Colombo destroys education of Tamil youth in North, teachers complain

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, 06:55 GMT]
More than 11% of the schools in the Northern Province remain closed due to Sri Lanka military occupation, say teachers in Jaffna citing statistics from the Northern provincial ministry of education. Colombo has been systematically depriving the Eezham Tamil educational institutions in North and East from receiving external aid, both from foreign NGOs and the Tamil diaspora. In addition, the SL military-run civil administration has been diverting the funds already allocated in the provincial budget for the education sector. As a result, the Northern Province has ranked last in the latest GCE A/L examinations, the teachers said adding that such decline was not reported before, even during the height of the war.
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People of Navaali remember massacre amidst SLA harassment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 08:56 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils on Monday gathered at Navaali St. Peters's Church in Jaffna in memory of 147 civilians, who were brutally slain in a genocidal massacre 17 years ago by the Sri Lankan military that had instructed the fleeing people from a military operation to seek security at the Church and the nearby Saiva temple. The Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) on 09 July 1995 dropped leaflets from its helicopters instructing the civilians who were fleeing from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operation, to seek security at the Church.
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Indian civil groups condemn killing of adivasis in Chattisgarh

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 17:35 GMT]
The killing of 19 adivasis in an ‘anti-Maoist operation’ by CRPF commandos on June 28 in the Bijapur district of the Indian state of Chattisgarh has evoked condemnation from civil society groups, student unions and political activists in India. While many of the locals of that district and politicians of Chaatisgarh, including from the Congress party, have alleged that many or all of those killed are not Maoists, the CRPF which was leading this operation has ‘defended’ itself claiming that Maoists have been using villagers as human shields. India, which had abetted Colombo's genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils, is now lifting the ‘human shields’ argument that Sri Lanka and the powers that supported it used against the LTTE and applying it to quell armed struggles in its heartland, observers in Chennai told TamilNet.
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New Delhi grooming Sinhala military needs careful perusal in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 02:11 GMT]
In the wake of reports on New Delhi continuing its training to Sinhala military personnel at a base in Bangalore after transferring them from Chennai following opposition from Tamil Nadu government, the Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalithaa on Saturday said "Tamils want action for war crimes against Sri Lanka. We will not accept the training of Sri Lankan airmen anywhere in India." New Delhi’s obsession with grooming the Sinhala military after being in complicity with it in the genocide of Eezham Tamils needs careful perusal in Tamil Nadu, in the background of mushrooming Sinhala military bases trained against Tamil Nadu, New Delhi pressing for subjugation of Eezham Tamils within a united Sri Lanka model when one party has a genocidal military and the other has none, and in addition, New Delhi currently sitting in the UNHRC monitor group on Sri Lanka, observers said.
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New refugee vessels head for Australia from Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2012, 20:05 GMT]
Agents involved in human trafficking, backed by influential ministers and personalities of the Rajapaksa government in Colombo, are exploiting the plight of already victimized Tamil youth in the North and East, to brave the Indian Ocean, making a 15-day journey towards Australia in search of a safe life than the genocide designed for them in the island, informed sources in Vadamaraadchi told TamilNet Sunday. A deep-sea fishing vessel has left Inparuddi of Vadamaraadchi, four days ago, carrying at least 15 Tamil youth. Another 20 members have been recruited and the next group is expected to leave the coast of Jaffna or Mullaiththeevu in a couple of days, the sources further said.
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Colombo's new highways scheme genocidal demographic change in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2012, 21:17 GMT]
The Colombo government has been appropriating lands belonging to civilian population under the guise of implementing several highway road development projects in the Trincomalee district with a genocidal agenda, say Tamil civil officials in the district. While many of the roads within the district, especially in Tamil areas, are not cared for in the so-called ‘reconstruction’ and ‘development’ by the regime in Colombo, new roads such as the one that links Sinhala dominated Seruvila in the district with Soamaavathi village in Polonnaruwa district through Maavil Aa'ru, have mushroomed with Buddhist viharas with highly developed infrastructure for Sinhala settlements, after 2009.
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Public land becoming military land is strategy of ICE in the island

