PPT to investigate British, US, Indian role in Sri Lanka's genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 November 2013, 12:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan state as well as Britain, India and the USA will be accused of orchestrating a genocide on the Tamil people by the International Human Rights Association Bremen (IMRV) and the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL). The charge will be heard by a Tribunal held under the aegis of the Rome based 'Permanent Peoples Tribunal' (PPT). The 'People's Tribunal' relies on a high profile panel of judges that has been selected by the PPT to invoke a robust moral opinion. The PPT in Rome has sent the letters to the 4 States concerned informing them of the investigation to be held in Germany in December 2013, informed sources told TamilNet.
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Protests across Tamil Nadu condemn Indian participation in 'Sri Lanka CHOGM'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 09:51 GMT]
Apart from a state-wide shutdown in Tamil Nadu called by the leading trader’s association, several political parties and grassroots movements on Tuesday staged protests across the state condemning the hosting of CHOGM in Sri Lanka and Indian participation in the same. Protests were reportedly intense in Chealam, Thiruppoor, Mathurai, Kadaloor and Naakarkoayil.
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CHOGM presence shows Australia is blind to Sri Lanka's rights abuses - SMH

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 01:59 GMT]
Scoffing at Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's comment that Canadian Premier Stephen Harper's decision to boycott CHOGM was regrettable, Australia's popular daily, Sydney Morning Herald said, "[w]hat is more regrettable is Australia's blindness to Sri Lanka's human rights concerns," adding, "Australia seems to be reluctant to admit human rights violations as a means of deflecting asylum claims of Sri Lankan Tamils coming to Australia by boat." Bishop after a visit to Sri Lanka earlier this year said there were no rights abuses in Sri Lanka, while UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, in contrast, was damagingly critical of Colombo's rights record and of Sri Lanka's movement towards an authoritarian state.
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Mauritius conference calls for referendum, transitional administration

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 17:19 GMT]
International Conference for Tamil Diaspora Solidarity (ICTDS) held in Mauritius, and was officially opened by the President of Mauritius, resolved on Sunday urging the international community, to conduct independent international investigation into genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan state; to set up a transitional administration in the Tamil homeland to stop on-going structural genocide and to conduct a referendum within the Tamil homeland and the diaspora for the Tamil nation to exercise its right to self-determination.
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Tamil Nadu assembly reiterates call for total Indian boycott of Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 16:06 GMT]
At a special session convened on Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu assembly unanimously passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister Ms Jayalalitha calling on India to completely boycott CHOGM in genocide-accused Sri Lanka. “By participating in the Commonwealth meeting, India will be sending a message that it stands by the dishonourable and inhumane actions of the Sri Lankan state,” the resolution read, also expressing regret over the Indian government’s decision to send a delegation to Sri Lanka disrespecting sentiments in Tamil Nadu.
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Uprooted Tamils in Jaffna brave harassment to protest militarisation land grab

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 16:04 GMT]
Amid prevailing intimidation, threats and blockade by the occupying Sri Lankan military and its intelligence operatives, the uprooted people of Valikaamam North in Jaffna on Tuesday launched a protest at Thellippazhai, demanding resettlement in their own lands. The organisers have vowed to continue the protest till 18 November to get their demands across the foreign media through visiting journalists to the peninsula. The protest is being held in front of Maaviddapuram Kanthaswamy temple in Thellippazhai, just 200 meters from the barbed wire fence of the former 'High Security Zone'. The fenced area is being transformed into a permanent 'Sinhala Military Zone'.
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Prime Minister of Mauritius to boycott Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 12:18 GMT]
Navin Ramgoolam, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, the country slated to host the next CHOGM at the conclusion of Sri Lanka's two year tenure, has reportedly decided to boycott the CHOGM meet in Colombo. Prime Minister Ramgoolam said that he made ​​the decision because "he is a man of principle,” and added that he had received information that the situation in the north of the island of Sri Lanka has not improved in the four years after the war ended, Le Défi Media Group, a news media based in Port Louis reported Tuesday.
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Colombo suspends flights to Jaffna ahead of CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 10:47 GMT]
In an apparent move to make foreign diplomats and journalists attending Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting [CHOGM] in Colombo steer away from Jaffna and block them from witnessing the protest of uprooted people of Valikaamam North as well as meeting their representatives, Colombo government has instructed the only private passenger flight operator, FITS Aviation (Pvt) limited, to suspend all flights from Ratmalana in Colombo to Palaali in Jaffna till 18 November. On Tuesday, the Canadian officials visiting North had to travel by road to Jaffna.
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3 NPC members stage walkout during SL Governor’s keynote address

