Tamil Eelam war heroes emotionally commemorated, people defy SL Court orders

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2018, 17:40 GMT]
The oppressed Eezham Tamils gathered in large numbers on Tuesday as never before in post-2009 remembrance day events to mark the public commemoration of Tamil Eelam great heroes (Maaveerar) at more than thirty heroes’ cemeteries which the occupying SL military had razed to the ground in the eight districts of the North-East. The people also defied the verbal court order in Jaffna, and the written court order in Batticaloa, which prohibited playing LTTE produced songs. Eezham Tamils went ahead with playing the main maaveerar-song, which vows to stay the course of the liberation of Tamil state.
Full story >>

Sinhala ethnocracy's entrenched insecurity, ultimate spoiler of stability: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2018, 21:07 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples' Front, was the first Tamil politician to warn – well in advance – that the powers collaborating with the SL State were risking instability in the island. The former Tamil parliamentarian came with the observation, which he has been implying for a long time, also in an interview to TamilNet in September 2018, two weeks ahead of Lt. Col. Thileepan's remembrance in Jaffna. The current political instability, predicted by Gajendrakumar in September, happened within 45 days, sending shockwaves across the international community. In a follow-up interview, just ahead of Maaveerar Remembrance in Jaffna, he indicates that any strategic collaboration between the external powers and the SL State, which is Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy in nature, would be doomed to falter, because of its entrenched attitude of insecurity.
Full story >>

Tamils across Palk Strait should initiate maritime policy for non-state actors in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2018, 20:56 GMT]
The USA, approaching the island through its regional brother India, talks about “rules-based international order” while China's propaganda projects its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a “symphony performed by all relevant countries.” Genocide-affected Eezham Tamils and Tamils in Tamil Nadu facing various oppressions should convey to both the USA and China in clear terms which ‘rules’ they have to respect concerning the Tamil people and how to keep their ‘repertoire’ respecting the civilisational people not having a state of their own in the region, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. Observing the ‘naval diplomacy’ of genocidal Sri Lanka hanging in a dangerous balance with all the three geopolitical actors, they urged Tamils to grasp the big picture.
Full story >>

Colombo awaits UN approval to seize 25-fold larger extent of sea than its landmass

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 November 2018, 14:52 GMT]
While waging the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009, the SL State filed a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), on 08 May 2009, seeking to extend the outer limits of the continental shelf, reportedly by 1,000 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of its territorial sea. The SL State is claiming the marine area to the effect of twenty-five times of its land area, covering a vast expanse of the south of the Bay of Bengal. The SL State submitted the report with the assistance (grant and credit) from Norway's Development Agency, the NORAD. Several other western countries also backed the move while the SL State was committing a genocide and the LTTE vessels were being systematically destroyed in the high seas with the intelligence information coming from the USA.
Full story >>

India's RAW behind ‘Tiger identity erasure’ campaign

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2018, 21:15 GMT]
The foreign intelligence agency of India, known as the Research and Analysis Wing’ (RAW), has advised its counterpart in the island to transform Tamil Eelam Maaveerar Naa'l (Heroes Day) as well as all other remembrance days of the LTTE members and cadres into remembrance days bereft of identity, politics and valour. The only way to do this is getting rid of terminology associated with the LTTE, Tamil nationhood, the concept of Tamil valour. Usage of the terms ‘maaveerar’ and ‘Eelam’ should also be avoided, the RAW has advised, according to informed paramilitary sources in the island.
Full story >>

Tamils determined to mark Heroes Day braving institutionally genocidal SL apparatus

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 November 2018, 21:51 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in their occupied homeland started the Tamil Eelam Heroes week by preparing for the marking of November 27 Great Heroes Day (Maaveerar Naa'l) at the genocidally annihilated heroes cemeteries at 33 different locations in the North and East. The occupying unitary state – regardless of the political turmoil prevailing in the South — is bent on using its institutionally anti-Tamil legal system to block Tamils from using Maaveerar-associated symbolism during the remembrance. The people on the ground are determined to mark the day with due respect for tens of thousands of Tamil men and women, who sacrificed their lives for the restoration of Tamil sovereignty through an armed struggle, which was the last resort to protect their nation from ultimate annihilation.
Full story >>

South Asian journalists introduced to US agency-concept in making to fight China's BRI

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2018, 20:20 GMT]
One of the eight journalists, who took part in a recent US-orchestrated ‘reporting tour’ posed a question on the Rohingya issue in Myanmar to Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, deputy director for operations of US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) at Hawaii's Honolulu. Declining to comment, Anderson said it was a State Department and national leadership issue. “We are not against the fact that China wants to have a global presence and wants to be involved globally, so long as they don't want to subvert or change a system that has been working very well for the last several decades,” he told Rezaul Karim, the Bangladeshi journalist. The US commander was looking forward to military-to-military engagement with Bangladesh. During their trip, the journalists were introduced to the concept of the new finance agency, the USIDFC, which is being conceived to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Full story >>

