Tamils vow to stage feast at Naayaa'ru, disregard ‘advice’ on not to provoke monks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2019, 10:37 GMT]
How about Tamils considering an approach of collaborating with the Sinhala Buddhist establishment and adopting a line without provoking the monks, the US Ambassador in Colombo recently asked a Tamil minister, informed sources in Colombo said. The SL minister was also working hard to contain the escalating dispute at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu and at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee in an attempt to strike a compromise. However, the monks were not listening. They came with expanding plans of Neeraaviyadi and stepped up their hostile protests. The militant monks started to threaten the Tamils by naming and shaming a prominent activist of the anti-Mahaweli protests at a demonstration they staged recently at Neeraaviyadi. Now, the Tamil grassroots activists in Vanni have vowed to carry 108 Pongkal pots to the Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Neeraaviyadi on 06 July 2019 to stage a feast to their deity.
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Colombo wants to legally militarise lands attached to ‘JOSSOP’ base in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 June 2019, 22:22 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka wants to permanently seize a large tract of land surrounding the notorious ‘JOSSOP’ camp in Vavuniyaa, which the SL military deployed as a torture chamber during the times of war. Although the official claim was about 16 acres of lands, the move aims to convert at least 250 acres of lands including higher-lying lands that belonged to 14 families. The unitary state mechanism is silently working to legally transfer these lands to the SL military at the absence of mobilised opposition by the uprooted and war-affected people, Tamil civil sources at Vavuniyaa District Secretariat said. The travellers to Vavuniyaa could see the extent of the military cantonment for almost one kilometre along the A9 highway, 2 km south of Vavuniyaa.
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SLA officer attempts to seize coastal lands as intruding fisher in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2019, 19:23 GMT]
A Sinhala Army officer stationed in Vaakarai is claiming lands to set up fishing ‘Paadu’ (an area of coastal sea-bed falling within the scope of a draw-net at 10 feet long) at the Tamil village of Maavadai-oadai in Vaakarai (Koara'laip-pattu North division) in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. The intruding Sinhala Army officer, attached to 233 Brigade of the SLA, is known as Major Kumara. He was clearing the land, which initially belonged to a Tamil land-owner, N. Packiyarasa. The area falls within the so-called safety buffer zone of 200 meters from the coast as the SL State enforced a ban after the 2004 tsunami. Tension prevailed in the village when the Sinhala officer, in military uniform, started to clear the 2.5 acres of lands using a bulldozer. The occupying Sinhala Army was backing him.
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Anti-Muslim harassment escalates in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 June 2019, 23:51 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Navy and Army along with the SL Police are harassing the Tamil-speaking Muslims in two hotspots in Mannaar district as never before, and the trend is worsening every day without anyone to voice for the rights of the affected innocent people. The predominantly Sinhala soldiers, particularly the SL Navy personnel at Thaaraa-puram in Mannaar island and those stationed in the mainland in Musali division, are humiliating the residents of more than 20 colonies. These settlements were put up by the controversial politician, Rishard Bathiudeen, who was serving the successive regimes in Colombo while creating a voter base for himself with the funding he facilitated from the Arabic world. The former SL Minister's opportunistic political behaviour has not only backfired against him but also against the Muslim residents of Thaaraa-Puram, which is his native village in Mannaar.
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Pompeo cancels Colombo visit, concentrates on US-India relations in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2019, 18:41 GMT]
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has cancelled his visit to Colombo which was scheduled for Thursday. The US Embassy in Colombo was citing “scheduling issues” for the annulment. However, Mr Pompeo dropping his short visit had “more to do with rising local sentiments against a proposed American military base” on the island reported The Economic Times on Tuesday. The US Secretary of State was focusing more on the longer-term strategic partnership and on ironing out the trade disputes between the USA and India on Wednesday. Pompeo was scheduled to visit New Delhi and Colombo, before meeting US President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan and accompanying him to South Korea after that. While India is a major defence partner, the US has been seeking defence partnership with ‘Sri Lanka’ and three other countries, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal, in South Asia.
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PTA claimed life of upcountry Tamil political prisoner: Fr Shaktivel

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2019, 20:20 GMT]
It was the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) that ultimately claimed the life of 62-year-old Muththaiah Sagadevan, who was severely affected by various diseases during his 14 years of detention. He passed away at the National Hospital in Colombo under the prolonged PTA-custody on 22 June, said Rev Fr M Shaktivel, the co-chairperson of the Action Committee to Free Tamil Political Prisoners. The TID detained Sagadevan in 2005. It took three years to file a case against him in 2008. But, the baseless PTA case was being dragged on for so long destroying his psychological and physical health. The misery has been caused by the new regime which has failed to recognise the PTA detainees of the LTTE times as political prisoners, Fr Shakthivel said. The international community was also calling for the scrapping of the PTA, he noted.
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Colombo escalates charges against three political prisoners as ‘war crimes’

