Returning Tamil journalists forced to pledge written oath to unitary State

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2016, 21:27 GMT]
None of the Tamil journalists or political activists, who were exiled during and after the Vanni war, could return to their native Northern or Eastern provinces without getting whitelisted by the military intelligence of the occupying Sinhala military prior to their entry into the North and East. Media activists from Colombo who met a group Tamil journalists in Vanni this week told TamilNet that a section of journalists in North had met Major General Mahesh Senanayake on 06 April at Palaali military base. When the journalists questioned the SL commander that some of their exiled journalists, currently residing in Tamil Nadu and other countries, were wondering about returning to the island. The SL commander had refused to officially comment, but shared this information in a ‘unofficial’ way, the sources further said.
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Key Tamil organisations boycott Colombo's dialogue meet in Norway

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2016, 11:35 GMT]
The mainstream political and development related diaspora organisations of Eezham Tamils in Norway boycotted a so-called “high level” dialogue meeting organised by two NGOs funded by Norway on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry of Norway has been advocating behind the scene to lock the Tamil organisations into the ‘dialogue’ meeting with the Netherland-based NGO operative Ram Manikkalingam, who is a close associate of former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) and is an official member of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's “Office for National Unity and Reconciliation”. At least 8 of the 12 invited organisations either boycotted or abstained from attending the meeting on Wednesday. Five of the boycotting organisations came out with a joint communiqué clarifying their position.
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Maithiripala’s structural genocide targets Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2016, 23:21 GMT]
Colombo’s Forest Department, which comes under SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development’ and Environment, has been blocking Tamil farmers from taking their cattle to graze in the northern and eastern parts of Thivulaanaik-ku’lam, which is situated across the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai districts in the East. Wealthy Sinhalese businessmen from Kurunegala and Gampaha districts have seized thousands of acres of public and forest lands to grow cowpea crop in large scale in the area, says T. Sivapatham, the president of Poaratheevup-pattu Cattle Farmers Association. Meanwhile, the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa is prioritizing the interests of Colombo’s business elite and the projects by foreign NGOs involving the employees in the public sector. Tamil farmers are being completely ignored in Batticaloa district, according to divisional civil sources.
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SL TID cites Facebook ‘private messages’ as evidence to restrict Tamil political activism

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID), currently engaged in containing the voices against the abduction and hostage taking styled arrests in the North and East, has claimed in communication to Chaavakachcheari Magistrate's Court that they have accessed Facebook private messages and chats that have taken place between individuals in the Diaspora and the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In a recent case where the secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) Youth Wing V.S. Sivakaran was detained and later released on surety bail, the TID had submitted the above argument as ‘evidence’ to the courts, the sources said adding that the TID was silencing critical voices in the island by deploying surveillance agencies outside the island.
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Justice more important than motorbikes and houses: Journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2016, 15:25 GMT]
More than one hundred Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists in Colombo organised a protest in front of the Fort Railway Station on Friday condemning the Sri Lankan State for not investigating the assassinations of popular journalist Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was abducted on 28 April 2005 and found shot dead behind the SL Parliament on the following day. Sivaram's assassination took place during the regime of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK), who now heads the so-called ‘Office of the National Unity and Reconciliation’ while remaining tight lipped on the genocidal crimes committed under her rule. A Sinhala journalist described the protest as a big success demonstrating the continued solidarity among the sections of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists, who were behind the principled demand of Justice.
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Sivaram's world contribution is holistic exposure of ‘counterinsurgency’: Bashana

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 April 2016, 11:34 GMT]
The political, geo-political, sociological and anthropological dimensions of the counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare have gained more significance than its military dimension, especially in the post-2009 context. To grasp this, one has to understand the enormous wealth of knowledge that was left behind by the late Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was a popular political and military analyst and a senior editor of TamilNet. Exiled Sinhala journalist Bashana Abeywardane, explains the significance of Sivaram’s knowledge system, not only in the context of post-2009 Tamil struggle, but also in a wider perspective to all resisting peoples and nations. It is extremely important to understand how the COIN techniques of pacification, containment and the engineering of ‘false polarizations’ operate in the current context, as part of the ‘political COIN’, Bashana says.
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Undeterred by civil actions, extremist monk at Kokku'laay vows to complete controversial Vihara

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2016, 05:27 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military is deployed round-the-clock to construct the controversial Buddhist temple-centric establishment, conceived as a tool for Sinhalicisation of the strategic coastal stretch at Kokku'laay, which links Northern and Eastern provinces of the country of Eezham Tamils. The construction is proceeding despite repeated requests to find an alternative place from Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and despite instructions from Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat to halt the construction till the dispute of private land, which has been occupied by the Sinhala extremist monk, is resolved. On Sunday, Ven Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero, the extremist monk was demonstrating his vow to continue with the construction when he spotted Tamil journalists taking video of the resumed construction work from a distance.
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Emboldened by EU delisting, genocidal Sri Lanka bans Tamil fishermen from entering their lagoon

