Prolonging debate on 13th Amendment is ploy to deprive genuine solution

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 January 2014, 06:31 GMT]
The rhetoric and political play with the 13th Amendment will continue in the island’s post war constitutional discourse for a considerable period of time. Those who have a vested interest in keeping the debate alive will do their utmost to prolong the debate. It is likely that the next few years might witness an utterly useless battle between the Colombo Government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) over trying to retain what is left over in the 13th Amendment. But in the midst of all this hysteria, any move towards finding a meaningful and genuine political solution will be lost, writes Jaffna University law academic, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, who is currently on Commonwealth scholarship to do doctoral research at the University College, London.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu needs to initiate Vietnam-like international struggle

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 January 2014, 23:26 GMT]
It is now explicit that the genocide and continued genocide committed on Eezham Tamils as a nation, is part of a larger global paradigm of ‘statecraft’ or tradecraft conceived and executed by Washington, London, New Delhi and Beijing in unison. They won’t alter the agenda of deploying or allowing the Sinhala State to annihilate the nation and territoriality of Eezham Tamils, unless the paradigm is globally challenged as was in the case of Vietnam, or is specifically thwarted by the power of the people in the region. The latter is more relevant to the context of Eezham Tamils. Tamil Nadu and other peoples of India are duty-bound to act not for the sake of Eezham Tamils but for their own sake and for entire humanity.
Full story >>

40th year of massacre at World Tamil Research Conference remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 January 2014, 09:20 GMT]
Tamil politicians and activists in Jaffna on Wednesday observed the 40th year remembrance of the massacre carried out by the occupying Sri Lankan Police on the final day of the Fourth International Conference of Tamil Studies held in Jaffna in 1974. The massacre took place on 10th January, which was the final day of the conference.
Full story >>

Theravada Sinhala Buddhism needs further understanding in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 January 2014, 04:53 GMT]
The genocidal onslaught carried out by Theravada Sinhala-Buddhist institutions of the island of Lanka against the nation of Eezham Tamils and other non-Buddhist peoples in the island is often presented by certain sections in certain countries as a necessary ‘civilisation-engineering’ that should be welcomed and supported. This is not due to innocence or ignorance. The Establishments of most of these countries were in complicity in the genocidal war either through the Tokyo Co-Chairs (USA, EU, Japan and Norway) or through joining the US bandwagon. A few others especially in Southeast Asia consider Sinhala-Buddhism a role model. But the most misleading of them all is a campaign carried out in Tamil Nadu.
Full story >>

Transcend SA model, SL State and West’s mechanisms in seeking justice: Fr Rajan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2014, 07:04 GMT]
The South African model that betrayed its people is now taken up by Colombo just to save war criminals. It is futile for Tamils to expect justice from any future government of SL State. Tamils also have to reconsider approaching their struggle once again through West’s mechanisms of justice. The current TNA failed to combine moderate politics with the politics of struggle. Steering Tamil national polity for crumps can’t be justified as ‘diplomacy.’ Tamil intellectuals have to think beyond the trap of ‘Transitional Justice’ and investigate potentialities of the concept Post-Transitional Justice, which is non-state, multi-sited, multi-actor and multi-referential, said Fr Elil Rajan, advocating Chile model, at a gathering in Batticaloa last week that remembered slain TNA parliamentarian Mr Joseph Pararajasingham.
Full story >>

Veeraich-choalai, Weera-sole

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 23:56 GMT]
The forest or grove of Drypetes sepiaria trees
Full story >>

Sri Lankan TID declares ‘shadow war’ on Tamil journalists in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 09:10 GMT]
“We will not abduct you or take you for 4th floor for interrogations. But, we will make sure you die in the road hit by our encounter teams in natural accidents and dispute-like killings. You will not become heroes among your own people and die like street dogs,” is the message re-iterated by the so-called ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ interrogators, who operate various interrogation-cells in the North chasing the journalists in Jaffna. A Colombo-based media rights activist observing the pattern of the psychological warfare by the TID on journalists in Jaffna described the unfolding scenario as Colombo's latest ‘shadow war’ on Tamils, similar to the one that preceded the 2009 genocidal onslaught.
Full story >>

