Unified Eezham Tamil national front, beyond electoral politics, is next step: Jothilingam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2020, 21:17 GMT]
The bi-polar big-power geopolitics unfolding in the Indo-Pacific region and the ever-accelerating Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism on the ground in the island are the primary factors shaping the political fate of Eezham Tamils. When the Tamil National Alliance played out in the hands of the US-led alliance causing miseries to Tamils, there was a need for alternative politics, particularly under the previous government in Colombo. What Eezham Tamils need now is an effort towards unified Tamil national politics, rooted in the principles of their nationhood, homeland, sovereignty, right of self-determination and the international dimensions of justice, mediation and necessary guarantees related to these. The political parties must be involved as components in this wider effort, but not be the sole actors determining the Tamil discourse, said senior Tamil political analyst S.A. Jothilingam.
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Colombo isolates Tamil political prisoners within heavily fortified cells

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2020, 22:39 GMT]
SL Prison authorities not only continue denying families of Tamil political prisoners (TPPs) to their kith and kin, but they also refuse access to deliver essential supplies to them for more than five months. In the meantime, occupying Colombo, which relocated the Tamil prisoners from other prisons to Anuradhapura, has isolated the TPPs transferring them into heavily fortified isolation cells, the families complain.
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Criminals banished from South deployed for Sinhala colonisation in Musali, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2020, 20:09 GMT]
Criminals and former military men absconding from law enforcement authorities for crimes committed in the South, particularly those with a previous military background, have been provided with an escape route if they agree to take part as settlers in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The tendency has been observed in Ko'ndaichchi in Musali division of Mannaar district, informed sources in the division said. In addition to Sinhala workers who previously worked in Ko'ndaichchi cashew farm, there are tens of Sinhala colonists with criminal background from Colombo, Kegalle, Matara and Gampaha districts in the South. Although only twenty-seven families are registered in the voters' registry, and they were provided with housing scheme, there are scores of other Sinhalese living in the so-called “Sinhala Gammana” village in Ko'ndaichchi.
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Colombo resumes surveying of lands for Sinhala colonisation in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2020, 18:26 GMT]
Officials claiming to be from SL Forest Department and Mahaweli Authority have been surveying of pasture lands in Mayilaththa-madu this week. The process was resumed despite repeated objections from the dairy farmers belonging to all three communities, said Seenithamby Nimalan, the chairman of Mayilaththamadu Dairy Farmers Association. “Those involved in the surveying of lands say they belong to SL Forest Department. Sometimes they also claim to be from SL Mahaweli Authority. They say the surveyed lands would be transferred to Sinhala settlers who are agricultural farmers,” Mr Nimalan said.
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Colombo's CID questions Wigneswaran for claiming Tamil Buddhism as predating Sinhala

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 July 2020, 18:26 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Police Headquarters has directed a police CID officer to come and question former Chief Minister of Northern Province Justice C. V. Wigneswaran with regards to an article (a question per week series) he authored on 14 December 2019. "Why should they come around questioning about the article after seven months when the elections are just around the corner," Justice Wigneswaran said when TamilNet contacted him on Saturday. In the article from 14 December, Wigneswaran claimed that the Tamils were the original inhabitants of this island. He also pointed out that the Sinhalese came by their Sinhala language only in the 6th or 7th Century AD, around 1300 or 1400 years ago only. Early Buddhists in the island were Tamils, he wrote in that article. The police inspector was asking whether it was him who wrote it and whether he still stood by what he wrote.
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Sinhala ‘Army & Archaeology’ target 600 sites for heritage occupation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2020, 23:38 GMT]
Colombo's Sinhala ‘Army and Archaeology’ have identified around six hundred various sites for ‘heritage’ occupation in Batticaloa district alone. There are Saiva and folk-deity temples of Eezham Tamils in most of these places. The Government officials at the District Secretariat have been explicitly instructed to inform the SL Presidential Secretariat about organisations and individuals failing to ‘cooperate’ with SL Archaeology Department and the monks of the Presidential Task Force for so-called Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province, Batticaloa District Secretary (Government Agent) Ms Kalamathy Pathmarajah has told civil society activists in a meeting on Wednesday.
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Colombo's Archaeology Department, SL Police threaten chief priest of Chiththaa'ndi temple

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2020, 23:30 GMT]
Officials of occupying Colombo's Archaeology Department visited the ancient Saiva (Hindu) Murukan temple at Chiththaa'ndi, located 20 km north of Batticaloa city, last month on 26 June. The visiting team was taking photographs of stones used for crack opening coconuts and for burning camphor as well as the stone slabs used in the temple for various purposes. They claimed that the rocks resembled Buddhist artefacts and that they should be delivered back to the SL Archaeology Department. Sivasri Vasantharajah Kurukka'l, the chief priest of the temple, told them that the stones had been there for several decades while other slabs were produced in Vavuniyaa in 2010 when the temple was renovated. On Sunday, SL Policemen from Batticaloa visited the temple blaming the chief priest for ‘not cooperating’ with the officials of the department.
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Colombo aims to get back 20 Trinco oil tanks from India

