Alienate lands to Sinhala colonists or face transfer: SL Governor warns Tamil DS in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 September 2017, 23:17 GMT]
Occupying Colombo’s Sinhala Governor to North Reginald Cooray has threatened S. Gunabalan, the Tamil divisional secretary of Karai-thu’raip-pattu (Maritime-pattu) division of the Mullaiththeevu district to either face transfer to a remote station or find a way to alienate lands owned by uprooted Tamils at the coastal village of Mukaththuvaaram to 300 Sinhala colonists, informed civil sources in Jaffna said. The threat was issued in front of the representatives of the encroaching Sinhala fishermen, who were gathered last week at the secretariat of the SL governor for an exclusive ethnic Sinhala meeting. Colombo-based Director General of the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DFAR) MCL Fernando, who happens to be a relative of an influential colonist in Mukaththuvaaram and Ven Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero, the extremist Buddhist monk from Kokku’laay, attending the meeting.
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Mano Ganesan’s NGO Secretariat restricts freedom of organisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 September 2017, 23:29 GMT]
Community organizations, civil groups and local NGOs operating in Batticaloa have been recently instructed not to undertake any humanitarian assistance project without informing and securing permission in advance from the district-level officials of the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka. The move is being spearheaded through the NGO Secretariat, which SL Minister Mano Ganesan claims as being organized under his ministry of “National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Language”. However, the move is being controlled by the so-called State Intelligence Service (SIS) of occupying Colombo, informed sources in Batticaloa said. The latest move has also connections with certain Colombo-based NGO outfits that are funded by the West. In recent times, Special Task Force (STF), the notorious counter-insurgency arm of occupying Colombo, has also been harassing the organisations in the district.
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SL Attorney General's Dept., TID continue to conspire against Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 September 2017, 18:03 GMT]
Three Tamil political prisoners, including an Up-Country Tamil, ended their short-lived hunger-strike in August as they were given an assurance by their lawyers that the High Court Judge B. Sasi Mahendran was determined to proceed with their cases in Vavuniyaa as the fasting prisoners had demanded. Earlier, the so-called ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of genocidal Sri Lanka, was trying hard to transfer their cases to a high court in the South, where chances for a Sinhala judge to accept the forcibly obtained confessions by the TID were high. As it became evident that their cases were going to be heard in Vavuniyaa, the TID has recruited a prisoner, recently released from Bossa, to testify against the three with a false confession, the families of the three prisoners told TamilNet on Thursday.
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Cooray emerges as ‘civil’ guardian of Sinhala colonists wedging North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 September 2017, 23:21 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military forcibly evicted Eezham Tamils from strategic Mukaththuvaaram, the northern tip at the lagoon-mouth of Kokku’laay in 1983. After the 2009 genocidal onslaught, 350 Sinhala colonist families have encroached into Mukaththuvaaram. An extremist Sinhala monk has been constructing a Buddha vihara just 1 km north of Mukaththuvaaram. A Sinhalicised Catholic church is operating there already. In the meantime, the SL Governor to North, Reginald Cooray, has been harassing the Tamil officials of Karaithu’raip-pattu division and Mullaiththeevu District in a fresh drive to allocate more houses to Sinhala colonisers through Colombo’s National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) at the occupied lands belonging to uprooted Eezham Tamils. Mr Cooray is interacting with the colonists without involving the elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC), civil sources said.
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Veteran Journalist Sinniah Gurunathan passes away

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2017, 16:01 GMT]
Sinniah Gurunathan from Trincomalee who has been committed to professional journalism during his 55-year-long career in the field, has passed away on Friday at the age of 79 in the east port city. With 40-year background in print media, Mr Gurunathan joined TamilNet in January 1999 and was its Trincomalee correspondent until his retirement in 2014. He was also a Sub-Editor filing translated reports from fellow correspondents on the ground under the guidance of the late Senior Editor, Maamanithar Taraki Sivaram. Gurunathan served the field of independent journalism of Eezham Tamils during the times of war with commitment, resilience and humbleness. He was also a fine example of an experienced bilingual journalist capable of adapting himself to changing technology from the pen to the personal computer and to the Internet-based reporting.
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Ira'nai-theevu without Tamil people constitutes threat against Indian security in Palk Bay

