Colombo plans District ‘Development’ Ministers to undermine NPC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 23:33 GMT]
In a move to sideline the Northern Provincial Council, the occupying Colombo is to appoint new ‘district-level development ministers’ under its central command by SL presidential sibling and ‘Economic Development’ Minister Basil Rajapaksa, informed circles in Colombo said. Colombo plans to offer the portfolio to a Tamil parliamentarian of UNP who has recently joined the UPFA, although the SL minister Douglas Devananda was promised the ministry earlier, the sources further said. A paramilitary operative, Uthayarasa, of the so-called Sri-TELO is seeking the portfolio in Vavuniyaa where the paramilitary served Colombo earlier. A Sinhala person would be appointed to Mullaiththeevu and a Muslim minister in UPFA is vying for the portfolio in Mannaar, the sources said.
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UK deployed 2 top police officials to assist SL Police in 2009: Corporate Watch

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 22:08 GMT]
A Director of Operations at Ineqe Group Ltd., a Belfast-based Security Agency and a Non Executive Director of the same security outfit, which has project links to British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British International Development Ministry, were seconded from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and deployed to Sri Lanka by the FCO to act as “critical friends” to the Sri Lankan Police and to provide “hands-on assistance” during the final phase of the war, Corporate Watch has discovered through a Freedom of Information request to the PSNI, news reports in UK said on Tuesday.
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NPC culture deviating from secularism of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 21:02 GMT]
The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution (VR) of 1976, mandated by Tamil speaking people of the North and East in the 1977 general elections, calling for the creation of a secular State of Tamil Eelam is well known. Whether the overwhelming mandate by the people of the North to the TNA in 2013, hijacked by the Sampanthan-Sumanthiran-Wigneswaran trio to interpret it as something that has superseded the VR, is also hijacked to supersede the secular outlook in the polity of the nation of Eezham Tamils, asked Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna. They were cautioning on certain politico-cultural expressions surfacing with the Wigneswaran administration and said that Tamils have to rise above the culture of the genocidal State in Colombo than imitating it.
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Prime responsibility to course correct TNA rests with people: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 15:52 GMT]
The people who overwhelmingly voted for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had cast their votes with a different perception and anticipation than what the TNA has officially articulated in writing in its election manifesto, said Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in Jaffna on Monday. “The people have a major responsibility now and they can't simply take the risk of allowing the TNA leadership to take a completely different path contrary to their intention and wait for the next elections,” he said adding that the people should involve them directly at political level course correcting, if the Tamil polity to be in sync with their political aspirations.
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Sinhala colonization to wedge North and East stepped up after NPC elections

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2013, 20:53 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military is being hurriedly deployed in clearing 2,000 acres of agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Karaithu'raippattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, after the conclusion of the Northern Provincial Council elections. Even though the uprooted people were allowed to resettle in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in 2011, their paddy fields had not been returned to them and they continue to suffer for their survival without livelihood assistance. Now, the Tamil villagers are shocked to learn that their paddy fields are being taken away to carve out a Sinhala colony in the middle of their village where they have been struggling to start their livelihood after 30 years of displacement.
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9 NPC members of EPRLF, TELO, PLOTE to take oath in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:57 GMT]
“We are not going to let a [Colombo-centric] group in the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) to take a different political course than what had been promised to the people during the elections, especially with regards to our demand of international investigations and the delivery of a political solution in a unified North-East as a single unit ensuring Tamils sovereignty,” said former TNA parliamentarian from TELO, MK Sivajilingam on Saturday. EPRLF's Suresh Premachandran, a TNA MP and PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Sitharthan, a former MP were also addressing the journalists in Jaffna. Meanwhile, Suresh Premachandran said that the NPC members who didn’t take oath on Friday will take their oath on Monday in Mullaiththeevu. “We have been part of the TNA for a long time and we will not be weakening the unity because of the newcomers,” he further said.
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People's mandate projected differently by TNA MPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:15 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian S. Sritharan from Ki'linochchi delivered an emotional speech in Jaffna on Friday during the oath-taking ceremony of the members of the NPC. The address, also containing satire messages directed at the Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, reminded the CM and his fellow NPC members on the aspiration of Eezham Tamils and what the real mandate the TNA had promised to its people at the grassroots level during the election campaign, while TNA parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan and national list parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran were interpreting the mandate according to their manuscript produced without involving the majority of the TNA politicians or the candidates.
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Kidding a genocide affected nation

