Kalaignar Karunanidhi passes away at 94

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 August 2018, 16:58 GMT]
Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State and the Chief of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Muthuvel Karunanidhi, popularly known as ‘Kalaignar’, has passed away at the age of 94 in Chennai, TamilNadu, on Tuesday. Apart from his acumen in adjusting policy to the prevailing circumstances and persistent role in dialectically shaping the politics of Tamil Nadu, Kalaignar was also a veteran writer, playwright, scriptwriter, poet and an orator contributing to Tamil literature and cinema. His demise marks the end of a political era, represented along with the late former chief minister personalities such as C.N. Annadurai (Anna), M.G.Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, all of whom originated from the secular Dravidian movement, which emerged as a counter-hegemonic force in Tamil Nadu politics in the early 20th century.
Full story >>

Sinhalas have come in big way, as opening of Kandyan Kingdom: Rt Rev Jebanesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2018, 23:38 GMT]
Tamils had been the first inhabitants and an original people of this island. Although some historians accept that fact, the present Sinhala historians do not take it. Back in the old days, when H.C. Ray was the professor of history at the University of Ceylon, he used to refute the claim that Tamils were interlopers. The interlopers were the Sinhalas and not the Tamils, he used to say. However, one is unable to resonate that fact anymore, says Rt Rev Dr S Jebanesan, the former Bishop of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet. The tyranny of the ‘majority’ is dominating the post-colonial political discourses and the case of ‘Sri Lanka’ is a classic example of this trend, the scholar of philosophy, theology as well as the Tamil and English languages, said.
Full story >>

Colombo's TID wants to interrogate Tamil journalist from Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2018, 13:20 GMT]
The ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ of the police of the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka has instructed the chairperson of the Batticaloa District Tamil Journalists Association, Valasingam Krishnakumar, to attend a TID questioning in Colombo on Friday. The TID wants to record a written statement from Mr Krsihnakumar. The latest harassment involving a journalist in the East is reported amidst a series of similar interrogation ‘invitations’ being served to Tamil activists, including a provincial minister in the North, especially after Eezham Tamils marking the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day on 18 May.
Full story >>

Colombo unleashes dangerous scheme of demographic genocide choking North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 22:24 GMT]
The Mahaweli Authority of the occupying State of genocidal Sri Lanka has schemed a new plan to destroy the territorial integrity of the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils by changing the demography of 13 km long narrow coastal stretch from the south of Nayaa'ru lagoon towards the provincial border with Eastern Province at Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu district. The Sinhala colonial governor of Northern Province Reginald Cooray and Thissapura Gunarathna thero the intruding Sinhala extremist Buddhist monk at Kokku'laay have been working closely with the Mahaweli Ministry of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena with the plan to Sinhalicise 7,000 acres of lands along the two sides Mullaiththeevu - Trincomalee highway. It is the most dangerous plan to choke North and East, Tamil civil officials in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district told TamilNet on Wednesday.
Full story >>

Karuna paramilitary appropriates pastureland in Paduvaan-karai for electoral exploitation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 January 2018, 21:42 GMT]
Vinyagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, a paramilitary leader who has been collaborating with the Rajapaksa regime in the past, is again deploying violence and various intimidations, now against a section of dairy farmers from Chiththaa'ndi in Batticaloa district. In an attempt to woo voters for his political party from his native village of Kiraan, he is grabbing public and forest lands to convert these into agricultural lands for farmers, who had distanced from him since his betrayal to the Tamil cause in 2004. Paramilitary personnel carrying weapons have shot and killed cows belonging to Chiththaa'ndi farmers who are using the disputed area as pastureland for their cattle. 200 acres of lands have already been seized at Paalaik-kaaddu-veddai, which is situated close to Mayilaththamadu in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division.
Full story >>

SL Police continues to occupy private properties in East disproving Sirisena’s claims at UN

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 December 2017, 22:50 GMT]
In contrary to the claim made by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena at the United Nations that his government had released back private properties, which had been seized by the SL military and the Police in the Eastern province during the times of war, the SL Police is still occupying the lands that belong to Karunalayam, a Hindu charity which is based in Mayilampaa-ve'li, 8 km north of Batticaloa city, says R. Murugadas, the director of the charity. SL Police is stationed at the lands and building belonging to Karunalyaam. The charity has been demanding its lands back since 2013 and has brought the matter to the direct attention of the SL President three times, he further said. Karunalayam maintains a housing scheme named Ram Nakar and an orphanage for children at Mayilampaa-ve’li in Ea’raavoor-pattu division (Chengkaladi).
Full story >>