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 April 2016, 11:13 GMT]
Christy Lal Fernando, the director general of Colombo's Fisheries Department, who was on a sudden trip on Monday to Mukaththuvaaram, situated at the mouth of Kokku'laay lagoon in Karaithu’raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, instructed the local authorities to block the native 300 Tamil fishermen from engaging in fishing in the lagoon. He was citing Colombo's declaration of sanctuary. In the meantime 1,352 Sinhala colonisers brought from South by the occupying SL military are engaged in large-scale illegal fishing in the same lagoon. The latest move by Colombo to block Tamil fishermen has triggered wide-scale protests on Tuesday. Mr Fernando was using complaints from Muslim fishermen from Pulmoaddai as excuse to announce the ‘ban’, Tamil civil sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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No sign of ‘change’ in shifting genocidal military away from residential areas in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 April 2016, 23:29 GMT]
The 11th Regiment of the occupying Sinhala Army, organized under the 233 Brigade of the military of genocidal Sri Lanka, is refusing to release the lands belonging to Murakkoddaan-cheanai Government Tamil Mixed School, situated 18 km north of the city of Batticaloa on Batticaloa – Vaazhaichcheanai Road zonal education officials told TamilNet on Friday. The SL military is also occupying the lands that belong to 25 Tamil families in the surroundings of the lands of the school. There is no sign of SL military making the area suitable for civil life. The school is operating at a different location 200 meters away from the seized lands. Continued militarisation of residential areas should be perceived by Tamils realising how large tracts of farm lands are being seized for demographic genocide by occupying Sri Lanka and how ‘Mahaweli’ scheme is conceived to complete the genocide in East.
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Trinco Campus under pressure from Colombo not to punish offending Sinhala students

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 April 2016, 21:26 GMT]
The administration of Trincomalee Campus of the Eastern University has blamed both the Tamil and Sinhala students as culprits behind the ethnic-motivated violence against Eezham Tamil students at the unit of Siddha Medicine in March 2016. The move comes as the Colombo-based University Grants Commission (UGC) instructed the campus administration not to take disciplinary actions against the students belonging to one community alone, informed academic sources at Trincomalee campus told TamilNet this week. The Tamil students describe the assault against them as a result of two-year long campaign of hate crimes against them. The administration has failed to contain the hate crimes, the students have alleged.
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SL Foreign Ministry instructs visiting foreign citizens to North to obtain ‘military visa’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 April 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The officials of Colombo's Foreign Ministry have started to cite an updated ‘news report’ in the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry website, dated 03 March 2016, in instructing foreign citizens travelling to the five districts in North to obtain ‘prior approval’ from the genocidal military of ‘Sri Lanka’, a Tamil visitor from Europe engaged in providing humanitarian assistance has complained to rights activists in Colombo this week. The latest ‘development’ comes after increased reports of abduction-styled arrests that have been carried out by Colombo's military intelligence in North. The Eezham Tamil visitor, engaged in humanitarian work from abroad for a long time, was recently lured into ‘think’ as ‘Sri Lankan’ by the ‘reconciliation’ desk of the foreign ministry in the country of citizenship.
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Colombo's structural genocide targets Tamil village at Mahaweli delta in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 April 2016, 22:28 GMT]
The current regime of Maithiripala Sirisena, who has been the minister of ‘Mahaweli scheme’ for several years now, is silently spearheading the occupation of thousands of acres of farmlands, both in the name of ‘development’ and through illegal settlements in Trincoamlee. The focal point of Sinhalicisation and militarisation during the former regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa was coastal Trincomalee, particularly the Champoor area in Moorthoor division. But, the regime of present ‘Mahaweli’ genocidaire has shifted the focus to larger plains of farmlands, 18 km south of Moothooor. The Tamil farmers from the ancient village of Kangkuveali recently narrated how they experience the structural genocide in a video interview to TamilNet. If the SL State and those who back it don't put an end to the structural genocide, another war would be inevitable, they warn.
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Tamil women complain increase of ethnic sexual harassment in public sector

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 April 2016, 19:57 GMT]
The successive regimes based in Colombo, unchecked by the absence of the political balance of power from the side of Eezham Tamils, have engineered the structural administration of public sector, by bringing in Sinhala males from South into leadership positions in the East. Tamil women employed in the public sector are being subjected to sexual harassments at working places. Also in the cases where Tamil-speaking males harass the female workers, Tamil women experience increased difficulties in taking forward the complaints to the Sinhala-dominated hierarchy in the public sector, feminist rights activists in Batticaloa told TamilNet.
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Zeid aids Sri Lanka's war-crimes in the treatment of Tamil PoWs, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 April 2016, 18:22 GMT]
Denouncing United Nation's Human Rights Chief, Zeid bin Ra’ad, for labeling Sri Lanka's Tamil prisoners as "Security Detainees," Professor Boyle, an expert in international law, and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that Zeid, as a military man, knows fully well that Tamil detainees are Prisoners of War (PoWs) under the Geneva Convention, and continuing to hold Tamil PoWs in prison after the cessation of hostilities [in 2009, nearly 7 years ago] is a war crime under the same convention. "Zeid is a GOSL Wolf dressed up in the Blue Clothing of the United Nations," Boyle said.
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Tamil political prisoners urge strong outside efforts to secure their release

