‘SL President sanctioning 67-feet Buddha statue off Jaffna is act of aggression’

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2016, 18:01 GMT]
Latest photographs from Nayinaa-theevu islet off Jaffna reveal that the occupying Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka being deployed in the construction of controversial 67-feet Buddha statue disregarding the sentiments of the gagged Eezham Tamil population in the islet under military occupation. “Eezham Tamils have clearly articulated their objection to the controversial move. If the new regime, which has came to power using Tamils‘ votes, didn’t want to respect the sentiments of Eezham Tamils, and if the SL President has sanctioned this illegitimate project, he has just invoked an act of aggression, not only against the Eezham Tamils, but also against the 70-million Tamils of Tamil Nadu,” NPC Councillor Vinthan Kanagaratnam told TamilNet on Monday. The public in Jaffna will raise against this move, he said.
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SL Navy proceeds with controversial Buddha statue in Nayinaa-theevu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2016, 20:13 GMT]
Disobeying the interim order from the SL Government Agent of Jaffna district not to commence the construction of a controversial 61-feet Buddha statue at Nayinaa-theevu, the occupying Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka and the chief monk of ‘Nagadeepa Rajamaha Vihara’ at Nayinaa-theevu, have started the construction work on Sunday morning, the Tamil villagers at the islet complained. The monk, Ven Navadagala Paduma Kiththi Tissa Thero, treated by the SL Navy as a leader who stands above the executive SL President on Sinhala-Buddhist affairs of the entire island of Lanka, has fixed the timing for the commencement of construction work. SL Navy personnel were deployed in large numbers to suppress any protest from Tamil villagers at the islet located south west of Ooraath-thu'rai (Kayts) harbour.
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Genocidal Colombo demonstrates its ‘respect’ to passive discourse by UNHRC with latest abduction

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2016, 23:34 GMT]
While the Foreign Minister of genocidal Sri Lanka was telling the Human Rights Council in Geneva that his State had ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Disappearance on Wednesday, the SL Military Intelligence of the SL State abducted a father of three and subjected him for a day-long unimaginable torture before dumping him away at a farmland in Mannaar with a warning that if he talked about what had happened to him at the torture chamber, he would be shot and killed next time. The victim, 38-year-old Santhiyogu Anton is receiving medical treatment at ward 04 of Mannaar hospital and the SL Police is ensuring what the abductors wanted the victim to do in remaining total silence to the world what had happened to him. The victim has revealed that there was at least one another person in the torture chamber of SL military intelligence.
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Time for fundamental change in IC outlook on ‘Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 June 2016, 23:45 GMT]
Whatever the deviations in the Zeid report on Sri Lanka that has left the world to count petty trees and to lose the sight of the genocidal wood in the island, the report, listing overwhelming failures on the part of the State in Colombo even in implementing the most lenient resolution in recent UN history, indirectly urges paradigmatic changes in the current ‘Sri Lanka’ outlook of the International Community of Establishments, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. The report evidences the urgent need to address the issue more directly and proactively with the core paradigm-setters in Washington, London and New Delhi, the activists further said, urging Tamil polity and international human rights activism to take up an appropriate struggle strategy.
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Aya-gama, Āyath-thu'rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 June 2016, 22:18 GMT]
The village obliged to give stipulated revenue to an endowment

The port having customs or the revenue-producing port
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Colombo maintains ethnic chauvinism, majoritarianism in North-East: Bishop Ponniah

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 June 2016, 19:19 GMT]
“I can categorically state that a lot of promises made by the [new] government [towards the Tamil people] have not been fulfilled,” said Bishop of Batticaloa Rt. Rev. Dr. Joesph Ponniah in a recent interview to TamilNet. Some of the root causes to the escalation of ethnic conflict were SL State-backed Sinhala colonization of lands in the North and East and the discrimination in providing equal opportunities. These have a 60-year old history. The reality remains the same even today. What prevails in the North and East is not peace. There is an enforced silence coupled with threat, oppression and militarization by the ethnic majority. There is no change in the attitude of ethnic chauvinism, the Bishop said questioning the hidden motives of Washington and New Delhi collaborating with Colombo and how the situation of the people in North-East getting affected by the motives of these powers.
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Veteran Eezham Tamil archivist passes away at 81

