SL Governor continues ‘LLRC agenda’ of Sinhalicisation in Northern Province

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2015, 22:12 GMT]
The incumbent Sri Lankan Governor of Northern Province, HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), has instructed the SL Government Agents in the Northern Province to channel more resources to the Sinhala settlements initiated during the Rajapaksa regime in the North, civil sources in Jaffna said. In the meantime, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) provincial councillor K.T. Linganathan, who is from Nedungkea'ni, Vavuniyaa, on Sunday said elected Tamil representatives were being refused access to an accelerated Sinhala colonisation scheme at Kokkachchaan-ku'lam, which has been Sinhalicised into Kalabogaswewa with 5,000 Sinhala settlers. The occupation, initiated during the previous regime, is now being expanded with new housing schemes.
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British Tamils should start backing Scottish Nationalist Party

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2015, 23:18 GMT]
The British elections should teach the lesson and open the eyes of Eezham Tamils in the UK, who shamefully count on the Labour and Conservative parties. If the Eezham Tamils in the UK wish to make a fundamental theoretical point for their own benefit and for the cause of the nations without State all over the world, it is time that they should start actively voicing and working for the Scottish Nationalist Party, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna. The theoretical foundations laid by the English outlook on the island of Ceylon 200 years ago are the ones that are now followed by Washington and New Delhi and still haunt the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. They have to be challenged in their very birthplace, the activists further said.
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TNPF rejects ‘domestic investigations’ upheld by USA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2015, 21:49 GMT]
The fact that the United States and the US Secretary of State John Kerry would consider the post January 08th 2015 situation in Sri Lanka, with the new government favourable, is understandable. But, for him to suggest that there is a favourable condition for the Tamils, is stretching too far, said Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) Leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, responding to a question from TamilNet on the subject on Tuesday. Pointing out that the new regime is not only maintaining the status quo of the occupying military, which is primarily being accused in the crimes, but both the major parties in the South have claimed complete allegiance to the military and have in fact vouched that the military would be protected, the former parliamentarian said.
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Constitutionally recognise Tamil homeland to prove bona fides, exiled poet tells Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 17:40 GMT]
“We [Eezham Tamils] are not [people of two] provinces. We are [the people of] a homeland. This reality is constitutionally not recognised in the Constitution. Would the Sinhala rulers of Sri Lanka ever be prepared to constitutionally recognise the joint North-East as the homeland of Tamils,” questioned exiled Eezham Tamil poet Kasi Anandan on Wednesday, speaking from Chennai, in an Internet-based video address on the occasion of a memorial event held in Batticaloa on the 10th anniversary of the assassinated TamilNet Senior Editor and popular columnist Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki). The current Sinhala rulers [in the island of Sri Lanka] are only talking about ‘Tamils in the North’ whenever they refer to Tamils, Kasi Anandan observed.
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Resettled Tamils seek empowerment to confront demographic genocide in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2015, 23:12 GMT]
Two decades have elapsed since Eezham Tamils resettled in Va'laththaap-piddi GS division of Ampaa'rai district. After the war ended in the East in 2008, Sinhala settlers from the border villages have accelerated the occupation of fertile agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils at Kanangkaa-veddai near Pazha-ve'li village. A recently established camp of the Sri Lankan military is prohibiting the resettling Tamil landowners from accessing their agricultural lands at Kanangkaa-veddai. In the meantime, the Archaeology department of the genocidal Sri Lankan State has put up border stones surrounding the old Sivan temple of Va'laththaap-piddi. Sinhala settlers who have encroached from border villages have taken over the agricultural lands that belong to Veera-munai Hindu temple. Without political and economic empowerment, the Tamils, already marginalised in Ampaa'rai, risk losing their villages.
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SL State agencies, occupying military accelerate Sinhalicisation in Madu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2015, 20:18 GMT]
Two departments of the occupying Sri Lankan State, the Wildlife Department and the Forest Department, have been blocking the uprooted Eezham Tamils from resettling and owning lands in the four villages that come under Poomalarnthaan GS division, which is one of the 17 GS areas of Madu division in the Mannaar District, the uprooted Tamil villagers complain. The policy of social engineering targeting Sinhalicisation of Madu division has not changed under the ‘new’ regime, as these departments seem to compete with each other in the occupation of the lands. The threatening presence of Sinhala soldiers in the villages and the jungles facilitates the occupation. The programme of Sinhalicisation is accelerated following the commencing of railway line to Mannaar, the civil sources said.
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Liberating Champoor is fundamental to Tamils' existence in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2015, 23:53 GMT]
Liberating Champoor is liberating Tamils from permanent subjugation in Trincomalee district, say the Tamil people of Moothoor East in Trincomalee. From the average Tamil families languishing in the camps to experts among Tamils coming from Moothoor East, having in-depth knowledge of their region and the politics, are unanimous in their opinion that both the Indian Coal Power Plant, for which lands are allocated 7-8 kilometres close to the residential area in Champoor and the so-called Special Economic Zone where the Sinhala rulers in Colombo are aiming for Sinhala colonisation and the SL military which is going to clear more lands close to the coastal strip for maintaining its military cantonment are going to be the main challenges of the future existence of Tamils in Moothoor East.
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New regime should demonstrate attitudinal change, says Bishop of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2015, 23:16 GMT]
Whatever the step the new president of Sri Lanka is taking, seems to be too slow and is beyond the expectations of the affected people in the North and East, the Bishop of Batticaloa Rev. Dr. Joseph Ponniah told TamilNet in an interview this week. The new government should demonstrate that it possesses the ability to take bold steps such as the appointment of non-military governors. What is mostly needed now is an attitudinal change on the part of the Colombo government. Even today, whenever someone raises the issues of the affected people in the North and East, the government leaders in Colombo seem to brush off the critiques as coming from ethno-nationalists. This attitude is one of the main problems, the Bishop of Batticaloa said.
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Norwegian Ambassador questions NPC CM on Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2015, 23:56 GMT]
The Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Ms Grete Løchen visited Jaffna on Friday and met Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. Ms Løchen was echoing the UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs as well as a US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, who visited Jaffna earlier this week to convey the message that the deferral of OISL findings was a ‘one-time only’ postponement. Like Mr Feltman, Ms Løchen was also questioning Mr Wigneswaran on whether the NPC resolution on genocide was appropriate at this juncture of cooperation coming from the Colombo regime, news sources in Jaffna said. The CM responded by explaining that the truth of the past was essential for real reconciliation between Tamils and the Sinhalese in the future. If anyone wanted to question the resolution, they should first read it and respond to the established facts in the document, he said.
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Visiting UN official in Jaffna ‘questions’ Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 2015, 19:09 GMT]
The UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, a US diplomat, who was on a visit to Jaffna on Monday met NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and questioned the Chief Minister on the reason for the NPC Resolution on Tamil genocide at this juncture. The resolution was not against peaceful co-existence with Sinhalese. In fact, it is essential that the Sinhalese understand how the Tamils perceive the collective nature of all crimes committed against them both in the past and at the present, Mr Wigneswaran told the UN official. When Mr Wigneswaran questioned Mr Feltman on the possible danger of OISL findings getting watered down at the end of the deferral period, the UN diplomat assured that the findings would be published without any change, Mr Wigneswaran told reporters.
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Wigneswaran exposes US delay tactics at Geneva

