Ex-LTTE members cannot be investigated: Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 April 2015, 22:37 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State and the members of the international community, who were complicit in the genocide of Eezham Tamils in the name of waging a war against ‘terrorism’ cannot demand any further investigation on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after subjecting the members of the movement to cold-blooded summary executions at the hands of the Sri Lankan State and its military, Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has said. After the end of war, the SL State punished even those who had left the movement several years ago by subjecting them for the so-called rehabilitation in imprisonment. Even those who had left the LTTE several years ago were subjected to military interrogations and punishment by the State, which claims itself as the victor of the war, he said.
Full story >>

New regime deploys military against Habeas Corpus applicants: NPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 April 2015, 21:19 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military intelligence has stepped up harassments against the applicants of Habeas Corpus cases being heard in Vanni, says Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan, who has been harassed twice by the operatives of the Sri Lankan military intelligence when she went to witnesses the cases being heard. Under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the SL courts were not prepared to hear these cases. The new regime, on one hand, wants to showcase to the outside world that the SL courts are attending these cases, but on the other hand it deploys the military intelligence against the applicants. “I have personally witnessed such harassment in recent days,” Ms Ananthy told media in Jaffna this week.
Full story >>

Sirisena's regime protects corrupt SL minister from Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2015, 23:29 GMT]
Rishad Bathiudeen, the notorious Sri Lankan minister who has been unleashing communal hatred in Mannaar under the previous regime, continues to be a minister in the new regime of Maithiripala Sirisena. Mr Bathiutheen has been promoting and protecting the criminal Divisional Secretary (DS) of Maanthai West, Manickavasagar Sriskandakumar, to appropriate ‘public lands’, which had been properly allocated to the people during the times of the LTTE. As a favour in return for appropriating these lands for his voters, the SL minister backed the DS to grab some lands for himself and a collaborating Village Officer (GS). Mr Sriskandakumar and T. Sivanesan, the GS, were allegedly complicit in ordering the assassination of social activist K. Nakuleswaran last November. Now, their personal appropriation of lands have been exposed, the people of Ve'l'laang-ku'lam say.
Full story >>

Colombo stages ‘deceptive resettlement’ in isolated pockets within military zone

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 April 2015, 23:38 GMT]
The uprooted people from Valikaamam North, who were disappointed to see that their residential lands not released as promised by the Colombo regime, gathered on Friday at Vasaavi'laan MMV to discuss the next course of action. The civic representatives from Valikaamam North complained that the SL military wants to maintain the former High Security Zone as Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) while selectively allowing Tamil civilians into isolated pockets surrounded by military cantonments and business establishments run by the SL military within the SMZ. In the meantime, Non Governmental Organizations have also conveyed their reservation to the SL Government Agent in Jaffna in sending their employees into these pockets, informed civil sources at the District Secretariat of Jaffna told TamilNet.
Full story >>

SL military harassment continues to target ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
Former LTTE members who met the touring Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at Ki'linochchi on Sunday told the SL premier that the occupying Sinhala military was harassing them even after the so-called regime change in Colombo. SL military intelligence operatives continue to interrogate them, they complained adding that the SL soldiers were threatening the families by frequent inspections. The wives of former LTTE members were being harassed after their husbands leave for work, Mr Wickramasinghe was told. However, the SL Prime Minister was using his trip to encourage the occupying SL military to continue the genocidal occupation of the Tamil homeland, informed sources in Jaffna and Vanni told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Colombo continues to block uprooted Tamils from resettling in Poththuvil, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and Sinhala officials belonging to SL Forest Department and SL Archaeology department continue to block hundreds of uprooted Tamil families from resettling in their own villages situated along the border of Poththuvil Divisional Secretariat in Ampaa'rai district. Mr T. Kaliaiyarasan, a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet on Saturday that 485 families have been blocked from resettling in their residential and agricultural lands. The new regime in Colombo is also blocking the people from accessing these lands, he said.
Full story >>

While UN charges ISIS for genocide, SL military gets space for exoneration

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2015, 23:25 GMT]
While deferring the report on Sri Lanka, the UN Human Rights Office acting in sharp contrast called on the UN Security Council earlier this month to refer the ISIS to International Criminal Court, charging the ISIS for genocide committed against Yezidi people in Iraq as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including children. Obviously the contrast comes from the fact that the genocide of Eezham Tamils was determined by the USA and India, conducted by a military needed by the both, and was allowed by the UN. The regime change in Colombo is yet another time and space tactic to exonerate the genocidal Sinhala military and to use it as anchor for the furtherance of the original designs of the ultimate culprits, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics, citing recent reports coming from Colombo.
Full story >>

