Sinhala police, mob intimidate Saiva Tamil pilgrims at Kanniyaa

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 September 2019, 20:04 GMT]
Tens of uniformed Sinhala police officers along with persons dressed in civilian clothing stormed at a group of Tamil Saiva pilgrims who were chanting prayers at Kanniyaa Hot Wells around 7:00 a.m. on Friday. The Sinhala policemen behaved aggressively against the devotees instructing them to remove their vehicle away from the promises, said the organiser of the pilgrimage, 41-year-old V. Mohanathas. The devotees were not allowed to conduct their Bajan worship at the Pi'l'laiyaar temple grounds. Half of them were disturbed from their bathing ritual at the Hot Wells. Even though the Tamil pilgrims explained the reason for their presence, the Sinhala group behaved aggressively, Mr Mohanadas said.
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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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SL Governor disregarding District, Divisional Secretariat data on lands signals bad intention

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 September 2019, 23:07 GMT]
The details of all the private lands still retained by the occupying SL military have been gathered and kept up-to-date by the Divisional Secretariats and the District Secretariats for years. However, SL Governor to North, Suren Raghavan, has recently issued a new form instructing the people who wish to reclaim their lands to file details along with the copy of the land deed directly to his secretariat. The latest move could be nothing else than a pure deception as witnessed forty-five days ago in Keerimalai (J/226) GS area, says Shageevan Shangmugalingam, the chairman of Valikaamam North Resettlement Committee. The landowners in Keerimalai were asked to allow surveying of their lands to reclaim the plots. But, the SL military was using the opportunity to seize the properties not claimed within the timeframe. Only 69 acres (1,100 Parappu) were counted as claimed by the owners, he said.
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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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Sinhala military occupation deprives Tamil farmers accessing livelihood services in Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 September 2019, 22:49 GMT]
The officers of the occupying SL Army’s 232 Brigade Headquarters, stationed at Tharavai near Kudumpi-malai (Thoppik-kal, Baron’s Cap) in the interior Batticaloa, are refusing to vacate from the irrigation and agrarian offices. Around 1,500 farmers who are organised in 25 organisations in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) DS Division are deprived of benefiting from the services of the public office due to the continued militarisation by the Sinhala army, the representatives of the farmer's associations said. The office buildings are used as the residential offices of the commanding officers of the SL Army. The offices are also used as resorts for the Sinhala visitors from the South.
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UNHCR brings back refugees from Tamil Nadu without ensuring prospects for resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 September 2019, 23:42 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils who are returning from their overseas displacement in Tamil Nadu find it increasingly challenging to regain their lands and livelihood in the North-East of the island, civil officials in Mannaar said. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) and the SL state apparatus fail to meet even the basic requirements of those returning, the officials said. While the UNCHR facilitates the flight transport of the refugees through Colombo airport, it expects the SL State to complete the resettlement arrangements at the district level. However, the officials coming under the Colombo government in the district say they are unable to cope with the challenges, even to find temporary accommodation to the returning families.
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Military minds of New Delhi, Colombo stage ‘book fair’ in Jaffna though quisling Governor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan, who is the Tamil agent of Maithiripala Sirisena, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, has organised a book fair in Jaffna this week. The military intelligence outfits of New Delhi and Colombo were collaborating behind the scene to sophisticatedly mix selected books from Tamil Nadu with publications depicting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as ‘terrorists’. The target audience of the book fair is the younger generation of Eezham Tamils. The officers of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka were invited as the special guests to the event along with the Mayor of Jaffna and the Tamil children wearing Sinhala costumes were garlanding the guests at the event held under the patronage of the SL Governor at the Veerasingam Hall.
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Despite ending Emergency, Sirisena keeps SL military empowered with police powers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2019, 00:04 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena has re-issued a Gazette notification calling out all the members of the SL Army, SL Navy and SL Air Force for the maintenance of public order in all the 25 districts of the island, including the eight districts of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in the North and East. The powers provided to the three armed forces include the powers of search and arrest, usually conferred on police officers. The SL President has however allowed the Emergency Regulations to lapse itself by not renewing the Gazette notification that could extend it for another month. Although the state of emergency has expired, the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), enacted initially in 1979 and made permanent in 1982, is in force.
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SL Forest Department remains unmoved by uprooted Tamils’ demand for resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 August 2019, 07:04 GMT]
The uprooted people of Kanakar-kiraamam village, a Tamil settlement located 7 km north of Poththtuvil in Ampaa'rai district, are yet to see any change in the attitude of the SL Forest Department, which has seized their lands violating the law of the SL State itself. The people have been staging a continuous protest since 13 August 2018. Former Eastern Provincial Land Commissioner Kathrigamathamby Kurunathan confronted the SL Forest Department on 20 July exposing the mischievous way the land grab was executed, and the officials attached to the department agreed to release the lands. However, nothing has taken place, even as the protesters completed 365 days of protest on 13 August. It is the SL Forest Department, which is the chief trouble-maker, says Mrs Rangathenna, a mother taking part in the protest.
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Wigneswaran warns of bleak future for Tamils, urges planning for next step

