NPC Councillor initiates action to assist Muslim political prisoner’s family

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 October 2016, 16:29 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council member Ms Ananthy Sasitharan has come forward to facilitate assistance to Ms Segu Mohaideen Noorjan, a mother of three and the wife of a Muslim political prisoner after the latter made an open plea for assistance to fight for the release of her husband and to help her cover the expenses for the education of her children. “There should be a collective political decision on the part of the Sri Lankan State and its leaders to release all the political prisoners. I have therefore chosen to facilitate initial assistance for Ms Noorjahan’s family to sustain its livelihood,” Ms Ananthy Sasitharan told TamilNet on Sunday adding that she had promised to facilitate assistance to enable Ms Noorjan to do farming on her own.
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SL military gets emboldened by greeting UN officials, joint military exercises in North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 October 2016, 21:44 GMT]
The ‘headquarters’ of genocidal military in Jaffna was one of the first places to be visited by UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Rita Izsák-Ndiaye this week. “It has almost become a routine for visiting foreign diplomats to greet the SL military commanders before they meet the people in the North-East. In the meantime, foreign militaries stage joint exercises with SL military in our homeland. They even conduct medical services intended for the civilians jointly with the SL military. The SL military Establishment perceives such international ‘engagements’ as recognising its past conduct. Emboldened by the appeasement, the military is openly denouncing the calls for de-militarisation and the demands for reduction of military deployment in the North-East,” said Tamil civil activist in Jaffna, Vijaratnam Kesavan, in a video interview to TamilNet.
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UN ‘peace-builders’ threaten resettled Tamils during UN Special Rapporteur's visit to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 October 2016, 23:07 GMT]
A group of Sinhalese and Tamil officials of the so-called ‘Peacebuilding Fund’ (PBF) attached to the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) went to the extent of threatening ‘resettled’ Tamil families, who have been dumped at Vaazhalaay, a locality of limestone outcrops and marsh along the Tho'ndaimaa-aa'rau lagoon, when the PBF group wanted to document the so-called resettlement that has been carried out by the occupying SL military and ‘Seva Lanka’, a Sinhalese-led outfit. The families were instructed not to complain anything in video recordings, but only to praise that the SL military had helped them, the people told TamilNet after the episode on Wednesday. The PBF visit has taken place in connection with the fact-finding trip by UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, who was also visiting Jaffna this week.
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Austin Fernando schemes Muslim ploy for Sinhala colonisation in Tamil division

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 October 2016, 18:24 GMT]
Colombo’s Governor of Eastern Province, Mr Austin Fernando, is once again scheming a plan to bring in Sinhala colonizers into the Tamil division of Koara’laip-pattu South (Vaakarai), informed sources at Batticaloa District Secretariat told TamilNet on Tuesday. Mr Fernando, a former defence secretary and an advisor to SL President on ‘reconciliation’, has now joined hands with the SL State Minister of ‘Rehabilitation and Resettlement’ Mr M.L.A.M Hizbullah after the latter’s plan to settle Muslim families at Kaarai-munai in Vaakarai division was turned down by Ms S. Rahulanayaki, the divisional secretary of Vaakarai, the sources further said. Kaarai-munai is situated 42 km north of Batticaloa city. Vaakarai, a traditional Tamil division, faced a genocidal onslaught in 2007.
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Sirisena regime will not deliver acceptable solution without international intervention: ITAK MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2016, 21:53 GMT]
In a revealing interview to TamilNet, S. Yogeswaran, a TNA parliamentarian representing ITAK in Batticaloa district categorically stated that the regime of Sirisena and Wickramasinghe, which was brought to power with the votes of Tamils, is not going to deliver a reasonable political solution satisfying the expectation of Tamils on its own without international intervention. “I don't speak for others. My conviction is that the Government will not deliver an acceptable solution for Tamils on its own,” he said. “There are a lot of steps to be taken,” and none of these have been achieved so far, he added. Austin Fernando, the governor of the East, installed after Sirisena became the president, was preoccupied with tracing every avenue to Sinhalicise the Batticaloa district. It has now been revealed that SL President Sirisena's Mahaweli ministry is behind the Sinhala colonisation, he said.
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Landless Tamils in Maanthai West should be given new lands: senior grassroots activist

