Dr Malathy’s ‘A Fleeting Moment’ to be released in Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2013, 22:23 GMT]
Tamil Nadu based publication house Vidiyal Pathippakam will be releasing the Tamil version of Dr. N. Malathy’s book ‘A fleeting moment in my country’ by the end of this month. The book in Tamil, titled “Enathu naaddil oru thu'li nearam: viduthalaip pulika'lin nadaimu'rai arasin i'ruthi naanku varudangka'l” will be ready for sale on 30 July, and will be on display at the Erode Book fair by the first week of August.
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Kumaarapuram massacre case comes up for trial after 17 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2013, 10:44 GMT]
Four witnesses to the February 1996 brutal massacre of 24 Tamils by the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at Kumaarapuram village in Trincomalee district have been summoned to appear on Wednesday in Anuradhapura High Court that is situated in predominantly Sinhala district. The trial in the case is listed for hearing on July 17, July 18 and July 19 more than 17 years after the genocidal massacre. Many of the witnesses are poor labourers who do not know Sinhala.Meanwhile observes say that the Colombo government hoodwinks the international community on one side summoning the witnesses to give evidence and the on the other hand threatening them not to appear in court to give evidence.
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Usbima Kotasa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2013, 07:59 GMT]
The high-ground part
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Jayalalithaa fears New Delhi, Colombo weakening Tamils further

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 July 2013, 23:53 GMT]
Citing moves to repeal the 13Th Amendment, public stand of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in this regard and a recent meeting of Basil Rajapaksa with New Delhi, presumably to justify Colombo’s stand, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa in a letter to New Delhi’s PM on Sunday urged India not to give in to Colombo’s moves to take away even the limited political rights of Tamils. Also citing the 2007 demerger of the North and East “as a sinister first step leading to the eventual abrogation and repeal of the 13th Amendment, which has starkly appeared on the agenda now,” Ms. Jayalalithaa’s letter implied her fear of New Delhi further collaborating with Colombo against Tamils in the island, political observers said.
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US Navy, Sinhala military engage in joint training operations in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 July 2013, 05:28 GMT]
American Navy SEALS and the Sri Lankan military are currently conducting joint training operations at the Sinhala military occupied Trincomalee. The Annual Joined Combined Exchange Training (JCET) between the US Naval Special Warfare Community and the Sri Lankan military named ‘Flash Style’, which commenced on 2 July at the naval dockyard in Trincomalee, is scheduled to conclude on 19 July. Joint training exercises with the same name had been conducted earlier in 2000, before the commencement of the internationally abetted war on the de-facto state of the LTTE. Given this prolonged cooperation between the US armed forces and the genocide-accused Sinhala military, one is forced to arrive at the conclusion that the Pentagon’s policy approves of the genocidal policy of the Sri Lankan state, a Tamil analyst commented.
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Mullaiththeevu protests against poaching by Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 July 2013, 19:45 GMT]
Tamil fishermen in Mullaiththeevu have vowed to step up protest campaign till Sri Lankan Fisheries Minister, his representative or the SL Government Agent of the district meet them and assure that no southern fishermen would be allowed into Mullaiththeevu for fishing.
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‘Crimes against women on increase in Sri Lanka’: AHRC