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2015, 13:56 GMT]
The US Asst. Secretary of State Nisha Biswal was not in favour of pursuing the Geneva OISL investigation on Sri Lanka in the March sessions as scheduled, revealed NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran in his speech in Tamil at the council on Tuesday, while introducing the resolution that demanded urgent international investigation on historically continuing genocide against Tamils. “In my recent conversation with Ms Biswal, I understood that the USA wants to be in favour of the present Sri Lanka government, as this government is favourable to the USA,” Wigneswaran said. “When Ms Biswal asked what could be the appropriate time for the release of the Geneva report and when I replied that it should be in March, she didn’t accept it,” the NPC-CM said.
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Learning lessons from political discourses of past

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 January 2015, 23:36 GMT]
The last advice of the late Professor A.J. Wilson, a highly respected academic who had the closest connections with the hierarchy of the government echelons from time to time, and who was an optimist genuinely believing the possibility of Tamils and Sinhalese co-existing, was that the Tamil academics and professionals should not let themselves to be lured by promises, sweet talk, and false vanity liberally dispensed by their Sinhala counterparts and Sinhala leaders. According to him this is what that had spoiled Sir P. Ramanathan, G. G. Ponnambalam, M. Thiruchelvam and to a certain extent Thanthai Selva (SJV Chelvanayagam) and A. Amirthalingam. Writing in 2003 on the positions and policies in Tamil politics in the past, Mr. V.T. Thamilmaran was comparing the discourses of two political intellectuals, A.J. Wilson and the other being the doyen of ITAK, V. Navaratnam.
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Sinhala occupation continues at gunpoint in East despite ‘regime change’ in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 19:39 GMT]
A Sinhala squad claiming as ‘forest guard’ raided the huts of Tamil cattle herders in their grazing lands situated in Koa'ra'laippattu-South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district Tuesday around 5:00 a.m. The squad assaulted the dairy farmers, burned down their huts, robbed off their belongings at gunpoint and separated the cattle herders from the cattle numbering around 1,000. “Although Maithiripala came to power securing Tamil votes, there is no change on the ground for the Tamil dairy farmers who are undergoing untold hardship caused by the occupying Sinhala settlers, who have encroached into the grazing lands that has been ours for years and years,” Nimalan Chelliah, the president of farm owners association, told TamilNet.
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Singapore Principles of 2013: Tamil polity taken for ride from Oslo to Singapore

