SL Wildlife Department converts farmlands of Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay into sanctuary

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 July 2019, 16:25 GMT]
The Tamil farmers who had been uprooted for 35-years from Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Mullaith-theevu district and managed to return to their village in 2012, lost their low-lying irrigable lands along with reservoirs to Sinhala colonists. Now, the SL Wildlife Conservation Department has seized their upper-lying “Maanaavaari” agricultural lands and converted these into a bird sanctuary. The aim is to wedge the contiguity of the occupied Tamil country’s northern and eastern territories up to the very coastline. Kokkuth-thoduvaay is an agricultural and fisheries village, sandwiched between the lagoon of Kokku'laay and the sea in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of the Mullaiththeevu district.
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Mother dies after searching for missing son for 11 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 July 2019, 22:54 GMT]
A 74-year-old mother of a Tamil male subjected to enforced disappearance eleven years ago in Mannaar has passed away after suffering a heart attack in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. The representatives of the district organisation of the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances said that the mother, Thresamma Sebamalai, was an active member in their continuous protest during the past 869 days. She was trying to trace the whereabouts of her son for the past 11 years. Mrs Sebamalai was living at Ira'naip-paalai in Puthuk-kudiyiruppu.
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Students, TNPF mark 36th Black July Remembrance in Jaffna, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 July 2019, 23:38 GMT]
The student community of the University of Jaffna and Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) offices in the North and the East marked the 36th anniversary of the collective trauma of the ‘Black July’, the SL state-sponsored genocidal pogrom that claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Tamil residents in the south of the island in 1983. Tamil-speaking Muslim students also took part in the remembrance event organised by the students in Jaffna.
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Assembling freedom of visiting UN expert put under acid-test in North-East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 July 2019, 23:52 GMT]
The representatives of the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the SL military have complained to the visiting United Nations Special Rapporteur on Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association that their freedom of organisation is almost non-existent in the occupied Tamil homeland. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, the UN special rapporteur, met the representatives of district-level organisations of the kith and kin of the missing persons as well as the rights activists and journalists in Jaffna and Trincomalee this weekend. The activists who attended the meetings with the visiting UN rapporteur in Trincomalee said that the SL Police and the intelligence wing of the SL military were harassing them both before and during the closed-room sessions on Sunday. The CID personnel were also closely watching the people accessing the meeting venue.
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Vedanta sections in North-East divided over backing Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 July 2019, 12:36 GMT]
Apart from the secular Eezham Tamil activists, including the Saivites and the Catholics, some sections of Vedanta Hindus have braved their North Indian inclination and condemned the escalating heritage genocide against the Tamils in the North-East. The North Indian Vedanta line wants to sustain the anti-Tamil nexus between the Hindutva and Theravada Buddhism. It is also orientated against Tamil-Muslim unity. However, Swami Chidakashananda of Chinmaya Mission Jaffna, who took part in the mobilisation heeding to the call made by the Saivaist Then-Kayilai Aatheenam at Kanniyaa was addressing media at the Jaffna Press Club on Wednesday. He said the accelerating Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites in the North-East must be stopped through exerting international pressure on the SL State.
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Colombo wants to grab lands once again for power plants in Champoor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2019, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala-Buddhist unitary state in Colombo has once again schemed to acquire the agricultural and residential lands of the Eezham Tamils in Champoor in Trincomalee for the construction of two power plants. The project seems to have been outsourced to a Japanese firm this time. The Tamil people were protesting against the controversial project as the SL authorities came to survey the locality last week. Former Provincial Land Commissioner to East, Kathrigamathamby Kurunathan, who made a trip to help the Tamil landowners earlier this week, condemned the latest acquisition of lands as a fundamental violation of the human rights of the resettling Tamils. Furthermore, the land expert characterised the project as detrimental to the environment, which has already been compromised by the five cement plants already constructed in the eastern port city.
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Trustee vows to take up legal fight for restoration of Kanniyaa temple

