Academics across continents mark Tamil genocide remembrance in Dublin, discuss global injustice

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 May 2019, 23:34 GMT]
Irish, Cypriot, Rwandan, Palestinian, Rohingya, Korean and Colombian academics were taking part in an academic conference and a commemorative event on the tenth year of 2009 Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal Tamil genocide in Dublin, Ireland on the 02nd of May and on the 08th of May. The reflections made at these events provided both insights from lived experiences of genocide as well analysis of the situation before and in the aftermath of May 2009. The geopolitical context of Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, attempts to de-politicize Tamil resistance and consolidate the ongoing structural genocide institutionalized through the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka were discussed in detail in the events making comparisons with the oppressions elsewhere in the world.
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PTA-arguments of SL Police detaining Tamil student leaders baseless: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 May 2019, 19:42 GMT]
The SL Police, pursuing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) based investigations against the president and the secretary of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU), was arguing that the student leaders were provoking racial and communal disharmony through the banners and other visual representations, which were apprehended by the SL Army at the JUSU office on Friday. The SL Government itself had admitted, through the act of co-sponsoring Resolution 30/1 at the UN Human Rights Council in 2015, that allegations of war crimes need to be investigated. How could the banners calling for justice for crimes committed during the war incite disharmony, questioned Attorney Guruparan Kumaravadivel who was representing the student leaders at the Magistrate’s Court in Jaffna on Monday.
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Colombo's COIN backfires, solidarity key to ensure Tamil-Muslim territoriality: Diasporic academic

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2019, 16:30 GMT]
The growth of Wahhabism in the island has only served Colombo, and its external backers' interests in weakening the possibilities of unified Tamil speaking peoples' resistance to the unitary state, argues Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan in an article following the serial Easter Sunday bomb attacks in the island. The Wahhabis were contributing to the severing of the ties held by Tamil Muslims to their territory, and in the case of north and east, to their Tamil neighbours by targeting, destroying or marginalising traditional Tamil Muslim Sufism in the island in the past. “Time has again come for Tamil – Muslim solidarity and alliances to bloom, to arrest divisive measures of the Colombo state and external powers,” to counter the dangers of the future, he writes narrating the trends of the past and his experiences during the field trips to the island.
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SLA deployed Tamils as human shields in 1990, activists allege mass graves in Jaffna islet

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 April 2019, 21:01 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy harassed 25 Tamil protesters who had mobilised to wage a peaceful protest against the seizure of their lands at Ma’ndai-theevu, an islet off Jaffna, by photographing and recording them. However, the protesters successfully blocked the survey officials for the second time in two years. After the last attempt in June 2018, on Thursday the SL Survey Department tried again to measure the eighteen acres of residential and agricultural lands belonging to eleven families. The lands in question are already fenced off within the premises of SLNS Welusumana naval base and are declared as a no-go zone by the SL Navy, which wants to militarise them permanently. Ma’ndai-theevu, an islet located at a strategic locality towards the entrance from the Palk Bay into the Jaffna lagoon, needs to be subjected to excavations for alleged mass graves, say Tamil rights activists in Jaffna.
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UNHRC ‘Sri Lanka’ roadmap premeditated not to deliver genocide justice to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 March 2019, 15:28 GMT]
The successive UN Human Rights High Commissioners starting from the Canadian jurist Louise Arbour (2004–2008), South African Tamil jurist Navaneetham Pillay (2008-2014), Jordanian diplomat Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein (2014-2018) and the incumbent Chilean politician Michelle Bachelet, have all been following the same roadmap, laid out during the times of Ms Arbour at height of the genocidal war. That approach was based on the paradigm of avoiding looking into the crime of genocide, equating the GoSL and the LTTE and only concentrating on the war crimes and crimes against humanity that occurred during the last phase of the war in 2009. The roadmap came to light, straight from the horse's mouth in 2010 when Ms Arbour was the head of the ‘International Crisis Group’ (ICG). The paradigm was also a part of the larger ‘intended’ failure on the part of the UN system.
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Colombo sabotaging mass grave investigations and Tamils learning lessons on ‘hybrid’ paradigm

