Indian people would get democracy voice only when India severs Lanka relations

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 August 2012, 07:39 GMT]
An instruction from the New Delhi establishment’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sent to the TESO organisers on 11 August shows that peoples of India cannot have a democratic voice on the question of Eezham Tamils unless India severs diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka. While retracting from its earlier ban on the use of the word Eelam, the MEA letter ‘advised’ the TESO to “ensure that the conference does not issue any declaration or outcome that calls into question in any manner the sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of any foreign country with whom India has diplomatic relations.” This is a serious curb on the universal democratic rights of the peoples of India. Why the TESO organisers who picked on Ms Jayalalithaa didn’t condemn New Delhi for this violation and for not giving visa to many participants, critics in Chennai asked.
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Another brutal attack sends Tamil political prisoner to coma

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 August 2012, 06:51 GMT]
Following the attack on the Eezham Tamil prisoners in Vauniyaa resulting in the death of two and injury of many, details of the case of a new attack in the Galle prison last week, leaving a prisoner in coma status and others suspectedly injured, have started trickling out now. The Tamil prisoner in coma is identified as 34-year-old Sundaram Satheeskumar, father of a 10-year-old child. The victim was arrested at his residence in Kodikaamam in 2008 by the occupying SL military, handed over to the SL police and was kept in the New Magazine prison in Colombo without any charges filed against him. Last week, on 21 August, he was transferred to the Galle prison.
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US, Indian appeasement weakness makes Beijing, Colombo to play old game

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 August 2012, 04:59 GMT]
China will be providing US $ 100 million for permanent ‘housing schemes’ of the Sinhala military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils. The Chinese offer to set up accommodation and infrastructure facilities in the SL military camps in the North and East, is in line with the long-standing ‘national security’ argument of Sri Lanka, despite pressure from Western nations and India to reduce the military presence in the North and East, said Colombo media reports on Sunday. Colombo’s campaign is timed for mounting pressure from Tamil Nadu against New Delhi’s training of Sinhala military and for the impending Colombo visit of Chinese defence minister on Wednesday. Genocidal Colombo’s endless game has to be stopped somewhere by united and decisive action of the world, rather than competitive appeasement, commented South Asian affairs analysts.
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New Delhi resorts to further ‘mischief’ by passing responsibility

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 August 2012, 10:45 GMT]
While New Delhi establishment’s foreign ministry points to defence ministry over the “mischief” issue raised by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa, about India giving training to Colombo’s military personnel in Tamil Nadu behind the back of Tamil Nadu government, the defence ministry sources reportedly have said that any decision on this would have to be taken by the Indian Prime Minister. Knowing the weak and guided personality of the Indian PM on matters related to Eezham Tamils, the establishment in New Delhi is playing further mischief, informed circles said. Those who are ultimately responsible for the genocidal policy of imperialism followed in the island have to be exposed and they have to be made answerable to the people of Tamil Nadu and peoples of India, political activists in Chennai said, appreciating the stand taken by Ms Jayalalithaa.
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New Delhi plays mischief with Tamil Nadu: Jayalalithaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2012, 22:34 GMT]
In a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State J. Jayalalithaa on Saturday sought the Indian PM to give instructions to the Indian Ministry of Defence to immediately halt the training being given to the Sri Lankan defence personnel at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, and arrange to send them back to Sri Lanka immediately. “It is very clear that this fact of ongoing training since May, 2012, has been mischievously concealed from my Government, showing scant regard for the views of my Government as well as for the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Ms. Jayalalithaa has written to the Indian PM.
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Akashi comes to ‘listen’ to people in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2012, 21:37 GMT]
Former Special Envoy of the Tokyo Co-chair to the Peace Process between the SL government and the LTTE, Yasushi Akashi, visited Jaffna and Ki'linochchi on Friday to listen to the views of the religious leaders in Jaffna and to review the humanitarian assistance Japan has provided to the welfare of the resettling civilians and former combatants in Vanni. “Architects of the genocidal war cannot be mere listeners. They are answerable to the affected people and to the world. There is no foreign establishment involved in the island that doesn't really know what is happening. Therefore, the boldness with which the grassroot aspirations of the nation of Eezham Tamils has to be politically translated in a befitting way should never be compromised in the island and in the diaspora,” said a social activist in Jaffna observing Mr Akashi's visit.
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Resettlement showcase brings in further miseries to uprooted Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 August 2012, 20:29 GMT]
250 families recently brought to Chivanakar village in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) division of Mullaiththeevu district complain that they have been let down by the SL authorities that rush to vacate the Menik Farm in Cheddiku'lam, Vavuniyaa. Promising the uprooted proper resettlement to the uprooted Tamils in their own village, 141 families were brought from Menik Farm to Chivanakar. Another 101 families who were residing with their kith and kin elsewhere also joined them when their village was announced opened for resettlement. Now, these families are struggling in their own village without any shelter and have sought refuge under the trees. There are no basic facilities. Most of these families, who are below the poverty line, demand at least temporary huts and basic facilities before the rainy season begins in a few weeks from now.
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US Court of Appeals to hear Rajapakse war-crimes case