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 July 2019, 07:29 GMT]
The Sinhala SL Government Agent (District Secretary) of Trincomalee District, NAA Pushpakumara, has been liaising with the SL Presidential Secretariat in Colombo and facilitating the SL Archaeology Department to resume the deconstruction of the base structure of Pi'l'laiyaar temple at the disputed heritage site of Kanniyaa Hot Wells. Mrs Ganesh Kokilaramany, who is the land-owner and the principal trustee of Pi'l'laiyaar temple, went to file a complaint with the SL Police. However, the Police showed four documents to her in an attempt to justify the resumption of the controversial work by the SL Archaeology Department. SL Presidential Secretariat has given go for the construction of the disputed Buddhist ‘chaitya’ by dismantling the construction of 200-year-old Hindu Pi'l'laiyaar temple at the private lands that belong to Mrs Kokilaramany.
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SL Archaeology Department resumes disputed ‘chaitya’ project in Kanniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2019, 18:12 GMT]
Openly violating the promise extended to Mano Ganesan, the SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and National Integration on 10th June 2019, the occupying Colombo's Archaeology Department has resumed the controversial dismantling of the base construction of the old Saiva temple of Pi'l'laiyaar at the heritage site of Eezham Tamils in Kanniyaa, Trincomalee three days ago. The SL Archaelogy officers engaged in the dismantling claimed that SL Minister Mano Ganesan had agreed to such reconstruction when the Saiva Priest of Then-Kayilai Aatheenam, Thavath-Thiru Akaththiyar Adika'laar, visited the disputed site on Thursday. The officials were violating the promise extended by themselves and the monks that they would not proceed with the disputed dismantling/construction work at the site.
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Colombo not prepared to return military-seized lands belonging exiled Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2019, 20:39 GMT]
Suren Raghavan, the SL Governor to North, has told 71-year-old Maheswary Thambirajah, whose lands the occupying SL Army had seized for military purposes, that the properties which she had transferred to her daughters were unlikely to be released back to the rightful owners as they were staying outside the island. The mother of seven met the SL Governor on Wednesday seeking his support to exert pressure on the SL government in Colombo to release her lands back to the rightful owners. The SL Government could only consider providing alternative lands for those who were residing in the island and that too at a distant locality in Vanni, the SL Governor has told the mother.
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Occupying Colombo's justice system ridicules Tamil mother fighting to get her lands released

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2019, 21:17 GMT]
TNA parliamentarians-cum-lawyers such as President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran have failed politically and legally to challenge the SL Defence Ministry deploying the argument of ‘national security’ as a pretext to seize the lands of Tamil landowners. The SL Court of Appeal (CoA) in Colombo, delivering a recent determination has gone to the extent of claiming that “these are matters in relation to National Security, which need not and should not be discussed and probed openly”. The Sinhala judge, Mahinda Samayawardhena, was also ridiculing the petitioner, 71-year-old Tamil mother of seven Mrs Maheswary Thambirajah by stating that “[p]lanting coconuts cannot be more important than national security.” The 54 acres of lands in question at Aasaip-pi'l'lai-eattam in Ezhuthu-madduvaa'l in Thenmaraadchi Jaffna is the locality where the occupying SL Army's 52 Division Headquarters is situated.
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SL military in Jaffna hurriedly constructs Buddhist vihara in ‘HSZ’ lands in KKS

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 July 2019, 23:33 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka is silently and hurriedly erecting a Buddhist vihara at Thaiyiddi in Kaangkeasan-thu'rai (KKS) in Jaffna. The construction is taking place inside the military-held former High-Security Zone area which has not been released back to the people. Tamil civic member Shageevan Shanmugalingam from Valikaamam North (Thellip-pazhai) Divisional Council told TamilNet on Monday that he was turned back by the SL military when he went there to see the construction. In the meantime, journalists have managed to photograph the structure from a distance, exposing the project. New Delhi talking about the ‘development’ of the KKS port and upgrading the Palaali airport without ensuring de-militarisation, is paving the way for socio-economic and cultural Sinhalicisation of the coastal stretch of Eezham Tamils in Valikaamam North, Tamil activists in Jaffna said.
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Tamils vow to stage feast at Naayaa'ru, disregard ‘advice’ on not to provoke monks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2019, 10:37 GMT]
How about Tamils considering an approach of collaborating with the Sinhala Buddhist establishment and adopting a line without provoking the monks, the US Ambassador in Colombo recently asked a Tamil minister, informed sources in Colombo said. The SL minister was also working hard to contain the escalating dispute at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu and at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee in an attempt to strike a compromise. However, the monks were not listening. They came with expanding plans of Neeraaviyadi and stepped up their hostile protests. The militant monks started to threaten the Tamils by naming and shaming a prominent activist of the anti-Mahaweli protests at a demonstration they staged recently at Neeraaviyadi. Now, the Tamil grassroots activists in Vanni have vowed to carry 108 Pongkal pots to the Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Neeraaviyadi on 06 July 2019 to stage a feast to their deity.
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Colombo wants to legally militarise lands attached to ‘JOSSOP’ base in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 June 2019, 22:22 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka wants to permanently seize a large tract of land surrounding the notorious ‘JOSSOP’ camp in Vavuniyaa, which the SL military deployed as a torture chamber during the times of war. Although the official claim was about 16 acres of lands, the move aims to convert at least 250 acres of lands including higher-lying lands that belonged to 14 families. The unitary state mechanism is silently working to legally transfer these lands to the SL military at the absence of mobilised opposition by the uprooted and war-affected people, Tamil civil sources at Vavuniyaa District Secretariat said. The travellers to Vavuniyaa could see the extent of the military cantonment for almost one kilometre along the A9 highway, 2 km south of Vavuniyaa.
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Anti-Muslim harassment escalates in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 June 2019, 23:51 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Navy and Army along with the SL Police are harassing the Tamil-speaking Muslims in two hotspots in Mannaar district as never before, and the trend is worsening every day without anyone to voice for the rights of the affected innocent people. The predominantly Sinhala soldiers, particularly the SL Navy personnel at Thaaraa-puram in Mannaar island and those stationed in the mainland in Musali division, are humiliating the residents of more than 20 colonies. These settlements were put up by the controversial politician, Rishard Bathiudeen, who was serving the successive regimes in Colombo while creating a voter base for himself with the funding he facilitated from the Arabic world. The former SL Minister's opportunistic political behaviour has not only backfired against him but also against the Muslim residents of Thaaraa-Puram, which is his native village in Mannaar.
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Pompeo cancels Colombo visit, concentrates on US-India relations in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2019, 18:41 GMT]
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has cancelled his visit to Colombo which was scheduled for Thursday. The US Embassy in Colombo was citing “scheduling issues” for the annulment. However, Mr Pompeo dropping his short visit had “more to do with rising local sentiments against a proposed American military base” on the island reported The Economic Times on Tuesday. The US Secretary of State was focusing more on the longer-term strategic partnership and on ironing out the trade disputes between the USA and India on Wednesday. Pompeo was scheduled to visit New Delhi and Colombo, before meeting US President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan and accompanying him to South Korea after that. While India is a major defence partner, the US has been seeking defence partnership with ‘Sri Lanka’ and three other countries, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal, in South Asia.
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PTA claimed life of upcountry Tamil political prisoner: Fr Shaktivel

