Unemployed graduates protest in Jaffna, UPFA dominates public sector employment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 18:29 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's Colombo government is widely blamed for handling new and temporary appointments in the Northern province for electoral political purposes. Recent temporary appointments have been provided with the condition that the employees should extend support the UPFA government in the provincial elections, unemployed graduates demanding justice said. On Thursday, a section of unemployed graduates, who have been sidelined in such appointments, demonstrated in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna amidst harassment from the SL military intelligence and police commandos.
Full story >>

Colombo destroys education of Tamil youth in North, teachers complain

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, 06:55 GMT]
More than 11% of the schools in the Northern Province remain closed due to Sri Lanka military occupation, say teachers in Jaffna citing statistics from the Northern provincial ministry of education. Colombo has been systematically depriving the Eezham Tamil educational institutions in North and East from receiving external aid, both from foreign NGOs and the Tamil diaspora. In addition, the SL military-run civil administration has been diverting the funds already allocated in the provincial budget for the education sector. As a result, the Northern Province has ranked last in the latest GCE A/L examinations, the teachers said adding that such decline was not reported before, even during the height of the war.
Full story >>

Tamil reported missing found in coma after Vavuniyaa prison raid

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2012, 23:37 GMT]
28-year-old Tamil man, Dilrukshan Muthurasa from Iluppaikkadavai, in Maanthai West of Mannaar district in Vanni, was one of the prisoners in Vavuniyaa prison, which was raided by the Sri Lankan Special Task Force commandos on 29 June. Dilrukshan, seriously attacked and allegedly subjected to torture at Vavuniyaa and Anuradhapura prisons, is currently in coma and is fighting for his life at Mahara prison. His mother, Reeza Muthurasa, who didn't know about the whereabouts of her son, has identified him after visiting her son at Mahara hospital, following press reports. According to Ms Reeza, her son, who had gone on employment in Middle East in 2006 had returned just before the war intensified in Vanni and was caught by the SL Navy when he tried to escape the war zone in a boat in 2009.
Full story >>

SL military has grabbed 5,210 acres of land in Mannaar, say protestors

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2012, 17:34 GMT]
Providing details of private and public lands being appropriated by the SL military in Mannaar district, Tamil activists, who came together for a protest on Saturday said, the militarisation seriously affects the lives of people of Mannaar. Tamil civilians, who are denied resettlement in Channaar in Maanthai West, where the occupying Sri Lankan military has appropriated 3,500 acres of lands, were the majority of the participants in the protest. Mannaar Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, together with Catholic priests and other civil activists from Mannaar, took part in the protest, which was organised by the youth activists of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK). The protest was supported by the other parties in the TNA, the parties outside the alliance, and by the elected representatives of the civic bodies in Mannaar as well as the Democratic People Front from South.
Full story >>

‘IC turns deaf ear to struggling Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 09:05 GMT]
The international community of establishments and their agenda-driven outfits continue to turn deaf-ear to the plight of the Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs), failing to accord the necessary international legal status to Eezham Tamil POWs, who have become the ‘pawns of genocide’, activists in the island blamed following the reports on Wednesday that a 28-year-old Tamil prisoner, Ganesan Nimalarooban from Nelukku'lam in Vavuniyaa, had succumbed to his injuries at Mahara prison in South. All the 122 prisoners who were inside the raided prison cell in Vavuniyaa last Friday were taken to Anuradhapura prison, where Sinhala prison guards and criminal inmates tortured them for more than 10 hours. 22 of these Eezham Tamil POWs were later transferred to Mahara prison and Nimalarooban, hailng from a poverty-stricken family in the suburb of Vavuniyaa, was one of them.
Full story >>

SL forces fatally attack protesting Tamil Prisoners of War in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2012, 23:46 GMT]
The forces of genocidal Sinhala State in Sri Lanka fatally attacked Eezham Tamil prisoners of war kept in the prison at Vavuniyaa on Friday. Heads and limbs broken, more than 15 of the prisoners are admitted in Anuradhapura hospital after removing them from Vavuniyaa. The condition of some of them are said to be serious. The prisoners were protesting for the last few days over the torture and disappearance of a prison mate Mr. Saravanabhavan who was taken to Anuradhapura by the SL forces. Finding their peaceful fasting campaign responded with oppression, the enraged prisoners captured three of the prison officials and were demanding the return of Saravanabhavan for their release. In a well-planned operation on Friday, SL forces that entered into the prison, first deployed tear gas shells, plastic bullets and water canon, before brutally attacking the prisoners causing fatal injuries.
Full story >>

SOS of Eezham Tamils seeks global Tamils, world humanity to respond

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 June 2012, 19:20 GMT]
Mu’l’livaaykkaal was only a beginning for the Sinhala State and its international abetters to perpetuate genocide of Eezham Tamils to suit overlapping agendas. After three years of Colombo’s accelerated structural genocide facilitated by the international community of establishments, the Tamil leaders in the island have once again voiced an SOS in unison on Tuesday, appealing to global Tamils and global community of humanity, to intervene and save their nation from militarised annihilation. Gagged, but experiencing the realities of the hoodwink of ‘post-war reconciliation,’ the voices coming from the island show better clarity and bearing, compared to the hijacked diaspora confused over where to address the issue and a Tamil Nadu leadership silent after a resolution that doesn’t address fundamental solutions, political observers in the island said.
Full story >>

