Sinhala-Tamil student clash in Jaffna exposes dangerous proportions of military occupation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 July 2016, 23:15 GMT]
Ethnic tension has been escalating over a period of time at the University of Jaffna recently and it culminated into the violent clash on Saturday, says Srinadaraj Kalaraj, the deputy secretary of non-academic staff at the University. He was blaming the military intelligence having allegiance towards different sections of politicians in the South as the main culprit for creating the violent tendency. Instead of investigating individual students, a proper investigation should focus on finding out the real reasons behind this tendency, he said. In the meantime, Human Rights Activist Rev Fr M Sakthivel told TamilNet that the SL military has not only occupied the lands of Tamils, but also the Universities in the North and East. They were also citing the trend of ethnic motivated violence in the Eastern University and at Badulla in the recent past.
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‘SL President sanctioning 67-feet Buddha statue off Jaffna is act of aggression’

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2016, 18:01 GMT]
Latest photographs from Nayinaa-theevu islet off Jaffna reveal that the occupying Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka being deployed in the construction of controversial 67-feet Buddha statue disregarding the sentiments of the gagged Eezham Tamil population in the islet under military occupation. “Eezham Tamils have clearly articulated their objection to the controversial move. If the new regime, which has came to power using Tamils‘ votes, didn’t want to respect the sentiments of Eezham Tamils, and if the SL President has sanctioned this illegitimate project, he has just invoked an act of aggression, not only against the Eezham Tamils, but also against the 70-million Tamils of Tamil Nadu,” NPC Councillor Vinthan Kanagaratnam told TamilNet on Monday. The public in Jaffna will raise against this move, he said.
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Eastern University instructs assaulted Tamil student to attend investigations in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2016, 23:46 GMT]
The Welfare branch of the Eastern University has instructed a Tamil student from Batticaloa, L. Sumeskanth, who was brutally assaulted by Sinhalese students on 24 May 2016 to appear for disciplinary investigations in Colombo to be held next week, informed student union sources at the main campus of the Eastern University in Vanthaa'rum-moolai in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Sunday. Sumeskanth was given very short notice to prepare his witnesses to attend for Colombo-based investigations and he has registered his objection to the Welfare branch, student leaders said questioning the motive behind conducting investigations in Colombo. The Sinhala students had attacked Mr Sumeskanth for posting and sharing a photo on Facebook from Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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SL Commander of 58 Division twists lists at Mullaiththeevu Magistrates’ Court

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2016, 23:52 GMT]
Major General Kavinda Chanakya Gunawardena (K.C. Gunawardena) of the Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment (58 Division), which committed heinous genocidal crimes during the onslaught against Eezham Tamils had revealed to Mullaiththeevu Magistrates' Court on 17 February 2016 that there was a military document containing the names of all surrendered LTTE members in the final days of the Vanni war. He initially revealed the existence of the list thinking it was in defence of his argument that the names mentioned in a writ of habeas corpus case under hearing were not found in that list. But, on Thursday Gunawarena came up with two lists of LTTE members who have been subjected to military ‘rehabilitation’ and released.
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SL military deployed to rob material remains of houses in Valikaamam North ‘HSZ’ 

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 July 2016, 23:31 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army has been systematically deployed in recent days to dismantle and rob roof tiles, wooden window and door frames off of the remaining houses that are situated inside the areas, which the uprooted people have been demanding the SL authorities to release for their resettlement in Valilkaamam North in Jaffna district. Journalists in Jaffna have managed this week to photograph stolen material temporarily stored within the military fenced-off area in Kurumpasiddi along Eezhakeasari Ponniah Road. In the meantime, Tamil journalists have also photographed some of the private properties situated within the military-seized deployed for military use to be in good condition. The President of Valikaamam North Rehabilitation Society Mr A Gunabalasingam, said he has received several complaints from the people who have seen the organised robbery by the SL military.
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Eezham Tamils fleeing persecution expose ICE-nexus with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 July 2016, 23:14 GMT]
On 15th of June, Indonesian authorities apprehended 44 Eezham Tamils en route to Australia in a fishing trawler in the eastern province of Aceh. Indonesian officials prohibited the refugees from disembarking upon Indonesian soil stating that they were not eligible for asylum. During one incident, as five Tamil women attempted to disembark, Indonesian authorities were reported to have fired gunshots in the air. Pictures emerged, with one of the Eelam Tamil women in tears mimicking with her hand a gun pointed to her head. The silence from the International Community of Establishment (ICE) was ‘demonstrated’ when Colombo’s officials through a UN body visited Indonesia in order to negotiate the return of the refugees back to Colombo’s military rule, from which they were fleeing.
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Amaithipuram exposes disparity in ‘development’ motives of Colombo, external powers

