Colombo brings Sinhalese to culture prawn in Jaffna marshlands

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 October 2011, 05:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s government occupying Jaffna has taken over 350 acres of coastal marshland along the Jaffna Lagoon in Kaarainakar, Ma’ndaitheevu and Araali for prawn culture laboured by Sinhalese brought from the South. Even though said as developed for freshwater prawn culture, the project will ruin the groundwater table in the above places where local people already face difficulties in getting drinking water. Such environmental disasters were already experienced in Puththa’lam. The ultimate aim of such projects is to demographically confiscate the coasts from Eezham Tamils, make their traditional villages environmentally uninhabitable and swindle the resources of their sea and land, academics in Jaffna said. The Sinhalese fishermen brought from the South target items of export value such as conches, sea cucumber and prawns.
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Maldives defence minister visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 October 2011, 05:04 GMT]
Maldivian Defence Minister, Thalhath Ibrahim Kaleyfaanu, visited Sri Lanka’s occupying Army in the country of Eezham Tamils in Jaffna on Wednesday. His visit follows Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s unhindered support to genocidal Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa in shielding the latter from international war crimes investigation. The ‘hundred per cent Islamic country’ Maldives in recent times has entered into a number of agreements with Israel, the secret protocols of which are yet to be known to the public. However, the new friendship and the lease of one of the islands to Israel for ‘agricultural development’ are much talked about in Maldives. The support of US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake to Nasheed’s Maldives in the international organisations is not without reason, political observers say.
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Sri Lanka entices India in Commonwealth Games bid

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 October 2011, 02:41 GMT]
If Sri Lanka becomes successful in the bid to host 2018 Commonwealth Games in Hambantota, India will get 5 billion dollar investment opportunity in building facilities, The Hindu Business Online reported SL envoy Prasad Kariyawasam saying in New Delhi on Tuesday. The construction corruption of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and the diplomatic corruption of Rajapaksa being the ‘Guest of Honour’ are well known. While Sri Lanka’s very membership in Commonwealth and it hosting the 2013 Heads of Govt Meet have become controversies likely to be raised in Perth this month, Colombo entices India by offering partnership in swindling ‘Common Wealth’ to further development imbalance of the nation of Eezham Tamils and to diplomatically establish Genocide as an acceptable State paradigm for the region, Tamil politicians commented.
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The Times slams Liam Fox’s ties to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 07:17 GMT]
Amid the continuing – and seemingly expanding – controversy in Britain over Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s working relationship with close friend, Mr. Adam Werritty, the former’s relationship with Sri Lanka’s regime has been thrust into the media spotlight. In its editorial Wednesday, The Times newspaper slammed Dr. Fox’s involvement with the Colombo government with which, press reports reveal, Mr. Werritty is also intimately associated. “The Defence Secretary’s ties to Sri Lanka are wrong and have exceeded his ministerial remit,” The Times said, referring to how his actions have undermined UK policy in dealing with the “grotesque and criminal” actions of the Sri Lankan armed forces against Tamil civilians in 2009.
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"Racial supremacist ideology thriving in Sri Lanka"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 04:51 GMT]
"The status of Sri Lanka in the 21st century is of a political elite triumphantly thriving on racial supremacy ideology....CHOGM is the perfect opportunity to challenge Rajapaksa over his government's wilful murder of Tamils under the guise of defeating terrorism. It is arguable whether he should even be allowed into the country but if he arrives in Perth he should be made to realise that he has the blood of innocents on his hands," said Antony Loewenstein, an Australian independent journalist who sits on the advisory council of the UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, in the ABC's online column Wednesday.
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Improper Swiss disclosure to Sri Lanka endangered Tamil lives: Swiss TV

