Reject PC model in contesting elections: civil society tells TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 July 2012, 01:25 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that has decided to contest the Eastern Provincial Council elections should indicate in its manifesto of its rejection of the provincial council model of the unitary system, the division of the North and East and the 13th Amendment, to tell the world of the Tamil stand on the issues and to disprove an argument that Tamils have accepted the PC model as a solution, urged prominent members of the Tamil Civil Society Movement in a written statement released on Saturday, signed by more than a 100 academics, religious leaders, student leaders, professionals, trade unionists and grassroot activists. The 13th Amendment couldn’t be accepted even as a starting point in resolving a question that needs approaches based on recognition of the nation and right to self-determination of Tamils in the island, the statement further said.
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Badurdeen's gang continues to threaten Mannaar Magistrate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 July 2012, 23:43 GMT]
A group of persons, allegedly operated by SL minister Rishard Badurdeen in Mannaar, attacked the house where the wife of Mannaar Magistrate Antony Judson was residing, Friday evening around 10:00 p.m. Following the attack, the lawyers association in Mannaar said it would continue the boycott, cancelling its earlier decision to abandon their boycott of court proceedings.
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Australian action defying UN bares ICE’s continued war with Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 July 2012, 01:22 GMT]
The International Community of Establishments that architected a genocidal war against the nation of Eezham Tamils, worked out a barbed-wire incarceration of people and then facilitated an open prison at the ratio of one Sinhala soldier to five Tamil civilians on one hand and an internationally legitimised LLRC on the other to complete the subjugation and structural genocide, being continued to be at war with Eezham Tamils is evidenced by a recent Australian deportation of a Tamil man into the hands of the genocidal Colombo, Tamil activists in Australia said. While the high profile deportation, defying a rare UN intervention on behalf of the victim, evokes suspicions about the intention of collaborating agencies outsmarting the UN norms, the general idea is to make every Eezham Tamil submissive to the genocidal state and regime in the island, the activists further said.
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SL military removes Kuddimani remembrance posters, harasses former MP in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 09:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) together with the SL Police on Thursday arrested former Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian and the political coordinator of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, a registered political party in the TNA alliance, for having put up posters remembering 54 Tamil political prisoners, including pioneer TELO leaders Kuddimani and Thangathurai, who were massacred inside the Welikade prison in Colombo in the SL state-sponsored pogrom against Eezham Tamils in July 1983. Mr. Sivajilingam was later released by the SL police at Nelliyadi, with the warning that he should not ‘antagonize’ the military officers of the SL military.
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TESO, AIADMK could create history with tacit action on fundamentals

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 23:54 GMT]
The island transformed from colonial Ceylon into genocidal Sri Lanka has in the process witnessed two wars of brutal conquest in the last two hundred years, both of which were ultimately imperialist. The conquest of Kandy in 1815 by British imperialism bringing in the unitary state and the conquest of Vanni in 2009 by a strategic partnership of the US and Indian imperialism are not two different phenomena, if the aftermaths of the wars are compared and comprehended. The larger question arises for the peoples of the region, elsewhere, and especially for the people of Tamil Nadu in this context is whether they are going to succumb one after the other as in the past, or are going to create history for humanity by learning from history. The TESO meet will only turn into a crafty device if its convenors and participants don’t direct it to answer the fundamentals.
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SL Supreme Court to inquire into FR application against Champoor lands acquisition

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 23:37 GMT]
A three-member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Monday decided to take up the Fundamental Rights Application filed by four Tamil-speaking farmers, a Muslim and three Tamils, against the appropriation of their traditional paddy lands in Champoor in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district, for inquiry on October 11.
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Gotabhaya schemes ‘Guantanamo Bay’ in Galle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 21:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defence Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has instructed the SL police to transfer all Tamil political prisoners from the ‘declared’ prisons in the North and East to the notorious Boosa detention camp in the Galle town of the Southern Province, informed sources in Colombo said. The instruction has been given at a meeting convened by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on 17 July. The Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners are going to be further isolated from the outside world. The families of ex-Tiger members and those held under alleged association with the LTTE have expressed fear on the deteriorating security situation of their family members in the custody of the occupying Sri Lankan forces.
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Tamil politicians urge global action in releasing POWs, political prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 13:52 GMT]
Addressing a press conference in Vavuniyaa on Tuesday, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called for immediate release of all political prisoners who are held without any charges in the Sri Lankan prisons. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, representing the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) said that the International Community, especially the countries that backed the internal LLRC mechanism of Colombo in the resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Council's Sessions in Geneva earlier this year, are primarily responsible for the fate of the Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners. Those who attended the funeral of Nimalarooban, braving the threats posed by the Sri Lankan military and intelligence operatives, told TamilNet that the victim had sustained fatal injuries on his head.
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Emerging logistics blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van operations

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2012, 01:58 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a non-profit litigation and advocacy group based in the U.S., has pieced together an operational blueprint of Sri Lanka's White Van abductions, and the complicity of State Institutions. The blueprint is based on affidavits from surviving abductees, a video deposition from an ex-member of Liberation Tigers who was spared execution at the last moment, information revealed from recent capture of white van abductors in the South, and other circumstantial evidence including open death threats issued by Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse. TAG concludes that the white van phenomenon is not a random occurrence of isolated events, but a systemic well-organized criminal enterprise carried out by independently operating cells consisting of criminal gangs and military personnel and activated by directives from high level State officials.
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Genocidal land grab extended to new division in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 July 2012, 22:18 GMT]
The SL state-sponsored genocidal land grab has now reached to Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkaladi) DS division, civil sources in Batticaloa said. In recent days, Sinhala settlers have cleared several acres of forest along Magncha'l Aaru, located 5 km east of Maha Oya junction on A5 (Chengkaladi-Badulla) highway, renaming the area in Sinhala as ‘Mangalagama’. The Colombo based authorities of the SL state, which have taken over the administration of rivers, reservoirs, and ponds from the district-based irrigation authorities since 2009, are depriving the livelihood of Tamils by appropriating cultivation lands and the water sources used for inland fishing.
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Acute malnutrition prevails among uprooted Champoor families

