Another student activist attacked, civil society comes together in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 October 2011, 08:42 GMT]
A motorbike squad allegedly operated by the intelligence unit of the occupying Sri Lankan military Sunday night followed 27-year-old Rajavarothayan Kavirajan, a final year student at the art faculty of Jaffna University and severely attacked him and a fellow student, who were on their way from Poonakari to Paranthan near A-9 highway in Ki'linochchi district. Mr. Kavirajan was one of the student activists who organised the protest against the attack on Jaffna University Student Union president S. Thavapalasingam on 16 October. The new attack has come as the university students were continuing their strike for 8th day on Monday. In the meantime, civil society members in Jaffna got together on Monday and discussed the prevailing situation in Jaffna and resolved to take forward concerted actions in confronting the situation of terror prevailing in North and East.
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Rajapakse accused of war-crimes in Melbourne Court filing

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 October 2011, 16:01 GMT]
Sri Lankan-born Australian Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran filed an indictment on war-crime charges against the Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday, declaring he was seeking justice for thousands who perished in a series of aerial bombardments and ground attacks on shelters, schools, hospitals, orphanages and community centres. Rajapakse was leading a delegation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Perth.
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TNA goes to courts against land registration

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 October 2011, 15:05 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance on Monday filed a case against the re-registration of lands in North and East. TNA MP for Jaffna Mr. Suresh Premachandran said the re-registration, taking place in North and East, was illegal and the recent protest and political appeals have failed to give any result forcing the TNA to file Fundamental Right Case at the Supreme Court of Colombo.
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K. Manoharan et al. v. Mahinda Rajapakse: Complaint, Summons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 23:13 GMT]
As per order issued on the 13th day of October 2011, by the United States District Judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court of District of Columbia, with respect to Civil Action No. 11-00235 (CKK) Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, et al. v. Percy Mahendra Rajapakse, the Court Summons and the Complaint are published here in full. The 29-page complaint is published as a single PDF document, and as 29 separate jpg images, one for each page.
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No bartering of war-crimes accountability for political concessions: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 16:02 GMT]
Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), a post-war Tamil political formation in the island of Sri Lanka, in a press conference held Sunday morning 11:00 am at a Colombo residence, congratulated TNA leadership on the forthcoming visit to the USA, and said that the visit is a significant historic first where the US-State Department has extended invitation to a non-State Tamil political party, adding that the visit has potential for improving the political status of the Tamil people who have suffered within a majoritarian democracy for several decades. While pointing out that the TNA is carrying a tremendous burden on its shoulders to articulate clearly the aspirations of Tamils, TNPF cautioned that TNA, under no circumstance, should barter away Sri Lanka's accountability for war crimes for ‘political concessions.’
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Canadian Peace Alliance, unions show solidarity with Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 October 2011, 14:44 GMT]
The Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada’s largest umbrella organisation of 180 groups representing over 1 million Canadians, resolved last week to encourage “its member organizations to stand in solidarity with the Tamil nation in their global struggle for self-determination and freedom.” It called for an “immediate end to the colonialism and genocide of the Tamil nation and an end to the occupation of the Tamil homeland by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and its allied paramilitary groups.” It resolved to support “the Pongu Tamil Rally for Self-Determination on Saturday, October 29,” besides urging international investigation on war crimes. Meanwhile, Canada’s largest trade union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers demanded Sri Lanka to “immediately withdraw from Tamil Eelam,” and the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario, condemned the attack on the student president of Jaffna University.
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Consequences of Tamil genocide engulf entire island: Bahu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 October 2011, 12:44 GMT]
The regime of state terror, which started in the Tamil homeland has now become a menace everywhere in the island. The state terrorism, created on the basis of Sinhala chauvinism, is for a purpose; that is to assist certain neo liberal forces involved in plunder of resources, said Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne, the general secretary of the NSSP, who took oath as the newly elected Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) member for the Dehiwala Mount Lavinia municipal council on Friday. “So-called development of the government is based on displacement of people and plunder of resources. While people are pushed out of their traditional habitat land, marine resources, minerals and earth resources, forest, water resources etc., are taken over by the neo liberal developers. World powers that supported the genocidal war are happy and satisfied about the situation,” Dr. Karunaratne further said.
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Dutch court convicts 5 Tamils, says LTTE not "terrorist"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 October 2011, 01:42 GMT]
The Hague district court, by refusing to brand Liberation Tigers as a "terrorist" organization, defied the current European Union policy, but convicted five Tamil naturalized dutch citizens to prison terms for using "nonviolent threats to force Tamil exiles to donate to the Tigers." The Dutch decision, in addition to being a "significant public relations victory for the Tigers" will also be critical to the on-going case in the European Court of Justice to overturn the 2006 decision by the EU to put the Tamil Tigers on the terror list, the Washington Post said. Victor Koppe, attorney for one of the defendants, said he would appeal the convictions.
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Two females recovered dead from well in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 October 2011, 19:17 GMT]
Two Tamil female siblings who were reported missing since Tuesday evening were recovered dead from a well Thursday at Pa'l'lakkoaddai village in Naanaaddaan PS division in Murungkan, Mannaar, according to legal sources in Mannaar.
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Outfits serving Sri Lanka target international media investigation: Channel 4

