EPDP mobilizes protest against Indian trawlers while backing trawlers from South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2012, 16:54 GMT]
Timed to the visit of the representatives of fishermen societies in Tamil Nadu to Jaffna on Thursday, the SL minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda was allegedly engaged in triggering demonstrations in front of the Consulate General of India in Jaffna, protesting the intrusion of Indian trawlers. According to Jaffna fishermen, the SL minister backs trawlers from the South exploiting Tamil waters. On Thursday, when the EPDP-backed protesters were shouting “Mahalingam come out,” demanding the Indian Consul General to come out and address them, a group of fishermen in Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) rounded up the SL police station there demanding action against 30 southern trawlers that were operating in the seas off VVT. Another 107 trawlers, backed by Mr. Devandanda were exploiting the seas off Kurunakar, the fishermen complained.
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Rice's silence on Sri Lanka may hurt cabinet appointment - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2012, 13:57 GMT]
While the accusation that Dr. Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, intentionally mislead the public by saying that the Bengazhi killings of four Americans was a spontaneous attack in response to a film mocking prophet Mohammed, appears to have damaged her chances of being appointed as the U.S.'s Secretary of State after Hilary Clinton, Rice's human rights record in the U.N., including her inaction on Sri Lanka killings, has also come under closer scrutiny, Washington Post said in an article this Friday, quoting comment from an official of the Human Rights Watch.
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Paramilitary allegedly backed by India effects arrest of Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2012, 12:07 GMT]
In a revealing turn of affairs following the Heroes Day incidents at the university of Jaffna, four Jaffna University student representatives were detained by occupying Sri Lanka’s police, based on a complaint made against seven students by a newly created paramilitary, called Sri TELO that is operating along with the SL military. The paramilitary, consisting of some Tamils recently brought from camps in India and allegedly backed by New Delhi, hurriedly opened an office adjacent to the university campus a week ago and lodged a complaint with the SL police at Koappaay that the named university students had engaged in throwing petrol bombs at its office on Thursday 3:30 a.m. According to unconfirmed reports, the paramilitary functioned with the SL forces in entering the hostels and in the attack on students.
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Canadian organizations condemn attack on students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2012, 09:41 GMT]
Condemning the brutal assaults on the students of University of Jaffna by the occupying Sri Lanka’s police and military apparatus that has been happening with intensity since Tuesday, the Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA), the York Federation of Students (YFS), the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU), and the Tamil Youth Organization-Canada (TYO-Canada) have issued statements supporting both the civil and political liberties of the Eezham Tamil students in the homeland as well as the democratic right of the Tamil nation to self-determination.
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Kurdish party conveys solidarity message on Tamil Eelam Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2012, 06:59 GMT]
“History of the world has been full of clashes between the occupiers and the occupied. As a result of struggles, resistances and sacrifices more of the occupied people have been liberated and the fascist and chauvinist occupiers are being destroyed successively,” writes Mr. Rehman Haci Ehmedi, the Secretary General of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), in a solidarity message sent to the Eezham Tamil nation on the occasion of Heroes Day. In a note sent to TamilNet via Rojhelat.info on Thursday, Mr. Ehmedi, who is the highest authority in the PJAK, drawing parallels between the struggle of the Kurds and the Tamils, urged the Eezham Tamil nation to continue the struggle, “In the hope of revitalization of the heroic nation of Tamil Eelam, in the hope of triumphant and freedom for the resolute and revolutionary nation of Tamil Eelam; never rest unless triumphing!”
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Thousands throng Sydney, London Heroes’ Day events

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 16:21 GMT]
Thousands of Eezham Tamils from across the UK gathered at London on Tuesday to pay obeisance to the Maaveerar (heroes) who laid down their lives in the struggle for a sovereign Tamil Eelam. Likewise, large crowds showed up at the Heroes Day event at Sydney, which was held in open space, and the people stayed on till the conclusion despite a heavy downpour. At the Heroes day event at Excel centre, London, security sources informed that the overall crowd was roughly around 20,000. Speaking to TamilNet, a community activist from Australia said that the strong presence of Tamil public at the Heroes Day events in different parts of the world showed that the diaspora will not be intimidated by any targeting or attacks on grassroots activists. Separately, Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon also spoke in the parliament on the occasion, referring to challenges faced by the Tamils.
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Pirapaharan’s LTTE had moves to make Heroes Day inclusive

