Israel’s arms exports target Indo-Pacific, Singapore deploys advanced airborne recon pods

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 June 2020, 23:08 GMT]
US-based DefenseNews has revealed that Singapore’s F-16 fighter jets have been spotted carrying a “hitherto unannounced airborne long-range surveillance capability”. The agency, in a report filed on 28 May, said photographs it had obtained were verified to depict Elbit Condor 2 Long Range Oblique Photography (LOROP) system. Israel-based company Elbit Systems has developed the Condor 2, which is a pod with Multi-Spectral (MS) sensing capability integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics used for Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) missions. India is having a close relationship with Israel and the company, Elbit Systems.
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Occupying Colombo resumes Sinhala colonisation in Batticaloa’s interior

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 May 2020, 22:21 GMT]
Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa complain that SL Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority has recently resumed Sinhala colonisation of Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa, particularly the pasturelands at Periya-maathava’nai and Mayilaththa-madu in the administrative divisions of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) and Ea'raavoorpattu (Chengkalai). The Mahaweli authority has identified land plots to settle more than one thousand Sinhala colonists, and a preparatory meeting has taken place in this regard on Tuesday, said Nimalan Kandsamy, the president of the association of dairy farmers. Sinhala officials belonging to the Mahaweli authority have stepped up their visits into the region. Chamal Rajapaksa, a sibling of SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is the SL Minister of Mahaweli as well as the State Minister of Defence in the ‘caretaker’ cabinet of the Rajapaksa regime at the moment.
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SL TID interrogates outspoken Tamil activist VS Sivakaran in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 May 2020, 22:09 GMT]
A five-member team of the notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) that from Colombo to Mannaar carried out an intimidating interrogation of VS Sivakaran, the chairman of Thamizh Theasia Vaazhvurimaich Changkam on Wednesday. The SL TID personnel led by an inspector-rank officer were posing questions in the two-and-a-half-hour investigation about Mr Sivakaran’s role in Maaveerar-Naa’l (Heroes’ Day) marked on 27 November 2019. They also warned the outspoken critic of genocidal Colombo that he was on a watchlist for organising remembrance days for people whom the TID blamed as “terrorists”. The harassment comes two days after Eezham Tamils braved SL military and police harassments in North and East marking Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance and Awakening Day against Tamil Genocide on Tuesday. Sivakaran was formerly the secretary of the youth wing of Ilankai Tamil Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK).
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Eezham Tamil and Muslim solidarity non-negotiable in true spirit of Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 May 2020, 07:42 GMT]
“The viability of the collective political goal of Tamil Eelam is the most sublime truth about Mullivaikkal. This goal of justice and freedom cannot be changed for anyone’s comfort and convenience. Nor can it be changed by New Delhi, London or Washington. It should not be changed by the imperial agendas that are designed to divide the Tamil speaking Muslims and Eelam Tamils,” observes Professor Jude Lal Fernando of Trinity College, Dublin, in his May 18 Remembrance article to TamilNet on Wednesday. “Mullivaikkal tells Eelam Tamils that they are a people who had and who have demonstrated the highest possible moral courage in resisting subjugation. Nanthikkadal lagoon connects all of us to the sea of political wisdom of numerous struggles of oppressed peoples on earth that declares no one will give us freedom, but that we have to struggle for it and gain it ourselves,” he writes further.
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Remembrance of Tamil Genocide and Resistance commences in occupied Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 22:55 GMT]
The eleventh annual Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance, commemorating tens of thousands of deaths and enforced disappearances in the genocidal war waged by the SL State against the nation of Eezham Tamils with the abetment by external powers, has commenced as the awakening week of Tamil nation against genocide. The remembrance week began with a commemoration at Nanthik-kadal near Mu'l'livaaykkaal in Mullaiththeevu and another event at Chemmani mass grave site in Jaffna on Wednesday. The occupying Sinhala Army was deployed in large number, and the SL Police was trying to block those who mobilised to launch the remembrance week. However, the participants braved the harassments in Jaffna and Vanni in commencing the memorial week.
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Occupying Sinhala soldiers mete out revenge assaults against Tamil families in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2020, 11:31 GMT]
A group of Sinhala soldiers, believed to be coming from the 522 Brigade camp of the occupying SL Army in Point Pedro, entered the house of Aingaran Achchitha and assaulted the women and children who were home in Vadamaraadchi East, Jaffna. 64-year-old Vijeyaluxmy Pathmanathan, the mother of Achchitha's husband, has been admitted to Point Pedro Base Hospital with injuries. The incident occurred around 10:45 pm Friday. The soldiers were searching for Aingaran, a former LTTE member, who had slapped a soldier following a minor quarrel sometime back in January. Mr Aingaran, fearing extra-judicial revenge, has gone underground as the SLA soldiers have been searching for him.
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US expert mulls idea of expanding US Indo-Pacific security alliance into Quad Plus

