Child abductions on rise in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 May 2012, 17:51 GMT]
Local human rights watchdogs in Jaffna have blamed media for failing to cover the abductions that are on the rise in Jaffna peninsula this weekend as a father from Valveddith-thu'rai (VVT) managed to chase a vehicle that abducted his son, securing his release in Ki'linochchi and a media worker at the Indian Deputy High Commission in Jaffna found his abducted son returning from Ki'linochchi the following day after the abductors finding him the son of an officer in the Indian mission in Jaffna. As the abductees are being taken to hide-outs in Ki'linochchi, human rights activists in Jaffna allege that the occupying Sri Lankan military is involved in the abductions.
Full story >>

All are Sinhalese, Tamils have no territorial right: Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 May 2012, 16:28 GMT]
“Earlier before the war all were Sinhalese,” in Sri Lanka. It is not appropriate to view the north of the country, over which a separatist war was fought, as a predominantly Tamil area, SL presidential sibling and defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was cited saying by the BBC News that interviewed him in Colombo. Commenting, a political analyst in the island said: The Rajapaksa regime, including its former military commander Sarath Fonseka, has been repeatedly reflecting only the pathological aspiration of the Sinhala nation to make State exclusive for it in the island. India and the USA unnecessarily blight it, rather than conceding to the innate reality of allowing the Sinhala nation to have its trouble-free State by separating the country of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Eezham Tamils protest UK inviting Rajapaksa to Queen’s diamond jubilee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 May 2012, 10:48 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in the UK gathered outside the UK Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street on Saturday demanding withdrawal of an invitation extended to Mahinda Rajapaksa for the upcoming Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth. A petition given to the authorities by the Tamil Coordinating Committee UK (TCC-UK) which had organised the event underscored the significance of Britain recognizing the protracted nature of the genocide of the Tamils in the island stating that “given its colonial history on the island, the UK, more than any other international power, is aware that the Eelam Tamils are a nation of people with their traditional homeland in the north and east of the island. Eelam Tamils expect the UK government to recognise this truth which can go a long way in helping halt the genocide.”
Full story >>

International Community answerable, say Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 May 2012, 01:20 GMT]
In the absence of no action to the attack on the student leader aiming at denial of ‘right to memory’ of the Tamil student community, the ultimate responsibility goes with the international community that has unleashed and upholds such a militarized setup against Tamils, commented boycotting students of the University of Jaffna who have decided to attend classes from Monday, after a closed-door meeting with the occupying Sinhala Commander for which the student representatives were taken under threat of ‘dire consequences’. In a statement released on Friday the student’s union has asked the question that the international community has to answer what is the point in the Geneva resolution and the LLRC report. Tamil politicians should realize the futility of participating the delay tactics by which Colombo engages the IC, the statement said.
Full story >>

Tamil farmers' lands remain occupied in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2012, 23:18 GMT]
Tamil farmers, whose paddy fields have been illegaly encroached 38 years ago in Ampaa'rai district's Chammaan-thu'rai, complain that they have not been provided their lands even after the war ended in May 2009.
Full story >>

Colombo twists investigation of Canadian Tamil citizen's brutal slaying

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2012, 22:56 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence and the SL Police have projected the murder case of the late Mahendrarajah as a ‘robbery’ related crime by allegedly ‘fixing’ approvers. Informed sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet Saturday that the laptop and the mobile phones missing from the victim and ‘recovered’ later by the SL police were found erased of contact details and logs. The manoeuvrings of the Colombo regime, its defence establishment and its intelligence outfits in fixing the case shows only a tip of the iceberg about the existing conditions, but a careful scrutiny and pursue of even minor details of the fixing exercise would reveal the dimensions of the plight faced by Eezham Tamils in the captivity of the genocidal regime, informed circles knowing background stories further said.
Full story >>

Dublin conference on geopolitics highlights need for critical solidarity

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 May 2012, 23:40 GMT]
Activists from Kurdistan, Colombia, Ireland and the island of Sri Lanka, talking about the role geopolitics played in determining peace-processes and conflict in various cases, informed a mixed audience of activists, academics and journalists of the nuances of their respective cases connecting it with larger trends at an event organized at Trinity College, Dublin on Thursday. The public meeting titled ‘The Local and the Global: The Geopolitics of Peace and Conflict’, focussing on conflicts in Colombia, Kurdistan, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka, elaborated on how different alignments of global interests influenced political outcomes at local levels. The conclusion of the conference saw the unanimous passing of a resolution that opposed the criminalization of political organizations like the FARC, PKK, LTTE that fought for political and democratic demands of peoples.
Full story >>

