30th remembrance of Lt Col Thileepan strengthens resolve among Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 September 2017, 23:30 GMT]
Lt Col Thileepan (Rasaiah Parthipan), who was LTTE's political head in Jaffna, sacrificed his life through a 12-day long fast-unto-death without food and water in September 1987. He had put forward five demands to the Indian Establishment following the signing of Indo-Lanka accord in July 1987 and his fast-unto-death exposed New Delhi and its Colombo-centric geopolitical dealings with the SL State among the grassroots of Eezham Tamils. Three decades on, Eezham Tamils are still dealing with almost the same demands as that were put forward by Thileepan in 1987. The Eezham Tamils waging protests demanding whereabouts of their kith and kin subjected to enforced disappearances and the protests demanding de-militarisation, resettlement and release of political prisoners, are again exposing the Colombo-centric geopolitics of the ‘Strategic partners’, political observers in Jaffna said.
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SL Attorney General's Dept., TID continue to conspire against Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 September 2017, 18:03 GMT]
Three Tamil political prisoners, including an Up-Country Tamil, ended their short-lived hunger-strike in August as they were given an assurance by their lawyers that the High Court Judge B. Sasi Mahendran was determined to proceed with their cases in Vavuniyaa as the fasting prisoners had demanded. Earlier, the so-called ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of genocidal Sri Lanka, was trying hard to transfer their cases to a high court in the South, where chances for a Sinhala judge to accept the forcibly obtained confessions by the TID were high. As it became evident that their cases were going to be heard in Vavuniyaa, the TID has recruited a prisoner, recently released from Bossa, to testify against the three with a false confession, the families of the three prisoners told TamilNet on Thursday.
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Tamils, Muslims join hands in Mannaar against Rohingya genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 September 2017, 23:40 GMT]
The organisers of a protest in Mannaar on Tuesday urged global Tamils to rise up against the genocidal onslaught that has been intensified by the genocidal Myanmar State against the Rohingya Muslims. Tamil-speaking people belonging to all religions in Mannaar took to the streets on Tuesday in a joint protest. Theravada Buddhist Myanmar State's persecution against Rohingya Muslims has reached a full-scale stage of genocidal military onslaught. At least 1,000 people have been killed within a month time, reports say. Some activists claim even higher number of civilian casualties. At least 90,000 have recently fled the north-western State of Rakhine, which has been the Rohingya homeland known as Arakan in the past. The Theravada Buddhist Myanmar has also blocked the UN agencies from supplying medicine, food and water to at least 250,000 Rohingyas who have been besieged by the Myanmar State.
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Ira'nai-theevu without Tamil people constitutes threat against Indian security in Palk Bay