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2020, 22:16 GMT]
US Foreign Policy expert and Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, Paula J. Dobriansky has mooted the idea of further expanding the emerging US-led Indo-Pacific security alliance Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) into “Quad Plus” incorporating economic security. The former security affairs diplomat has proposed to involve three states, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province. “The point would be to pair economic concerns with national-security aims, protect intellectual property, and ensure reliable access to public-health goods—so the US is no longer at the mercy of Beijing for supplies in a pandemic,” she wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.
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Fifteenth year of Sivaram's assassination remembered in North-East amidst pandemic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2020, 21:45 GMT]
Tamil journalists and the people engaged in continuous protests in the North and East marked the 15th anniversary of Maamanithar Sivaram Dharmeratnam’s assassination remembering his contribution to the Tamil struggle. Journalist associations in Batticaloa, Vavuniyaa and Jaffna staged remembrance events with social distancing and limited participation due to pandemic mitigation measures. Sivaram, who wrote articles under the nom-de-plume Taraki was abducted and assassinated allegedly by the SL State’s Intelligence agency in Colombo. Taraki, well versed in geopolitical affairs, was a reputed military analyst and a columnist for Colombo-based Daily Mirror. He was a senior editor of TamilNet for almost eight years until his demise at the age of 46.
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Hypersonic race, Indo-Pacific tensions escalate undeterred by pandemic

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2020, 19:32 GMT]
In an attempt to match the recent technical weapon advancements made by China and Russia in carrying munitions at hypersonic speeds—five times the speed of sound (Mach 5)—the US tested a Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) last month, on 19 March. Russia unveiled its Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, two years ago in March 2018, and China launched DF-ZF in October 2019. The global attention on renewing the only remaining bilateral nuclear arms limitation agreement between the US and Russia has slowed down due to the spread of the pandemic. In the meantime, the US is reiterating its overtly ambitious demand for a trilateral deal to include China without extending the bilateral treaty with Russia.
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Politics of statements failing to call a spade a spade

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2020, 21:51 GMT]
The latest presidential pardoning of a massacre-convicted SL Army soldier is an outcome of the Mahawansa mindset, which is the ideology triggering the specific intent (Dolus Specialis) for Tamil genocide. In the chosen island of “Sri Lanka,” it is the genocidal Mahawansa doctrine that ultimately determines the delivery of justice as well as sustaining the unitary character of the state. Any roadmap, which seeks to improve the Colombo-centric system through gradual reforms without reconfiguring the underlying state structure in the first place, only paves the way for reversing even the cosmetic outcomes of the concerned deceptive progress. Those who contribute to such an experiment, directly or indirectly — even if they intend to disprove the approach through partaking in it — are complicit in sophisticated genocide denial as long as they are not prepared to call a spade a spade.
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New Delhi's prolonged Kashmir-lockdown causes concerns amidst Corona pandemic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2020, 20:07 GMT]
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has demanded the regional grouping SAARC place the COVID-19 Emergency Fund under the disposal of the Secretary-General of SAARC. New Delhi offered an initial contribution of US $10 million, which was followed by Colombo offering $5 million, Malé $2 million, Dhaka $1.5 million, Kathmandu $1 million and Thimphu $100,000. While the heads of states of seven countries took part in a video conference, Pakistan deployed Dr Zafar Mirza, a ministerial rank special assistant to its prime minister to represent the country. Dr Mirza was urging India to relax the lockdown in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the meantime, news reports from Srinagar said anxiety and fear were high in the Indian-administered Kashmir as the speed restriction imposed by New Delhi on internet services continues under the pandemic outbreak.
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Monk praises Gota for releasing SLA soldier from death row, celebrates genocidaire soldier as “hero”

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2020, 23:38 GMT]
While all attention remains focused on the lethal Corona pandemic, SL President Gotabaya has chosen to silently release a Sinhala soldier, Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for one of the brutal massacres committed on Eezham Tamils. In a genocidal act, eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers, were massacred by Ratnayake and five other soldiers at Mirusuvil in Jaffna on 19 December 2000. Ratnayake, a non-commissioned officer of the SL Army, was the only soldier to be punished by the court. The case was put off several times to facilitate escape routes to commissioned rank officers, except Ratnayake, whom the system intended to release at a later opportunity, as it has happened now, Tamil rights activists in Jaffna commented. In the meantime an extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk celebrated the release posting a video comment on Facebook.
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Moragoda’s “think tank” justifies Sinhala apprehension to MCC, proposes renegotiations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2020, 23:47 GMT]
The so-called Colombo-Trincomalee Economic Corridor (CTEC) was only a new name given to decades-old agenda of demographic genocide wedging territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland. Previous Rajapaksa government named it “North Central Metro Region (NCMR)” as envisaged by its “National Physical Planning Department” in April 2010. The selection of districts for the implementation of one of the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project on land administration has “ironically led to the perception that MCC was to build an economic corridor between Colombo and Trincomalee and facilitate a land grab by foreigners,” claims a recent writeup originating from Milinda Moragoda’s Pathfinder Foundation. The outfit claims its reading of the MCC proposal justified some of the public concerns [of the Sinhalese].
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Abduction-style TID detention said to be revenge against social, environmental activist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2020, 17:10 GMT]
SL ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division detained 40-year-old Selvarasa Uthayasivam, a father of four at Keavil in Vadamaraadchi East on 04 March as reported earlier. The TID was alluding to SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna that the detention was linked to the arrest of four persons alleged of having explosives on the previous day. However, the neighbours of Uthayasivam told TamilNet on Tuesday that the SL TID had intentionally targeted Mr Uthayasivam for his environmental and social activism in recent times. Vadamaraadchi East coordinator of National Fisheries Solidarity Movement Ratnasingham Muralitharan said the detained family man was active against exploitative sand mining by the SL Army and the SL Navy. He had also opposed illegal logging activities carried out with alleged involvement of the SL Police.
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Australian, Russian frigates dock at Colombo port