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 20:58 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, who claims that he has been installed in the position by the grace of India, and the TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan, were ‘crowned’ at the end of the oath-taking ceremony for the NPC members, held in Jaffna on Friday. Wigneswaran, in addition, was handed over with a spear of God Murukan. In the beginning of the ceremony, the NPC members declined to wear even traditional garlands. Tamil public in Jaffna viewed the new ‘culture’ surfacing with Wigneswaran polity as obnoxious when the solution-path he is showing is hollow, non-descript and simulated by the very forces that were in complicity with the genocide, media circles in Jaffna said.
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New Delhi poses new challenge to Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 18:57 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister Mr C.V. Wigneswaran has to be profusely thanked and appreciated by Tamils for his honesty in conceding that he is not a natural leader of Eezham Tamils representing their aspirations, but a planted one by New Delhi to implement the 13th Amendment. Wigneswaran’s revelation and his efforts to muffle voices in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora have to be understood in the background of what M.K. Narayanan had told the TNA in May 2009 that, “we know better what is good for Tamils.” New Delhi simulating a leadership for the political surrender of the Tamil cause poses new challenge to Tamils all over the world, writes an activist for alternative politics in Jaffna.
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NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fallen Tamil Heroes

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 06:57 GMT]
Twenty members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) elected to the Northern Provincial Council took oaths in Jaffna after visiting the memorial site of SJV Chelvanayakam and after observing honour to fallen Tamil Heroes (Maaveerar) and the people perished in the war, at Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Friday 9:00 a.m. EPRLF-leader Suresh Premachandran and five of the six EPRLF's elected members, TELO's M.K.Sivajilingam and an elected TELO member, PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Siththarthan and one elected PLOTE member were absent at the event. Ms Ananthi Sasitharan was present marking her independency between the ITAK and the portfolio-seekers. The ceremonial event took place without any celebrations and the members declined to wear traditional garlands at the function.
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ITAK announces NPC ministers, EPRLF challenges

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 October 2013, 12:43 GMT]
A press note coming from the ITAK, the main party in the TNA, on Thursday, has announced the list of chairperson and deputy chairperson of the council and the provincial ministers to function under Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran. But EPRLF, the party next in line in terms of number of seats in the council, challenged the list, saying that it was highhandedly decided by a few in the ITAK. In a hastily convened press conference in Jaffna on Thursday, Mr. Suresh Premachandran of the EPRLF, denouncing the list, blamed Mr R. Sampanthan for creating internal dissension within TNA. He also condemned the act of C.V. Wigneswaran taking his oath before Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Ira'nai-madu,
ira'na-vila,
Iratta-ku'lama

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 21:25 GMT]
The double tank
The double pond
The twin tank
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Canada says Indian diplomat acting as Sri Lanka's stooge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 01:39 GMT]
Following Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's public announcement of his boycotting Commonwealth meeting in Sri Lanka after accusing Colombo of "intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings," Hugh Segal, Canada's special envoy to the Commonwealth, launched a direct assault on the authority of Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma accusing him of "acting as a shill [a stooge] for the Sri Lankan leadership, defending their every mistake," the British broadsheet the Guardian reported Tuesday.
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Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united, sovereign, devolved and connected’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:12 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who visited Jaffna on Tuesday, ceremonially opened two houses of the controversial ‘50,000 House Project’, by visiting Thanthai Chelvapuram village at Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, after landing in Palaali, meeting SL military officials and paying tribute to slain Indian soldiers in the war 23 years ago. Mr Khurshid then proceeded to lunch with the war-crimes accused Sri Lankan colonial governor in North and thereafter met the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council. Salman Khurshid, addressing the beneficiaries of financial asssistance and the journalists at Tilko hotel was talking of devolved Sri Lanka under the 13 Amendment, for a happy, prosperous and tri-lingual Sri Lanka which is sovereign and united and connected with India.
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TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-trio effigy burnt in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 11:44 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) supporters in Mullaiththeevu on Tuesday have burnt the effigy of NPC Chief Minister Mr CV Wigneswaran who took his oath before genocidal Colombo’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday. New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Mr. Salman Kurshid had already arrived in Colombo when Wigneswaran was taking oath to function under the 13th Amendment. Immediately after the ceremony, the visiting New Delhi minister received leading TNA personalities in Colombo itself on Monday evening and congratulated them. The effigies of TNA leaders Mr R. Sampanthan and Mr M.A Sumanthiran were also burnt along with that of Wigneswaran on Tuesday. Except four, all the elected TNA representatives in the NPC as well as in the SL parliament, had boycotted the oath-taking ceremony.
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Tamil Nadu Police detains fast-unto-death activist Thiyagu

