SL military deployed everywhere, Jaffna University shut down

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 November 2014, 07:59 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has deployed armoured vehicles at the entrance to the University of Jaffna since Tuesday evening when the university administration was forced to announce that the university has been shut down from 25th of November till 01st of December. The US-trained commander of the SL military in Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera was insistent on closing down the university during the Tamil Eelam Heroes Day, informed sources said. Students were forced to abstain from attending the classes following the harassments caused by the SL military deployment. Finally, the SL military instructed the university administration to shut down the education activities citing low attendance of the students at the faculties of Arts and Science.
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Kurds defend Kobane from Islamic State onslaught supported by Turkey

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 October 2014, 10:28 GMT]
The Islamic State (IS) supported by the Turkish state has since 15th September heavily intensified their military onslaught against the Kurdish people and their self-rule government in the region of Kobane in Rojava (Western Kurdistan) in Northern Syria. Following the brutal three pronged IS military assault to capture Kobane more than two hundred thousand Kurdish civilians were forced to flee to the Turkish border. The Turkish border which had hitherto been used unhindered by the IS to infiltrate into Kobane to attack the Kurds had now been closed to weaken the Kurdish resistance. Nevertheless recent information from Rojava reports that the Kurdish resistance is growing as the IS has suffered heavy causalities in battling the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) defending the region.
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BJP’s bypass ‘geopolitics’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 August 2014, 19:03 GMT]
New Delhi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes out with a comical ‘geopolitics’ bypassing India’s own Tamil Nadu State and the nation of Eezham Tamils at the closest proximity, to build a ‘Ram Sethu’ to genocidal Sri Lanka, and in that process concedes to the total annihilation of the nation and territoriality of Eezham Tamils. Even though the inroads of China and Pakistan are cited as usual, and now added with citation of US interference as well, the DNA of the thinking of New Delhi and some of its South Indian articulators on the question of Tamils has to be carefully understood by all Tamils. There is no alternative to Tamils proving their geopolitical strength in all justifiable ways possible.
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Peace Studies philosopher advises Tamils to tell the story with a vision

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 April 2014, 11:37 GMT]
“Let us say you have one million Tamils in the Tamil diaspora. They used to collect money for the LTTE. They collected a lot of money. Let me put it in very plain simple terms: these one million work on the media of the world and make the story better known,” said 84-year old Peace Studies Professor Johan Galtung, in an interview to TamilNet-Palaka'ni last month. Acknowledging that the Eezham Tamils face genocide and structural genocide, identifying the Mahavamsa mentality in the Sinhala-Buddhists as the impediment for solutions, and at the same time blaming the armed struggle of the LTTE as a mistake, Galtung stood by “federation with a high level of autonomy,” which he had advocated and failed during his 34 visits to the island at the time of the peace talks.
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Dormant diaspora rises up against US draft, demands genocide investigation, plebiscite

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 March 2014, 23:33 GMT]
In an unprecedented gathering after May 2009, around 10,000 diaspora Eezham Tamils gathered in Geneva on Monday demanding international investigations on genocide and a UN plebiscite on independent an sovereign Tamil Eelam. Disappointed with the discourse in Geneva and losing their trust in the pro-Establishment lobbyists, the Eezham Tamils have begun to rally behind the network of the grassroots organisations in Europe, that were hitherto silently watching the process. Dr Denis Halliday, the former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, who was one of the judges at the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Sri Lanka (Bremen Session) addressed the gathering.
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Veteran filmmaker Balu Mahendra passes away

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 February 2014, 17:24 GMT]
Veteran Tamil Eelam born filmmaker Balendranathan Mahendra, popularly known as Balu Mahendra passed away in Chennai on Thursday. Born in Batticaloa on 20 May 1939, Balu Mahendra was a 1966 batch Diploma holder in Cinematography from the prestigious Pune Film Institute of India. Debuting as a cinematographer in the 1974 Malayalam movie Nellu, for which he won a state award, Balu Mahendra went on to win five national awards and three Filmfare awards subsequently both as a director and a cinematographer, and is widely regarded as a trendsetter in Indian cinema.
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Genocide has to be compensated by separation: Sikh politician

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2013, 22:30 GMT]
“Tamils can’t live [in a united Sri Lanka] after the perpetration of the crime of genocide. I think the wounds are too deep historically there to be reconciliation. After a State has committed genocide, there can’t be any reconciliation,” says Simranjit Singh Mann, the president of Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar party, who advocates the formation of Khalistan as an independent and sovereign State for Sikhs, in an exchange of views with Tamil Nadu based May 17 Movement. “Pirapaharan and his movement was too powerful for the Sri Lankan government,” he said, adding that “it was under the collaboration of UPA-led Congress government that the Sri Lanka government was able to achieve and crush the movement for freedom by committing a genocide on the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.”
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Heroes Day in homeland, Diaspora, Tamil Nadu gains more significance than previous years

