Kalaikkoan's premonition proved right, Tamils cannot shy away from international struggle

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 May 2019, 23:41 GMT]
The chauvinist elements in the South which were behind the State-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom in 1958 also chose to warn the Muslims and the Burghers that they would be the next targets in the aftermath. Many Tamils were chased out from South to Jaffna and Batticaloa, But they would be eradicated from there as well, in the future, through Sinhala militarisation, the warning claimed. Fifty years later, Colombo and the powers abetting its war, would be achieving that if the war was allowed to proceed the course it was taking, warned Kalaikkoan master, the head of LTTE's Navam Academy, in 2009. The 36-year-old student of history, who had almost lost sight in both of his eyes was an articulate teacher. He was subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the SL military on 17 May 2009. TamilNet releases the unedited audio of the Satellite phone communication with him from 13 April 2009.
Full story >>

New Delhi continues to interpret aspiration of Eezham Tamils as threatening its sovereignty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 May 2019, 23:13 GMT]
Eezham Tamils should get the clue from New Delhi's latest proscription of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that the idea of Tamil Eelam remains strong even though the LTTE was institutionally destroyed a decade ago through a genocidal onslaught, commented Tamil activists in Jaffna. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs proscribed the LTTE for five more years issuing a notification through the Gazette of India on Tuesday. The announcement observed that “[t]he LTTE’s objective for a separate homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, and amounts to cession and secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union and thus falls within the ambit of unlawful activities”.
Full story >>

SL State-run sea cucumber farming becomes major threat to Tamil fishers of North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 May 2019, 20:58 GMT]
The occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is scheming to shrink the coastal fishing access to Eezham Tamil fishers in the islets and along the west coast of Vanni, where the resettled Tamils are already struggling with limited access to their coastal belt due to militarization and other activities from the South. Several new locations have been identified by the SL state-run National Aquaculture Development Authority (NAQDA) and the SL National Aquatic Resources Research And Development Agency (NARA), informed sources at Jaffna District Secretariat told TamilNet on Tuesday.
Full story >>

Academics across continents mark Tamil genocide remembrance in Dublin, discuss global injustice

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 May 2019, 23:34 GMT]
Irish, Cypriot, Rwandan, Palestinian, Rohingya, Korean and Colombian academics were taking part in an academic conference and a commemorative event on the tenth year of 2009 Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal Tamil genocide in Dublin, Ireland on the 02nd of May and on the 08th of May. The reflections made at these events provided both insights from lived experiences of genocide as well analysis of the situation before and in the aftermath of May 2009. The geopolitical context of Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, attempts to de-politicize Tamil resistance and consolidate the ongoing structural genocide institutionalized through the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka were discussed in detail in the events making comparisons with the oppressions elsewhere in the world.
Full story >>

Blake's Colombo lecture reminds Tamils of bureaucracy abetting 2009 genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 May 2019, 16:57 GMT]
Former US Ambassador Robert O. Blake was visiting Colombo on Tuesday to deliver a lecture titled ‘US Foreign Policy towards China and South Asia and what it means for Sri Lanka’. He was advising Colombo to tackle the response to the Easter Sunday attacks by drawing lessons from the 2001 Bush Administration and form an intelligence coordinating body of technocrats not to miss any single lead of information on potential attacks. Former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was precisely doing that during the war, he said. He also warned against over-reacting as the US did after 9/11 by expanding government surveillance without appropriate constitutional checks. On geopolitics, Mr Blake was enticing Colombo to engage with China, the USA and other countries in parallel, a paradigm which enabled Colombo to annihilate the military power of Tamils through a genocidal onslaught in 2009.
Full story >>