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 June 2016, 01:24 GMT]
Mr R. Kanagaratnam (Kurumpasiddi Eraa Kanagaratnam), who tirelessly collected Tamil and English newspaper clippings and manuscripts related to political and cultural affairs of Eezham Tamils for almost 6 decades, has passed away at the age of 81 in Kandy on Wednesday. The leaders of Tamil Eelam and Tamil Nadu respected Mr Kanagaratnam for his contributions to the modern archival history of Eezham Tamils as well as his continued focus on the historiography of Tamils living across the larger region, from Fiji Islands to South Africa. His unique contribution to the nation of Eezham Tamils was collecting, archiving, microfilming and at the same time ensuring secure storage of the Tamil and English documents outside the island – all achieved through his focused and relentless efforts. He was an institution by himself.
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Colombo's ‘Mahaweli Authority’ chases away resettled Eezham Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2016, 21:18 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka's Ministry of ‘Mahaweli Development & Environment’, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has started to deploy violence to chase away the resettled Eezham Tamils at 15th Mile Post in Kokkuth-thoduvaay, a strategically situated coastal village in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, the affected families complained. On 02 June, SL Forest Department personnel, accompanied by ‘Mahaweli Development’ officials forcibly removed the temporary huts of some of the resettled Tamil families at 15th Mile Post. After the end of genocidal onslaught on Vanni in May 2009, the project of Sinhalicisation has been intensified through the Sinhala colony of Padaviya in Anuradhapura and Vavuniyaa districts and the entire Ma'nalaa'ru (Weli-oya) area has been fully Sinhalicised and emerged as the ‘Sinhala Only’ administrative division in Mullaiththeevu.
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Professor Kanagaratnam succumbs to accident and heart attack in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2016, 00:11 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil academic, Professor Ramanathar Vaithilingam Kanagaratnam passed away in Jaffna on Tuesday, after meeting with an accident and succumbing to heart attack. He was 70. Professor Kanagaratnam was one of the rare personalities produced by the Eezham Tamil nation, who were silently but rigorously contributing to studies in Saivism, Tamil and folklore. He devoted an entire life and has made a significant mark especially in the study of the genre of the cultural heritage of Eezham Tamils that was responding to European colonialism. Coming from the grassroots, his academic mission was on the memory and awakening of the grassroots culture of Eezham Tamils, and he did that contributing practically to the people in the land when they needed it the most. His funeral is scheduled to take place on Sunday in Jaffna.
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Rural societies in North-East will determine future leaders of Tamils: Kurunathan

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 May 2016, 23:25 GMT]
Tamils in the East, especially the people of Batticaloa, strongly wish for the merger of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces into a single province as before, says retired Land Commissioner of Eastern Province and the last Deputy Land Commissioner of the merged North-Eastern Province in the past Karthirgamathamby Kurunathan. In a recent interview to TamilNet, Mr Kurunathan said the rural societies in the Tamil homeland would determine the future leaders of Eezham Tamils. Even in the elections, the rural participation was more than 80% while the urban population stood just above 40%. Most of the Tamil parliamentarians have become urban-centered after getting elected by the rural population and they want to keep the rural population in dark. If 2016 doesn't bring a political solution as promised by Mr Sampanthan, the people, the ITAK and the TNA will risk its future, he said.
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Sinhala, Muslim participation in Tamil genocide remembrance answers IC detractors

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2016, 20:22 GMT]
A section of Sinhala and Muslim students took part in the Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance organised by the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) on Wednesday and a group of Catholic Sinhalese from the South were also present at St. Paul's church at Mu'l'livaaykkaal. At Mannaar, Muslim representatives were present at the memorial event organised by ITAK Youth Wing leader V.S. Sivakaran. The Sinhala and Muslim participation sends message to International Community and UN actors refusing to accept genocide in the island. The very first monument to be erected in remembrance of those who perished in Mu'l'livaaykkaal was also sculpted by a non-Tamil in the island, although the identity of the artist could not be revealed. The statue, having artistic significance has been silently put up near the St. Paul's church by the Tamil villagers of Mu'l'livaaykkaal, news sources in Vanni said.
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Genocide Day marked in 3 districts of Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 23:34 GMT]
The students of the Eastern University situated at Vanthaa'ru-moolai in Batticaloa, civil society members and TNA politicians in Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai district observed Genocide Remembrance Day events and memorial prayers at churches and temples on Wednesday. The Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) organised a memorial event at Vaakaarai, one of the most war-affected areas subjected to structural genocide under heavy militarisation in the Batticaloa district. In the meantime, the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC) organised memorial events at the historic Hindu temple and in a church in Batticaloa. TNA politicians working among the grassroots also travelled to North to attend the remembrance event at Mu'l'livaaykkal in Vanni on Wednesday.
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Genocide Remembrance at Mu'l'livaaykkaal passes strong messages to IC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 17:22 GMT]
It would tantamount to betrayal of the victims of war if Tamils were to engage in ‘swap trade’ (pa'nda-maattu) exchanging accountability for the heinous war-crimes that were intentionally committed against them in the past with future reconciliation efforts, said the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Genocide Remembrance, which was collectively marked at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on Wednesday. In a carefully worded statement read out among the crying survivors of Tamil genocide, Mr Wigneswaran also delivered a sharp message to the member states of the ‘International Community’, the UN Human Rights Establishment, particularly its chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, not to ask Tamils to forget war crimes in return for the promises of federal solution.
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Neduntheevu marks Genocide Remembrance on 31st anniversary of Kumuthini massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 May 2016, 23:32 GMT]
Coinciding with the 31st anniversary of the massacre of 36 Tamil civilians on Kumuthini boat in 1985, the people of Nedun-theevu (Delft) island, the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula, marked the fourth day of Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance Week on Sunday by paying tribute to all those who perished in the decades long genocide against Eezham Tamils. On 15 May 1985, 36 Tamil passengers, including four children and one of them being a two-year-old, were hacked to death by Sinhala Navy personnel, who came in two boats. The SL Navy later refused the people of Neduntheevu to commemorate their dead by destroying the memorial site, which was constructed at the jetty. This year, the remembrance took place at the newly constructed memorial site.
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Mu'l'livaaykkaal remembrance gains momentum amidst renewed harassments

