Sirisena didn't keep word on resettling Tamil Catholics of Musali before 31 December

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2018, 22:59 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena promised to resettle the people of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam before the end of 31st December 2018. Despite the repeated pleas the people made through their political representatives in the SL Parliament and the Bishop of Mannaar taking up the matter with the SL President and his secretariat in Colombo, nothing has taken place, complained Rev Fr Lawrence Leon on Monday. The SL Navy was refusing to release the lands and is still putting up constructions while the people are languishing without infrastructure and roads. Last year, a bus transporting people narrowly escaped from a fatal accident during the Christmas time. The new year mass at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption at Mu'l'li-ku'lam has therefore been moved to the morning on 01st of January 2019, the parish priest further said.
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Diocesan Authority over Madu Shrine should remain uncompromised: Mannaar Bishop

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 December 2018, 22:30 GMT]
The Diocese of Mannar is still on a clarification and consultation stage in its engagement with the SL Presidential Secretariat on the proposal of declaring the locality of Madu Shrine as a sacred area, Bishop of Mannaar Rt Rev Emmanuel Fernando said in a video interview on Monday. “It is of utmost importance to preserve the authority of the Bishop of the Mannaar Diocese on Madu Shrine without any erosion, same as it has always been,” the Bishop said. “We have also urged the participation of the Administrator – the Holy Friar – of the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu in all the discussions,” he said. “We are still watching whether these would be properly met. Only if these concerns are appropriately met, we would be prepared to grant our permission to the move,” Bishop Fernando clarified. “We have also obtained advice to be able to refuse our permission if that is not the case,” he stressed.
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Sirisena brings ‘sacred area’ deception to subvert Madu Shrine into ‘Anuradhapura’ paradigm

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 December 2018, 21:50 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and a section of Sinhala Catholics in Colombo are pushing to demarcate the Madu area, where Our Lady of Madu shrine is located. The sinister move is based on the advice coming from the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment, which wants to assert a mythical ‘Pathini Deiyo’ legacy in the next phase through the ‘Anuradhapura’ perception of so-called Sinhala heritage. Sections of Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar have already sensed the heat in Sinhala establishment in Colombo and advocate caution without much public attention, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet. The Sanctity of Madu (Madhu) has always been beyond the scope of the boundary of a non-secular state apparatus and it should remain so also in the future is the general opinion being whispered within the ranks of Mannaar Diocese, the sources further said.
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USA, China agree on 90-day ceasefire on trade war, India to reaffirm US defence ties

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2018, 14:45 GMT]
Unlike the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that ended without a final statement amidst US-China disagreements in Papua New Guinea two weeks ago, the summit of 20 powerful economies of the world (G20) has concluded in Argentina with consensus among the capitalist actors resolving to “strengthening the global financial safety net with a strong, quota-based, and adequately resourced IMF at its centre.” The G20 has also resolved to reform the World Trade Organisation, which has been viewed by US President Donald Trump as something designed by the rest of the world to screw the USA. While the G20 vowed to “improve a rules-based international order,” Mr Trump has agreed with Chinese President Xi Jinping to begin negotiations on structural changes to resolve longstanding trade disputes within the next 90 days, which is seen as a ceasefire on trade war between China and the USA.
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US-China trade war escalates, APEC summit ends without joint communique

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 November 2018, 07:29 GMT]
“The United States will not change course until China changes its ways,” said US Vice President Mike Pence, who was continuing the hardline rhetoric against China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) capital of Port Moresby on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping in his address asked: “Which direction should we choose? Cooperation or confrontation? Openness or closing one's door? Win-win progress or a zero-sum game?” The meeting ended without the parties agreeing on a joint statement.
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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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Chinese media refute US accusation of debt-trap diplomacy in Colombo, Hambantota

