Eba-wala-pitiya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 21:25 GMT]
The high-ground plain of the deep waterhole
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Constitutionally recognise Tamil homeland to prove bona fides, exiled poet tells Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 17:40 GMT]
“We [Eezham Tamils] are not [people of two] provinces. We are [the people of] a homeland. This reality is constitutionally not recognised in the Constitution. Would the Sinhala rulers of Sri Lanka ever be prepared to constitutionally recognise the joint North-East as the homeland of Tamils,” questioned exiled Eezham Tamil poet Kasi Anandan on Wednesday, speaking from Chennai, in an Internet-based video address on the occasion of a memorial event held in Batticaloa on the 10th anniversary of the assassinated TamilNet Senior Editor and popular columnist Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki). The current Sinhala rulers [in the island of Sri Lanka] are only talking about ‘Tamils in the North’ whenever they refer to Tamils, Kasi Anandan observed.
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PTF continues to control NGOs assisting resettling people in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 April 2015, 21:57 GMT]
Non Government Organisations trying to assist the people who wish to resettle in the pockets of lands released so far in Valikaamam North are instructed to seek permission from the so-called Presidential Task Force (PTF), which is dominated by military commanders and secretaries of various ministries in Colombo. Local NGOs that attempted to put up temporary huts in Valikaamam North have been instructed by the SL Government Agent to approach PTF clearance, says Shageevan Shanmugalingam, an elected civic representative who also leads a welfare organisation for the resettling people in Valikaamam North.
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Unabated structural genocide in East reminds Tamils of Dudley's betrayal in 1965

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2015, 19:51 GMT]
Resettled Tamils in Paddith-thidal village in Moothoor divion in Trincomalee, recently made a fresh attempt to engage in agriculture in their lands after the ‘new’ regime came to power in Colombo. However, the latest effort, made with the assistance of the ‘Legal Aid Commission’ has also proved futile, says Velayutham Velmaran, the chairman of Paddith-thidal Sri Vinayaga Agricultural Society in an interview to TamilNet on Monday. A Sinhala-Buddhist extremist monk from Samagipura, which is situated in the bordering Seruwila DS division, has been blocking the resettled Eezham Tamil landowners for several years from engaging in agriculture in their land. The Sinhala colonisers from Seruwila have seized around 1,500 acres of the agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in the villages of Kangku-veali, Padukaadu and Muthalai-madu , Mr Velmaran said.
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SL CID wants to investigate journalists in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 April 2015, 23:25 GMT]
Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has instructed four Tamil journalists in Vavuniyaa and Mannaar on Sunday to appear in Demattagoda CID office on Wednesday for investigations, journalists in Mannaar said. The journalists were not informed on the subject matter of the investigations. The SL police in Mannaar and Vavuniyaa have issued the summons in Sinhala language to the Tamil journalists.
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Oavilaana

