Land encroachment in east escalates, Tamil officers face transfer threat

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2011, 03:15 GMT]
Legal action will be taken in courts against persons who fail to leave encroached State lands in Ko'raalaippaththu South division within one month, warned V. Thavarasa, Divisional Secretary (DS), sources in the east said. Sixteen Muslims and two Tamils have encroached each about fifty acres of state lands in Aathichcheanai area in Oothuchcheanai village. Wealthy persons including businessmen and rice mill owners are among the encroachers, according to the DS office.
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UK Tamils plan protests during Sri Lanka cricket tour

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, 01:16 GMT]
Tamil Diaspora groups are planning protests to coincide with Sri Lanka’s cricket tour of England this summer, beginning with a demonstration on May 14 at the Uxbridge venue of the first match between Sri Lanka and Middlesex County. The protest series is the latest phase of a ‘Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket’ campaign initiated by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) in March and since endorsed by several other Tamil community groups in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Tamil campaigners Monday dismissed Sri Lankan press reports claiming that British authorities were trying to prevent the protests.
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Sri Lanka ‘welcomes’ foreigners in corrupt Tamil to get ‘visa’ to north

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, 00:01 GMT]
Despite all claims of unity and ‘reconciliation’ by state and some establishments in complicity with the state, in actual practice the state concedes division of nations and one nation in the island keeping the other for genocide and colonisation, said political circles in Jaffna, citing Colombo implementing a visa like system for travellers from outside visiting the north. It is a ‘must’ for all foreign travellers to get prior clearance from the SL ministry of defence to visit territories north of Vavuniyaa in the island, says SL defence ministry website in corrupt Tamil. While countries like Singapore and Malaysia, where Tamils are not an ancient nation, come out with official documents in flawless Tamil, genocidal Sri Lanka for decades is determined to murder Tamil, commented a diaspora visitor on seeing the language of the official announcement.
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Nothing will happen by some welcoming UN report: Basil Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 18:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka President’s brother and SL Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa made an unannounced sudden visit to Jaffna Monday. Nothing will happen by some welcoming the UN panel report and ‘Tamils should not play treachery by betraying the country for a few thousand dollars,’ Basil Rajapaksa who was carrying a ‘special message’ from Mahinda Rajapaksa to the people of Jaffna said, while addressing a meeting at Maaviddapuram. Basil’s ‘message’ implied a warning against any evidence going out of Tamils in Jaffna on the war crimes and genocide committed on them, news sources in Jaffna said.
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SL minister intimidates resettled in Vanni to sign against UN report

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 12:55 GMT]
Similar to the show of a group of Sinhala thugs forcing passers by to sign petition against UN panel report in Jaffna city Sunday, a Sri Lankan minister CB Ratnayake lead the occupying military and military intelligence personnel to intimidate the resettled Eezham Tamils in Vanni to sign a petition Saturday and Sunday. Members of village and civil society institutions were summoned over the phone by the military to bring people to Ki’linochchi town and when they gathered, the group lead by Ratnayake forced them to sign the petition. The military deployed in the streets in large numbers saw to it that no one escapes signing.
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Tamils ignored in Administrative Service examinations

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 12:22 GMT]
Tamils are ignored in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) competitive examination conducted by the Sri Lanka’s Department of Education. Not a single Tamil public servant has been selected from the SLAS competitive examination conducted in 2010, sources in the Department of Education said. Applications were called in for the said examination in 2009. More than thousand Tamils sat for the examination held in Colombo and Jaffna.
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Sinhalese stage anti-UN demonstration in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 01:31 GMT]
In a comic show of events, Sinhalese thugs bought from the south staged a demonstration in Jaffna Sunday, against the UN panel report calling for war crimes investigation. In several places in the Jaffna city they were seen forcing passing by people to sign petitions and those who refused were chased and manhandled by the military intelligence accompanying the ‘demonstrators.’ Even a reputed Catholic priest was not an exception, news sources from Jaffna said. While Tamils have to build up their own democratic polity for ‘reconciliation’ within a ‘united’ island is the reiteration of the US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake, the Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon’s position is that why should there be any qualms in Tamil Nadu when Eezham Tamils and Sinhalese make ‘home-made solutions’ in the island.
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Sinhalese continue to encroach paddy fields of Tamils, Muslims in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2011, 23:53 GMT]
Sinhala villagers backed by Sri Lankan military operated ‘home guards’ have forcibly encroached one thousand acres of paddy fields that belong to Tamils and Muslims in Puthukkaadu, Oottu and Muthu-kaayamadu in Moothoor DS division in Trincomalee district.
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War crime, genocide case against Rajapaksa placed in Norway courts