SL military coerces Jaffna University students to closed-door talks

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 May 2012, 06:21 GMT]
The commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, intimidated leaders of the boycotting students of the Jaffna University to come for a closed-door meeting at the occupation headquarters on Wednesday to tell them that the SL military would not provide security to students if they engage in political or social activities. The students were boycotting classes since last Friday, after an attack on the students’ union secretary, Mr. Dharshananth, when he was going to the university to organise Mu’l’livaaykkaal remembrance. Demanding security assurance to come from the Vice Chancellor of the university, earlier the students refused to talk directly with the occupying military unless it was an open meeting involving the media. But through the VC the military threatened the students of ‘dire consequences’ to force them into a closed-door meeting.
Full story >>

India’s Marxist Communist Party calls for withdrawal of Sri Lanka military

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2012, 03:33 GMT]
The Marxist Communist Party of India (CPI-M) in a press release on Wednesday called for immediate withdrawal of the Sri Lanka military stationed in Tamil areas of the island. In one of the five resolutions passed at the state committee meeting of the party held at Ealakiri in Tamil Nadu last Sunday, it was decided to urge the Indian government to diplomatically pressurize Sri Lanka to withdraw the troops. Observing that the SL military is intimidatingly omnipresent in the Tamil areas, the CPI-M said that it strongly condemns the stand of Mahinda Rajapaksa not to withdraw the troops. It only shows that the Sri Lanka government is not interested in resolving the Tamil question, the press release further said.
Full story >>

Tamils will never accept Sri Lanka constitution: Sivajilingam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2012, 00:43 GMT]
Eezham Tamils were not a party and will never accept the one-sided constitutions Sri Lanka enacted either in 1972 or in 1978, said former TNA parliamentarian MK Sivajilingam speaking in Jaffna on the 40th anniversary of the 1972 republican constitution of Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The 1978 constitution not only continued the unitary concept but also made it more autocratic under executive presidency. The Amendments, including the 13 Amendment only strengthened the unitary character. Therefore, Tamils will not accept solutions bound by these constitutions. Based on the right to self-determination we demand the right to rule ourselves in our land, Sivajilingam said.
Full story >>

1972 constitution reminds Tamils not to backtrack idea of nationhood

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 18:05 GMT]
The 1972 republican constitution of Sri Lanka, which for the first time constitutionalised a unitary Sinhala-Buddhist state, was enacted without the participation or mandate of Eezham Tamils. Not only their political opposition was brushed aside but even the judiciary also played a game against legal challenges. The constitution forced the shift in Tamil polity from federal to the idea of right to self-determination of the nation for independence, pointed out Jaffna University Law Lecturer, Guruparan Kumaravadivel on Tuesday, citing legal cases involving the republic. “You don't have to go further and look for anyone else than Murugesu Thiruchelvam's argument in the Amirthalingam trial-at-bar as to why our politics should be done on the idea of Tamil nationhood and self-determination,” Guruparan said addressing especially to the people in the TNA.
Full story >>

40-year-old Sri Lanka constitution burnt at cremation ground of Parvathi Amma

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 02:05 GMT]
The 1972 republican constitution of Sri Lanka, which for the first time constitutionalised the unitary Sinhala-Buddhist State and brought in the name ‘Sri Lanka’, against the wishes of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island, has been burnt on its 40th anniversary on Tuesday, 22 May 2012, at the spot where the LTTE leader Pirapharan's mother was cremated but desecrated by the occupying Sinhala forces last year.
Full story >>

Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal is for edification of international community

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 22:14 GMT]
Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal is not wailing for a tragedy. It is remembering the highest achievement of modern Tamil history, when Tamils decisively said no to an entire international community abetting a genocidal state. Mu’l’livaaykkaal is not an end of a journey. It calls for our massive re-commitment of collective political aspirations more than ever, as the Sri Lankan state has intensified its second phase of genocide, again aided by the international community, said Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, addressing Mu’l’livaaykkaal rememberance event in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday. Dr. Fernando, a Sinhalese currently lecturing and doing post-doctoral research in peace studies in Ireland was one of the main co-ordinators of the Dublin Permanent People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in January 2010.
Full story >>