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 13:12 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil Nadu Police personnel were deployed at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai Monday around 2:00 p.m. where Thoazhar Thiyagu was conducting fast-unto-death campaign with 9 demands addressed to the Central Government of India. After carrying out a medical check-up, the Police has relocated the fast-unto-death activist from the venue of Va'l'lvuvar-koaddam and admitted him at Royapettah General Hospital around 2:30 p.m. However, Mr Thiyagu has vowed to continue his fast-unto-death under police detention and urged the Tamil activists and students to step up the struggle against India's participation in the CHOGM meet scheduled to take place in Colombo. Following the relocation of the activist, Nandanam Arts College students launched a sit-in protest with the 9-points demand put forward by Thoazhar Thiyagu, the latest reports from Chennai said.
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Fast-unto-death activist demands New Delhi to respect TN Assembly, boycott CHOGM

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 05:03 GMT]
Putting forward 9 concrete demands, Thoazhar (Comrade) Thiyagu, a veteran Tamil activist from Tamil Nadu, has been on a fast-unto-death campaign since October 01st at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai in Tamil Nadu. As his campaign entered 6th day on Monday, Thoazhar Thiyagu is determined to take forward the struggle, despite doctors warn him about deteriorating health. The genocidal Sri Lankan State should be suspended from the Commonwealth, the venue for the upcoming CHOGM meet should be shifted away from Sri Lanka and the Indian leaders should not take part if Colombo is to host the meet, are among the top demands of the 9-point list. Prominent activists and leaders of movements and parties have been expressing solidarity with Thoazhar Thiyagu and are accompanying him in observing the fasting campaign.
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Dalu-wathu-mulla
Dalu-potha-gama

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 03:49 GMT]
The betel-garden corner.
The village of the sprouting range (recent paddy fields).
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Diaspora teenager records the Vanni she witnessed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 23:37 GMT]
“Was I a Stranger in My Homeland? Has One Two Lives?” is the title of a book by a young Norwegian Eezham Tamil girl, Malavi Sivakanesan. The book tells the story of how she, as an 8-year-old girl visiting Vanni, enjoyed playing in the sands of her homeland to how she, 6 years later at the age of 14, powerlessly witnessed from Norway the unfolding genocidal onslaught on the coastal strip of the same Vanni in 2009. With a lot of questions on why the global Establishments didn’t do anything to stop the genocidal onslaught despite hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including the children of her age, took to the streets staging demonstrations in an unprecedented way in the West, to why the Tamil youth are still struggling with questions on what is going on and what they should do, she publishes the book at the age of 17.
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Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet CM designate in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 14:30 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister, Mr Salman Kurshid will be on an official visit to Jaffna on Tuesday. He will have a lunch meeting with the SL Governor in Jaffna and a ‘bilateral’ meeting with the Chief Minister of North, said a press note by Suresh K Menon of the Consulate General of India in Jaffna. New Delhi’s High Commissioner in Colombo, Mr Yashwardhan Sinha and senior officials of the MEA will accompany the minister. The programme is scheduled to end with the New Delhi minister meeting Indian journalists in a hotel room in Jaffna.
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