Report unearths more facts on UK’s role in Sri Lanka’s counter-insurgency

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2015, 23:50 GMT]
Facts are evidence used to build a truth, which is a very fluid thing. The truth Phil Miller has set out to prove is that “the British State colluded with the Sri Lankan State in its counter-insurgency operations against Tamils since the 1980's,” says Dr N. Malathy, a key member of NESoHR and the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in My Country’. Phil's latest report, “Exporting Police Death Squads” identifies a person, the late Jack Morton, his career path, and his report, “Morten report”, which was produced for Sri Lanka’s counter-insurgency operations against Tamils. The so-called Morton report is still kept secret by the British State, Phil Miller's research has revealed.
Full story >>

Karuna assaults landowner in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 March 2015, 23:52 GMT]
An armed squad led by paramilitary operative and former SL deputy minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (Karuna) on Saturday assaulted a Tamil farmer, R. Vanaraja, while he was engaged at cultivation in his own agricultural land at Noo'ru-eakkar in Kiraan, Batticaloa. Mr Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan was claiming ownership to the land. The land was earlier under the control of the Tigers after Vanaraja family had displaced from his village. Later, Muralitharan, who defected from the LTTE had seized the land for commercial purposes, news sources in Batticaloa said.
Full story >>

Ex-LTTE woman returned from France escapes assassination attempt in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 08:03 GMT]
A group of assailants believed to belong to a surveillance squad of the Sri Lankan military attempted on Wednesday night to assassinate 41-year-old Baheerathy Murukesu, who was arrested earlier this month at Colombo airport and later released on bail with a restriction to leave the island. The two-member squad, which was waiting outside her house at Ka'ndaava'lai in Mullaiththeevu, followed Ms Baheerathy and hit her with their motorbike. Baheerathy was thrown away, but survived the attempt on her life. She was arrested by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ earlier this month when she was visiting her family on vacation from France. Baheerathy headed a naval wing of the LTTE's Sea Tigers between 1997 and 2000 and had left the island in 2005, the SL police has stated earlier.
Full story >>

New regime silently steps up military land grab in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 09:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has again started to seize private lands outside the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) in the North. While releasing some of the lands in the HSZ back to people in the North, the SL military is silently seizing lands outside the HSZ to maintain and expand its cantonments in the country of Eezham Tamils. Informed sources from the district secretariats of Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet Wednesday that the military seizure of lands has been stepped up during the past 3 weeks at more than 20 localities in Vanni. Under the Rajapaksa regime, the SL officials were open about the military seizure of lands. But, now the process is almost invisible. Surveying officers are also brought from Colombo and legal notices are not issued in order to avoid public protests.
Full story >>

Jaffna voices grief at Indian PM's cosmetic visit

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2015, 13:19 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to North ended up as a ceremonial tour on Saturday. The uprooted people, who were promised resettlement, just one day ahead of his visit to Jaffna, complained that the occupying Sri Lankan military was robbing even the remaining roofs of their houses till the last minute. The families of the victims of enforced disappearances, who marched from Jaffna Bus Stand to the office of the Consulate General of India at Nalloor, were disappointed to learn that Mr Modi was visiting the North-East after advising the TNA Parliamentary Group in Colombo to ‘re-strategize’ its approach and maintain ‘patience’ with regards to what it expects from the new regime in Colombo. They urged the Indian PM to exert pressure on Colombo to act without further delay.
Full story >>

Externally designed silencing of victims to uphold ‘internal political power’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2015, 22:38 GMT]
One of the convicts of the 2012 New Delhi gang rape now makes the world to stand aghast at what he said on the crime. Blaming the victim for the rape and gruesome torture causing her death, the assailant said, a decent girl would not have been out at 9 pm. “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back […] She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then we would have dropped her off.” An article in similar lines appeared in Colombo Telegraph on Friday, written by Rajan Hoole, N. Sivapalan, Ahilan Kadirgamar and K. Sritharan. Blaming 35-years of ‘assassination politics’ by Tamil leadership as responsible for the 2009 culmination, which according to the writers was not genocide, they condemned the NPC Chief Minister Justice Wigneswaran’s call for international investigations on the protracted genocide faced by Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Protesters demand international prosecutions, decry supervision of domestic mechanisms

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 11:31 GMT]
“While it is true that the Tamil people voted in large numbers for President Sirisena, we wish to emphasise that this was merely an anti-Rajapksa vote. We did not vote with the hope of any substantive change resulting from regime change,” said the appeal by the organisers of the massive protest in Jaffna on Tuesday. More than 5,000 students and people from all walks of life in Jaffna took part in the first largest demonstration after the end of genocidal war in Vanni on Tuesday. “International supervision of any domestic mechanism will only serve to waste time,” the appeal by the Jaffna University society said. The procession, which started at the University of Jaffna ended at the remains of the foundation of Thileepan monument at Nalloor.
Full story >>

