Sinhalese being settled in Tamil village in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 April 2011, 11:02 GMT]
Lands in abandoned traditional Tamil village Thennaimaravaadi in Trincomalee district are being allocated three acres each to members of ‘home guards’, now known as Civil defence Force (CVF), dominated by Sinhalese. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Trincomalee is organizing the transfer of land on the instruction of the SLA headquarters in Colombo without the approval of local civil authority, Tamil sources allege.
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Petitions, complaints, warnings from Sri Lanka ahead of UN war crimes report

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 April 2011, 22:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s government has launched a petition campaign against the UN making public an expert panel’s report on war crimes committed during the final months of the island’s war. The campaign, launched Thursday by Sri Lanka’s Minister of Private Transport Services, C. B. Ratnayaka, aims to collect one million signatures. It comes two days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa called for annual May Day rallies to be directed against the UN report. Also on Thursday, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister G.L. Peiris claimed releasing the report will damage the UN, while Mass Media minister Keheliya Rambukwella claimed the experts had written the report in just two weeks. The UN said earlier it will be releasing the much anticipated report on Friday.
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Indian public opinion should take care of Russia meddling with Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 April 2011, 21:51 GMT]
Mahinda Rajapaksa is harping on Russia and China to escape international action on war crimes and to continue the well-planned genocide of Eezham Tamils unabated. Regrettably, Russia sees the current accelerated process of structural genocide and dismemberment of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island as ‘reconciliation’ that should not be disturbed by war crimes investigation. On Monday Russia raised a number of ‘procedural’ objections on UN discussing the panel report. According to Inner City Press Thursday, Colombo’s UN representative Palitha Kohona insisted that there was “no mechanism” to bring the matter to the Security Council and that “We have Friends”. Whether Russia is acting on own or at the behest of somebody else, public opinion in India should take care of Russia, writes a Tamil political activist in Colombo.
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Thalpitiya, Thaaligala, Thaazhaiyadi, Kaththaazhampiddi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 22:51 GMT]
The plain or high ground of palmyra palms
The rocky place of talipot palms
The locality of screw-pines
The high ground of aloe

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BTF requests UN to release Panel report public, urges focus on Tamil Genocide in May

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 14:02 GMT]
The British Tamils Forum (BTF) has called upon global Tamils to come together in breaking the international silence on Tamil genocide while marking the remembrance this year of those who perished in Mu'l'livaaykkaal in May 2009. “Focusing the genocidal onslaught by the Sri Lankan state on Eezham Tamils in Mu'l'livaaykkaal and reiterating the now widely acknowledged demand for international investigations on war crimes and crimes against humanity, we should all target our efforts in convincing the global community on the core theme of the crime of genocide, which is establishing the ‘intent’ on the part of the Sri Lankan state behind a systematic destruction of the Eezham Tamil nation in the island,” Kana Nirmalan, a Human Rights activist of the BTF said when contacted by TamilNet Wednesday, following a media statement the organisation issued urging the UN to make the Panel report public.
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Colombo High Court postpones “White Flag” hearing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 12:44 GMT]
The Colombo High Court Wednesday allowed an application by the accused Sarath Fonseka, retired Commander of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), to reconsider his decision to give evidence on behalf of the defense in the controversial “white flag” case due to the current tense situation in the island following the release of a portion of the UN Experts Panel report to the UN Secretary General, legal sources in Colombo said.
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‘Saving a state that refuses to be saved’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 02:40 GMT]
A perusal of the leaked UN report would show that the outlook is to ultimately save the Sri Lankan state by providing it with an escape avenue through a minimum penalty of accepting a ‘concurrent’ international mechanism to investigate the war crimes. But the reactions coming from Colombo only show that such an undue consideration on the part of the UN and the IC towards Sri Lanka is futile as state has never been orientated in the island for peaceful unity or for being genocide-free. Perhaps a chance has now been given especially to the Sinhala masses to demonstrate their choice between supporting a criminal regime that tries to save its skin by citing love to a genocidal `mother country´ and recognizing the love of both the Sinhalese and Eezham Tamils towards their mother countries in order to pave way for true reconciliation, writes A. Vijayshankar of Tamil Nadu who is now in Norway.
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Tamil Nadu youth immolates himself for Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 00:52 GMT]
Following the UN report calling for an international commission on the war crimes in the island of Sri Lanka, 25 years-old engineer Mr R. Krishnamoorthy, hailing from Thirunelvely District of Tamil Nadu, immolated himself and died on Monday, demanding that the next state government in Tamil Nadu should see Eezham Tamils get their separate country. Tamil Nadu state government should not sworn in until achieving this status for Eezham Tamils, Mr. Krishnamoorthy wrote in a note before his self-immolation at Sangaran Koyil in the southern district. Paying tributes to him, but at the same time requesting that others should not follow such models of action, MDMK leader Vaiko said Tamil Nadu should fight for the achievement of Tamil Eelam.
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Trade unions allege politically motivated teacher transfer scheme in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 April 2011, 08:57 GMT]
Teachers from the eastern province are being transferred contrary to the islandwide transfer policy but according to a political agenda of the Colombo government, the All Ceylon Teachers Union (ACTU) and All Ceylon Government Workers Union (ACGWU) have alleged. ACTU President Joseph Stalin said transfer of teachers in the eastern and western provinces are carried out according to the Mahinda Chinthanaya policy.
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100,000 civilians go missing in war’s final months – Channel 4

