SL military erects giant Buddha statue at controversial heritage site in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Mullaith-theevu installed a small Buddha statue, which was covered with glass at the disputed heritage site of Neeraaviyadi-eattam in Chemmalai in November. The SL military has now hurriedly replaced it with a huge Buddha statue disregarding the interim order and the protests of Tamil residents. The move comes after a delegation from the SL Archaeology Department in Colombo visited the SL military prompting it to accomplish the mission, civil sources in Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat told TamilNet. An extremist Buddhist monk, Kolamba Medhalankara Thera, staying with the SL Army's 593rd Brigade at Naayaa'ru is operating with the thinking that once the giant statue has been successfully erected, Tamil protests, as well as the interim orders, would lose their impact as the SL Constitution accords ‘foremost place to Buddhism’, the sources further said.
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SL military wants Cooray to liaise with Tamil diaspora industrialists from islets off Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2018, 22:31 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Navy and its intelligence wing have drawn a plan to recruit and deceive the business elite among the Tamils in the Northern Province, particularly the Tamil diaspora industrialists who hail from the islets off Jaffna, with the propaganda of ‘development’, informed sources at Ooraath-thu'rai (Kayts) told TamilNet this week. Under the pretext of facilitating infrastructure investment from the Tamil diaspora, the SL Navy wants to maintain its hold and open up the islets for more Sinhala tourists from the South with a large-scale trade and cultural Sinhalicisaiton of the islands. As part of this military conceived programme, the SL Governor is actively engaged in collecting details of Tamil diaspora industrialists and business owners, who are exiled in the West from the islets, the sources further said.
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Monks incite SL paramilitary to Sinhalicise Tamil heritage site in Trincomalee North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
An extremist section of the Sinhala-Buddhist Theravada monks establishment, which has been trying for more almost ten years to claim the ancient Tamil village of Thennai-maravadi as a heritage and archaeology site of Sinhala Buddhism, abandoned their attempt to erect a Buddhist temple at the lands of the Tamil village deity of Kanthasaami. However, the monks left behind noticeboards claiming the Saiva (Hindu) temple lands, where they conducted the excavations, as coming under the purview of the SL Department of Archaeology. Recently, on 30th November, Sinhala paramilitary personnel of the so-called ‘Civil Defence Force’ have put up foundations for a building inside the demarcated lands. If the seized properties of the Hindu temple come under the SL Archaeology department, how could the CDF personnel start constructing structures inside the grounds, the resettled Tamils questioned.
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Occupying Colombo reintroduces war-time harassments in North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2018, 22:19 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and the SL police, tightly coordinated by the unitary state defence establishment in Colombo, have deployed armed patrols and started to harass former LTTE members across the eight districts of the North and East citing the recent slaying of two police constables in Batticaloa. Widespread harassments, as those prevailed during the war-time in Tamil areas, are again reported from Ampaa'rai to the south of Batticaloa to Mannaar in the west of the Northern province. The SL military in Jaffna has deployed much-dreaded commando field-bike units with soldiers covering faces with black masks to patrol the streets in the peninsula. In the meantime, ex-LTTE members in Vanni are under heavy pressure to organise and take part in proxy demonstrations condemning the attacks to create a public impression that the attack was a politically motivated one.
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Washington set to downgrade ‘human rights politics’ to association level in Indo-Pacific

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2018, 19:26 GMT]
A new US Senate bill named as “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018” (ARIA) has been passed with an amendment by unanimous consent on 04 December 2018. The Trump Administration that has fully withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will be downscaling the scope of its human rights agenda er to a regional intergovernmental association level (ASEAN) if ARIA becomes a law. Republican Senator Cory Gardner from Colorado, who proposed the bill in April has urged the US House of Representatives to quickly send the legislation to the desk of President Donald Trump for him to sign it into law.
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Skeletal remains with shackled legs exhumed in Mannaar mass grave

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2018, 23:31 GMT]
Skeletal remains of legs belonging to two different victims were found locked together into a single iron shackle at Mannaar mass grave on Thursday, eyewitnesses in Mannaar told TamilNet. The excavation continued amidst rains for the 112th day and bone remains of 266 different victims, believed to be slain by the SL military during the times of war, have been discovered so far, and 260 of these have been exhumed and boxed for forensic investigations. The legal activists witnessing the excavation fear that Colombo and its justice system would never subject the remains to forensic analyses with an independent international third party. A female ring was also discovered this week at the mass grave site, which is located at the premises of Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (Sathosa) at the entrance to Mannaar city. Since 1990, and until recently, the premises was under SL military control.
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Colombo withdrew Wigneswaran's security after his Remembrance Day statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Inspector General of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara instructed his Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in Jaffna W.F.U. Fernando to immediately withdraw the personal security provided to the former Tamil Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran when Fernando reported to the IGP that Wigneswaran had issued a statement supporting the commemoration of Tamil liberation fighters. His statement was released on 26 November, a day before Tamil Heroes Day and the occupying Colombo withdrew his security on 28 November. A Tamil-speaking source with close links to the SL Defence Establishment in Colombo revealed the details on condition of anonymity. The IGP had also told the Jaffna DIG to instruct the two police personnel who were with Justice Wigneswaran in Colombo to report to a police station in Colombo with immediate effect, the source further said.
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SL State becomes prime reference for ‘debt trap diplomacy’ of China in US rhetorics