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2012, 23:48 GMT]
Converting all public lands or community lands of Eezham Tamils into Sinhala military lands, in the guise of ‘legally’ asserting them as ‘State Land’ of Sri Lanka is the strategy now promoted by the International Community of Establishments (ICE), partnered in the context by India and the USA that are in war with the nation of Eezham Tamils in proving a new order based on State terrorism and genocide, said political observers in Jaffna commenting on the accelerated land and sea appropriations taking place in the country of Eezham Tamils, ‘conquered’ in a genocidal war designed by the said culprits. As genuine Eezham Tamil nationalism would not agree to the grab, the culprits employ the genocidal Sinhala military to do the job, protect it from international indictment and that is why they deny any genocide taking place in the island, the activists further said.
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Washington Post journalist confirms state of emergency in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2012, 19:46 GMT]
Referring to the all pervasive rule of the Sinhala military in the country of Eezham Tamils, Simon Denyer of Washington Post reports from Jaffna that “[t]he military has even inserted itself into almost every aspect of economic life in the north of the country, farming and selling vegetables, running hotels, restaurants and even barber shops” in a feature published Friday. Alluding to sources from the ground, the report gives a picture of how the military runs a state of emergency in the Tamil homeland, with land grabs, routine harassment, curtailment of the right to assembly and even forcible interventions in public functions.
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‘IC turns deaf ear to struggling Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 09:05 GMT]
The international community of establishments and their agenda-driven outfits continue to turn deaf-ear to the plight of the Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs), failing to accord the necessary international legal status to Eezham Tamil POWs, who have become the ‘pawns of genocide’, activists in the island blamed following the reports on Wednesday that a 28-year-old Tamil prisoner, Ganesan Nimalarooban from Nelukku'lam in Vavuniyaa, had succumbed to his injuries at Mahara prison in South. All the 122 prisoners who were inside the raided prison cell in Vavuniyaa last Friday were taken to Anuradhapura prison, where Sinhala prison guards and criminal inmates tortured them for more than 10 hours. 22 of these Eezham Tamil POWs were later transferred to Mahara prison and Nimalarooban, hailng from a poverty-stricken family in the suburb of Vavuniyaa, was one of them.
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EPW article on Palk Bay fishermen misses crux of the matter

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 06:30 GMT]
The Mumbai-based Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in a 23 June article on trans-boundary fishing incursions in the Palk Bay reduces the issue as arising from mere “unequal technological developments” between the sides of the bay. The article misses or doesn’t want to see the larger issue: the overlapping imperialist and genocidal agendas respectively of the establishments in New Delhi and Colombo carrying out a two-pronged attack on the nation of Eezham Tamils, ultimately to grab their coasts and seas. Colombo’s military and Sinhala fishermen occupying the coasts of Eezham Tamils and New Delhi setting Tamil fishermen on either side against each other are not two different issues. The fundamental flaw of the EPW article is that it sees the affected party as ‘Sri Lankan fishermen’ while in truth even the Sri Lankan state doesn’t see them in that spirit, commented an academic in Jaffna.
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Canada should have prosecuted officer of war-crimes complicit SL Navy: TAG

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2012, 13:41 GMT]
In what can turn out to be a move of political significance, one of Sri Lankan Navy’s top officer’s refugee claim has been rejected by federal officials in Canada, owing to a finding by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that the officer, Nadarajah Kuruparan, had been complicit in crimes against humanity and that there was systematic human rights abuses committed against the Tamils in the island by institutions he served in. However, referring to the salient points of this outcome, Rajeev Sreetharan from TAG told TamilNet “Deporting, as opposed to prosecuting Nadarajah Kuruparan for his direct participation in coordinated maritime armed attacks and logistical support to the Sri Lankan Armed Forces' genocidal siege of the Tamil civilian population cornered in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, is incompatible with letter and spirit of what the Geneva Conventions compel.”
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Demonstrating UK Tamils expose India’s defiance of international refugee conventions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2012, 00:31 GMT]
Demonstrating outside the Indian High Commission at India Place, London, Tamils in the UK demanded the immediate release of the detained inmates of the Chengalpet (Chengkal-paddu) ‘special camp’ and for the closure of that facility. Separate petitions submitted by TCC-UK to the UNHCR and the Indian High Commission called for a revision in the Indian approach to Eezham Tamil refugees in India. “Right now our priority is to shut down these special camps. Apart from that we can't expect much from India but we need the various agencies of the UN to communicate with each other to clarify that the isolated incidents witnessed by each when seen together is actually facilitating the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation,” Sivatharshan Sivakumaravel, an activist from TCC-UK told TamilNet.
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Militarisation stepped up along coast of Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2012, 17:28 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy, which didn't have a camp even during the height of the war at the coastal village of Paanama, situated in the southernmost Lahugala division of the Ampaa'rai district, is now at full swing constructing a large naval base at an area of 800 acres of lands, which it had appropriated from both the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The SL military is appropriating more lands in the division to be handed over to politically influential personalities, alleges Rasiah Chandrasena, the chairman of Lahugala Divisional Council (Piratheasa Chapai).
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Belgian left group expresses solidarity with Eezham Tamils’ struggle