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 August 2012, 03:59 GMT]
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the briefing schedule Monday for the appeal against the dismissal of the war-crimes case against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse. The appeal was filed by three Tamil plaintiffs/ appellants against Rajapakse for complicity in extrajudicial killings of plaintiffs relatives in violation of the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The case, first filed at the lower court, was dismissed in February 2012 by Judge Kotelly after the U.S. State Department intervened to assert that, as a sitting head of state, Rajapakse was immune from litigation.
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UN exposes use of cluster munitions in Vanni War

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 August 2012, 23:51 GMT]
The United Nations Mine Action Team, which coordinates the UN agencies engaged in humanitarian de-mining throughout the world, has documented the use of cluster munitions in the Vanni war, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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Building defying SL governor inauguration receives crude oil attack in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 August 2012, 01:27 GMT]
The colonial military administration of Colombo on Wednesday allegedly deployed its ‘white van squad’ to pour crude oil on the new building of Valikaamam South (Chunnaakam) civic body before it was scheduled to be declared opened by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The colonial military governor of North, Maj Gen (retd.) G.A. Chanadrasiri has been demanding that it should be he who should decide on the inauguration of the building. However, the building was declared opened as scheduled by T. Prakash, the head of the civic body of Valikaamam South. The grassroots politician of the TNA also declared that the office would start to function from Thursday in the new premises.
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Sri Lanka's coal-power politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 23:54 GMT]
Environment and health issues arising from coal dust and erosion from the coal-fired power plant in Nuraichchoalai in Puththa'lam and the plant under construction in Champoor continue to dog the affected villagers in Sri Lanka. Compounding the problem, frequent breakdowns of power plants worsened by draught induced reduction of hydro-power, and the resulting power cuts are drawing public anger, reports from Colombo say. The Chinese designers accused Sri Lanka's plant managers for the overuse of the plant without scheduled maintenance, while calls for investigations into mismanagement of the Electric Utility and alleged misconduct of officials in the financing and contract offers increased, Colombo media said.
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Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission distorts figures of missing persons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 22:48 GMT]
The ‘Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission’, run by the Sri Lankan State in Colombo, has begun to conceal and twist the figures of complaints registered by its regional offices in the North and East. While announcing that a ‘high level’ delegation from Colombo is scheduled to visit Jaffna in the coming days to ‘investigate’ the registered complaints of missing persons since the year 2006, Mr. S. Kanagaraj, an official at the Jaffna office told media Wednesday that only 472 people were reported missing after the year 2006. However, informed human rights activists in Jaffna said that the office had registered 1,500 to 2,000 cases since 2006. There were at least 599 cases registered by the office in the year 2006 alone, they further said.
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SL Navy steps up attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2012, 23:45 GMT]
A Tamil Nadu fisherman was seriously injured after he was beaten up by the Sri Lanka Navy that had surrounded three boats near Kachchatheevu and took 16 fishermen to Neduntheevu on Monday. All the fishermen had been assaulted by the SL Navy and released on Tuesday. In the meantime, at another attack by the SL Navy on 6 fishermen from Ma'ndapam, one sustained head injuries, Press Trust of India reported on Tuesday.
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SL military blocks resettlement in suburb of PTK

