Uprooted Vaakarai Central residents identify SL military-seized lands after 13 years

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 October 2018, 11:15 GMT]
The occupying SL military, which has seized the lands of Tamils in former LTTE-administered Vaakarai central area, is running a resort for southern visitors in the properties confiscated from Tamil villagers, the people who were allowed to identify their lands for the first time on 01st October after 13 years, told TamilNet. SL Survey Department officials were present at the site when almost 26 of 55 land-owners were allowed to identify their lands at the presence of Ooriyan-kaddu Village Officer of Ooriyan-kaddu and the officials of the Divisional Secretariat.
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Jaffna University students resolve to strengthen TPPs protest

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 October 2018, 17:09 GMT]
The student community at Jaffna University has jumped into strengthening the struggle of the hunger-striking Tamil political prisoners. The leaders of the Jaffna University Student Union have called for an awareness protest meeting on Monday. The following day, 20 students are going to launch a protest walk from the University of Jaffna to Anuradhapura prison, they said. In the meantime, SL Minister of Justice, Thalatha Atukorale (UNP) has gone on record reiterating the position of the SL State there are no “political prisoners” in the prisons. SL President Maithiripala Sirisena (SLFP) has also dodged to discuss the matter with Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan at a meeting and told Mr Sampanthan that he would discuss the subject over the phone.
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Sirisena has deceived Tamils: ITAK Leader Mavai Senathirajah

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2018, 05:58 GMT]
ITAK Leader and TNA Parliamentarian, Mavai Senathirjah, has blamed SL President Maithiripala Sirisena as having betrayed the trust of the Tamil National Alliance. Mr Senathirajah was addressing the Tami protesters in front of the District Secretariat of Mullaiththeevu on Friday. The demonstration was staged in support of the hunger-striking Tamil political prisoners. In an emotional speech, Mr Senathirajah said, the SL Government has failed to appoint a special commission as it had promised to look into the matter of imprisoned Tamil political prisoners. Colombo has failed to revoke the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act, and it has not implemented what it promised in the “US-Sri Lanka Consensus Resolution,” which was passed at the UN Human Rights Council in 2015.
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Rajapaksa ally vows to erect Buddhist viharas in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2018, 09:29 GMT]
Sinhala parliamentarians belonging to Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP) or National Freedom Front, an extreme Sinhala nationalist JVP-breakaway group, which is aligned with former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, visited Mullaiththeevu and Vavuniyaa on Thursday confronting the Tamil residents. The Tamil villagers opposed the group, but it vowed to erect Buddha statues confronting the Eezham Tamils. The JNP parliamentarians were accompanied by an extremist Buddhist monk who has been blocked by Mullaiththeevu Magistrate from erecting Buddha statues under cover of so-called conservation.
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42 TPPs in Colombo join hunger-strike

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 October 2018, 19:39 GMT]
Forty-two Tamil Political Prisoners in Colombo's Magazine Prison have joined the hunger-strike initiated by the TPPs in Anuradhapura prison on Wednesday. In the meantime, the health conditions of one of the twelve TPPs on hunger-strike worsened on Wednesday and the TPP has been transferred to hospital, the families of the TPPs said.
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SL-AG Department finds new excuses to dodge hunger-striking TPPs demands

