SL Budget to be tabled in parliament on November 7

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 03:47 GMT]
The 2010 budget will be presented to Parliament on November 7, Non Cabinet Minister of Finance Ranjit Siyambalapitiya said. The third reading vote on the budget will take place on December 4, he told parliament Tuesday. There were speculations earlier that a budget will not be presented this year.
Full story >>

Vaddukkoaddai and Thimphu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 September 2009, 13:04 GMT]
Calling for the creation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam, based on Vaddukkoadai Resolution (VR) was the last spontaneous and definite mandate by Eezham Tamils in a totally free and democratic atmosphere. As the need for democratic political organisation unfolds afresh, Tamils have to take up the thread directly from the VR. The Thimphu principles and all the other formulas put forward subsequently under the duress of powers, and failed as negotiation models, do not get precedence over the VR as bases for political organization. Mu’l’livaaykkaal was not the real defeat. The defeat comes only when Tamils are made to politically denounce their heart-felt aspirations. The diaspora needs to peruse and correct course of any proposal that stops just at self-determination. In UN charter and in international law it is just an empty phrase that doesn’t protect nations or ethnicities.
Full story >>

China to boost Sri Lanka’s coconut industry

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 08:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Plantations Industries Minister Mr. D. M. Jayaretna held discussions Friday with visiting officials of a China based company to boost coconut industry in the island and also to set up a plant to manufacture coconut shell charcoal, sources in Colombo said. Direct instructions were issued to this China based company from the Government of China to hold discussions with the Government of Sri Lanka, the sources added.
Full story >>

Obama extolled Sri Lanka Journalist given prison term, says NYT

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 04:09 GMT]
Noting that J.S. Tissainayagam was picked by President Obama on World Press Freedom Day as a “symbol of oppression of the media,” the New York Times (NYT) Tuesday reported that this editor of a crusading magazine in SriLanka was sentenced by the island’s court for writing critical articles on the Sri Lanka government’s offensive against Tamils. The NYT, quoting two prominent staffers at the Colombo-based think-tank Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), said that the sentence was a very serious blow [to journalism], that the law under which the sentence was passed “ is so vague that practically any speech could be prosecuted,” and that it is unacceptable that the Court would give maximum sentence to a journalist for simply doing his job.
Full story >>

Chauvinism and greed 'naked' in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 04:07 GMT]
It was frightening to see the combined effect of naked chauvinism of Sri Lanka and naked greed of powers, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo responding to the video clip displayed Tuesday. “Such a trend in the establishments is a challenge to every lay human being of the civilized world. While rising up to free people in the internment camps is a spontaneous response, what is of paramount importance is independent political organisation of Tamils in order to meet the challenge of the same forces that are now coercing or enticing them to drop righteous aspirations. Tamils are not asking for other’s land or for empires. They only ask for their own land and there is nothing to get scared or to feel ashamed of. As people of classical heritage, if Tamils fail, they fail not merely their cause but an entire human civilization,” he writes commenting on current Tamil affairs.
Full story >>

Eelam and the new 'super power' Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 August 2009, 04:46 GMT]
In their petty geopolitical and corporate interests, India and the West have created a Frankenstein monster of a state in Sri Lanka that disgraces the whole world. What fears them now is this monster in its frenzies making their labours lost in the island. This is what impels them to tell the victims to reconcile, not to anger the monster and not to say genocide even when it takes place for decades. A general excuse they come out with is that the present world has no appetite for new nation states. Colombo makes the best use of this weakness. No justifiable norm of polity could be seen in why India and the West should labour so hard to uphold a united Sri Lanka and to appease it beyond all limits, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full story >>

Academic exposes ideological shift in DMK

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 August 2009, 11:59 GMT]
Discerning students of Tamil Nadu politics, especially those analysing the role of the state in Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, are intrigued by the transformation that has taken place in the DMK perception on Sri Lanka, writes V. Suryanarayan in an article last week appeared in New Indian Express. “The tragedy of the situation must be underlined; the Sri Lankan Tamils became pawns in the electoral politics of the state. What is more, their struggle for justice, equity and dignity has been pushed back by several decades. A long winter of discontent is ahead of Sri Lankan Tamils,” he concludes the article.
Full story >>