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 March 2019, 18:34 GMT]
The radiocarbon tests carried out on bone samples, which the SL authorities had dispatched to a US laboratory, as dating 377 to 615 years back has disappointed many people, who have valid reasons to believe that the recently exhumed mass graves in Mannaar are from the 1990s. The results obtained from Florida-based Beta Analytic (BETA) are being prematurely released by Colombo to imply that the period of the mass grave predates the genocidal war in the island by centuries. BETA has not issued an overall interpretation of all the samples or passed any judgement on the supplied samples as being adequate to conclude the core issue. Besides, there are several unanswered questions, most of them concerning the trustworthiness of the SL State-operated institutions handling the submission, as well as other artefacts revealing 1990s as the time of the crime.
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SL Military psyops takes precedence over flood-assistance in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 December 2018, 22:46 GMT]
For the first time after 2009, the Eezham Tamils in the North managed to mobilise on their own without to provide immediate assistance to more than one hundred thousand people, who were severely affected in the floods across Mullaith-theevu, Ki'linochchi, Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna and in the remote villages beyond the A9 road in Mannaar and Vavuniyaa. Despite some assistance through the hardworking Tamil civil servants, the attitude of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka was, as usual, discriminatory and propaganda-oriented. Also, the SL military which was duty-bound due to assist the victims of the flood, has gone to the extent of putting up ‘thanking note’ banners at several places, especially in Mullaiththeevu district, as if the people were thanking it for humanitarian assistance provided in the recent floods during which several thousand were affected.
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SL State could tamper with skeletal evidence from Mannaar on the way to foreign labs, lawyers warn

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 December 2018, 21:20 GMT]
There must be a credible independent international mechanism to oversee and ensure that the human skeletal remains exhumed from the Mannaar killing fields get transported without the risk of tampering with the evidence by the SL State, the team of lawyers representing the families of enforced disappeared in Mannaar have cautioned. The lawyers, who didn't wish to be named, said they have urged the Bishop of Mannaar and are preparing to take up the matter with international actors once the exhumation commences again on 02 January 2019. The lawyers also told TamilNet that they would stand firm in their demand to be allowed to monitor the entire transportation process.
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Sinhala extremists set to install 25 Buddha statues in Tamil-Muslim division of Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2018, 15:12 GMT]
The extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment has increased activities of genocidal land grab in Trincomalee North through the SL Archaeology Department in the recent weeks. The monks are using Sinhala paramilitary (Civil Defence Force), Army and Navy personnel in civilian clothes to put up concrete structures in the seized lands. The intruders are waging heritage genocide as they aim systematic transformation of all hill-tops, and rocky or cave-areas with traditions of folk deities, Saivist or Tamil Mahayana Buddhist Saivist traces into Sinhala Theravada Buddhist installations through placing brand new Buddha statues. Twenty-five new Buddha statues are going to be brought into Kuchchave'li in Trincomalee North, a division with predominantly Tamil-speaking people, civil officials from Pulmoaddai said on Friday.
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Skeletal remains with shackled legs exhumed in Mannaar mass grave