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 May 2016, 17:18 GMT]
Elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), former members of civic bodies, militant-turned political parties in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) are engaged in organising memorial events in the country of Eezham Tamils amidst recently renewed threats and harassments against former Tamil fighters in the North and East. The SL military intelligence circles have been telling former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that there will be consequences if they were seen paying tribute to fallen LTTE members. Not only the LTTE fighters, all the Tamils who wanted to be free and stood with the LTTE in Vanni while all the global Establishments were directly or indirectly assisting Colombo were all real Tamil Heroes, said NPC Councillors who are organising a series of memorial events and meetings in the North.
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Key Tamil organisations boycott Colombo's dialogue meet in Norway

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2016, 11:35 GMT]
The mainstream political and development related diaspora organisations of Eezham Tamils in Norway boycotted a so-called “high level” dialogue meeting organised by two NGOs funded by Norway on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry of Norway has been advocating behind the scene to lock the Tamil organisations into the ‘dialogue’ meeting with the Netherland-based NGO operative Ram Manikkalingam, who is a close associate of former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) and is an official member of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's “Office for National Unity and Reconciliation”. At least 8 of the 12 invited organisations either boycotted or abstained from attending the meeting on Wednesday. Five of the boycotting organisations came out with a joint communiqué clarifying their position.
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Maithiripala’s structural genocide targets Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2016, 23:21 GMT]
Colombo’s Forest Department, which comes under SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development’ and Environment, has been blocking Tamil farmers from taking their cattle to graze in the northern and eastern parts of Thivulaanaik-ku’lam, which is situated across the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai districts in the East. Wealthy Sinhalese businessmen from Kurunegala and Gampaha districts have seized thousands of acres of public and forest lands to grow cowpea crop in large scale in the area, says T. Sivapatham, the president of Poaratheevup-pattu Cattle Farmers Association. Meanwhile, the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa is prioritizing the interests of Colombo’s business elite and the projects by foreign NGOs involving the employees in the public sector. Tamil farmers are being completely ignored in Batticaloa district, according to divisional civil sources.
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May Day events illustrate divisions in Jaffna, Colombo and Oslo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2016, 23:44 GMT]
While R. Sampanthan of the ITAK and Gajendrakumar Ponnamabalam of the TNPF organized May Day events in Jaffna that reflected the political divide as well as funded manipulations within the ITAK, Sinhala leftists in Colombo who were calling for the release of political prisoners and political equality were disturbed as Maithiripala Sirisena’s Police intentionally allowed Mahinda Rajapaksa supporters to use the same route to travel in buses despite repeated requests in advance against the move. In Norway’s capital Oslo, Eezham Tamils marched denouncing the genocidal concept of ‘Sri Lanka’. In the meantime, two Norwegian NGOs that claim to be independent were attempting to broker ‘development assistance’ manipulated ‘diaspora engagement’ between a member of the so-called ‘Special Presidential Task Force on Reconciliation in Sri Lanka’ and invited Tamil individuals and groups in Oslo.
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Justice more important than motorbikes and houses: Journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2016, 15:25 GMT]
More than one hundred Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists in Colombo organised a protest in front of the Fort Railway Station on Friday condemning the Sri Lankan State for not investigating the assassinations of popular journalist Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was abducted on 28 April 2005 and found shot dead behind the SL Parliament on the following day. Sivaram's assassination took place during the regime of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK), who now heads the so-called ‘Office of the National Unity and Reconciliation’ while remaining tight lipped on the genocidal crimes committed under her rule. A Sinhala journalist described the protest as a big success demonstrating the continued solidarity among the sections of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists, who were behind the principled demand of Justice.
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Sivaram's world contribution is holistic exposure of ‘counterinsurgency’: Bashana

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 April 2016, 11:34 GMT]
The political, geo-political, sociological and anthropological dimensions of the counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare have gained more significance than its military dimension, especially in the post-2009 context. To grasp this, one has to understand the enormous wealth of knowledge that was left behind by the late Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was a popular political and military analyst and a senior editor of TamilNet. Exiled Sinhala journalist Bashana Abeywardane, explains the significance of Sivaram’s knowledge system, not only in the context of post-2009 Tamil struggle, but also in a wider perspective to all resisting peoples and nations. It is extremely important to understand how the COIN techniques of pacification, containment and the engineering of ‘false polarizations’ operate in the current context, as part of the ‘political COIN’, Bashana says.
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