SL Police reluctant to act against SLFP goons in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 November 2017, 17:19 GMT]
Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, a former Tiger commander turned paramilitary operative of the occupying Sinhala military in 2004, has illegally seized 25 acres of farmlands that belong to 16 private landowners at Thadaa'nai in Pearillaa-ve'li of Koa'ra'laippattu South (Kiraan) Division and transferred the lands to his sister, the affected landowners complain. The SL Police is not prepared to act against the encroachers, the landowners said. Mr Muralitharan who became a deputy minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet in 2009 and later joined Rajapaksa's SLFP, has appointed his sister as the head of SLFP Women Wing in Batticaloa.
Full story >>

Paramilitary operative employed at Cooray's secretariat in Jaffna harasses public servants

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 October 2017, 18:46 GMT]
A former EPRLF (Varathar wing) paramilitary operative turned ‘sanitary worker’ at the secretariat of SL Governor to North, 30-year-old Sivarasa Sivakulan alias Murali, has been harassing Tamil public servants who have been sympathetic to the kith and kin of the struggling political prisoners, Tamil journalists and activists who have been supporting the elected Chief Minister of the NPC. The SL operative has handed over details of Tamil public servants, who took part in the black flag protest and demanded the SL Presidential Security Division (PSD) to punish them through SL Presidential Secretariat instructions to relevant ministries. The harassment has already begun with instruction of transfers being sent to North, informed sources in Colombo said. A Ministerial Security Division (MSD) officer in charge of SL Governor's security is also involved in the latest operation.
Full story >>

Colombo rushes ahead with military land grab of Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 September 2017, 23:13 GMT]
671 acres of residential, coastal and agricultural lands in Mu'l'livaaykkaal East GS division in Mullaiththeevu, containing crucial evidences and traces of genocidal onslaught against Eezham Tamils, are now being ‘officially’ appropriated by Colombo citing ‘public purpose’. The appropriation planned under Rajapaksa regime is being carried out by Maithiripala-Wickramasinghe regime. The lands have already been seized and fenced off by the SL military for years since 2009. Now these lands are being ‘legally’ transferred to the occupying Sinhala Navy for its largest navy cantonment in Mullaiththeevu named ‘SLNS Gotabhaya’. An extraordinary Gazette notice issued by SL Minister of ‘Lands and Parliamentary Reforms’ on August 04, 2017, only talks about ‘public purpose’ without mentioning the military purpose.
Full story >>

SL military threat against civil organisations reaches serious level in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 February 2017, 22:47 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military was directly controlling the civil rights of the Eezham Tamils under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, the SL military under the joint regime of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, has chosen much worse forms of controlling the underlying social fabric of Eezham Tamils in the Eastern Province, complain Tamil activists from Rural Development Society (RDS) organisations and women’s rural organisations in Batticaloa district in the East. SL military intelligence, which has gathered details of RDS activists and the details of their families, has been exerting pressure on the activists to operate as its informants. All the RDS organisations in the 14 divisions of Batticaloa district are facing the same threat and harassment from the SL military.
Full story >>

Kokku'laay Tamils face multi-pronged structural genocide abetted by external assistance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 February 2017, 19:00 GMT]
The North East Reawakening Programme (NERP), which is fully controlled by Colombo’s ministry of so-called Economic Development, is discriminating Tamils in Mullaiththeevu district by diverting disproportionately larger ‘development’ assistance coming from the Asian World Bank and the World Bank to Ma’nalaa’ru (Sinhalicised to Weli-Oya) division, a Sinhala-Only division carved out from the district of Eezham Tamils, Northern Provincial Councillor Thurariasa Ravikaran said. Not only the NERP, certain ministries of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is also being pressurized to channel more resources into Weli-Oya, commented Tamil civil sources in Karaithu’raip-pattu division. Eezham Tamils from Kokkuth-thoduvaay, Kokku’laay, Karunaadduk-kea’ni and Mukaththuvaaram are seriously affected by the structural genocide and the threat of structural violence coming from Weli-Oya.
Full story >>

Structural genocide against Tamil fishermen reaches all-time high in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 January 2017, 23:38 GMT]
The structural genocide being waged by the Colombo Establishment, particularly against the Eezham Tamil fishermen in Mullaiththeevu district, has reached an all-time high in the history of the district, says Mariyathas Anthonipillai, the chairman of the Federation of Fisheries Associations in the district, told TamilNet on Monday. More than 50% of the coastal stretch with access to fish has been taken over by the intruding fishermen from South. “If the SL Fisheries Ministry gives permission to put up 20 different sites along Mullaiththeevu coast for fishermen from South, the intruders go to the extent of putting vaadis at 80 places. The native fishermen are not even allowed to have their huts at one single place between Nallatha'n'nith-thoduvaay in the north of the district to Kokkuth-thoduvaay and Mukaththuvaaram in the south of the district,” Mr Mariyathas said.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa passes away