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2011, 00:06 GMT]
Leading Norwegian Lawyer on Human Rights, Harald Stabell, has filed a case under the Norwegian national law, against the Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces, Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and former Sri Lanka Army commander Sarath Fonseka, now in Rajapaksa's custody, and several other SL commanders, for allegedly committing War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and Genocide against Eezham Tamils. The case is filed on behalf of the Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET) and 15 affected Norwegian Tamils. Following the latest revelations by the Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim in Norwegian national media NRK about his knowledge of the white-flag surrender, which turned into a war crime, the lawyers have indicated to the Chief Prosecutor of Norway that evidence may be sought from Mr. Solheim.
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Blake’s visit follows Maldives ditching UN panel report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 16:30 GMT]
The Maldivian foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem told journalists in Colombo that the UN report into human rights abuses in the closing days of Sri Lanka’s civil war is “singularly counterproductive,” reports Minivan News, an independent news service from Maldives, Saturday. Maldives is currently a member of the UN Human Rights Council. This week, the US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake, after closeting with Sri Lanka’s defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa made a three-day visit to the Maldives. Eezham Tamils in UK, who support the Conservative Party that has considerable influence in deciding the foreign policy of Maldives should take a special note of what the Maldivian foreign minister has said, commented a diaspora political observer.
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India, SLA, have occupation blueprint for northern coast of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 08:57 GMT]
By maintaining silence, and covertly working against war crimes investigation on Sri Lanka, India bargained Colombo’s cabinet approval for its hold on the KKS harbour of Eezham Tamils, political observers in Jaffna said. The SL cabinet has approved a proposal by Rajapaksa to develop KKS harbour with Indian aid and a MoU is to be signed soon with Indian government, Deccan Herald reported Thursday. Meanwhile, SL Army physically being inducted in building blocks for a reputed school in the area sets dangerous precedence for prolonged military rule over Eezham Tamils by the occupying Sinhala Army, and shows long-term occupation interests of the military in that particular region, political observers in Jaffna further said.
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Powers, corporate interests behind personal wars in The Hindu

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2011, 10:53 GMT]
“In a shocking display of bad faith,” N. Ram, who has become the Editor in Chief of The Hindu in 2003, “by stealth,” postpones his retirement agreed upon last year, and “seems bent on taking all the editorial directors—most are in their 50s--into retirement with him with a scorched earth policy to ensure that no one in the family succeeds him,” accuses N. Ravi, who is the Editor of The Hindu since 1991, writing an open letter to media brethren in April in The Hoot, the website of the New Delhi-based Media Foundation. However, Ravi’s long list of accusations that include the projection of Ram as pro-left/ pro-China, has no reference to the role he played against Eezham Tamils, suggesting, Ravi and Ram as well as the forces behind them are the same on the question of the liberation of Eezham Tamils, commented diaspora media circles.
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Canadian Tamils chose to desert Liberals in favour of Leftists

