Sri Lankan ire on Independence Day in London

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 February 2011, 05:03 GMT]
When a group of Tamil expatriates began protesting outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in London on Friday Feb 4 (Sri Lanka’s Independence Day), officials inside made a false call to the police claiming the building was under attack, British police sources said Monday. A police squad rushed to the site, but found peaceful demonstrators chanting slogans and carrying placards and Tamil Eelam flags. Embassy officials later remonstrated on the street with police as well as shouting abuse at the protestors and taking photographs of them, protest leaders said.
Full story >>

Resist to the end: US envoy tells Egyptian dictator

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 19:07 GMT]
‘Resist to the end,’ advised Obama-Clinton administration’s envoy to the Egyptian dictator Mubarak who is currently facing democracy uprising from the people of Egypt. "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy,” said Frank Wisner, a retired diplomat of the US State Department, now sent as an envoy by Obama to meet Mubarak, reports Robert Fisk writing in The Independent, Monday. In February 2009, when Eezham Tamils and their fighters were surrounded by the genocidal military of Sri Lanka, another former US State Department official Bennett Ramberg wanted the war to be ‘finished to the end.’ “Ethnic civil wars end more durably when there is a decisive military victory,” he said. Yet another former US diplomat Armitage recently went to Colombo reportedly to bail out Rajapaksa.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu fishermen, country boat, attacked by Sri Lanka Navy

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 17:35 GMT]
Three Tamil Nadu fishermen from Rameswaram were pushed into mid sea and their country boat was ransacked, on Sunday midnight, allegedly by Sri Lanka Navy, reported PTI, Monday. According to TN officials, the attack took place while ten country boats had anchored and were fishing inside the Indian waters. Country boats with limited capacity couldn’t have gone that far into the maritime boundary, said TN officials.
Full story >>

Colombo plans selling Tamil land in the East

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 14:52 GMT]
500 acres of prime land at Kuchchave’li in the Trincomalee district of the Eastern Province are to be sold for 90 million US dollars (10 billion Sri Lankan rupees) by the tourism authority of the occupying Sri Lanka to 5-Star hotel entrepreneurs, according to media reports from Colombo. The one-off payment is for 99 years lease, at the rate of 20 million rupees per acre land, lankabusinessonline.com said Monday.
Full story >>

Flood challenges ‘development’ theories applied to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2011, 08:42 GMT]
The helpless situation caused by floods in the country of Eezham Tamils challenges the ‘development’ theories of the West and India in approaching the post-war national question in the island of Sri Lanka with ‘development sans political solution.’ Neither the ‘corporate philanthropy’ nor the international infrastructure pouring money for ‘stability’ of Colombo could help the repeatedly affected people to face even natural disasters and manage their rehabilitation. When the genocidal State and its occupying military are busy in scheming subjugation and demographic changes, the flood exposes the bankruptcy of the ‘development imperialists’ who neither recognize national political organisation of Eezham Tamils nor arrange independent space for diaspora help, nor intervene directly, but leaves everything in the hands of genocidal Colombo, commented an academic of the Eastern University.
Full story >>

Litigation threat forces Bush to cancel Swiss trip

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 16:41 GMT]
US's former President George Bush cancelled his intended visit to Switzerland to talk in Geneva, after Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York based non-profit group and other human rights organizations threatened to bring a complaint in Switzerland under the Convention Against Torture for sanctioning torture of terrorism suspects. Rights activists were also organizing a rally outside the Hotel Wilson, where the speech was scheduled to take place, Washington Post said.
Full story >>

‘Nazi-style registration of civilians in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 12:08 GMT]
The occupying SL military in Jaffna is directly engaged in registration of individuals and families in the Jaffna peninsula in recent times. Everyday, covering area by area, the SL military is distributing forms to collect information and is insisting of family photographs along with children to be given to them. The activity of the SL military, reminding the Nazi practice before the Holocaust, creates terror in the minds of the people in Jaffna, said a human rights activist in Jaffna. Meanwhile, undeclared curfew is imposed in Jaffna by the SL military and police, who have brought the street movement of people almost to an end after 6:00 p.m. by harassing them through numerous checkpoints after dusk.
Full story >>