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 10:22 GMT]
Conceding the fact that many members of the other militant organisations too had laid down their lives for the cause of Tamil Eelam, Pirapaharan’s LTTE took initiative in taking an account of them for honouring them as Maaveerar (heroes). Forms had been distributed for this purpose to get written consent from the next of kin of the slain heroes of the other militant organisations. The outbreak of war in 2006 stalled the process started in 2002, revealed a former senior member of the LTTE to TamilNet on Tuesday. If needed, he would openly come out and testify the fact in his own voice, the former senior member said.
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Resistance overpowers oppression in observing Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 04:13 GMT]
A new vigour and enthusiasm is noticed in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils this year in paying homage to the fallen heroes on the Heroes Day, despite full-scale efforts of intimidation by the occupying Sinhala military and its intelligence operatives, news sources in the island said. Contrary to the pretentions of genocidal Colombo that it is not obstructing the Kaarthikai festival of lights falling on the same day this time, the occupying SL military and its intelligence operatives were geared to top to engage in an open campaign of intimidation in the North and East, instructing temples and public not to light lamps, and not to toll bells. Public was told not to come out at all.
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Tamil youth in Canada experiment with virtual cemeteries for Tamil heroes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 03:22 GMT]
"Exactly one year ago, we as youth adopted the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition as a basis for our initiatives in the Diaspora. We should continue to move forward and never compromise on the fundamental principles to which we pledged our allegiance,” Pamela Katheswaran, the president of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Tamil Students Association in Canada told TamilNet on Sunday, attending the Heroes Day remembrance event organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) in Toronto. The organisers had also launched an experimental web-based virtual replication of Eezham Tamils’ Heroes cemeteries (maaveerar thuyilum illam), razed down by the Sri Lankan military following the occupation of the country of Eezham Tamils.
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New Zealand Tamils plant trees to perpetuate memory of heroes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 02:13 GMT]
In a novel way of remembering the Eezham Tamil heroes, the New Zealand Tamils planted trees in their country of domicile during the Heroes Day week. Almost all the Tamil community organisations in New Zealand participated the programme that took place on Sunday. “By planting trees we have conveyed a message to the people of New Zealand that what has happened in our home country was not merely war crimes or crimes against humanity but a full-fledged genocide,” said veteran civil society activist and QSM awardee, Mr. A. Theva Rajan, who presided over the programme.
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Canada’s position on Sri Lanka significant, but not enough: Neethan Shan

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2012, 17:49 GMT]
Within days of the release of the UN internal review report on Sri Lanka, it became the subject of debate in Canada’s House of Commons. The House exchange belies an apparent discrepancy in present government policy, Tamil activists opine, citing the ruling Conservatives strongly denouncing the Sri Lankan government’s lack of respect for human rights, while simultaneously deporting Tamil refugee claimants from Canada to Sri Lanka. “I am happy that the Prime Minister who was generally silent with the mass murder of tens of thousands of Tamils during early 2009, is now beginning to stand up for the human rights of Tamils,” Neethan Shan, Eezham Tamil politician in Canada told TamilNet.
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Student associations mark Tamil Eelam Heroes Day in Canada

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2012, 23:13 GMT]
Tamil Student Associations (TSAs) in over eight University campuses in Canada engaged in commemorating Heroes Day last week. Annually the TSAs individually commemorate Heroes Day during the week leading up to the broader Tamil Youth remembrance event held on the 25 of November. Commending the solidarity work that Eezham Tamil youth in Canada have been undertaking over the past years, James Clark from the Canadian Peace Alliance said at the event at York last Monday: "Maaveerar Naal is an occasion not only to remember and pay tribute to the martyrs and heroes of Tamil Eelam, but also to reflect on the lessons of the struggle for peace and justice."
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Genocidal Sri Lanka forbids Kaarthikai festival as it falls on Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2012, 22:41 GMT]
The Heroes Day observed by Eezham Tamils on 27 November to remember their fallen fighters, falls on a full moon day this year, coinciding with the Kaarthikai festival of lights observed by Tamils since ancient times. Sri Lanka that has made a practice of banning even routine religious observations in the temples of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils on the Heroes Day, dares this year to forbid the Kaarthikai festival observations too. Occupying Sri Lanka’s practice of banning temple rituals, including toll of bells on the Heroes Day, started first in Nov 2009, while New Delhi’s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna was visiting Jaffna. New Zealand Tamils appeal to the UN on the continued cultural genocide of their kith and kin in the island.
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Emotion-charged homage paid to slain diaspora activist in France