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2020, 17:27 GMT]
A ministerial delegation was visiting Trincomalee last week to inspect the possibility for getting back twenty of the Trincomalee oil tanks from the Indian Oil Corporation, according to Colombo-based Sunday Times. “We have made a request for 20 tanks, but we hope we can at least start with 15,” the paper reported SL Power and Energy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera as saying on Sunday. New Delhi, which is a major strategic partner of the USA, has been pushing for joint operation of the oil farm, especially during the rule of the previous regime under Maithiriapala Siriseana and Ranil Wickramasinghe.
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Vadamaraadchi North fishers mobilise against Colombo's discrimination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2020, 22:33 GMT]
Former Tamil paramilitary operative Douglas Devananda, who collaborated with the genocidal military of occupying Sri Lanka, is now SL Minister of Fisheries in the “caretaker” cabinet of Rajapaksa regime. Sinhala poachers from South are allowed to encroach and engage in destructive fishing along the coast of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The quisling minister is citing the law imposed by the SL State during the times of war. The law is known as Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act of 1996. “The 1996 law was drafted with southern fishers in mind. It has not taken into consideration the concerns of Tamils. We are not opposed to others fishing here. But, we are opposed to poaching and destructive fishing methods destroying our fishing ecosystem by the Sinhala fishers,” said N. Varankulasingam, the chairman of the Federation of Vadamaraadchi North Fisheries societies.
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SL Navy ‘updates’ records of ex-LTTE members in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2020, 22:14 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy stationed in Champoor, Moothoor East of Trincomalee district, has started contacting former LTTE members in Moothoor East to “update” their details on current affiliations, Rural Development Society members in Paaddaa'li-puram said. Conducting village-by-village and door-by-door visits or phone conversations, the predominantly Sinhala SL Navy is updating the current status of every former Tamil fighters synchronising the details. The executive president and the Sinhala military of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka seem to be caught up in paranoia that a regrouping of Tamil armed movement was taking place, RDS representatives said.
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CBK, Kadirgamar condemned at Navaali genocidal massacre remembrance event

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2020, 03:40 GMT]
SL Foreign Minister in 1995, the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil, denied that Colombo had carried out the massacre targeting St Peters Church in Navaali. It has taken 25 years for the then SL President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) to admit it to some extent, and that too as an incidental one 4 km away from the battlefield, Rev Fr SJ Emmanuel observed in his speech. He blamed not only Kadirgamar and CBK but also the Sinhala Catholic establishment as well as sections of Tamil Catholic priesthood for failing to speak the truth about the attack. Tamil politician MK Shivajilingam said CBK had failed to admit the nature of the crime. “It is not an accidental event of dropping a parcel. The bombers targeted the church with 13 bombs,” he said. Former NPC Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan said the chain of attacks including Chemma'ni mass graves establishes that they were premeditated.
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SL Police harasses Shivajilingam at 25th Remembrance of Navaali massacre in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2020, 00:05 GMT]
Hundreds of people emotionally marked the 25th remembrance of 147 Tamil men, women and children who perished in SL Air Force bombing and artillery attacks when they had sought refuge at two temples at Navaali in Jaffna on 09th July 1995. On Thursday, the Sinhala police of occupying Colombo was trying to block former TNA parliamentarian and former provincial councillor M.K. Shivajilingam when he went to the remembrance event. On Wednesday, the SL Police was attempting to secure a court order against the participation of the Tamil politician in the remembrance. Mr Shivajilingam, who has been in the forefront championing the right of Eezham Tamils memorialisation events, especially after 2009, was however allowed to take part by the courts. Yet, the SL Police was harassing him at the site, irking the Tamils.
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Colombo schemes to expand ilmenite scooping into North from Pulmoaddai in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2020, 19:36 GMT]
Occupying Colombo is silently expanding its scheme to excavate ilmenite mineral to the north of Kokku'laay lagoon after exploiting the silica-rich sand in Pulmoaddai located in Trincomalee to the south of the provincial border. Systematic surveying has been going on since 2016, and the incumbent administration under Gotabaya Rajapaksa is accelerating the plan, informed civil sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The planned exploitation, if allowed to proceed unchecked, could result in an environmental disaster, the sources said seeking the attention of environmentalists, academics, journalists and the politicians among the Eezham Tamils.
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Colombo transfers Tamil Political Prisoners to notorious Anuradhapura prison