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2016, 16:25 GMT]
Various acts enacted by the colonial British rulers before 1948 had brought the public lands in the entire island into the domain of the Colombo-based State structure and its constitution, which was enacted without the democratic mandate of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the North-East. It was the so-called ‘Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance’ that brought these lands, for which private ownership could not be documented, into Crown property in 1840. Later, in 1972, after the Sinhalese unilaterally enacted the genocidal State of ‘Sri Lanka’, amidst protests and without the democratic mandate of Eezham Tamils, a series of ‘land reforms’ were introduced by Colombo. Even these reforms brought after 1972 are now being violated by the SL State itself in seizing the lands of Tamils, says Seemanpillai Sountharanayakam, the deputy chairman of Maanthai West Divisional Council.
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Uprooted Tamils yet to resettle in Ampaa'rai village risk losing their lands

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 October 2016, 19:23 GMT]
The Divisional Secretary of Poththuvil, Mr N.M.Musharaf, has been harassing the Tamil families who were uprooted from Vadduve'li (P/11) GS division to forget resettlement in Ki'raval-kuzhi village as their lands are to be seized for ‘public purposes’, informed civil sources in Ampaa'rai told TamilNet on Wednesday. 173 Tamil families were uprooted from their native village in 1990 and they were reluctant to resettle due to persistent threat from the occupying military and police, especially after the massacre that took place in 1994 in close proximity to the SL Police station. The Divisional Secretary has now dashed the hopes of uprooted Tamils who have been waiting for a conducive situation to return to their lands.
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Colombo stands further exposed by contradictory messages from SL President, Foreign Minister

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2016, 23:20 GMT]
The continued seizure of pasturelands in Koa'ra'lippattu South (Kiraan) division in Batticaloa, where dairy farmers with more than 150,000 are forced to take to the streets. The land grab is a wide-scale issue across North-East, causing increased ethnic tension. Social problems are on increase as many families in the district have fallen victims to the vicious circle of bank loans and debts after 2009. In the meantime Colombo government’s poverty alleviation ‘Samurdhi’ programme stocks savings of people amounting to 2,500 millions of rupees at the banks without being utilized. And the war-affected people are being told that their perpetrators will not be subjected to criminal investigations even if they were to be identified. SL President and SL Foreign Minister speak differently. Justice is far from the island, says S. Sivayoganathan, the president of NGO Forum in the district.
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Sinhala colonisers in Batticaloa challenge officials with Sirisena-issued land permits

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 October 2016, 23:01 GMT]
A group of government officials belonging to various departments including the officials from Mahaweli ‘development’ authority, which comes under the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, were confronted by the Sinhala settlers, who claimed the lands were given to them by none other than Mr Maithiripala Sirisena, when he was serving under Mahinda Rajapakasa a few years ago. The officials were on a fact-finding mission to Mayilaththa-madu and Maathava'nai pasturelands, situated in the interior Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division in Batticaloa district. The visit took place on 25 September after repeated complaints coming from Tamil dairy farmers in the division. However, there was no sign of action from the authorities, the farmers told TamilNet on Sunday.
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Criticism emerges in Jaffna over USA training SL military, IC soft-pedalling Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2016, 23:18 GMT]
In spite of all the accusations against the Sri Lankan government of war-crimes and other atrocities committed during the war, USA and other governments continue to have naval and military exercises with the Sri Lankan forces, as they also had these trainings with the SL military during the regime of the Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Rev Fr S.V.B. Mangalarajah, the chairman of the Commission for Justice & Peace of the Catholic Diocese in Jaffna in a follow-up video interview to TamilNet after the Ezhuka Thamizh uprising held in Jaffna. The implied message coming from the veteran human rights activist based in Jaffna was that the international community and its approach towards the national question of Tamils in the island was lopsided and unless that problem is seriously addressed by Tamils, the SL Government and the South would not deliver anything substantial for Tamils.
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Ezhuka Thamizh has sent sharp message to all corners: Fr Ravichandran