Colombo schemes military enclave in Maanthai, grabs 1,500 acres of land

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2012, 23:47 GMT]
Grabbing 1,500 acres of land at Channaar Velimaruthamadu in Maanthai West of Mannaar district, the Sri Lankan military is hurriedly putting up a large cantonment with houses for military personnel from the South, according to news sources in Mannaar. The area selected for this purpose is a fertile land in the high ground near a tank where Tamil-speaking people were earlier engaged in agriculture and the jungle area has been used for slash-and-burn cultivation. Heavy machineries are deployed to clear and put up the structures for the military colony, at a strategic location, to control the A-32 Mannaar - Poonakari highway and the fishing harbour of Vidaththal-theevu which has traditionally been used by the Eezham Tamils to communicate with Tamil Nadu.
Full story >>

SL military goes amok on uprooted civilians in Vanni, 2 injured, 1 suffers heart attack

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2012, 17:08 GMT]
Children were thrown into vehicles and the occupying Sinhala Army assaulted uprooted Tamil families using gun butts and batons Monday evening at Thiru-mu'rika'ndi Hindu Tamil Viththiyaalayam in Ki'linochchi. A section of the uprooted families who had been brought from Menik Farm by the SL military a few weeks ago had declined to accept what they called an ‘enslavement’ offer of ‘resettlement’ by the SL military. They were placed temporarily at the school. On Monday, as one day was remaining till the protest organised by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) against the military land grab assisted by China, the SL military entered the school, bargained with the families at gunpoint for more than 4 hours and finally assaulted them forcefully transporting them back to Vavuniyaa. Tension prevails at Thiru-mu'rika'ndi after the horror let loose by the SL military on the uprooted civilians.
Full story >>

SL Minister Devananda threatens civil protest in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2012, 05:20 GMT]
Speaking in line with the SL courts in Jaffna on Monday, EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, who is a minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet, threatened protesting volunteer teachers from Vanni, declaring that if he uttered the word ‘postpone’ to the SL authorities, their appointments would be put on hold forever. Seating besides Maj. Gen. (retd) GA Chandrasiri, the colonial military governor of North, Mr Devananda, in a discriminating tone, said that the SL president doesn't like those who protest. The volunteer teachers, who have served for more than 12 years without SL government salary in Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts, have been promised permanent employment each time they were staging protests, but find them discriminated on every occasion. On Monday, they were protesting outside the provincial education ministry situated in Nalloor, Jaffna.
Full story >>

1033 lands, houses to be permanently appropriated for SL military in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 June 2012, 23:41 GMT]
After appropriating thousands of acres of land in Mullaiththeevu, Ki'linochchi, Mannaar and Vavuniyaa districts of the Northern Province, the SL military establishment in the North has accelerated its drive of appropriating 1033 properties, most of them privately owned lands and buildings, for the three SL armed forces outside the already seized ‘High Security Zone’ in the peninsula, civil officials in Jaffna told TamilNet, giving statistical breakdown of figures from the internal records of the occupying military. Colombo has passed the responsibility of land appropriation in Jaffna to its colonial military governor Maj. Gen. (retd) GA Chandrasri, according to the informed officials. In the meantime, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, has defended the military move to maintain permanent camps in areas outside the so-called High Security Zones.
Full story >>

Occupying SL military threatens uprooted Tamils of Thirumu'rika'ndi in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 June 2012, 15:13 GMT]
Lands that belong to 183 Tamil families in Thirumu'rika'ndi in Ki'linochchi district have been appropriated by the occupying Sri Lanka Army for a military housing scheme. The Tamil families have filed cases in law courts pleading that they should be allowed to resettle in their own lands in Thirumu'rika'ndi. In the meantime, the SL military intelligence officers visit each family, who reside in Vavuniyaa, and intimidate them to withdraw their cases and to settle at a different place.
Full story >>

SL military confiscates state lands from civic bodies in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 June 2012, 14:02 GMT]
As far as Eezham Tamils are concerned, State in the island exclusively means the occupying Sinhala military. This is once again vigorously demonstrated in the North, as the Sinhala military has started confiscating State lands from elected civic bodies in the North at gun point. The Sinhala colonial governor Maj. Gen. GA Chandrasri facilitates the process by appointing Sinhala Government Agents/ Asst. Government Agents in many of the districts in the North and by transferring Tamil officials not cooperating with the land grab for Sinhala colonies and the use of the military. Now the elected civic bodies in Jaffna too are threatened to give up not only State lands but also to agree to confiscation of private lands by the occupying military. Washington and New Delhi have discovered an Israel in the Sinhala State to groom in South Asia.
Full story >>