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 01:16 GMT]
Three key members of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on Monday staged a walkout, when Sri Lanka’s colonial governor in the North, Maj Gen (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri was about to deliver his keynote address at the NPC. The SL governor was formally invited by the NPC Chief Minister to address the council. Former parliamentarian and NPC member Mr MK Sivajilingam, Ms Ananthi Sasitharan and Mr S. Sugirthan walked out stating that they were obliged protest when a war criminal was addressing the elected council. More than 2,000 people disappeared in the peninsula under the military command of Chandrasiri and as the Governor of North he has done nothing for the real rehabilitation or reconciliation, the NPC members who walked out told media.
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TYO-UK condemns Cameron for ‘engagement’ with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 22:45 GMT]
Condemning British Prime Minister David Cameron for his decision to participate in CHOGM in Sri Lanka, TYO-UK, in a press statement released on Monday accused Mr. Cameron of engaging with a genocide-accused state and for “pushing for a solution to be chosen by the Sri Lankan government, one which the Tamil nation is threatened by.” The release further conveyed its dismay over the willingness of Britain and other countries to give approval to the Sri Lankan ‘reconciliation’ model, which in practice amounts to genocide of the Tamil nation. Speaking to TamilNet Shanyuga Ganesan, TYO activist and law student at the University of Leicester expressed her regret at Mr. Cameron’s decision. “For a Tamil youth whose vote now counts in this country, I can't seem to digest the decision made by the Prime Minister to attend the CHOGM. We just feel like we are not being heard,” she said.
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SL military issues death threats to elected members amidst presence of foreign journalists

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 12:26 GMT]
Amidst the presence of foreign journalists who have come to Jaffna in connection with the CHOGM meet, alleged operatives of the occupying SL military have been issuing death threats to the organisers of the protest scheduled to take place on Tuesday. In the early hours of Monday, heads of dead cows were dumped in front of the houses of chairman and deputy chairman of the elected civic body of Valikaamam North. The act, which is not only considered as deeply insulting, but also as reminding the days of beheading, comes as both the elected Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members were engaged in organising a protest against the transformation of former ‘High Security Zone’ lands into ‘Sinhala Military Zone’ and the demolition of houses by the SL military in Valikaamam North.
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Colombo spends funds from military budget for wedging North from East

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 01:24 GMT]
Aiming to increase the number of Sinhala settlers in the newly created division of Ma’nalaa’ru in Mulliath-theevu, which has been Sinhalicised into ‘Weli-oya’, the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has made hurried arrangements for bringing in 2,000 new Sinhala families, informed sources in Mullaith-theevu told TamilNet. Colombo government has allocated funds for the Sinhalicisation scheme under the Sri Lankan ‘defence expenditure’, the sources further said adding that large tracts of forest reserves have also been cleared for the colonization scheme.
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Colombo in CHOGM panic interrogates, gags NZ, Aussie MPs

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 November 2013, 17:25 GMT]
Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon of the Greens party and New Zealand MP Jan Logie were detained, and interrogated separately in Colombo and were"sent back to their countries," for, according to Colombo, allegedly breaking the island's visa laws, a Sydney popular daily reported Sunday. Sri Lanka authorities appeared to have been perturbed by the damaging independent observations on rights issues made by the two MPs in their visit to the North, political observers said. In a joint statement that was to be released by the two MPs, before Immigration officials took the two MPs into custody, the MPs called for the cancellation of Commonwealth Meet in Colombo saying, "[i]f CHOGM goes ahead and if Sri Lanka is given the Chair of this organisation the Commonwealth will have failed the people of Sri Lanka and damaged its own high standing with the international community."
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Former associate of Jaffna Mayoress alleges widespread corruption in JMC

