UN Rights Chief joins her predecessors in watering down collective rights of genocide affected people

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2020, 06:37 GMT]
Without imposing a robust follow-up on the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, which withdrew its support to UN Human Rights Resolution 30/1 that failed to address genocide justice, international investigations and ensure the collective rights of the people of the occupied traditional Tamil homeland in the North-East, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was just “encouraging” the Council to “give renewed attention to Sri Lanka, in view of the need to prevent threats to peace, reconciliation and sustainable development.” Ms Bachelet was only referring to “commitments” made by the Rajapaksa regime “since it withdrew its support for resolution 30/1”.
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Diaspora youth group re-aligns Tamil narrative on enforced disappearances

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2020, 22:13 GMT]
The misrepresentation and interpretation of enforced Tamil disappearances and Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs) represent an extension of Colombo’s genocidal agenda which continues to be mirrored through the engagements of the genocidal state’s global counterparts. In that regard, the Swiss-based Tamil Youth group – “Phoenix – the Next Generation” have condemned such internal and external diversions away from the contextualisation of enforced Tamil disappearances as a component of Colombo’s genocidal agenda through a social media initiative coinciding with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
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Jude Lal Fernando’s Sputnik interview exposes unfolding British duplicity on KMS ‘investigations’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2020, 15:41 GMT]
The UK investigative journalist Phil Miller has revealed with an immense amount of details how the UK’s security company, Keenie Meenie Services (aka KMS), was involved in training the SL commando force, the Special Task Force (STF), which massacred, abducted and tortured scores of Tamils in the island. However, British paramilitary forces like Keenie Meenie give ‘credible deniability’ to the British state. Even the use of the word ‘mercenary’ is misleading, says Professor Jude Lal Fernando of Trinity College, Dublin, in an interview to Sputnik on Thursday. The exiled Sinhala academic and activist, who has been actively engaged in seeking global justice to Tamil genocide, claimed that the British paramilitary was operating “only within the interests of the British state and as part of the state”.
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Gotabaya's ‘Task Force’ monk threatens Tamils to stay away from their paddy fields in Thiriyaay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 September 2020, 22:03 GMT]
The extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk based in Arisimalai in Pulmoaddai, Panamure Thilakawansha Thero, has threatened Eezham Tamil farmers of Thiriyaay in Kuchchave'li division of Trincomalee district to stay away from their agricultural lands on Wednesday. Panamure Thilakawansha is the monk whom the SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has referred as “chief prelate for the Northern and Eastern Provinces” in his Presidential Task Force for ‘archaeological heritage management’ in the East. He has claimed that ancient Buddhist artefacts were lying spread across more than one thousand acres spanning six farming tracts. The Tamil farmers have demanded the Tamil National Alliance and other Tamil national political parties to act against the move.
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Families of war-disappeared send strong message braving SL restrictions on International Day

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 August 2020, 16:36 GMT]
The district organisations of the families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying SL military and its paramilitary groups courageously staged protests in the North and East passing a strong message to the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on 30th August. Tamil protesters who mobilised in Batticaloa passed a strong message to the Rajapaksa establishment as they refused to adhere to the restrictions placed on them by the SL judiciary and the police. District coordinator, Amalanayaki Amalraj, received an interim order from Batticaloa Magistrate, AC Rizwan, following SL Police OIC, Samantha Bandara’s accusation that she was trying to convene more than one thousand people violating the pandemic restrictions.
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Sumanthiran alleged of exerting Colombo’s influence to tamper with preferential vote counts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 August 2020, 01:05 GMT]
The supporters of two leading candidates of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the Jaffna electorate vehemently protested against an alleged move to tamper with the preferential vote counts in Jaffna to the favour of MA Sumanthiran, who was ranked fifth for the most part the counting process. Two of TNA’s candidates, Dharmalingam Sitharthan (PLOTE) and Sashikala Raviraj (ITAK) were carefully following the development to ensure that the hierarchy of their party doesn’t exert back-door influence to alter their preferential vote counts. The supporters of Sitharthan and Sashikala alleged that the government officials were acting on instructions from their superiors. SL Police and STF commandos were providing security to Mr Sumanthiran, and they assaulted the protesters outside the counting centre. When Sashikala left the centre, she refused police protection.
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2020 election resembles 1970 polls that formed genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 August 2020, 10:08 GMT]
The SLFP led by Srimao Bandaranaike replaced the British drafted Ceylon constitution doing away even the minimal and symbolic safeguards for external justice through the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Enacting a unitary constitution without the democratic mandate of Eezham Tamils, Ceylon was transformed unilaterally into genocidal Sri Lanka by the Sinhala politicians. Now, the SLFP is replaced by the SLPP, ten years after genocidal annihilation of the armed movement and the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. The SLPP is poised to enact a constitutional discourse emboldening the unitary state towards the final phase of heritage and structural genocide in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. As far as the Eezham Tamils are concerned, there is very little left for them to achieve within the scope of SL Parliamentary politics.
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Tamil nation-oriented parties challenged in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2020, 17:22 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is set to win six of thirteen seats of the Northern province in the SL Parliament. The competing Tamil national rights-oriented parties, the TNPF (Tamil Congress) and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) would be securing one seat each, electing a federalism-oriented majority of eight Tamil parliamentarians from the province. However, in the most populous Eastern province with a significant mix of Sinhala and Muslim voters, the TNA is gaining only three of sixteen seats, two in Batticaloa and one in Trincomalee, entirely losing Ampaa'rai. Former paramilitary operative Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna waged an anti-Muslim campaign in Ampaa'rai to woo the voters, making his opportunistic politics out of the collective failure by the TNA, TNPF and the TMTK in the East.
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Occupying Sinhala military reminds Eezham Tamils of whose elections they partake