Arts Faculty student leader urges principled action from Jaffna lawyers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 May 2019, 13:45 GMT]
The president of the Student Union of the Art Faculty at the University of Jaffna, Mr Rajaratnam Krishanth, has urged the lawyers, particularly the head of the bar association in Jaffna Ms Shantha Abimannasingham P.C., who is also the notary public Council Member of the Council of the University, to take up the wrong PTA detention of Jaffna University Student Union. The matter should also be taken up with the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Colombo, he said. The action for releasing the JUSU leaders must be a broader one, he said. The students were awaiting the legal outcome on May 08 before initiating a struggle, he said. In the meantime, all other avenues must be pursued in parallel, he said. TNA's Sumanthiran and Civil Society activist Guruparan are already done their part, the fellow students told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Muslim activists in Jaffna caution Tamils about sinister designs of southern chauvinism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 May 2019, 21:16 GMT]
Jaffna-based Muslim grassroots activists have urged Tamils to be cautious on what they read on certain Tamil-language media outlets, which show signs of succumbing to the hidden agenda of the forces in South seeking to set the Tamils against the Muslims. Senior trader and grassroots activist Mohammed Uzinar Tahir and Jaffna Municipal Council member Muththu Muhammathu Nibahir were reacting to false and twisted news reports. They were also responding to the propaganda that the SL military was wooing some ex-LTTE members to collaborate with it as informants. The SL military's latest move is seen as Colombo Intelligence establishment's political counter-insurgency seeking to create communal disharmony among the Tamil-speaking people in Jaffna and elsewhere in the island. The activists were talking to media on Friday.
Full story >>

SL Police detains Tamil student leaders of Jaffna University after SLA cordon

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 May 2019, 12:13 GMT]
The occupying SL Army has detained the main Tamil student leaders of Jaffna University after deploying a large-scale cordon and search operation along with the SL Police under the pretext of securing the premises from Islamist attackers on Friday. The SLA, using the Emergency Regulations, wants to stop the student mobilisation towards the 10th year remembrance of Tamil genocide on 18 May, fellow student leaders told TamilNet. Jaffna University Student Union President 25-year-old T. Thivakar, who hails from Mullaiththeevu and JUSU Secretary 24-year-old S. Babilraj are the two leaders detained. It is the first time that the SLA has been deployed in a big cordon and search operation inside the University of Jaffna, JUSU members said.
Full story >>

SL military, police go all out against everything ‘Thowheed’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 May 2019, 23:54 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and the SL police have detained at least 21 Muslims in Mannar up to Wednesday night. Most of the arrested are members of various Thowheed Jamath groups that are different from the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), which was created by the Easter Sunday attacker Zahran Hashim. These are multiple organisations such as Ceylon TJ, SLTJ, All Ceylon TJ and United TJ which are not prohibited. Even the hardliners in these groups have faith-oriented difference with the NTJ. However, the SL Police and the military are going after everything that has 'Thowheed' in the name, legal sources in Mannaar said. The personnel carrying out the cordon and search operations are Sinhalese. Meanwhile, the SL soldiers are also desecrating the places of worship by wearing shoes inside the premises, the people complained.
Full story >>

SLA exerts pressure on ex-LTTE members to act as informants after Easter attacks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 April 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Army in Jaffna is trying to set Tamils against the Muslims in the peninsula by attempting to recruit former LTTE members to work as informants. On Tuesday, more than fifty ex-LTTE members were instructed to attend a meeting at the SL Army's 512 Brigade camp at the Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya in the city of Jaffna. The SLA officers were offering biscuits with a soothing talk, an ex-LTTE member who attended the meeting said. A former LTTE political division member openly stated in the meeting that he had joined the movement to serve the cause of the people and not to operate against any people. However, the SLA officers were attempting to turn the argument to their favour saying that the Tiger members knew their society well and it should be in their interest to serve the public interest by detecting the strangers, who were infiltrating to seek safe havens in the North.
Full story >>

Muslims fear next wave of attacks could target Sufi Dargahs in Mannaar, Musali under cordon

