Colombo accelerates demographic genocide along border villages of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 February 2016, 22:55 GMT]
Rural Development Society representatives from the villages situated along the border of Batticaloa district in the Eastern Province, complain that their native villages are being systematically Sinhalicised under the Maithiripala regime. The occupying Sinhala military has brought a number of extremist Buddhist monks into these villages in recent times. Buddhist temples (Pansala) and SL military positions have been mushrooming along these villages since 2007 when Sinhala military brought the entire district under its control. The same pattern of structural occupation is also observed along the Tamil villages bordering the Polonnaruwa district, which is the native district of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena.
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Sinhalese from South grab temple lands of Eezham Tamils in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 February 2016, 23:49 GMT]
Two Sinhalese from Matara district in the Southern Province are trying to seize 8 acres of lands that belong to 50-year-old Saiva temple in Poththuvil of Ampaa'rai district using false documents, the management of the Chiththi Vinaayakar temple told TamilNet on Monday. The Sinhala extremists who are engaged in seizing lands from Tamils in the district in the Eastern province have deployed a former Sri Lankan Presidential Coordinator from Poththuvil and a former paramilitary operative as their agents, Tamil officials at the District Secretariat said verifying that the lands belong to the Hindu temple. There is a systematic pattern of genocidal land grab taking place in the district, the officials alleged citing similar cases from several other locations in the district.
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Enslaved Tamil fighters forced to sing ‘Sri Lanka’ anthem in Sinhala

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2016, 18:06 GMT]
Forcing Eezham Tamil school girls to parade at a military event on the so-called ‘Independence Day’ and bringing a section of enslaved former LTTE members from the so-called ‘Civil Security Division’ (CSD) to sing ‘Sri Lanka’ anthem in Sinhala, the occupying Sinhala military was engaged in an act of humiliating Eezham Tamils at Poonakari in Ki'linochchi district on Thursday. Just a look at the faces of the enslaved Tamils and occupying Sinhalese would tell the reality. No explanation is needed to those who are familiar with the world history of occupations and genocide. A video recording of the event, which has been recorded and distributed through social media on the Internet, is being reproduced by TamilNet for the purpose of historical record. The video is a must to be seen by all.
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Eezham Tamils boycott ‘Sri Lanka’ Independence Day in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 February 2016, 08:21 GMT]
“Tamils are being suppressed as ‘minority’ in this country. This so-called Independence Day is only for Sinhalese, ruling this country as majority. They celebrate this day with Kiribath [milk rice] in the South. We have not forgotten that they also celebrated the annihilation of thousands and lakhs of Tamils at Mu'l'livaaykkaal in 2009, serving Kiribath in the South,” a protesting mother in Mannaar, who joined the district wide protests of Tamils marking the so-called Independence Day of Ceylon, which has later become genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’, as a Black Day. In the meantime V.S. Sivakaran, a young Tamil activist in Mannaar said Tamils have no emotional attachment to the day and that they saw it merely as an Independence Day of a neighbouring country. Tamils marked the day as a Black Day in all the 8 districts of the Northern and Eastern provinces on Thursday.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka, IC abetters, not understood in Latin America, Africa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 February 2016, 20:17 GMT]
Latin American Herald Tribune featured an article on Thursday, projecting the so-called independence day of ‘Sri Lanka’ as promoting ‘national reconciliation’ and said: “In the final months of the war from March to May 2009, both the LTTE - which is listed as a terrorist organisation by 32 countries - and the Sri Lankan military were accused of war crimes, including genocide, against civilians. Genocide by both sides is the picture given. Last month, Reuter Africa came out with another story: “Ethnic minority Tamils were often favoured for higher government positions under British colonial rule. After independence in 1948, many lost their positions as successive governments pursued language and other policies favouring the majority Sinhalese population,” the story said.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka harasses Tamil family for demanding land back in Kokku'laay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 February 2016, 23:27 GMT]
The legally entitled Tamil owners of the land at Kokku'laay, where an extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk, Ven Thissapura Gunarathna Thero, is aggressively engaged in constructing a Buddhist vihara aiming Sinhalaicisation of the strategic location in the Tamil homeland, say their family are being harassed by the officials of the genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’ and the military of the Colombo regime. The monk is constructing the Vihara by deploying the occupying Sinhala soldiers despite the efforts taken by Tamil officials and the Northern Province Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the sources further told TamilNet on Wednesday. The area surrounding Kokku'laay is the focus of Sinhala colonisation presently, as it is the key location for wedging the demographic contiguity of the North and East as well as direct communication between Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee.
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SL police refuses to register land grab complaint against Buddhist monk in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2016, 23:36 GMT]
The Head of the Sri Mangalaramaya Buddhist vihara in Batticaloa city, Ven. Ampitiye Sumanarathana thero, is refusing to release the lands seized from Tamil villagers in Maalaiyar-kaddu village (GS) division in Vellaa-ve'li administrative division of the district. The SL police under the so-called good-governance of Maithiripala Sirisena are refusing to accept complaints from Tamil villagers against the Buddhist monk, civil sources in Vellaa-ve'li told TamilNet. The occupying Sinhala policemen are deployed to do the farming in the lands seized by the Buddhist monk, the Tamil owners of the lands said.
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45 Tamil girls enslaved as child soldiers in SL Military

