Professor Sivathamby passes away

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 19:43 GMT]
Professor Karthigesu Sivathamy, an Eezham Tamil legend of Tamil Studies passed away on Wednesday 8:20 p.m. local time at his home in Dehiwala, Colombo. He succumbed to heart attack at the age of 79. The funeral rituals are scheduled to be held on Sunday at his residence in Colombo and the cremation will take place at Kanatta crematorium by 4:00 p.m. TamilNet joins the millions all over the world in paying tribute to the scholar who has been providing academic leadership to Tamils. He is survived by his wife Rupavathy Sivathamby and three daughters, Mangai, Kothai and Varthani.
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Legal action against Colombo for torture imminent: TAG

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 01:13 GMT]
Tamil prisoners who have managed to reach the West, by either bribing their way out, or released due to lack of evidence after being incarcerated and tortured inside Sri Lanka's Boosa, Magazine and Welikade prisons, have been providing details of torture suffered under Sri Lanka's intelligence wing of the military. Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, said Sunday that a project documenting torture and white-van abductions, supported by a list of nearly 30 affidavits, video depositions, and graphical footage of the abduction-torture sequence adopted in Colombo and in Vavuniyaa, Trincomalee internment camps, are near completion and that a Europe-based legal action is imminent.
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Civil administration becomes Sinhalese in the country of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 06:45 GMT]
140 Sinhala Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) officers who have come initially for a ‘training’ programme to Jaffna on Monday are eventually expected to be appointed to Sinhalicise the civil service of the country of Eezham Tamils. By not recruiting Tamils and Muslims to the civil service for many years now, Colombo has schemed a situation so that only the Sinhalese could be appointed to key administrative positions even in the north and east. The process that has started in the east has now come to Vanni and Jaffna. While artfully delaying urgently needed action for the national question by reducing it into an endless debate on war crimes that has no reference to genocide, the powers that abet state in Sri Lanka commit more crimes of a permanent nature in allowing Colombo on its structural genocide and extermination of Tamil nation, political circles in Jaffna said.
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War and aftermath raise questions over Tamil strategy of engagement with powers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 05:41 GMT]
LTTE and Tamil nationalism were perceived by some powers as getting into the way of their geo-strategic interests. Therefore ‘peace and stability’ means stabilising the Sinhalese regime by crushing LTTE’s military challenge – that was done – and bringing Tamil nationalism to heel, which process is ongoing both in Sri Lanka and among the Tamil diaspora, writes Dr. S. Sathananthan in an article he sent to TamilNet. The power-abetted genocidal war and the aftermath facilitations given to Colombo to complete the genocide into a structural one, raise serious questions among Tamils over the nature of their strategic engagement with some powers.
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Channel 4 ‘persecuting’ Sri Lanka’s government - Rajiva

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 July 2011, 02:36 GMT]
Speaking on the BBC radio’s ‘Today’, one of Britain’s most popular current affairs programs, Sri Lankan government representative Rajiva Wijesinghe brazenly claimed Monday that Channel 4 had “apologized” for using “doctored” video in its recent hard-hitting documentary on Sri Lanka. His claim immediately drew a swift retort from Channel 4 which categorically denied the accusation and said it “stood by the excellent journalism” of the film. On the BBC programme, referring to international calls for investigations of the allegations, Prof. Wijesinghe said “the people of Sri Lanka are not interested in witch hunts.”
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SLFP gang comes for campaign after militarily attacking TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 08:37 GMT]
A gang of SLFP ministers and parliamentarians, including presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa were camping in Jaffna last weekend to plan and campaign for the forthcoming civic elections to the town and village councils scheduled to take place in the north on 23 July. Their meetings were also participated by occupying Sri Lanka’s colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. The SLFP campaign in Jaffna takes place after occupying SL Army brutally attacking the participants of a Tamil National Alliance election campaign meeting at A’laveddi a few days ago. After leaving democracy in the hands of a decidedly genocidal state, is there any point in some powers talking of the 13th Amendment and political solutions within one country, ask Eezham Tamil civil circles in the island.
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Tamil cricket protest draws support at Lords