US-China trade war escalates, APEC summit ends without joint communique

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 November 2018, 07:29 GMT]
“The United States will not change course until China changes its ways,” said US Vice President Mike Pence, who was continuing the hardline rhetoric against China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) capital of Port Moresby on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping in his address asked: “Which direction should we choose? Cooperation or confrontation? Openness or closing one's door? Win-win progress or a zero-sum game?” The meeting ended without the parties agreeing on a joint statement.
Full story >>

Sinhala colony of Weli-oya extended by 47 sq km in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 November 2018, 13:03 GMT]
Occupying Colombo has silently absorbed lands from the adjoining districts of Vavuniyaa and Trincomalee to expand the recently Sinhalicised Weli-oya (Ma'nal-aa'ru in Tamil) division. A year ago, the figure of land was at 117.1 sq km. Now, the officials at Mullaith-theevu District Secretariat confirm that the land use of the ‘Sinhala Only’ division as 164.2 sq km. The additional 47 km sq is around 11,639 acres in extent. The division that was carved out for the exclusive purpose of Sinhalicisation to wedge the North from the East is getting bigger and bigger, they said.
Full story >>

Genocidal Sri Lanka's maritime and naval greed expose attitudes of powers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 November 2018, 11:29 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the incumbent SL President and Ranil Wickramasinghe, the now disputed SL Prime Minister, increased military-to-military maritime training with the USA, India and Japan between 2015 and 2017 while seeking to exploit the China-tilt ‘achievements’ of the Rajapaksa government. The SL Navy was receiving naval vessels as gifts from all the powers after the 2015 regime change. However, the SL State wanted more and more, believing that the geopolitical paradigm experimented through the genocide on Eezham Tamils would bring it fortunes. The naval ambitions went to the extent of wanting 25 powerful naval vessels from different actors to create a powerful naval fleet. At the same time, SL State's maritime economic ambitions were aimed at making Colombo the financial hub in the Indian Ocean.
Full story >>

SL Governor shuts down Heritage Centre, escalates militarisation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 November 2018, 14:19 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's colonial Governor of the Northern Province, Reginald Cooray, has shut down the Heritage Centre in Jaffna, which was launched by the elected Northern Provincial Council under former Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and NPC Minister of Education Dr K. Sarveswaran. The SL Governor has removed the heritage artefacts and pulled off the plaque on the wall. Only the board on the premises remains. In the meantime, Cooray has deployed the SL military to launch a garden (park) at the mass grave site of Chemma'ni. Mr Cooray has also convened meetings bringing SL military commanders in Jaffna and Jaffna and E. Arnold, the mayor of the elected Jaffna Municipal Council and instructed the Tamil civil servants in Jaffna to ‘liaise’ with the occupying Sinhala military, civil sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

US House Democrats, blind on genocide, express escapist concerns on SL 'reforms'

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 November 2018, 11:07 GMT]
Dina Titus, the co-chair of the Sri Lanka Caucus in the US House of Representatives, has stated along with fellow Democrat Representatives, David Price and Eliot L. Engel on Friday, urging the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena to uphold the commitment of his government to democratic governance and reopen the SL Parliament. In a letter to Mr Sirisena, the US Democratic members expressed deep concern that the suspension of Sri Lanka’s Parliament circumvents the country’s constitution and democratic process.
Full story >>

Germany promotes trade with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 November 2018, 12:25 GMT]
The Federal Republic of Germany, which is the 4th largest economy in the world and the biggest economy within the European Union, has been accelerating trade moves to create business opportunities for ‘Sri Lankan’ and German companies between March and October 2018. Germany is also home to a large number of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils. Tamil grassroots activists in Jaffna have urged increased awareness among the Tamil diaspora at the wake of a call to conceive a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against genocidal Sri Lanka as the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena installed Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister. In the meantime, a report by the leading German media house Deutsche Welle said: “German companies have so far invested around one billion dollars in Sri Lanka. Compared to China’s investment since 2005, that figure is modest.”
Full story >>

Obama,Clinton, Power accountable for protracted genocide haunting Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2018, 21:24 GMT]
From Hillary Clinton to Samantha Power, the principal actors of Barak Obama's administration knowingly abetted the Sri Lankan State, which was committing genocide and paved the way for the post-2009 paradigm of structural genocide by swapping international investigations with incompatible transitional justice for the sake of their geopolitical access. Particularly after 2015, the Obama administration promoted the cosmetic changes to the unitary constitution of genocidal Sri Lanka and wanted Tamils to adopt collaboration politics with Sinhala rulers, which is interpreted as Quisling Politics by the grassroots of Eezham Tamils. Samantha Power, who was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (August 2013 – January 2017), is now escaping with soft Tweets while Clinton is silent.
Full story >>