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2017, 22:43 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala Navy was adamantly refusing to release the occupied residential and livelihood twin-islet of Ira'nai-theevu, informed Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) sources told TamilNet. The SL Navy officers were citing the ‘defence’ of the so-called ‘sovereignty’ of genocidal Sri Lanka as the prime reason, at a meeting held in Muzhangkaavil on Thursday, when two ITAK MPs from Vanni met SL ‘State Minister’ for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene, SL Navy commanders and D.M. Swaminthan, a SL ‘Cabinet Minister’ of Resettlement, Prison and Hindu affairs. Finally, a token measure has been promised in the form of allowing Poonakari Divisional Secretariat to survey only 159 of the entire 1,200 acres of lands. At least 783 Eezham Tamil families were living there when they were uprooted for the first time on 10 August 1992. The islets have continuous residential history of 400 years.
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Forced conversion to Sinhala Buddhism deployed as tool of genocide in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2017, 23:06 GMT]
Occupying Colombo, its military and the exclusivist Sinhala Buddhist Theravada Establishment have jointly adopted the Western colonial model of religious conversations of poverty-stricken people at the lowest echelons forcing the Tamil people to convert to Buddhism and start learning Sinhala language. The forced religious conversions are being staged at two separate locations, Navatkuzhi and Puththoor, in the occupied Jaffna peninsula. High-ranking monks including the Chief Prelate (Mahanayakas thero) of the Asgiriya chapter have been scheduled to inspect the genocidal project of Sinhala-Buddhicisation at Puththoor in Valikaamam East and at Naavatkuzhi, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Sunday.
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NPC to lodge legal action against SL Forest Department’s seizure of peoples’ lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 August 2017, 23:55 GMT]
Several complaints have been made from Mullaiththeevu district prompting the Northern Provincial Council to seriously consider lodging a legal action against the conduct of Colombo’s Forest Department, NPC circles in Jaffna said. Occupying Colombo's Forest Department and Department of Wildlife Conservation have been deployed for several years in systematically transforming the private and most of the non-residential lands in Mannaar and Vanni into the property of the SL State through blindly deploying the statutes, ordinances and acts of the unitary constitution of genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’. In the meantime, the West has been playing a destructive ‘diplomacy’ by abetting the SL State as it was doing during the times of war, ruining the very survival of the nation of Eezham Tamils in their homeland.
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Sulaxan commences hunger-strike with two other political prisoners in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 August 2017, 18:13 GMT]
Three Tamil political prisoners, including an Up-Country Tamil, have commenced a continuous hunger-strike at Anuradhapura prison on Sunday objecting the attempts by the SL Attorney General’s Department to transfer their cases away from the High Court in Vavuniyaa to other courts in the South. The SL State, refusing to recognize the Tamil prisoners as political prisoners, wants to process their cases under the so-called Terrorism laws without proper evidences. 30-year-old Sulaxan Mathiyarasan, who has been imprisoned since 18 May 2009 went on a hunger-strike last year and concluded his protest after a promise was extended by D.M. Swaminathan, the SL ‘Resettlement’, ‘Prison Reform’ and Hindu affairs minister, that his case would be expedited without further delay. After witnessing further deceptions, Sulaxan decided earlier this month to launch a fresh hunger-strike.
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Indian Commander wants ‘more training’ from genocidal Sri Lanka Army

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 August 2017, 23:09 GMT]
The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Southern Command of the Indian Army Lieutenant General P.M Hariz, has asked the Sinhala Army Commander Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake to offer more training for Indian soldiers at a meeting between the duo in Colombo on Thursday, according to an official news release by the SL Army on Saturday. P.M. Hariz, who hails from Kerala, was previously GOC-in-C at Army Training Command in Shimla. While appeasing the SL military, the Indian Establishment has been operating against the sentiments of Eezham Tamils by continuously opting for Sinhala-centric approaches in its geopolitical outlook. In July, China gained 99-year commercial control of Hambantota deep seaport. Within two weeks, India rushed with its interests in operating Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) for 40 years.
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Students, families mark 11 years since genocidal massacre of 53 school girls

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2017, 20:58 GMT]
The 11th anniversary of 53 Eezham Tamil school girls and staff who perished in the genocidal aerial massacre, which was known as Chegnchoalai (Sencholai) killing in 2006, was emotionally marked by the families of the victims at Vallipunam in Mullaiththeevu and also by hundreds of Jaffna University students, academics and the staff inside the university premises in Jaffna on Monday. SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa was briefed at least 12 hours before the genocidal attack by Roshan Goonatilake, the commander of the SL Air Force. SL Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was instructing the state-owned broadcast apparatus to carry a radio message of warning against school children attending LTTE trainings, said a group of rights activists who have gathered details on the preceding events in Colombo in the final hours before the fateful day.
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Colombo's Intelligence harasses families of re-united ex-LTTE members in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 August 2017, 23:16 GMT]
The Intelligence wing of the occupying Sinhala military has instructed several village (GS/GN) officials in the rural areas of Batticaloa district to submit written reports providing in-depth details on the whereabouts of former LTTE members, who have been reunited with their families. The SL military intelligence operatives have been visiting house-to-house in Kokkaddichchoalai in Ma'nmunai South-West division, inquiring the families about the workplace of the re-united members, their phone numbers, employer-details and when they were supposed to be at home with their families after their work. Similar surveillance operations have been reported also in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) and in Poaratheevup-pattu (Vellaa-ve'li) divisions, rights activists in Batticaloa said. The latest harassments are taking place in former LTTE controlled areas.
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Occupying Colombo harasses resettled Tamils through 3 Intelligence squads in Champoor

