Stop arms supply to Sri Lanka: CPI urges Indian government

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 March 2008, 14:36 GMT]
The Communist Party of India (CPI), a prominent ally of the ruling Congress party, has urged the Indian Government to "immediately stop supplying arms to Sri Lanka that was mindlessly killing Tamil people." A resolution to this effect was passed Wednesday in the party's four-day 20th National Congress at Hyderabad. According to reports in the Indian media, D. Pandian, State Secretary, Tamil Nadu moved this resolution which sought New Delhi to interfere in the war-torn island's ethnic problem towards finding a political solution.
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U.S. Rights report fortifies moral, legal entitlement of Tamil state- Fein

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 17:11 GMT]
Contrasting U.S. State Department’s institutional bias in favor of governments, and Bush administration’s willingness to overlook abuses by foreign governments in the name of fighting terrorism, with the recent U.S report on Human Rights in Sri Lanka, Bruce Fine, an attorney for a Tamil activist group in the U.S., in a statement released to the media Wednesday, asserts that, “[t]he fact that the United States would savage the human rights record of the GOSL [Government of Sri Lanka] means that its [Sri Lanka’s] actual terrorism record is far more gruesome than represented. The report thus fortifies the moral and legal entitlement of Tamils to a separate statehood.”
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Sri Lanka’s parliament Monk shuns Nonviolence- paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 14:25 GMT]
Athurliye Rathana, a celebrated monk and a Sri Lanka parliamentarian, “sounded more like an army general than a legislator or monk” when he said, "[w]e can sort this out on our own. We tried to discuss things, but the LTTE always wanted to fight. We must do our duty on the battle field," Washington Post said in an article that appeared in the Wednesday edition.
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No solution possible without LTTE – South Africa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 March 2008, 03:52 GMT]
Expressing deep concern over the escalating violence in Sri Lanka, South Africa this weekend called for renewed negotiations to end the protracted conflict and emphasized “no solution to this conflict can be found without the involvement of the two principal parties to the conflict – the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.” Speaking in London, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Communications Roy Padayachie assured that his country would render every assistance towards making peace but, in an implicit criticism of approaches by some other countries, said: “we will never ever impose our involvement in any part of the globe.”
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Civil protection committee deployed in searches

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 March 2008, 11:13 GMT]
Members of civil protection committees (CPC) assisted by Sri Lanka Police launched random searches in public and private sector buses plying in various routes in Colombo and suburbs from morning till afternoon on Sunday causing tremendous inconveniences mainly to passengers amid protests by commuters, both Sinhalese and Tamil. The bus routes selected for search operation were mainly used by Tamils, media sources said.
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15 Tamil civilians arrested at Wattegama

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 March 2008, 14:57 GMT]
15 Tamil civilians including five women were arrested at Wattegama in Kandy district during a cordon and search operation conducted Sunday morning. Houses, shops and vehicles were searched during a four hour operation that commenced around 9.30 am., media sources reported.
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Steps are on to retrieve Kachchatheevu: Congress MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 March 2008, 11:12 GMT]
A Congress leader in Tamil Nadu and Indian Upper House (Rajya Sabha) Member of Parliament, Sudarsana Natchiappan, has said that the Indian Government was taking steps to take back Kadchatheevu according to a report by Dinamani newspaper in Tamil Nadu Sunday. Mr. Natchiappan was participating in the 66th state executive committee meeting of the Human Rights Division of the Congress Party at Raameasvaram on Saturday.
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Stop military aid to Sri Lanka: Nedumaran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 March 2008, 01:51 GMT]
Tamil National Movement leader Pala Nedumaran, along with two hundred members of the Tamil Eelam Supporters Co-ordination Committee (TESCC) staged a demonstration Saturday to condemn the Indian Government's military aid to the genocidal Sri Lankan Government. Around 165 members of the TESCC, including its convenor Nedumaran, courted arrested near Memorial Hall, Chennai for agitating in defiance of prohibitory orders from the state police. They were subsequently released.
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Destroyed East villages, MP chronicles history

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 16:33 GMT]
"Population of Sinhalese in the East was a mere 0.53 percent in 1827 but due to systematic colonisation and subsequent establishment of military camps along the borders of traditional Tamil areas, Sinhala settlers encroached into more than 25 percent of land owned by Tamils," said Maavai Senathirajah, Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, addressing, as the chief guest, to a gathering in Colombo Saturday on the occasion of the release of a book "Destroyed Tamil villages," authored by fellow Member of Parliament (MP), S.Jeyananthamoorthy, literary sources in Colombo said. T. Kangasabai, Batticaloa district TNA parliamentarian presided the function.
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SLA accelerates colonization of east

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 15:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is involved in planned encroachment of lands belonging to Tamils in Koaraalaipattu North in Batticaloa district, and colonization of other Sri Lanka Government controlled areas by resettling Sinhala civilians, local residents of affected areas in Koaraalaipattu said.
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Military Officer in media position will affect war reporting, says CPJ