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2011, 06:17 GMT]
Scarborough's Tamil community had chosen this campaign to desert the Liberals. "That community turned against us completely and some of us paid the price," said six-times winning Liberal candidate John Cannis, who lost his seat in the general elections in Canada this week in Scarborough Centre parliamentary constituency. Meanwhile, according to Rathika Sitsabaiesan, who won the Scarborough-Rough River constituency for the leftist New Democratic Party, in the last days of Sri Lanka's civil war in May 2009, Liberal politicians had not appeared to support protestors on Toronto's University Avenue or on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where, she said, only the NDP leader Layton came to address the crowd, reports Mike Adler in Inside Toronto.com, adding that "Liberal MPs at the time said they didn't want to appear because protestors were displaying flags of the banned [LTTE]".
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Blake should not mislead Tamils again: Mano Ganesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:38 GMT]
Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF), who was once named by then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on Wednesday, reminded the Tamils that the visiting US Asst Secretary Robert Blake was instrumental in providing US government's unconditional support to the war waged by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils. The “US government wanted put out a savior impression. But in real it did not bother about the Tamil civilian causalities,” Mr. Mano Ganesan said. “International community should act decisively with the GoSL. It is time that US assistant state secretary for central and south Asia affaires Robert O Blake lives upto his earlier ambassadorial preaching. He should not mislead the Tamils again.”
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‘Colombo holds onto its sinking ship’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:23 GMT]
The visiting US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake accepted the congratulations of Colombo for the death of Osama Bin Laden. At the same time, in the context of the UN panel report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes he has said, “International mechanisms can become appropriate in cases where states are either unable or unwilling to meet their obligations.” But Colombo’s diplomatic community, as seen from what Dayan Jayatilake has written on Tuesday, pins its last hope on making a comparison between its genocide and the imperialism of the USA, thinking that such conflations could save its sinking ship. What the Sinhala polity that is neither prepared to concede nor share sovereignty with Eezham Tamils fails to see is that a precedence has been set in South Asia where powers could supersede sovereignty to implement what they think is right, writes a political analyst in Jaffna.
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German Rights Group accuses Dias of war-crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2011, 00:08 GMT]
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) Tuesday released a document which the group claimed "sub­s­tan­ti­ates al­le­ga­tions of war crimes com­mitt­ed by the 57 Di­vi­sion of the Sri Lankan Army un­der the com­mand of Ja­gath Dias." ECCHR appealed to the German Government to take the allegations levelled against Major General Dias' 57 Division seriously, and to seriously investigate his [Dias's] individual criminal responsibility. ECCHR also appealed to the German Government to withdraw the diplomatic visa of Major General Dias as well as declare him a persona non grata.
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Rathika becomes the first Eezham Tamil MP in Canada

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 23:19 GMT]
29-year-old Canadian Eezham Tamil Rathika Sitsabaiesen, hailing from Achchuveali in Jaffna, has been elected as member of parliament in Canada as a candidate of New Democratic Party (NDP) which has emerged as the leading opposition under the leadership of Jack Layton in the general elections held on May 02. Ms. Rathika now represents the multi-ethnic federal constituency of Scarborough- Rouge River, where Eezham Tamils make a significant section of the population. She is the first Tamil to be elected to the Canadian Parliament. Her successful election by a big margin through the opposition NDP ticket reflects the true feelings of Eezham Tamils in Canada towards establishments that slip in delivering justice to Eezham Tamils, commented Tamil diaspora circles in Canada.
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Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts), Pa'n'naiththu'rai, Matara

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 06:45 GMT]
The port of ships or small ships
The port of large boats or cargo boats
The big port
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NorthEast Tamils still under military rule, says TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Two years after the end of the war, Tamils in the North and East are still living under the yoke of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), said Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Ariyanenthran. "Colombo government and its supporters are saying that the peace has returned with the end of the three decade old war.
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ITAK urges internationally supervised negotiations with GoSL

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 09:20 GMT]
Two veteran Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) politicians, C.V.K Sivagnanam and Mavai Senthirajah, on Sunday urged international supervision of a process that guarantees both a proper negotiation process and the implementation of results in the talks between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). The two officials of ITAK, a key party of the TNA, in their address urged that both the governments of India and Tamil Nadu to play a sincere and constructive role to bring about an international supervision that should include China, USA and other world players. In the meantime, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) condemned the agents of the Sri Lankan state for forcing Tamils from all the districts in the North and East to take part in May Day demonstrations in Colombo, organized by Sinhala extremist elements against the UN Expert panel report.
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