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 01:09 GMT]
Switzerland government improperly passing over information of 235 phone numbers to Colombo by the end of 2010 is feared to have contributed to arrests, disappearances or extrajudicial killings of Tamils traced by those numbers in the island, Switzerland National TV, Schweizer Fernsehen said Tuesday. Swiss gave the phone numbers in the island that were contacted by alleged LTTE sympathisers in Switzerland. Commenting, Social Democratic Party’s Luzern Canton parliamentarian Lathan Sudaralingam told TamilNet that accused war-criminal and former SL Ambassador Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias was instrumental in facilitating such transactions. “We have long been raising alarm on such human rights violations, but Swiss Government appeared to have allowed an alleged criminal to engage in more crimes while in Switzerland, and had allowed him to escape from facing prosecution,” Mr. Lathan said.
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Sri Lanka organises sea-paramilitary to attack Tamil Nadu fishermen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 October 2011, 21:40 GMT]
Calling themselves ‘Somalian pirates’ a sea-paramilitary created and deployed by Sri Lanka’s Navy is intensifying its mid-sea attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen in the waters of the Palk Bay, Gulf of Mannaar and off the southern tip of India, news sources in Jaffna said. Largely Sinhalese from the south, along with a Tamil gang inducted by the SL Navy from Koddadi, a coastal locality near military occupied fort of Jaffna city, man the paramilitary. SL Navy has given military training to this outfit. A Sri Lankan minister is also suspected to be involved in the operation. Several lakhs worthy of fish catch of the fishing fleets of Tamil Nadu is routinely seized after attack by this paramilitary getting inside Indian waters, while the SL Navy holds off the fishing fleets along the maritime boundary. One such attack took place while the Indian foreign secretary was visiting Jaffna on Sunday.
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Forest destruction, land grab go unabated in Batticaloa: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 October 2011, 20:34 GMT]
Twenty thousand acres of grazing lands along the border villages in Batticaloa district have been fenced and allocated on lease to the families of the members of Sinhala home guards, according to Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Selvarasa. 8.4 percent forest resources in Batticaloa district have now been reduced 6.4 percent and twelve thousand acres of forest land has been handed over to Mahaweli Development Authority by the Department of Forest, Mr. Selvarasa told journalists in Batticaloa. The SL Mahaweli Development Authority has allocated these lands to the Sinhala home guards at the rate of fifty acres per family, Mr.Selvarasa further told journalists while visiting the village of 38th colony this weekend.
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War or post-war, Sri Lanka’s explicit genocide is unchecked

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 October 2011, 20:58 GMT]
Whether one shows legal land deeds of heredity or not, to establish the private ownership of land in the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sri Lanka Army would place a signboard that the land is out of reach. Thereafter, if the owner of the land is not prepared to bribe the occupying Army, the land will be given to anyone who collaborates with the occupying Army. This is the reality about fertile cultivation lands especially in Vanni, since genocidal Sri Lanka has embarked upon ‘re-registering’ lands in the country of Eezham Tamils under a programme ‘Bim Saviya’ of Sinhala nomenclature. The explicit land-related structural genocide has made even a Rajapaksa-supporting Tamil politician like Anandasangaree to become more vociferous than the TNA in calling for a non-cooperation movement of Tamils.
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Politics of Imperialism

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 October 2011, 00:50 GMT]
Politics of Imperialism had ensured that Nations without State do not know one another and confined to borders controlled by dominant Nations (Agent Imperialists) with State. Thus 1/3rd of the population of the World is reduced as Stateless peoples without controlling any resources including their own Labour, often ending as refugees in strange lands. A sense of helplessness and powerlessness pervades their minds and they are made to depend on charity by well wishers. Their minds are brainwashed not to think of hurting their well wishers even to the extent of betraying their natural allies. The Politics of Imperialism takes extra care to ensure that natural allies never get together, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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Remedial Sovereignty

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 October 2011, 05:22 GMT]
Tamils' demand for self-determination in the past four decades, which posed persistent challenges to Sri Lanka's sovereignty, was rooted on the acceptance of Tamils fundamental right to self-determination under customary international law, as a "people" possessing a distinct language, distinct culture and living in an identifiable region considered as the historic homeland. But recent, state sanctioned, massacre of 40,000 Tamils in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, and the continuing structural genocide, while reinforcing the traditional argument based on rights, also supplies an independent, stand alone justification for the creation of a state, based on the need to defend the Eelam Tamil population from further destruction - the doctrine of "remedial sovereignty."
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Fox connections with Sri Lanka raises questions on UK national security

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 21:50 GMT]
Shady associations and modus operandi of British Defence Minister Liam Fox in his dealings with the genocidal regime of Sri Lanka endanger the national security of UK, media reports from UK said this week. The revelations, following information through Wikileaks cables on the handling of Sri Lanka by the US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake, show how certain individuals sitting in the world Establishments pervert international relations upholding global order of justice, which particularly affects the case of the Eezham Tamils, said diaspora Tamil circles in London. Politics of Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and in the island need to address the issue in appropriate democratic ways to achieve reconciliation in their engagement with the international community and not to forget similar elements sitting in the Indian Establishment too, the diaspora circles further said.
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Colombo destroys herbal forest in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 21:38 GMT]
Several hundred acres of forest that contains herbal plants, situated along the coastal strip from Koa'ra'langkea'ni to Paalaiyadith-thoa'naa in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South DS division in Batticaloa district where rare medicinal plants are found are being destroyed deploying bulldozers for the past six days under the direction of Colombo authorities. On behalf of Colombo, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, a paramilitary leader and deputy minister in Rajapaksa government, has been heading the destruction in the name of ‘urban development and tourism’.
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Japan's defiance to adhere to UN Convention, leaves Tamil Refugees in limbo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 16:02 GMT]
Several refugees, fleeing repression and threat to life in Sri Lanka, are either being held in Japanese immigration jails, or have been temporarily released on "bail" after paying sums of between $2K to $5K, and these refugees are undergoing severe misery for more than two years, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group contacted by the asylum seekers said. Since becoming a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1981, and until 2008 Japan has admitted only 573 of a total 7,297 applicants under the guidelines set out in the convention while an additional 882 were granted permission to remain for humanitarian reasons, reports indicate.
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Snail pace delivery of houses with Indian assistance, mere 0.1% completed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2011, 14:38 GMT]
Housing scheme for displaced civilians of North and East, announced by India last year, has failed to deliver, according to Tamil NGO and political circles in Jaffna. India had announced last year that it would construct 50,000 houses for the displaced in the North and East. However, only 53 houses have been constructed so far till October 2011, Tamil NGO sources said. Plans were afoot in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna in North to construct houses for the war-displaced people. Earlier this year, when asked on the lack of progress of Indian announcement, Indian officials in the island responded that at least one thousand houses will be constructed before the end of 2011. The officials diluted the commitment further indicating that the numbers also included repair of existing houses.
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Blake wooed genocidal Sri Lanka Army to help Afghan war

