Protests on International Day of Disappeared signal emboldened resolve for justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitaries in the past staged two coordinated demonstrations in the North and East on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared on Friday. More than 500 people, including the grassroots activists and supporting politicians, marched for two hours from Pa'nrik-keytha-ku'lam to Oamanthai, the former entry point to the erstwhile de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. Those handed over to the occupying Sinhala military at the entry point in Vavuniyaa, and at Vadduvaakal in Mullaiththeevu were taken to undisclosed detention camps, and their whereabouts are since not known. The wives and the mothers of the missing persons denounced the reparations mechanisms of the so-called Office of Missing Persons (OMP) and demanded international justice.
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Widespread logging backed by SL military in Mannaar continues to escape scrutiny

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 August 2019, 23:35 GMT]
The commanders of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in three of the five divisions of Mannaar district have been partnering with millionaire wood traders from the South in a widespread and systematic illegal logging going on for a long time after 2009, Tamil officials in Mannaar District Secretariat said. The massive-scale exploitation has reached dangerous proportions and was causing severe environmental effects, the officials told TamilNet. The SL Forest Conservation Department or the SL Police do not act against the conduct of the SL military officers. Now, the SL military is also enjoying the police powers, overriding the authority of the SL Police, the officials further said.
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State discrimination causes death of 1000 cows, milk production drops by 5,500 litres in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2019, 23:27 GMT]
The drought has taken a big toll on dairy farmers as the SL State has been systematically neglecting their repeated requests for drinking water reservoirs for the cattle. The occupying Colombo has also been desisting from safeguarding the pasture lands in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district targeting Sinhala colonisation through the Mahaweli scheme. Nimalan Kanthasamy, the Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, told TamilNet on Tuesday that the milk production supplied to the SL State-owned dairy Milco (Pvt) Ltd from the region has dropped from 6,000 litres to just 400 litres on average between January and July 2019. It is a human-made disaster intended to obliterate the particular livelihood, say the grassroots activists in the district.
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Threatened female activist suffers injuries in suspicious ‘accident’ in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 August 2019, 23:47 GMT]
A leading activist of missing persons in Batticaloa district, Mrs Amalanayaki Amalraj, was struck by a suspicious motorbike rider around 4:30 PM on Sunday. Mrs Amalraj, seated back on a motorcycle which her daughter was riding, spotted a speeding motorbike with three persons passing them, then slowing down. As her daughter reduced the speed, the other speeding bike hit them from behind and rapidly vanished away. A group of villagers who witnessed the accident chased the speeding motorcycle and managed to catch the driver. The two others seated in the motorbike have managed to escape. The rider was identified as a close relative of one of the most dreaded Tamil paramilitary operative of the SL military in the past. Mrs Amalraj was also harassed by the SL Police when she was on her way to meet the UN Special Rapporteur on Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association last month.
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Sinhala colonisation escalated in Vavuniyaa North with a multitude of players backing infrastructure

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 April 2019, 21:24 GMT]
Elected civic members of Vavuniyaa North Divisional Council (PS) complain that the Sinhala colonisation is relentlessly targeting the eastern side of their division. The occupying Sinhala Army and its home-guards paramilitary act as the guardians of the colony while the extremist Buddhist monks coordinate the systematic expansion. Various SL ministries provide the infrastructure. Besides, a host of actors from a leading socio-economic NGO with Buddhist philosophy to a local extremist group known as ‘Sinhala Power in the North‘ (‘Uture Hela Balaya’ or ‘Utura Rakina Raṭa Surakina Jātika Balaya - Vanni’) facilitate it through different approaches. Also, sections of expatriate Sinhalese, including a retired professor from Australia, have funded the housing projects of the scheme. The Sinhala settlers are being radicalised without any provocation or hostility from the Tamils.
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SL State appropriates lands of Tamils in Batticaloa under ‘Mahaweli’ scheme

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 April 2019, 22:31 GMT]
Eezham Tamil land-owners in four interior GS divisions in Kiraan and Chengkaladi divisions of Batticaloa district are facing an imminent threat of losing upto 90 per cent of their paddy lands and 99 per cent of other lands which they owned for decades. Their areas are being absorbed into the Mahaweli colonisation programme under cover of ‘development’, say Tamil farmers. Agrarian Services Centre official at Kiraan T. Jeyaraj has informed the farmers that they would be only allowed to retain 2.5 acres of paddy lands and 0.5 acres of lands for homestead per adult person in their families as their lands were being taken over by the Mahaweli authority, the farmers said.
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Religious leaders in Mannaar lack statesmanship