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 January 2016, 23:39 GMT]
More than 45 Tamil girls, who were recruited from poverty-stricken Tamil families in the North have been deployed under genocidal Sinhala military commanders, who committed extensive acts of genocide in the past, escapees from Palaali told TamilNet. The SLA Commander in Jaffna instructed commanders under him to keep the enslaved Tamil girls under their direct supervision within the High Security Zone in Palaali while the Tamil men, who were trying to escape, were deployed as forced labourers to construct new fortifications inside the Sinhala Military Zone, a recently escaped Tamil said providing extensive details. As more than 450 of 600 Tamils deceived into the SL military have managed to escape and ‘military punishments‘ went contrary to the SL propaganda, sophisticated ‘loans’ and increased payments are being organised to keep the Tamil recruits enslaved, the source further revealed.
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Diaspora network urges TPC to consolidate fundamentals, course-correct main polilty

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 January 2016, 18:44 GMT]
A group of like-minded diaspora youth activists and writers on Monday issued a document detailing 15 key issues, which they wanted the Tamil People's Council (TPC) in the homeland to clarify without ambiguity in consolidating the definitions, descriptions and attitudinal fundamentals of the Tamil cause during their present exercise of formulating a political framework on behalf of Eezham Tamils. While expecting the TPC to explore a model of confederalism, in which Eelam Tamils could exercise control over defined internal and external affairs, a proper negotiation required mediation by a third party at a global level. Various Empires, external States and the United Nations have been responsible for the injustices against Eezham Tamils in the past. The Global Community therefore needs greater awareness on the situation of Tamils in the island, the group said.
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Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry continues demographic genocide in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 January 2016, 22:13 GMT]
The UNP government in 1984 kicked off a genocidal project of settling Sinhalese in large numbers in the Tamil-speaking district of Batticaloa in East with the same agenda of Sinhaliciation that took place in Trincomalee district earlier. Eezham Tamils were chased out of their villages as more than ten thousand Sinhalese were almost moved overnight by the SL Ministry of ‘Mahaweli Development’ to occupy the key areas in Batticaloa coming under the so-called Left bank of the B System. The SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who is also the SL Minister of ‘Mahaweli Development’, is now carrying out the same project in a sophisticated manner, Tamil civil officials in Batticaloa said. 30,400 Sinhalese and have been settled under the Mahaweli programme in the district, which is predominantly Tamil-speaking while only 1,281 Tamil-speaking Muslims and 34 Tamils have been given lands, they said.
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Coerced confessions determine Tamil prisoners' fate