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2016, 18:36 GMT]
The main message coming from the ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ uprising, especially from the people, who participated in their thousands, was that Tamils on the ground were not prepared to compromise their collective demand for self-rule in a merged North-East, said Jaffna-based human rights and civil activist Rev. Fr. M.V.E. Ravichandran in a video interview to TamilNet on Monday. Tamils reject the unitary system and the message has now been conveyed clearly to all the corners, he said. “Tamils want to live as a People and they don't want their cultural and national identity erased in any way. They are opposed to structural genocide,” the director of Jaffna Diocesan Catholic Youth Federation further said. Tamils should be given the right to appoint international judges to ensure the credibility of any model of investigations with international participation, he said.
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Tamil POWs denounce Colombo's latest announcement, continue fast

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 September 2016, 23:35 GMT]
Tamil Prisoners of War waging a continuous hunger strike at Anuradhapura prison told TamilNet on Friday that the latest announcement of Colombo's Ministry of Prison Reforms of sending 23 of the detained Tamil prisoners under the notorious ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ to the so-called ‘military rehabilitation’ before their release was a deceptive move. Most of those in the announced list were mentioned together with one case per person. But, most of the detainees were facing three to four cases in different courts and relieving them of one case with the outcome of ‘military rehabilitation’ will not deliver freedom to them from the other cases, they said. In addition, the announcement also contained names of those already released and subjected to military rehabilitation, which exposed the level of ignorance on the part of Colombo in addressing their PTA cases, the Tamil prisoners said.
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‘Reconciliation prospects’ look as grim as ever: Rev Fr Mangalarajah

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2016, 22:55 GMT]
Colombo government is keeping the people in the North and East under heavily militarised conditions and is not even prepared to let the people remember their war-dead freely, which is essential for any meaningful reconciliation, said Rev. Fr. S.V.B. Mangalarajah, the president of the Justice & Peace Commission in Jaffna, in a video interview to TamilNet on Tuesday. Now, People on the ground have realised that Colombo is not even prepared to involve foreign experts in the local investigations. The people are also dissatisfied with the Tamil leaders who are collaborating with the government and asking the people to have patience, he said. “The United Nations should realise that the SL Government is well-known for extending promises just to backtrack on them later.”
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Tamil POWs relaunch hunger-strike, urge cases to be heard at Jaffna, Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2016, 23:02 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners languishing in the prisons of genocidal Colombo have decided to launch a continuous hunger-strike campaign starting from Wednesday. The Tamil prisoners are demanding immediate action from the Colombo government and its international ‘partners’ on their release. “At least transfer our cases to the High Courts in Vavuniyaa and Jaffna from the clutches of Anuradhapura Special Courts,” a spokesperson of the political prisoners jailed in Anuradhapura prison said while talking to TamilNet over the phone and reading a statement on behalf of the detained prisoners. 
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Sinhala colonists advance 3 km further into Batticaloa, erect 2nd Buddhist temple in 1 year