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2018, 18:34 GMT]
Chinese media is attempting to counter the allegations coming from the US Defence Establishment and media with particular reference to 99-year-leases in Hambantota and Colombo port city projects being carried out as part of the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China. Global Times, the English version of the paper operated by the Communist Party of China, in an op-ed published on 05 November said: “According to Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Chinese loans made up 10 percent of Sri Lanka's total foreign debt at the end of 2017 while loans from Japan reached 12 per cent, India 3 per cent and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank 14 per cent.”
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Let Sinhala nation decide its fate, keep focus on Tamil struggle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 October 2018, 23:51 GMT]
The constitutional coup is an outcome of a fierce competition raging between UPFA and UNP agents, who want to exploit the accelerating trade-war between the two powers, the USA and China. The USA has already established its strategic military access to the island through India. The current dispute is not aimed at taking military or diplomatic side with a particular actor, Tamil political observers in Jaffna said. The right-wing populistic SLPP led by Rajapaksa, the strongman from Hambantota and the centre-left SLFP chaired by Sirisena, another strongman from Polonnaruwa, are staunch Sinhala nationalist parties having the blessings of the Buddhist establishment. The SL military is excited by their unity. Tamils, having no leadership after the LTTE, are puzzled. They are deceived to believe that China is behind Rajapaksa and that the USA is sticking with Wickramasinghe.
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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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NPC Minister wants international excavations of war-time SL military camps in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 August 2018, 22:48 GMT]
Excavations must be carried out at the direct presence of international monitors wherever the SL military was stationed with camps during the times of war in the North-East, said Ananthy Sasitharan, who is the NPC Minister of Women’s Affairs and Rehabilitation. Thousands of Tamils, subjected to forced disappearance and arrests during the times of war, are still unaccounted for and their trauma and dismay has aggravated at the scale of the recent discovery of mass graves in the North, Ms Sasitharan said. The NPC Minister is one of the thousands of survivors, who are yet to receive a clear answer from the SL State on the whereabouts of their loved ones. Furthermore, Ms Sasithran said international mediation was necessary to achieve a political solution to the conflict and blamed the Colombo government for marring the NPC with a hostile attitude.
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Vanni mobilises against structural genocide with anti-Mahaweli rally

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 21:18 GMT]
Around 4,000 Tamil-speaking people of all walks of life mobilised on Tuesday in one of the biggest protests to take place after 2009 in Mullaiththeevu. The protesters came with six concrete demands: Mahaweli projects within the limits of the Northern Province should be scrapped; The land permits issued to encroaching fishers from South in Kokku'laay, Kokkuth-thoduvaay and Karunaadduk-kea'ni should be withdrawn; The lands of 2,000 Tamils, who were evicted from their village in 1984 should be handed back to them. The SL Archaeology Department, which is seizing the sites of heritage at wanton from Tamils to distort the history, should be restrained. The Sinhala colonisation, de-linking the territorial contiguity of the North-East, should be stopped forthwith. The ban on livelihood activities in the lagoons that are unilaterally declared as natural-reserves by Colombo, should be lifted.
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Two more skeletal remains of female victims surface at Mannaar killing fields

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 23:00 GMT]
Skeletal remains of an adult and a child, both females, have surfaced on Tuesday at the mass grave being excavated in the premises of former CWE building in the city of Mannaar. So far, 60 individuals, including six children, have been spotted. Of these, thirty-three have been fully exhumed. The excavators have seen gunshot-like holes in the skulls exhumed a few days ago. There are also injuries caused by sharp metals, indicating torture. The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka was stationed in the locality since the 1990s.
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Uprooted Mu'l'lik-ku'lam Tamils adopt Ira'nai-theevu approach, enter their lands seized by SL Navy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2018, 19:21 GMT]
More than 200 Tamil families were living in Mu'l'lik-ku'lam eleven years before, in 2007, when the Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka seized the coastal village facing towards the Gulf of Mannaar. Last year, the occupying SL Navy said it would consider handing over a small pocket of 77 acres of the total 5,000 acres back to the people, after ten years of protests and finally the people waging a continuous protest for 38 days in March and April 2017. However, the SL Navy didn't clear the lands and hand them over to the people despite repeated requests. The promise was a deceptive move aimed at containing the protest. However, around 50 of the 200 families have now chosen to enter the lands by themselves. They are now confined to the lands, which the SL Navy said it was prepared to release, Catholic priests in Mannaar told TamilNet on Wednesday.
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Antiquities Ordinance used to justify Sinhalicisation of 48 locations in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2018, 22:30 GMT]
The intruding Sinhala-Buddhist establishment and the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka are rushing ahead with the expansion of an already reconstructed Buddhist temple, the so-called Gurukanda Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda RMV), which is located at Chemmalai, Naayaa'ru in the coastal Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district. As the protesting Tamil land-owners successfully blocked the surveying of the lands earlier this month, the intruders are now citing an Extraordinary Gazette notification, issued in 2013 (1823/73) during the times of Rajapaksa rule, to proceed with their plans of expanding the Vihara, the civil sources at the District Secretariat said.
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Sinhalas have come in big way, as opening of Kandyan Kingdom: Rt Rev Jebanesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2018, 23:38 GMT]
Tamils had been the first inhabitants and an original people of this island. Although some historians accept that fact, the present Sinhala historians do not take it. Back in the old days, when H.C. Ray was the professor of history at the University of Ceylon, he used to refute the claim that Tamils were interlopers. The interlopers were the Sinhalas and not the Tamils, he used to say. However, one is unable to resonate that fact anymore, says Rt Rev Dr S Jebanesan, the former Bishop of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet. The tyranny of the ‘majority’ is dominating the post-colonial political discourses and the case of ‘Sri Lanka’ is a classic example of this trend, the scholar of philosophy, theology as well as the Tamil and English languages, said.
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Occupying SL Police in Jaffna again blamed for dodging action on criminal policemen