Flood displaces 100,000 in Vanni, 25,000 in camps

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 08:25 GMT]
At least 100,000 Tamil civilians of around twenty five thousand families have been affected by the flood in the two districts of Vavuniyaa and Mullaiththeevu in Vanni. Sand bunds erected by the Sri Lanka Army are obstructing the flow of water reaching the sea. Hence the villages are flooded. The uprooted families are still not allowed to resettle between Mullaiththeevu and Puthukkudiyiruppu. In the meantime, informed sources said the occupying military was promoting the idea of opening transport services via Anuradhapura-Ma’nalaa’ru road, making inroad for Sinhala colonization.
Full story >>

Thalaiyaa'li-veddai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 16:35 GMT]
The open land of the deity Vairavar holding a head on his hand
Full story >>

Hague's WikiLeaks admission spells legal danger to Sri Lanka war-criminals

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 12:11 GMT]
The Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal in The Hague has granted Charles G. Taylor, 62, the former Liberian president, who has been on trial charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the right to use two leaked American diplomatic cables as evidence to challenge the court’s impartiality. While the leaked information in the Taylor case was used by Taylor's lawyer to raise doubts on the courts independence and suggested the prosecution was political, Sri Lanka's leaked cables from the US Embassy contain incriminating information on the complicity of Rajapakse family, Ex-SLA Commander Sarath Fonseka, and Tamil paramilitaries in war-crimes and crimes against humanity on Tamil civilians, legal sources in Washington said.
Full story >>

'Wish and reality of Sri Lanka's Independence'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2011, 03:08 GMT]
“I wish all Sri Lankans around the world a happy celebration and continued peace and prosperity in the coming year," said a statement harping on "post-war reconciliation" released from the office of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on the eve of the independence day of Sri Lanka on 4th February. But the imposed celebration was largely ignored inside the island and outside, the day drew protests across the world by Eezham Tamils. “Sri Lankan High Commission has invited the Sri Lankan community for a reception to celebrate their independence. We will assemble outside the embassy to condemn the Sri Lankans celebrating while denying the Tamils their right to independence,” the call for protest in London said. Demonstrations were held in London, Toronto and in Oslo. Addressing protesters in Oslo, Conservative Party (Høyre) leader Erna Solberg called for war-crimes investigations.
Full story >>

100,000 displaced, 7 die in second wave of floods, Ampaa'rai worst hit

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 February 2011, 09:01 GMT]
Seven persons have died and over 100,000 civilians are displaced due to second wave of heavy rains in the Eastern, North Central and Central provinces of the island according to District Disaster Management Centre Friday. Four persons have died in Ampaa'rai district alone. While tens of thousands were hit by the disaster, the participation of even Sinhalese was poor at Mahinda Rajapksa government's celebration of Sri Lanka's Independence Day at Vihara Mahadevi Poongaa in the bordering district of Tissmaharagama at Kathirkaamam, sources in Ampaa'rai told TamilNet. People who lost their properties, houses and belongings have been left in the lurch due to failure of the Colombo government to provide any relief to restart their day to day life.
Full story >>

Colombo ignores uprooted Tamils of Champoor in IDP camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 February 2011, 13:17 GMT]
Uprooted Tamil families from Champoor village in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district during military offensive launched by the Sri Lanka Army in April 2006 and sheltered in welfare centres at Ki'liveddi, Ma'natcheanai and Paddiththidal have not been supplied with dry ration relief for the last two months by government. On Thursday activists of the Canada-Moothoor Development Association distributed some relief to them that could enough for their one day need.
Full story >>