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 March 2020, 17:19 GMT]
New Delhi has postponed the biennial multilateral naval exercise MILAN-2020 due to the ongoing deadly coronavirus outbreak. The drill was to be the biggest Indian-led maritime exercise involving navies from forty countries and was scheduled to take place between March 18 -28 off the coast of Visakhapatnam coast in the Bay of Bengal. In the meantime, the Royal Australian Navy, one of the countries to take part in the Indian-led war games, has sent its naval ship HMAS Parramatta to Colombo to engage with the SL Navy between 07 March and 11 March. Also, Russian Navy ship Admiral Vinogradov has arrived in Colombo Port on a four-day visit. Both the naval ships docked at Colombo port on Saturday.
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Increasing pattern of Sinhala officials controlling civil affairs in North-East: Wigneswaran, Mavai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 March 2020, 23:21 GMT]
The previous regime in Colombo was employing Sinhalese from the South to the vacancies of unskilled labourers in the North. For example, Sinhala youth were deployed in large numbers for the job of electricity meter reading in households in the North. However, the present regime has gone a step further installing Sinhalese also in the top positions of the civil administration in the North-East, observed former Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. He was responding to a question from TamilNet on the recent trends of Sinhalicisation and militarisation of the civil administration in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils at the prolonged absence of the elected provincial councils.
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Gotabaya's ex-commander turned foreign-secretary abets China's genocide of Uyghur Muslims

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 March 2020, 19:11 GMT]
Former SL Navy Commander Admiral (retd) Jayanath Siri Kumara Colombage, who serves SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as additional secretary on foreign relations has defended China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims at the UN Human Rights Council. The Chinese and Cameroonian missions to the UN in Geneva were sponsoring a symposium as a side-event on Monday. “Every country should deal with terrorism using solutions that fit its conditions the best. The question of what kind of anti-terrorism measures should be taken in Xinjiang should be decided by the Chinese government. No one can tell China what it should do, just as no one can tell Sri Lanka what to do,” Colombage told Global Times on Wednesday. The “Admiral Professor,” a friend of pro-China Shavedra Silva, was talking to the Chinese paper after the symposium along with other “scholars” of his character and calibre from China and Serbia.
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Gotabaya dissolves SL Parliament, fixes elections to coincide with Easter attack anniversary

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 2020, 23:46 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has dissolved the SL Parliament using the executive powers vested with him to do so, six months earlier than its expiry, on midnight Monday. Fixing 25 April as the date for the new elections, Mr Gotabaya has issued an extra-ordinary Gazette notification specifying 12 - 19 March as the nomination period for 22 electoral districts in the island. Rajapaksa siblings aim at consolidating their power through securing a two-thirds majority in the 225 seat House to strengthen their autocracy as well as the collective autocracy, which is the unitary state of the Sinhala South against the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in the North-East.
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Wigneswaran reneges on Eezham Tamils’ inalienable Right to Self-Determination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 February 2020, 22:18 GMT]
Former Northern Province Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran recently launched an electoral political alliance, Tamizh Makkal Koottanii (TMK) as an alternative to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). But, he has ended up reneging on Eezham Tamils’ inalienable Right to Self-Determination, precisely the same way the hijacked hierarchy of the TNA did it after 2009. Washington and New Delhi, which didn’t want to recognise the sovereignty or the right to self-determination of the Eezham Tamils, deceived the TNA leaders to toe the line of ‘devolution of power’ without rejecting the unitary state system or by adopting a ‘non-descript’ constitutional discourse. The initial ‘mantra’ used for that purpose was the deceptive notion of “internal right to self-determination,” which is nothing else than self-denouncement of the right to self-determination. Wigneswaran has just uttered that mantra.
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SL departure from 30/1 could step up external intervention as blessing in disguise: Mavai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 February 2020, 23:22 GMT]
If the SL government opts to withdraw from its commitments to the co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution 30/1, such a move will end up escalating the external interference in the island, said Tamil parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah during his address to the SL Parliament on Thursday. The international intervention was needed to resolve the national question, which is being ignored by the Sinhala politicians, both ruling and the opposition, even after experiencing high financial burden during the three decades of war, he said. While registering ITAK's strong objections to SL Government's reported discourse towards the closure of co-sponsored commitments to the Geneva resolution, the ITAK Leader said the external interference would continue to prevail until the root cause, the ethnic conflict, is resolved.
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