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 05:49 GMT]
A day long protest on Sunday by scores of Tamil youth activists and supporters outside the Lord’s cricket ground where Sri Lanka played England in the third one-day-international drew support from spectators and the general public, including delegates attending the ordination of five new rabbis at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in front of which the noisy but peaceful demonstration took place. Inside the world famous cricket ground, a youth who raced across the pitch with a Tamil Eelam flag in the middle of the match drew cheers when he dodged the grasps of pursuing stewards, and a round of applause when he was finally caught in front of the MCC pavillion.
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Genocidal Colombo eyes on 3-5 year old children in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2011, 14:43 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s military governor in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri now schemes to bring more than 1000 nursery schools functioning in Jaffna under the control of genocidal Colombo. As a preliminary step, the SL governor wants to ‘aid’ and affiliate the schools to the military-controlled administration of the Northern Provincial Council. Amidst controversies, a meeting for pre-school teachers was convened on Saturday at Veerasingham Hall in Jaffna. SL Presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa attending the meeting announced payment of salaries to pre-school teachers and eventual absorption of them into ‘government’ service. While the deeper intention of the agenda was eyeing on tender children of Eezham Tamils, the presidential sibling also chose the occasion to attack the TNA to campaign for the civic elections scheduled this month.
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SL government manipulates IDP statistics in East: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2011, 12:45 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Batticaloa district, P. Selvarajah has blamed the Mahinda Rajapaksa government for false records of resettlement in the province. While many thousands people still find themselves displaced, their names are marked as resettled in the SL government records. “For example, people who displaced from Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru and Thangka-vealaayutha-puram during the war are still living as displaced in Thampiluvil and Vinaayakapuram in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai. But, their names are registered as resettled in the government list,” Mr. Selvarajah MP told media on Saturday. Rajapaksa government has also seized thousands of acres of lands in Ampaa'rai for the families of the Sinhala military personnel, he further accused.
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Why a sports boycott is essential for justice – TYO

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2011, 05:50 GMT]
With Sri Lanka defiantly rejecting international calls for war crimes investigations into the mass killings of over 40,000 Tamil civilians in 2009, Britain must go beyond rhetorical support and take concrete action to ensure justice is served, the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) said this week. “As a first step, Britain must support the international isolation of the Sri Lankan regime until it accepts an independent, international investigation into the mass killings,” the group said. “A boycott of Sri Lankan sport will send a clear message to Sri Lanka's regime and in particular to its many supporters at home, of the international community’s abhorrence of these atrocities and its commitment to justice.”
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India adopts a genocidal Army to achieve military integration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2011, 05:45 GMT]
As Sri Lanka ‘successfully’ ended its war with the LTTE and India is still fighting ‘insurgents’ in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast states, India will share more experience with the SL military particularly in tackling ‘insurgency’ and will give more training to SL military in building capacity, particularly in adventure sports and English language, media reports from India said on the first ‘Army-to-Army’ talks between the two militaries that took place from Wednesday to Friday. Both sides have agreed to send their instructors to each other’s military academies. India has allotted more seats for training SL military personnel in its military academies. As Sinhala and Tamil politics are hostile, economic and military integration are the ways for political integration of the entire island with India, is the line of thinking in New Delhi, political observers said.
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Civil society groups in Karnataka meet to voice against Eezham Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 06:13 GMT]
Forum Against War Crimes and Genocide, comprising of several civil society organisations of Karnataka state in India convene a public meeting on Saturday evening at Student Christian Movement hall in the state’s capital Bangalore to voice against “War Crimes and Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.” The meeting will screen the Channel 4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.” Writer, Mr. G. Ramakrishna will deliver the keynote address and will launch the state chapter of the forum. Sometimes back, people in Hubli-Dharwad, the second largest city in Karnataka too held a demonstration in support of Eezham Tamils.
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Eezham Tamil political detainees face severe mental torture

