Reformulating Kooththu theatre for Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 06:53 GMT]
Contemporary humans alienated from their own environment by an education system are isolated even within their families by the electronic media. Reformulating the Kooththu theatre of Eezham Tamils is not to show it to somebody else or to carry it to somewhere else, but to effectively make the owners of the form of art to gather and enjoy it for themselves in the open air. The reformulation aims at reinstating the Kooththu theatre as a social institution, by giving importance to its inherent features such as participation, social function and memory; by bringing in traditional values to contemporary discourse and by providing space for the grassroot performers to perform in their own environment, says S. Jeyasankar of the Eastern University, Batticaloa, in his new book in Tamil on “Reformulating Kooththu: New Dimensions of the Kooththu of Eezham.”
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UN served a ploy to surrender killings

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 12:47 GMT]
Around 18 hours before the surrender of the LTTE Political Head B Nadesan and other civil officials of the LTTE that ended in their killing by the Sri Lanka Army, the UN officials served in the island met in Vavuniyaa and made plans to receive them on behalf of the UN. The UN officials were very well aware of who were coming to surrender, said a high-ranking UN worker who was involved in the arrangements to TamilNet on Monday. All the UN officers who served in the island at the time of the war are either no more in UN service or have left the island. The UN was used as a ploy in arranging and enacting the ‘surrender’ and then to kill the LTTE officials, Tamil political observers said. Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, was in Colombo at the time.
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Residents succeed in protest against SLA checkpost in Mannaar village

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2011, 06:51 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army had abandoned its move to set up a sentry in Pa'l'limunai village in Mannaar district Sunday due to vehement protest by residents. A group of SLA soldiers had gathered near the water tank in the village on Sunday morning and had been making arrangement to establish a sentry point.
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Seine-net beaches in Mullaiththeevu distributed to Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 April 2011, 15:27 GMT]
Traditional seine-net beaches (Karaivalai-paadu) of Eezham Tamils in the coastal tracts of Mullaiththeevu district are grabbed and distributed among Sinhala fishermen from the south by a team of SL fisheries officials from the south. The excuse is that the local Tamil fishermen in the LTTE controlled areas did not register their seine-net stretches with the SL fisheries ministry. 12 stretches in A’lampil, 8 stretches in Thoo’ndaavil and 5 stretches in Chemmalai are thus grabbed and given to the Sinhalese. The Mullaiththeevu Government Agent as well as the district fisheries director had no knowledge of what the Sinhala officials from the south were doing. Meanwhile, Sinhala fishermen in Kalpiddi in the south, after seeing Tamil Nadu trawlers in their waters, are meeting on Monday to mobilise ‘Jaffna-Sinhala’ corporation against ‘Indian poaching.’
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Robert Blake’s ‘reconciliation’ is farming in Tamil land for SL military

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 April 2011, 12:02 GMT]
While the US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake testified before the US Foreign Affairs Committee on the “reduction of the reach of High Security Zones” (HSZ) in the island to support his vision of progress that is taking place towards the US State Department-conceived paradigm of ‘reconciliation,’ evidences that come from Jaffna show that the occupying genocidal SL military is engaged in full-fledged farming and horticulture in the largest HSZ in Jaffna Peninsula, reportedly by using slave labour of the captured LTTE cadres. The Valikaamam HSZ, created after uprooting villages, is in the best of the fertile lands and the occupying military has already leased out large tracts of them to Sinhala businessmen. If farming could take place why mines are an excuse to hand over the lands to the owners, ask Tamils.
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North-East ITAK local councilors take oaths in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 April 2011, 20:39 GMT]
Seventy six councilors, elected under Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) ticket on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for the fifteen local authorities in North and East, took oaths on Saturday at Trincomalee Town Hall in the presence of Mr.R.Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the TNA and President of the ITAK, sources in Trincomalee said. Sampanthan is also the Trincomalee district parliamentarian.
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Blake sets wrong precedence in committing against democratic wishes of Tamil nation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 April 2011, 19:19 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake has set a wrong precedence by choosing to respond to a chauvinistic Sinhala perspective appeared in The Island editorial that “the United States does not support separatism but rather a united, peaceful and democratic Sri Lanka.” In doing so, Blake insults the democratic mandate of the nation of Eezham Tamils and encourages a terrorist state that openly commits genocide on one hand and blatantly denies even an iota of its human rights abuses on the other. The rhetoric of Blake, ‘peace, democracy and united Sri Lanka’, is a historically proven bundle of contradictions that always went against the nation of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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HRW demands accountability for wartime disappearances

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2011, 05:19 GMT]
Human Rights Watch, a New York based rights organization, said in a press release issued Friday that "[t]hrough interviews with relatives of the missing and witnesses, published testimony, and media reports, Human Rights Watch found that more than 20 people who were taken into army custody between May 16 and 18, 2009, appear to have been forcibly disappeared. Most of them are known to have been detained in the Vadduvaakal area, just south of the strip of land in northeastern Sri Lanka where the final battle between the LTTE and government forces occurred. At the time, the area was controlled by the Sri Lankan army’s 59 Division," and demanded that Colombo "should account for everyone who was taken into custody."
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Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2011, 05:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka parliament Thursday evening adopted the motion by the government to extend the state of emergency for another month with a majority of 81 votes. 98 parliamentarians from the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituents voted for the motion, parliamentary sources said.
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Heavy competition in capturing Tamil media in the island

