Tamil farmers' lands remain occupied in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2012, 23:18 GMT]
Tamil farmers, whose paddy fields have been illegaly encroached 38 years ago in Ampaa'rai district's Chammaan-thu'rai, complain that they have not been provided their lands even after the war ended in May 2009.
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Dublin conference on geopolitics highlights need for critical solidarity

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 May 2012, 23:40 GMT]
Activists from Kurdistan, Colombia, Ireland and the island of Sri Lanka, talking about the role geopolitics played in determining peace-processes and conflict in various cases, informed a mixed audience of activists, academics and journalists of the nuances of their respective cases connecting it with larger trends at an event organized at Trinity College, Dublin on Thursday. The public meeting titled ‘The Local and the Global: The Geopolitics of Peace and Conflict’, focussing on conflicts in Colombia, Kurdistan, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka, elaborated on how different alignments of global interests influenced political outcomes at local levels. The conclusion of the conference saw the unanimous passing of a resolution that opposed the criminalization of political organizations like the FARC, PKK, LTTE that fought for political and democratic demands of peoples.
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India’s Marxist Communist Party calls for withdrawal of Sri Lanka military

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2012, 03:33 GMT]
The Marxist Communist Party of India (CPI-M) in a press release on Wednesday called for immediate withdrawal of the Sri Lanka military stationed in Tamil areas of the island. In one of the five resolutions passed at the state committee meeting of the party held at Ealakiri in Tamil Nadu last Sunday, it was decided to urge the Indian government to diplomatically pressurize Sri Lanka to withdraw the troops. Observing that the SL military is intimidatingly omnipresent in the Tamil areas, the CPI-M said that it strongly condemns the stand of Mahinda Rajapaksa not to withdraw the troops. It only shows that the Sri Lanka government is not interested in resolving the Tamil question, the press release further said.
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Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal is for edification of international community

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 22:14 GMT]
Remembering Mu’l’livaaykkaal is not wailing for a tragedy. It is remembering the highest achievement of modern Tamil history, when Tamils decisively said no to an entire international community abetting a genocidal state. Mu’l’livaaykkaal is not an end of a journey. It calls for our massive re-commitment of collective political aspirations more than ever, as the Sri Lankan state has intensified its second phase of genocide, again aided by the international community, said Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, addressing Mu’l’livaaykkaal rememberance event in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday. Dr. Fernando, a Sinhalese currently lecturing and doing post-doctoral research in peace studies in Ireland was one of the main co-ordinators of the Dublin Permanent People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in January 2010.
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Sinhala-Buddhist temple opened to ‘celebrate’ genocide at Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 00:33 GMT]
Coinciding the third anniversary of Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocide, a secretly built Sinhala-Buddhist stupa was inaugurated at Vaddu-vaakal, the entrance to the Mu’l’livaaykkaal genocidal strip of land in Mullaiththeevu. As the Tamil public is yet to be allowed into the stretch of land, the building of the stupa at the genocidal site went unnoticed until its inauguration. Two weeks ago, Colombo opened a coastal road built by Chinese, linking Mu’l’livaaukkaal with Kokku’laay and Pulmoaddai where Sinhala colonisation takes place in high speed. Mu’l’livaaykkaal has already become a ‘tourist’ place for the Sinhalese from the South. While the ‘tourists’ and the Sinhala colonists using the new road are permitted to roam in the stretch of land, Tamils are not permitted to get out of the vehicles. The stupa, with an all-Sinhalese signboard has been built at the side of the new road.
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General of genocide released in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 23:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s former military commander General Sarath Fonseka, who led the Sinhala military in the ‘international community’ –abetted genocidal war against the Eezham Tamils, has been released by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in Colombo on Monday. While the so-called international community reducing the genocide into mere war crimes, now verbally demands investigation into the ‘war crimes’, the general who led the war and later imprisoned because Rajapaksa found him a challenge, was considered by the USA as a ‘political prisoner.’ His release on that count was always demanded by the USA, the main architect of the war. Fonseka during the war declared that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese. He also ridiculed the politicians of Tamil Nadu protesting the war as ‘jokers’.
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Solheim joins orchestration against independence of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 May 2012, 05:13 GMT]
Spelling out the current orchestration against the independence of Eezham Tamils, the former Norwegian minister and failed peace facilitator, Erik Solhiem said that international support is not for a new separate state in Sri Lanka, but for a multicultural, multiracial and multireligious state. Given the age-old understanding of the phrase in the context of the island, Solheim in other words was only implying support to the annihilation of the ancient nation of Eezham Tamils. Solheim, recently removed from ministerial position by his own party was invited to address a gathering in Oslo on Tuesday, by a 2012-registered Tamil organisation led by Yogarajah Balasingham alias Basharan, who was rejected by Norwegian Tamils in the diaspora elections. Sharing the stage with Solheim was visiting TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran.
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SLA expands occupation of Mannaar with two new camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 23:42 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan Army in Mannaar has started constructing two new large camps in Murungkan in appropriated lands, civil groups in Mannaar mainland complain. Hundreds of SL Army soldiers have come into agricultural settlements occupying water supplies and appropriating lands adjacent to lakes. Tamil and Muslim females complain that they are unable to move in their villages in evening times due to the heavy presence of occupying Sinhala soldiers. Questioning why the SLA is constructing two large camps in the same village, civil activists expressed fear that the move was part of a larger design to occupy and Sinhalicise the entire area comprising fertile agricultural lands of Tamils and Muslims.
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Military GA constructs Buddhist stupa at historic Saivite site in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 15:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government Agent of Trincomalee Major General (retd) Ranjith de Silva has appropriated 15 acres of land that belongs to the Trincomalee District Young Men’s Hindu Associations Federation (TDYMHAF) in the traditional Tamil village Kanniyaa, situated 7 km north of the east port city, for the construction of a Buddhist Vihare. The appropriated land is located in the vicinity of the Kanniyaa hot wells, a revered place for Saivites. The administration of the historic Kanniyaa hot wells has also been handed over to a Buddhist monk who is the head of the Velgam Buddhist Vihare, which is located two km away from the site, according to a memorandum submitted to the All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC).
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Uprooted Tamils in Ampaa'rai district languish without resettlement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 23:48 GMT]
Tamil villages in the DS divisions of Poththuvil, Chammaa-thu'rai and Akkaraippattu in Ampaa'rai district are still in the state of complete destruction. Out of 427 families uprooted from Thangkavealautha-puram, only 70 have been resettled. 80 families have been resettled in Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru village out of 424 uprooted families. 60 families of 126 uprooted have been resettled in Kaagnchirankudaa village and only 35 out of 127 uprooted families have been resettled in Chaakaamam village, civil officials said.
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Tamil boy shot by Sinhala military for cattle mangling ‘Buddhist’ decoration

