Fear psychosis grips Vanni as SL military clamps down on Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2014, 08:08 GMT]
The occupying SL military system, emboldened by the extension of one more year to continue its iron fist manoeuvrings to continue to engineer demographic, cultural and structural genocide on the nation of Eelam Tamils, has used 2014 March sessions in Geneva to project an enemy in its imagination, bringing again untold miseries for the thousands of families that have been affected by the genocidal onslaught in 2009. On Wednesday and Thursday, the districts of Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu witnessed military round up operations as never before in recent years after the war. Several villagers were brought to open grounds, filtered one-by-one, arrests made and threats issued by Sinhala soldiers who are made to believe by Colombo that former LTTE members were regrouping to wage another armed struggle. A fear psychosis has gripped the people of Vanni.
Full story >>

Moongkilaa'ru victims slain by heavy weapons: forensic report

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2014, 07:26 GMT]
A forensic team that inspected the skeletons of the victims from a bunker at Moongkilaa'ru have submitted their report to Mullaiththeevu District Court stating that they have found 11 pieces of shrapnel used in artillery and mortar shells. The 9 victims were slain in Sri Lanka Army fired shells during the mass exodus by the civilians from the so-called ‘No Fire Zone’ which was targeted by the SL military fire during the genocidal onslaught. Hundreds of civilians perished in the shelling along the road and the families and relatives were not able to conduct proper burial. Volunteers who helped to bury the victims say most of the victims buried at the said bunker belonged to a single family from Thiruvaiyaa’ru in Ki’inochchi district.
Full story >>

UN uses Tamils to 'learn lessons' but denies justice to their genocide: Ananthi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 12:42 GMT]
The Right to Protect (R2P) concept, accepted by the World Summit in 2005, has totally failed to save Eelam Tamils from the genocidal war in 2009, said NPC councillor, Ms Ananthi Sasitharan at the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday in Geneva. She addressed the council twice, one of them being in Tamil language. Although the United Nation, which has admitted its systemic failure on the conflict, chose to learn lessons from the failures in the island and came up with the Rights Up Front initiative, it has failed to deliver justice to the victims on whose fate these lessons were learned, Ms Ananthi told the Council. “As the victims of a continued genocide, we are disappointed with the resolutions being tabled at this respected assembly, year after year, failing to address the root-problem, which is genocide,” she told the Council.
Full story >>

Time for International Investigations, says Camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 March 2014, 01:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka "looks to be drifting toward authoritarianism. Journalists are terrified and intimidated by arrests and mysterious assaults on those critical of the government....The once-independent judiciary has learned not to challenge the government's edicts. The war-heavy defense establishment carries out many internal security functions, and "white vans" have become synonymous with the disappearance of dissidents who speak out against the government," writes Donald Camp, a retired foreign service officer at the US Department of State, adding, "after five years of stalling by the government [Colombo], it is time for an international investigation to do what Colombo has been unwilling to do."
Full story >>

Ananthi addresses UNHRC in Geneva on continued genocide against Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 March 2014, 14:13 GMT]
Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the popular TNA councillor of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on Friday addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council's 25th session taking place in Geneva. She requested the UN system to take “bold steps in understanding the 60-year-long genocide and investigate it through an independent international investigation.” Addressing the UNHRCs General Debate, the 47-year-old mother of three told the Council that the children affected in any war spend a lifetime to recover from the impact. “But, the Eelam Tamil children face a continued war with genocidal intent,” she said urging “concrete actions to safeguard our children from becoming permanent victims to the genocide.”
Full story >>

Emboldened Colombo ‘mobilizes’ Ampaa’rai Tamils in favour of Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 March 2014, 16:18 GMT]
While Tamil Naitonal Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians are asked by the Washington and London to lobby Australia and India to gain support to the watered-down resolution to be tabled in Geneva later this month, the occupying Colombo has managed to mobilize 750 Tamils, through various manipulations, to march in a rally carrying placards in support of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, news sources in Ampaa’rai said. Sri Lankan military operatives, extremist Sinhala Buddhist Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) activists, Samurdhi and Devineguma ‘development’ workers were deployed to bring Tamil people from various villages of Ampaa’rai district to the pro-Rajapaksa rally staged in Kalmunai. In an orchestrated move, media personnel were brought from Colombo to witness the manipulated rally at Kalmunai.
Full story >>