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 August 2017, 22:33 GMT]
Deploying Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil Intelligence personnel belonging to SL Police, SL Army and SL Navy, occupying Colombo has increased its harassment of resettled Eezham Tamils at Champoor in Trincomalee in recent days. Each and every move by the people to democratically voice for their needs is also being confronted through Intelligence meddling, rights activists in Champoor told TamilNet on Wednesday. Genocidal Sri Lanka is attempting to deconstruct the social institutions and the remaining ability of the people to mobilize themselves, the activists said. “During the time of Rajapaksa rule, we were living constantly under the gunpoint in various welfare camps. But we knew who they were. But, now they come from different places with pistols inside their clothes. They converse in a harassing manner and we live under a constant military surveillance,” a grassroots activist commented.
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Protests reinvigorate grassroots movement in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 August 2017, 23:20 GMT]
Grassroots activists from the North and progressive groups from the South have joined hands with the backing of civil and community groups in three of the five districts in North reinvigorating the struggle demanding dignified releases of Tamil political prisoners from the prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka. On Tuesday, coordinated protests were staged at the towns of Vavuniyaa, Ki’linochchi and in the city of Jaffna. The protests were attended by large number of representatives across a wide-spectrum of grassroots and civil groups as well as trade unions. University students, teachers and non-academic staff as well as religious dignitaries took part in the protest organized on the 5th Year Remembrance of two Tamil political prisoners, Nimalarooban from Vavuniyaa and Dilrukshan from Jaffna, who were killed following severe torture meted out on them at Anuradapura prison.
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Occupying Colombo steps up militarization of Jaffna streets through STF

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 August 2017, 19:05 GMT]
Hundreds of armed ‘Special Task Force’ commandos have been patrolling the streets of Jaffna in recent days under the pretext of controlling ‘gang violence’ against SL Police. In the meantime, occupying Sinhala military and police Establishments in Jaffna have been falsely claiming that the former LTTE members were behind gang violence. Four Tamil gangsters, have been detained for alleged involvement in violence against SL Police. The SL Police was falsely claiming that the detained youth as former LTTE members. Refuting the false claims by the SL Police and SL military, legal activists in Jaffna questioned the credibility of such claim by referring to the age of detained youth. Tamil youth from Jaffna were completely blocked from entering LTTE controlled Vanni already in 2006. The youth arrested now were 10-year-old children at that time, they said.
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New Sinhala police station disturbs peace in resettled Vadamunai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 August 2017, 22:25 GMT]
Some normalcy returned to Vadamunai village situated 65 km northwest of Batticaloa city two years ago when the occupying Sinhala military vacated its military camp, which was situated at a building of the Irrigation Department, which was located on the left bank of Vadamunai tank. Resettled Tamil women were continuously harassed by the Sinhala soldiers stationed at the irrigation building whenever the women went to the tank for water and bathing needs. A few days ago, a Sinhala policemen have stationed at the locality, causing trauma and fear among the resettled villagers. The Tamil people living in the interior village of Batticaloa district, is a border village to Polonnaruwa district of North Central Province. The survivors from Vadamunai village, who witnessed one of the brutal massacres, Mayilanthanai massacre in 1992, only managed to resettled back during the times of the LTTE.
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Legal ruling opens door for dismantling LTTE ban in other jurisdictions