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2012, 23:22 GMT]
Acute malnutrition and hunger prevail among uprooted Champoor families now staying in ‘welfare centres’ that are located at Kaddai-pa'richchaan, Ma'nat-cheanai, Ki'liveddi and Paddiththidal in the Moothoor East. About 4,036 uprooted members of 263 families from Champoor six years ago due to SL military operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army in 2006 are staying in these camps as the government had refused to allow them to resettle in their own villages in Champoor area. According to reports by civil groups that the stoppage of distribution of dry ration relief under the World Food Programme for the last six months has led to the tragic situation in welfare camps.
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SL military harasses, confiscates ICRC clearance of ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2012, 18:48 GMT]
A psy-ops squad, operated by SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has started to ‘interrogate’ and harass former fighters and members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who have been released after the detention and so-called rehabilitation programme. Claiming that they belong to a ‘special CID unit’ from Colombo, the psy-ops squad from Colombo has been picking up former LTTE members and those who have earlier served in in the civil bodies under the LTTE administration, taking them to public places such as schools and harassing them psychologically as well as meting out physical torture on to them. Further, as part of the harassment programme, the military squad has confiscated the release papers issued to the ‘rehabilitated’ LTTE cadres by the ICRC and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).
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SLFP-men issue death threat to journalists in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2012, 19:39 GMT]
Two newspaper reporters in Mannaar have complained to Tamil Journalists Association in Vanni that ruling SLFP-men have issued death threats to them for their reporting on inciting violence at Koanthaip-piddi jetty on Friday. An armed Muslim gang incited a section of the Muslims after Jummah Prayer to join them in causing destruction to the boats of uprooted Tamil Catholics while the dispute between communities was being already addressed by the civil officials at divisional and district level.
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Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolve to uphold Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2012, 11:21 GMT]
Condemning the attempts by establishments to compel Eezham Tamils to accept the genocidal development model of Colombo in the Tamil homeland, second generation Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolved “to raise awareness and educate Tamils and non-Tamils about the ongoing-internationally abetted-genocide of the Tamil nation” and to educate the IC about the legitimacy of the Tamil struggle for sovereignty at the ‘Tamil Eelam Sovereignty conference’ organized by TYO-Germany at Landau, on Sunday. Speaking to TamilNet, Vibisanan Rajasingam of the TYO said that it was important for the second generation youth in the diaspora to understand the need for a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam as the only solution to check the genocide of the Eelam Tamils, referring to the three types of sovereignty of the Eelam Tamils as mentioned in the Tamil sovereignty cognition declaration.
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TNA should reject PC model, field independents in East elections: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 July 2012, 22:15 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should demonstrate to the world the Tamil rejection of the Provincial Council model of the 13th Amendment by not participating in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) elections, but the TNA could field a front of independent candidates to meet the political challenge of the times. The candidate list already prepared could go as an independent list with a specific political message on the cause to the people, said Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), presiding over a press conference in Jaffna on Saturday. The TNPF promised support to the TNA in any such move. In the meantime, former TNA parliamentarian and TELO leader M.K Sivajilingam urged the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the TNA to field candidates jointly. It is time for the East to have a Muslim chief minister, who is also elected by Tamils, he told TamilNet.
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SL military grabs more lands in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 17:48 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna has occupied new lands in Maathakal, leaving 279 more families without homes. The latest reports say that the Sri Lankan military is silently evicting people from their homes in areas that are situated outside the former ‘High Security Zone’, civil sources in Valikaamam North said.
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Tamil, Muslim farmers in Trincomalee file writ application against land appropriation

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2012, 23:29 GMT]
Two member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday fixed the inquiry for August 28 into the writ application filed by a group of Tamil and Muslim farmers against the appropriation of their fertile paddy fields for the construction of a high way by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thampalakaamam of Trincomalee district.
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Indian media seeing SL military misses pronouncing genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2012, 07:22 GMT]
A correspondent of the Mumbai-based Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), visiting the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sinhala military, sees there the Palu tree identified in Sinhala, but not the Paalai tree of Tamil literary fame. The example may be trifle but illustrative in showing how the lenses through which the Indian media sees or try to project the question of Eezham Tamils misses genocide in reducing the issue into mere militarisation, commented Eezham Tamil activists in the island responding to a feature in July 14 issue of EPW. Criticising the SL militarisation but at the same time artfully avoiding the heart of the matter, the genocide, the article said, “The message for the moment at least is clear: reconcile, by keeping your head down, give way to the army, be patient and hope for the best. In other words - do pretty much what you did to survive the reign of the LTTE."
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SL intelligence steps up harassment on Tamils in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 23:50 GMT]
Officers claiming to be from the Sri Lankan Defence department, but carrying ID cards issued by SL Police Department, have been visiting selected houses in Kirulappane and Dehiwale suburbs of Colombo this week demanding new registration of household members, sources in Colombo said.
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Unemployed graduates protest in Jaffna, UPFA dominates public sector employment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 18:29 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's Colombo government is widely blamed for handling new and temporary appointments in the Northern province for electoral political purposes. Recent temporary appointments have been provided with the condition that the employees should extend support the UPFA government in the provincial elections, unemployed graduates demanding justice said. On Thursday, a section of unemployed graduates, who have been sidelined in such appointments, demonstrated in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna amidst harassment from the SL military intelligence and police commandos.
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