Protesters condemning OISL delay burn effigy of Sumanthiran

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2015, 15:06 GMT]
Condemning the recently announced deferral of the OISL investigative report by the OHCHR in Geneva, voicing against the talk of UN converting the international investigation into a domestic one, and demanding immediate response on the fate of the thousands of missing persons, Women’s Organisation of Missing Persons' Families in Jaffna staged a protest on Saturday in front of the Bus Stand in the city. The protestors, numbering more than 250, blamed New Delhi and Washington for buying time and space for the Sri Lankan State, with the intention of shielding the crime of genocide. At the end of the protest, an effigy of nominated TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran was burnt by a section of youth from the ITAK, who blamed the Colombo-centric elements within the TNA for collaborating with the global actors discarding the fundamental principles of the Tamil cause.
Full story >>

Victims demand immediate action against Colombo's squad in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2015, 11:02 GMT]
The families of forcefully disappeared Tamil victims in Ampaa'rai district have demanded immediate arrest and action against Karuna Group paramilitary operative, K. Pushpakumar alias Iniyabarathy, who was the Ampaa'rai district coordinator of Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA and a member of the Eastern Provincial Council. After the entire Ampaa'rai district was brought under the control of the occupying Sri Lankan military in 2007, more than 200 Tamil youth have been reported missing in the district after arrest or abduction by Sri Lanka military operated squads. Iniyabarathy has been the key paramilitary operative operating a squad for the genocidal SL military in the district. Iniyabarathy is blamed for the assassination of veteran Tamil journalist Aiyathurai Nadesan in May 2004. Incumbent SL president Maithiripala Sirisena was also having a hand in the paramilitary operations in the East.
Full story >>

Awakening of Tamil polity evokes ‘concern’ in Indian Intelligence

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 February 2015, 23:06 GMT]
Two intelligence operatives attached to the Indian Consulate General in Jaffna and two senior intelligence officers from the Indian High Commission in Colombo hurriedly invited a section of Tamil politicians and paramilitary elements for secret consultations at the Assistant High Commission of India in Kandy this weekend after the latest NPC resolution calling for international investigation on Tamil genocide continuing for decades. The New Delhi Establishment views the call coming from hitherto gagged Tamils in the island as a ‘disturbing development’, informed sources told TamilNet on Sunday.
Full story >>

Break vicious circle of political obfuscation: Sivaram in 2003

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2015, 01:35 GMT]
“Today it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that India and the US-UK-Japan Bloc are trying to influence and manage Sri Lanka's peace process to promote and consolidate their respective strategic and economic interests. [..] Those who say that we should keep quiet — not rock the boat by clamouring about the true motives of the US-UK-Japan Bloc — while certain objectives are being achieved through the peace process, should remember the developments which led up to the Indo Lanka Treaty and the arrival of the Indian army. [...] The price the Tamil liberation movement as a whole had to pay for not educating the people about the truth of India's intentions was high. At this juncture, even a doddering dullard would find the déjà vu inescapable. The Tamil nation cannot afford to make the same mistake again.” Thus wrote late D. Sivaram in 2003, six years before Mu'l'livaaykkaal genocide.
Full story >>

Task of real Tamil political leadership: Sivaram in 2003

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 February 2015, 18:39 GMT]
Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, the late senior editor of TamilNet, wrote an article in January 2003, explaining the deadlock of the Sri Lankan unitary constitution which cannot provide for a solution within its framework. The international backers were also aware that a federal solution to the ethnic conflict was practically, legally and politically impossible with the Sri Lankan Constitution, he wrote. “Demystifying the realm of Tamil politics and ridding it of the host of canards, half-truths and obfuscations that have plagued for long the national will to struggle for our inalienable rights,” was the key task of the real Tamil political leadership, he wrote in the article.
Full story >>

ITAK youth wing leader urges Tamils not to be deceived by deviators

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2015, 13:01 GMT]
There is no change in Sri Lankan military deployment in the Tamil homeland. On the contrary, the SL military seems to be enthusiastic about setting up bigger noticeboards than before along the border of Valikaamam North ‘High Security Zone’ said VS Sivakaran, the youth wing leader of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) in a video interview this week. “However, a section among Tamils are being deceived to expect that there will be positive changes and that the SL military deployment would be reduced under Maithiripala Sirisena,” Sivakaran said. “But, this is not going to happen,” the ITAK youth wing leader said. The USA and India wanted to reverse the Chinese influence in the island. They needed a regime change, which they got. But, this has taken place at the expense of the political aspirations of the small nation of Eelam Tamils, he said.
Full story >>