SL Archbishop collaborates with Gotabhaya in militarization land grab

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2013, 14:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Archbishop and a Cardinal of Vatican, His Eminence Malcolm Ranjith had personally come along with genocidal Colombo’s Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in grabbing Mu’l’lik-ku’lam village in Mannaar district for a naval base of the occupying Sinhala military and declaring the village out of bounds for its resettling inhabitants, news sources in Mannaar said. The Sinhala Archbishop had come and the Tamil Bishop of Mannaar, Rayappu Joseph, was made to silently sit along with him at the conference called by Gotabhaya at Mu’l’likku’lam on 26 December, in coercing the largely Tamil Catholic villagers to the sulking reconciliation of accepting alternative offers of land, the news sources further said.
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MIA, Goldcoast bound, speaks for Tamil refugees

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2013, 00:05 GMT]
Jaffna born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam (popularly known as MIA), called the "the most provocative pop star of her age," by the British Guardian, and who played a big role in raising the plight of Tamil refugees, again spoke out for the Tamil asylum seekers in Australia as she landed in the Gold Coast, near Brisbane Australia today to join The Chemical Brothers as one of the headline acts at the Summafieldayze music festival, reports from Australia said. "You know, it's really difficult to work out the future of a minority group [Eezham Tamils] that is considered disposable. Can you just let them in? It's a big enough country....I don't think it's about isolating those people. It's about embracing them because that's the future," MIA was quoted as saying in a local paper.
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Jaffna University VC gags academics speaking to media

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2013, 13:59 GMT]
Calling the Teachers’ Associations and talking to them in an intimidating way, the Colombo-appointed Jaffna University Vice Chancellor Prof Vasanthi Arasaratnam warned them sternly against speaking to media on the affairs of the university and on the issue of re-opening it. The VC cited directives from the defence establishment of occupying Sri Lanka in gagging the academics, heads of departments and the teachers’ unions. While the academics are enraged over the role played by the VC, the students of the university observing boycott are individually harassed and intimidated everyday by the occupying Sinhala military that calls them to the camps and visits their residences in coercing them to drop the boycott.
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Nepalese war criminal faces torture charges in UK

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2013, 13:54 GMT]
Colonel Kumar Lama, a 46-year-old Nepalese officer, currently seconded to the UN, was held at his East Sussex home by Metropolitan Police officers on Thursday, charged with intentionally "inflicting severe pain or suffering" as a public official on two separate individuals, BBC reported. "This encouraging development puts on notice persumptive war-criminals from Sri lanka who have participated or commanded extra-judicial killings, torture of civilians, and killings of surrendees, all qualifying as war-crimes during a State sanctioned massacre that comes perilously close to genocide, on visiting UK, or other European Countries where the Courts exercise Universal jurisdiction for such crimes," a spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said.
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Colombo ventures to coach New Delhi on ‘Counterinsurgency’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2013, 10:42 GMT]
After spearheading an internationally-coordinated counterinsurgency (COIN) operation against the LTTE which resulted in an internationally abetted genocide of the Eezham Tamils in May 2009, in which India played no small a role, Sri Lanka now claims that it can offer training to Indian and other military forces in COIN operations. The commitment of General Bikram Singh, the Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army, to Sri Lanka’s security and his implicit appreciation of the Sri Lanka model of COIN by his statements at the passing out parade at Sri Lanka Military Academy on 22 December should be a cause of concern for progressive civil society activists in India, for while the ‘Sri Lanka solution’ was possible in its specific case only by a combination of geo-political factors and genocidal intent, it holds out lessons that could threaten democratic traditions in any country.
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Sri Lanka appoints military to teach Sinhala in Vanni schools

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2013, 21:21 GMT]
In a hitherto unheard experiment in conducting genocide, the Sri Lanka government has appointed its occupying military to teach Sinhala as second language to Tamil school children in Vanni. The Sinhala military personnel went in uniform to schools to report as Sinhala teachers and they claimed that they had permission from the SL education authorities to do so, news sources in Vanni said. The genocidal military teaching Sinhala goes parallel to the teaching of Theravada Buddhism to Tamils. The Sinhala military also aims to be in direct touch with the Tamil school children, the news sources further said. Already there were strict instructions to schools in Vanni that no functions could take place without inviting the occupying military and garlanding them publicly.
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Missing woman found slain, dumped inside well near SL military post in Kaarainakar