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2018, 15:07 GMT]
SL Attorney General's Department has told TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran that it would not be considering the demands of three of the twelve hunger-striking Tamil political prisoners at Anuradhapura prison at all. The families of the TPPs said the explanation given by the SL-AG was illogical and condemned the TNA for passively tolerating the Colombo establishment citing ongoing disputes between the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's UPFA and the UNP led by SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe.
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SL Archaeology Department's collusion with intruding monks questioned at Magistrate's Court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2018, 21:43 GMT]
The extremist Sinhala Buddhist monks, barred from erecting a controversial Buddha statue under cover of so-called conservation work in Mullaiththeev in September, have approached the Magistrate's Court in Mullaiththeevu to nullify an interim order issued following the dispute. The officials of the SL Archaeology Department and the SL Police in Oddu-chuddaan were backing the latest move of the monks regarding the hilltop of Kurunthoor-malai. The case was taken for hearing at Mullaiththeevu Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The lawyers representing the monks and the SL Archaeology Department argued that the monks had the right to proceed with the “conservation” work as the SL State had already gazetted the site as “Gurunda Asokarama”. They also said that the SL Archaeology Department had “outsourced” the conservation work to the monks.
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Occupying Colombo erects 2nd Buddha temple at educational suburb of Tamils in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 October 2018, 22:57 GMT]
Sinhala extremist monks from South and the occupying SL military in civilian clothes along with Sinhala students launched a second Buddhist temple within the Ki'linochchi campus premises of the Jaffna University a week ago on 24 September. The move comes amidst strong objections from the Tamil students. The University administration was also critical as it had allocated a venue for the construction of places of worship for all religions enjoying equal status. However, Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and the occupying SL military want to put up a grand Buddhist site as the unitary Constitution of genocidal Sri Lanka is giving ‘foremost’ place to the Buddhism, Tamil student leaders said.
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Two more TPPs join hunger-strike, refuse medical admittance

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 September 2018, 22:16 GMT]
The Tamil political prisoners waging hunger-strike for the 16th day on Sunday at Anuradhapura prison have sent a letter to the management of the prison not to admit them to medical treatment anymore. In the meantime, two TPPs joined the hunger strike today. Purusothaman Aravinthan who hails from Jaffna and Nallan Sivalingam from Vavuniyaa joined the campaign. The TPPs who were admitted for treatment were also back in the Anuradhapura prison continuing the protest.
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Sinhala colonists resume occupation of pasture lands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, Nimalan Kanthasamy, said the Tamil farmers were facing the recurrence of violence from Sinhala colonists who have started to encroach into to Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththa-madu, a pasture land located in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. Sinhala colonists from Polonnaruwa, Badulla and Moneragala were withdrawn last year after repeated protests. The interior land was under the control of the LTTE before 2007.
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Ex-SLA soldiers operate as gangs, robberies on increase in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 September 2018, 21:08 GMT]
Former military soldiers of the occupying SL Army, who have settled as Sinhala colonists in the Tamil village of Thiriyaay, located to the north of Trincomalee, and those who engage in small businesses at Aa'ndaan-ku'lam in the Town and Gravets, are mobilising criminal gangs allegedly with the backing of the military intelligence, civil sources at the District Secretariat said. The victims were mostly Tamil women, they noted citing some recent robberies in the district. The chain of events has caused suspicion among the people that the intelligence wing of the occupying SL military was introducing gangs as they have done in Jaffna. The squads also deploy young Sinhala-speaking boys, they said.
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Thileepan Remembrance in Jaffna underscores need for new emancipation strategies

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2018, 08:24 GMT]
All Tamil parties and movements that orientate their politics on the national liberation of the nation of Eezham Tamils actively took part in an emotional event participated by hundreds of Eezham Tamils on Wednesday at Nalloor in Jaffna. Lt Col Thileepan (Rasaiah Parthipan) sacrificed his life through a 12-day fast-unto-death without food and water in 1987. He was the political head of the LTTE in Jaffna when New Delhi intervened with its military force after entering a State-to-State agreement with Colombo. Thileepan's sacrifice was a crucial historical event in the political emancipation of Eezham Tamils as it exposed the real agenda of the intervening power, which was calling the shots in the island during the times of the Cold War.
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Sirisena praises genocidal military at UN, seeks to appease all State actors

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 September 2018, 11:10 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the president of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, was addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday appeasing all the actors, ranging from the pro-Israel US President Donal Trump to those who support the cause of the Palestinians. It was an apparent move to keep all the State actors continuing to turn a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. His address, made in Sinhala, was targeting the Sinhala masses in the island, they said.
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Two more TPPs join hunger-strike at Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 September 2018, 10:07 GMT]
Two political prisoners, including a Tamil-speaking Mulsim, recently transferred to Anuradhapura from Colombo have joined the hunger strike on Sunday. The SL military intelligence has alleged the Muslim prisoner, Abdul Hameed Umar Hattaaph, as being involved in the assassination carried out by the LTTE on a former commander of the genocidal military, Major General (retd) Janaka Perera in 2008.
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USAID-funded project renders exploitation of Tamil farmers by export conglomerate