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 April 2011, 16:32 GMT]
Over 100,000 Tamil civilians remain unaccounted for after Sri Lanka’s onslaught in 2009 into the northern Vanni region, Channel 4 reported Saturday. Government census forms obtained by Channel 4 show 430,000 residents in Vanni in mid 2008. However internal UN documents also obtained by Channel 4 show only 290,000 people coming out of the final enclave overrun by the government’s troops and being put into its militarized internment camps. Only 60% of the original residents have returned, a Channel 4 source who recently visited Vanni also said.
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Panel’s report ‘cannot erase the stain on the UN’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 April 2011, 15:10 GMT]
The damning UN report on Sri Lanka’s mass killings of Tamil civilians in 2009 submitted last week to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon by a panel he appointed last year, “cannot erase the stain on the UN over its silence” during the bloodletting, The Times newspaper’s writer who first comprehensively reported on the violence said in a comment Friday. Catherine Philp recalling UN officials saying how the Ban’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, had ordered UN staff in Colombo to cover up the mass casualties being inflicted on Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan forces in 2009, so as not to “rock the boat” by criticising the Sri Lankan Government during its onslaught.
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"Prepared to go to gallows to save Motherland" - Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2011, 20:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during a meeting held at Temple Trees today with electoral officers, declared that he is willing to go even to gallows to safeguard his motherland. "Certain groups with vested interest are still hell bent on bringing disrepute to Sri Lanka, almost two years after the war was ended," Rajapakse said according to political sources in Colombo. Rajapakse made these statements in reference to the UN-panels report on Sri Lanka war crimes which was submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Sri Lanka-based paper Island leaked the executive summary of the report in an attempt to soften the damages before the UN releases the full report, a political observer in Colombo said.
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UN panel admits international failure in Vanni war, calls for investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2011, 08:22 GMT]
"During the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians," said the United Nations Panel on Sri Lanka in its final report to Secretary General Ban-ki Moon. The report has also admitted that the UN system knowingly failed to release the casualty figures of the civilians. Although the report didn't touch the hot topic of serious allegations against the role the UN officials and certain responsible personalities associated with world powers, it said: The Secretary-General should conduct a comprehensive review of actions by the United Nations system during the war in Sri Lanka and the aftermath, regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates.
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Canada orders deportation of Mrs. Parajasingham

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2011, 03:41 GMT]
Canada has ordered the deportation of the widow of Joseph Pararajasingham, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian shot dead during at Christmas Mass in 2005 at packed church in the then Sri Lankan government-controlled Batticaloa town, the Toronto Star reported. Canada says 74 year old grandmother, Mrs. Sugunm Joseph, is a member “by association” of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), because her husband was a member of the TNA, the largest Tamil political party of Eezham Tamils in the island. Mr. Parajasingham was killed just weeks after President Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed office after the elections in November 2005.
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58 Tamils languish in Magazine prison for more than 12 years

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2011, 10:52 GMT]
Information smuggled out of the notorious Magazine Prison in Borella, Colombo, reveal that 58 Tamil prisoners, 44 of them with no charges filed or charged without any viable court case or witnesses to prove guilt, are being held under the Island's Emergency Regulations in the prison for more than 12 years. One of the inmates told TamilNet that except two of the Tamil inmates who have relatives visiting them, most of the others have no visitor and are inflicted with illnesses arising from torture.
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SLA killed my son - Dr. Manoharan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2011, 01:19 GMT]
In a video released by Amnesty International in the wake of the submission of a Sri Lanka war-crimes report by a UN-panel to Ban Ki Moon, Dr Manoharan, father of one of the 5 Trincomalee students extra-judicially executed on 2nd January 2006, tells Amnesty that he will continue to challenge the Sri Lanka Government until he receives justice for the "criminal political murder" of his son. The video was shot during Dr. Manoharan's visit to New York during the last week of February 2011 to present the more than 55,000 signatures Amnesty received as part of Amnesty's campaign to urge the UN to begin investigations into the murder of the five Trincomalee students.
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Army to locate more checkpoints in Mannaar villages

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 12:27 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is preparing remove some of its check points in Mannaar town to open more check points in villages. Two SLA check points located close to the office of the Mannaar zonal education office in the town have been dismantled. These check points were in the area during war and even after the conclusion of the war.
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SLA soldiers, para military attack local Tamil traders in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 11:19 GMT]
Local Tamil traders from Vadamunai, Pendugalseanai, Oothuchcheanai, Poththanai, Tharavai and Kudumpimalai areas in Chiththa'ndy division who had gone to collect milk from dairy farms in Paduwankarai area came under attack by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and cadres of para military groups. SLA soldiers and para military cadres had attacked them asking them to show the hide outs of LTTE in the area, according to affected traders.
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Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal to focus on injustice of powers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 05:16 GMT]
With all recent revelations, the most crucial question the Eezham Tamils have to now openly ask Washington and New Delhi is that like their understanding on the elimination of the LTTE, whether they have already decided that dismemberment of the Eezham Tamil nation is the ‘lasting solution’ for the national crisis in the island – whether they have already entered into an agreement with the Rajapaksa regime on this. It is folly on the part of a section of Tamil political circles to think that they should not confront the powers on this crucial question of life and death of their nation. Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal in the month of May should mobilise Eezham Tamils of all political shades to rise up in unison and boldly ask justice for what Washington and New Delhi had done to them. Tamils have seen enough of the ‘reconciliation and development’ hoodwink.
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World Bank helps Colombo’s colonialism of Tamil country

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 05:06 GMT]
When the effective link between northern and eastern parts of the country of Eezham Tamils are systematically neglected to disrupt the contiguity and to prevent the integration of Eezham Tamils, the World Bank on Tuesday has approved 100 million US dollar additional financing for road link of the east with the west to strengthen Colombo’s colonialism and the Colombo-centric subordination of Eezham Tamils. “Connecting people to prosperity between the East and West will be critical for Sri Lanka to realize its ambitious development goals,” said Diarietou Gaye, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka.
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