Sirisena dissolves SL parliament as Rajapaksa fails on numbers game

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 November 2018, 23:06 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the executive president of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, dissolved the SL Parliament on Friday. Mr Sirisena was citing a mixture of constitutional clauses to justify his decision. The move comes as the newly appointed SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa reportedly failed to secure the majority needed to justify his appointment. There were widespread allegations that the Rajapaksa brothers were investing ‘Chinese money’ to buy over the parliamentarians. However, such buy-overs have not taken place to the alleged extent. Tamil political observers, not aligned to any of the geopolitical camps, believe that both the USA and China, who are the leading global actors as well as India which has emerged as the main ally of the Trump administration in the Indian Ocean Region, seem to be at a wait-and-see mode at the moment.
Full story >>

Military coercion takes upper-hand in Indo-Pacific, soft power era is over

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 November 2018, 23:36 GMT]
“I think in 15 years — it’s not inevitable — but it is a very strong likelihood that we will be at war with China,” said United States Army Europe (USAREUR) former Commander Lt. General Ben Hodges while addressing Warsaw Security Forum on 24 October in Poland. Hodges was making a point to his European partners that the USA would not be able to deter both Russia and China at the same time at the event of a global confrontation in the future. In his drive to convince the US allies in Europe to take a larger share in their preparedness to deter Russia, the former US Commander was implying that the priorities have changed and the military assets of the USA were going to be concentrated in the Indo-Pacific in the long run. The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is deeply caught up in the geopolitical disputes, on which it has sustained its anti-Tamil political space so far.
Full story >>

SL Police blocks memorial monument for 1984 massacre victims in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2018, 11:04 GMT]
The police of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, stationed at Oddu-chuddaan has blocked the resettled Tamil families of Othiya-malai village from proceeding with erecting a memorial monument for civilians who were massacred by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. Only 50 of 110 families living in the village in 1984 managed to resettle after 27 years in 2012. Since then, they use to mark the massacred victims at the Rural Development Society building, where the massacre took place. This year, the families resolved to put up a small memorial monument in remembrance of their loved ones. However, the SL Police has warned the families against erecting the memorial.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa pondering of revising Wickramasinghe's 99-year port-lease to China

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2018, 22:22 GMT]
Mahinda Rajapaksa has spoken to Chinese officials about ‘revising the terms’ of the Hambantota port lease, a report by the Associated Press said on Monday. The AP was citing Kehaliya Rambukwella, the spokesman of Rajapaksa-led SL government in Colombo. Mr Rajapkasa lost his executive presidency in January 2015, three months after a Chinese warship and a submarine docked Colombo in October 2014. Now, Wickramasinghe has learnt the same lesson after the infamous 99-year port lease to China, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna.
Full story >>

SL military defies court order, erects Buddha statue in Mullaith-theevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 November 2018, 09:28 GMT]
Emboldened by the recent re-emergence of Rajapaksa brothers in the South, the occupying Sinhala Army has erected a Buddha statue at Neeraavi-eattam (Neeraaviyadi) on Friday. The SLA 593 Brigade was openly violating a stay order on converting Pazhaiya-Chemmalai Pi'l'liaayar temple into a Buddhist vihara, Karai-thu'raip-pattu Divisional Secretariat officials told TamilNet on Monday. The SL Army soldiers were having a Buddha statue covered in a glass box inside their camp. On Friday, they moved it to the disputed Neeraaviyadi temple, the sources said. Both the UNP regime, which was controlling the SL Archaeology Department until recently, SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and Mahinda Rajapaksa's SLPP have been competing to Sinhalicise Neeraaviyadi, the Tamil officials said.
Full story >>

Restoration of Tamil Heroes Cemeteries should start from Trincomalee: Maaveerar families

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 October 2018, 10:32 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military, which was being trained by the United States Indo-Pacific Command at Trincomalee, desecrated the Tamil Heroes Cemetery at Aalang-ku'lam in Champoor, Trincomalee last year. It is preparing to do the same also this year, the families of war dead Tamil fighters said. “How could the militaries, which claim as belonging to civilised world order, collaborate with the Sinhala military, which razed our Heroes cemeteries to the ground and continues to desecrate the Thuyilum Illams,” asked a Tamil father from Champoor in Trincomalee. The Tamil diaspora in the West should first get its host countries to respect the Tamil Heroes when they land in Trincomalee and set an example for reconciliation, the Tamil families in Champoor said.
Full story >>