Uprooted Tamils live with UXO threat, UN agencies silent on demographic ‘conquest’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 May 2012, 04:30 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils from the coastal villages of Mullaiththeevu district, denied resettlement in their own lands and forced to ‘resettle’ in Koampaavil resettlement-scheme, away from the radars of international media and human rights activists, have been abandoned without proper humanitarian assistance. Meanwhile, the families, clearing lands have been confronted with unexploded ordnance in the area that has been declared by UN agencies as clear of landmines. Last Sunday, 37-year-old Manoranjitham Asokkumar, a mother of three children, sustained serious injuries while clearing her plot of land. Local humanitarian workers, who gave photographs to TamilNet, alleged that the UN agencies had failed to even highlight the plight of the civilians who face the threat of landmines in the area, which the agencies have earlier verified as clear of landmines.
Full story >>

Jaffna University comes to standstill following attack on student leader

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 04:31 GMT]
Following a lethal attack on the Jaffna University Students’ Union Secretary, Dharshananth, who was on his way to the university on Friday to organize the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day, students demanding the Vice Chancellor to get assurance for their security, decided to boycott classes and continue their struggle in various ways until the security question is resolved. We are not waging an armed struggle. We fight for our rights and for our people through democratic means. But politically motivated violent attacks continue to be unleashed against us. The International Community has committed a colossal blunder. Three years after the genocide none of the culprits has been punished. Our message to Tamil political parties and to the diaspora is that their actions should not betray our hopes, students said in their speeches.
Full story >>

SLA expands occupation of Mannaar with two new camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 23:42 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan Army in Mannaar has started constructing two new large camps in Murungkan in appropriated lands, civil groups in Mannaar mainland complain. Hundreds of SL Army soldiers have come into agricultural settlements occupying water supplies and appropriating lands adjacent to lakes. Tamil and Muslim females complain that they are unable to move in their villages in evening times due to the heavy presence of occupying Sinhala soldiers. Questioning why the SLA is constructing two large camps in the same village, civil activists expressed fear that the move was part of a larger design to occupy and Sinhalicise the entire area comprising fertile agricultural lands of Tamils and Muslims.
Full story >>

Military GA constructs Buddhist stupa at historic Saivite site in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 15:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government Agent of Trincomalee Major General (retd) Ranjith de Silva has appropriated 15 acres of land that belongs to the Trincomalee District Young Men’s Hindu Associations Federation (TDYMHAF) in the traditional Tamil village Kanniyaa, situated 7 km north of the east port city, for the construction of a Buddhist Vihare. The appropriated land is located in the vicinity of the Kanniyaa hot wells, a revered place for Saivites. The administration of the historic Kanniyaa hot wells has also been handed over to a Buddhist monk who is the head of the Velgam Buddhist Vihare, which is located two km away from the site, according to a memorandum submitted to the All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC).
Full story >>

Parts of Batticaloa worse than Vanni in ‘normalcy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 May 2012, 16:30 GMT]
While the West and India have stopped talking about the East, and try to project an image that ‘normalcy’ has returned to the East and the North also should follow suit in the same directions, large parts of Batticaloa are silently kept under conditions worse than that of Vanni for the last five years, news sources in the East said. Similar to the times of the war in Vanni, more than 250,000 people were systematically displaced by the occupying SL military in 2007, in Batticaloa’s Paduvaan-karai part alone, under the pretext of ‘liberating’ them from the LTTE. Even though it is said that they are ‘rehabilitated phase by phase’, they are deliberately kept without basic facilities for nearly five years now, while the only ‘development’ seen there is the escalation of militarisation and harassment by the occupying Sinhala military.
Full story >>

UK deportee killed while Tamil Nadu returnees arrested in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2012, 11:41 GMT]
A 28-year-old Tamil man, recently deported from UK was found killed in Trincomalee on 18 April, news sources in the district told TamilNet Saturday. In the meantime, in a systematic combing operation launched by the special units of Colombo's military and police establishments, up to 300 Tamil males and females have been ‘arrested’ and sent to military detention camps in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa since last Saturday. Among the victims are also people who have recently returned from Tamil Nadu and they too have now ended up in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa, the sources in Trincomalee further said.
Full story >>

Two children die in landmine explosion at Pazhai in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 April 2012, 06:04 GMT]
Two children playing in front of their house at Mullaiyadi of Pazhai in Jaffna peninsula part of the Ki'linochchi district were killed Wednesday, when they found an unexploded ordnance and started playing with it. 4-year-old Thamilmaran Mukunthan and his younger brother 2-year-old Thanujan Mukunthan were the victims of the tragic incident. The family has resettled in their village recently when Pazhai and Ma'niyanthoaddam areas were declared free of landmines and were opened for resettlement. In the meantime, a leading de-mining group on Tuesday said that it was winding up its activities in Jaffna district and limiting its work in Ki'linochchi district. Independent de-mining groups, supported by international community are forced to close down services at a crucial time due to lack of funds while the SL military apparatus is seeking to dominate the agenda of the entire de-mining process.
Full story >>