US State Department plays ‘ultimate saviour of genocidal Colombo’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 February 2011, 08:34 GMT]
Those who are guilty of war crimes naturally would try to blame others and would do everything to save their skins. If at all the LTTE was responsible of any war crimes, it is not there now. But the others responsible are roaming free. The US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake often calls for ‘some’ accountability. Some accountability comes only when some of those internationally responsible for the crimes bow down first taking responsibility, and desist from further contribution to genocide and denial of independence to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo, responding to Mr. Blake passing “large part of the responsibility” for the civilian casualty in the Vanni war on the LTTE. In a way Blake in his recent interview concedes that he and his government were a party to the war and thus a party to the war crimes, the writer points out.
Full story >>

TVPA: US's legal gift to victims of war-crimes, torture

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 February 2011, 03:47 GMT]
For new immigrants, America is the face of liberty, palladium of justice and the embodiment of the ideal of government under law, not under men. In this deliberative democracy, where the nation is perpetually arguing with its own conscience, debates spawn statutes that afford redress to victims who have suffered under despotic states around the world. The Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is one such statute enacted in 1992 that enables U.S. citizens and non-citizens, whose relatives have suffered torture or extra-judicial killings, to assert a civil claim for damages. The recent legal action in the US by three Tamil plaintiffs in the US Federal Court against Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse is based on the provisions in the TVPA.
Full story >>

SLFP sidelines SLMC, EPDP in Mannaar local elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 23:51 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the EPDP, constituents of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) have been completely rejected from the lists of candidates fielded in the local elections in the Mannaar district. The SLMC led by SL Minister Rauff Hakeem was forced to file separate nominations to contest the Piratheasa Chapais (PS) of Maanthai West, Musali and Mannaar, as SL minister Rishad Bathiudeen selected candidates from Mahinda Rajapaksa's SLFP, against the assurances the UPFA had given to SLMC and the EPDP, sources in Mannaar said.
Full story >>

Sinhala colonization threatens fishermen of Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 23:47 GMT]
The number of Sinhala fishermen from South, camping close to Sri Lanka Army and Sri Lanka Navy camps in the SL occupied Vadamaraadchi East and Mullaiththeevu, has doubled within a short period in the recent weeks, causing alarm among the fishermen associations of resettled Tamil fishermen. Commanders of the occupying Sri Lankan military have become brokers bringing in hundreds of fishermen from south and allowing them to operate from coastal areas where Tamil civilians are denied resettlement, complained representatives of fishermen societies in Vadamaraadchi East to media on Tuesday.
Full story >>

Minni-ni'raignchaan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 05:32 GMT]
The place abounding with Minni plant or creeper
Full story >>

TNA MP protests against ethnic subjugation of Eastern University

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 00:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently appointed a Sinhala officer with powers above the rank of Vice Chancellor in the Eastern University under the pretext of eliminating irregularities and corruption. “The real agenda of the move is subjecting the overwhelmingly Tamil-speaking Eastern University to the insinuations of Mahinda Chintana based ethnic subjugation,” blamed Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Batticaloa District C. Yogeswaran, talking to Tamil journalists.
Full story >>

Hasty Sinhala colonisation wedges north and east at Kokku’laay

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 January 2011, 12:40 GMT]
Within the last three weeks, 240 Sinhala families were hastily settled at Kokku’laay, a narrow strip of land, which is the only link of contiguity between the northern and eastern flanks of the country of Eezham Tamils in the island. This pivotal conspiracy of Colombo to demographically de-link the contiguity of the two Tamil provinces is being implemented by SL colonial governor in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and by SL ‘Rehabilitation’ minister Rishard Baddiudeen. Colombo lies that it is only ‘resettlement’ of Sinhalese, but except one or two families others are outsiders and the 43 original Tamil families resettled among Sinhalese now live in fear. The demographic wedging takes place at a time when New Delhi, advocating ‘home grown’ solution, is allegedly engaged in pressurizing Tamil politicians to commit to the de-link through their own mouth.
Full story >>