SL Governor continues ‘LLRC agenda’ of Sinhalicisation in Northern Province

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2015, 22:12 GMT]
The incumbent Sri Lankan Governor of Northern Province, HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), has instructed the SL Government Agents in the Northern Province to channel more resources to the Sinhala settlements initiated during the Rajapaksa regime in the North, civil sources in Jaffna said. In the meantime, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) provincial councillor K.T. Linganathan, who is from Nedungkea'ni, Vavuniyaa, on Sunday said elected Tamil representatives were being refused access to an accelerated Sinhala colonisation scheme at Kokkachchaan-ku'lam, which has been Sinhalicised into Kalabogaswewa with 5,000 Sinhala settlers. The occupation, initiated during the previous regime, is now being expanded with new housing schemes.
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British Tamils should start backing Scottish Nationalist Party

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2015, 23:18 GMT]
The British elections should teach the lesson and open the eyes of Eezham Tamils in the UK, who shamefully count on the Labour and Conservative parties. If the Eezham Tamils in the UK wish to make a fundamental theoretical point for their own benefit and for the cause of the nations without State all over the world, it is time that they should start actively voicing and working for the Scottish Nationalist Party, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna. The theoretical foundations laid by the English outlook on the island of Ceylon 200 years ago are the ones that are now followed by Washington and New Delhi and still haunt the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. They have to be challenged in their very birthplace, the activists further said.
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Sivaram uplifted standard of journalists in North-East: SLM Hanifa

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 May 2015, 21:25 GMT]
Sivaram, through his contributions to the field of journalism, raised the standards of Tamil-speaking reporters in the North-East. The work of the reporters in the North-East was taken seriously by Colombo-based editors only after the arrival of Sivaram to the field of journalism, the veteran Muslim writer said while delivering a memorial address, held in Batticaloa last Wednesday, marking the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Sivaram.
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Sivaram, Wigneswaran saw futility in convincing Sinhala polity: senior editor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2015, 01:58 GMT]
My friend Mr. Sivaram, who earlier took a non-partisan and neutral stand on the national question in the island, thought that he could convince the South on the justifiable aspirations of Tamils by his writings. But the hawkish military minds in the South and the foreign diplomats in the island took his writings in English only as valuable information in planning and countering the struggle of Tamils. Disillusioned after ten years, Sivaram wrote in Tamil that it was futile to convince the Sinhala nation on the question of Tamils. The failure of Sivaram and his transfer into a staunch Tamil nationalist is analogical to the political course and current stand of the NPC Chief Minister, Mr C.V. Wigneswaran, said veteran Tamil journalist and editor, Mr. V. Thevaraj, addressing the 10th assassination anniversary meet of Sivaram held in Batticaloa on Wednesday.
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New generation of organic intellectuals needed to continue Sivaram’s work