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2017, 22:43 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala Navy was adamantly refusing to release the occupied residential and livelihood twin-islet of Ira'nai-theevu, informed Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) sources told TamilNet. The SL Navy officers were citing the ‘defence’ of the so-called ‘sovereignty’ of genocidal Sri Lanka as the prime reason, at a meeting held in Muzhangkaavil on Thursday, when two ITAK MPs from Vanni met SL ‘State Minister’ for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene, SL Navy commanders and D.M. Swaminthan, a SL ‘Cabinet Minister’ of Resettlement, Prison and Hindu affairs. Finally, a token measure has been promised in the form of allowing Poonakari Divisional Secretariat to survey only 159 of the entire 1,200 acres of lands. At least 783 Eezham Tamil families were living there when they were uprooted for the first time on 10 August 1992. The islets have continuous residential history of 400 years.
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Forced conversion to Sinhala Buddhism deployed as tool of genocide in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2017, 23:06 GMT]
Occupying Colombo, its military and the exclusivist Sinhala Buddhist Theravada Establishment have jointly adopted the Western colonial model of religious conversations of poverty-stricken people at the lowest echelons forcing the Tamil people to convert to Buddhism and start learning Sinhala language. The forced religious conversions are being staged at two separate locations, Navatkuzhi and Puththoor, in the occupied Jaffna peninsula. High-ranking monks including the Chief Prelate (Mahanayakas thero) of the Asgiriya chapter have been scheduled to inspect the genocidal project of Sinhala-Buddhicisation at Puththoor in Valikaamam East and at Naavatkuzhi, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Sunday.
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SL Navy to be more genocidal in future: Premonition of Mannaar Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 August 2017, 23:46 GMT]
The uprooted Tamil women of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam, a strategic coastal village situated on the west coast of Mannaar mainland facing the Gulf of Mannaar, told TamilNet that the SL Navy, refusing to hand back their historical and fertile village, also been exploiting their resources while the people have been left to languish as rootless wanderers for 10 years. Meanwhile, a political analyst in Mannaar said: “We have seen the late Kadirgamar, a Tamil sitting as foreign minister under the CBK regime when one of the foremost diplomat of the nation of Eezham Tamils was assassinated and dumped behind the SL Parliament in 2005. Likewise, the recent appointment of a Tamil as commander of the overwhelming Sinhala Navy of the genocidal State, only gives a premonition of the maritime dangers going to hit the territorial waters of Tamil-speaking peoples and the entire Indian Ocean Region in the future.”
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Undeclared censorship imposed on books, magazines reaching Jaffna by post

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 August 2017, 23:22 GMT]
The occupying state of genocidal Sri Lanka has imposed an undeclared censorship on printed magazines, weeklies and books that are being posted from outside the island to addresses in Jaffna. The latest censorship is being practiced by the Customs section, which is attached to the SL Postal Department in Jaffna, informed postal department workers told TamilNet on Friday. Sinhala Custom officials are removing printed material in letters or parcels that carry any photo or image related to the Tamil struggle in the past. Even a magazine that carried an article about an asylum case of an Eezham Tamil in UK was removed from the post and the recipient was warned to instruct the sender not to post anything related to Tamil nationalism. There are also reports that journalists entering North-East are being subjected to strict surveillance.
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Colombo deprives renovation of four key jetties in Mannaar district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2017, 18:19 GMT]
Eight fisheries jetties used by Tamil-speaking fishermen in Mannaar district were selected to be renovated with the assistance of Asian Development Bank. But, occupying Colombo has declined to allow for the renovation of four of these jetties as SL wildlife department has silently seized large tracts of coastal lands through Gazette notifications issued in March 2016, Justin Soyza, the chairman of Mannaar District Fishermen Federation told TamilNet on Wednesday. The disclosure by the SL authorities about the seizure of jetty lands and the subsequent refusal to renovate the jetties have caused anger among the Tamil and Muslim fishermen in Mannaar. Tamil-speaking fishermen are planning to protest against the land grab and deprivation of fishing jetties, Mr Soyza said.
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Occupying Colombo harasses resettled Tamils through 3 Intelligence squads in Champoor