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 November 2013, 23:53 GMT]
S. Vijayakanth, an elected member of the EPDP in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) and a former close associate of Ms Yogeswari Patkunam, the mayoress of Jaffna, has blamed the JMC for not having democratic sittings according to the procedures. The general assembly has not been convened for the last three months, he said on Thursday. The lifetime of the current administration was extended by one year from August 2013 by SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Following disputes, the EPDP has sacked Mr Viajayakanth from the party blaming him on corruption charges. Now, the former EPDP member has vowed of revealing details of widespread corruption in the JMC administration.
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Colombo simulates ‘clustered camp’ for uprooted people of Valikaamam East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 November 2013, 23:27 GMT]
Colombo deployed its officials on Friday to showcase a ‘clustered camp’ project in Valikaamam East in Jaffna, promising ‘settlement’ to a few hundred uprooted Tamils in a deceptive move of moving a few hundred uprooted people from their camps outside the former ‘High Security Zone’ into the clustered camp environment in former grazing lands at Idaik-kaadu and Antony-puram near Palaali in Valikaamam East. Around 150 uprooted people from different camps were taken with journalists from South to showcase the ‘settlement’, a smokescreen move by SL military just ahead of Sri Lanka CHOGM to be held this month. More than 51,000 uprooted people from Valikaamam, which was occupied and declared as HSZ by the SL military, are continuously languishing in more than 10 so-called welfare camps and elsewhere in Jaffna peninsula since 1990.
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JPC urges immediate assistance to victims subjected to coercive population control

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2013, 16:56 GMT]
Widespread complaints have been registered from the Tamil women in three villages of Ki'linochchi district that they are suffering from side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress, two months after they have been subjected to coercive population control by the occupying Colombo using Progestogen-only subdermal implants inserted into their body, said the Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah in a fresh report issued on Friday. Terming the population control experimented on Tamil women in Vanni as “Mu'l'livaaykkaal-2”, the JPC has urged the provincial health ministry under the newly elected Northern Provincial Council to do the needful to remove the implants and assist the victims to return to normal lives.
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UK-PM buttressing SL-CHOGM seeks ‘legitimacy’ from London Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2013, 00:43 GMT]
British Establishment’s Prime Minister David Cameron hurriedly convened a meeting of handpicked Tamil articulators in London on Thursday evening to showcase that the diaspora has compromised with his participation at the Sri Lanka-CHOGM. The British effort seeking ‘Wigneswarans’ in London to ‘legitimise’ the CHOGM participation was also aiming at relieving the New Delhi Establishment from the mounting pressure in Tamil Nadu, Tamil political observers in London said. A couple of hours before the meeting, a diaspora media in London published the ‘opinion’ of the PM on his CHOGM participation. The meeting ended with a ‘photo session.’
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200 years of British colonial outlook continues to haunt Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 November 2013, 16:08 GMT]
After British colonialism waging the war on Kandy in 1815, administratively uniting the island and creating unitary Ceylon for colonial geopolitical purposes, the next major war of international dimensions was fought against the nation of Eezham Tamils in 2009, in which the genocide was predetermined. While Washington and New Delhi follow the British colonial outlook of keeping the island as one unit, whatever the human cost could be, today’s Britain itself is one of the driving forces behind the ‘strategic partnership.’ Those who doubt the West’s equal culpability with New Delhi should recollect the ‘strategic partnership’ call made in Chennai by US State Department during the war and what the UK is doing today on CHOGM, writes a political observer in Jaffna.
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Ma'rava-ku'richchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 November 2013, 07:28 GMT]
The part of the village or settlement of the Ma'ravar community
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Detention of Kolathur Mani under India's NSA act condemned

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 November 2013, 22:43 GMT]
The recent arrest and continued detention of Kolathur S. Mani, a veteran Tamil activist in Tamil Nadu and the founder-president of Dravidar Viduthalaik Kazhakam (DVK), has evoked strong reactions from Tamil national activists across the State. The Tamil Nadu Police took Mr Mani into custody following allegations that some DVK party members were behind violent incidents against Central Government installations in Tamil Nadu as a form reaction against Indian External Affairs Minister's announcement that he would participate in the controversial CHOGM meet to be held in Colombo. The General Secretary of DVK, Viduthalai Rajendran, categorically denied Kolathur Mani's involvement. Stating that Mr Mani had publicly distanced from violent acts as a form of protest, Mr Rajendran urged the authorities to relase the leader of the DVK movement.
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