'India should stop calling Eezham Tamils a minority'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 00:30 GMT]
Eezham Tamils are a nation having historical sovereignty and territory in the island called Sri Lanka. Members of the Indian Establishment should stop humiliating them any further by calling them as ‘minority’. Tamil brethren of Tamil Nadu should be sensitive enough and stop such fundamentally faulty approaches and psyop war of the New Delhi-Chennai-Colombo axis on the historical nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. Edification of Chennai and New Delhi is basic to make the world see the crisis in realistic perspectives. Eezham Tamils, in their casual and social interaction should consciously stop using the recently invented name 'Sri' Lanka of genocidal connotations, when an official Tamil name Ilangkai and another ancient Tamil name Eezham are available to refer to the island, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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NJ court dismisses 5 out of 7 charges against alleged fund raising by Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 2010, 02:02 GMT]
During the pre-trial phase of a lawsuit accusing two Tamils and a US-registered Tamil charity, Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) for allegedly providing funds to the Liberation Tigers which is listed as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)" by the US Department of State, and thereby aiding the Liberation Tigers in causing the death of several Sri Lanka civilians, U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh dismissed all but two charges, legal sources in Washington said. The suit was filed by relatives of 24 Sri Lankan civilians under a 1789 US statute Alien Tort Claim Act (ATCA) for the alleged killing by the LTTE. Legal sources in Washington said that the plaintiffs face a difficult legal challenge to establish that the remaining two charges due to the higher thresholds of burden of proof demanded by the Court.
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Boycott Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference - Tamil Nadu Creativists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 06:36 GMT]
The Association of Tamil Creativists in Tamil Nadu against the Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference to be held in Colombo from 5th to 8th January 2011 has appealed to all Tamil writers to boycott the Colombo conference in a message to media released Tuesday in Chennai. Several leading Tamil creativists including writers, artists, film industry persons and journalists who took part in the Tuesday press meet have signed the appeal.
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Hard questions for India and Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 2010, 06:33 GMT]
Nirupama Menon Rao expressed satisfaction at the progress in resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and development activities of the North, said state-owned Colombo newspaper Daily News Thursday, titling the news as “Indian investment interest rising”. But, reporting on Nirupama’s visit, The Hindu on Friday titled the news “Political solution should be priority” and cited her saying to Colombo-based Indian journalists that “While the focus on development and rehabilitation is very welcome, a long term perspective that also includes the issues relating to the political settlement that would meet some of the needs of the minorities should also be kept in mind.”
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More than 25,000 war widows in Batticaloa district alone

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 14:00 GMT]
“Estimates reveal that there are more than 89,000 war widows in the North and Eastern provinces and more than 25,000 of these widows are in Batticaloa district in the Eastern province,” Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian P. Selvarasa said in a meeting of the War Victimized Women Association in Batticaloa. “Women have been victimized by war even more than by natural disasters and Sri Lanka government has failed to do anything constructive to improve their miserable living conditions though thirteen months have passed since the end of the cruel war,” Selvarasa said.
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Counterinsurgency, development conquistadors and economic integrators

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 10:50 GMT]
Many Eezham Tamils wonder at some recent political developments but they waste their energy in concentrating on individuals. The individuals, whether KP, section of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, others who come out one by one with statements and ‘development’ agenda in support of the KP-line of politics, and the members of the ‘task’ group that executed the sequence are unimportant. Why they are mobilised so and what makes them to take that line of polity are more important.
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Nirupama faces civil society outburst in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 17:31 GMT]
India provided arms and logistical support to Colombo in the Vanni war. It didn’t take any effort to stop the war. Even after one year of the war, India didn’t act on rehabilitating the incarcerated people, accused members of the confederation of citizens’ forums in Jaffna while meeting the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao on Tuesday. Resettlement is a hoodwink in Vanni, said retired Senior Professor S.K. Sitrampalam of the University of Jaffna, expressing the strong sentiments of Eezham Tamils. Army has occupied the Tamil lands and people have strong doubts whether India would be of any help in Tamils getting a political solution, the civil society representatives told the visiting Indian diplomat.
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Wimal Weerawansa, Russian Ambassador visit Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 16:56 GMT]
Wimal Weerawansa, Sri Lanka minister of Housing and Common Amenities, accompanied by the Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, visited Jaffna Tuesday morning preceding India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao who was expected in Jaffna Friday evening, sources in Jaffna said. Wimal Weerawansa and the Russian Ambassador returned to Colombo Friday evening after participating in some events in Jaffna peninsula.
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'Anti-Tamil ideology, international meddling make reconciliation impossible'