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 August 2017, 22:33 GMT]
Deploying Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil Intelligence personnel belonging to SL Police, SL Army and SL Navy, occupying Colombo has increased its harassment of resettled Eezham Tamils at Champoor in Trincomalee in recent days. Each and every move by the people to democratically voice for their needs is also being confronted through Intelligence meddling, rights activists in Champoor told TamilNet on Wednesday. Genocidal Sri Lanka is attempting to deconstruct the social institutions and the remaining ability of the people to mobilize themselves, the activists said. “During the time of Rajapaksa rule, we were living constantly under the gunpoint in various welfare camps. But we knew who they were. But, now they come from different places with pistols inside their clothes. They converse in a harassing manner and we live under a constant military surveillance,” a grassroots activist commented.
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SL military land grab in North-East constitutes genocide: Ex-Land Commissioner

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 August 2017, 23:11 GMT]
What the SL State is committing against the villages of Eezham Tamils in the North and East, such as in Mu'l'li-ku'lam in Musali division of Mannaar, is a nothing else than a systematic genocide, commented former Land Commissioner of Eastern Province Kathirgamathamby Kurunathan in a recent interview to TamilNet. Referring to the definition of the UN Genocide convention, the senior expert on land issues was categorical in articulating the ongoing militarization and genocidal land grab in the North-East as continuing genocide against the Tamil people in the island. Northern Provincial Chief Minister C.V Wigneswaran was right in passing the resolution on Genocide to the past crimes as well as the present crimes, Mr Kurunathan said.
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Structural genocide targets Kuchchave'li through long-term land lease

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 August 2017, 23:47 GMT]
Sinhala SL Government Agent of Trincomalee N.A.A.Pushpakumara is leasing lands to Sinhala businessmen from South in Kuchchave'li administrative division. The Tamil Divisional Secretary of the division, P.Thaneswaran, is being directed by the ruling politicians of occupying Colombo to alienate public lands through long-term leasing (99 years) to Sinhala colonisers, Tamil civil sources in Trincomalee said. Although the Eastern Provincial Council has a say on the issue of term-lease, it has been subjected to heavy influence from Colombo. Knowning that Kachcheari has lost original copies of lands from Nilaave'li to Kumpu'rup-piddi, there has been a systematic move of utilising so-called temporary land permits with the motive of transferring the lands later to the Sinhala owners. The long-term lease in practice means that the lands become the property of the owners in the long run.
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Colombo's tourism industry to grab 1,300 acres along Batticaloa coast