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 January 2016, 19:57 GMT]
While rights groups highlight the continued torture and rapes of Tamils even after Sri Lanka's President Sirisena came to power, the 217 political prisoners languishing in Sri Lanka's high security jails expose another dark side of Sri Lanka's failed criminal justice system. The predicament of Valayuthan Varatharajan from Karava'nai South, Karaveddi who had been in remand for nearly 16 years in the New Magazine Prison, and was hurriedly given a sentence for "conspiring to carry out suicide attack" on the then President Kumaratunge, a verdict given three days before Sri Lanka resolution was passed in the UN on the 25th of September 2015, highlights Sri Lanka's judicial bankruptcy, legal sources in Colombo said. The main evidence the prosecution was able to assemble against Varatharajan was a coerced confession signed in Sinhala language by the defendant, according to these sources.
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Colombo SLT extends TamilNet censorship to south of the island

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 January 2016, 00:03 GMT]
The Colombo regime of Maithiripala Sirisena (SLFP) and Ranil Wickramsinghe (UNP) have once again proved that they are not different from the previous regime of Rajapaksa in suppressing access to tamilnet.com for the vast majority of Internet users in the island who connect through ADSL broadband provided by ‘Sri Lanka’ Telecom PLC (SLT). The main stakeholder of the SLT ownership is the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’. The other dominant shareholder of the SLT is Egypt-based Global Telecommunication Holdings. The SLT has been continuously blocking access to TamilNet in the North and East despite the claim by the Maithiripala regime last January that the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’ would not be practicing Internet censorship anymore as it was during the Rajapaksa regime. Ironically, the marketing slogan of the SLT is: ‘One Country. One Voice.’
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Colombo continues to demographically erase Tamil villages in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 January 2016, 08:32 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils from Kanakar-kiraamam village in Ampaa'rai district complain that their lands have been permanently seized by Maithiripala Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry in Colombo through SL Forest Department in December 2015. Colombo continues to deploy Sinhala military at Tamil settlements. The Tamil villagers who received permit lands in mid 1970s have been unable to renew their permits as they were uprooted from these settlements. The mechanisms that come under the provincial and central ministries operate with the motive of permanently erasing these settlements. Ever since 1956, when the Tamils in the district were chased out from their traditional and later settlements for the first time, the successive regimes in Colombo have operated against resettlement of Tamils in Ampaa'rai, Tamil civil officials complain citing the latest example of Kanakar-kiraamam.
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Tamils should identify natural allies against US-UK military geopolitics: Viraj Mendis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 December 2015, 23:09 GMT]
The strategic location of the island of Sri Lanka becomes hot and very important, especially when the paradigm of war becomes more dominant than the peace paradigm at a global level, says Viraj Mendis, a progressive Sinhala rights activist who is a long-term supporter of the struggle of Eezham Tamils. In an in-depth interview to TamilNet Palaka'ni, the exiled veteran activist details his understanding on how the successive external powers, pre-occupied with the war-paradigm and the geopolitical significance of the island in a military sense in the Indian Ocean Region, have shaped the ‘genocidal consciousness’ of the Sinhalese to their benefit in the past as well as at the present. The Eezham Tamils, particularly their diaspora, should have no illusions about who their adversaries are and whom they should rely upon as their natural allies in their continued freedom struggle, he says.
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TPC success depends on geopolitically addressing national question