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2015, 12:08 GMT]
“Only a new generation of organic Tamil intellectuals, who have a clear understanding of changing global paradigms and who are able to create paradigm shifts in Tamil political discourse, can preserve and take forward Sivaram’s legacy” writes research scholar RM Karthick. In an article written on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the assassination of ‘Taraki’ Sivaram Dharmeratnam, Mr. Karthick argues that the current Tamil intelligentsia needs to live up to its historical responsibility in exposing the designs of the powers, be it in Oslo, Geneva or Singapore. Criticizing mainstream Tamil intellectuals for their apathy and for failing to keep up with important changes in South Asian geo-politics, he further says that “a nation’s ability to spring back to its feet politically depends on how soon it is able to organize itself intellectually.”
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Sivaram commemorated in Tamil Nadu on 10th anniversary of his assassination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2015, 10:29 GMT]
The 10th death anniversary of assassination of Senior Editor at TamilNet, an Eezham Tamil intellectual, journalist, political analyst and activist Dharmeratnam Sivaram (Taraki) was marked on Tuesday in Chennai. Sivaram, beside his profound love for his people, was a genuine internationalist who dedicated his life and writing- to quote him in his own words, “…to create a body of knowledge to help oppressed people all over the world help themselves to get out from under oppression; to disseminate this body of knowledge.” A decade after his assassination by the hands of the Sri Lankan state, Eelam and much of the oppressed nations of the world which he espoused solidarity with and desired to aid are still beleaguered and subjected to counter-insurgency perpetuated by their respective oppressor states aided by world powers.
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Constitutionally recognise Tamil homeland to prove bona fides, exiled poet tells Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 17:40 GMT]
“We [Eezham Tamils] are not [people of two] provinces. We are [the people of] a homeland. This reality is constitutionally not recognised in the Constitution. Would the Sinhala rulers of Sri Lanka ever be prepared to constitutionally recognise the joint North-East as the homeland of Tamils,” questioned exiled Eezham Tamil poet Kasi Anandan on Wednesday, speaking from Chennai, in an Internet-based video address on the occasion of a memorial event held in Batticaloa on the 10th anniversary of the assassinated TamilNet Senior Editor and popular columnist Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki). The current Sinhala rulers [in the island of Sri Lanka] are only talking about ‘Tamils in the North’ whenever they refer to Tamils, Kasi Anandan observed.
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Investigate SL Minister Bathiyutheen along with Basil Rajapaksa, Muslims demand UNP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2015, 16:34 GMT]
The people of Mannaar, Puththa'lam and Vavuniyaa have started to raise their voices questioning the credibility of the ‘new’ SL regime in Colombo, which has failed to arrest and investigate SL Minister of Industry and Commerce Mr Rishad Bathiyutheen over allegations of misappropriation of funds. Basil Rajapaksa, who was the former SL Minister of ‘Economic Development’ and Mr Bathiyutheen, who was the SL Minister for Resettlement, have appropriated large sums of the funds obtained for resettling the war-affected people, sections of Muslims in Puththa'lam and Mannaar accuse. At a meeting held in Temple Trees on Friday for UNP members from Northern and North-Western Provinces, Muslim members raised their voices against entertaining Bathiyutheen with a minister portfolio instead of investigating him together with Mr Basil Rajapaksa, who is now detained for investigations.
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Occupying SL Navy continues to intimidate Tamil fishermen in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2015, 19:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) sailors manning the Periya-kadai jetty, situated at the entrance to the city of Mannaar, are unrelenting in their oppression being meted out to the Tamil fishermen from five village (GS) divisions, fishermen's representatives complain. Although there are no official restrictions on Mannaar fishermen accessing their territorial sea, the SL Navy is checking everyone embarking on fishing every day. The names of the fishermen, their fishing vessels are registered. Their fishing catches are being monitored on a daily basis. The SLN personnel present at the check post also use to seize portions of their catches sometimes, the fishermen further complain.
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OISL in acid test over witness submissions on ‘Gota camp’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2015, 21:30 GMT]
The revelations on the so-called Gota camp, a secret incarceration camp run by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Trincomalee, where at least 700 former LTTE members were illegally detained for more than five years, will be an acid test to conclude whether the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) has taken the eyewitness submissions seriously, one of the survivors who got out from the notorious detention just a few days before the regime change told TamilNet on Saturday. The whereabouts of those detained at the undisclosed ‘Gota’ camp also constitute a serious question on the conduct of the ‘new’ regime in South. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet that the SL military has given a figure of less than 400 former LTTE members as being alive in its custody throughout the island.
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New regime deploys military against Habeas Corpus applicants: NPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 April 2015, 21:19 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military intelligence has stepped up harassments against the applicants of Habeas Corpus cases being heard in Vanni, says Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan, who has been harassed twice by the operatives of the Sri Lankan military intelligence when she went to witnesses the cases being heard. Under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the SL courts were not prepared to hear these cases. The new regime, on one hand, wants to showcase to the outside world that the SL courts are attending these cases, but on the other hand it deploys the military intelligence against the applicants. “I have personally witnessed such harassment in recent days,” Ms Ananthy told media in Jaffna this week.
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Sirisena's regime protects corrupt SL minister from Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2015, 23:29 GMT]
Rishad Bathiudeen, the notorious Sri Lankan minister who has been unleashing communal hatred in Mannaar under the previous regime, continues to be a minister in the new regime of Maithiripala Sirisena. Mr Bathiutheen has been promoting and protecting the criminal Divisional Secretary (DS) of Maanthai West, Manickavasagar Sriskandakumar, to appropriate ‘public lands’, which had been properly allocated to the people during the times of the LTTE. As a favour in return for appropriating these lands for his voters, the SL minister backed the DS to grab some lands for himself and a collaborating Village Officer (GS). Mr Sriskandakumar and T. Sivanesan, the GS, were allegedly complicit in ordering the assassination of social activist K. Nakuleswaran last November. Now, their personal appropriation of lands have been exposed, the people of Ve'l'laang-ku'lam say.
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Bisokotuwa, Biso-uyana

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 April 2015, 21:19 GMT]
The water releasing structure (of the tank)

