US Court frees Karunakaran

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 May 2012, 03:11 GMT]
The District Court of Eastern District of New York (EDNY) Friday freed Kandasamy Karunakaran who was arrested five years ago and charged with providing material support to Liberation Tigers designated as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)" in the U.S. Judge Raymond Dearie noting that "this is not a garden variety terrorism case," and adding that "[w]e have to pull back that emblazoned banner of terrorism and look at the case specifically," signaled a likely softening of zealous prosecution of material support to organizations that has a history of resisting oppressive States accused of committing genocide.
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Japanese professor emphasizes statistical analysis of Tamil inscriptions

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 23:37 GMT]
Delivering the keynote address at the Tamil studies Conference in Toronto on Friday, Veteran Tamil Studies Professor, Noburu Karashima, who has been working on Tamil inscriptions for many decades, emphasized the importance of statistical analysis of data to come out with valuable revelations of Tamil History. Presenting a statistical analysis of Chola inscriptions, he demonstrated how hitherto unknown information and perspective could be obtained on village community and challenges to caste system among medieval Tamils. Interestingly, a recent book published by Oxford this year, “South India Under the Cholas,” authored by Professor Y. Subbarayalu, throwing new light on history based on inscriptions was also focussing on statistics and concordance. Karashima, now 79, and Subbarayalu were working together closely for nearly four decades.
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Sushma casts false impression on 35 years of mandated Eezham Tamil aspiration

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 17:13 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, addressing her party convention in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, and citing TNA leader R. Sampanthan, implied that Tamils in the island don’t ask for independence but only some political parties in Tamil Nadu want it. The same line of thinking came out from the representatives of the ruling Congress led by Sonia Gandhi and the CPI-M as well, who participated in a parliamentary delegation visit to the island that was boycotted by mainstream political parties in Tamil Nadu. Undertaking a six-day tour guided by Colombo and New Delhi’s plenipotentiary in the island, Sushma has no right to give a false impression to the Indian public on the mandated and re-mandated aspiration of Eezham Tamils in the last 35 years inside and outside of the island, responded a veteran Tamil politician in the island.
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Colombo harasses Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 10:20 GMT]
Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, the Catholic Bishop of Mannaar, who boldly voiced for the number of people went unaccounted in the Vanni war, is being harassed by Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) this week under instructions from the genocidal regime, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet. The Bishop's House has declined to comment on the situation. However, informed sources say that two Sri Lankan CIDs have been ‘visiting’ the Bishop on Tuesday after the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Mannaar Police had met the Bishop in person, informing him the decision from his superiors in Colombo. The Bishop didn't oppose the move, but civil society representatives said the move was a calculated psychological operation to silence independent civil voices in the North and East, now fully occupied by the SL military run by presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
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Contributions of Sivaram remembered at Memorial Seminar in London

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 02:41 GMT]
Commemorating the life, thoughts and contributions of ‘Taraki’ Sivaram Dharmeratnam, and inviting diverse views on the same, the Sivaram Memorial Seminar conducted in London on Sunday brought together Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim, British and Tamil Nadu journalists, academics and activists to discuss the intellectual legacy of the late senior editor of TamilNet. Referring to personal interactions with Sivaram, his ideological influences, his life as journalist and activist, his political and strategic analysis, the speakers interacted with the audience that included members of different shades of diaspora organizations, mainstream media and solidarity groups. The tightly packed programme included a closed door screening of award winning film-maker Beate Arnestad’s documentary ‘Silenced Voices’ to the seminar attendees.
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Resettled Tamils without assistance affected by mini-cyclone in Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 18:14 GMT]
At least 90 families in Oottuch-cheanai, a village situated 75 km north-west of Batticaloa city, have been displaced and sought asylum in a school following a mini-cyclone that hit Paduvaankarai area in the Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division of Batticaloa district on Monday. The villagers, who have displaced several times since 1990, each time following large-scale military operation by the Sri Lankan military, have been completely neglected throughout the years without proper humanitarian assistance, civil sources in Batticaloa said. International NGOs also face restrictions to visit the area while Colombo government has grabbed around 25 thousand acres of land in Vadamunai and Oottuch-cheanai, handing over the lands to Sinhala home guards.
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Thirumavalavan hurts sentiments of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 17:43 GMT]
New Delhi parliamentarian and leader of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a member of ruling UPA alliance, Mr Thirumavalavan, meeting UPA leader Mrs Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday expressed his ‘appreciation’ about New Delhi’s stand on ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ at the UNHRC resolution, and requested her to implement it and pressurise the Sri Lankan government to find a permanent political solution. The moment Thirumavalavan uses the phrase ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ and thrust an identity despised by Eezham Tamils on to them, he perverts righteous political solution, commented Tamil political circles in the island. Rather than urging recognition of rights of the nation, the VCK leader pleading Sonia Gandhi, whose party presided over the genocide of Eezham Tamils, to implement UNHRC resolutions paving way for structural genocide, makes him no different from the Congress and CPI-M, they further said.
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Sinhalicization of Batticaloa takes place under guise of archaeology: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 16:48 GMT]
Saiva temples located along the border of the Batticaloa district are being desecrated and demolished under the guise of archaeological excavation, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian P. Ariyanethran said Wednesday at Thaan-thoan'ri-eesvarar temple situated in Kokkaddich-choalai of Batticaloa district. The parliamentarian blamed Buddhist monks for constructing Buddhist viharas on such sites with the backing of Colombo government and the occupying Sri Lanka Army.
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Canadian Muslim, Tamil and civil groups condemn religious intolerance in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 00:40 GMT]
Twenty organizations from Canada, which included prominent Muslim scholarly and activists groups, Tamil organizations, and influential Canadian civil society groups, came together to condemn the religious intolerance of the Sinhala-Buddhist government in Sri Lanka, in the wake of the Dambulla mosque attack, drafting a letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa on the issue. "The Canadian Peace Alliance stands against any type of discrimination, whether against the Tamil nation or the Muslim people of Sri Lanka. Any just society must uphold the rights of all people regardless of ethnicity or religion and must pay special attention to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable groups. That is why campaign against the Tamil genocide as well as Islamaphobia in Canada and abroad," Sid Lacombe, coordinatior of the CPA, told TamilNet.
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Parappaang-ka’ndal, Paraapa-mulla