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 11:59 GMT]
Citing incidents of "ongoing intimidation of Sri Lanka media ... and the treatment of Tamil journalists under investigation by the Terrorist Investigation Division," and the appointment of retired Major General Sunil Silva, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media watch dog, in a letter sent to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse Friday said, "[u]nsupported terrorist accusations threaten the security and livelihood of Tamil journalists. A military leader in a state media group threatens the objectivity of journalists," and urged Rajapakse to vigorously investigate attacks and provide the journalists with due protection.
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Devotees flock to Naagathambiraan temple in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 00:31 GMT]
Annual March Pongkal festival at the historic Naagathambiraan Temple in Pu'liyampokka'nai near Kilinochchi was held Friday and continued throughout night to early hours Saturday morning, sources in Vanni said. Thousands from Vanni attended the event, but sources said, with travel ban through A9 from the north through Mukamaalai, and from the south via Oamanthai, the number of devotees attending the festival was significantly lower than the crowds of past years.
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South African Indians oppose Indian Arms to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2008, 00:09 GMT]
Carrying the red and yellow flag, an impressive number of South Africans of Indian Origin, demonstrated outside the Indian Consulate in Durban on Thursday, to register their collective opposition to the military oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan Government. They appealed to the Indian government to stop military assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka. While the Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission received the memorandum of the demonstrators and spoke to them, the Indian Consulate refused to accept it. Except a negligibly few Eezham Tamils, the vast majority of the demonstrators were people of Indian origin.
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Hurdling chauvinism: Rohan Rajasingham

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2008, 20:25 GMT]
Expatriate Tamils in London are, this weekend, holding a remembrance ceremony for Rohan Rajasingham, an accomplished sportsman who strove against institutionalized Sinhala majoritarianism to better the conditions for aspiring Tamil sportsmen and women in Sri Lanka. Rajasingham passed away on January 8, 2008 after a brief battle with cancer, aged 50.
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It needs a mandate to prod them to justice

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2008, 11:52 GMT]
"Anyone who wishes to see a peacefully united Sri Lanka has to begin from separation. Separation for unity is the appropriate paradigm today. The Sri Lankan situation has transcended the 1987 formula. It is time the Tamils in India have to take care of a policy shift in the Indian establishment. The suggestion is that the political parties of Tamil Nadu who aspire for power in the forthcoming elections have to boldly adapt a policy upholding a Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka in their election manifesto and get the mandate from the people. Only such a mandate can silence the antagonists and direct the foreign policy of India to serve the interests of Tamils, India as well as a peaceful Sri Lanka."
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India abetting Tamil genocide: Vaiko

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2008, 10:49 GMT]
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) General Secretary Vaiko Tuesday said that the present attitude of the Indian Government amounted to assistance in Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils. He sought the withdrawal of the radars supplied to Sri Lanka and an end to all forms of military assistance from India to the Sri Lankan government. Accusing the Indian Government of "betraying the Tamils," the veteran leader in his reply to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's letter, pointed out that no sovereign nation would tolerate the dangerous action of a neighbouring country planting mines in the bordering seas.
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Upcountry Tamil voter's registries to be published in Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 09:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Commissioner of Elections Tuesday informed the SL Supreme Court that he has taken steps to publish voters' registers of plantation areas also in Tamil. The State Counsel appearing on behalf of the Commissioner of Elections submitted the latter's response to the three member-bench of the Supreme Court when the Fundamental Rights violation filed by the Ceylon Workers United Front (CWUF) came up for further inquiry on Tuesday, legal sources said.
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Upcountry Tamil abducted in Moneragala

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 08:07 GMT]
Unknown armed persons arrived in a white colored van abducted a 26-year-old Upcountry Tamil, M. Tharmarajah, 26, Tuesday afternoon, increasing the number of Tamils abducted in Moneragala police division to five since February this year.
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Swiss Tamils condemn assassination of TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 March 2008, 22:28 GMT]
Tamils in Switzerland held a demonstration and public rally in Geneva on Monday in condemnation of the assassination of K. Sivanesan, Jaffna district Tamil National alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian, allegedly carried out by a Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army in Vanni on 06 March. The demonstrators called on the International Community to act against the systematic slaying of prominent Tamil leaders, including academics, journalists, civil society leaders by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the paramilitaries.
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Come clean: CPI leader to Indian Government

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 March 2008, 17:46 GMT]
The National General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), D. Raja, launched an no-holds-barred attack on the Central Government during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian Parliament) on Tuesday. He deplored the Indian Government for "not uttering a word against the deployment of sea-mines by the Sri Lankan Government" in the Palk Straits and for giving training to the Sri Lankan army in a "clandestine" manner.
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