NPC minister condemns Colombo for twisting facts on Moongkilaa'ru victims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 March 2014, 09:58 GMT]
On 28 February, a bunker with dead bodies was located at Moongkilaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu district. Those who perished were people slain in the genocidal onslaught in 2009. But, the Sri Lankan government is only interested in twisting facts and the relatives of the victims are denied of establishing the identity of their kith and kin, said T. Krukularajah, the education minister of the Northern Provincial Council at a meeting organised in Ki'linochchi on the International Women's Day on Saturday. In the meantime, a social worker from Vanni told TamilNet on Sunday that the 9 people exhumed at Moongkilaa'ru were victims of Sri Lankan military attack on civilians and that he was among those who burried them to give the family a decent burial.
Full story >>

Colombo twists facts, stops excavation of Mannaar mass grave

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 March 2014, 23:32 GMT]
A person of social leadership living at Maanthai in Mannaar for more than 50 years categorically told TamilNet on Saturday that there was never a burial site at the locality near the historic Thirukkeatheesvaram temple as being claimed by the Sri Lankan Archaeological Department. The Colombo government abruptly ended the exhumation of human skeletons from a mass grave where more than 80 human skeletons have been recovered since December 20, 2013. The latest move by Colombo to dismiss the claim of mass grave comes as the issue gained the attention of UN Hight Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navi Pillay in her recommendations urged the SL government to undertake an independent and credible criminal and forensic investigations with international assistance into all alleged violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including recently discovered mass graves.
Full story >>

USA ignores requests of Mannaar Bishop on UNHRC Resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 March 2014, 14:57 GMT]
Bishop of Mannaar Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph had sent a model resolution to the foreign diplomatic missions, including the Embassy of USA in Colombo, well in advance of the draft resolution by the USA was leaked in Geneva this Monday. The proposal presented by Mannaar Bishop was demanding international investigations on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prepared by the Tamil Civil Society Forum, the proposal also called upon the “UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council to activate procedures that will lead to a UN sponsored international mechanism to assess the democratic aspirations of the Tamil People, both in the homeland and in the diaspora for a permanent political solution.”
Full story >>

US Senators call for War Crimes investigations in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 February 2014, 23:33 GMT]
Noting that, "Human rights violations continue, and the Sri Lankan government has failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of attacks against journalists, religious and ethnic minorities, and opposition politicians. As the March session of the UNHRC approaches, I believe another UNHRC resolution is warranted,” a senior Democratic Senator Casey, and Republican Senator Richard Burr, in a resolution called "on the United States and the international community to establish an independent international accountability mechanism to evaluate reports of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations committed by both sides during and after the war in Sri Lanka."
Full story >>

Families of missing persons subjected to threats, intimidation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 February 2014, 20:24 GMT]
The intelligence wing of the occupying Sri Lankan military and the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department (TID) operatives in the North intimidate and threaten the families of the missing persons as many of the victims were not prepared to give up their complaints. The latest harassment comes in the wake of the so-called ‘independent’ Presidential Commission on Investigating Missing Persons had its first sitting in Ki’linochchi district last month. The current drive of genocidal Colombo, intimidating the kin of the missing to receive Rs 100,000 and withdraw the complaint or to face the fate of those who were ‘missing,’ raises question on what was actually meant by the US Asst Secretary of State reiterating ‘reconciliation’ last week.
Full story >>

Peasaalai villagers mobilize against genocidal land grab in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 January 2014, 07:52 GMT]
The Tamil Catholic people of the coastal village of Peasaalai in the north-west of the Mannaar island on Thursday took to the streets in protest against the genocidal land grab by the occupying Sinhala military. The protest took place when the SL Navy brought land surveyors to measure a land belonging to the 600-year-old church in their village. The occupying Navy, which is already stationed in the one-acre coconut palm grove, is now trying to permanently seize the land from the church. The people of the village mobilized against the move and blocked the surveyors from measuring the land despite the harassment by the occupying navy video-filming the people amidst the deployment of a large number of SL navy sailors at the site.
Full story >>

NPC councillors demand SL military to hand over seized cattle back to civilians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 January 2014, 18:31 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Vanni is operating a dairy farm near Muththaiyan-kaddu tank in Mullaiththeevu and is competing with the resettling Tamil farmers by cutting the prices down through its military-corporatist approach, according to Tamil councillors P. Iyngaranesan and K. Sarveswaran of the Northern Provincial Council. The occupying SL military had seized around 2,000 cattle belonging to Tamil farmers in Vanni during the genocidal onslaught and has seized 65 acres of the lands and buildings belonging to the Irrigation Department to run its dairy farm.
Full story >>