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2012, 05:59 GMT]
The mangrove of the flood plains
The flood-plains corner
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Top SL military hand alleged in killing Canadian Tamil in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2012, 05:34 GMT]
Circumstantial evidences point to the hands of top level Sri Lanka military in the brutal killing of a Canadian Eezham Tamil who came to Vanni to claim his properties appropriated by the occupying military, news sources in Vanni revealed to TamilNet. The victim owned 8 commercially valuable buildings in line in Ki’linochchi town that were appropriated by the Sinhala military to be given in turn to a Colombo-based chain store that now dominates food business in the north. Through the occupying military, presidential sibling and SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has appropriated nearly 250 such commercially valuable properties in Ki’linochchi for his agenda of plunder and structural genocide of Eezham Tamils. The Canadian Tamil lost his life struggling with a genocidal mechanism installed by many world establishments including that of his own adopted country.
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Tamil boy shot by Sinhala military for cattle mangling ‘Buddhist’ decoration

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2012, 23:02 GMT]
At the height of a show of ‘victor's supremacy’ in the country of Eezham Tamils, a 17-year-old Tamil boy, S. Krishnakumar of Kumaarasaami-puram village in Visuvamadu in Mullaith-theevu district, was shot and fatally injured by the occupying Sinhala military, for his cattle damaging the ‘Vesak’ decorations commemorating 2600 years of Buddha at an SL military camp. When the injured boy was taken to the hospital, passing through the prevailing hurdles in the district, the occupying SL military took charge of the boy to be sent to Anuradhapura hospital by helicopter, but after warning his family members that the matter should not be revealed to anyone. The boy was herding his cattle on Monday evening when he was shot.
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Tamil fishermen warn protest against SL military in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2012, 15:38 GMT]
Hundreds of Sinhala fishermen, brought into Tsunami and war-ravaged Vadamaraadchi East by the occupying Sri Lanka Army and Navy, are engaging in deep-sea fishing using prohibited nets and are using dynamite for blast fishing destroying the fish, coral reefs and juveniles, complain Vadamaraadchi East Fisheries Society and Kaddaik-kaadu Fisheries Association. Angered by the illegal acts by the encroaching fishermen from South, endangering the environment of the country of Eezham Tamils and threatening their livelihood, the organizations have called for civil protests if the occupying SL military continued to harbour and entertain the encroaching fishermen from the South. The scale of destruction caused by the Sinhala fishermen was at a level that equals the destruction caused by the Indian trawlers, according to the organizations.
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USA answerable to ‘ethics and efficacy’ in architecting, abetting genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 May 2012, 02:19 GMT]
John O. Brennan, Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism to the US President, addressing the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars on 30 April on “The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy,” was defending the US tactics in its ten years of ‘success story’ in countering ‘terrorism’ culminating into victories in Obama’s times. Brennan was earlier Deputy Executive Director of the CIA. Presiding his presentation, senior Democrat Jane Harmane of the Wilson Centre, who was earlier a member of the Congress Commission on Terrorism as well as its House Intelligence Committee, said “we won’t defeat those threats by military might alone, we must win the argument.”
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Tamil refugees need help to cross legal hurdles, says TAG