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 August 2020, 20:57 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has been harassing the Tamil candidates contesting in the general elections, particularly Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) led by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Koottani (TMTK) led by CV Wigneswaran in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The SL Army has been deploying surveillance teams and field-bike units during their campaign meetings. The TNPF has publicly alleged that SL military intelligence operatives were behaving in a threatening manner in their election meetings. The SL military intelligence had also threatened its candidates in Batticaloa to withdraw from the elections, the TNPF blamed. TMTK Leader and former Chief Minister of Northern Province, Justice Wigneswaran, was harassed by the field-bike group of the SL Army recently, when he went for an election meeting to Kurunakar, a suburb of Jaffna.
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TMVP-linked operatives collaborate with SL Navy, suppress Tamil fishers in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 August 2020, 21:05 GMT]
Violating the condition of operating purse-seine boats beyond 10 miles from the coast, the SL Navy is allowing former Tamil paramilitary operatives to poach in the seas along with intruding poachers from outside the district, fisher society representatives complain. The SLNS Kashyapa, the SL Navy detachment in Vaakarai of Batticaloa district, is demanding 20 rupees per kilo of the catch as an unofficial “tax” from the poachers, they said on condition on anonymity. The ex-paramilitary operatives of the TMVP group were exerting political pressure on local Tamil fisher societies the same way as by the EPDP in the North, they said.
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Manifestos of TNA, TNPF and TMTK expose lacuna, hint areas for corrections of Tamil polity

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2020, 18:29 GMT]
The revisionist ITAK hierarchy-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has issued its manifesto exposing and justifying its deviationist and revisionist approach to the Tamil national question in the island. The TNA, which is engaged in Quisling politics post-2009, issued its proclamation in Tamil and English as it has nothing to ‘fear’ from the judiciary of genocidal Sri Lanka and its Sixth Amendment. In the meantime, the TNPF and the TMTK, both claiming to be more struggle-centric and principles-oriented, have ‘tactically’ avoided issuing their proclamations in English for reasons best known to themselves. Journalists in Jaffna said both the alliances were dodging questions on the topic.
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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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Community physician referring North and East as Tamil areas was ‘racism’ for GMOA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2020, 18:31 GMT]
SL Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), which is the trade union of government doctors in the island, is again on a witch-hunt against Consultant Community Physician (CCP) Dr Murali Vallipuranathan, an outspoken Tamil from North. Secretary of the GMOA Dr Senal Fernando has written a letter to the Secretary of SL Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services Dr Sanjeewa Munasinghe urging the latter to initiate an investigation against Dr Vallipuranathan for calling Northern and Eastern provinces as Tamil areas. “We firmly believe that this is a racists remark as whole of Sri Lanka belongs to all ethnic groups of the country,” wrote Dr Fernando in his letter.
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SL Police blocks protest by families of missing persons in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 July 2020, 20:24 GMT]
Ea'raavoor Police has blocked a demonstration on Monday in Batticaloa. The kith and kin of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances organised the protest after informing SL Police in advance. However, the SL Police, which had verbally assured that the protest could proceed, suddenly stopped the rally in a ransacking spree, securing a court order just 30 minutes before the protest. The coordinator of the campaign, Ms Amalanayaki Amalraj, told TamilNet that she had informed the SL Police Officer-in-Charge at Ea'raavoor Police station through a CID officer attached to the central police station in Batticaloa well in advance, three days before the event.
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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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Saiva deity statue destroyed 20 days after ‘inspection’ by Sinhala monk in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 July 2020, 22:15 GMT]
Unknown attackers have smashed the door of the inner sanctuary of Kusalaana-malai Saiva Kumaran temple and destroyed the main deity statue, residents of Karadiyan-aattuk-ku'lam in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Friday. The desecration has taken place three weeks after a Sinhala-Buddhist was observed inspecting the temple situated at the 213-feet high hillock, 35 km west of Batticaloa city. A similar destruction was reported a few days ago at Kurunthoor-malai hillock in Mullaiththeevu in Vanni. The board of the temple was reluctant to talk to journalists as it feared media attention could trigger further problems to the temple. However, Tamil farmers in the nearby village urged broader awareness on the ongoing acts of heritage genocide in the East and North.
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University students mark Black July Remembrance in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2020, 22:46 GMT]
Tamil university students in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and Batticaloa staged remembrance events within their university premises. Jaffna University Student Union leaders, who gathered at their office lighting candles for the victims of the 1983 SL State-sponsored pogrom against Tamils in the island said Black July remembrance must be integral to the process of international justice on Tamil genocide. Remembrance events were also observed at Vavuniyaa campus and the Eastern University. In the meantime, Tamil political parties that usually organise Black July Remembrance events, were too busy this time with their election campaign.
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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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