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2019, 23:26 GMT]
SL Attorney General's Department has formulated its false charges against three Tamil political prisoners (TPPs) as LTTE's war crimes. Dropping the earlier expressed charge, which was also not based on evidence, the SL-AG has introduced a new 27 point charge. The three TPPs, Mathiyarasan Sulaxan, Rasathurai Thiruvarul and Ganeshan Tharshan, have been languishing in the prison for ten years. They are now being ‘punished’ for their unrelenting protests in prison in the past, legal sources said. One of the prisoners managed to explain the baseless accusation to the journalists who were present at the High Court in Vavuniyaa, when he was brought for the hearings. The hearings are scheduled for three days.
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Ploy of monks and bigotry of politicians critical to TNA's Quisling politics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2019, 17:05 GMT]
A section of Tamil politicians, who claim that they are opposed to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on principles grounds regarding Tamil rights, have fallen right into the sophisticated trap laid by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment in the district of Ampaa'rai. The Tamil politicians, who were attending the hunger-strike in which the role of Ven Ranmuthugala Sangharathana Thero had become the ‘foremost’ attention-drawer, were contributing to severing the ties between the Tamils and Muslims in the future. By making their presence at the platform promoted by the Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Gnanasara Thero, JHU Parliamentarian monk Athuraliye Rathana Thero and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, they were betraying the legitimate cause, including their objective criticism of the Quisling hierarchy of the TNA.
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Tamils should demand to scrap Mahaweli ‘development’ in North-East: Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2019, 23:04 GMT]
The SL military and three departments coming under Colombo, SL Forest, Archaeology and Mahaweli, have seized more than 80,000 acres of lands in Mullaiththeevu district alone. The Sinhala colonisation has targeted the North-East with the so-called ‘Mahaweli development’ for a long time since 1948. The ultimate motive is three-fold: grabbing the lands of Tamils, enacting demographic changes and wedging the territorial integrity of the North-East, which constitutes the traditional homeland of Tamils, said Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the former Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, in his weekly response to questions from media on Thursday.
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Time for Canadian Eezham Tamils to chart next course of diaspora action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The political parties in Canada have unanimously called upon the UN to “establish an international independent investigation into the allegations of genocide against Tamils committed in Sri Lanka including the last phase of the armed conflict in 2009” along with two other demands to Colombo. A resolution was unanimously adopted extending condolences to all of the victims of violence while demanding the SL government to deliver justice to the Easter Sunday attacks, including protection of all religious places of worship and to fulfil its obligations made in Geneva within a clearly specified timeframe. Welcoming the move, the Tamil activists in the island urged the Canadian Tamil diaspora to concentrate on educating their host country on the unworkability of transitional justice in the island without international investigations on the genocide taking precedence over the other two demands.
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SL military deploys paramilitary against Tamils in rural areas of Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
SL Military Intelligence has re-introduced Tamil paramilitary personnel who interfere in the day-to-day civil affairs of the poverty-stricken Eezham Tamils in the rural areas, situated 45 km northwest of Batticaloa in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division. The occupying SL Army wants to know everything in detail from private gatherings involving relatives of the families to public events and land usage of the resettled people through the paramilitary personnel who were previously on the pay-list of Karuna and Pillayan groups, informed sources said.
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Another Buddha statue placed near Trincomalee private bus stand

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2019, 18:38 GMT]
A group of persons led by a Sinhala Buddhist monk installed a Buddha statue at the auto-rickshaw parking place located near the private bus stand in Trincomalee city on Sunday morning when the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the settlers were marking Poson Full Moon Poya. The 75 cm high Buddha statue, placed inside a glass cover, has replaced a smaller figure at 20 cm height, Tamil residents said. The move was part of a systematic plan, they said. The smaller statue had been placed at the locality after 2009. Now the extremist section has installed the statue with glass cover, which usually precedes the installation of a giant Buddha statue, the people said.
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SL Police harasses Sinhala writer after articles on marauding Sinhala-Buddhist violence

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2019, 19:04 GMT]
The Organised Crimes Prevention Division (OCPD) of the SL Police in Colombo is harassing veteran journalist Kusal Perera, a Sinhala political essayist, who has been writing about the escalating anti-Muslim Sinhala-Buddhist extremism after the Easter Sunday attacks. The Free Media Movement (FMM) in Colombo said that the SL Police was attempting to record a statement from the editors of Colombo-based English newspaper Daily Mirror on Friday. The SL Police was trying to convince the Colombo Magistrate Courts to detain and investigate the journalist under the provisions of the so-called ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (ICCPR) Act No 56 of 2007. The FMM said that the latest move by the SL Police was setting “dangerous precedent” as it was a serious threat to the freedom of expression and media and the pursuance of legal action under the ICCPR Act.
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Militant monk warns Tamils not to challenge ‘foremost’ stake of Sinhala Buddhism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2019, 21:39 GMT]
Sinhala extremist militant monk Ven Bengamuwe Nalaka Thero, the chief organiser of so-called ‘National Rights Movement,’ was visiting the disputed heritage site, Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East, Naayaa'ru, in the district of Mullaith-theeevu on Sunday. He was taking hardline Sinhala protesters in three buses from Colombo, Anuradhapura and the Sinhala colony of Janakapura at Weli-Oya (Ma'nal-aa'ru) in Mullaiththeevu to stage a protest against the removal of the Sinhala name board of the illegally constructed Buddhist temple at the disputed heritage site. Nalaka Thero, along with a couple of other speakers, issued a stern warning to the Tamils that they better dare not to challenge the heritage genocide being waged by the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment and the SL ‘Army and Archaeology’.
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Tamil land-owners suppressed from mobilising against ethnic land-grab in Thiriyaay

