Eezham Tamil fishers detained by Indian Coast Guard return home

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2019, 22:42 GMT]
Eighteen Tamil fishermen from Jaffna who were detained by the Indian coastguard that trespassed into the waters off Jaffna on 03 October 2019 reached Colombo airport on Wednesday morning after 27 days of detention in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Coastguard entered the territorial waters off Jaffna, near Ezhuvai-theevu, and towed their vessel for five nautical miles inside the Indian border before getting onboard, the fishermen who reached Jaffna on Thursday said. The investigators from the SL Defence Ministry were harassing the fishers for almost six hours at Colombo airport, Annalingam Annarasa, the secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Federation who had gone to Colombo to receive the returning fishers said.
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Sand mining mafia intimidates Divisional Secretary in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2019, 15:05 GMT]
Three Sinhala sand mining traders, scooping sands in Kathirave'li in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division, have threatened the Divisional Secretary M. Karan saying that they were capable of transferring him away from his division. One of the Sinhala sand mining traders from Kanthaa'laay in Trincomalee is demanding to increase the extent of the sand permit to cover the expenses to sponsor one of the leading presidential candidates, the officials further said. The latest threat has come as the DS was trying to limit the extensive scooping. The traders operate with the backing of the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, which comes under the unitary State system in Colombo.
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Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2019, 21:22 GMT]
The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday.
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Mobilisation stops surveying of lands for militarisation by SL Navy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2019, 22:37 GMT]
The people of Maathakal and Chuzhipuram put up stiff resistance against surveying of 40 perches of lands that belong to a private Eezham Tamil owner near Thiruvadi-nilai on Monday. Elected Divisional Council representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, as well as SL Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran of the UNP, visited the site of protest. The protesters handed over a written appeal to stop all surveying activities. Following the mobilisation of people on Maathakal - Punnaalai Road on Monday, the SL Survey Department officials were forced to cancel also the other planned surveying activities involving more significant extent of lands at Neduntheevu (Delft) on Tuesday.
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“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2019, 23:02 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile.
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Occupying Colombo resumes military land grab in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 October 2019, 20:14 GMT]
The occupying military of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has resumed appropriation of lands at several locations in Jaffna peninsula. The SL Survey Department officials have been instructed to carry out surveying activities on Monday and Tuesday for the SL Navy that wants to grab lands at Chuzhi-puram. The tendency is notably worse at Neduntheevu (Delft), the farthest islet off Jaffna, said Shageevan Shangmugalingam, an elected councillor of Valikaamam North and the chairman of Resettlement Committee in that division.
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Gotabhaya's presidency would dash Musali people's hopes on incremental resettlement

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 October 2019, 22:27 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils in Musali division of Mannaar district fear permanently losing the militarised villages at the hands of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa if he becomes the next SL President. The Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam have been waiting for the SL Navy to honour its pledges on returning some of the occupied properties since 2017. It was Mr Rajapaksa who declared their village as a high-security naval area in December 2012. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Cardinal of Vatican, personally accompanied his friend, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to silence the then Bishop of Mannaar Rayappu Joseph and the Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in 2012.
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Sajith Premadasa intensified heritage genocide against Tamils through departments in his ministry

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The successive governments of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka have gazetted 167 ancient heritage monuments, which they want to convert as ‘Sinhala only’ Theravada Buddhist monuments in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East after 2010. Rajapaksa government gazetted 123 sites in two notifications in May and August 2013. The regime led by Maithiripala and Wickramasinghe has gazetted forty-four monuments in May 2015 and March 2016. The heritage genocide accelerated under Sajith Premadasa as minister of cultural, housing and construction affairs. A range of departments from the SL Department of Archaeology to Central Cultural Fund, which sophisticatedly undermines Tamil heritage involving Tamil and foreign academics function under him, Tamil civil officials and activists in Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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Monks from South visit disputed Neeraaviyadi temple at Naayaa'ru