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2018, 23:31 GMT]
Skeletal remains of legs belonging to two different victims were found locked together into a single iron shackle at Mannaar mass grave on Thursday, eyewitnesses in Mannaar told TamilNet. The excavation continued amidst rains for the 112th day and bone remains of 266 different victims, believed to be slain by the SL military during the times of war, have been discovered so far, and 260 of these have been exhumed and boxed for forensic investigations. The legal activists witnessing the excavation fear that Colombo and its justice system would never subject the remains to forensic analyses with an independent international third party. A female ring was also discovered this week at the mass grave site, which is located at the premises of Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (Sathosa) at the entrance to Mannaar city. Since 1990, and until recently, the premises was under SL military control.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka's maritime and naval greed expose attitudes of powers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 November 2018, 11:29 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the incumbent SL President and Ranil Wickramasinghe, the now disputed SL Prime Minister, increased military-to-military maritime training with the USA, India and Japan between 2015 and 2017 while seeking to exploit the China-tilt ‘achievements’ of the Rajapaksa government. The SL Navy was receiving naval vessels as gifts from all the powers after the 2015 regime change. However, the SL State wanted more and more, believing that the geopolitical paradigm experimented through the genocide on Eezham Tamils would bring it fortunes. The naval ambitions went to the extent of wanting 25 powerful naval vessels from different actors to create a powerful naval fleet. At the same time, SL State's maritime economic ambitions were aimed at making Colombo the financial hub in the Indian Ocean.
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SL Governor shuts down Heritage Centre, escalates militarisation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 November 2018, 14:19 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's colonial Governor of the Northern Province, Reginald Cooray, has shut down the Heritage Centre in Jaffna, which was launched by the elected Northern Provincial Council under former Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and NPC Minister of Education Dr K. Sarveswaran. The SL Governor has removed the heritage artefacts and pulled off the plaque on the wall. Only the board on the premises remains. In the meantime, Cooray has deployed the SL military to launch a garden (park) at the mass grave site of Chemma'ni. Mr Cooray has also convened meetings bringing SL military commanders in Jaffna and Jaffna and E. Arnold, the mayor of the elected Jaffna Municipal Council and instructed the Tamil civil servants in Jaffna to ‘liaise’ with the occupying Sinhala military, civil sources in Jaffna said.
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SL Police blocks memorial monument for 1984 massacre victims in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2018, 11:04 GMT]
The police of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, stationed at Oddu-chuddaan has blocked the resettled Tamil families of Othiya-malai village from proceeding with erecting a memorial monument for civilians who were massacred by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. Only 50 of 110 families living in the village in 1984 managed to resettle after 27 years in 2012. Since then, they use to mark the massacred victims at the Rural Development Society building, where the massacre took place. This year, the families resolved to put up a small memorial monument in remembrance of their loved ones. However, the SL Police has warned the families against erecting the memorial.
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New Delhi owes a public apology on Jaffna Hospital massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 October 2018, 19:04 GMT]
Thirty-one years have elapsed, but the Indian state is yet to tender a public apology to Eezham Tamils for its brutal massacre of more than 60 civilians, including 21 doctors, nurses and other medical staff as well as the warded patients at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in one of the brutal massacres witnessed in the history of Jaffna. The killings took place during the invading Indian military was at war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1987. The war crimes committed by the IPKF on the soil of Eezham Tamils have not been adequately investigated, said the medical staff who marked the 26th year of the massacre committed by the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF).
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SL military launches ATMs, postal office in occupied Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2018, 16:01 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka wants to control the civil administration and all aspects of the civilian life in the former ‘High-Security Zone’ in Valikaamam North, Jaffna. The commander of the occupying Sinhala forces in the peninsula has instructed the military to install ATMs and to operate postal offices in Palaali. The SL military, which is running the ATM stations has also started to run a post office in Palaali. The latest move comes amidst increased criticism of SL military intervening in the civil affairs.
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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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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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Mullaiththeevu residents resume deity rituals after confronting intruding Sinhala group

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 September 2018, 20:33 GMT]
The Tamil residents of Kumuzha-munai and Tha'n'ni-mu'rippu villages in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district on Sunday staged a ‘Padaiyal’ ritual to their village deity at Kurunthoor-malai after Mullaiththeevu Magistrate on Thursday lifted the restraining order, which had come into force following the controversies earlier this month. A group of Sinhala youth, led by two extremist Theravada Buddhist monks, attempted to erect a Buddha statue at the hilltop of Kurunthoor-malai, a place with traces of ancient heritage in the country of Eezham Tamils, causing ethnic tension at the site. SL Forest Department guards and SL military intelligence soldiers wearing civilian clothes had accompanied the intruding mob, which was besieged by a group of vigilant Tamil youth on 04 September.
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Tamil villagers lay siege to intruding monks, expose ethnic bias of SL Archaeology Department

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 September 2018, 23:14 GMT]
The villagers of the ancient Tamil village of Kumuzha-munai in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaith-theevu district on Tuesday evening laid siege to a 16-member group of Sinhala Theravada Buddhist extremists from the South, who had come with a Buddha statue, which they wanted to erect at Kurunthoor-malai, a place with traces of ancient heritage in the country of Eezham Tamils. The group, led by two young monks, consisted mostly of Sinhala youth. The SL Forest Department guards also assisted them. The villagers alleged SL military intelligence personnel wearing civilian clothes were also in the group. The SL Police, providing escort to the group, had to withdraw from the intruders to the police station.
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UN silence on Mannaar killing fields questioned, legal activists urge Bishops to act

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2018, 16:31 GMT]
The victims of Mannaar killing fields could be families that were fleeing from Peasaalai and other places to Tamil Nadu in India during the times of Eezham War II which lasted from 1990 to 1995, legal activists working with the enforced disappeared families told TamilNet on Sunday. Since there is a systematic pattern and the massacres seem to have been deliberately committed against unarmed civilians fleeing from the war zone, these are Crime Against Humanity of the first-degree according to any standard of the International Criminal Law, they said. The UN system, particularly the Geneva-based Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), well aware of Colombo's drive to dodge international forensic analyses of the exhumed human skeletons, also keeps mum, they complained.
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