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 September 2018, 20:03 GMT]
Poverty-stricken Eezham Tamil household farmers from Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division of Batticaloa, complain that they are systematically exploited by the SL State-owned Bank of Ceylon (BOC), which has threatened to seize their lands if they complained about exploitation by Hayleys Agriculture, the largest exporter of fruits in the island. The farmers were given technical assistance to commence Gherkin Cucumber farming with USAID assistance. The BOC maintains that the farmers have to pay back the initial funding by binding their sales to Hayleys. The produce is purchased at a low price, and if they complained about the exploitation, they would risk losing their lands, the BOC officials have threatened they said.
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Four hunger-striker TPPs admitted to Anuradhapura hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 September 2018, 18:34 GMT]
Four of the hunger-striking Tamil Political Prisoners have been admitted to the public hospital in Anuradhapura as their health conditions have worsened. Two TPPs who had been admitted to the attached hospital at Anuradhapura prison earlier were transferred to the general hospital on Friday. Two more TPPs were rushed to the same hospital on Saturday. Rights activist Ganesh Velayutham who visited the fasting TPPs told TamilNet that all the prisoners were in bad condition as they were languishing for more than nine years in the prison. The TPPs are heavily traumatised due to the depression caused by the dilly-dallying by the occupying Colombo's rulers. All of them have staged hunger-strikes four times before, and that they are not fit for a lengthy hunger-strike, he said.
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SL President not prepared to consider demands of TPPs until 27 September

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2018, 16:27 GMT]
The health condition of the Tamil political prisoners who have been on a hunger strike since 14 September has deteriorated and two of the hunger strikers have been admitted to the prison hospital at Anuradhapura, the families of the prisoners said. In the meantime, a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who visited the fasting prisoners have told them that TNA Leader and Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan had taken their matter with SL President Maithiripala Sirisena before the latter travelled to New York to address the UN General Assembly. Mr Maithiripala had told Mr Sampanthan that he would only be able to think about the matter of Tamil prisoners after 27 September, after the UN meetings were over.
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Pasturelands converted into agricultural lands through Karuna influence

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2018, 15:31 GMT]
The Divisional Secretariat of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South in the district of Batticaloa is under increased pressure to convert 550 acres of pasture lands traditionally used by the dairy farmers into agricultural areas. The lands are being allocated to the supporters of Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, alias Karuna, a former Tiger commander, who turned into a paramilitary leader operated by the Sri Lanka Army in the East and later a politician, who has been collaborating with the Rajapaksa establishment.
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SLA commander in Jaffna admits counter-insurgency agenda of Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 September 2018, 21:21 GMT]
An armed movement threatening the sovereignty and the ‘national security’ of the SL State originated in Jaffna. Even though almost ten years have elapsed since that movement was destroyed, the military is present in Jaffna to make sure that such an organisation doesn't rise again, said the commander of the SL military in Jaffna Major General Darshana Hettiarachchi at a PR conference he organised at Palaali on Thursday. The PR meeting organised as one of the first kind turned into a flop as the SL commander was exhausted facing an array of questions to which he was either dodging response or contradicting himself.
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SL State refuses to renew land permits to resettled Champoor Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2018, 16:54 GMT]
The resettled Eezham Tamils from Champoor and the connecting section of Kadatkaraich-cheanai were refused of renewal of their land permits at a mobile land kachcheri held on Sunday at Moothoor. The Eastern Provincial Land Commissioner organised the land meeting at Moothoor to look into the land issues of the resettled people in the Moothoor East. However, the residents of Champoor were told the renewals of their land permits were on hold as the SL State has not revoked the earlier state acquisition of their lands from the times of Rajapaksa rule. The people who are in possession of old documents are refused of housing assistance as well as loans that could be obtained through Samurdhi scheme as they are unable to document current ownership to their lands where they reside.
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