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 July 2016, 15:37 GMT]
The entire village of Amaithi-puram (peace-town), created in 2012 as a settlement for war-affected, women-headed and uprooted families from Periya-pa’ndi-virichchaan in Mannaar district during the regime of Rajapaksa, is still languishing without proper livelihood support. 250 Eezham Tamils belonging to 47 families are struggling without access to potable water and they lack much-needed road infrastructure. In contrast, Sinhala colonization settlements being created in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils by the genocidal unitary State in South are fully utilized with sustainable and modern solutions in all areas, be it housing, livelihood, education arrangements and state-of-the art road infrastructure. But, in Amaithi-puram, like in several other villages of ‘resettled’ Tamils, even the houses built under the Indian housing assistance have become rotten to the core within 5 years.
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Colombo wants Sinhala Buddhist temple at former military base in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2016, 23:51 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka and the colonial governor of Eastern Province, who is a former defence secretary and currently an ‘advisor’ to the SL President on so-called ‘reconciliation’ have brought two Sinhala Buddhist monks from Trincomalee to Kaayangkea’ni, a Tamil village situated 115 km north of Batticaloa city. The monks have put up their huts besides an abandoned Buddha statue, which was erected inside a former military base. In 2013, the SL military relocated the base. But, in 2016, the intruding monks demand to transform the locality into a Sinhala Buddhist temple. Kaayang-kea’ni is located in Koa’ra’laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) Division in Batticaloa district.
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Colombo’s ministries continue to deploy genocidal policies in employment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2016, 14:31 GMT]
Among 130 appointments to non-medical support staff positions recently made to the Teaching Hospital in Batticaloa, which is a predominantly Tamil-speaking district, 127 were Sinhalese, 2 Muslims and only 1 person was Tamil, medical sources at the hospital told TamilNet blaming Colombo’s Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medicine and its minister Rajitha Senaratne for deploying high level of discrimination in employment in the health sector. Former SL President Mahinda Rajpakasa named the 2009 genocidal onslaught as ‘Humanitarian Operation’. After the end of war, Colombo brought genocidal military rule to carry out the structural genocide. As far as the Eezham Tamils are concerned, the current regime has brought ‘Genocidal Governance’ through the so-called label of ‘Good Governance’, commented a Tamil doctor at Batticaloa Teaching hospital.
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UN’s credibility on delivery of justice seriously eroded: rights activist in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 July 2016, 23:12 GMT]
Even after coming up with resolutions and reports, the response coming from Human Rights chief with regards to practical delivery on international justice is based upon the thinking of giving more time and space to the Sri Lankan regime, which is acting against the spirit of accountability, Justice and rule of law, says Kathir Barathythasan, a leading human rights activist from Batticaloa. In an interview to TamilNet this week, the activist, who has served as the secretary of Citizens’ committees in Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai and Gandhi Seva Sangam, said the people on the ground, particularly the victims, will remain firm on seeking justice to thousands of their kith and kin perished in the 2009 onslaught and in demanding the whereabouts of those who have been reported missing.
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Genocidal Colombo demonstrates its ‘respect’ to passive discourse by UNHRC with latest abduction

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 July 2016, 23:34 GMT]
While the Foreign Minister of genocidal Sri Lanka was telling the Human Rights Council in Geneva that his State had ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Disappearance on Wednesday, the SL Military Intelligence of the SL State abducted a father of three and subjected him for a day-long unimaginable torture before dumping him away at a farmland in Mannaar with a warning that if he talked about what had happened to him at the torture chamber, he would be shot and killed next time. The victim, 38-year-old Santhiyogu Anton is receiving medical treatment at ward 04 of Mannaar hospital and the SL Police is ensuring what the abductors wanted the victim to do in remaining total silence to the world what had happened to him. The victim has revealed that there was at least one another person in the torture chamber of SL military intelligence.
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Vavuniyaa protest echoes Tamil sentiments running against ICE-manipulated ‘Transitional Justice’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2016, 14:15 GMT]
The soft agents of external powers, posing themselves as ‘non-governmental’ organisations in Colombo receiving funds through the development agencies of US-aligned external powers in the so-called International Community of Establishments, have made mockery of the term ‘Transitional Justice’ by turning it into a buzzword for fund-oriented Colombo-based NGO operatives. “To NGOs Transitional Justice is like cash tree. For us, it is a drama of international deception,” said a banner of Vavuniyaa Citizens’ Committee, which organised a protest jointly with the Forum for Searching Handed, Kidnapped and Forcibly Disappeared persons Relatives (FSHFDR) opposing the creation of Colombo-based ‘Office for Missing Persons’ (OMP).
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Colombo maintains ethnic chauvinism, majoritarianism in North-East: Bishop Ponniah