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 July 2013, 19:38 GMT]
“In Sri Lanka the citizens live in an environment that has no respect for women and it is estimated that 95% of women using public transport are at risk of being subjected to sexual harassment,” states a news report by the Asian Human Rights Commission on Monday. Further citing from a press conference held in Colombo on July 14 by Women for Rights, the report alleged that crimes causing violence relating to women and children is on the rise in the island. Commenting on this report, a Tamil social activist from Jaffna said that while the information provided was a matter of grave concern, it was regrettable that the Colombo-centric reportage took no account of the genocidal nature of crimes perpetrated against Tamil women.
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Diaspora youth release Policy Document to chart course of struggle post-Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 22:20 GMT]
Second-generation diaspora youth activists came together to release a Policy Document to chart the course of the Eezham Tamils’ struggle, assessing political developments post- May 2009. After interactive sessions held from July 6-7 at an event titled ‘Seeking Perception sans Conditioning: Charting the Course of Struggle in Assessment of Post-Mullivaaikkaal’, eight activists from Europe, Australia and Canada asserted the need for holding the recognition of a sovereign nationhood of the Eezham Tamils as basis for a principled minimal demand of the Eezham Tamil nation, grounding it in the School of Thought of the Eezham Tamils’ struggle. Calling for a critical engagement with the International Community, the youth activists declared that Tamil organizations must be held accountable to the democratic will of the people, urging the formation of a robust Tamil civil society in the diaspora.
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‘Abuse of Tamil women part and parcel of intended genocide’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 11:02 GMT]
The abuse of Eezham Tamil women committed by the Sri Lankan state apparatus should not be seen as individual human rights violations but as a part and parcel of an intended genocide of a protracted nature, write Dr. N. Malathy, key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’ and RM Karthick, research scholar at University of Essex, UK. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati’s 6th issue for 2013, the authors, criticizing international organizations for their failure to properly deal with the issue of genocidal rape by Sri Lankan forces, also call on the Tamil community to have a change of social approach towards rape survivors, noting how violence against Tamil women is deeply intertwined with communal identity.
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Sinhala military takes up Buddhicisation of East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 July 2013, 05:59 GMT]
The Sinhala military occupying the East of the country of Eezham Tamils is directly engaged in Buddhicising the province, news sources in Batticaloa said, citing the mushrooming Buddha statues in the district in the recent times. Meanwhile, Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr R. Thurairatnam said that an effort is now being undertaken to create permanent Buddhist establishments out of the improvised Buddhist shrines built in the SL military camps. Such shrines were ostensibly built for the ‘religious purposes’ of the occupying military and they could be found everywhere, as the Sinhala military is occupying every junction and other strategic locations.
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GA inefficient in Sinhala colonisation of Tamil land transferred

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 July 2013, 03:14 GMT]
Colombo’s Government Agent (GA) in the Mannaar district of the Northern Province, Mr A.S. Sarath Ravindra, who is a Sinhalese, has been transferred with immediate effect for poor performance in the Sinhalicisation of the Tamil district, news sources in Mannaar said. Similar to Ma’nal-aa’ru in the Mullaith-theevu district that is now Sinhalicised into ‘Weli-oya’ division, grabbing a part of the North at its border, the genocidal State has been planning for a massive Sinhala colonisation at the Musali division of the Mannaar district too that borders the North Central and North Western Provinces. The new GA of the occupying State, Mr M.N. Desapriya, who is also a Sinhalese, assumed duties even before handover by his predecessor and has immediately conducted a meeting with the Bishop of Mannaar.
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Genocidal intent of Serbian leader a factor in UN reinstating of charges

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2013, 23:54 GMT]
The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has reinstated the charge of genocide against former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic on the basis of evidence that could indicate that the Serbian leader possessed genocidal intent in the campaign again Muslims and non-Serbs at the beginning of the Bosnian war in 1992. This move “reversed the former Bosnian Serb president's acquittal last year on one of the two genocide charges he faces, but it does not amount to a conviction,” The Guardian reported on Thursday. But the ruling means that Karadzic has to face a further charge of genocide, in addition to ten other charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Malaysia should boycott CHOGM, IC should call for referendum: Penang Dy-CM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2013, 19:31 GMT]
Malaysia should not participate in CHOGM in Colombo simply because what took place in 2009 was a genocide against Tamil people. Unless the Sri Lankan government is taken to task on the genocide against Tamils, I think the Commonwealth countries should boycott CHOGM in Colombo this year, said Malaysia’s Penang State Deputy Chief Minister, Prof Ramasamy in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. While the Tamil issue has been so much internationalised, countries like India try to go back to the 13th Amendment. Rather than undemocratically imposing a solution, I suggest that the International Community should call for a referendum among Tamils, whether they want a separate state or not, because it was the Tamils who were victimised. Let’s not judge from what others say, let’s ask what the Tamils want, he further said.
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Parliamentarians banned while military stages programmes in schools in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2013, 23:55 GMT]
A circular sent to schools in the Northern Province of the country of Eezham Tamils at the orders of the occupying governor of the Sinhala State, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasri aimed at banning Tamil parliamentarians participating any school programmes in the province. The circular dated 20 June and signed by Education, Culture and Sports Secretary, S. Sathiaseelan, functioning under the Sinhala governor, said that without prior permission from the SL governor, no function could take place in the schools in which parliamentarians participate. The target is the TNA-MPs, public circles said. Meanwhile, schools in Vanni, especially the Ki’linochchi High School, have become permanent programme centres for the occupying Sinhala military, said TNA-MP Mr Sritharan.
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Stop Sri Lankan assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen: Jayalalitha to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2013, 23:05 GMT]
In a stern letter condemning India’s “stoic and apathetic silence” on the assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen by the SL Navy on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, addressing the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, urged him to impress upon Sri Lanka “to stop these continuing unprovoked assaults upon innocent Indian fishermen on the high seas by the Sri Lankan Navy." The letter was sent in the wake of the arrest of 21 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the SL Navy on 6 July, which Ms. Jayalalitha termed a "high-handed and illegal abduction." The AIADMK leader further called on the Indian Prime Minister to summon the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in New Delhi and to advice him to stop such assaults.
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Mission seeks answers to killing of Tamil MPs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2013, 23:57 GMT]
Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union's [IPU’s] Committee on the Human Rights are to begin a three-day mission, 9-11th July, to Sri Lanka to advocate investigations into the attempted assassination of an opposition Tamil MP, as well as seek answers on the unresolved cases of two other Tamil MPs killed in Sri Lanka, a press release issued by the IPU said. The mission is being led by the Vice-President of the Human Rights Committee, Chilean MP Juan Pablo Letelier. The timing of the visit, ahead of the Commonwealth meeting in Colombo, by an organization which has not been vocal on Sri Lanka's human rights record, raises questions on the motives of the key players behind the mission, political sources in Colombo said.
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India, Sri Lanka, Maldives frame maritime security pact

