Collaborationist sections of TNA lose significance, Wigneswaran holds key to unified Tamil polity

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 18:20 GMT]
The policy outlook adopted by the US-led bandwagonism of the West and that of India is tightly in sync with each other. Their modus operandi is nothing else than pure appeasement of the accelerating Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism in the South. They would be prepared to sacrifice the democratic aspirations of Eezham Tamils as their manoeuvrings are aimed at gaining strategic access to this island. However, they find themselves in a delicate situation today as they could no longer dictate the terms of Tamil political debate through the collaborationist sections of the TNA, says Political Analyst S.A. Jothilingam in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Friday. Thanks to the role played by Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the mainstream discourse is getting shaped to the point that it is now practically possible to forge a unified Tamil polity for Tamils once again, he says.
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Tamils need native movements to confront Colombo-centric environmental exploitations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2018, 23:49 GMT]
Many recent reports from the eastern coast of the North-East indicate a widespread pattern of various corporate and state-centric exploitations targeting the natural resources of the territorial sea and the coast of the North-East. Colombo-based corporates and traders are exploiting export-related businesses, be it sea cucumber export to China, fake mangroves and minerals to the USA and Japan, or mining sand for shipping to the neighbouring state of Maldives. On top of this, Colombo-centric State-to-State relationships originating from geopolitics-driven ‘development’ narrative, as well as military to military ‘exchanges’, are challenging the sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in a big-scale along the territorial sea and the strategic cost.
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Geneva-based human rights regime is big disappointment: Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2018, 20:29 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners languishing in Anuradhapura prison have questioned the role of the international community, particularly the UN human rights regime based in Geneva, in defending their rights. The successive High Commissioners of Human Rights, as well as the council mechanism of the UNHRC, have failed to exert pressure on the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka to release the prisoners of the times of war. The comment comes from the Tamil prisoners, who learned on Monday that the so-called Special High Court in Anuradhapura, which was set up to address their cases, transferred their cases back to Anuradhapura High Court, after dragging the cases for five more years.
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Source files from one of digital cameras witnessing 2009 genocide released to public domain

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2018, 23:39 GMT]
A surviving staff reporter of the Eezha-naatham daily, one of the few media to directly witness the last phase of the genocidal war in Vanni, released this week a set of photos and video clips from one of the digital cameras used by an Eezham Tamil humanitarian worker during the final days of the onslaught in 2009. Apart from serving the purpose of documenting the genocide, the material would also be useful to the kith and kin of the victims who perished in the onslaught and to those who are searching for their loved ones, says Suren Karthikesu, the journalist who is exiled in Vancouver, Canada. TamilNet brings the material to the public domain with the warning that some of the photos would be too upsetting to the viewers.
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Macro-level approach needed to confront genocidal land grab in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2018, 22:55 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka is deploying the ethnic chauvinist Archaeology Department of the unitary State with a motive to permanently Sinhalicise a private property, which is of religious significance to the native Tamils at Oddu-chuddaan in Mullaiththeevu, after being repeatedly confronted by the family of the 62-year-old landowner, V. Kanagasundaram. The SL military invited the family at the presence of the Divisional Secretary on 25 June to a meeting in which their 5-acre land was supposed to be handed back to the rightful owner. J. Indrakumar, an official at the Divisional Secretariat also confirmed that the SL military had invited the family to release the lands. However, the meeting turned out to be a different one, the family told TamilNet.
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Sinhala colonisation chokes off territorial contiguity of Tamil homeland at Thennai-maravadi