Local contacts of visiting Indian journalist exposed to TID interrogators in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 December 2013, 21:34 GMT]
In one of the strongest investigations and monitoring conducted so far on a foreign journalist visiting the island, the experienced interrogators of the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ of Colombo had not only confiscated the electronic and non-electronic possessions from the young journalist from Tamil Nadu, but also monitored and traced all his contacts from the moment he landed at Colombo airport for the second time, informed media sources in Colombo told TamilNet Sunday. In the meantime 22-year-old Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, when contacted by TamilNet after his deportation to Chennai, said he was subjected to ‘psychological torture’ like condition at the hands of the TID interrogators in Colombo and that the TID had his Tamil book of his first visit translated when they questioned him on his affiliations.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka’s TID interrogates Indian journalist in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 13:19 GMT]
The journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested by the occupying SL military and police in Vanni, while he was visiting Ki’linochchi was still under the custody of the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ as late as Thursday night, informed sources in Colombo said. Earlier, the SL police spokesman in Colombo had stated that the Mr Thamizh Prabhagaran was being handed over to the immigration authorities for deportation. But, Colombo's TID officers were interrogating the Indian journalist on his contact network in the island by going through his article series that has appeared in Junior Vikatan, the sources further said.
Full story >>

Vadamaraadchi East remembers Tamil tsunami victims

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 16:06 GMT]
Families, relatives and friends of victims who perished in the 2004 tsunami gathered at Uduththu’rai, Ma'natkaadu and Thaazhaiyadi burial grounds on Thursday remembering their loved ones on the 9th anniversary of the devastating catastrophe. The gigantic waves of tsunami claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island on 26 December 2004 and most of the victims were from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the tsunami. The International Community of Establishments, who failed the victims of tsunami, were not only complicit in Sri Lanka's genocidal onslaught on them in 2009, but they continue to fail the victims of the tsunami and the genocide by allowing the Sri Lankan State to continue the structural genocide on the nation of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Colombo arrests Indian journalist touring Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 01:48 GMT]
A young journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was touring in the North was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and the SL police Wednesday noon, while he was talking to the parish priest of St. Antony’s Church in Ponnaavea’li, news sources in Vanni said. The Indian journalist visiting the island on tourist visa was together with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member S. Pasupathipillai and Karaichchi Piratheasa Chapai (PS) member S. Thayaparan during the detention, interrogation and arrest, the news sources further said.
Full story >>

Genocide has to be compensated by separation: Sikh politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2013, 22:30 GMT]
“Tamils can’t live [in a united Sri Lanka] after the perpetration of the crime of genocide. I think the wounds are too deep historically there to be reconciliation. After a State has committed genocide, there can’t be any reconciliation,” says Simranjit Singh Mann, the president of Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar party, who advocates the formation of Khalistan as an independent and sovereign State for Sikhs, in an exchange of views with Tamil Nadu based May 17 Movement. “Pirapaharan and his movement was too powerful for the Sri Lankan government,” he said, adding that “it was under the collaboration of UPA-led Congress government that the Sri Lanka government was able to achieve and crush the movement for freedom by committing a genocide on the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.”
Full story >>

Jayalalithaa voices against Indian complicity, but considers Eezham Tamils as ‘minority’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2013, 21:35 GMT]
India's “insensitive policy” and “overt act of defence cooperation with Sri Lanka”, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon not just the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, but the direct effect on the right to livelihood of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, said Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms J Jayalalithaa in a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday. Indian Coast Guard is allowed to participate in a marine defence exercise and has deputed ships, officers and men to Trincomalee, to participate in an exercise, despite repeated calls from Tamil Nadu to issue a clear policy direction that the Ministry of Defence should not provide training, or engage in any form of co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces that were responsible for rights violations against “Tamil minority” in the island Ms Jayalalithaa said.
Full story >>