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 October 2011, 16:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields broadcast by Channel 4 had to face an organized campaign against it originating from the Sri Lankan ministry of defence, said British Channel 4 head of news and current affairs Dorothy Byrne testifying before the Communications Committee of the House of Lords of the British Parliament Tuesday. Citing the example, she warned the committee on the plight of international media’s investigative journalism facing increasingly sophisticated and orchestrated campaigns by hired PR companies and lobbying groups. Inappropriate Sri Lanka connections of the British defence secretary Dr. Liam Fox made him to resign this month. One of his connections was with Bell Pottinger, a PR company hired by Sri Lanka until recently.
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Tamil groups urge New Zealand not to host SL President

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 October 2011, 10:30 GMT]
Tamil Action Front (TAF), an umbrella organisation of Eezham Tamil associations in New Zealand have urged the NZ government on Tuesday not to host Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa who plans a stopover in Auckland to watch Rugby Final Match and to be accorded with a dinner on Sunday on his way to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Perth, Australia. Accusing the NZ government for being tagged behind Australia in accepting war-crimes-accused as ambassadors, TAF in a letter to the NZ Foreign Minister urged the NZ government to support prosecution against the accused in the Australian court, independent international investigation of SL war crimes, suspension of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth and to work for the appointment of a Commissioner for Human Rights in the Commonwealth.
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Siddha Medical Faculty in Trincomalee to come under Colombo University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 October 2011, 06:52 GMT]
The Colombo government is taking steps to bring the Siddha Medical Faculty now under the Trincomalee campus of the Eastern University with the University of Colombo. Academics in the East blame the move as a design of cultural genocide by Colombo that seeks to undermine the traditional medical science of the Tamil country. The transfer of the Faculty to Colombo will be affecting the education in the eastern province, complains R.Thurairatnam, a member of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) in a memorandum sent to SL Minister of Higher Education.
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SLN imposes pass system to fishermen in Jaffna lagoon

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, 07:19 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy in Jaffna has again introduced pass system for fishermen engaging in fishing in the Jaffna lagoon, fishing community leaders in Jaffna csaid. During the recent election campaign in the North, the SLgovernment had annonced that it was withdrawing the pass system which has been in practice for several years. However, the practice is getting re-introduced and the SLN has taken over the control of Jaffna lagoon from the Sri Lanka Army. The SLN which brings fishermen from South and engages in hostilities against the fishermen from Tamil Nadu is engaged in a systematic process of colonisation of Tamil coastal areas in the North by bringing in fishermen from the South to settle in Tamil areas.
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Rajapakse says will defy Court Order, Shavendra hires NY law firm