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2013, 23:15 GMT]
At the conclusion of a meeting on ‘Trilateral Cooperation on Maritime Security’ held in Colombo on Monday, India, Sri Lanka and Maldives have entered into a maritime security pact to ensure tripartite co-operation in sea routes in the region. The agreement was signed by Shivshanker Menon, National Security Advisor of India, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Maldives’ Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim. Concurrently, reports also say that Mr. Menon was in the island with a six-member delegation to plead with the Rajapaksa government to provide devolution to the Tamils on the basis of the 13th Amendment, which has been rejected time and again by the Eezham Tamil people, “for early political settlement and national reconciliation.”
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Occupying SLA hoodwinks resettlement of uprooted people in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 July 2013, 14:55 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army and the Trincomalee district Government Agent, who is also a retired Major General in the army, have been spreading false information via media regarding the resettlement of uprooted Tamil villagers from Champoor area in Trincomalee. Uprooted people are not resettled in their original villages in Champoor area. Some selected displaced who preferred to move out of the IDP camps due to personal reasons are settled in alternative sites that are not fit for habitation, according to reports emerging from the area.
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TNA fails on several counts: S.K. Sitrampalam

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 July 2013, 07:20 GMT]
In the opinion of political analysts, the polity of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is nothing but playing a stooge to the USA and India – time after time and without any returns – said Dr. S.K. Sitrampalam, Emeritus Professor of Jaffna University and a senior ITAK leader, while addressing the Jaffna Press Club on Saturday. TNA has failed in mobilising a people’s struggle, failed in politicising people on the question of rights, failed in placing a full-fledged federal solution draft as an alternative to separate Tamil Eelam, failed in forging alliance with Muslims and Up-country Tamils, failed in addressing Sinhala people on the justice behind the Tamil struggle, failed in effectively using the post-war international situation and failed in transparency within the alliance itself, Sitrampalam said.
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Sri Lanka diplomat's twitter tirade jeopardizes British PM's CHOGM visit

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 July 2013, 02:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka's self-proclaimed "new school diplomat" and consul-general in Sydney, Bandula Jayasekara's twitter attacks against the Channel-4 film maker and British national, Callum Macrae, may cause potentially embarrassing diplomatic fallouts in the UK ahead of the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in November this year, political sources in Australia said. Mr Jayasekara has labeled Macrae as an "LTTE terrorist from London," and has threatened that he will block Macrae getting a visa to attend the CHOGM in Colombo. Macrae is currently touring Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Canada to screen the film, No Fire Zone: The Killing fields of Sri Lanka, which tells the story of the last 138 days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.
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