins occupying the strategic regions of Burma and the Rohinygas situated near the Isthmus of Kra have all been victims of the geopolitical dynamics involved in the collusion between competing world establishments and Asian nation-states. Such a future scenario warrants alternative measures to overcome the political injustice of imperialistic geopolitics,” writes Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. Eezham Tamils, being the victims of an internationally orchestrated structural genocide, should take the lead in edifying the oppressed nations of the world in building an alternative global political network, writes the second-generation Diaspora academic.
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Srebrenica, Mu'l'livaaykkaal: genocide's political dimension

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2015, 00:04 GMT]
In Srebrenica, two decades ago, Serbian forces massacred 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and young adults, widely recognized as the worst genocide in Europe after World War II. While UN never formally recognized the genocide, UN statements and member states [read US, UK] have done so, and had recognized their failure to protect Srebrenica Muslims. In contrast, the nearly 80,000 civilan Tamils massacred in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, in plain eye-view of advanced satellites, UN openly suppressed evidence, and the US, despite State Department's reports to the contrary, remained stoically silent, likely to avoid complicity in failing to prevent the beastial massacres. Wednesday's veto of Russia on UN security council resolution on Srebrenica drew condemnation from the US, in another demonstration of US's selective approach to geopolitical game of genocide.
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OISL should not absolve Colombo from genocidal crimes: survivor of Mirusuvil massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2015, 13:52 GMT]
The United Nations should not commit – once more – a crime against humanity in the case of Eezham Tamils by absolving the Sri Lankan State from the ultimate crime of genocide through facilitating escape routes to Colombo through the OHCHR at Geneva and the Office of the General-Secretary of the United Nations at New York, Ponnuthurai Maheswaran, who is the sole survivor and prime witness of Mirusuvil massacre case, told TamilNet this week in Jaffna. Mr Maheswaran had narrowly escaped from his killers on 19 December 2000 at the age of 21 at Mirusuvil where he witnessed 8 of his close relatives being tortured and killed by a killer squad of the occupying Sri Lanka Army. Although he had identified several soldiers directly involved in the massacre in the identification parades, all of them, except one, have been absolved of the crime by Colombo's justice system.
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SL State sustains genocidal grip on Eezham Tamils citing ‘LTTE affiliation’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2015, 21:43 GMT]
The Sinhala police system of occupying Colombo has once again demonstrated that it could subject any Eezham Tamil civilian to detention under ‘terrorism’ charges under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the Emergency Regulations. The latest case is a Tamil civilian from A'laveddi in Jaffna who lived for some time at Mallaavi in Vanni after the mass exodus of Eezham Tamils from Jaffna peninsula in 1995. Anyone having a family member or close relative with LTTE connection in the past is a potential threat in the eyes of the Sri Lankan military and police. The ‘LTTE affiliation’ has become a ‘valid military objective’, which is necessary to pursue the genocidal project.
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Colombo intent on subjecting more Tamil GS officers to ‘military rehabilitation’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
While 6 Eezham Tamil Village Officers (GS) from Ki'linochchi, recently interdicted from their jobs by Colombo's Ministry of Public Administration, are now forced to undergo ‘military rehabilitation’, the occupying Sri Lankan military, which seeks to retain its control on the civil affairs has instructed Karu Jayasuriya's ministry to subject 12 more Tamil GS officers to the genocidal military rehabilitation, civil sources in Jaffna said. Mr T. Kanagarasa, the coordinator of SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna said he had sent a letter to the SL ministry of Public Administration seeking clarification after receiving a complaint from a young mother, who has been interdicted from her work. In the meantime, Mr S. Varathan, the president of the interest organisation of the GS officers in Jaffna accused that the SL Government Agents have failed to protect the interests of the GS officers.
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Colombo enacts farcical show in Mirusuvil massacre case

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2015, 17:21 GMT]
As part of a concerted showdown in its campaign to transform the Geneva-based OISL investigation discourse into a domestic investigation, the Sri Lankan legal system was recently deployed to ‘demonstrate’ its ‘capacity‘ to 'investigate' what would be described by the human rights defenders as a ‘mass atrocity’ crime. The case, in which one non-commissioned officer of the Sri Lankan Army, Staff Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake, was sentenced to capital punishment, was in fact a genocidal crime in which several Sinhala soldiers, including a captain rank officer having command responsibility, took part. The main surviving witness in the case, who narrowly escaped the brutal massacre, had identified in 2001 the culprits, who belonged to the notorious ‘Deep Penetration Unit’, which was trained by Colombo to commit genocidal acts.
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Swaminthan continues ‘facilitation meetings’ between SL military, Tamil actors in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2015, 10:07 GMT]
After the Sri Lankan regime led by Maithripala Sirisena had publicly stated that the continued occupation of civilian properties and any release of them are matters decided by its occupying SL military, D.M. Swaminathan, the SL Minister of Resettlement, has been visiting Jaffna and Ki’inochchi, conducting meetings involving the commanding officers of the SL military and Tamil politicians as well as the civil groups representing the interests of uprooted Eezham Tamils. At a ‘facilitation’ meeting chaired by Mr Swaminthan at Ki’linochchi District Secretariat on Wednesday, the representatives of uprooted people refused to accept the explanations given by the Sinhala military commanders for the delay in the resettlement.
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Champoor Tamils should demand 1 bn compensation, political-demographic guarantees