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 December 2015, 18:22 GMT]
Tamil People’s Council (TPC), a 30-member body launched in Jaffna on 19 December consisting of three-member co-chairs that includes NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, has gained momentum and hype despite the shortcomings in the formation of an institution bringing together political, religious, civil activists and professionals at a critical juncture. The TPC is set to meet on Sunday to discuss the way forward to articulate the Tamil outlook for a political framework in resolving the Tamil national question. Those involved in the move should rise above the average introvert dialectics and conceive the TPC as a platform in articulating the real aspirations of the nation of Eezham Tamils to the outside geo-political ‘conflict managers’, who seek to contain the aspirations of the people, Tamil political observers in the island said.
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Repeal 6th Amendment for free discussion: VIS Jayapalan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 December 2015, 08:55 GMT]
There could be no claim of reconciliation without the release of political prisoners in the island. Attempting reconciliation and engaging in reconciliation are two different things. So far, the incumbent SL president has only been attempting reconciliation, VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, said in an interview to TamilNet Palaka’ni this week. Stating that a political solution, be it separation or federation, should be achieved through an open debate in a free environment between the Tamil-speaking people and the Sinhalese people, Mr Jayapalan urged the civil society in the South to realise the significance of creating the necessary non-violent space through making the SL State to repeal the 6th Amendment to the SL Constitution.
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Case for Reparations for Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 December 2015, 19:28 GMT]
MacArthur fellow Ta-Nehisi Coates's historical narrative of the troubled history of racism in the US, which rekindled serious debate on systemic discrimination of blacks, starting with slavery, provides a stark parallel to a similar history behind Eezham Tamils from 1940s, about a decade before Ceylon gained ‘independence’. Similar to Coates characterization of white supremacy that lies at the core of the broken social contract for blacks in the U.S., the Sinhala Supremacy within the ruling elite and Sinhala population in general, is the root of the decades long evil oppression of Tamils, descending to State sponsored mass killing of Tamils leading to genocide. It is ironic that those accused by Coates, the past and current US policy makers, are now aiding and abetting the Sinhala supremacist political class to relegate the Tamils to subservient second class citizenship in the island.
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American Corner’s “Kozhampa Yaathraa” in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 December 2015, 23:30 GMT]
Those who were reading ITAK’s Suthanthiran newspaper of 1960s and 1970s would recollect how the weekly had to regularly fight against Colombo’s corruption and Sinhalicisation of Tamil language, stemming from contemptuous attitude of “Perun-thesiyam” (i.e., the genocidal nationalism in other words, and even today we have some ‘Marxists’ who see the Tamil struggle as “Ku'run-thesiyam”, i.e., narrow nationalism). After the three decades interlude of Tamil militant struggle, nothing has changed, except for the fact that the USA is now leading Colombo’s outlook of linguistic genocide, commented Tamil activists in Jaffna citing “Kozhampa Yaathraa” call of “American Corner” in Jaffna.
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Opposition leader should address sovereignty concerns of Tamils: Former Land Commissioner

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2015, 21:16 GMT]
The United States of America, locked in a geopolitical competition with China in the Indian Ocean Region, is primarily concerned with its own interests. All the stakeholders are mainly concerned of their stakes with regards to the geo strategic location of this island in the Indian Ocean. This was also the case during the times of the World Wars. Now, the USA wants to be in control after ousting the Chinese. India was also interested in the same. The same way, Tamils should also be concerned of their primary interests, said Karthirgamathamby Kurunathan, a retired land commissioner, urging the Tamil polity not to allow the Sinhala politicians to buy time and space through the manoeuvrings in the United Nations. The Tamil polity should be sharp in countering the age-old dragging techniques, he told TamilNet. The opposition leader should address the sovereignty concerns of Tamils, he said.
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Tamil genocide continues, Sirisena shows no desire for change, says Grant

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 November 2015, 22:04 GMT]
Australian journalist and an advocate for Tamils rights, Trevor Grant, who has also written widely on the Sri Lankan State's genocide against Eezham Tamils and on the complicity of the Western governments in the genocide, in an interview with TamilNet this week opined that the Sirisena government's policies on critical Tamil issues are substantively not different from those of the predecessor Rajapakse government. Commenting on the recent prisoner issue where Tamil prisoners in several jails have resumed hunger strike after Sirisena failed to release the prisoners on Nov 7th as promised, Grant said that "if there was a genuine desire for change [in Srisena government], all prisoners would have been released within days of the election result in January." Grant added that Tamil Naadu has the capacity to turn India as a force supporting the cause of Eelam Tamils.
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