The royal park or the anointed queen's park
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Missing Tamil journalist: octogenarian parents urge international investigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2015, 23:09 GMT]
Eight years have passed since 37-year-old Tamil journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran was arrested by the occupying Sinhala military at Kalikai Junction in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. One month after the SL military ‘abduction’, France-based media watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated in March 2007 that it was in a position to affirm that the Sri Lankan military participated in the arrest of journalist Mr Ramachandran, who was the Vadamaraadchi regional correspondent for newspapers Valampuri and Yaazh Thinakkural. His 85-year-old father and 83-year-old mother are still languishing without knowing what had happened to their son. Ramachandran's nine and twelve-year-old children have been expecting the return of their father for 8 years, the aged grandparents said in a video interview to TamilNet urging global attention on the plight of their missing son.
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Colombo stages ‘deceptive resettlement’ in isolated pockets within military zone

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 April 2015, 23:38 GMT]
The uprooted people from Valikaamam North, who were disappointed to see that their residential lands not released as promised by the Colombo regime, gathered on Friday at Vasaavi'laan MMV to discuss the next course of action. The civic representatives from Valikaamam North complained that the SL military wants to maintain the former High Security Zone as Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) while selectively allowing Tamil civilians into isolated pockets surrounded by military cantonments and business establishments run by the SL military within the SMZ. In the meantime, Non Governmental Organizations have also conveyed their reservation to the SL Government Agent in Jaffna in sending their employees into these pockets, informed civil sources at the District Secretariat of Jaffna told TamilNet.
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SL military harassment continues to target ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
Former LTTE members who met the touring Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at Ki'linochchi on Sunday told the SL premier that the occupying Sinhala military was harassing them even after the so-called regime change in Colombo. SL military intelligence operatives continue to interrogate them, they complained adding that the SL soldiers were threatening the families by frequent inspections. The wives of former LTTE members were being harassed after their husbands leave for work, Mr Wickramasinghe was told. However, the SL Prime Minister was using his trip to encourage the occupying SL military to continue the genocidal occupation of the Tamil homeland, informed sources in Jaffna and Vanni told TamilNet.
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Wigneswaran urges SL State to respect international principle on resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2015, 12:04 GMT]
“Unless Grama Sevaka Divisions 244 and 252 are released in full as promised earlier, what has been gingerly granted today would hardly be of any use to the few families now selected to enter their erstwhile denied lands,” Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran said in his address at Vazhalaay during the visit by SL President, Prime Minister and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. “It may not be out of place for me to mention here of the land grabs taking place in the Vanni not only by the military but also by certain Politicians who wielded power earlier and who continue to wield power now, may be more so. They still influence in selecting inappropriate beneficiaries for the Indian Housing Schemes,” the CM said, urging the SL State to adhere to the UN Principles for Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs, which is known as the Pinheiro Principles.
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Ex-LTTE woman returned from France escapes assassination attempt in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 08:03 GMT]
A group of assailants believed to belong to a surveillance squad of the Sri Lankan military attempted on Wednesday night to assassinate 41-year-old Baheerathy Murukesu, who was arrested earlier this month at Colombo airport and later released on bail with a restriction to leave the island. The two-member squad, which was waiting outside her house at Ka'ndaava'lai in Mullaiththeevu, followed Ms Baheerathy and hit her with their motorbike. Baheerathy was thrown away, but survived the attempt on her life. She was arrested by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ earlier this month when she was visiting her family on vacation from France. Baheerathy headed a naval wing of the LTTE's Sea Tigers between 1997 and 2000 and had left the island in 2005, the SL police has stated earlier.
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Grasping affairs of Maldives in larger perspective

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 00:06 GMT]
Rather than taking sides with the imprisoned former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed or with the current President Abdulla Yameen, the people of the Maldives and the peoples of entire southern South Asia should carefully understand the larger anti-people designs of New Delhi, Washington and Beijing, and vigilantly act in unison against the larger security threat that is being caused by the powers to the peoples of the region, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics. Nasheed, who is often highlighted in the Western and Indian media as the first democratically elected president of the archipelago, was also the first in involving the country in genocide in the neighbourhood, the activists cited.
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New regime silently steps up military land grab in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 09:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has again started to seize private lands outside the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) in the North. While releasing some of the lands in the HSZ back to people in the North, the SL military is silently seizing lands outside the HSZ to maintain and expand its cantonments in the country of Eezham Tamils. Informed sources from the district secretariats of Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet Wednesday that the military seizure of lands has been stepped up during the past 3 weeks at more than 20 localities in Vanni. Under the Rajapaksa regime, the SL officials were open about the military seizure of lands. But, now the process is almost invisible. Surveying officers are also brought from Colombo and legal notices are not issued in order to avoid public protests.
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