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 06:11 GMT]
Eezham Tamil political detainees kept in the prisons of Sri Lanka in the south as well as in the north without any cases filed against them for years are severely affected psychologically, medical sources examined them when they were brought to Jaffna teaching hospital said. Under unbearable mental stress some of the detainees attempted to escape this week, but they were re-arrested. One of them who attempted escape was swimming for a whole day to avoid detection and later he was re-arrested on information while hiding in an abandoned building.
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Eezham Tamil coastal areas intensively encroached by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2011, 05:34 GMT]
Occupying genocidal Sri Lanka opens up the coastal areas of Eezham Tamils for intensive ‘invasion’ of Sinhala fishermen and ‘tourism’ fat cats of the south. The latest target is the eastern coast of Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna districts as well as the islands off Jaffna, news sources from Jaffna said. While thousands of Sinhala fishermen, officially permitted by Colombo, encroach the eastern coast of the northern province to deprive local fishermen, the islands off Jaffna are encroached in the guise of tourism. A large block of prime land at Chaaddi in the Kayts Island, which earlier had the memorials of the LTTE fighters who laid down their lives for the independence of Tamils, is now claimed by John Keells, a Sinhala hotel corporate based in Colombo.
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Military exercises aim at terrorising people in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 June 2011, 21:47 GMT]
Joint military exercises conducted by the occupying SL Army and Navy in the Jaffna peninsula in recent times, aim at terrorising Eezham Tamils and keeping them under indefinite military occupation environment, civil society circles in Jaffna said. Intense joint military exercises were conducted continuously for three days this week at Naakar-koayil in Vadamaraadchi East and at Maathakal-Thiruvadinilai coast in Valikaamam, where people recently resettled. Fishermen avoided going to the sea as volleys of shells were fired towards the sea and residents confined themselves to houses.
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India enters into ‘Army-to-Army’ talks with Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 June 2011, 14:17 GMT]
India initiates its first Army-to-Army talk with Sri Lanka, which is viewed as a significant bilateral military collaboration between the two establishments. During the current three-day talks, the two Armies will chalk out the programmes to be undertaken over the next one year, Times of India reported Thursday. At present, India has such military-to-military level cordiality only with nine other countries, the US, UK, Israel, France, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Singapore. New Delhi timing the special official recognition and confirming participation with the genocidal military of Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils, send a strong message to those who demand the liberation of Eezham Tamils and talk against war crimes and militarization in the island, political observers said.
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‘India can do without a highly militarised autocratic neighbour in the south’ - paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 04:39 GMT]
India’s political engagement and generous financial assistance are not bringing about an equitable post-war settlement Sri Lanka, and instead an authoritarian government and a dangerously powerful military have emerged, The Pioneer newspaper warned Wednesday in an editorial titled 'Necessary Intervention' . “[India’s] policies and initiatives have fallen tragically short [but] South Block has been reluctant to … press for more reforms and greater accountability. This must change. … Rajapaksa should be asked to keep his promises,” India’s oldest English language newspaper argued.
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Tamil protestors abused at Sri Lanka-England cricket match

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 03:47 GMT]
Three dozen Tamils protesting Tuesday evening outside the Oval ground where Sri Lanka played England in the first one day international were taunted by some Sinhala spectators who gloated over the mass killings of Tamil civilians in 2009, until police intervened and moved them on. Earlier in the day a small group of Tamil activists setting up for the protest were spat and sworn at by other Sinhala spectators. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan parliamentarian Sanath Jayasuriya, recalled to his country’s team at the behest of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was dismissed for two runs off four balls, as England won the match.
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European Conservative bloc calls for maximum autonomy for Tamil areas, justice for war crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 03:36 GMT]
A center-right bloc of Conservative parliamentarians in the European Parliament Tuesday expressed support for “a just and peaceful solution for the Tamil community of Sri Lanka” and for “a negotiated political solution which can achieve maximum autonomy and regional devolution to Tamil majority areas within a single Sri Lankan state”, as well as “justice for all alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the conflict.” In a statement, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group and British Conservative MEPs said whilst they support the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, they also support the “peaceful and democratic pursuit of all political goals.”
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US wants ‘quick demonstration’ of Sri Lanka’s willingness to investigate mass killings

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 02:11 GMT]
The United States on Tuesday again called for “a full, credible, and independent investigation” into accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and accountability for such violations, and urged Sri Lanka to “quickly demonstrate that it is able and willing to meet these obligations,” warning that otherwise “international accountability mechanisms can become appropriate.” The position was articulated by the US State Department’s spokesperson.
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