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 June 2015, 22:37 GMT]
The focus on Champoor so far by the new regime has been to get rid of the Chinese-affiliated Rajapaksa's ‘development’ family enterprises in Champoor. The India-oriented project of constructing Trincomalee Thermal Power Plant (TPP) was also part of the same ‘Industrial Zone’ game, conceived by Colombo involving all the powers locked in the geopolitical game of occupation. The geopolitical exploitation and the structural genocide will continue with a new model of conspiracy, which would be hatched by involving new actors unless the Tamils conceive a concerted struggle against the game without aligning themselves with any of the players, informed civil activists in Trincomalee told TamilNet on Friday. Meanwhile, a Tamil expert on the topic was of the opinion that Tamils should demand compensation for the destruction caused to the civil property, after the military seizure.
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SL military seizes more lands at Tha'l'laadi, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 June 2015, 23:08 GMT]
While the civil officials in Mannaar are struggling to locate lands to settle Eezham Tamil refugees, who are scheduled to be sent back from India with the facilitation by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the SL Ministry of Resettlement, the occupying SL military in Mannaar has put up noticeboards claiming ownership to more than 50 acres of public lands along the A32 highway between Tha'l'laadi and Thirukkeatheesvaram. The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) has recently seized these lands near the notorious Tha'l'laadi military base, civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Monday. The SL military is scheming a military cantonment to facilitate long-term Sinhalicisation of the Mannaar mainland, the sources further said.
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Ampaa’rai Tamils side-lined by Sampanthan polity : TNA Councillor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 June 2015, 15:02 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance Councillor representing the Ampaa’rai district in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) T. Kalaiyarasan on Sunday condemned TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan for failing to secure the release of the occupied lands of Eezham Tamils in the district. “Nothing has been delivered to Tamils in Ampaa’rai district despite Mr Sampanthan representing the TNA being a member of the apex body of the present SL Government in Colombo,” the TNA Councillor from the East said. The so-called National Executive Council has failed to deliver anything to Tamils in the 100-day programme, he said.
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SLN occupies most of military-seized lands outside ‘HSZ’ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2015, 20:28 GMT]
Around 30 of 47 acres of lands seized together with residential houses outside the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) in Jaffna district still remain occupied by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Neduntheevu (Delft), Maruthangkea'ni of Vadmaraadchi East and in Thellip-pazhai, according to the latest data collected by the District Secretariat in Jaffna in February 2015. SL Police has occupied 88 houses, SLN has seized 57 properties and the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) keeps 23 properties outside the ‘military zones’ in the district. The SL military has reiterated several times now that it has no plan of reducing the military deployment in the country of Eezham Tamils. The Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, Justice CV Wigneswaran, who has been demanding de-militarisation of North recently characterised the density of SL military occupation as one soldier per 4 civilians.
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‘LLRC’ Palihakkara promotes pompous ceremony for genocidal ‘War Heroes’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 June 2015, 23:20 GMT]
The office of the SL Governor to North, HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists earlier appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), was an an official co-organiser to the pompous ceremony organised together with Ranaviru Seva Authority (RSA) of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Wednesday. ‘LLRC’ Palihakkara himself was the chief guest of the ceremony organised in remembrance of the ‘fallen war heroes of three forces and the Police’. Mr Palihakkara has forced a section of Tamil public servants in the North to accompany him to the military ceremony. Tamil journalists in Jaffna have boycotted the event. The NPC councillors said they were not informed of public servants associated with the NPC being taken to the event.
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Uprooted Musali Tamils demand lands back, SL Navy ignores Minister Swaminathan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 May 2015, 20:15 GMT]
Mu'l'ikku'lam has become a strategic point of occupation to the Sri Lankan forces that aim to Sinhalicise and colonise the land and the historic waters of Eezham Tamils. More than 4,500 Eezham Tamil civilians, evicted from Musali division in Mannnaar district in September 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. On Saturday, SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs D.M. Swaminathan (UNP) was forced to wait in front of the gates of the cantonment called ‘Command Headquarters - North Western Naval Area’ for more than 40 minutes by the occupying Sinhala Navy.
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