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2018, 19:03 GMT]
The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has become the de-facto reference case for Chinese debt-trap diplomacy, which is being increasingly referred in the US political, military and financial discussions. USINDOPACOM Commander Admiral Philip S. Davidson made a reference to ‘Sri Lanka’ when he faced a question on what he found as the most problematic with the Belt and Road initiative on 30 November. In the meantime, Roland de Marcellus, the acting deputy assistant secretary for international finance and development within the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, testifying at a US Senate subcommittee hearing on “multilateral economic institutions in foreign policy,” on 27 November said ‘Sri Lanka’ had become “a campaign issue in many elections around the world where opposition groups are criticizing the volume of Chinese lending and the terms and all of the other drawbacks”.
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USA, China agree on 90-day ceasefire on trade war, India to reaffirm US defence ties

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2018, 14:45 GMT]
Unlike the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that ended without a final statement amidst US-China disagreements in Papua New Guinea two weeks ago, the summit of 20 powerful economies of the world (G20) has concluded in Argentina with consensus among the capitalist actors resolving to “strengthening the global financial safety net with a strong, quota-based, and adequately resourced IMF at its centre.” The G20 has also resolved to reform the World Trade Organisation, which has been viewed by US President Donald Trump as something designed by the rest of the world to screw the USA. While the G20 vowed to “improve a rules-based international order,” Mr Trump has agreed with Chinese President Xi Jinping to begin negotiations on structural changes to resolve longstanding trade disputes within the next 90 days, which is seen as a ceasefire on trade war between China and the USA.
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Tamil, Sinhala policemen slain in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2018, 10:31 GMT]
Unknown attackers have killed two SL policemen, a Tamil and a Sinhalese, who were manning a check post near Valai-i'ravu bridge, 5 km south-west of Batticaloa city in the early hours of Friday. 23-year-old Ganesh Dinesh, a Tamil policeman from Periya-neelaava'nai in Ampaa'rai was found shot and killed and bound to his chair outside the check-post. 34-year-old W N L Prasanna from Udugama in Galle was found dead at his bed inside the post with cut injuries to his throat. Residents said the killings could be related to a dispute between the police and a criminal gang operating with its backing. However, Colombo media was quick to blame it on Rajapaksa-aligned ex-paramilitary V. Muralitharan alias Karuna.
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Sinhala ethnocracy's entrenched insecurity, ultimate spoiler of stability: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2018, 21:07 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples' Front, was the first Tamil politician to warn – well in advance – that the powers collaborating with the SL State were risking instability in the island. The former Tamil parliamentarian came with the observation, which he has been implying for a long time, also in an interview to TamilNet in September 2018, two weeks ahead of Lt. Col. Thileepan's remembrance in Jaffna. The current political instability, predicted by Gajendrakumar in September, happened within 45 days, sending shockwaves across the international community. In a follow-up interview, just ahead of Maaveerar Remembrance in Jaffna, he indicates that any strategic collaboration between the external powers and the SL State, which is Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy in nature, would be doomed to falter, because of its entrenched attitude of insecurity.
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Tamils across Palk Strait should initiate maritime policy for non-state actors in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2018, 20:56 GMT]
The USA, approaching the island through its regional brother India, talks about “rules-based international order” while China's propaganda projects its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a “symphony performed by all relevant countries.” Genocide-affected Eezham Tamils and Tamils in Tamil Nadu facing various oppressions should convey to both the USA and China in clear terms which ‘rules’ they have to respect concerning the Tamil people and how to keep their ‘repertoire’ respecting the civilisational people not having a state of their own in the region, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. Observing the ‘naval diplomacy’ of genocidal Sri Lanka hanging in a dangerous balance with all the three geopolitical actors, they urged Tamils to grasp the big picture.
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Colombo awaits UN approval to seize 25-fold larger extent of sea than its landmass

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 November 2018, 14:52 GMT]
While waging the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009, the SL State filed a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), on 08 May 2009, seeking to extend the outer limits of the continental shelf, reportedly by 1,000 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of its territorial sea. The SL State is claiming the marine area to the effect of twenty-five times of its land area, covering a vast expanse of the south of the Bay of Bengal. The SL State submitted the report with the assistance (grant and credit) from Norway's Development Agency, the NORAD. Several other western countries also backed the move while the SL State was committing a genocide and the LTTE vessels were being systematically destroyed in the high seas with the intelligence information coming from the USA.
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India's RAW behind ‘Tiger identity erasure’ campaign