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2012, 22:16 GMT]
Landmine clearing unit of the occupying Sri Lankan military has instructed forty Tamil families who resettled recently at 9th ward of Mallikaith-theevu village in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) division in Mullaiththeevu district, to vacate from their lands after the SL authorities had allowed the families to resettle earlier this month. The families were among 96 families that were hurriedly brought down to Mullaiththeevu from Menik Farm camp in Cheddi-ku'lam in Vavuniyaa, promising resettlement in Mallikaith-theevu, Puthukkudiyiruppu West and Puthukkudiyiruppu East. On the one hand Colombo is rushing to showcase that it is closing down the Menik Farm camp. But, on the other hand the occupying military of Colombo is blocking resettlement in the land of Vanni genocide. The SL military still considers the area as its High Security Zone (HSZ), relocated civilians said.
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Malathy’s ‘Fleeting Moment’ a testimonial to earned sovereignty of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 August 2012, 21:55 GMT]
As a first hand written account of a diaspora Tamil who lived and worked for over four years in civilian institutions in the de facto state of the Eezham Tamils, N. Malathy’s “A fleeting moment in my country: The last years of the LTTE de-facto state” bears witness to how the sovereignty earned through the conduct of the struggle of the Eezham Tamils was denied by world powers, leading to the Mu’l’livaaykkaal massacre. A literature of ‘lived experience’ of one who stayed in Vanni for 4 years working with civilian institutions like NESoHR, women and child organizations, and later spending over 4 gruelling months in the Manik farm detention camps, the book should elicit interest not just from Tamils world over, but also academics, activists, feminists, journalists and those interested in studying social life under a political struggle against genocide.
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Land appropriation by Colombo in Trincomalee district goes unabated

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 August 2012, 04:34 GMT]
In the latest land appropriation of the Colombo government to change the demography of the Trincomalee district, 94 Tamil families are forced to lose their properties that are located 9 km off north from Trincomalee city at Iluppaik-ku'lam GS division. The affected families have made representations to the Divisional Secretary who promised that the matter would be brought up to the notice of the SL Government Agent (SLGA) who is a Sinhalese. The SLGA is a retired Major General who is behind the planned appropriation of lands of Tamils in the district to settle down Sinhalese from the South.
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‘War on the diaspora continues to annihilate idea of Tamil Eelam’: Dr. Sentas

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 August 2012, 18:52 GMT]
“The Sri Lankan conflict is now a transnational war against the Tamil diaspora that enables the continued political repression of political aspirations both in Sri Lanka and abroad,” writes Dr. Vicki Sentas in a chapter published in a recently released book “Counter-Terrorism and state political violence: The ‘war on terror’ as terror”. Dr. Sentas, currently a lecturer in Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney further opines in the chapter titled “One more successful war? Tamil diaspora and counter-terrorism after the LTTE” that the criminalization of political aspirations of the Tamil diaspora and proscription of Tamil organizations only strengthens the cause of the genocide accused Sri Lankan.
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Village, jungle adjacent to Mu’l’livaaykkaal grabbed for Sinhala militarisation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 August 2012, 01:27 GMT]
2,500 acres of land by the side of the Nanthik-kadal lagoon, comprising of the village Keappaa-pulavu and nearby jungle, where the last stages of the Vanni war was fought and prohibited weapons were allegedly used against the LTTE by the genocidal Sinhala military, is now permanently grabbed for use of the occupying military, news sources in Vanni said. The grabbed land in Mullaiththeevu district is divided between Sri Lanka’s Army and Air Force and the original villagers of 700 families detained from resettling are forced to accept lands away from their village. After the TESO conference last week, The Hindu, using an interview of Dr. Wikremabahu Karunaratne, tried to soft-pedal the issue of the annihilation of territorial sovereignty of the nation of Eezham Tamils as a mere “Move to gift Tamil resources to MNCs.”
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Vanni ‘development’ meeting held without elected representatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 August 2012, 19:26 GMT]
Vanni district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians were not invited for the Vanni District Development Committee which was chaired by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and held on Friday at Vavuniyaa District Secretariat.
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SL military grabs disabled people's land in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 August 2012, 17:29 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Ki'linochchi district has instructed the Sri Lankan Government Agent (SLGA) of the district to permanently hand over 6 acres of lands already encroached by the 65-2 division of the SLA at Aanaivizhunthaan-ku'lam GS area of Karaichchi division. The land, which is owned by a rehabilitation organisation for disabled persons, is located 10 km southwest of Ki'linochchi town.
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