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2019, 20:23 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena appointing Shavendra Silva as the SLA commander is the logical outcome of the Sinhala thinking that remains unchanged. “Secondly, he may also be thinking that if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were to come in as the president next, Shavendra Silva would be an ideal lieutenant to him, because they have worked together in the past,” commented former Chief Minister of North Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. The Sinhala political leaders would not grant any political rights to the Tamils in the future because, in their position there had been no genocide, no war crimes and they maintaint that those killed were all ‘terrorists’. “We may expect a very difficult time ahead. Tamils, both internationally and locally, must start thinking as to what should be our next step in the event of such people becoming very violent against our people,” the former chief minister told TamilNet.
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IC sheds crocodile tears over Shavendra appointment, US engages with his war-time chief

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2019, 19:23 GMT]
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a US citizen when he spearheaded the genocidal war on Eezham Tamils in 2009, must be facing the lawsuits filed against him in the USA. However, instead of putting an effective end to the presidential hopes of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the US establishment has chosen to engage with him furnishing loss-of-US-nationality paperwork as required by him. The trend is quite visible to those watching the discourse, including the visits by the US-friendly actors engaging with the Rajapaksas. However, the US Embassy in Colombo issued a statement stating that it was ‘deeply concerned by the appointment of Lt General Shavendra Silva as SL Army Commander. Where was this US concern while engaging with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, commented Tamil activists in Jaffna.
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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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2006 genocidal massacre at Chengchoalai campus marked in Vanni, Jaffna amidst PTA-threats

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2019, 23:31 GMT]
Amidst PTA-threats coming from the occupying Sinhala Army, military intelligence and the SL Police against inscribing the names and photos of the school-girls, who perished in a targeted aerial massacre by the SL Air Force in 2006, the parents of the students commemorated the victims of the attack by putting up temporary paper photos on the arch. An emotional remembrance event took place at Va'l'li-punam in Mullaiththeevu district with the participation of TNA politicians. Vanni Cross and Chegnchoalai Remembrance Organisation organised the event jointly. In the meantime, Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) also staged a remembrance event within the premises of the Jaffna University on Wednesday.
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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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Percival's 19th century Tamil proverb compilations collated and sorted in new publication

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 August 2019, 20:04 GMT]
One thousand eight hundred and seventy Tamil proverbs compiled by Rev Peter Percival and published as Thiruddaantha Changkirakam (திருட்டாந்த சங்கிரகம், Tiruṭṭānta Caṅkirakam) with their translation in English by the American Mission in Jaffna in 1843 and the second expanded edition in Tamil Nadu with 6,156 proverbs collected by the same author in 1874 have been combined into a single source by “Viruba” T Kumaresan and A Sivagnanaseelan. While the Tamil Nadu edition had been reprinted five times until 2019, the initial publication of proverbs collected in the country of Eezham Tamils had not been reproduced until now. The latest effort combines both the Jaffna and Mylapore compilations with English translations deploying traditional Tamil sorting in listing them all into a single source. The collection was published at an event held in Jaffna Hartley College on Monday.
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PTA-threats against constructing memorial arch for student victims of 2006 aerial massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2019, 20:32 GMT]
The occupying SL Army and its Intelligence have warned the workers, who were engaged in setting up a memorial road arch in Mullaith-theevu on Sunday. The arch was being constructed in memory of 51 school-girls and four staff members, whom the SL Air Force had brutally killed in a targeted aerial massacre at Chengchoalai compound on 14 August 2006 at Va'l'li-punam in Mullaiththeevu. The SL military personnel who came to the site on Sunday and instructed the workers to cease all the work threatened to detain them under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In the meantime, the SL Police, which took the workers to the station told them that there should be no photographs of the school children, who were slain in the aerial massacre carried out by the SL Air Force. The workers were engaged in completing the construction before the 13th Commemoration on Wednesday.
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Book on Santhiya becomes narration of Tamil struggle incorporating Marxist ideas in early 80s

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 August 2019, 23:28 GMT]
Ben Hillier, the editor of Australia’s leading socialist publication, Red Flag, wanted to recount the life of Santhiya, a former LTTE cadre who had perished in an Indonesian detention centre in late 2017. Her tragic death occurred as a result of the anti-refugee and anti-Tamil struggle policies practised by Australia. In his efforts to trace her life the editor of the Red Flag travelled to Jakarta, Indonesia and then to the occupied country of Eezham Tamils with the support of the Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) a grassroots diaspora group in Australia. Ben Hillier, who travelled to the occupied country and learned more about the sacrifices made by the Eezham Tamils, particularly the Tamil women, authored his book “Losing Santhiya: On Life and Loss in the Struggle for Tamil Eelam” in July.
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Pirapaharan’s statements between 1984 and 1993 reproduced in book form in Europe

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 August 2019, 23:55 GMT]
A Switzerland-based Eezham Tamil youth group, ‘Phoenix - the Next Generation’, has photostatically reproduced the rare 314-page compilation officially published by the Headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in September 1993 in Jaffna. The book contains selected letters, interviews and statements of LTTE Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan starting from his first media interview in March 1984. The compilation consists, amongst others, of a letter that declines LTTE representation at a meeting held in New York in May 1985, appeals to the leaders of India and Tamil Nadu during the LTTE-IPKF war in 1987, and a letter of solidarity addressed to South African (ANC) leader, the late Oliver Tambo, in July 1988. The reproduction has been made from a book obtained at the public library of Jaffna in the past. The book, with ID 9907, is no longer accessible at the library.
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