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2020, 19:06 GMT]
The prison authorities of New Magazine Prison in Colombo have transferred twenty Tamil Political Prisoners (TPPs) to Anuradhapura prison on Saturday. Five of eleven TPPs who narrowly escaped death or injury at Anuradhaprison prison during the rioting on 21 March and later relocated to Jaffna have also been sent back to Anuradhapura jail on 30 June, legal sources in Jaffna said. All the TPPs at the Anuradhapura have been jailed along with Sinhala hardcore prisoners at death row or life imprisonment. The families of the TPPs are concerned for the safety of the TPPs.
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After Naavat-kuzhi, Colombo targets Poonakari for Sinhala colonisation across Jaffna lagoon

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2020, 19:28 GMT]
Strategically located Naavat-kuzhi in Jaffna peninsula and Poonakari across the Jaffna lagoon at the entrance to the peninsula in the mainland were systematically targeted for Sinhalicisation by occupying Colombo during the previous Rajapaksa regime. Politicians, including Rajapaksa family members, were directly involved in grabbing lands and farms in Poonakari. Sinhala colonists were brought to Naavat-kuzhi in Jaffna. The colonisation of Naavatkuzhi carried out clandestinely during the Rajapaksa rule gained “legal” status under the Sirisena-Wickramasinghe rule that followed. Sections of Sinhala nationalists who joined the US bandwagon, such as Patali Champika Ranawake, allocated lands and housing schemes to the colonists. They also completed a Buddhist stupa. Now, the Rajapaksa regime is back in business escalating the project into Poonakari, informed Tamil officials in Jaffna said.
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Colombo imposes restrictions on Tamil valour related symbolism in schools of North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2020, 22:26 GMT]
Director of Northern Provincial Department of Education Sellathurai Uthayakumar has instructed the school principals to “discipline” the sport meets held in the schools within the province not to use symbols associated with the armed struggle of Tamils in the house decorations. The move comes after the SL military intelligence monitored a trend in the schools of Vanni, where Tamil students and teachers have been using the symbolism of resistance against European colonialism as well as the Sinhala occupation in the sports events. Often, the winning “house decorations” of the sports meets depicted Pandaara Vanniyan or names of Tamil Eelam War Heroes (Maaveerar) in the titles, a principal of a renowned school in Vanni told TamilNet.
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New secret unit among four SL military and police squads competing to arrest Tamil youth in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2020, 13:22 GMT]
Four SL military and police squads, including a new secret unit led by a Police Deputy Inspector General (DIG) based in Colombo, have been detaining Tamils under the allegation of attempting to regroup armed struggle. Apart from the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Division,’ based in Colombo, the new unit led by another DIG is also operating from Colombo with field trips to all the five districts of North, informed sources in Jaffna said. Four different “networks” of Tamil youth have been detained in Magazine New Remand Prison in Colombo in the recent months, the sources further said. In the meantime, Coordinator of SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna, Thangavel Kanagaraj, has admitted that his office had received an increased number of complaints in June. At least one of those detained were below the age of 18.
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Tamils blocked from accessing properties near SL Navy training base in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2020, 22:10 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy in Champoor in Trincomalee has deceived twenty poverty-stricken Tamil families into clearing one-hundred acres of lands located between SLNS Vidura base and the nearby Munpa'l'li Murukan temple with the false promise of resettlement. Five months ago, the SL Navy told the resettling Tamil families that they could move back into 300 acres of their properties. In their drive to get back their lands, the families went to the extent of borrowing money to clean up the bushes and trees. When one-third of the work was complete towards the end of May, the SL Navy refused access to the lands. SLNS Vidura is SL Navy's naval training base of the SL marines, established and groomed by the US Indo Pacific Command since 2017.
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Moragoda advising Gotabaya prompts Sinhala parties to scrap Provincial Councils

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2020, 23:29 GMT]
Former SL Minister Milinda Moragoda, who conspired with western powers to create an ‘international safety-net’ for Colombo during the Norway-led peace process, is now demanding the Sinhala political parties to make their stand on the provincial councils. Mr Moragoda, whose Pathfinder Foundation is advising SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has urged the political parties to repeal the 13th Amendment, reported Colombo-based EconomyNext on Monday. The move to do away with the PCs was aimed at the deterritorialisation of the Tamil homeland, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. The rulers of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka were also looking for creative ways to de-legitimise the validity of the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord to re-negotiate external powers’ strategic access to strategic Trincomalee harbour, they further commented.
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Devananda circumvents court order, manipulates Jaffna fishers to allow poachers from South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 June 2020, 23:36 GMT]
Former Tamil paramilitary operative Kathiravelu Nithiyanada Devananda alias Douglas has hijacked several fisheries cooperative societies in Jaffna using his political power. Mr Devananda is the SL Minister of Fisheries in the “caretaker” cabinet of Rajapaksa regime. The EPDP leader is deploying the hijacked organisations to suppress the Tamil fishers in Jaffna who oppose exploitative and environmentally destructive sea cucumber poaching. The SL Minister is engineering violation of court orders issued two years ago, grassroots activists in Jaffna complain. Devananda has also manipulated a church to back the controversial move.
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