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 April 2019, 17:52 GMT]
Security has been beefed up at the five pilgrimage sites in Mannaar district as the Muslim religious leaders expressed fear of the next wave of externally influenced Islamist attacks could target their traditional pilgrimage sites as the ring leader of the terror attacks on Easter Sunday was also opposed to such worship as “anti-Islamic” practice. In the meantime, the occupying SL Army, SL Navy, the STF commandos and the SL Police have subjected the entire 107 km coastal road from Puththa'lam in the North Western Province to Mannaar in the Northern province with ten check posts since Saturday. The security beef-up has increased the travel time from Mannaar to Puththa'lam from two hours to six hours. The SL forces are mainly targeting the Tamil-speaking Muslims in Musali division with three large cordon-and-search operations for the past three days, civil sources in Musali said.
Full story >>

SLM Hanifa remembers Sivaram's insight, warns of more challenging times ahead

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 April 2019, 14:42 GMT]
The inhumane terror attacks on Easter Sunday have worsened the chauvinist paradigm prevailing in the island and exposed it as the terrain for global power politics. None of the three powers, the USA, China nor India would be doing anything meaningful for the merger of the North-East or to secure the rights of the people here, said veteran writer SLM Hanifa, interviewed by TamilNet on the occasion of the 14th remembrance of the late Senior Editor of TamilNet, Maa-manithar D. Sivaram (Taraki), on Sunday. Unlike those who passionately talk about Tamil-Muslim unity and do nothing on the ground in practice, Mr Hanifa, a long-term friend of Sivaram, is one of the very few, who have been working for Tamil Muslim unity at the grassroots level in the East.
Full story >>

Trauma, uncertainty escalates following shootout, explosions in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 April 2019, 15:30 GMT]
It was the Muslim house-owners in Kalmunai, Chaayntha-maruthu and other places in Ampaa'rai, who cooperated with the security establishment to detect the residences of the renters behaving suspiciously or absconding on Friday. At least six suicide bombers have reportedly blown themselves up during the cordon and search operations reported from Friday to Saturday morning. At the same time, the news of three innocent children getting killed in gunfire while no military or police getting harmed and the subsequent reports claiming that it was the terror suspects who shot the children, have raised suspicion among the people, said Moulavi AJM Ilyas, a leading Islamic religious leader in Batticaloa. Moulavi Ilyas reiterated that the entire Muslim community in the island stood united in condemning the terror attacks on Easter Sunday.
Full story >>

Dr Amir Ali: Neoliberal institutions, religious extremism major hurdles of resolving conflict

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 April 2019, 13:11 GMT]
The global neoliberalist institutions such as the IMF and three particular religious extremist tendencies aggravated by external factors manifesting in the island were going to be the major future hurdles in achieving a lasting resolution to the conflict affecting the Tamils and the Tamil-speaking Muslims in the island, said Dr Ameer Ali, a renowned academic based in Australia, in a video interview to TamilNet in May 2018. He identified the Hindutva coming from India, militant Theravada Buddhism getting exposed in Myanmar and the Wahhabism which had started-off from Saudi Arabia as the three far-right religious tendencies. The expulsion of Muslims from Jaffna was a crime, but it was not ethnic cleansing as some propagandists tend to project it, he stated further.
Full story >>

Colombo's COIN backfires, solidarity key to ensure Tamil-Muslim territoriality: Diasporic academic

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2019, 16:30 GMT]
The growth of Wahhabism in the island has only served Colombo, and its external backers' interests in weakening the possibilities of unified Tamil speaking peoples' resistance to the unitary state, argues Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan in an article following the serial Easter Sunday bomb attacks in the island. The Wahhabis were contributing to the severing of the ties held by Tamil Muslims to their territory, and in the case of north and east, to their Tamil neighbours by targeting, destroying or marginalising traditional Tamil Muslim Sufism in the island in the past. “Time has again come for Tamil – Muslim solidarity and alliances to bloom, to arrest divisive measures of the Colombo state and external powers,” to counter the dangers of the future, he writes narrating the trends of the past and his experiences during the field trips to the island.
Full story >>