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2019, 23:37 GMT]
The present SL Government Agent (District Secretary) of Trincomalee district, NAA Pushpakumara, as well as his predecessor Major General (retd) Ranjit de Silva, both Sinhalese, have transferred more than 300 acres of fertile lands of Eezham Tamils to Sinhala politicians and officials. The Divisional Secretary serving under them has been forced to subject the properties for long-term lease, said M. Konesan, the chairman of Thiriyaay Farmers’ Organisation.
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Mano Ganesan misleads on Kanniyaa heritage dispute: Trincomalee Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2019, 18:48 GMT]
SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and ‘National’ Integration, Mr Mano Ganesan, was appreciated by Tamils in Trincomalee for confronting the Sinhala Buddhist monks regarding the ancient Tamil heritage of Kanniyaa during his recent trip attending the District Coordinating Committee meeting, on Monday. However, the monks were unmoved. They categorically told Mr Ganesan and the TNA Parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran that it was the Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and no one else in the island – not even the Executive President or the Prime Minister– who had the power to determine the fate of the heritage affairs of Kanniyaa. The minister could very well proceed taking up the issue with Maithiripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe in Colombo, but it would not change the ground reality, was the message, says Piratheasa Chapai (PS) councillor Chandirarajah Vipooshan, who was at the meeting.
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SL military targets Tamil grassroots activists in Mullaiththeevu, GS officer receives death threat

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2019, 22:45 GMT]
The occupying Colombo’s Army in Mullaiththeevu has issued death threat to an Eezham Tamil Village Officer (GS), K. Bede Jeyaharan on 06 May, a couple of days before SL President Maithiripala Sirisena visited Mullaiththeevu promoting Sinhala colonisation of the region. The GS officer said he was able to recognise the offenders as SLA soldiers, although they were wearing tinted glasses and were covering their faces with black clothes. The incident took place at Va'n'naag-ku'lam where the SLA soldiers, conducting a cordon and search operation, stopped the GS who was on his way to give tuition at a private education centre. As the masked soldiers turned him away from reaching the institution, a captain rank SLA officer arrived at the site and issued the death threat, the GS has complained to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Vavuniyaa.
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SL State-run Timber Corporation escalates logging of teak trees in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2019, 22:47 GMT]
The SL State-owned Timber Corporation (STC) which comes under the SL Mahaweli Development and Environment Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has been engaged in wide-scale felling of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis) in Oddu-chuddaan area in Mullaiththeevu. The occupying SL military, empowered with police powers under the Emergency Regulations, has been prohibiting Tamil journalists from entering the area to monitor and report on the anti-environment activity which has been stepped up after the visit of Mr Sirisena to Mullaiththeevu on 08 May. The teak trees being cut down are carried out by an all Sinhala team of workers from the South. The trees were planted by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) during the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam before 2009.
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SLA Sinha regiment extorts money from Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 June 2019, 08:37 GMT]
The Sinhala soldiers of the occupying SL Army’s Sinha Regiment in Batticaloa are extorting money in large scale across the 14 administrative divisions of the district under cover of selling lottery tickets. Armed soldiers in military uniform are forcing the Tamil travellers on the road, particularly near the camps in Paduvaan-karai region, forcing people to hand over everything they have in cash in their possession in exchange for a sweep ticket, priced at one hundred rupees. The sweep ticket is being forcibly sold in connection with ‘Sinha Mela’, which is a mega carnival intended to raise funds for the ‘serving officers and men, disabled soldiers and their families of the Sinha Regiment.
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Occupying Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhist settlement in Chemmalai-East, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2019, 21:30 GMT]
The controversial erection of the giant Buddha statue at Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East of Mullaiththeevu district is to be further expanded into a Buddhist enclave encapsulating 33,376 hectares of land area to the southeast of Naayaa'ru lagoon, reveals a poster put up by Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the ‘chief incumbent’ of the so-called Gurukanda Purana Rajamaha Vihara at the disputed heritage site. The monk is groomed by the occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarter-base at Naayaa'aru. Scheming a large hermitage under the name of Gurukanda Purana Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda PRMV), the SL Archaeology Department, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development and Environment’ are backing the scheme, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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