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, 03:13 GMT]
While Sri Lanka's media spokesperson told a website that Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse "will not answer and is not answerable" to charges in the complaint filed by three Tamil plaintiffs in the District Court of District Columbia, Shavendra Silva, an ex-army commander and currently Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) has hired a New York-based multi-national law firm as his defense counsel for charges of torture and extra-judicial killings filed in the District Court of Southern District of New York (SDNY). Both are civil cases.
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Occupying SL military cancels resettlement in Ira’naip-paalai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 08:31 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala military cancelled the resettlement of the war-displaced villagers of the Ira’naip-paalai village in the Puthukkudiyiruppu division of Mullaiththeevu district a few days ago. Facing the monsoon rains, the Tamil villagers continue to live in the camps in Vavuniyaa. Their resettlement was announced on the 7th of this month. While they were waiting for transportation after completing due registrations, the SL Army in the last minute cancelled the resettlement indefinitely. The demining has already been completed in the village, but the occupying Army has some special reasons for blocking the resettlement as it fears exposure of some of the details and evidences of its war crimes if resettlement is allowed without erasing all the remaining ‘traces’, informed sources said.
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Colonising Sinhalese swindle resources while sanctions apply to resettled Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 08:28 GMT]
Fishing is completely banned for ‘resettled’ Tamils of the villages, Kokku’laay, Karainaadduk-kea’ni and Pu’liya-munai of the Ma’nal-aa’ru region of Mullaiththeevu district, where Colombo is creating a new Sinhala division in the name ‘Weli-oya.’ Sinhalese and Muslims brought in to the area now totally monopolise fishing traditionally carried out by Tamils in their land. The ‘resettled’ Tamils find fishing camps of the colonisers within their very villages when they returned after displacement by war. The Sinhala fishermen who earlier had only seasonal camps have now permanently settled in the strategic Mukaththuvaaram (mouth) part of the Kokku’laay Lagoon. They have now come with their families and genocidal Colombo is now helping then to build permanent houses.
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Buddhist stupa built in Kokku’laay after brutal attack on Tamil landowner

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 08:26 GMT]
An Eezham Tamil landowner in Kokku’laay in Mullaiththeevu district was brutally attacked receiving serious injuries when he refused to part with his land for the construction of a second Buddhist stupa in the locality. He was even chased away from the hospital where he was admitted, after severe warning. Koku’laay lagoon is the focus of Sinhala colonisation presently, as it is the key location for wedging the demographic contiguity of the north and east of the country of Eezham Tamils in the island, as well as direct communication between Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee. A new Sinhala administrative division ‘Weli-oya’ comprising of Sinhala-Buddhist colonies has started functioning in the region last week and the division is expected to include Kokku’laay to cut off north and east permanently up to the very coastline.
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Sinhala division starts functioning in Mullaiththeevu district

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 05:32 GMT]
A Sinhala administrative division, under a Sinhala Asst. Government Agent, has started functioning recently in the Mullaitheevu district. The new division with a toponym ‘Welioya,’ renaming the Tamil Ma’nal-aa’ru, will permanently wedge the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces of the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sri Lanka’s military. The division has been planned in such a way to demographically link the Anuradhapura district of the Sinhala North Central Province with the eastern coast at Kokku’laay, through recently established Sinhala colonies. With accelerated colonisation, soon the division may even pave way for a Sinhala electorate in the Mullaiththeevu district. Meanwhile, talking to Tamil diaspora members recently, the US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake said that he was unaware of any Sinhala colonisation of Tamil lands in the island.
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Sri Lanka's Ex-Navy diplomat accused of war-crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 00:02 GMT]
Citing evidence from Australian Tamil witnesses, the International Commission of Jurists, an international NGO dedicated to ensuring respect for international human rights standards through the law, has submitted a brief before the Australian Federal Police (AFP), to investigate Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Australia, former navy Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, for committing possible war-crimes, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday. Samarasinghe was the commander of the Sri Lankan navy's eastern and then northern areas, as well as naval chief of staff, during the final years of Sri Lanka's civil war.
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