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2012, 09:21 GMT]
Activists belonging to Links Socialistische Partij (LSP), a leftist political organization in Belgium and civil society activists expressed their solidarity with the struggle of the Eezham Tamils at a public meeting on Tamil culture and history held at Steenokkerzee, a municipality in the Flemish Brabant province, on Saturday. Speaking at the meeting, Geert Gool, Antwerpen member of the LSP said systematic injustices have been committed on the Eezham Tamils and urged the Government of Belgium to change its stance on Tamils struggle. The Mayor of Steenokkerzee, Karen Servranckx, was also present at the event.
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Data reveals scheme for Sinhala military colonies in country of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 July 2012, 22:33 GMT]
Details emerging from four divisional secretariats of Mullaiththeevu district in Vanni, since April this year, indicate a concerted and structural move by the occupying Sri Lanka military establishment in Vanni to legally appropriate more than 6,069 acres of public and private lands in the country of Eezham Tamils. The pattern of genocidal land grab also reveals that Mullaiththeevu district is being transformed into a military enclave of the occupying Sinhala forces. TamilNet brings out some of the data it has obtained from the civil officials who have braved the threats by the military run civil administration, in releasing the details.
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Activists demonstrating at Chengalpet detained by police

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 July 2012, 07:11 GMT]
Over 200 activists from different Tamil Nadu political parties and civil society outfits, who had gathered at Chengalpet to protest the detention and harsh treatment of Eezham Tamil refugees in the ‘special camp’ there were arrested by the police on Saturday. Pressuring the police to release the protestors, 4 of the camp inmates climbed on trees and threatened to jump. After a brief parley, the detained activists were released by evening. Meanwhile, the condition of those hunger strikers who have been hospitalized has been further deteriorating, sources told TamilNet.
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Tamils in Germany protest India’s ill-treatment of Eezham Tamils in Chengalpet

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2012, 23:54 GMT]
Conveying solidarity with the Eezham Tamil refugees illegally detained in the Chengalpet ‘special camp’, Tamils in Germany demonstrated in front of the Indian Embassy in Berlin today, demanding India to close “such inhuman detention facilities and treat the genocide affected Eelam Tamil refugees like others who have entered its territory for sanctuary from persecution” and urging the UN to compel India to adhere to the standards of the UNHCR. Speaking at the demonstration Vithya Jeyasangar, a democratically elected Eezham Tamil representative from Berlin now working with the VETD, said “After assisting the Sri Lankan government with the structural genocide of the Eelam Tamils, and bartering with the Mahinda regime for economic slices in the Tamil homeland, India is showing its naked contempt for world Tamils through its inhuman treatment of Tamil refugees.”
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Colombo's CIDs grill TNA MP behind recent protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2012, 17:28 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police investigators in the notorious 4th floor at the Colombo Police Headquarters on Thursday interrogated Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Sivagnanam Sritharan, who has been behind the recent protest at Thirumu'rika'ndi against Colombo's genocidal land grab undertaken through occupying SL military in Vanni. The SL CIDs interrogated Mr Sritharan for three hours confronting him with questions about an interview to a diaspora radio in Tamil, an alleged interview in English in Tamil Nadu, his interactions with the Tamil diaspora in Western countries and his diplomatic connections with the foreign missions, especially his recent interactions with the US Embassy in Colombo, TNA sources said.
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TNA MP warns legal action against genocidal land grab in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2012, 19:40 GMT]
From Point-Pedro in the North to Pa'nama in the East, the Sri Lankan government is suppressing Eezham Tamils from protesting against the State-sponsored land grab, which seeks to Sinhalicise the Tamil homeland, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Batticaloa P. Selvarajah said adding that a large area in Paduvaankarai region of Batticaloa district has been appropriated by the Colombo government for Sinhala colonisation. 25,000 acres of lands have been appropriated by Colombo in the Batticaloa district to be given to Sinhala ‘home guards’ a Sinhala-colonisation-paramilitary, he said warning legal action against providing lands to Sinhala ‘home guards’.
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Colombo deploys paramilitary operative to intimidate Tamils in PC elections in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2012, 07:28 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has deployed his district coordinator Kanthasamy Nishanthan alias Iniyabarathy, a paramilitary operative, to intimidate the Tamil people in the district in the run up to the next provincial council elections in the East. Iniyabarathy, an operative aligned with Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, has been found guilty by the courts of the SL State itself. The notorious paramilitary operative has been widely alleged as being behind various human rights violations in the district.
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