A roadmap to liberation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 August 2009, 22:30 GMT]
What is currently seen as the biggest threat of destabilisation by Colombo and by some powers is not the militancy of Tamils. Militancy of a small nation can be crushed by ganging up and by fabricating all excuses, as has already been witnessed by us. But what exactly threatens the establishments is the effort of Tamils organising themselves politically. What they expect is the ‘defeated’ Tamils to play political stooges. Tamil national question today appeals to an array of oppressed masses deprived of political justice all over the world. It is a topic that appeals to progressive minds thinking of restructuring the polity of human civilisation. The responsibility of Eezham Tamils and their diaspora is to present the case with a progressive political theme and language.
Full story >>

Indian HC hands over 117 million rupees to Gotabaya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2009, 21:49 GMT]
Bank drafts worth over 117 million Sri Lankan rupees were officially handed over by Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Alok Prasad to Colombo’s Secretary of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Wednesday, for the ‘rehabilitation’ project of the air force base at Palaali (Palaly) in the Jaffna peninsula. This is the second instalment of Indian assistance to the improvement of the runway, according to SL defence ministry. Meanwhile, India intends to withdraw its medical team from August 31, as most of the urgent medical needs of the war displaced in the Menik Farm zone assigned to the Indian hospital had been met, The Hindu reported.
Full story >>

President Rajapakse will give nothing to Tamils – Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 06:49 GMT]
“Tamils should be vigilant of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse’s intentions. He says that there is no minority race in the country but only a majority race. It is clear that his intention is to assimilate the Tamil race into the Majority Sinhala race in Sri Lanka,” Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet Saturday in an interview in Jaffna.
Full story >>

Sinhala IDP families to be resettled in Weli-Oya sector by August 31

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 10:34 GMT]
Government has decided to resettle thousands of Sinhala families displaced from the Weli-Oya - Pathaviya sector under the 180-day “Vaddakin Vasantham”(Uthuru Vasanthaya) Program before August 31, Presidential Secretariat sources said Monday according to media reports. Displaced families would be resettled in the Weli-Oya Divisional Secretariat areas such as Kalyanapura, Morawewa, and Gajabhapura before August 31, said Media Secretary of the Presidential Secretariat, Senaka Ubeysinghe, Monday.
Full story >>

Holding grounds is fundamental to everything

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 22:34 GMT]
Professing defeatism or surrendering the basic grounds are not the ways to begin or to sustain the struggle with the masses, even in ways anew, perhaps through democratic means. Talking on the need to continue the struggle is not to rule out the need to negotiate. But negotiation is not collaboration. Negotiators need a firm platform supported by the hearts of the masses on behalf of whom they negotiate. Negotiation cannot take place when the platform is surrendered. It is to safeguard the platform for struggle and negotiation the Tamil circles are now keen in re-affirming the democratically mandated Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 that upholds independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Eezham Tamils, at least where there is freedom of expression. Even after 2000 years the Jews were able to regain their land because they never lost their nationalism or the thought of Israel.
Full story >>

The onus is on the diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 00:22 GMT]
The military outcome of the crisis has emboldened a bunch of people to chant that ‘we told you so’ and now collaborate with thy oppressors. This group is not new to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo. "Ever since universal suffrage was introduced in the ethnically divided island in 1931, there was always a section willing to play stooges to the majority. Yet the struggle of the freedom seekers also remained alive. If the fighters are accused of not achieving any, so are the collaborators and the ‘we told you so’ groups," the commentator writes. "The onus of facing the situation now entirely rests on the Eezham Tamil diaspora, as it is the only entity that has the freedom of expression. Response to Karunanidhi has to come from the diaspora through reaffirming the Vaddukkoaddai resolution," he further writes.
Full story >>