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2012, 23:02 GMT]
At the height of a show of ‘victor's supremacy’ in the country of Eezham Tamils, a 17-year-old Tamil boy, S. Krishnakumar of Kumaarasaami-puram village in Visuvamadu in Mullaith-theevu district, was shot and fatally injured by the occupying Sinhala military, for his cattle damaging the ‘Vesak’ decorations commemorating 2600 years of Buddha at an SL military camp. When the injured boy was taken to the hospital, passing through the prevailing hurdles in the district, the occupying SL military took charge of the boy to be sent to Anuradhapura hospital by helicopter, but after warning his family members that the matter should not be revealed to anyone. The boy was herding his cattle on Monday evening when he was shot.
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Parts of Batticaloa worse than Vanni in ‘normalcy’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 May 2012, 16:30 GMT]
While the West and India have stopped talking about the East, and try to project an image that ‘normalcy’ has returned to the East and the North also should follow suit in the same directions, large parts of Batticaloa are silently kept under conditions worse than that of Vanni for the last five years, news sources in the East said. Similar to the times of the war in Vanni, more than 250,000 people were systematically displaced by the occupying SL military in 2007, in Batticaloa’s Paduvaan-karai part alone, under the pretext of ‘liberating’ them from the LTTE. Even though it is said that they are ‘rehabilitated phase by phase’, they are deliberately kept without basic facilities for nearly five years now, while the only ‘development’ seen there is the escalation of militarisation and harassment by the occupying Sinhala military.
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Let Rajapaksa try waving Lion Flag along with KP: Ranil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 May 2012, 07:28 GMT]
UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, holding the Lion Flag of genocidal Sri Lankan state along with TNA leader R. Sampanthan in Jaffna on Tuesday, challenged SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he could try doing the same with Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP who is in captivity of the regime. While the need of the times is for Tamils to forge alliance with the Muslims in making an alternative State for the Tamil-speaking people in the North and East, Mr Wickramasinghe recollected Sir Ponnampalam Ramanathan bailing out the Sinhala leaders indicted by the British for a pogrom against the Muslims in 1915. Muslims to this day regard it as a treachery of Colombo-centric Tamils and Sinhalese against them.
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Sampanthan, Ranil, satisfy agenda of New Delhi, Washington

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 18:11 GMT]
A photograph in which TNA leader Sampathan and UNP leader Ranil Wikremasinghe hold the Lion Flag of the genocidal state of Sri Lanka together, during the May Day rally in Jaffna, Tuesday, has caused much sensation in the island and outside. While the programme was at its height and the show of solidarity was entering into photographic sessions, all of a sudden Ranil produced the Lion Flag and wanted Sampathan to hold it, observers to the programme said. While the UNP has brought down around 10,000 Sinhalese from the south, on the TNA’s side, only less than a hundred, that too only the members of the civic bodies participated the procession and meeting, news sources in Jaffna said.
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UNP-TNA May Day rally in Jaffna fails to draw in local support