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 July 2017, 23:40 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has grabbed 1,300 acres of coastal lands from four administrative divisions in Batticaloa for commercial exploitation by Sinhala and external actors aligned with Colombo, a highly placed source in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet. The lands are mostly situated within 500 meters from the territorial sea baseline, the officials said. The EPC was under pressure from Colombo to hand over the lands for its ‘tourism’ business, the sources further said. 21 Paadus (sea beds falling within the scope of draw-nets) of Eezham Tamils are directly affected by the seizure. In the meantime, the divisional secretaries of all the 14 divisions in Batticaloa have been instructed by Colombo to evaluate the value of private and public lands, the sources further said. Similar land grab is also taking place in Trincomalee.
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New Sinhala colonisation-scheme introduced along border villages of Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 July 2017, 23:36 GMT]
The District Secretariats of Sinhala Government Agents of Anuradhapura District in the North Central Province and Vavuniyaa District in the Northern Province are silently implementing a Sinhala colonisation scheme along the borders of Vavuniyaa, Anuradhapura and Mullaiththeevu, says NPC Councillor T. Ravikaran, who hails from Mullaiththeevu district. The Divisional Secretariat of Ma'nal-aa'ru, a division which has been completely Sinhalicised in Mullaiththeevu district and the divisional secretariats bordering Mullaiththeevu district with Anuradhapura and Vavuniyaa districts have introduced new schemes with settlement packages. Traditional Tamil villages and the jungles adjoining the bordering Sinhala villages are being targeted with ethnic Sinhala settlements while the uprooted Tamil people are struggling for resettlement in the villages without infrastructure assistance, he said.
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European Court upholds 2014 decision to de-proscribe LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 July 2017, 14:33 GMT]
The Appeal Court of the European Court of Justice on Wednesday maintained the decision already made by the General Court in October 2014 of annulling the restrictive measures that had been taken against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2006. The case, initiated by Tamil activists from Europe and USA, on behalf of the LTTE, was originally filed in April 2011 with additions later. The case was won by the LTTE on procedural grounds in 2014. The Council of the European Union was the defendant, supported by the Netherlands, the UK and the European Commission. The UK was particularly instrumental in defending continued proscription. Lathan Suntharalingam, one of the initiators of the legal move against EU ban on LTTE on Wednesday told TamilNet that the next step was to challenge the initial 2006-decision to ban the LTTE.
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Genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’ sentences life imprisonment to popular Tamil artist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 July 2017, 20:12 GMT]
Popular Mridangam artist Kannathasan Kanesasundaram, who is a lecturer at the Arts faculty of the University of Jaffna and who was formerly the director of Tamil Eelam College of Fine Arts while he was a member of LTTE's Political Division, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a High Court of the judiciary of genocidal Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The news has sent shockwaves across the intellectual community of Eezham Tamils. The 50-year-old father of three has been earlier released after SL military ‘rehabilitation’. However, he was again targeted by the SL military intelligence through a family that had lost their daughter in the war. The artist, known by his stage name Tha'nikai-maa'ran, was a close associate of Eezham Tamil Poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts is still not known after the occupying Sinhala military had him in its custody in May 2009.
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Colombo to ‘expand’ bird sanctuary to harm territorial-integrity of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 July 2017, 17:43 GMT]
The occupying ‘Sri Lanka’ is once again actively engaged in scheming seizure of 36,000 acres of lands in addition to the lands it has already grabbed during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Chu'ndik-ku'lam in Vadamaraadchi East under the pretext of ‘bird sanctuary’. Another sinister move is now under way under the so-called expansion of Chun'dik-ku'lam Bird Sanctuary into a ‘National Park’ of genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’. The SL Wild Life Department is organising a ‘special meeting’ on 8th August before the seizure is to be officially gazetted, informed civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In the meantime, the occupying SL military is expanding its military corporatism as well as harbouring the intruding Sinhala fishermen. The SL Navy has been blocking Tamil fishermen from entering the coastal stretch.
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Judge Ilancheliyan narrowly escapes assassination attempt in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 July 2017, 13:58 GMT]
Jaffna High Court Judge Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan narrowly escaped assassination attempt at Nalloor in Jaffna around 5:10 p.m. on Saturday. Two guards giving security to him sustained injuries in the incident. The judge, who was not injured, told TamilNet that the attacker seemed to be an experienced gunman. Judge Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan is well known for his independent judgements. He is also known to be not hesitating to rule against armed criminal elements that operate with the backing of the occupying SL military. The incident on Saturday has taken place at a time Nalloor temple is preparing for its annual festival which is scheduled to commence on coming Friday.
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Pulak-kudiyiruppu experience: Resettlement without de-militarisation is nightmare

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 July 2017, 23:36 GMT]
Due to utter ignorance by the civil administration of the SL State, the ITAK sitting in the opposition and collaborating with the occupying Colombo, international backers of genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’ and the agenda-driven Colombo-based NGO community, which only opens its purses where manipulation, deception and hijack is needed for their foreign ‘development’ and ‘environment’ masters, the 54 Tamil families of Pulak-kudiyiruppu, who managed to secure the release of 48 acres of their lands on 01st of March, still languish without proper security to their school-going children under the continued militarisation of Keappaa-pulavu. In a video interview to TamilNet this week, the families that continue to hold on to their village, narrated their destitute situation and the negligence they have been facing so far.
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