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 June 2018, 23:05 GMT]
Post-mortem examinations have revealed that the 32-year-old Tamil victim, who died after SL Police fired on him within the premises of a Catholic church at Mallaakam in Jaffna on Sunday evening, was caused by a gunshot that pierced his lungs. The bullet entered from backside below the shoulder. Besides, there were also wounds indicating that he had been beaten, medical sources said. In the meantime, the SL police Senior DIG in Jaffna Roshan Fernando went on record stating that the policeman was involved in the firing was being detained. But, no such police officer was produced to the courts, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Monday night.
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Another mass grave located in Mannaar at former SL military zone

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 June 2018, 17:06 GMT]
The existence of another mass grave has been confirmed after the discovery of human skeletal remains from sands dug from an area previously used as the ‘High-Security Zone’ of the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka in mainland Mannaar. The latest discovery is from the island of Mannaar where the building of SL state-owned department store network, known as Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE), was situated. The building has been dismantled to put up a new five storey building for the CWE Sathosa. The occupying SL military is still stationed 50 feets close to the site.
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Extremists among Sinhalese burnt Tiger flags in South, racism says Fr Sakthivel

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2018, 12:32 GMT]
A section of Sinhala extremists in the South has burnt Tiger flags after an organised campaign in the social media by certain elements that are believed to be from the SL military intelligence wing operating in the North. Propaganda has been waged through the social media, intentionally spreading false information to the South that the Northern Provincial Council had lowered the Lion flags to half-staff on Mu'l'livaaykkaal Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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Uprooted Tamils embark on courageous sea landing, SL navy restrained at Ira'nai-theevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 April 2018, 21:35 GMT]
Four hundred uprooted Eezham Tamils, who have been waging a continuous protest since May 01, 2017 at Muzhangkaavil along the western coast of Vanni, embarked on a historic sea journey to the twin-islet of Ira'nai-theevu on the 359th day of their protest on Wednesday. They were vowing to resettle back in their native place braving any objection coming from the occupying SL Navy, The Sinhala sailors present at the naval detachment restrained as their officers were embarrassed by the courage of the people. The people went there in 46 boats. Seven Catholic priests, including their parish priest Fr Arudchelvan, accompanied them. The people are now staying at the premises of the Church of Our Lady of Holy Rosary and at the Catholic Tamil Mixed School in the twin-islet, which is located 12 nautical miles from the coast of the mainland in Mannaar facing the Palk Bay.
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NPC Minister walks out as SL Governor ditches CM's recommendations on SLAS transfers

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 April 2018, 22:26 GMT]
The occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is bent on curbing the powerless Northern Provincial Council from carrying out its work through deploying the colonial Governor, who is controlling the army of SLAS officials serving the NPC in various positions. Be it a military governor or a civilian governor — regardless of the person being Sinhala Catholic or Tamil-speaking — it is the role of the SL Governor coming under the direct control of Colombo, which is causing headache to the elected Chief Minister who want to exercise the powers vested in him. The Tamil criticism target the underlying paradigm, commented Tamil political activists in Jaffna after witnessing the recent administrative disputes taking place between Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and Reginald Cooray, the SL Governor to North.
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