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2016, 18:51 GMT]
Tamil Nadu CM Ms Jayalalithaa passed away at 11:30 p.m. on Monday. The nation of Eezham Tamils would ever remember her with thanks for rising up to the occasion at a crucial time, in declaring to the world the genocide committed on Eezham Tamils, in demanding international justice and in calling for self-determination. She did that, responding to the need to mobilise all shades of polity in Tamil Nadu, when all the powerful Establishments of the world including New Delhi and the UN were trying to cover up the crime and were working against in unison. In the millennia-old Tamil civilisation, Ms Jayalalthaa, along with MGR, C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, represent a unique era in which artists, adopting advancements in media, took up the cause of society and for more than half a century politically led the ancient nation that is spread across the world but kept stateless and voiceless.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

Jayalalithaa victory sends significant messages

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2016, 18:02 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK retains government by winning 134 of 234 seats in the election results announced on Thursday. The DMK and its allies led by Kalaignar Karunanidhi have secured 98 seats. No other party or alliance has won any seat in the elections. Ms Jayalalithaa leading the Tamil Nadu Assembly, resolving repeatedly and unanimously demanding international investigation on Eezham Tamil genocide and referendum for Tamil Eelam, has made an international impact against the stand of New Delhi and Washington complicit in the genocide. Efforts were made to silence her. The endorsement she now gets from the people of Tamil Nadu is a fitting answer, commented Eezham Tamil political observers.
Full story >>

Indian intelligence, media insinuate Eezham Tamils to drop ‘Eelam’ in party names

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 April 2016, 16:52 GMT]
The Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), led by Mr Suresh Premachandran, has denounced on Friday a narration given by the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) that one of the oldest parties of early Tamil militant legacy was dropping the terms ‘Eelam’ and ‘Liberation’ in its party name. The claimed name change is actually being contemplated by a small group, the EPRLF ‘Padmanaba wing’, which is neither part of the TNA nor has any electoral standing. This group is led by former North-Eastern Provincial Council Chief Minister Mr Varatharaja Perumal, who is widely seen as an agent of Indian Intelligence. In 2009, immediately after the Vanni genocide, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK Chief Mr M. Karunanidhi also gave instructions to remove the word Eezham in public places. Mr Karunanidhi reportedly has said that it was the wish of the ‘Central agencies’ of India.
Full story >>

Colombo accelerates Sinhaliciation, Buddhicisation in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 March 2016, 17:28 GMT]
After the Northern Provincial Council requested the SL Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government in Colombo twice in November 2015 not to proceed with changing the historical Tamil names of the administrative wards of Nayinaa-theevu (Nainathivu) islet situated off Jaffna into Sinhala, occupying Colombo, through its ministries and the Sinhala navy stationed in the islet have been renaming the Tamil names of the streets in the islet into Sinhala. In the meantime, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Buddhist monks and the SL Navy are jointly working to erect a 52-feet Buddha statue facing the Palk Bay. The Buddha statue will be overshadowing and completely hiding the view of the historical Saiva temple of Nainaa-theevu Naaka-poosha'ni Amman from the Palk Bay, civil sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

None among political prisoners are real convicts, says released Tamil prisoner

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 January 2016, 23:25 GMT]
36-year-old Tamil political prisoner Jeneevan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena on January 08 told TamilNet that almost none of the 230 Tamil prisoners currently languishing inside the prisons of Colombo had command responsibilities or even contributed to the ‘crimes’ they had been accused of. Most of those detained for decades and those given prison terms beyond the scope of their lifetimes were all innocent people like A.G. Perarivalan of Tamil Nadu who had no knowledge that the battery he was buying was to be used in an assassination. The act of continued imprisonment of these people itself constitutes a crime against humanity, Jeneevan Sivarasa told TamilNet in a video interview this week.
Full story >>

Ex-paramilitary operative harasses Koappaave’li villagers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 December 2015, 23:36 GMT]
Former Karuna group paramilitary spokesperson Asad Moulana has been deployed to seize lands from resettled Tamil villagers at Koappaave’li village, situated on Chengkaladi – Badulla Road in Ea’raavoor-pattu DS division, complains Jeyendiran Pathmanathan, the secretary of the Rural Development Society (RDS) of the village. The former paramilitary operative, now working with SL State Minister of Rehabilitation and Resettlement M. L. A. M. Hizbullah, has already seized 3 acres of permit lands through deceiving a villager.
Full story >>

Health of hunger-striking Tamil political prisoners worsens

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2015, 23:42 GMT]
At least 20 of around 300 Eezham Tamil political prisoners on hunger strike at 11 prisons in the island have been admitted to hospital by Friday night, according to news sources in Colombo and Jaffna. The prison authorities of genocidal Sri Lanka have refused access to the relatives and rights activists to witness the deteriorating situation of the hunger strikers in the prisons. While ITAK Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran failed to secure tangible results in his meeting with SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, the students and teachers of Jaffna University, together with the relatives of the imprisoned Tamils, have stepped up their mobilisation demanding immediate release of the political prisoners. The Commission For Justice and Peace of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, in a statement issued on Friday, has demanded immediate release of the Tamil political prisoners.
Full story >>