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 14:45 GMT]
If the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the United National Party (UNP) of the Sinhala state, and whatever the international forces behind them, have thought of probing the Tamil minds about a future partnership between the parties through a May Day show, then the Eezham Tamils in Jaffna have totally rejected the idea by not showing local participation to their joint May Day rally. The local people didn’t come out even to watch the fun of roughly 10,000 Sinhalese brought down from the South by the UNP marching through the streets of Jaffna. While more than 80 buses were engaged in plying between the South and Jaffna in bringing down UNP politicians and their supporters, the Tamils seen in the rally on the side of the TNA were numbering less than a hundred, confined to the TNA members of the civic bodies, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Xenophobic forces hold SL government hostage: SL Justice Minister Hakeem

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 09:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Justice Minister and the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Rauff Hakeem, who has faced severe criticism in the recent days from the Tamil-speaking people in the island, the Sinhala opposition and the Tamil Muslims of Tamil Nadu, on Tuesday, admitted to Chinese news agency Xinhua that he was appealing to the Sri Lankan government “to prevent xenophobic forces from holding the government hostage.” But, Mr Hakeem was arguing against internationalizing the issue, which he maintained was an internal affair, according to the Xinhua. The ‘revelations’ by the SL Justice minister comes in the wake of more than 500 Tamil Muslims in Tamil Nadu besieging the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai after burning the effigy of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Ampaa'rai Tamil politician questions Rauff Hakeem on land justice

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 April 2012, 21:12 GMT]
Traditional lands belong to Tamil people in the Ampaa'rai district have been continuously grabbed by those sitting in power in Colombo, according to Selliah Rasaiah, the chairman of Kaaraitheevu Piratheasa Chapai (PS) situated in Ampaa'ria district of the Eastern Provice. Mr Rasiah, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politician, has asked the SL Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, whether the Tamil people chased out of their villages in the district would be able to demand their lands forcibly occupied by the Sinhalese and Muslims. The SL minister had recently gone on record saying that he would make laws to enable those who lost their lands in the times of the war to gain them back.
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The court of international public opinion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 April 2012, 21:59 GMT]
During the last stages of the war, the Tamil diaspora did organize demonstrations in a historic way, but they were confined to Tamils and did not have the support from the rest of the international public as was the case with anti Vietnam-war protests or even in the case of recent anti Iraq-war protests, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific, stressing on the importance of mobilizing solidarity and public opinion of the Fourth World, compared to lobbying within the Establishments and filing futile court cases. As the May 17 movement has recently stated, the ICG representatives had spent 5 hours on him asking him not to raise the issues of genocide, war crimes and independence, but could not succeed, whereas certain international forces could convince our nominated politicians over a cup of coffee, he writes on the dependability of grassroot.
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Religious fundamentalism on rise among Sinhalese, Muslims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 April 2012, 23:56 GMT]
Following the threats issued by Buddhist monks against a mosque in Dambulla on Friday that they would demolish it unless the Muslims relocated the mosque from the area, which the monks claimed as a holy Buddhist site, the SL Prime Minister DM Jayaratne, who is also the minister of Buddhist affairs, on Sunday instructed the Muslims to relocate the mosque, triggering anger among Muslims. The Buddhist monks, who are engaged in setting up new Buddhist viharas and Sinhala colonies in the country of Eezham Tamils, have carefully timed their action against the Muslims in Dambulla after successfully wooing the votes of the countries with overwhelming Muslim populations, either to back Sri Lanka or to abstain from voting at the recent Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Muslim circles in Colombo said.
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Indian money used in Sinhalicisation, Buddhicisation of Thirukkeatheesvaram

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 April 2012, 00:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Sinhala military occupying the famous archaeological site Maanthai in Mannaar, where the historically pivotal sacred Tamil-Saiva temple Thirukkeatheesvaram is located in the country of Eezham Tamils, has embarked upon building a Buddhist temple at a forcefully confiscated private land, just 200 metres away from the Saiva temple. Sometimes back, the New Delhi Establishment gave much publicity for the money it gave to preserve the Thirukkeatheesvaram sacred site. But the money is now used by genocidal Sri Lanka to build a Sinhala-Buddhist ‘pilgrim’ centre at the site in order to Sinhalicise the cultural landscape in the way Kathirkaamam was Sinhalicised and is now lost to the Eezham Tamils. The temple management that has now fallen into Colombo-centric hands is silent on the issue.
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