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 October 2011, 09:30 GMT]
Within months of a war masterminded to end in the genocide of Eezham Tamils, the US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake wooed the genocidal Sri Lanka Army’s help in the US-led war in Afghanistan, reveals a Wikileaks document. In a meeting that took place in Colombo on 8th December 2009 with SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, “Blake raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to U.S.-led coalition operations in Afghanistan, noting that would be a significant step in support of improving military-to-military engagement,” briefs a classified cable of the US embassy in Colombo. Citing Muslim sentiments and ire of Islamic organizations, Gotabhaya avoided committing on any direct involvement, but he came out with an alternative for Sri Lanka providing covert training assistance in Afghanistan through NGOs and Private Military Companies.
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Tamil opinion backs Bahu, Mano

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2011, 18:54 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance and the Tamil National Peoples Front have urged the Tamil speaking people in the Western Province to support Wickramabahu Karunaratne and Mano Ganesan of the Democratic National Front (DNF) in the civic elections in the South. While Selvam Adaikalanathan and Mavai Senathiraja of the TNA in their speeches have urged the Tamil speaking population in Colombo to back Dr. Vickrmabahu and Mr. Mano Ganeshan, Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam and Selvaraja Kajendren of the TNPF came out with a statement urging the Tamils to back the courageous leaders of the DNF who have been openly expressing support to Tamils Right to Self-Determination at a time when some individuals of Tamil parties claiming to represent Tamils were displaying dubious conduct on the fundamental principles of Tamil Nation.
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US knew Rajapaksa election was irregular

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2011, 20:24 GMT]
A classified cable of the US Embassy in Colombo, made available through WikiLeaks, shows that the US Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis has informed the US government about a Rajapaksa order to eight SL Government Agents to send election results directly to SL President’s house for his review before sending them on to the SL Election Commissioner. The Ambassador also has cited other irregularities, frauds and intimidations in the last SL Presidential Elections. However, the US Government ‘congratulated’ Rajapaksa on his election and it regularly used to appreciate ‘democracy’ in the genocidal State, Tamil politicians commented.
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Australia’s bids to lend legitimacy to Sri Lanka’s war-crime regime condemned

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2011, 11:16 GMT]
Vehemently condemning Australia’s envoy for Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, for partaking in a high-profile propaganda ceremony at the Sri Lankan Presidential residence in Colombo, head of the International Commission of Jurists in Australia, John Dowd, has accused the Australian government of trying to legitimise the actions of Rajapaksa regime, which is credibly accused to have committed wide-spread war crimes during the final months of the war, a media report by The Age said. Australia’s high commissioner to Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, took part in a ceremony in Colombo on Friday to release 1,800 ex-members of the LTTE after what the Sri Lankan military called “a two-year rehabilitation program”. She also handed out certificates to alleged ‘rehabilitated’ Tamils, who were later detained and prevented from reuniting with their families.
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‘Misplaced Loyalties’

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2011, 05:17 GMT]
Genuine anti-imperialism does not lie in mere abstract anti-American/anti-west sloganeering, writes RM Karthick, a freelance writer based in Chennai. “In the wake of a ‘post-national world’ discourse framed by apologists of multi-national capitalism and equally regressive capitalist-bureaucratic models as upheld by states like Turkey, China and Russia - both aiding the logic of genocidal states like Sri Lanka, anti-imperialism in concrete requires solidarity with national liberation struggles and their progressive representatives,” he further writes in an article that appeared in West Bengal based Sanhati online journal on Saturday. The regimes in Cuba and Venezuela end up as political opportunists by supporting mass murderers and despots like Rajapaksa who virulently implement neo-liberal policies in deed, but put up a sham ‘anti-Americanism’ in words, the writer from Tamil Nadu says.
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