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2015, 07:19 GMT]
Right from the Indo-Lanka agreement of 1987 to Oslo Declaration of 2002 and to hitherto unrevealed Singapore Principles of 2013 that brought the Sampanthan polity into a conceptual framework for the recent regime change in Colombo, the external forces seeking to influence the affairs of the island have taken the Eezham Tamils for a ride to confine the Tamil polity into the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka without securing any concrete and descriptive guarantee from the Sinhala polity. By its latest move, the ITAK has pushed the Tamils back into the past, Tamil political observers in Jaffna said citing the so-called Singapore Principles from 2013. TamilNet brings out the text of the so-called Singapore Principles for the edification of global Tamils.
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New Tamil-Muslim equation engineered for Colombo-centric agenda

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 January 2015, 23:37 GMT]
Negotiations are under way for bringing in a new alliance among the political forces of Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims in the North and East that are orientated for collaboration with the Washington - New Delhi - Sinhala State agenda, reconfirming the Colombo-centric genocidal State, informed sources told TamilNet. This follows the electoral engineering in the island in which Tamils victimised in the US-designed war ending in genocide and Muslims internationally at loggerheads with the US views of imperialism were brought together to vote for a regime change that has put the USA at the helm of affairs. The follow-up ‘ground operations’ now take place in the North and East provincial councils and the first victim is likely to be the EPDP, which would be losing its opposition leadership in the NPC to Rishard Badurdeen's All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC), the sources further said.
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Pope Francis at Madu: ‘Our Lady remained always with you’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 January 2015, 21:55 GMT]
Pope Francis on Wednesday paid a pilgrimage to Madu shrine, which is the famous pilgrim centre of Tamil Catholics, where even the Sinhalese Catholics of the western coast, who were Tamils a century ago, flock in for festivals. “No Sri Lankan can forget the tragic events associated with this very place, or the sad day when the venerable statue of Mary, dating to the arrival of the earliest Christians in Sri Lanka, was taken away from her shrine. But Our Lady remained always with you. She is the mother of every home, of every wounded family, of all who are seeking to return to a peaceful existence,” the Pope said. Tamils who came in large numbers from all parts of the island appreciated his call for wartime ‘truth’ in future peace making. The Tamils also welcomed his call for harmony without forsaking the identity of the peoples, whether ethnic or religious.
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New SL regime fails to give policy-based assurance on de-militarisation: TNA circles

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 January 2015, 10:33 GMT]
Informed sources close to the hierarchy of the Tamil National Allaince (TNA) told TamilNet Wednesday that the newly elected Executive President of Sri Lanka, Maithiripala Sirisena, has failed to give a positive response to the request placed by the TNA to look at the issue of the de-militarisation of North and East as matter of a principled decision, marking a policy change. Mr Sirisena has reportedly told the TNA that the Sri Lankan military being stationed in strategic locations was largely based on the ‘national security’ concern and has justified the militarisation of public lands. Mr Maithiripala Siriesena, like his predecessors, is projecting the major issue as ‘isolated incidents of disputes’, which need to be addressed by the two separate committees, the disappointed TNA circles told TamilNet.
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Tamil will expressed only by distancing from racist election: Jude Lal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 January 2015, 07:13 GMT]
Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithiripala Sirisena cannot be seen as the greater evil and the lesser evil respectively, says Professor Jude Lal of Trinity College, Dublin, in an interview to TamilNet on Wednesday. The democratic rights of the Tamils and the democratic rights of the Sinhalese are not the same as the so-called Sinhala pro-democracy campaign claims, the director of Centre for Post-Conflict Justice at Trinity College argues, underlining the fact that the promise of democracy by the so-called Sinhala pro-democracy campaigners has totally and radically different meanings for the Tamils and the Sinhalese: It means good governance for the Sinhalese and continuation and furtherance of subjugation for the Tamils, he says. The TNA is being used by USA, UK and India to reinforce Sinhala hegemony in the name of democracy, Jude Lal told TamilNet.
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Maithiripala denies devolution agreement with Tamils, Muslims

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 January 2015, 12:41 GMT]
“We are firm in our stand that there is no place for Tamil Eelam demand and the Sri Lanka Army would not be withdrawn from the Northern Province,” said Common Presidential Candidate Maithiripala Sirisena on Monday. The statement comes after Mr Maithiripala has received unconditional backing from the TNA Parliamentary Group Leader Sampanthan and TNA's National List Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran. “My government will safeguard the unity and the territorial integrity of the country,” Mr. Sirisena added stating that he had not signed any agreement on devolution with Tamil and Muslim parties that are backing him.
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Tamils of struggle polity need not worry who becomes SL president

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 January 2015, 18:28 GMT]
While SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa is almost open in telling that electing the next president is choosing between China and the USA, senior Tamil grassroot leaders and activists in the island are of the opinion that Eezham Tamils put in a situation of struggle polity need not worry who succeeds as president. “Tamils should not participate in this election. Whether the future of Tamils is linked to the Sinhalese or not has to be decided by the Sinhalese. [...] The TNA leaders in their decision [of supporting Mr Sirisena] failed in guiding the Tamils in the right way,” said senior ITAK Central Committee member and former UN consultant Ma'ravan-pulavu K. Sachithananthan, speaking to media in Jaffna on Saturday. The former Jaffna University academic was addressing along with Ananthy Sasitharan of the NPC and ITAK Youth Wing Leader VS Sivakaran.
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