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2015, 23:52 GMT]
The streamside marsh found grown with small trees, shrubs and plants
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Investigate SL Minister Bathiyutheen along with Basil Rajapaksa, Muslims demand UNP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2015, 16:34 GMT]
The people of Mannaar, Puththa'lam and Vavuniyaa have started to raise their voices questioning the credibility of the ‘new’ SL regime in Colombo, which has failed to arrest and investigate SL Minister of Industry and Commerce Mr Rishad Bathiyutheen over allegations of misappropriation of funds. Basil Rajapaksa, who was the former SL Minister of ‘Economic Development’ and Mr Bathiyutheen, who was the SL Minister for Resettlement, have appropriated large sums of the funds obtained for resettling the war-affected people, sections of Muslims in Puththa'lam and Mannaar accuse. At a meeting held in Temple Trees on Friday for UNP members from Northern and North-Western Provinces, Muslim members raised their voices against entertaining Bathiyutheen with a minister portfolio instead of investigating him together with Mr Basil Rajapaksa, who is now detained for investigations.
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IC has failed to save imprisoned Eezham Tamils: NPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2015, 19:14 GMT]
The new Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena, who came to power with the votes of the Tamil-speaking people, gave full pardon to political prisoner Sarath Fonseka, who was the Sri Lankan Army commander during the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009. This new president, who came to power with Tamil votes, was not able to release any of the Tamil political prisoners who are imprisoned by the Sri Lankan courts with jail terms ranging to 20 to 30 years for their participation in the war, said NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam at a press conference held in Jaffna earlier this week. “When I visited Europe recently and the met some of the MEPs, they were urging the Tamils to be patient. I told them in clear terms that they too have failed in securing the release of Tamil prisoners from a regime that came to power with the votes of Tamil speaking people,” Mr Shivajilingam said.
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Resettled Tamils seek empowerment to confront demographic genocide in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2015, 23:12 GMT]
Two decades have elapsed since Eezham Tamils resettled in Va'laththaap-piddi GS division of Ampaa'rai district. After the war ended in the East in 2008, Sinhala settlers from the border villages have accelerated the occupation of fertile agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils at Kanangkaa-veddai near Pazha-ve'li village. A recently established camp of the Sri Lankan military is prohibiting the resettling Tamil landowners from accessing their agricultural lands at Kanangkaa-veddai. In the meantime, the Archaeology department of the genocidal Sri Lankan State has put up border stones surrounding the old Sivan temple of Va'laththaap-piddi. Sinhala settlers who have encroached from border villages have taken over the agricultural lands that belong to Veera-munai Hindu temple. Without political and economic empowerment, the Tamils, already marginalised in Ampaa'rai, risk losing their villages.
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Sajith Premadasa's SL ministry steps up Sinhalicisation in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2015, 18:25 GMT]
Sinhala officials of Colombo's ‘National Housing Development Authority’, which comes under UNP Minister Sajith Premadasa attempted on Tuesday to grab lands that belong to uprooted Eezham Tamils at Mukaththuvaaram in Kokku'laay of Mullaiththeevu district. A tense situation prevailed as Sinhala settlers confronted the Tamil landowners. However, the move to survey the lands that belong to Eezham Tamils was halted after Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member Thurairajah Ravikaran documented the land deeds to survey department officers who were brought by the so-called National Housing Development Authority to seize the lands to Sinhala colonisers in the country of Eezham Tamils. The SL State is accelerating Sinhala colonization with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces at this strategic location.
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Occupying SL Navy continues to intimidate Tamil fishermen in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2015, 19:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) sailors manning the Periya-kadai jetty, situated at the entrance to the city of Mannaar, are unrelenting in their oppression being meted out to the Tamil fishermen from five village (GS) divisions, fishermen's representatives complain. Although there are no official restrictions on Mannaar fishermen accessing their territorial sea, the SL Navy is checking everyone embarking on fishing every day. The names of the fishermen, their fishing vessels are registered. Their fishing catches are being monitored on a daily basis. The SLN personnel present at the check post also use to seize portions of their catches sometimes, the fishermen further complain.
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NPC appointed commission commences investigations on fraud

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2015, 19:11 GMT]
A 7-member commission appointed by the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) to investigate the wide scale fraud reported within the last five years, said it has commenced the investigations on Monday. The investigations will target various ministries and departments coming under the purview of the NPC, local government and the public service in the province, according to Deputy Speaker M. Antony Jeganathan, who is the chair of the Commission. There have been widespread allegations of fraud involving the previous SL military governor to the North, who was spearheading the structural genocide through the provincial administration. Some of these fraudulent activities have also involved TNA members including a prominent member in the NPC, the critics in the civil sector in Jaffna said urging the Chief Minister to ensure impartial investigations.
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SL State agencies, occupying military accelerate Sinhalicisation in Madu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2015, 20:18 GMT]
Two departments of the occupying Sri Lankan State, the Wildlife Department and the Forest Department, have been blocking the uprooted Eezham Tamils from resettling and owning lands in the four villages that come under Poomalarnthaan GS division, which is one of the 17 GS areas of Madu division in the Mannaar District, the uprooted Tamil villagers complain. The policy of social engineering targeting Sinhalicisation of Madu division has not changed under the ‘new’ regime, as these departments seem to compete with each other in the occupation of the lands. The threatening presence of Sinhala soldiers in the villages and the jungles facilitates the occupation. The programme of Sinhalicisation is accelerated following the commencing of railway line to Mannaar, the civil sources said.
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OISL in acid test over witness submissions on ‘Gota camp’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2015, 21:30 GMT]
The revelations on the so-called Gota camp, a secret incarceration camp run by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Trincomalee, where at least 700 former LTTE members were illegally detained for more than five years, will be an acid test to conclude whether the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) has taken the eyewitness submissions seriously, one of the survivors who got out from the notorious detention just a few days before the regime change told TamilNet on Saturday. The whereabouts of those detained at the undisclosed ‘Gota’ camp also constitute a serious question on the conduct of the ‘new’ regime in South. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet that the SL military has given a figure of less than 400 former LTTE members as being alive in its custody throughout the island.
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Documentary released on Chunnaakam water-pollution issue