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2018, 21:15 GMT]
The foreign intelligence agency of India, known as the Research and Analysis Wing’ (RAW), has advised its counterpart in the island to transform Tamil Eelam Maaveerar Naa'l (Heroes Day) as well as all other remembrance days of the LTTE members and cadres into remembrance days bereft of identity, politics and valour. The only way to do this is getting rid of terminology associated with the LTTE, Tamil nationhood, the concept of Tamil valour. Usage of the terms ‘maaveerar’ and ‘Eelam’ should also be avoided, the RAW has advised, according to informed paramilitary sources in the island.
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Tamils determined to mark Heroes Day braving institutionally genocidal SL apparatus

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 November 2018, 21:51 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in their occupied homeland started the Tamil Eelam Heroes week by preparing for the marking of November 27 Great Heroes Day (Maaveerar Naa'l) at the genocidally annihilated heroes cemeteries at 33 different locations in the North and East. The occupying unitary state – regardless of the political turmoil prevailing in the South — is bent on using its institutionally anti-Tamil legal system to block Tamils from using Maaveerar-associated symbolism during the remembrance. The people on the ground are determined to mark the day with due respect for tens of thousands of Tamil men and women, who sacrificed their lives for the restoration of Tamil sovereignty through an armed struggle, which was the last resort to protect their nation from ultimate annihilation.
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US-China trade war escalates, APEC summit ends without joint communique

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 November 2018, 07:29 GMT]
“The United States will not change course until China changes its ways,” said US Vice President Mike Pence, who was continuing the hardline rhetoric against China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) capital of Port Moresby on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping in his address asked: “Which direction should we choose? Cooperation or confrontation? Openness or closing one's door? Win-win progress or a zero-sum game?” The meeting ended without the parties agreeing on a joint statement.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka's maritime and naval greed expose attitudes of powers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 November 2018, 11:29 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the incumbent SL President and Ranil Wickramasinghe, the now disputed SL Prime Minister, increased military-to-military maritime training with the USA, India and Japan between 2015 and 2017 while seeking to exploit the China-tilt ‘achievements’ of the Rajapaksa government. The SL Navy was receiving naval vessels as gifts from all the powers after the 2015 regime change. However, the SL State wanted more and more, believing that the geopolitical paradigm experimented through the genocide on Eezham Tamils would bring it fortunes. The naval ambitions went to the extent of wanting 25 powerful naval vessels from different actors to create a powerful naval fleet. At the same time, SL State's maritime economic ambitions were aimed at making Colombo the financial hub in the Indian Ocean.
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SL Governor shuts down Heritage Centre, escalates militarisation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 November 2018, 14:19 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's colonial Governor of the Northern Province, Reginald Cooray, has shut down the Heritage Centre in Jaffna, which was launched by the elected Northern Provincial Council under former Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and NPC Minister of Education Dr K. Sarveswaran. The SL Governor has removed the heritage artefacts and pulled off the plaque on the wall. Only the board on the premises remains. In the meantime, Cooray has deployed the SL military to launch a garden (park) at the mass grave site of Chemma'ni. Mr Cooray has also convened meetings bringing SL military commanders in Jaffna and Jaffna and E. Arnold, the mayor of the elected Jaffna Municipal Council and instructed the Tamil civil servants in Jaffna to ‘liaise’ with the occupying Sinhala military, civil sources in Jaffna said.
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Chinese, US military conceptions of ‘Island Chains’ in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 November 2018, 14:21 GMT]
China has redefined the regional security environment and shifted it toward the Indian Ocean basin, expanding three Pacific “island chains” also to the Indian Ocean, argues Wilson VornDick, a China analyst and a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, in an article published by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Describing the conception as his personal views and as not associated with a U.S. government or U.S. Navy policy, VornDick says the “fourth island chain through the middle of the Indian Ocean would reflect China’s ability to challenge its geostrategic neighbour India with dual-use facilities in Gwadar, Pakistan, and Hambantota, Sri Lanka.”
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Quad formation discusses “rules-based order” in Indo-Pacific

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2018, 17:11 GMT]
The governments of the USA, India, Japan and Australia on Thursday issued statements through their respective foreign ministries echoing “rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific” in their statements. The statements come after the senior officials of the Quad countries met in Singapore on Thursday for consultations on addressing the Chinese challenge in the Indo-Pacific region. Another phrase featured in all the four statements, including that of India, was “ASEAN centrality”. The statements from three countries, except India, mentioned ‘Sri Lanka’ and the Maldives.
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