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 June 2016, 19:19 GMT]
“I can categorically state that a lot of promises made by the [new] government [towards the Tamil people] have not been fulfilled,” said Bishop of Batticaloa Rt. Rev. Dr. Joesph Ponniah in a recent interview to TamilNet. Some of the root causes to the escalation of ethnic conflict were SL State-backed Sinhala colonization of lands in the North and East and the discrimination in providing equal opportunities. These have a 60-year old history. The reality remains the same even today. What prevails in the North and East is not peace. There is an enforced silence coupled with threat, oppression and militarization by the ethnic majority. There is no change in the attitude of ethnic chauvinism, the Bishop said questioning the hidden motives of Washington and New Delhi collaborating with Colombo and how the situation of the people in North-East getting affected by the motives of these powers.
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Colombo determined to maintain genocidal Military Intelligence structure in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 June 2016, 18:54 GMT]
Ranil Wickramasinghe, the prime minister of genocidal Sri Lanka, has instructed the SL Military Intelligence in Colombo to maintain the structure and operations of the intelligence agencies deployed in North and East completely intact from the changes taking place in South, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet on Friday. While enacting certain cosmetic changes in the Intelligence operations in the South, the structure conceived by former Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, will operate without changes in the North-East, the sources further said. The decision is based on external advice coming from the US Establishment.
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Veteran Eezham Tamil archivist passes away at 81

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 June 2016, 01:24 GMT]
Mr R. Kanagaratnam (Kurumpasiddi Eraa Kanagaratnam), who tirelessly collected Tamil and English newspaper clippings and manuscripts related to political and cultural affairs of Eezham Tamils for almost 6 decades, has passed away at the age of 81 in Kandy on Wednesday. The leaders of Tamil Eelam and Tamil Nadu respected Mr Kanagaratnam for his contributions to the modern archival history of Eezham Tamils as well as his continued focus on the historiography of Tamils living across the larger region, from Fiji Islands to South Africa. His unique contribution to the nation of Eezham Tamils was collecting, archiving, microfilming and at the same time ensuring secure storage of the Tamil and English documents outside the island – all achieved through his focused and relentless efforts. He was an institution by himself.
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Structural genocide targets Kudumpimalai despite Tamil protests, media focus

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 June 2016, 16:05 GMT]
Despite repeated protests coming from Village (GS) Officers in Batticaloa district against the recent assault on Tamil GS Officer Shanmugam Guru by a group of Sinhala soldiers, the occupying Sinhala military is continuing illegal logging of trees in the interior jungle hamlet of Kudumpimalai. The demograhic genocide is being spearheaded by Colombo’s Forest Department that comes under the direct supervision of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, Divisional Secretariat officials in Kiraan told TamilNet. The SL Forest Department is planning to create a Sinhala colony for agricultural farmers from the bordering Anuradhapura district and elsewhere in the South, they said.
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Deminers remain tight-lipped over crucial traces of cluster, chemical UXOs deployed in genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 June 2016, 15:47 GMT]
A supervisor rank worker associated with demining work carried out by Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and was deployed in clearing Unexploded ordnance (UXO) between 2010 and 2014 in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) where SL military deployed cluster bombs and chemical weapons during the genocidal onslaught in 2009, told TamilNet this week that the hierarchy of the FSD, when alerted about the traces of cluster bombs and crucial human skeletal remains indicating deployment of chemical warheads, communicated the matter to the SL military under Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's military establishment, which was quick to remove the traces. If the workers revealed the findings, the FSD would lose its project and they would risk losing their jobs as funds coming from USA, Japan and EU would go to other mine clearing agencies, the workers were told by the FSD hierarchy.
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Sri Lanka used cluster bombs against Tamils, says Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2016, 22:42 GMT]
New photographic evidence leaked by an employee of a large demining organization, Halo Trust, and independently corroborated by Human Rights Watch that the material pictured as the "remnants of Russian-made cluster bombs and unexploded cluster submunitions, emerged as the 32nd sessions of the UN Human Rights Council opened last week, said UK Guardian in an exclusive story Monday. The photographs depict cluster bombs uncovered within Sri Lanka Government declared "no fire zones" where Tamil civilians were asked to gather for their safety during the final stages of the war, the paper said. Reports produced by the UN and several rights groups have found that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed by the Sri Lankan forces, but so far no senior member of the Government or the armed forces has been held accountable, the paper added.
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Independent mobilisation key to emancipation of stateless nations: Baloch editor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2016, 20:46 GMT]
“The root cause is the colonial system that they imposed on us. The shift of establishment is merely a substitution of one strand of colonial rulers with another,” says Faiz M Baluch, the editor-in-chief of Balochwarna and a member of the International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (IVBMP). “The question is do we have the same basic democratic rights like other free nation or not. Moreover, do we have the rights to sovereignty and self-preservation or not,” Mr Faiz further asked when interviewed by TamilNet. He urged oppressed nations to rely on their own national bases as well as to build organic solidarity between other stateless nations to achieve their national emancipation.
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Colombo's TID interrogates Tamil paramilitary operative

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 22:48 GMT]
Colombo's ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) officers are interrogating a 29-year-old Tamil paramilitary operative from Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, in connection with the discovery of explosives in March at the village of Ma'ravanpulavu, informed sources told TamilNet on Wednesday. Sivarasa Sivakulan alias Murali, who has been a close confidant of former SL Military Commander in Jaffna Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe and who was actively involved in SLFP election campaigns in Thenmaraadchi during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, is the one subjected to interrogations at the notorious 4th Floor in Colombo. Mr Sivakulan has also been a close friend of the present SL Governor of Northern Province Mr Reginald Cooray, informed sources in Jaffna said. He was detained on 11 June.
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