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:22 GMT]
The Indian prejudice and the global injustice, committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils by the various powers, enabled the Sri Lankan State to wage its genocidal war on Eezham Tamils to its end. But, the Tamil Heroes together with their steadfast people, who had no support from any State party in the world, achieved a superior moral victory. This is a unique case in modern human civilisation. This year, the remembrance of Tamil Heroes gained far more significance than the previous years after 2009, as Eezham Tamils in their homeland defied the ‘gag order’ by the occupying SL military, Diaspora Tamils marked the day without giving room for divisions engineered by the intelligence outfits of the Establishments and in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil national grassroots and political movements marked both LTTE leader Pirapaharan's birthday on 26 November and Maaveerar Day on 27 November.
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SL military operatives issue death threat to Catholic priest in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 08:06 GMT]
Pointing their gun at the parish priest of Our Lady of Gaudalupe church, unidentified persons who came in motorbike that had no number plate, issued death threat to Fr. S.S. Johnpillai in Trincomalee city. The incident took place around 9:00 p.m. on 26 November. The gunmen blamed that the priest was praying on the birthday of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.
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Court in Jaffna dismisses SL military claim on Tamil memorial site at Theeruvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 22:18 GMT]
District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military. Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site, where three significant monuments stood in remembrance of key LTTE leaders and commanders who sacrificed their lives under the occupation of Indian and Sri Lankan militaries and civilians massacred by the Indian military at VVT in 1989.
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Diaspora teenager records the Vanni she witnessed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 23:37 GMT]
“Was I a Stranger in My Homeland? Has One Two Lives?” is the title of a book by a young Norwegian Eezham Tamil girl, Malavi Sivakanesan. The book tells the story of how she, as an 8-year-old girl visiting Vanni, enjoyed playing in the sands of her homeland to how she, 6 years later at the age of 14, powerlessly witnessed from Norway the unfolding genocidal onslaught on the coastal strip of the same Vanni in 2009. With a lot of questions on why the global Establishments didn’t do anything to stop the genocidal onslaught despite hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including the children of her age, took to the streets staging demonstrations in an unprecedented way in the West, to why the Tamil youth are still struggling with questions on what is going on and what they should do, she publishes the book at the age of 17.
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Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 September 2013, 01:27 GMT]
It now becomes increasingly clear that the Wigneswaran-Sumanthiran-Sampanthan trio is bent upon hijacking a peoples’ verdict to serve the agenda of New Delhi and Washington that in turn are bent upon propping the Colombo-centric State in the island and upon absolving the crimes of all the genocidal partners, without conceding anything. Colombo-centric media writers say that the NPC ‘chief minister’ designate Mr C.V. Wigneswaran plans to meet the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa, on his first foreign visit. Ms Jayalalithaa should not deviate from a resolution, enacted after six hundred thousand people took to streets in Tamil Nadu that provided international space for the independence voice of Eezham Tamils. Tamil Nadu aptly answering Wigneswaran is answering New Delhi, said a Tamil activist for alternative politics in Jaffna.
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Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperialist orchestration

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 05:57 GMT]
Following an interview to The Hindu, condemning Tamil Nadu voicing for the independence of Eezham Tamils, the NPC Chief Minister candidate C.V. Wigneswaran in an interview to The Times of India on Friday denounced the call for boycotting CHOGM meet in Colombo as well. The boycott call comes largely from the international human rights circles outside of the Establishments. More than representing the true aspirations of Eezham Tamils, and placing them in the right perspective to the international community of peoples, the focus of Wigneswaran is primarily on facilitating the agenda of the international community of Establishments that attempts to confirm its ‘victory’ in upholding the Colombo-centric State and at the same time absolve the genocidal crimes of all concerned, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics.
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Eezham Tamil man self-immolates in front of Geneva UN office