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 October 2019, 23:27 GMT]
A group of Sinhala Buddhist monks from the South visited the disputed ‘heritage site’ Neeraaviyadi at Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. The group was inspecting the Pi'l'laiyaar Hindu temple and the recently erected Buddha statue at the locality. Then, the group proceeded to the hut, where the late monk, Kolamba Thero, was preserving his collection of ‘artefacts’ claiming them as the remains of an ancient Sinhala Buddhist Chaitya. The collection of stones have been stored inside a small hut inside the SL military base located across the road, just opposite the disputed temple. The latest visit by the monks comes as the court is set to investigate the controversial cremation of the late Kolamba Thero, which took place near the Hindu temple in September.
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Tamils in Musali fear intensified demographic genocide by SL ‘national security’ state

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 October 2019, 20:47 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy has continuously refused to vacate from Kondaichchik-kudaa, a Tamil village along the coast between Mu'l'lik-ku'lam and Chilaavath-thu'rai in Musali division of Mannaar district, since 2009. Apart from retaining 19 acres of residential lands that belong to thirty-six families for ten years, the Sinhala Navy has also seized two acres of land, which the Divisional Secretary allocated recently as the cremation ground for the use of the uprooted community. The people of the village fear that they would permanently lose their properties at the hands of the ‘national security’ state apparatus of the South, regardless of the future president being Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or Sajith Premadasa.
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US trick of coercion: Carrot to entice Gotabhaya, stick to strike Shavendra

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2019, 23:51 GMT]
US Acting Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asia of the US State Department, Alice G. Wells, was turning a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East during her testimony on human rights in South Asia to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The US was “encouraged by the SL government’s progress on the operationalization of an Office of Missing Persons and the establishment of an Office of Reparations,” she said. Alice G Wells was accompanied by Robert Destro, the assistant secretary at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who was also citing “Sri Lanka” as the country in the South Asian region where the US have had some “notable successes”. The only strong complaint they had was the recent promotion of pro-Chinese SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva.
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Sinhala supporters of Gotabhaya encroach into pasturelands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 October 2019, 23:58 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary affiliated colonists (also known as home-guards), who encroached into the pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa during the Rajapaksa regime, have again started cultivation activities in the area, Tamil dairy farmers complain. When contacted by TamilNet, Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division, confirmed the intrusion. At least fifteen encroachers have sown seeds clearing the pasturelands in Mayilaththa-madu within the last ten days, he said. The activity comes in the wake of killing around 1,500 cattle that belonged to Tamil dairy farmers in the area during the past ten months, he said.
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Monk backing Gotabhaya wants Tamil owners to stay away from their lands in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2019, 23:43 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk engaged in hostile colonisation activities in Batticaloa district along the border to Ampaa'rai district has threatened Tamil farmers who were levelling lands at Maalaiyar-kaddu village to stay away from the ‘reservation’ lands on Friday. The Tamil landowners were stopped by the SL Police who accompanied the monk while they were cleaning the property using a bulldozer. The SL Police has instructed the Tamil farmers to come to Vellaa-ve'li police station on Monday. The Tamil families have been doing agriculture in three acres of lands beside the plot which they were levelling. They had purchased six acres of lands from another Tamil landowner 15 years ago, the families said. However, the monk from Chinna-vaththai was claiming that the SL State had reserved the three acres of lands.
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SL Police resorts to violence in grabbing lands of Tamil fishers in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 October 2019, 19:14 GMT]
The livelihood of thirty resettled Tamil fisher families have been severely affected as the occupying Sinhala police have dismantled their centre for marketing and exchanging the fish produce says T. Uthayakumar, the chairperson of Challith-theevu Fisher Association. Challith-theevu is located 66 km north of Batticaloa city and comes under the administrative division of Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai). The occupying SL military is also staging amusement activities for their visitors from the South, and the SL Police is accompanying them, causing cultural disharmony between the communities of the occupiers and the occupied.
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Chennai Connect and Eezham Tamils reminding Tamil Nadu to assert Tamil geopolitics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2019, 23:19 GMT]
After wrapping up his informal Summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu, Chinese President Xi Jinping this week paid a two-day State visit to Nepal, where he announced a strategic partnership with the landlocked country situated between India and China. While the Nepalese President and Prime Minister extended their commitment to China’s Belt & Road Initiative, Xi Jinping announced the plan for the transformation of the landlocked country into a “land-linked” country in South Asia. He was effectively pitching for a ‘Trans-Himalayan Corridor’. China launching yet another land-based economic corridor in South Asia, in addition to that of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is the latest manoeuvre of geopolitics.
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Colombo destroys dairy-farming economy of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 23:50 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary men have shot and killed around 1,500 of cows in the interior pasturelands of Paduvaan-karai region in Batticaloa district within the last ten months, complains Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division. In the meantime, the SL State-owned Milk Industries of Lanka Company, also known as Milco Private Limited, is buying the produce at low rates from the Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa. The payments also get severely delayed, he says.
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Tamil parties in North-East stipulate ‘acid test’ terms to SL presidential candidates