Opposition MPs denied access to Vanni internment camps

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 11:36 GMT]
“Sri Lanka government has not yet permitted the opposition parliamentarians to see the Tamil civilians held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps in Vavuniyaa in order to learn of their problems and help them,” Gayantha Karunathilaka, United National Party (UNP) media spokesman, said in a press meet held Wednesday at the office of the leader of the opposition in Colombo.
Full story >>

11 journalists killed, 50 abducted since 2005 – UNP parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 June 2009, 20:13 GMT]
“Eleven journalists have been killed while fifty have been abducted from 2005 up to now,” Joseph Michael Perera, Gampaha district parliamentarian and United National Party (UNP) Chief Whip said in Sri Lanka parliament presenting a special report Wednesday morning, sources in Colombo said. Meanwhile, five media organizations staged a protest demonstration Wednesday around 3:00 p.m in Colombo Vihara Mahadevi Park, condemning the abduction of and assault on journalist Bothala Jeyantha.
Full story >>

Setting the hands of the clock right

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 June 2009, 20:04 GMT]
The Eezham Tamils and their political representatives have no obligation to anyone now, to engage in the deliberations of fruitless alternatives. But the world has an obligation now to tell the Tamils whether its opposition is to what it has perceived as 'terrorism' or to Tamil nationalism. The Eezham Tamil mainstream has a historic responsibility on its shoulders to be performed right now. If the oppression to their nationalism is trans-national, the Eezham Tamils have to respond by forming a trans-national government fully responsible to them based on democracy, to negotiate with the world and to look after their own affairs.
Full story >>

'Timely action from Tamil Nadu expected'

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 May 2009, 11:02 GMT]
The Eezham Tamils are ever grateful to all political parties of Tamil Nadu that upheld their cause, irrespective of electoral politics and its outcome determined by national and state level equations. The Eezham Tamils are especially grateful to the two major political parties, the DMK and the AIDMK, for firmly voicing for the creation of Tamil Eelam as the ultimate solution to the crisis. It is now time that a resolution to this effect has to be enacted in the Tamil Nadu State Assembly to inspire course of action in India, international community and in the Tamil diaspora, said veteran liberation fighter Ki Pi Aravinthan in France, Sunday. This is a possible and affordable action Tamil Nadu can undertake immediately to guarantee the future of Eezham Tamils and to respect the thousands laying down their life upholding Tamil dignity, he said.
Full story >>

Karunanidhi should bargain exit of habitually biased

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 02:04 GMT]
It is a well-known fact that certain elements, belonging to a clan operating from Nehru’s time bringing in disasters to India’s foreign policy, were responsible for the second time in India committing war crimes on Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. In forming the next government, chief minister Karunanidhi should use all his bargaining power to see that these elements never play a role again in Tamil affairs, said a Tamil journalist in Chennai. This is more important than bargaining ministerial portfolios, considering national interests of India and peace of the Tamil people, he said.
Full story >>

'Responsibility now with US'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2009, 10:37 GMT]
The first act of Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi after the announcement of the election results was an appeal to the Indian Establishment re-elected to power to save the Eezham Tamils. However, the utmost responsibility lies with the Co-Chairs and especially with the US, says TamilNet’s political analyst in Colombo. The US has to either convince India or act alone to save the situation and save its own credibility. Failing, the White House is likely to emerge bearing the major responsibility for conning Tamils to their death and subjugation, and the IC tagged behind it may never be able to justify its credentials in implementing a world order it desires, he further said.
Full story >>

Sonia says war is over while 1200 civilian bodies are counted in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 23:56 GMT]
Congress president Ms Sonia Gandhi, sharing a platform with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Sunday said: "Our government had done everything possible to bring an end to the hostilities and it was due to our resolute efforts that Sri Lanka announced conclusion of combat operations and people moved to safer places," PTI quoted Ms. Gandhi saying. Meanwhile, the same day has seen a massive massacre of civilians in the no-fire zone by the Sri Lanka Army using all kinds of heavy weapons and aerial bombing. Around 1200 bodies were counted so far and 1125 injured managed to reach the makeshift hospital.
Full story >>