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 September 2013, 18:22 GMT]
An Eezham Tamil diaspora Tamil man, 35-year-old Senthilkumaran Ratnasingam, has immolated himself in front of the UN office in Geneva on Thursday around 1:10 a.m. The authorities in Switzerland were initially reluctant to confirm or release the details of the incident. However, Tamil circles at Geneva told TamilNet that the Swiss police together with a group of Iranian activists, who were engaged in protests at the time of the incident, attempted to save his life and rushed him to Chuv hospital in Lausanne, where he succumbed to his injuries on Thursday around 4:15 p.m. Meanwhile, Iranian persons present at the site of the incident said they found a photo of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan at the site. The latest self-immolation comes amidst disappointment prevailing among Eezham Tamils following the recent visit of UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanetham Pillay to the island.
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Even constitutional restructure is no solution: Kasi Ananthan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 00:30 GMT]
A constitution, even after any reform or restructure, is meaningless in the context of the island Ilangkai (Sri Lanka), as the single State for the whole island is not disposed towards honouring any constitution. In a two-nation island, where one nation is dominant, there are no safeguards as in the case of the multi-nation India under one federal constitution. There is no point in India and the USA harping on the 13 Amendment under a unitary constitution or any other constitutional changes. The 13th Amendment is not a part of Sri Lankan constitution but a part of Sri Lankan conspiracy. The TNA leadership announcing abandonment of Tamil Eelam is the greatest treachery in our liberation struggle, said poet and veteran Tamil political activist Mr Kasi Ananthan in an interview to TamilNet this week.
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Fundamentals diluted behind the scene in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 August 2013, 19:09 GMT]
An elitist group of Tamil lawyers and law academics who have become entrenched in the Colombo-centric system, are collaborating with a section of the foreign Establishments in making Tamil demands ‘non-descript’. Removing the notion of Nation, they talk about self-determination that is not self-determination. In their terminology, ‘Nation’ becomes ‘people’ or ‘nationality’; ‘traditional homeland’ becomes ‘historical habitation’; and ‘Tamil homeland’ becomes ‘contiguous and preponderantly Tamil Speaking Northern and Eastern Provinces’. In an anti-thesis to Tamil Sovereignty Cognition approach based on historical sovereignty, earned sovereignty and remedial sovereignty, they talk about ‘shared sovereignty’, writes an informed Tamil activist in Colombo.
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Tamil Nadu students burn 13th Amendment, call for referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 August 2013, 21:17 GMT]
Tamil students burnt symbolic copies of the 13th Amendment at a protest at Va'l'luvar Koaddam, Chennai on Sunday, urging that only an internationally monitored referendum could provide a solution to the national question of the Eezham Tamil nation. The protestors also called for the expulsion of genocidal Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth.
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Diaspora youth release Policy Document to chart course of struggle post-Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 22:20 GMT]
Second-generation diaspora youth activists came together to release a Policy Document to chart the course of the Eezham Tamils’ struggle, assessing political developments post- May 2009. After interactive sessions held from July 6-7 at an event titled ‘Seeking Perception sans Conditioning: Charting the Course of Struggle in Assessment of Post-Mullivaaikkaal’, eight activists from Europe, Australia and Canada asserted the need for holding the recognition of a sovereign nationhood of the Eezham Tamils as basis for a principled minimal demand of the Eezham Tamil nation, grounding it in the School of Thought of the Eezham Tamils’ struggle. Calling for a critical engagement with the International Community, the youth activists declared that Tamil organizations must be held accountable to the democratic will of the people, urging the formation of a robust Tamil civil society in the diaspora.
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‘Abuse of Tamil women part and parcel of intended genocide’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 11:02 GMT]
The abuse of Eezham Tamil women committed by the Sri Lankan state apparatus should not be seen as individual human rights violations but as a part and parcel of an intended genocide of a protracted nature, write Dr. N. Malathy, key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’ and RM Karthick, research scholar at University of Essex, UK. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati’s 6th issue for 2013, the authors, criticizing international organizations for their failure to properly deal with the issue of genocidal rape by Sri Lankan forces, also call on the Tamil community to have a change of social approach towards rape survivors, noting how violence against Tamil women is deeply intertwined with communal identity.
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American feminist writer contrasts gender politics of LTTE and GoSL

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 July 2013, 23:51 GMT]
“The Sri Lankan government has used rape against Tamil men and women suspected of being members of the LTTE [...] but the Tamil Tigers have seemingly not used it in retaliation,” writes American feminist writer Michele Lent Hirsch. In an article that is general commentary on the use of rape by both state and non-state actors in war published on Women Under Siege on Tuesday, the author compares and contrasts the gender politics of the LTTE with other actors in conflicts, and concludes that “if rape is not inevitable in war, it follows that we have all the more reason to hold the perpetrating groups responsible.” Commenting on this, a Tamil feminist activist from Vanni remarked that it is not only important to condemn rape in war in general, it is also important to recognize the nature of the sexual violence used in specific cases and to deal justice to survivors accordingly.
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