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 November 2012, 18:30 GMT]
Thousands of Eezham Tamils paid their last respects at a state-like funeral given on Saturday to Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias Parithi, who was assassinated outside Tamil Coordinating Committee office in Paris two weeks ago. While the International Community has been unable to exert any meaningful pressure on the Sri Lankan state, the continued ban of the LTTE in countries outside the island, only encourages the SL state to deal with the diaspora through a militaristic counter-insurgency approach, activists in Paris said, adding that the mass attendance at the funeral of the slain Tamil activist was also a message to the International Community of Establishments (ICE) that was projecting the Tamil diaspora as a hostile actor, from the UN panel report to the latest document of the International Crisis Group (ICG).
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Demographic genocide aimed in SL military surveying Batticaloa border villages

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 November 2012, 08:59 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of Colombo, stationed in more than 10 military bases along the villages in Batticaloa district in the area bordering Polannaruwa district, has enforced Eezham Tamils to register their households and their lands. The enforced registration is carried out in a military operation style, is claimed to be under the so-called ‘Eastern Province Development Plan’ of the Mahaweli Development Ministry. The intention is to appropriate excess lands to be distributed among ‘landless’ people, a SL military intelligence officer involved in the project said when confronted by the villagers. The enforced registration is being carried out without involving the SL Government Agent of Batticaloa district and the divisional officers under him.
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‘UN internal report meaningless without action, long term solution needed’: Tamil activist

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2012, 21:01 GMT]
Criticizing the UN for its deliberate silence which “protected the Sri Lankan state from international criticism and allowed it to strategically conduct a genocidal campaign under the guise of a “war on terror””, Dr. Sam Pari, an Eezham Tamil activist with the ATC, argues in news site Crickey.com that the recently released internal review report of the UN on Sri Lanka is meaningless to the Eezham Tamils without concrete steps in action. Giving an outline of different ways in which the Sri Lankan state is conducting genocide of the Eezham Tamils, she writes “The Sri Lankan regime’s strategy of eradicating the Tamil people through various avenues is only being abetted by the super powers’ silence. What is required is a longer term solution that deals with the root cause — an oppressive force, the racist Sri Lankan regime, intent on erasing the identity of a people, the Tamils.”
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ICG plays mischief with TamilNet

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2012, 08:40 GMT]
The International Crisis Group (ICG) in its latest report on Sri Lanka, No. 239, dated 20 November 2012, came out with the following sentence: “The influential website TamilNet, whose editors are linked to the so-called Nediyavan faction of the LTTE, frequently criticises the TNA for moderation allegedly imposed by the Indian and U.S. governments.” In the footnotes for the statement, the ICG cites Norway questioning Nediyavan, the Dutch investigating illegal LTTE fundraising and D.B.S. Jeyaraj writing on “Tigers overseas chief Nediyavan” getting questioned in Oslo over alleged links to LTTE fund raising (page 13).
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Honest intellectual discourse missing in Tamil Nadu: Thirumurugan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2012, 08:38 GMT]
Lack of honest intellectual discussion in Tamil Nadu is the reason why the Tamil Eezham cause has not been taken up for intense intellectual discussion at a larger All-India level, said Thirumurugan Gandhi, coordinator of May 17 civil society movement of TamilNadu in an interview to TamilNet earlier this month. Such intellectual discourses usually dominated by Marxist Communists and Brahmanistic sections in Tamil Nadu failed the Eezham Tamils. But the biased sections that theoretically opposed Tamil Eezham, opposed the LTTE, pushed back the cause and contributed favourably to the Sri Lankan state now find themselves sidelined in Tamil Nadu due to civil society awakening, Thirumurugan said, adding an appreciating note on the support of Muslim civil society in Tamil Nadu.
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"Multimedia book to unbury facts of Sri Lanka war"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2012, 00:18 GMT]
Benjamin Dix, a former UN staffer who spent four years in Sri Lanka from 2004 till 2008 when Sri Lanka asked all NGOs to leave the island, and who with illustrator Lindsay Pollock, is documenting the effects of Sri Lanka war through the story of a Tamil refugee, in an interview given to TamilNet says, "I felt terrible after the UN evacuation from Vanni and very angry that they international system had abandoned civilians at their time of need....Due to the media blackout on the conflict, I felt that it was very important to tell the stories of the dead and the survivors of the conflict." Arundhati Roy, writes in support of Dix's project, "tens of thousands of tamil civilians who were brazenly and brutally killed and powerful countries which have strategic and business interests in the region are rapidly burying these facts," and that the book will unbury these facts.
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British diplomat briefed on demographic genocide taking place in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 November 2012, 23:43 GMT]
The leader of opposition in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), Mr Singaraveloo Thandayuthapani, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politician on Monday briefed the Deputy High Commissioner of UK Mr Robbie Bulloch, who was on an official visit to Trincomalee district. The TNA politician described the land appropriation by the Sri Lanka Army affecting Eezham Tamils in the district as a systematic and planned act of demographic genocide.
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