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The main political parties of Eezham Tamils, which claim to uphold the principles of the concept of Tamil nationhood through the Right of Self-Determination and distinct sovereignty of Tamils to their traditional homeland, have come to an understanding of the terms to be placed as the acid-test conditions to the candidates running for the executive presidency of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. While the parties have unitedly formed the main demands towards the presidential candidates, they have failed in two crucial aspects. Firstly, the failure to course-correct the ‘Quisling politics’ of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Secondly, the inability to stipulate the conditions and choices of Eezham Tamils if and when the actors in the South fail to meet the acid-test terms, especially before the SL Presidential elections.
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SL Governor's latest land grab poses danger to archaeological traces of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2019, 22:15 GMT]
SL Governor to North Mr Suren Raghavan is attempting to alienate 115 acres of lands at Kauthaari-munai in Ma'na'niththa'lai sandbar of Poo-nakari (Pooneryn) division to a private Tamil diaspora business person from Australia before his Governor term expires. Mr Raghavan is deceptively suppressing objections from the Tamil civil sources and the grassroots activists in Ki'linochchi district, informed grassroots activists in Poonakari told TamilNet. The 25 km long sandbar, which extends towards the Jaffna Peninsula from Poonakari in the main island, is of immense natural beauty and archaeological value to the Eezham Tamils. The area is dotted with archaeological remains ranging from microlithic/megalithic times to the times of the Dutch, covered by massive sand dunes.
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Monks step up campaign against Muslims, want to carve out Sinhala colony in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2019, 22:23 GMT]
Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks in robe have again started to escalate a land dispute along the coast in Poththvuil division of Ampaa'rai district in the East. The elected Divisional Council (PS) was prepared to allocate three acres of lands to the Buddhist vihara, which the monks had put up in illegally seized plot of three-quarter of an acre. The vihara was erected four years ago with the backing of the SL Navy and the presidential election in 2015. Now, the monks want a large tract of land, up to 42 acres and more, MS Abdul Wazeeth, the chairman of the elected Divisional Council told TamilNet on Saturday. The Tamil-speaking Muslims in Poththuvil fear that the monks were scheming a Sinhala colony at the locality, which is known as Mathuragn-cheanai in Tamil. Using the presidential race, the monks seek to secure additional resources for a future Sinhala colony there, they complained.
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Vote for Self-Determination, reject major candidates for more effective boycott

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2019, 22:07 GMT]
A section of civil activists in the North-East jointly promoted the idea of fielding a common Tamil candidate in the SL Presidential Election this time. The idea looked genuine and the process went on until the last minute deadline to find a contestant. The hidden hands of India and West were trying to influence the choice of the candidate through remote control manipulations. The process didn't succeed to the disappointment of the genuinely involved as well as the indirect actors. At the same time, some Tamil sections also argued the case for a boycott of the presidential elections. However, none of them expected the manoeuvre of two former provincial councillors with independent intuition to propose a better solution to the Eezham Tamils. M.K. Shivajilingam of TELO legacy and Ananthy Sasitharan of former LTTE affiliation have nailed it this time. Now the Establishments are after them.
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