Unity between Eezham Tamils and Muslims key to true freedom: Exiled Sinhala academic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 April 2019, 18:43 GMT]
Whoever carried out the Easter Sunday attack seems to have implemented, knowingly or unknowingly, the grand plan of fully integrating the Sri Lankan state into the geo-strategic imperial complex led by USA, UK, India and China by sharpening the globally imposed imperial faulty lines, says Professor Jude Lal Fernando of Trinity College, Dublin, in a comment to TamilNet on Wednesday. With the Easter Sunday attack on Christians (Sinhala and Tamil), many have lost their lives. The entire Muslim community has been demonized and Islamophobia has been heightened. Sinhalese do not know what they do – really like those who carried out the attack on Easter Sunday, he says. “The only wake up call can come from a strong unity between the Eelam Tamils and Muslims on the island who can truly resist the colonially carved state,” says the exiled Sinhala activist who hails from Negombo.
Full story >>

People of all walks of life victims in ‘chosen island’ of geopolitics, religious extremism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The families and the relatives of the victims of the serial terror attacks on Easter Sunday mourned their dead with mass burials and an island-wide day of mourning with three minutes of silence on Tuesday. At least 45 of those killed were children, according to the figures gathered by the United Nations. As the death toll from the bombings rose to 321, the Syria-based Islamic State group, which had lost all its territorial control in Syria and Iraq, claimed that it stood behind the serial terror attacks, publishing photos and a video of the attackers. In the meantime, reports also said that the US Indo-Pacific Command had wrapped up a joint naval training, four days earlier than it was scheduled to conclude in Hambantota.
Full story >>

West influencing regime-change politics responsible for worsening situation: Fr Sakthivel

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 April 2019, 23:46 GMT]
The serial terror attacks on the churches and the hotels during the Easter Sunday has sparked fear of repercussions among the Muslims in Colombo, Negombo and the suburbs of the capital. They fear that a preplanned backlash could come from the forces operating among the other communities, Colombo-based human rights activist and Tamil Catholic priest Fr M. Sakthivel told TamilNet on Monday. In general, the people are also afraid that there might be other bombs as a bomb went off in Colombo on Monday while the SL Police was about to defuse it, he said. The priest who knows the grassroots situation prevailing in the South of the island said that the outside forces, particularly the West, which has been heavily intervening in the affairs of the island with a regime-change agenda, was to be blamed for the deteriorating security conditions of the non-Sinhala-Buddhist peoples in the island.
Full story >>

207 killed, 450 wounded, series of bomb blasts target churches, hotels on Easter Sunday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 April 2019, 09:17 GMT]
At least 207 people, including foreign tourists, have been killed in Colombo and Batticaloa in a series of bomb blasts that targeted worshippers, who were attending Easter Sunday services at three Christian churches. Most of the victims at the churches were Tamils. The bomb blasts have also targeted three hotels in Colombo. Thirty-five victims were foreigners. Around 450 people have sustained injuries. Fourteen of the 28 victims killed at the Zion Church in Batticaloa were children playing outside the church, medical sources at Batticaloa Teaching Hospital told TamilNet. Two more attacks have been reported at Dehiwale and Dematagoda in Colombo. The attacks on Christians and foreign nationals almost coincide with US - Sri Lanka naval exercise along the Hambantota port, which is owned by China under a 99-year lease.
Full story >>

Colombo closing down schools with less than 50 students tantamounts to educational betrayal

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2019, 23:23 GMT]
The education of the students living in the rural and remote villages in the North-East would be severely affected if the SL Government goes ahead with the proposed move of closing down schools with less than fifty students in the island, said former Education Minister of Eastern Province S. Thandayuthapani on Friday. The resettlement has not been fully completed even though ten years have elapsed since the end of the war. It also takes time for the people to resettle in a meaningful way. The move to cut down the access to education is an educational betrayal, Mr Thandayuthapani said. The international actors, such as the World Bank and the IMF who provide ‘development’ assistance to the SL State are also betraying the Tamils in the North-East if they were giving input to the SL Government to close down the schools with fifty or less of students, he said.
Full story >>