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2019, 20:20 GMT]
It was the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) that ultimately claimed the life of 62-year-old Muththaiah Sagadevan, who was severely affected by various diseases during his 14 years of detention. He passed away at the National Hospital in Colombo under the prolonged PTA-custody on 22 June, said Rev Fr M Shaktivel, the co-chairperson of the Action Committee to Free Tamil Political Prisoners. The TID detained Sagadevan in 2005. It took three years to file a case against him in 2008. But, the baseless PTA case was being dragged on for so long destroying his psychological and physical health. The misery has been caused by the new regime which has failed to recognise the PTA detainees of the LTTE times as political prisoners, Fr Shakthivel said. The international community was also calling for the scrapping of the PTA, he noted.
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Colombo escalates charges against three political prisoners as ‘war crimes’

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2019, 23:26 GMT]
SL Attorney General's Department has formulated its false charges against three Tamil political prisoners (TPPs) as LTTE's war crimes. Dropping the earlier expressed charge, which was also not based on evidence, the SL-AG has introduced a new 27 point charge. The three TPPs, Mathiyarasan Sulaxan, Rasathurai Thiruvarul and Ganeshan Tharshan, have been languishing in the prison for ten years. They are now being ‘punished’ for their unrelenting protests in prison in the past, legal sources said. One of the prisoners managed to explain the baseless accusation to the journalists who were present at the High Court in Vavuniyaa, when he was brought for the hearings. The hearings are scheduled for three days.
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Ploy of monks and bigotry of politicians critical to TNA's Quisling politics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2019, 17:05 GMT]
A section of Tamil politicians, who claim that they are opposed to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on principles grounds regarding Tamil rights, have fallen right into the sophisticated trap laid by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment in the district of Ampaa'rai. The Tamil politicians, who were attending the hunger-strike in which the role of Ven Ranmuthugala Sangharathana Thero had become the ‘foremost’ attention-drawer, were contributing to severing the ties between the Tamils and Muslims in the future. By making their presence at the platform promoted by the Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Gnanasara Thero, JHU Parliamentarian monk Athuraliye Rathana Thero and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, they were betraying the legitimate cause, including their objective criticism of the Quisling hierarchy of the TNA.
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Tamils should demand to scrap Mahaweli ‘development’ in North-East: Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2019, 23:04 GMT]
The SL military and three departments coming under Colombo, SL Forest, Archaeology and Mahaweli, have seized more than 80,000 acres of lands in Mullaiththeevu district alone. The Sinhala colonisation has targeted the North-East with the so-called ‘Mahaweli development’ for a long time since 1948. The ultimate motive is three-fold: grabbing the lands of Tamils, enacting demographic changes and wedging the territorial integrity of the North-East, which constitutes the traditional homeland of Tamils, said Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the former Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, in his weekly response to questions from media on Thursday.
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Time for Canadian Eezham Tamils to chart next course of diaspora action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The political parties in Canada have unanimously called upon the UN to “establish an international independent investigation into the allegations of genocide against Tamils committed in Sri Lanka including the last phase of the armed conflict in 2009” along with two other demands to Colombo. A resolution was unanimously adopted extending condolences to all of the victims of violence while demanding the SL government to deliver justice to the Easter Sunday attacks, including protection of all religious places of worship and to fulfil its obligations made in Geneva within a clearly specified timeframe. Welcoming the move, the Tamil activists in the island urged the Canadian Tamil diaspora to concentrate on educating their host country on the unworkability of transitional justice in the island without international investigations on the genocide taking precedence over the other two demands.
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