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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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’.
Full story >>

LJP President Paswan backs call for UN referendum

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 May 2012, 06:36 GMT]
Ram Vilas Paswan, the president of Lok Janshakthi Party from the state of Bihar and a former Indian minister, took part in a candlelight vigil organized near the Kannagi statue at the Marina Beach, Chennai by May 17 Movement on Sunday and signed on the list of the signature campaign calling for UN referendum among Eezham Tamils to assert their political destiny. Mr. Paswan, a Rajya Sabha MP, talking to media also said that Tamils had mandated the creation of Tamil Eelam in 1977 elections, which was based upon Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of all Tamil parties that represented Tamils in the island. The Sri Lankan state has not only ignored Eezham Tamils' democratic mandate, but has also systematically unleashed violence on them.
Full story >>

Independent international investigation on Sri Lanka called for at London event

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 May 2012, 05:35 GMT]
Eezham Tamils from across the UK gathered at Trafalgar Square, London to remember the Mu’l’livaaykkaal massacre at a remembrance event organized by the British Tamils’ Forum, on Saturday. With participation from the main political parties of the UK, diaspora groups and activists from the homeland and Tamil Nadu, speakers at the occasion emphasised the need for an independent international investigation in the island, a probe into charges of genocide committed by the Sri Lankan state, ending the militarization and colonization of the Tamil homeland, and self-determination of the Tamil people. Many of the non-Tamil speakers also strongly stated that the UK should stop deporting the Eezham Tamil asylum seekers back to the island. The event drew a crowd of over five thousand the organizers said, citing police sources.
Full story >>

Demand UN-monitored referendum: Mahendran, Communist Party of India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 13:00 GMT]
We should demand withdrawal of SL military and creation of an atmosphere conducive to conduct an UN-monitored referendum for Eezham Tamils to decide on their political solution, said Mr. C. Mahendran of the Communist Party of India (CPI), interviewed Friday in Oslo by Palaka’ni presenter M.Pirabukannan from Tamil Nadu. If Washington and New Delhi want to refuse our rights, let them try. This is a struggle for justice. The emancipation comes when you realise that rights cannot be won by the mercy of others. Independence is achieved through uprising of people and their resolve. The unity of Tamil Nadu, Eezham Tamils and the diaspora holds the key. The next phase is to evolve joint action based on mass struggle from the three dimensions. I am convinced about big changes taking place in Tamil Nadu. Mu’l’livaaykkaal has brought a historic task on to World Tamils, he further told Palaka'ni.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu begins campaign for UN referendum on Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2012, 00:03 GMT]
Demanding the UN to conduct a referendum among Eezham Tamils to allow them to determine the political future of their homeland, Tamil Nadu based civil society group Youth Against War Crimes and Genocide (YAWCAG) started a campaign to collect one crore signatures to convey solidarity for the same, on Wednesday. The signature campaign which was inaugurated near the Gandhi statue at Marina beach involved participation of veteran political activists and civil society groups from Tamil Nadu. The organizers plan to take the campaign to other districts of Tamil Nadu soon. “It is necessary for the people of Tamil Nadu to pressurize the state and central government to recognize that the Eezham Tamils cannot live with dignity and peace under a unitary Sri Lankan state,” E. Ra. Thirumalai, one of the co-ordinators of YAWCAG, told TamilNet.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

India, USA denying fundamentals reduce Tamils to discuss 13 Amendment

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 May 2012, 23:20 GMT]
Saving genocidal state of Sri Lanka as a continuity of the long European colonial order in South Asia has now become an obsession with India and the USA, more than the Sinhala nation. From Congress-BJP-CPM to VCK in India, and from hijacked sections of the diaspora in North America to London, the orchestration is to make the genocide-affected Eezham Tamils to denounce their right to protection, right to self-determination, and most importantly their right to call themselves a nation. Sumanthiran’s TNA, instead of working for an alternative secular state in the North–East, only mumbles the gagged situation in between the lines in the presence of Indo-US diplomats in Jaffna. The diaspora still don’t know where to address the issue. Law lecturer Guruparan Kumaravadivel in Jaffna on Sunday aptly brought out the unworkability of India-conceived 13 Amendment.
Full story >>

Chalapathy brings out Thamotharampillai letters

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 May 2012, 10:15 GMT]
Tamil historian Professor AR Venkatachalapathy, delivering keynote address at Tamil Studies Conference in Toronto on Saturday, brought out hitherto untapped objective evidences of around two scores of letters written by CW Thamotharampillai (1832–1901) to UV Swaminathaiyar (1855–1942), for a better understanding of the relationship between the two pioneer editors coming from Jaffna and Tamil Nadu in transferring Tamil classics from palm leaf manuscripts to print media. The letters dating between 1883 and 1899 show that despite being rivals in publication the two were in close contact and cooperative if not collaborative. The letters also show the generosity and magnanimity of Thamotharampillai, personally and in matters of publication, and as a senior scholar he encouraged Swaminathaiyar and saw in him the future of classical editorial scholarship, Chalapathy said.
Full story >>

