Self-immolation protestor dies, anti-Rajapaksa agitations intensify in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 01:38 GMT]
26-year old auto driver Vijayaraj from Salem in Tamil Nadu, who immolated himself on Monday early morning protesting Mahinda Rajapaksa’s visit to India, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday noon. A follower of Periyaar, member of CITU, and a supporter of the Tamil Eelam cause, Vijayaraj, despite being in his death bed, insisted on talking to media at the hospital that Rajapaksa should not be allowed into India. I did it, because Tamils in unison should rise up against the Indian government that welcomes Rajapaksa even after seeing the heroic sacrifices, he was cited by Tamil media Nakkeeran. Agitations intensify in Tamil Nadu, while the BJP Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivaraj Singh Chauhan, claims that Rajapaksa’s visit to Sanchi to inaugurate a Buddhist University is ‘apolitical’.
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Pamu'nu-gama, Aava'nam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 19:01 GMT]
The village in an endowment land or assigned land of hereditary right

The business place of stalls and services, or the place assigned by a deed
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TNA’s PSC participation will be pursued when Rajapaksa returns from India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 13:12 GMT]
TNA leader Sampanthan was invited at a short notice on Monday night to meet Mahinda Rajapaksa at his house on Tuesday morning. According to a press release by Mr. R. Sampanthan on Tuesday, at the end of many topics that were discussed, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa “responded by inviting Mr.Sampanthan to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and stated these matters could be addressed when the process commenced. Mr.Sampanthan responded by stating that the TNA has never taken up the position that it will not attend the PSC, but has only insisted that commitments made must be implemented before attending the PSC sessions. It was agreed that this matter would be further pursued on the return of the President from his visit to India.”
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China strengthens its grip on Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 11:17 GMT]
China has signed 16 agreements with Colombo on Monday. The agreemets range from visa exemption and marine development to economic and technology cooperation. The agreements also promised to expand investment and increase imports from the island, reported China Daily on Tuesday. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa signed the agreements with China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, who is the highest ranking official of the Chinese legislature to visit Colombo since the end of genocidal Vanni war in May 2009.
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Detention, Torture in Sri Lanka, Tamil returnees at risk, says TAG report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 10:40 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG-UK), in a report released this week, provides supporting evidence from several successful judicial opinions in the UK of Tamil asylum applicants on claims of being subjected to torture in Sri Lanka, asylum interviews by UK Border Agency, and exclusive Medico-Legal Reports, concludes that Tamil returnees to Sri Lanka face "likelihood of torture in association with initial arrest and detention" and the returnees are subjected to "brutal interrogation techniques," and called for a "comprehensive re-evaluation of the UK government’s current policy towards asylum applicants of Eezham Tamil origin.
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Tamil Nadu activist attempts self-immolation to protest Rajapaksa visit to India

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 September 2012, 07:51 GMT]
Protesting the scheduled visit of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to India, Vijayaraj, a 26-year-old CITU activist attempted to self-immolate in Salem on Monday, a PTI report said. This attempt comes in the wake of protests of numerous political parties in Tamil Nadu against the genocide-accused Rajapaksa visiting Sanchi in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to lay the foundation stone for a Buddhist University on 19 September.
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Bamu’nu-gama, Changkaththaar-vayal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 September 2012, 13:24 GMT]
The Brahmin village

The paddy fields of the members of the Sangha
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Resettled Tamils again face displacement due to SLA camp expansion

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 September 2012, 23:05 GMT]
Resettled villagers are again forced to leave Thoa'ni-thaadda-madu village, an agricultural village situated 90 km north of Batticaloa city in Koa'ralaippattu North DS division, are again forced to flee their village following the recent expansion of the military camp of the Sri Lanka Army in the village.
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Tamil returnees from UK face possible torture in Sri Lanka: Report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 September 2012, 03:35 GMT]
Freedom from Torture (FfT),a medical foundation for the care of victims of torture, in a report released this week, pointed to the evidence of more than 20 Eezham Tamils who experienced torture after returning voluntarily to Sri Lanka in the post-conflict period, and said that the Organization "considers that the UK's removal policy for Sri Lanka is based on a flawed assessment of risk." Asserting that the examined cases "reveal that Sri Lankan Tamils who in the past had an actual or perceived association at any level with the LTTE but were able to leave Sri Lanka safely now face risk of torture on return," the FfT added that there "should be a pause in forcible removals of Tamils to Sri Lanka" while the UK Border Agency's policy on removals to Sri Lanka is changed to properly reflect the evidence presented in FfT's report.
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International civil society urged to act on CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 21:38 GMT]
After seeing the behaviour of today’s establishments in the Commonwealth that was once known for its effective action against South Africa’s apartheid, and after seeing the Indian diplomat turned Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma stretching his position to uphold the genocidal state and regime in Sri Lanka, the gagged Eezham Tamil civil society activists in the island urged the International Human Rights Organizations to come out with an international civil society boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in November 2013. They also urged understanding governments in Canada, Tamil Nadu state and elsewhere to lead the international civil society paradigm, and the international media to help such a paradigm. The diaspora should be awakened to new struggle strategies, they further urged.
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Traders in North face dilemma as banks stop loans