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 May 2012, 15:41 GMT]
Reports from Trincomalee confirmed that a Tamil civilian recently refused asylum in the U.K. and deported to Sri Lanka, was found killed on the 18th April. The killing occurred amidst arrests by the Sri Lanka miltary of more than 300 Tamils in the east, many of whom were refugee returnees from other countries, reports said. Tamil activists say systemic issues such as lack of information on asylum application procedures and sources of funding, a lack of affordable advice in the refugee's own language, combined with out-of-date, biased or inaccurate 'official' country information relied on by immigration officials and judges have resulted in many potentially vulnerable refugees being returned back into the waiting hostile hands of Colombo .
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Sinhala GA officially orders Buddhist construction at Thirukkeatheesvaram

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 May 2012, 00:59 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s Sinhala Government Agent of the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, AK Sarath Savindra on Friday sent official orders to the divisional secretary of Maanthai West to permit the construction of a Buddhist temple at the Saiva sacred centre Thirukkeatheesvaram, where no Sinhala-Buddhists live. A Buddha statue was already placed there by the occupying Sinhala military, at 200 metres near the Saiva temple in a forcefully confiscated private land. Meanwhile, the entire Mannaar district has been brought under the Anuradhapura administrative circle of genocidal Sri Lanka’s Archaeology Department. While existing Muslim and Hindu places of worship are demolished and removed from Dambulla, claimed to be a Buddhist centre, the Sinhala government encroaches a pivotal Saiva sacred centre in the country of Tamils.
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Diaspora Tamil on visit to reclaim land killed in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 May 2012, 11:51 GMT]
A 53-year-old Eezham Tamil citizen of Canada was found brutally slain with a slit throat Friday morning at Kaagnchipuram lane, 2 km west of Paranthan junction in the Ki’linochchi district of Vanni. The killing seems to have taken place between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Thursday, according to the relatives of the victim. The victim, Anthonypillai Mahendrarasa, the son of a successful former trader, had come to Paranthan to claim the ownership of the lands, especially the lands he owns in Kumaarapuram in Ki'linochchi district, which have been occupied by the SL military, informed sources said. He also owns properties of business potential.
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Ex-LTTE female cadre harassed by SLA commits suicide in ‘resettlement’ camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 May 2012, 09:35 GMT]
A senior female ex-cadre of the LTTE, ‘rehabilitated’ and ‘released’ recently by the genocidal SL military has self-immolated herself Thursday night in Polika'ndi in Vadmaraadchi inside a closed room at the camp for resettlement-seeking people. The deceased, 38-year-old Suganthy Sivalingam, had been a member of the LTTE for more than 15 years and was serving in the LTTE medics after she sustained serious injury in a combat operation in 1999. She was engaged in medical services during the final days of the war in Vanni. Suganthy, who was mentally strong, was seen depressed and physically ill on the day of the suicide, the family said. Informed sources further said that the SL military had subjected the victim to severe mental torture in their 'rehabilitation' detention.
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Press Freedom Day in Jaffna remembers journalists

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 May 2012, 16:26 GMT]
The journalistic contribution of Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki), especially his writings on the struggle of Eezham Tamils, were remembered by several speakers at a well-attended Press Freedom Day event held in Jaffna on Thursday. The event, organised by Nimalarajan Memorial Foundation (NMF), has also brought out a publication of cartoons by Mr Pious Raja, who passed away in Jaffna after experiencing the genocidal war and incarceration in Vanni. A speaker at the event urged the NMF to compile and translate Tamil articles by late Sivaram into English and vice versa, as his writings continue to be valuable to the Tamil cause. The NMF, in an exemplary way, took up the cause of Tamil female students of Vanni in the Jaffna Univeristy, as there have been several cases of suicides among them. Poverty, trauma and psychological stress have been identified as the factors behind the tragic trend.
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2 SLA soldiers killed after exchanging gunfire in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 May 2012, 13:00 GMT]
Two Sinhala soldiers of the occupying Sri Lanka Army opened fire killing each other Friday morning in Jaffna, informed sources told TamilNet. The incident took place while the soldiers were on duty at a sentry post of the 51-2 division camp, situated close to Srithar Theatre, the office of the EPDP paramilitary on Stanley Road. In the meantime, Sri Lanka Army spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasuriya, hiding the venue of the incident, has gone on record in Colombo saying that a soldier who was providing security to the Buddhist Naga vihara in the city has shot himself after gunning down one of his fellow soldiers. The SLA, engaged in the militarisation of the city of Jaffna, has been refusing to vacate the 51-2 division cantonment.
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