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2018, 23:05 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala colonists have stepped the land grab of Pa'nikkar-vayal in Thennai-maravadi, an ancient Tamil village situated in the north of Kuchcha-ve'li division of Trincomalee district. The encroachment targets the strategic border between the Northern and Eastern provinces choking off the territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland. The move is also seen as an attempt to annex Thennai-maravadi with the Sinhala division of Padavi Sri Pura in the west to create a sea-access corridor to that division. Besides, the move also threatens the neighbouring Tamil-speaking Muslim village of Pulmoaddai, Tamil and Muslim grassroots activists in Kuchchave'li told TamilNet this week.
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Sinhalas have come in big way, as opening of Kandyan Kingdom: Rt Rev Jebanesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2018, 23:38 GMT]
Tamils had been the first inhabitants and an original people of this island. Although some historians accept that fact, the present Sinhala historians do not take it. Back in the old days, when H.C. Ray was the professor of history at the University of Ceylon, he used to refute the claim that Tamils were interlopers. The interlopers were the Sinhalas and not the Tamils, he used to say. However, one is unable to resonate that fact anymore, says Rt Rev Dr S Jebanesan, the former Bishop of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet. The tyranny of the ‘majority’ is dominating the post-colonial political discourses and the case of ‘Sri Lanka’ is a classic example of this trend, the scholar of philosophy, theology as well as the Tamil and English languages, said.
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Occupying Colombo steps up sting operations to justify continuation of draconian PTA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 22:31 GMT]
The so-called Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of occupying Colombo has detained six Tamil men in the Ki'linochchi district during the last four days. Most of the arrested are believed to be ex-LTTE members. The recent arrests by the SL TID come following an incident on 22 June at former LTTE stronghold of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) in Mullaiththeevu district. The entire episode seems to be a sting operation initiated by the SL military intelligence to project a false impression that there were ex-LTTE members, still interested in reviving an armed struggle, informed sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Wednesday. The operation seems to combine counter-insurgency experiments along with an intention to justify the continuation of the draconian and abusive ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ (PTA), the sources further said.
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Two Tamil girls brutally raped by occupying Sinhala soldiers of genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 June 2018, 23:26 GMT]
Sinhala-speaking soldiers of the 18th Sri Lanka National Guard have brutally raped two Tamil school girls in Batticaloa on 18 June. The victims are at the age of thirteen and fifteen. The two girls, and a 6-year-old boy, who is the brother of one of the victims, were being chased by the occupying soldiers sometime after 8:00 a.m. Then, the soldiers stuffed clothes into the mouth of the girls, bound their hands and took them away. The rapists were from the 18th SLNG stationed at Panichchang-kea'ni junction, according to the available information.
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Sand mining, backed by Colombo's authority and monk, destroys ecology of verukal river

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 June 2018, 22:32 GMT]
A Sinhala trader from Kantha'laay in Trincomalee district, Ms Ramani Herath, is operating a sand mining business exploiting Verukal river basin at Aaladi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division, north of Batticaloa. The sand extraction is going on disregarding the concerns of the native people of erosion and other mining-induced consequences disrupting the channel and the habitat. At least 24 truckloads of sands are being transported to Colombo on a daily basis, deploying the vehicles of a Tamil businessman from Chengkaladi, local government sources in Vaakarai told TamilNet. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were protecting Vaakarai from structural genocide and exploitation during the times of peace and war until 2007 when the entire area faced an all-out genocidal war by the SL State.
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Continuing military excavations in Vanni imply existence of secret detention of ex-LTTE members

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 June 2018, 23:46 GMT]
The head of Mullaiththeevu district organisation of the families of enforced disappeared, Ms Easwary Mariyathas, told TamilNet on Saturday that the recent upsurge of ‘treasure hunting’ operations by the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, was an indicator that the SL military was still detaining ex-LTTE members in secret detentions. There have been many recent incidents in which SL military or SL military associated groups from the South, engaging in targeted treasure hunting operations in the Vanni mainland. The squads seem to be particularly interested in finding gold reserves from the LTTE times.
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Wigneswaran's secretary accuses SL Presidential Secretariat of dodging land release in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 June 2018, 11:52 GMT]
The Secretary of the NPC Chief Minister's Ministry Ms Vijeyaluckshmi Ketheeswaran has publicly criticised SL President's Secretariat in Colombo for evading the process of stock-taking the extent of militarised lands in Mullaiththeevu and coming with a proposal for phased release of private lands back to the people. Mullaiththeevu is one of the heavily militarised districts of the Northern Province. Two months have elapsed since she attended a meeting convened in Colombo at the SL Presidential Secretariat on 11th April, Ms Vijayaluckshmi told journalists in Jaffna on Tuesday, a day after the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who was visiting Ki'linochchi handed over a document to the Government Agent of Mullaiththeevu of releasing just 52 acres of lands in the district.
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SL military stationed in 6,275 acres of public and private lands in Vaakarai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2018, 18:33 GMT]
All the three armed forces and the police of the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka are still occupying 6,275 acres of lands in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai), one of the 14 administrative divisions in Batticaloa district. Although eleven years have elapsed since the SL military seized the division from the control of the LTTE, Colombo is refusing to de-militarise the division, which is home to 7,517 Tamil families, who are mostly poverty-stricken. The people who are dependent on agriculture, fishing and forest-based activities as their livelihood are one of the most poverty-stricken sections in the entire district.
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Occupying SL Police in Jaffna again blamed for dodging action on criminal policemen