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2015, 22:55 GMT]
A new group of documentary makers in Jaffna have released a documentary in Tamil on the ongoing environmental debate regarding the alleged pollution prevailing in Chunnaakam area in Jaffna. Due to the dumping of chemical material by the fossil fuel station in Chunnaakam, the wells around the area have been contaminated by petroleum waste and a toxic heavy metal, maintain a large group of activists, doctors and lawyers in Jaffna. However, the Sri Lankan state-owned company running the power station has deployed all its resources to discredit the campaign by the activists and there have been serious questions on the role played by the politicians in the issue.
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Sinhala colonization continues unabated in pasturelands of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 April 2015, 20:18 GMT]
Sinhala settlers are encroaching into the lands used for grazing of livestock owned by the farmers in Batticaloa. The encroachment is increasing unabated month after month during the 100-day programme of the new regime led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, Tamil farmers from Periya-maathava'nai in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division told TamilNet on Thursday. The Sinhala settlers target the lands surrounding the water tanks and ponds in the demarcated zones of pastureland. The intruders have slain more than 25 cows that belong to Tamil farmers earlier this year. The Sinhala guards from the SL forest department and the occupying SL military and the police keep fining the cattle owners. “We are targeted by the Sinhala intruders, home guards, military and police because of our ethnicity,” a farmer said describing the illegal fining as extortion.
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SL Minister's men occupy lands of uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2015, 21:27 GMT]
Around 100 uprooted Tamil families from Thaangkiyadi in Mannaar have been denied resettlement in the lands where they were living before they were uprooted in 1990. The relatives of SL Minister Rishad Bathiudeen at Thaaraa-puram have occupied the 48-acre land. There is no one to voice for the resettlement of the poverty-stricken families from the lower echelon of the society, rights activists in Mannaar said. “No-one dares to fight with Rishad Bathiudeen who hails from Thaaraa-puram, the nearby village,” a displaced Tamil villager, who visits the temple once a week, told TamilNet on Wednesday. The small temple is the only trace of the Tamil settlement at Thaangkiyadi situated 7 km north of the city on Mannaar - Thalaimannaar A14 Road.
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Ex-LTTE members cannot be investigated: Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 April 2015, 22:37 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State and the members of the international community, who were complicit in the genocide of Eezham Tamils in the name of waging a war against ‘terrorism’ cannot demand any further investigation on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after subjecting the members of the movement to cold-blooded summary executions at the hands of the Sri Lankan State and its military, Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has said. After the end of war, the SL State punished even those who had left the movement several years ago by subjecting them for the so-called rehabilitation in imprisonment. Even those who had left the LTTE several years ago were subjected to military interrogations and punishment by the State, which claims itself as the victor of the war, he said.
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IC should act on de-militarisation of Valikaamam, Champoor: Shageevan

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 April 2015, 23:29 GMT]
Without de-militarisation, it is not possible to achieve proper resettlement, even at the minimum standard in the military-occupied former High Security Zone in the North and in the Champoor region in the East. “The international community knows this very well. But, it intentionally avoids putting forward this as a demand,” says S. Shageevan, the deputy chairperson of the Divisional Council of Valikaamam North and the president of the welfare association of uprooted people from Valikaamam North. The International Community has been allowing the previous and current regimes in Colombo to buy necessary “time and space” in Geneva and in New York after 2009. It was during this time Colombo transformed the former High Security Zone into a permanent military zone, he further said, urging the Tamils to focus on making the IC to act on the demand of de-militarisation.
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Colombo's propaganda on releasing lands in former HSZ proves futile

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 April 2015, 21:08 GMT]
After making propaganda announcements naming entire GS divisions as to be released for resettlement in Valikaamam North and Valikaamam East, the Sri Lankan State and its occupying military, once again demonstrated on Saturday that only a small pocket was being released, that too under appalling conditions of militarisation near Chaanthai Junction in Valikaamam North. The people of Thaiyiddi and Mayiliddi who went there to see their lands had to return without gaining access to their lands. The SL military has put up fences around the pockets of lands being released to the public while maintaining the militarisation of the occupied villages with all their military installations being intact, the people of Thaiyiddi said.
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