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2011, 00:42 GMT]
Shares of a leading all-island Tamil daily, Thinakkural, published simultaneously in Colombo and Jaffna, were for ‘sale’ recently for hundreds of millions, and the competitors ranged from a former LTTE bigwig in the Rajapaksa camp and a Sinhala media house to circles close India. Ultimately, another leading Tamil daily in the island, The Virakesari, succeeded in purchasing 41 percent of the shares for 240 million rupees, informed media circles in Colombo said. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan state-owned media establishment Lake House has started publishing a Jaffna edition of its Tamil daily Thinakaran. Colombo soon plans to bring out this edition of Thinakaran using the facilities of Eezhanaatham, the only daily that was earlier coming from Vanni and the building of which is now occupied by the SL colonial military.
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Thumpa'lai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 April 2011, 19:16 GMT]
The (place of) Thumpa’lai trees (Vatica obscura)
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Blake sees ‘people to people’ ties through militaries

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 April 2011, 13:36 GMT]
The US Asst Secretary of State Robert O Blake, giving testimony before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday said that the value of the skyrocketing US arms sales to India over the last decade “is not just the dollar figure – they both represent and strengthen deeper levels of cooperation between our two militaries and facilitate building people-to-people ties.” On Sri Lanka Blake said: “Positioned directly on the shipping routes that carry petroleum products and other trade from the Gulf to East Asia, Sri Lanka remains of strategic interest to the U.S. An important contributor to global peacekeeping operations, Sri Lanka stands poised to be a capable and willing partner to effectively combat violent extremism, trafficking and piracy, and thereby help to ensure the maritime security of the region.”
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SLA officer killed in accident, driver beaten up by SL soldiers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 April 2011, 17:12 GMT]
A junior Sri Lanka Army officer was killed on the spot and another soldier was wounded on A9 Highway at Ira'naimadu junction in Ki'linochchi Wednesday around 10:00 a.m. when a tipper truck, coming from Vavuniyaa, hit the motorbike of the SL soldiers. The driver of the vehicle was severely beaten up by the SLA soldiers at the site.
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‘SL forces want Emergency extended for colonizing East’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 April 2011, 12:11 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance MP for Batticaloa, Pakiaselvam Ariyanethiran, Tuesday night told media that Sri Lankan forces were staging search operations in the three districts of Eastern Province to justify Colombo's “need” to extend the Emergency in the island. The Sri Lanka Army with the SL Police on Tuesday launched major cordon and search operation simultaneously in all the three districts of the Eastern province for the first time since the end of Vanni war. Meanwhile, Tamil residents of border villages in the East said the SLA had put up new road blocks and had issued warnings asking for details of those who were protesting against Sinhalese being settled along the border villages.
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Tamil national activist attacked in London

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 April 2011, 19:09 GMT]
Two unidentified men attacked Eezham Tamil nationalist R. Soosaipillai, known as Thanam, in front of his house in London Monday night. Mr. Thanam, a veteran activist, was one of the key persons who supported the successful re-mandate of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution in UK that democratically reaffirmed the Eezham Tamil aspiration for an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in January 2010. He served as a mobilisation coordinator in the British Tamil Forum (BTF) during the crucial time 2008 – 2010. Thanam, who once served the infrastructure of the Tamil national cause for 21 years, is also one who grasped the transition of the times with perception. The 47-year-old activist has been a force behind major Tamil public events in UK including the Heroes Day remembrances. In his capacity, he has always been in touch with the law and order agencies of UK.
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Australia soft on prosecuting Kohona's alleged war-crimes - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 April 2011, 03:01 GMT]
Professor Gideon Boas of Monash University School of Law, in an article appearing in Sydney Morning Herald, criticized the Australian Government for its reluctance to prosecute war criminals, and pointed to the recent filing by two Tamil organizations of war-crime charges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Dr Palitha Kohona who is an Australian citizen and formerly a senior official with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. While Prof Boas said the factual case has problems and complexities, the Tamil organizations that filed the case said that new key witnesses to the Kohona's alleged crimes have come forward and that a "superceding complaint" will likely be filed with ICC once a legally admissible deposition is obtained from the new witnesses.
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Forced registration in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 April 2011, 19:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has instructed residents of Vellaveli in Batticaloa district to register with the village level officers (Grama Niladhari-GN), civil society sources in Batticaloa said. The SLA has directed the GN to submit all names of residents of the village in forms supplied to them. SLA has also directed the villagers to indicate whether the household members include ex-cadres of the LTTE and disabled due to conflict. This has caused tension and fear among the villagers.
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Rajapaksa's LLRC seeks Buddhist Prelates guidance to prepare final report

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 April 2011, 13:34 GMT]
Members of Rajapaksa appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) had met the Mahanayaka Theras of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters last week to seek guidance before preparing the final report scheduled to be presented by May 15, according to a news report published in English weekly Lakbima on Sunday. The Buddhist prelates exercise a dominant influence on the Sri Lankan regime.
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Vi'laan, Divula-pitiya, Jool-pallama

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2011, 21:22 GMT]
The place of wood apple trees
The high ground of wood apple trees
The low ground of wood apple trees
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97 hospitals non-operative - Lankadeepa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 March 2011, 02:08 GMT]
Nearly 97 hospitals located across various parts of the island have been shut due to the shortage of doctors, the pro-Government Sinhala daily Lankadeepa said in a front page lead article quoting health ministry sources. Majority of the affected hospitals are located in the NorthEast while hospitals in Kandy, Hambantota and several other districts have also been affected with hospital closures due to the doctor shortage, the paper said.
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