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2013, 21:06 GMT]
A 27-year-old mentally disabled woman, who was reported missing from the psychiatric unit of Thellippazhai Base Hospital in Valikaamam North, was found dead in an abandoned well near Sri Lanka Navy post at Kaarainakar on Friday. The inner clothes of the victim were found torn apart and her body was recovered in a decomposed state. Medical staff at Kaarainakar hospital and Moo’laay cooperative hospital told TamilNet that two SL policemen had come to their hospital with the mentally disabled female on 07 December seeking medical assistance. However, the SL policemen, when contacted by the relatives of the victim have ‘explained’ that they had dropped the female at Valanthalai junction situated at the entrance to Kaarainakar, around 1:30 a.m. on 08 December.
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Brian says Aussie FM was with Rajapaksa during his Singapore deportation

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2013, 19:35 GMT]
Sharing with TamilNet more details of his deportation from Singapore on 14 December, 81-year-old Australian human rights activist of Sinhala origin, Dr Brian Seneviratne said that the Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr was in Colombo, meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the time of his deportation. Reminding the Australian Prime Minister that what had happened in Sri Lanka was genocide, and the regime is a set of pathological liars, Brian said: “Mr Carr has enhanced the ability of this murderous regime to commit gross violations of human rights by doing what he has just done in Colombo – saying that Australia will help the Sri Lankan Navy to stop people fleeing from the murderous regime in Sri Lanka.”
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EPDP accuses occupying SL military for inaction on child rape, murder

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2013, 21:10 GMT]
In a strange turn of affairs, SL minister Douglas Devnanda’s Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP), a paramilitary collaborating with Sri Lanka government, demonstrated on Thursday against the rape and murder of a 4-year-old child in one of the islets off Jaffna, shouting slogans against the occupying SL military. Why the Sri Lankan forces that were quick in arresting those who were hoisting Tiger Flags is unable to arrest the culprit behind the heinous crime, the EPDP demonstrators questioned. The girl child, Chudarini Gunasegaram reported missing from her house at Ma’ndai-theevu in Jaffna on 27 December, was found slain and dumped into an abandoned well the following day, with traces of rape in brutal ways.
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UN continues to commit knowing blunder on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2013, 08:14 GMT]
While various publications, including an internal investigation report of the UN, find fault with the way the UN handled the Vanni War that ended in genocide, the UN, the ICRC, the IOM and other international agencies continue to commit the same blunder knowingly, by leaving Eezham Tamils entirely in the hands of Colombo, with no outfits to complain with trust or to independently monitor the on-going genocide, said a senior social activist in the island, citing the cases of the repeated rape and abuse of former LTTE cadres, the sufferings of the Tamil women coerced into SL military, the plight of a doctor who voiced for them, forced relocation of re-settlers and the acts committed on Jaffna University students. These take place at individual level, apart from the larger militarisation, colonisation and Sinhalicisation of the genocidal agenda, he said.
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East mourns demise of Muslim Tamil educationalist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2013, 11:50 GMT]
The 40th day mourning for Al-haj M.A. Samsudeen, who passed away on 25 November at the age of 82, is to be observed at Addaa’laich-cheanai in the Ampaa’rai district of Eastern Province on Thursday. Mr. Samshudeen dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to education in the East as well in the North and retired as Batticaloa’s Additional Director of Education. His education and career in the East, North and Tamil Nadu is one such that would inspire anyone of the larger perspective shared by Muslims and Tamils.
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Canada extradites citizens to stand "terrorism" trial in Brooklyn

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2013, 02:29 GMT]
Two naturalized Canadian citizens of Eezham Tamil origin, Suresh Sriskandarajah and Piratheepan Nadarajah, plead not guilty to charges on providing material assistance to the now defunct Liberation Tigers when both were arraigned Thursday last week in the District Court of the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), after a six year battle in Canada fighting extradition, legal sources in New York said. The defendants lost a constitutional challenge in the Canadian Supreme Court when the Court ruled that Canada’s terrorism laws did not infringe on the defendants constitutional rights and that the Canadian Justice Minister's order to surrender the defendants to the United States was legal.
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Extra-judicial killings of Trinco-5 students by SL military - 7th Anniversary