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2016, 06:15 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners in Anuradhapura prison told a delegation of Mannaar Citizens' Committee and a Northern Provincial Council member from Mannaar who were visiting them at Anuraadhapura prison on the traditional New Year Day on Thursday that they had lost all the hopes in the Colombo regime, which had come to power using the votes of Tamils. The regime is adamant in not taking a principled approach to their release. In the meantime, the political prisoners, who met the delegation from Mannaar told TamilNet over the phone that they had urged the visiting NPC councillor to impress upon the Chief Minister of the NPC and other councillors to also address the plight of Tamil political prisoners with Up-Country Tamil origin languishing in Anuradhapura prison.
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Occupying Colombo resumes arrests, abductions in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2016, 20:02 GMT]
32-year-old Jeyakanthan Rajadurai, a former LTTE member released from the custody of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka earlier, was abducted at gun point by unknown persons, who came to his residence at Nu'naavil in Chaavakachcheari on Sunday, according to a complaint lodged at the Human Rights Commission office in Jaffna. The abducted man is now detained at Boosa prison, about 98 km south of Colombo, informed sources told TamilNet. There are at least 11 abduction-styled arrests that have taken place in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi districts in the recent days, the sources further said.
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Southern extremist groups influence Sinhala students at universities in North-East

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 April 2016, 22:43 GMT]
Tamil academics attached to the Universities of Jaffna and at the Eastern University say they are worried about Sinhala extremist elements from South continuously influencing the Sinhala students at these universities. There is ethnic motivated patterns of suppressive and exclusivist tendency at the universities, especially among the Sinhala students who have a ‘good rapport’ with the occupying Sinhala military and police. However, the university administrations are reluctant to address the challenge at an early stage. They intentionally avoid making complaints about racially motivated crimes taking place within the university premises, the academic sources said. The violence that shocked the Trincomalee campus in March took place as the Eastern University administration maintained its reluctance for a long time despite repeated complaints from the Tamil students.
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Colombo continues to sabotage investigations on Mannaar killing fields

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 April 2016, 23:13 GMT]
A Consultant Judicial Medical Officer, who was to be present at the exhumation of the alleged mass grave site at Thirukkeatheesvaram, Maanthai, failed to attend Mannaar Magistrates Court and the site of alleged mass grave when all others, including the Judge and the experts from 12 other institutions, were prepared to commence the excavation. The explanation given to the Judge was that the consultant JMO was attending a conference and that the exhumation was to be cancelled without his presence. The Judge, after a lengthy meeting has fixed a new hearing on 29 April. Similarly, the CID from Colombo was seeking more time, once again, to receive a proper response from one of the three Latin American institutions that were to be approached to conduct forensic anthropological analysis on the already exhumed human skeletons from the killing fields of Mannaar.
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‘Regime change’ didn't bring any change for Tamils: NPC Councillors, TNPF and ITAK MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2016, 15:18 GMT]
While R. Sampanthan, M.A.Sumanthiran and Mavai Senathiraja belonging to Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) were on a collaborating course with the Sri Lankan regime on the advice from Washington and New Delhi, ITAK Parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan, who has also been alleged of playing into the hands of the US Embassy, which got him to collaborate with M.A. Sumanthiran, went on record on Friday at a protest in Jaffna stating that he had no faith in the ruling regime and said the current regime has failed in building confidence and building peace with Tamils. Sritharan was protesting along with NPC Councillors and TNPF politicians in laying siege to the Divisional Survey Office at Thirunelveali in Jaffna.
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Deeper motives of Nayinaatheevu Sinhala Buddhicisation aim Tamil Nadu, India

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 April 2016, 10:23 GMT]
There are motives deeper than mere demographic genocide of the country of Eezham Tamils in the Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Nayinaa-theevu, Nedun-theevu (Delft) and Mannaar by the Colombo-centric State in the island. The ultimate aim, as attested by historical precedents, is Tamil Nadu and India, commented political observers in Jaffna comparing the genocidal Sri Lanka Navy-backed Sinhala Buddhicisation to the times of Parakramabahu I in the 12th century. This king who militarily occupied the country of Eezham Tamils and titled himself as ‘Sahala Simhala Chakravarti’ (All Sinhala Emperor), built a navy at Kayts and Mannaar and in the next stage occupied Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu to build Buddhist stupas there.
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