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 14:42 GMT]
In a recent paper titled "Why National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka Is Not Possible," Brian Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, says although he had realized that ‘national reconciliation’ in Sri Lanka was ‘totally unrealistic’, after witnessing the major human rights violations inflicted upon the Tamil people, what has made the reconciliation really ‘impossible’ was the most serious recent slaughter of Tamils with features of genocide. In addition, what makes reconciliation ‘most unlikely’ is ‘international meddling’ and ‘power play’, he argues. The 78-year-old member of the Bandaranaike family, who is a long-time defender of the Eezham Tamil cause, also argues in his paper that even the real development of the Sinhala areas is not possible if the ‘developmental power’ is left in the hands of those in Colombo.
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Batticaloa Tamils mourn disappearance of 48 Tamils two decades ago

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2010, 06:26 GMT]
Tamils of several villages in Batticaloa district Friday observed the twenty years’ death anniversary of 48 Tamil people who were reported disappeared after being arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 27th August 1990, with silent procession from Siththaa'ndi Kaa'li Koayil to Siththaa'ndi Murukan Koayil from 9:00 a.m till 11:00 a.m. Relatives of the disappeared participated in the procession with tears. Special prayer was also held in Siththaa'ndi Murukan Temple in remembrance of those “disappeared”.
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No Tamil doctors in Vaakarai government hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2010, 06:23 GMT]
Residents of Vaakarai, a traditional Tamil village in Batticaloa district, find difficult to explain their illness and obtain treatment as medical officers who can converse in Tamil language are not posted to Vaakarai government hospital. All medical officers posted to this hospital are Sinhala, the residents said.
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New Zealand Supreme Court decides LTTE a political organisation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2010, 00:40 GMT]
The Supreme Court of New Zealand Friday dismissed the appeal of the government seeking rejection of the refugee status of an Eezham Tamil who was captaining a ship carrying arms to the LTTE. The court in its judgement said: “At all relevant times the Tamil Tigers was an organisation having the goals of self-determination for Tamils and securing an independent Tamil state in northeast Sri Lanka. The principal objective was to induce the government of Sri Lanka to concede such political change. These characteristics made the Tamil Tigers a political organisation notwithstanding its use, at times, of proscribed methods of advancing its cause. That much is not in dispute”.
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Politicising religious reformation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 2010, 09:02 GMT]
Around 300 goats and countless chickens were sacrificed in a folk ritual on Wednesday at the Kaa’li temple in Munneasvaram, Chilaapam (Chilaw), in the Puththa’lam district of the North Western Province. A group of Buddhist monks marched in protest and when prevented, the angry monks sat on the road and refused to move until the ritual was over. Tension developed in Chilaapam, media reports from Colombo said. The demography of the region is largely made of Sinhalicised Tamils and some surviving pockets of Tamils. A considerable number of Sinhala Buddhists also took part in the folk ritual, Wednesday, and academics wrote on Buddha’s denouncement of animal sacrifice and rituals of Vedic Brahmins. When around 40,000 Tamils were slaughtered in Vanni last year, the Buddhist establishments in the island were either silent or encouraged it.
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Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN job in New York