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2013, 00:01 GMT]
Dr Kasippillai Manoharan and four other families will be commemorating the seventh anniversary of the death of their sons extra-judicially executed by the Sri Lanka armed forces on the 2nd January 2006. The high school students, all then nearly 20-years old, were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee when the dastardly crime, widely believed to be carried out under directives from high-level officials in Colombo, happened. While the case (DR-11/1-2006) in the Trincomalee court is kept alive for procedural reasons and the Court is unable to deliver justice due to the State's alleged complicity in the killings, legal action against Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse is proceeding in the District Columbia District Court.
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SL military admits ‘terrorism’ detention of Dr Sivashankar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 January 2013, 21:50 GMT]
Sri Lankan military spokesman in Colombo, Brigadier Ruwan Vanigasooriya, on Tuesday admitted to journalists in the South that the SL military was detaining Medical Officer Ratnasingham Sivashankar. According to the spokesman of the occupying SL military, the Tamil doctor has been detained because he had "trespassed" into the military base where Tamil women were being held for military training. The doctor had entered the camp in connection with a recently recruited female trainee relative, Vanigasooriya claimed, and added that the doctor had showed ‘false reasons’ and had tried to make contact with a recently ‘recruited’ Tamil females and tried to discourage them from undergoing training. He tried to question the SL military officials on the recruitment of Tamil females and the SL military has arrested him on suspicion, he said.
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Malaysian Tamil declaration upholds Eezham Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 January 2013, 00:14 GMT]
The World Tamilar Protection Conference (WTPC) in its second session conducted in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on Friday, declared that it recognises the need to understand the question of Eezham Tamils in terms of their claim for Historical Sovereignty, Earned Sovereignty and Remedial Sovereignty in their territory. The declaration said that the nation of Eezham Tamils having sovereignty and the right to self-determination in their traditional homeland in the island of Sri Lanka had been subjected to genocide over 60 years by the Sinhala nation. Convened jointly by the President of Puthiya Thamizhakam Party in Tamil Nadu Dr K. Krishnasamy and the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang State in Malaysia Prof P Ramasamy, the conference was addressed by Malaysia’s Leader of the Opposition Mr Anwar Ibrahim.
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Veteran Eezham Tamil activist Rasaiah Navanayagam passes away in London

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2012, 21:46 GMT]
Rasaiah Navanayagam, a veteran Eezham Tamil activist based in the UK, passed away in London on Wednesday at the age of 71. Mr. Navanayagam, who rose in prominence as an activist in UK in the 80s, was instrumental in the formation of several grassroot political and social organizations in London. Recognized for being one of the key organizers of the first Maaveerar Naa'l in London in 1990 with the guidance of the late Col. Kittu, activists who worked with him remember his homeland oriented perspective and his resourcefulness in mobilizing the Tamil community in the UK for political and cultural activities. Mr. Navanayagam’s demise is mourned by a cross-section of the Eezham Tamil community in the UK.
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Puzzling consequence for ‘missing’ doctor caring Tamil women under SL military

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2012, 20:46 GMT]
The fate of a Tamil doctor, R. Sivashankar, who voiced for the rights of Tamil women forcefully recruited and held against their will by the SL military, is not known after he was ‘arrested’ following a dispute with the occupying military at Kokkaavil in Vanni on Saturday, according to the family members and relatives. Informed sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet that the SL military operatives who have taken the Medical Officer attached to Anuradhapura Blood Bank, used a psychiatrist in Vanni to issue a false report that the ‘detained’ doctor was mentally ill. In the meantime, the wife of the missing doctor, J Thirumagal Sivashankar, who is also a medical officer, went in search of her husband to Maangku'lam Police station was told by the SL police that they had no information on the whereabouts of her husband.
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Interference in Sri Lanka judiciary under international spotlight

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2012, 19:22 GMT]
Gabriela Knaul, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, warning that intimidation and the "dramatic increase" inattacks against judges and judicial officers in Sri Lanka may constitute a threat to the independence of the justice system, said, “The recent steps taken by the executive and legislative towards impeaching the Chief Justice appear to be the culminating point of a series of attacks against the judiciary for asserting its independence."
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Brian identifies Sri Lanka, Australia as beneficiaries of his Singapore deportation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 December 2012, 12:35 GMT]
Dr Brian Seneviratne, 81-year-old Australian human rights activist of Sinhala origin steadfastly fighting for the rights of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, was deported by Singapore immigration on 14 December, when he came from Australia to go to Malaysia and address closed-door meetings on the push factors of refugees coming from the island via Malaysia and their handling by Australia. In a letter addressed to Australian Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, raising several questions on the modus operandi of his deportation by Singapore defying a State’s obligation to the international rights of any person, Brian identifies the Government of Sri Lanka and the Government of Australia as the ultimate beneficiaries of his deportation.
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Colombo posters wage war against all shades of Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 December 2012, 09:20 GMT]
Citing the posters that appeared in Colombo and in southern parts of the island last week, a notice in Sinhala addressing ‘intelligent students’ of the Jaffna University, invariably accused all shades of Tamil polity in the island and in the diaspora that are not collaborating with the genocidal regime, as working for the division of the ‘country’. The notice also accused Sinhala students and shades of Sinhala Left in the south showing solidarity with the students of the Jaffna University, as unconsciously becoming a “prey to the interests of the LTTE to divide the country.” An English translation of the notice is produced herewith.
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