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 March 2019, 23:21 GMT]
The forces seeking to escalate religious disharmony among Eezham Tamils in Mannaar have been both influencing and criticising the religious establishments of the Tamil Catholics and the Tamil Saivites in the district, trapping the two communities further into a prolonged conflict this week. The board of trustees of Thirukkeatheesvaram Saiva temple organised a protest on Thursday, a day before the SL Magistrate’s Court in Mannaar is set to hear the religious skirmish that took place in Thirukkeatheesvaram on 03 March. The protest drew four thousand participants from across the district bringing the traffic in the city to a standstill for two hours. In the meantime, SL Minister of Power, Energy and Business ‘Development’, Ravi Karunanayake, a Sinhala Catholic from Colombo, rushed to Madu shrine in Mannaar to discuss ‘development’ of the shrine.
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IC urged to pressure Colombo to allow ICMP to detect more mass graves in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2019, 09:23 GMT]
If the Colombo government wants to establish that there are no war-time mass graves in Mannaar district, it should invite the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) to initiate systematic scanning of all former and present military zones for mass graves, say families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances during the times of genocidal war in the district. More than 800 Tamil people have been subjected to enforced disappearances in Mannaar district alone within 19 years between 1990 and 2009. The families of the victims want to initiate a broader campaign calling for an independent international competent authority to take charge of the entire process. The families suspect there are potential sites of mass graves the Sunny Village in Mannaar island as well as in the notorious SL military base in the mainland.
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SL ministry behind Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Muslims' lands in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 March 2019, 20:28 GMT]
The National Housing Development Authority (NHDA), which comes under the SL Ministry of Housing and Construction, has illegally allocated a housing scheme to intruding Sinhala colonists in Pulmoaddai, Trincomalee. The colonists are backed by four Sinhala Buddhist monks and the Sinhala-only Civil Defence Force (CDF), previously known as ‘home guards’ paramilitary. The construction is taking place at 12th Mile Post (Maalaanoor) and the 10th Mile Post (Ea'raa-madu) in Kuchchave'li division of Trincomalee district. The houses are being hurriedly constructed in the same fashion as the lands were occupied in September 2018, when the intruders put up almost 30 huts within a few days.
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Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhicisation of 40 more locations in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 March 2019, 17:28 GMT]
The anti-Tamil Archaeology Department of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has approached the SL Survey Department to survey 40 more locations in Mullaith-theevu district alone with the intention of permanently declaring the places as heritage monuments of Sinhala Theravada Buddhism, informed civil officials had alerted the TNA Parliamentarian Shanthy Sriskandarajah. It is not known whether these are the places identified in a controversial Gazette declaration made already in 2013 or if these places are additional locations based on a new list, the civil officials who alerted the TNA parliamentarian explained to the journalists who were seeking to verify the information. The Eezham Tamils in Vanni should rapidly form heritage vigilance groups to confront the widespread surveying activities being schemed by the SL Archaeology Department, commented grassroots activists in Vanni.
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Intelligence establishments poised to escalate religious fundamentalism in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 March 2019, 21:10 GMT]
A group of Saiva Tamil activists, attempting to renovate a decoration-arch placed four years ago on the road to Thirukkeatheeswaram temple in Mannaar, were opposed by a section of Tamil Catholic people on Sunday. The Catholics alleged that the presence of the galvanised arch was a disturbance to Our Lady of Lourdes Church at the locality. The Lourdes church, which was a minor place of worship, had also been expanded into a big temple four years ago in Maanthai parish. The parish priest of nearby Vangkaalai was opposing the ‘renovation’ of the arch blaming that the Saivites were scheming a permanent concrete structure. The Saivites, in their turn, were arguing that they were only consolidating the damaged parts of the existing galvanised arch on the occasion of Maha Shivaratri which was to be observed on Monday. The dispute was blown out of proportion by the parties with vested interest.
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Colombo wants to mark ancient villages in East as ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ villages