Take bearing from PPT verdict in delivering justice to Eezham Tamils: May 17

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 07:14 GMT]
The recent verdict by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Sri Lanka, which found the Sri Lankan State guilty of genocide, was a landmark decision in the path of justice to Eezham Tamils, say the activists of May 17 Movement from Tamil Nadu, who were present at the session in Bremen as expert witnesses on the genocide against Eezham Tamils. In an interview to TamilNet on Tuesday, Mr Thirumurgan Gandhi and Mr Umar of May 17 stated that the next step in the path of justice to the victims should be legally binding international investigation on genocide – not something that only deals with war crimes – and the parallel delivery of political justice to the victims of genocide. Any intervention or monitoring in the process to ensure this must avoid the forces of the countries that were complicit in the genocide, they said.
Full story >>

SL military arrests 147 Tamil Nadu fishermen in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
At least 147 Tamil Nadu fishermen, who lost their bearing in the rough seas due to stormy weather and reached the shores of the country of Eezam Tamils, have been arrested by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in the seas off Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu during the past 3 days. In the meantime, two bodies have washed ashore in Maathakal in recent days are yet to identified.
Full story >>

Heroes Day in homeland, Diaspora, Tamil Nadu gains more significance than previous years

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:22 GMT]
The Indian prejudice and the global injustice, committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils by the various powers, enabled the Sri Lankan State to wage its genocidal war on Eezham Tamils to its end. But, the Tamil Heroes together with their steadfast people, who had no support from any State party in the world, achieved a superior moral victory. This is a unique case in modern human civilisation. This year, the remembrance of Tamil Heroes gained far more significance than the previous years after 2009, as Eezham Tamils in their homeland defied the ‘gag order’ by the occupying SL military, Diaspora Tamils marked the day without giving room for divisions engineered by the intelligence outfits of the Establishments and in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil national grassroots and political movements marked both LTTE leader Pirapaharan's birthday on 26 November and Maaveerar Day on 27 November.
Full story >>

EPDP chairman of Neduntheevu civic body shot and killed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 08:23 GMT]
Tension prevails in Nedun-theevu (Delft) where the president of civic council, Daniel Rexian alias Rajeev, was shot and killed on Tuesday. Although the exact motive behind his killing is not known, civil sources said Mr Rexian was at odds with the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on reconstructing a monument in memory of the brutal boat massacre by the SLN, news sources at the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula said on Wednesday. The killing also comes following reports of internal conflict within the EPDP in Neduntheevu.
Full story >>

Elected civic members in Jaffna pay tribute to Tamil Heroes, SL military retaliates

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2013, 21:46 GMT]
The elected civic members of Karaveddi South-West Piratheasa Chapai (PS) on Monday paid floral tribute to the fallen Tamil Heroes, who were remembering the fallen fighters in the independence struggle of Eezham Tamils. The courageous move comes on the same day as Colombo’s military establishment issued a ban on commemorating the fallen Tamil fighters on November 27. Within a few hours, alleged SL military squads smashed the windows of two Tamil councillors. This year, the moral responsibility to mark the Heroes Day has fallen on the shoulders of the members of the Tamil National Alliance as they had gone seeking votes from the public in the recent elections to the Northern Provincial Council promising the people to restore their democratic right of remembering those who sacrificed their lives in the war.
Full story >>

Colombo arrests visiting Tamil poet, bans gatherings ahead of Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 13:53 GMT]
The operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military on Friday arrested VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, while the Norwegian passport holder was visiting the island on a tourist visa. The arrest took place in abduction-style. By arresting Jayapalan, Colombo was sending a message to Eezham Tamil diaspora that Tamils visiting the island should not address any meeting or gathering. Colombo's TID operatives could claim any meeting as a ‘gathering causing communal unrest,’ academic circles in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the SL Police in Ki'linochchi, on Friday told 40 people it detained that all gatherings and meetings have been banned until further notice in the district.
Full story >>

Indian Foreign Secretary thanks Sampanthan for Jaffna invitation to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2013, 23:37 GMT]
Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh who accompanied Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, when she met the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians last Wednesday repeatedly thanked R Sampanthan, MA Sumanthiran and Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for having extended an invitation to the Indian PM to visit the island appreciating the ‘usefulness’ of the invitation that had coincided with the controversial Indian delegation’s attendance to the CHOGM, informed sources within the TNA told TamilNet on Monday.
Full story >>