More skeletons exhumed from Mannaar mass grave

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 January 2014, 08:54 GMT]
55 human skeletons have been recovered so far from Thirukkeatheesvaram mass grave in Maanthai division of Mannaar district. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Colombo had deployed more than 20 ‘criminal investigators’ to proceed with their version of the ‘investigations’ for the 4th day. The victims are believed to be innocent civilians who were caught and slain by the SL military during the times of Rana Gosha military operation between 1999 and 2001, civil sources in Mannaar say.
Full story >>

Veteran lawyer urges China to ensure UN investigation on Tamil plight

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2014, 23:49 GMT]
A veteran legal and social activist in Malaysia, Mr A. Kanesalingam urged the government of China on Thursday to ensure international conventions that could facilitate an independent international investigation conducted by the UN on the genocide in Sri Lanka. “I ask that China as a world leader and permanent member of he UN Security Council propose that an investigation be conducted by the UN under Chapter 7 of the Charter of the United Nations,” said, Mr A. Kanesalingam, in a letter sent to the Foreign Minister of China, Mr. Wang Yi. The Malaysian Tamils beseeching China on the issue is significant, commented diaspora Tamil political observers.
Full story >>

SL military steps up monitoring patrols in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2014, 23:37 GMT]
The latest innovation by the US-trained SL military commander of Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera, is the introduction of 7-member teams patrolling every interior village in the peninsula. The Sri Lankan State, while waging a propaganda campaign to the outside world that it has reduced military deployment in the North, has seized thousands of acres of public and private lands for the establishment of Sinhala Military Zones in the Jaffna peninsula. Permanent camps, built larger than ever before, have been ceremonially opened recently by the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at several places under the propaganda of relocating the camps away from civilian properties, while the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa who visited Jaffna came with an open lie on the figure of the occupying SL troops present in the North.
Full story >>

Mannaar Killing Field number rises to 43, site extent still not known

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 January 2014, 18:56 GMT]
43 human skeletons have been recovered till Wednesday at Thirukkeatheesvaram mass grave in Mannaar, news sources in Mannaar said. The boundaries of the mass grave are yet to be established, according to the Judicial Medical Officer from Anuradhapura D. M. Waidyaratne. The JMO has also gone on record stating that it would take long time to establish how the killings had occurred.
Full story >>

SL military robs IDP registry from Thellippazhai DS Secretariat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2014, 16:56 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Monday evening entered the Divisional Secretariat of Valikaamam North, situated at Thellippazhai, and robbed the registries containing the details of uprooted civilians from the civil officials at gunpoint. The SL military officers then instructed the DS and his officials not to talk about the incident. Informed sources told TamilNet that the robbery was carried out on the instruction by the new Jaffna commander of the occupying Sinhala military, Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, who is trying to manipulate the statistics of uprooted people of Valikaamam North, the area where former ‘High Security Zone’ is being transformed into a Sinhala Military Zone by the SL military permanently seizing the fertile lands and properties of the Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa lies in negating Wigneswaran’s military reduction plea

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 January 2014, 16:49 GMT]
Sri Lankan president and Commander-in-Chief of the occupying Sinhala military Mahinda Rajpaksa put the figure of the SL soldiers in the North as 12,000 in responding to a plea by Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CW Wigneswaran, at the same stage in Thellippazhai, where a cancer hospital was declared opened on Sunday. Credible sources put the figure of the occupying military at minimum 136,000. At least 36,000 soldiers are stationed in Jaffna peninsula and the remaining 100,000 are in the Vanni mainland. The SL president thinks that the international Establishments would be buying his figures as they did during the genocidal onslaught on Vanni in 2009, political observers in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

Skull with open mouth adds to Mannaar killing field evidences

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 January 2014, 21:46 GMT]
One of the skulls, recovered at Thirukkeatheesvaram mass grave in Mannaar had its mouth wide open bearing marks of torture injuries in the mouth. Four more human skeletons were located on Thursday, when exhumation resumed at the site. The SL police at the site blocked Tamil physician from Mannaar G Gunaseelan, who is an elected member of the Northern Provincial Council, from witnessing the exhumation. The Sinhala policemen sent him away from the site, news sources in Mannaar said.
Full story >>