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 March 2019, 21:52 GMT]
SL Minister of Internal Home Affairs, Provincial Council and Local Government Mr Wajira Abeywardhana has instructed the district secretariats in the three districts of the Eastern Province to declare each village having at least one Sinhala Buddhist family as a Buddhist village, highly placed civil sources at the Trincomalee District Secretariat told TamilNet on Friday. Mr Abeywardhana is a UNP politician, who hails from the Galle District in the South. The UNP is following the footsteps of notorious Cyril Mathew (1912 - 1989), an outright racist UNP politician who was the SL Minister of Industry and Scientific Affairs (1977 - 1986) under J.R. Jayewardene, commented the civil sources at Trincomalee District Secretariat.
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Colombo accelerates Sinhalicisaton of disputed heritage hilltop in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2019, 22:38 GMT]
A team of technicians from the SL Archaeology Department were deployed to copy stone inscriptions found at the disputed heritage site of Vedukku-naa'ri hill-top in Vavuniyaa on Thursday and Friday. The members of the group were claiming that they had come following special requests from the District Secretary of Vavuniyaa, a Sinhalese, and the secretariat of the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, said Thamilchelvan Thurairajah, an elected councillor at the Civic Divisional Council of Vavuniyaa North, who confronted and interacted with the team on Thursday. Two armed Special Task Force commandos and two police officers were providing ‘security’ to the technicians to carry out the recordings on Thursday and Friday. They were also making some other measurements at the hilltop, the witnesses said.
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SL State apparatus at full swing to Sinhalicise ancient temple of Tamils in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 January 2019, 22:41 GMT]
The trustees of Thiruk-koa'neasvaram (Koneswaram) temple in the eastern port city of Trincomalee blame three different authorities of the unitary of state of genocidal Sri Lanka as severely restricting their initiatives to preserve the spiritual environment at the historic Saiva temple. The Tamil devotees experience the conduct of the SL state apparatus as racial discrimination, reporters in the city said. The secretary of the trustee board, Mr K. Parameswaran, when contacted by TamilNet said the SL Archaeology Department, SL Department of Coast Conservation and the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, which is a statutory body of the Colombo government, were confronting the trustee board.
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Tamil dairy farmers face two-frontal attacks in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2019, 17:11 GMT]
Ex-paramilitary Karuna Group, which is aligned with former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been gunning down the cattle belonging to dairy farmers at the pasturelands of Paalai-vaddavaan (Paalai-madu) in Paduvaan-karai, the interior northwestern part of Batticaloa district which was protected by the LTTE before 2007 from Sinhala colonisation coming from Polonnaruwa, the home district of Mr Sirisena. In the meantime, Sinhala encroacher ‘home guards’ paramilitary men have stolen eight calves within the last 20 days. The SL police are taking the side of the encroachers and demands the Tamil dairy farmers to identify the ‘thieves’ to register a complaint. The calve thefts have taken place at Mayilaththa-madu pasture land, which is located within two kilometres from the Paalai-madu tank, where the former paramilitary men who have been firing at the cows.
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Diocesan Authority over Madu Shrine should remain uncompromised: Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 December 2018, 22:30 GMT]
The Diocese of Mannar is still on a clarification and consultation stage in its engagement with the SL Presidential Secretariat on the proposal of declaring the locality of Madu Shrine as a sacred area, Bishop of Mannaar Rt Rev Emmanuel Fernando said in a video interview on Monday. “It is of utmost importance to preserve the authority of the Bishop of the Mannaar Diocese on Madu Shrine without any erosion, same as it has always been,” the Bishop said. “We have also urged the participation of the Administrator – the Holy Friar – of the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu in all the discussions,” he said. “We are still watching whether these would be properly met. Only if these concerns are appropriately met, we would be prepared to grant our permission to the move,” Bishop Fernando clarified. “We have also obtained advice to be able to refuse our permission if that is not the case,” he stressed.
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Sirisena brings ‘sacred area’ deception to subvert Madu Shrine into ‘Anuradhapura’ paradigm

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 December 2018, 21:50 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and a section of Sinhala Catholics in Colombo are pushing to demarcate the Madu area, where Our Lady of Madu shrine is located. The sinister move is based on the advice coming from the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment, which wants to assert a mythical ‘Pathini Deiyo’ legacy in the next phase through the ‘Anuradhapura’ perception of so-called Sinhala heritage. Sections of Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar have already sensed the heat in Sinhala establishment in Colombo and advocate caution without much public attention, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet. The Sanctity of Madu (Madhu) has always been beyond the scope of the boundary of a non-secular state apparatus and it should remain so also in the future is the general opinion being whispered within the ranks of Mannaar Diocese, the sources further said.
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SL military threatens to re-introduce discriminatory pass system in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2018, 22:09 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military is trying to re-introduce the discriminatory pass system which it deployed against the dairy farmers in the interior villages of Batticaloa district. The move is aimed at colonising the area with Sinhala settlers, and the SL military wants to chase away the Tamil farmers and the cattle herders through various harassments. The SL Army stationed at Tharavai military base has started to harass the Tamil cattle owners this week and instructed the cattle herders to register the details of cattle owners at their camp. Tharavai is located 40 km northwest of Batticaloa city.
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HR Day protests in North-East met with violence, SL Police displays hostility

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2018, 23:08 GMT]
Four Tamil protesters were admitted to Trincomalee hospital as unknown masked men assaulted the Tamils from Moothoor East, who rallied in front of the Trincomalee Bus stand Monday morning for a peaceful protest in connection with International Human Rights Day. The families of the enforced disappeared, and the villagers from Padu-kaadu and Muthalai-madu, whose lands have been seized by the occupying SL military, were staging the protest. In the meantime, the SL Police at Chunnaakam in Jaffna threatened the Tamil villagers of Uduvil who protested in front of the DS office on Monday urging it to not hand over a private property, which the police wants to seize for its use. Later, on Monday night, a petrol bomb was thrown at the property. The people suspect that the SL police was behind the attack, in an apparent threat to force the owners of a fitness centre to vacate the lands.
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Sinhala colonists resume occupation of pasture lands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, Nimalan Kanthasamy, said the Tamil farmers were facing the recurrence of violence from Sinhala colonists who have started to encroach into to Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththa-madu, a pasture land located in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. Sinhala colonists from Polonnaruwa, Badulla and Moneragala were withdrawn last year after repeated protests. The interior land was under the control of the LTTE before 2007.
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