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 July 2017, 18:42 GMT]
Although the EU's de-proscription of the LTTE is promising, the Tamil right to assembly, speech, and expression remains transnationally undermined by the persistence of post-war LTTE bans in multiple jurisdictions. These bans should be challenged on legal grounds to reclaim Tamil political space in North-America and Europe, said a Tamil diaspora legal activist who worked with Netherlands-based lawyer to prepare the legal basis for the case. The decision by the European Court of Justice, albeit belated, is not self-executing at the nation-state level within the EU. As such, ‘terrorism’ related national security policies of European governments will likely continue to operate as bulwark against Tamil asylum claims and as a non-invasive surveillance model for Tamil political mobilization.
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European Court upholds 2014 decision to de-proscribe LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 July 2017, 14:33 GMT]
The Appeal Court of the European Court of Justice on Wednesday maintained the decision already made by the General Court in October 2014 of annulling the restrictive measures that had been taken against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2006. The case, initiated by Tamil activists from Europe and USA, on behalf of the LTTE, was originally filed in April 2011 with additions later. The case was won by the LTTE on procedural grounds in 2014. The Council of the European Union was the defendant, supported by the Netherlands, the UK and the European Commission. The UK was particularly instrumental in defending continued proscription. Lathan Suntharalingam, one of the initiators of the legal move against EU ban on LTTE on Wednesday told TamilNet that the next step was to challenge the initial 2006-decision to ban the LTTE.
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Genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’ sentences life imprisonment to popular Tamil artist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 July 2017, 20:12 GMT]
Popular Mridangam artist Kannathasan Kanesasundaram, who is a lecturer at the Arts faculty of the University of Jaffna and who was formerly the director of Tamil Eelam College of Fine Arts while he was a member of LTTE's Political Division, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a High Court of the judiciary of genocidal Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The news has sent shockwaves across the intellectual community of Eezham Tamils. The 50-year-old father of three has been earlier released after SL military ‘rehabilitation’. However, he was again targeted by the SL military intelligence through a family that had lost their daughter in the war. The artist, known by his stage name Tha'nikai-maa'ran, was a close associate of Eezham Tamil Poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts is still not known after the occupying Sinhala military had him in its custody in May 2009.
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SL ‘national intelligence’ deployed to harass Tamil activists voicing for resettlement in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 July 2017, 15:05 GMT]
The so-called National Intelligene Bureau based in Colombo has started to harass Eezham Tamil social activists who have been actively engaged in resettling uprooted Tamil villagers at 60th Mile Post, which is situated in the administrative division of Poththuvil in Ampaa'rai district. Tamil activists in Poththuvil say that the Sinhala military intelligence operatives have been visiting their houses warning them against their activism. The intelligence officers in civil uniform were also telling the social activists that it was ‘illegal’ to collect details of people in an attempt to silence their activism. The threats have come after a Sinhala NGO personality based in South had obtained the details including the documents of land deeds from the activists.
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Mayiliddi people will not succumb to SL military resettlement farce: Subramaniyam

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 July 2017, 13:07 GMT]
It doesn't matter which regime was in power in Colombo. But, it was a Colombo government that created the mind-set in the ranks of SL military that in turn of war victories, it was ‘rewarded’ with all kinds of abuse of power such as raping Tamil women and seizing the lands of Eezham Tamils. This mindset still prevails in the ranks of the SL military and is the main attitude also behind the deceptive ‘resettlement’ farce in Valikaamam North, says Suntharam Subramaniam, the chairman of Mayiliddi Uprooted Peoples’ Organisation. The 58-year-old father of four, who resides in the so-called welfare camp at Koa'nappulam in Mallaakam in Jaffna, systematically deconstructs the destructive trends of the military-led, international community abetted and ITAK-contained resettlement farce in a video interview to TamilNet.
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Tamil youth in UK protest against BJP-triggered detention of Thirumurugan Gandhi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 July 2017, 23:27 GMT]
A group of young Eezham Tamil diaspora activists as well as progressive activists of older generation, numbering around 30, got together in front of the Indian High Commission in London stressing the need to mobilise against the arrest of May 17 Movement Coordinator Thirumurugan Gandhi and three activists of Thamizh Vidiyal Kadchi who have been detained under draconian Goondas Act in Tamil Nadu after they organised a candle vigil remembrance in May for those who perished in Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocide. Thirumurugan Gandhi has been targeted not only for voicing against the genocide of Eezham Tamils. He has been one of the key articulators against the economic exploitation of resources by India’s ruling BJP backed corporate Establishments. The activists who gathered in front of the India House in London said the protest was particularly intended as an awareness campaign among Eezham Tamils.
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