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) to the United Nation's post in New York, vacant following the recall of previous DPR, Bandula Jayasekera, after an alleged sexual harassment scandal, is reported to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, former 58th Division commander, who has been accused of committing war crimes by his former General Sarath Fonseka, Inner City Press reported. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on this reported UN job said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."
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Indian Foreign Affairs minister to visit Sri Lanka in September

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 2010, 13:45 GMT]
In response to the accusations raised by All India Anna Dravidia Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) parliamentarians against the Indian Government for having not given any help to the uprooted Tamils in Sri Lanka held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention camps or any assistance to the resettled Tamils in Vanni in Indian Parliament Wednesday, Indian Foreign Affairs minister, S. M. Krishna, told the parliament he will be visiting Sri Lanka late September to hold talks with Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa again on the issues raised.
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NP Governor wants teaching stopped in war damaged schools in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 2010, 05:41 GMT]
Northern Province Governor, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri instructed the Education Authorities in Vanni to stop all educational activities in the schools in Vanni that were damaged and destroyed during Sri Lanka government's war on Vanni until they are rebuilt or renovated, in a meeting held in Vavuniyaa Monday with the officials of the Northern Province Ministry of Education and Vanni education authorities, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Governor's order is seen as a blow on the students of Vanni who already had been robbed of their education by the war, Vanni education officials said.
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Devotees throng tenth day Nalloor temple festival

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 2010, 05:39 GMT]
Thousands of devotees from all parts of Sri Lanka as well as from abroad attended the 'Manchath Thiruvizhaa' on the tenth day of the annual festival of Nalloor Kanthasuvaami temple in Jaffna Tuesday, sources in Jaffna said. Police personnel posted at the entrances of the temple checked the persons entering the temple grounds. But thefts of gold jewelry from the devotees did take place, according to complaints made to the security officers of Jaffna Municipal Council, the sources said.
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Cultural and psychological attack on Tamils in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 August 2010, 22:19 GMT]
A Tamil diaspora visitor who recently went to see the archaeological site at Kantharoadai in the heart of Jaffna peninsula found all signboards in the site in Sinhalicized Sinhala. Further, he was asked to remove shoes to walk the site, indicating that this important heritage site of the people of Jaffna is fast becoming a cult centre of contemporary Sinhala-Budhhism to culturally and psychologically alienate the people of Jaffna from their land. Ancient remains of Buddhism in Tamil land are not a cultural property of today’s genocidal Sinhala-Buddhism. What is happening in Jaffna is perhaps the ‘reconciliation’, meant by the ‘culture and development’ pundits, commented an academic in Jaffna.
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Sri Lanka ambassador's refugee claims absurd, says US Academic

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 August 2010, 10:23 GMT]
Robert Oberst, professor of political science, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and an expert on Sri Lanka commenting on Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Canada, Chitranganee Wagiswara's remark that Tamil boat refugees were a "human smuggling operation with links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," said Wagiswara's claims "would be offensive, if they were not so absurd," and added that if Wagiswara wanted to silence critics, "she would be better served to persuade her government to allow outside independent observers into the Tamil areas to report on the conditions rather than to slander and attack those who question her government," Rediff.com reported.
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TamilNet launches Palaka'ni

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 August 2010, 10:56 GMT]
TamilNet plans to launch shortly a weekly video programme Palaka’ni, fulfilling repeated requests from its readership to extend services in Tamil. The programme will have panel discussions on current affairs in Tamil. Even though constraints faced by TamilNet are manifold, we go forward in this venture considering the needs of the times. TamilNet appeals for continued support and cooperation of its readership, which has been the sole provider of support to the functioning of TamilNet until now. TamilNet reiterates its independent and democratic support to the national cause of Eezham Tamils. As an alternative media TamilNet may have to continue functioning in alternative ways to maintain its freedom, independence and commitment to the cause. Our request to the media world is not to view us in conventional terms but to help us in this experiment of information liberation.
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