Tamil diaspora youth group condemns attack on JUSU leader

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 01:08 GMT]
In a statement issued on Monday, the Global Tamil Youth League (GTYL), a diaspora youth group, said that the assault by a four-member squad on the secretary of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) on the day of Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance was an attempt by the occupying Sri Lankan forces to instil fear in students and silence their voices for justice. The GTYL blamed the Government of Sri Lanka for targeting such remembrance events of Eezham Tamils with the aim of extinguishing the memory of the victims.
Full story >>

Muruthawala, Muruththanai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 00:56 GMT]
The jungle of Murutha trees
The place of Muruthu trees (Lagerstroemia flos reginae)
Full story >>

Sinhala-Buddhist temple opened to ‘celebrate’ genocide at Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 00:33 GMT]
Coinciding the third anniversary of Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocide, a secretly built Sinhala-Buddhist stupa was inaugurated at Vaddu-vaakal, the entrance to the Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocidal strip of land in Mullaiththeevu. As the Tamil public is yet to be allowed into the stretch of land, the building of the stupa at the genocidal site went unnoticed until its inauguration. Two weeks ago, Colombo opened a coastal road built by Chinese, linking Mu’l’livaaukkaal with Kokku’laay and Pulmoaddai where Sinhala colonisation takes place in high speed. Mu’l’livaaykkaal has already become a ‘tourist’ place for the Sinhalese from the South. While the ‘tourists’ and the Sinhala colonists using the new road are permitted to roam in the stretch of land, Tamils are not permitted to get out of the vehicles. The stupa, with an all-Sinhalese signboard has been built at the side of the new road.
Full story >>

General of genocide released in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 23:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s former military commander General Sarath Fonseka, who led the Sinhala military in the ‘international community’ –abetted genocidal war against the Eezham Tamils, has been released by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in Colombo on Monday. While the so-called international community reducing the genocide into mere war crimes, now verbally demands investigation into the ‘war crimes’, the general who led the war and later imprisoned because Rajapaksa found him a challenge, was considered by the USA as a ‘political prisoner.’ His release on that count was always demanded by the USA, the main architect of the war. Fonseka during the war declared that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese. He also ridiculed the politicians of Tamil Nadu protesting the war as ‘jokers’.
Full story >>

LJP President Paswan backs call for UN referendum

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 06:36 GMT]
Ram Vilas Paswan, the president of Lok Janshakthi Party from the state of Bihar and a former Indian minister, took part in a candlelight vigil organized near the Kannagi statue at the Marina Beach, Chennai by May 17 Movement on Sunday and signed on the list of the signature campaign calling for UN referendum among Eezham Tamils to assert their political destiny. Mr. Paswan, a Rajya Sabha MP, talking to media also said that Tamils had mandated the creation of Tamil Eelam in 1977 elections, which was based upon Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of all Tamil parties that represented Tamils in the island. The Sri Lankan state has not only ignored Eezham Tamils' democratic mandate, but has also systematically unleashed violence on them.
Full story >>

Mu’l’livaaykkaal remembered as symbol of protest in Australia, Canada

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 05:50 GMT]
Exhibiting a spirit of commitment to the Tamil Eelam freedom struggle and seeking to undo defeatist mentalities of some in the diaspora, Eezham Tamil youth in Australia and Canada organized Mu’l’livaaykkaal remembrance events in their countries as symbolizing Tamil resistance to oppression and genocide, on Friday and Saturday respectively. Speaking to TamilNet, the organizers asserted that Mu’l’livaaykkaal was not a time to weep and mourn, but an occasion to remember the heroic deeds of those who went down fighting for freedom though a genocidal army assaulted them without respite with the aid of world powers, and an occasion to pledge commitment to the ideals of struggle for Tamil Eelam.
Full story >>

Germany’s Mu’l’livaaykkaal remembrance highlights IC’s abetment of genocide

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 May 2012, 05:39 GMT]
Addressing a huge gathering of Eezham Tamils who had gathered to remember those massacred in May 2009, speakers at the Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance at Dusseldorf highlighted the role the powers in the International Community played in abetting the genocide of the Eezham Tamils, besides emphasising the need to remain faithful to the fundamentals of the struggle for Tamil Eelam, on Friday. While Dr. Andrew Higginbottom, lecturer at Kingston University, London spoke about how the US-UK axis provided the necessary background for the Mu’l’livaaykkaal massacre to happen, Ninthujah Sutharshan, research scholar and Deputy Chief of Eezham Tamils’ Country Council in Germany, said that the ideals of the Tamils’ struggle “was defined in Mullivaikkal by the people who died defending that cause and cannot be redefined in Berlin or London or Paris or New York to match our comfort and convenience.”
Full story >>