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2016, 23:42 GMT]
Sinhala colonists from Polonna'ruwa, the home district of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, have advanced 3 km further into the pasturelands in Koara'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils within the last 12 months, Tamil cattle farmers from Chiththaa'ndi told TamilNet on Wednesday. A second Buddhist temple is being hurriedly put up by the Sinhala colonists at Maathava'nai , the Tamil cattle herders said. A Sinhala squad, led by a Buddhist monk, assaulted the Tamil farmers who went close to the Buddhist temple searching for missing cattle a few days ago. The Sinhala monk seized their mobile phone SIM cards. The cattle herders said the second Buddhist temple is located 3 km east of the Buddhist temple constructed almost a year ago. The area was part of the de-facto Tamil State defended by the Tamil Tigers until 2007.
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Sirisena's Forest Department escalates appropriations of lands from Tamils in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 September 2016, 17:19 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Forest Department, deploying Sinhala civil servants from South as the officers in charge of the forest affairs in Vanni, has been increasingly harassing the resettled Eezham Tamils in Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi districts under the rule of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, Tamil civil sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet on Tuesday. Eezham Tamils who have been engaged in agriculture before the times of war and during the times of war and have commenced agriculture in their deed-lands have been instructed by the SL Forest Department officers not to enter their agricultural lands at Thuvaarang-ku'lam and Mooppan-ku'lam in Maanthai East. The Divisional Secretary, when contacted by TamilNet, also confirmed the take-over of lands that were even verified by the Divisional Secretary as agricultural lands belonging to people from Chiraaddik-ku'lam.
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Colombo adopts further delaying tactics on Tamil POWs cases

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 September 2016, 17:50 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Attorney General’s Department in Colombo has instructed the courts functioning in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in the North and East of the island to send lawsuit related files on the cases filed under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to its office in Colombo in an attempt to further delay judgements coming from Tamil-speaking judges, informed legal sources in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet this week.
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Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry spearheads massive-scale Sinhala colonisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 September 2016, 23:54 GMT]
Under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime, it was Colombo's SL Forest Department, engineering the demographic genocide of big-scale land grab of pasturelands and converting the pasturelands in Batticaloa into Sinhala colonies. But now, SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s so-called Mahaweli ‘Development’ Ministry is spearheading the structural genocide against Eezham Tamil dairy farmers by stepping up the Sinhala colonisation in 2016 with more than 1,000 hectares of forest and pasture lands, deploying retired Sinhala military men, armed ‘home guards’ paramilitary, Sinhalese traders from the South, Buddhist monks and poor Sinhala daily-wage labourers, says the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, Mr Nimalan Kanthasamy, who was interviewed by TamilNet this week.
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Maithiripala Sirisena acts like D.S. Senanayake in colonizing Tamil lands in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2016, 21:43 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena’s Forest Department has seized 600 hectares of residential lands in the only remaining Tamil division Thirukkoayil in Ampaa’rai district, Tamil civil officials from the Divisional Secretariat told TamilNet. Comparing the occupation scheme and the current structural genocide in Ampaa’rai to the 1957 so-called Gal Oya Colonisation Scheme, the Tamil officials said Colombo’s Forest Department officials have planted border stones surrounding residential lands of uprooted Eezham Tamils from Chaakamam, Thangka-vea’laayutha-puram and Kagnchi-kuddichchaa’ru GS divisions after the 2007-2009 genocidal onslaught. Although 700 Tamil families were fighting to resettle in their lands, their pleas went unheeded, the civil officials said. The occupying military and the Colombo-controlled administration have been blocking the people from resetting in their own lands after the war.
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Jaffna GA's letters cause anger among uprooted Tamils from Valikaamam North

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 August 2016, 23:31 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Defence Ministry has instructed the SL Government Agent in Jaffna, Mr N. Vethanayagan to issue three different letters to the uprooted families in Valikaamam North, who are staying in the so-called welfare camps in Jaffna. A section of the people have been asked to prepare to move out of their camps and to accept alternative housing-scheme [being built by the occupying military]. Around 70 of the families staying at Sabapathipillai camp in Chunnaakam have received a second-type of letter that states that in the event their lands were to be permanently seized for military use, they would be compensated with ‘suitable’ and ‘lucrative’ alternatives. A third one asks the remaining to stay calm and wait for resettlement until the end of 2017. The letters have caused confusion and anger among the uprooted people who have been staying in the camps for more than 25 years.
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