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 June 2018, 23:05 GMT]
Post-mortem examinations have revealed that the 32-year-old Tamil victim, who died after SL Police fired on him within the premises of a Catholic church at Mallaakam in Jaffna on Sunday evening, was caused by a gunshot that pierced his lungs. The bullet entered from backside below the shoulder. Besides, there were also wounds indicating that he had been beaten, medical sources said. In the meantime, the SL police Senior DIG in Jaffna Roshan Fernando went on record stating that the policeman was involved in the firing was being detained. But, no such police officer was produced to the courts, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Monday night.
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Swiss ruling, a precedent-setting victory for Right of Self-Determination oriented freedom fighters

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 June 2018, 21:07 GMT]
Zurich-based legal experts, who represented the former LTTE-associated activists in Switzerland involved in the fundraising to the struggle of Eezham Tamil independence, have praised the recent verdict in the Swiss Federal Criminal Court as a precedent-setting victory. The decision is a victory for the Right of Self-determination oriented national liberation armed struggles that get wrongly classified as terrorism due to international politics, Marcel Bosonnet, one of the legal experts who defended the Tamil activists told TamilNet in an interview on Friday. The judges felt that there were not enough concrete proofs to consider the LTTE as a criminal organisation. This ruling is outstanding and is much better-placed than the EU ruling as it challenges the international politics based terrorism classification with a principled legal question, Tamil legal activists in Switzerland said.
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Only an international investigation would establish truth on enforced disappeared

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 June 2018, 20:03 GMT]
The Tamil families in the eight districts across the North-East have thoroughly denounced the Office of the Missing Persons (OMP) as just another false move by the SL State. The families have democratically rejected it with majority Tamils opposing it than those attending its sittings. Further, the OMP is unable to stand the two tests placed by the district organisations of the families of enforced disappeared, Eeswary Mariyathas, the head of Mullaiththeevu district organisation for enforced disappeared, told TamilNet on Thursday. Her opinion comes as the uprooted people in Trincomalee followed the trend in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa and Mullaiththeevu in staging protests against the deceptive OMP.
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Mannaar mass grave could be from early 1990s, shocking details emerge

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 June 2018, 19:49 GMT]
Field archaeologists from the South, deployed to excavate the alleged site of mass graves in the former SL military held high-security zone in Mannaar island, are trying to project the massacre site as an ancient burial site, families of enforced disappeared Tamils, who witnessed their attitude on Tuesday told TamilNet. The excavators have found two old rings, which they claim as non-customary to contemporary times. However, on the 4th day of excavations, a Maliban biscuit packaging material was discovered very close to a human skeleton giving an indication when the killings could have occurred. Careful inspection of the rotten package has established the fact that it dates from a stock sold between the years of 1989 and 1990, legal sources told TamilNet.
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131 Sinhala Buddhist installations crop up in North after 2009: NPC

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 June 2018, 18:17 GMT]
The districts of Mullaiththeevu and Vavuniyaa top the list of district-wise figures of Sinhala Buddhist installations, which the occupying Colombo has put up in the Tamil-speaking Northern Province after the end of the genocidal war on Eezham Tamils, say democratically elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council. The list is not complete as it does not include the Buddhist temples that are located inside the Sinhala military camps, the NPC sources told TamilNet on Friday.
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SL Navy schemes to grab more lands in island off Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2018, 21:21 GMT]
The Chief Minister of Northern Province Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Monday criticised in strongest terms the latest move by the SL Navy to grab more lands in Ma'ndai-theevu islet, which is located at an entrance from the Palk Bay into the Jaffna lagoon. The Chief Minister said the SL military was releasing pockets of lands with one hand in Valikaamam North to take with the other in other places. Justice Wigneswaran was addressing the District Coordination Committee meeting on Monday.
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OMP chairman admits failing acid test of Vanni protesters

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 June 2018, 21:35 GMT]
The Office of Mission Persons (OMP) Chairman and President's Counsel Saliya Pieris has regretted to the protesting families in Mullaiththevu admitting that he could not secure any list of those who were handed over to the SL military by the families of former LTTE members in Vanni during the final hours of the genocidal war in 2009.
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