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 15:55 GMT]
Eezham Tamil business community in the Jaffna peninsula and the Vanni mainland are in a dilemma as all Sri Lankan banks in public and private sectors have suddenly stopped issuing loans and also have increased the rate of interest to loans already issued by four percent. The entire business activity in the districts of Jaffna and Ki'linochchi has come to a grind halt, according to Mr.R.Jayasekaram, the president of the Jaffna Chamber of Commerce.
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OHCHR team arrives in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 08:31 GMT]
Hanny Megally, Chief of Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Friday arrived in Colombo on a week-long tour to the island.
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‘UN approach counts trees, conceals sight of forest’

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 05:31 GMT]
A summary on Sri Lanka prepared by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), based on the submissions of 46 stakeholders, shows how the UNHRC approach guides even the stakeholders to confine themselves only to individual cases or just manifestations, but not to the fundamental issue – the national question or collective human rights of an affected nation in the island. By the exercise of counting the trees, the UNHRC model of approach deliberately conceals the sight of the forest, commented alternative human rights activists in the island. The OHCHR summary was submitted on July 30 to the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of the UNHRC for its 14th session, scheduled to take place from 22 October and 5 November in Geneva. An OHCHR team visits the island on Friday.
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UPFA operatives threaten TNA councilors to join UPFA in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2012, 23:24 GMT]
Some of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councilors, elected in the Eastern Provincial Elections, have gone into hiding evading abduction and intimidation as operatives sent from Colombo were engaged in threatening that they would be abducted if they fail to extend support for the formation of a new administration by the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA). The Colombo operatives began to threaten the TNA councilors as they were not able to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Tamil people even after promising 50 million rupees in cash to each councilor, a house in Colombo and a vehicle, the sources further said.
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Blake greets Sampanthan in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2012, 20:00 GMT]
The visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake Thursday morning met R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at Colombo Hilton Hotel. Mr Blake showed interest in knowing about the tug-o-war between the parties in the forming the next administration of the EPC, the sources close to TNA told TamilNet. Referring to the Action Plan submitted to the UNHCR by the Sri Lankan Government about the implementation of some of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Sampanthan pointed out to Blake that the SL government had diluted those recommendations in its Action Plan
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Socialist Alliance in Perth formes equality campaign for Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 23:16 GMT]
“Just like the apartheid in South Africa was isolated through the tightening grip of trade, cultural and sporting sanctions; just as the freedom struggle was aided by international support-moral, financial and political; so too a new international campaign for equal rights and justice in Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka must be brought into being,” says Samuel Wainwright, one of the leaders of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Australia, who recently organised a solidarity seminar in Perth. A new network, named ‘WA Network for Human Rights in Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka’ has come into being following the seminar held on 01 September in Fremantle, he said.
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IOM blamed for double standards

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 21:04 GMT]
A section of the officials of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), working with the Sri Lankan State, have been harassing former LTTE members to return the identity cards the organisation had earlier provided to them certifying their release. The IOM, which undertook ‘pre-release profiling’ of more than 10,000 ex-Tiger members, had received foreign aid from Japan, Norway, USA, The Netherlands and the UK for the programme named ‘Information, Counselling, and Referral Services’ (ICRS). After completing the project, the inter-governmental organisation, with its global agenda of restricting ‘illegal immigration’, has now sought to prevent the possibility of ex-Tiger members using the identity card to document their background when they seek political asylum outside the island, informed sources told TamilNet.
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India awakens to sexist component of genocidal culture in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 05:23 GMT]
A cartoon that appeared in Lakbima newspaper of Sri Lanka, on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, has awakened the masses in India on the sexist side of the genocidal culture encountered by Eezham Tamils over several decades, said South Asia watchers in New Delhi noting responses from different parts of India. The impact of the cartoon in India in realising the nature of the genocidal culture that is not checked, not boycotted like the apartheid, but is always pampered, is many times more than the impact evoked by seeing images of the sexual abuse of even corpses of Eezham Tamils, the South Asia watchers said. The cartoon found condemnation in Colombo too, by Women and Media Collective (WMC).
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Blake to visit Colombo to steer LLRC course of politics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 00:06 GMT]
One of the main articulators of the system that architected the genocidal war in the country of Eezham Tamils and the US Asst. Secretary of State, Robert O. Blake Jr., will be visiting Colombo between September 12 and 14. According to a US State Department press release, he will be meeting Colombo’s External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris and senior officials to discuss a wide range of issues, including progress in implementing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Action Plan. For 25 years New Delhi was harping on the 13th Amendment. Now the USA comes out with the LLRC implementation, which in the thrust of it, is worse than the 13th Amendment in the annihilation of the nation and territoriality of Eezham Tamils, commented Tamil political activists in the island, adding condemnation at the gullibility of the hijacked political dealers in the diaspora.
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‘Sexist cartoons on Tamil Nadu CM reflect Sinhala patriarchal attitude to Tamil women’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 00:03 GMT]
In the garb of criticizing protests in Tamil Nadu against visiting Sri Lankan pilgrims, Lakbima, a mainstream Sinhala daily published two cartoons on Sunday portraying the Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa in a derogatory manner. The libellous cartoons, which targeted Ms. Jayalalitha on the basis of her status as a woman political leader, also targeted the late MGR, former Tamil Nadu CM and popular Tamil cinema icon, and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The sexist nature of these cartoons on a political leader of Tamil Nadu published in a major Sinhala newspaper reflect the patriarchal attitude of the Sinhala state machinery towards Tamil women in general,” commented a feminist working with war survivors in Vanni adding that this attitude manifested itself as genocide-intended sexual violence against Eezham Tamil women by the occupying Sinhala forces in the Tamil homeland.
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