Sushma casts false impression on 35 years of mandated Eezham Tamil aspiration

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 17:13 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, addressing her party convention in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, and citing TNA leader R. Sampanthan, implied that Tamils in the island don’t ask for independence but only some political parties in Tamil Nadu want it. The same line of thinking came out from the representatives of the ruling Congress led by Sonia Gandhi and the CPI-M as well, who participated in a parliamentary delegation visit to the island that was boycotted by mainstream political parties in Tamil Nadu. Undertaking a six-day tour guided by Colombo and New Delhi’s plenipotentiary in the island, Sushma has no right to give a false impression to the Indian public on the mandated and re-mandated aspiration of Eezham Tamils in the last 35 years inside and outside of the island, responded a veteran Tamil politician in the island.
Full story >>

Contributions of Sivaram remembered at Memorial Seminar in London

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 02:41 GMT]
Commemorating the life, thoughts and contributions of ‘Taraki’ Sivaram Dharmeratnam, and inviting diverse views on the same, the Sivaram Memorial Seminar conducted in London on Sunday brought together Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim, British and Tamil Nadu journalists, academics and activists to discuss the intellectual legacy of the late senior editor of TamilNet. Referring to personal interactions with Sivaram, his ideological influences, his life as journalist and activist, his political and strategic analysis, the speakers interacted with the audience that included members of different shades of diaspora organizations, mainstream media and solidarity groups. The tightly packed programme included a closed door screening of award winning film-maker Beate Arnestad’s documentary ‘Silenced Voices’ to the seminar attendees.
Full story >>

Thirumavalavan hurts sentiments of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 17:43 GMT]
New Delhi parliamentarian and leader of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a member of ruling UPA alliance, Mr Thirumavalavan, meeting UPA leader Mrs Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday expressed his ‘appreciation’ about New Delhi’s stand on ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ at the UNHRC resolution, and requested her to implement it and pressurise the Sri Lankan government to find a permanent political solution. The moment Thirumavalavan uses the phrase ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ and thrust an identity despised by Eezham Tamils on to them, he perverts righteous political solution, commented Tamil political circles in the island. Rather than urging recognition of rights of the nation, the VCK leader pleading Sonia Gandhi, whose party presided over the genocide of Eezham Tamils, to implement UNHRC resolutions paving way for structural genocide, makes him no different from the Congress and CPI-M, they further said.
Full story >>

Canadian Muslim, Tamil and civil groups condemn religious intolerance in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 00:40 GMT]
Twenty organizations from Canada, which included prominent Muslim scholarly and activists groups, Tamil organizations, and influential Canadian civil society groups, came together to condemn the religious intolerance of the Sinhala-Buddhist government in Sri Lanka, in the wake of the Dambulla mosque attack, drafting a letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa on the issue. "The Canadian Peace Alliance stands against any type of discrimination, whether against the Tamil nation or the Muslim people of Sri Lanka. Any just society must uphold the rights of all people regardless of ethnicity or religion and must pay special attention to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable groups. That is why campaign against the Tamil genocide as well as Islamaphobia in Canada and abroad," Sid Lacombe, coordinatior of the CPA, told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Sinhala GA officially orders Buddhist construction at Thirukkeatheesvaram

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 May 2012, 00:59 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s Sinhala Government Agent of the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, AK Sarath Savindra on Friday sent official orders to the divisional secretary of Maanthai West to permit the construction of a Buddhist temple at the Saiva sacred centre Thirukkeatheesvaram, where no Sinhala-Buddhists live. A Buddha statue was already placed there by the occupying Sinhala military, at 200 metres near the Saiva temple in a forcefully confiscated private land. Meanwhile, the entire Mannaar district has been brought under the Anuradhapura administrative circle of genocidal Sri Lanka’s Archaeology Department. While existing Muslim and Hindu places of worship are demolished and removed from Dambulla, claimed to be a Buddhist centre, the Sinhala government encroaches a pivotal Saiva sacred centre in the country of Tamils.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

Viyaapaari-moolai, Hetti-mulla

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 April 2012, 20:18 GMT]
The merchant’s corner
Full story >>

UK deportee killed while Tamil Nadu returnees arrested in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2012, 11:41 GMT]
A 28-year-old Tamil man, recently deported from UK was found killed in Trincomalee on 18 April, news sources in the district told TamilNet Saturday. In the meantime, in a systematic combing operation launched by the special units of Colombo's military and police establishments, up to 300 Tamil males and females have been ‘arrested’ and sent to military detention camps in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa since last Saturday. Among the victims are also people who have recently returned from Tamil Nadu and they too have now ended up in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa, the sources in Trincomalee further said.
Full story >>

India’s CPI-M cites gagged Eezham Tamils in negating their independence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2012, 07:06 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday defended its parliamentarian TK Rangarajan saying that Eezham Tamils don’t ask for independence. Citing statements of politicians gagged in the island as authentic expression of the minds of Eezham Tamils and endorsing Rangarajan’s negation of Eezham Tamil independence, the CPI-M state secretary G. Ramakrishnan argued against the current stand of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his criticism for Rangarajan. If the CPI-M is truly a party of oppressed people, and a party valuing true democracy, it should first demand removal of the Sri Lankan constitutional ban on talking about secession to help people and their politicians to talk from their heart, and it should support a referendum, rather than imposing conclusions of genocidal Establishments, said an Eezham Tamil politician having no freedom to even reveal his name.
Full story >>

220 Tamils arrested in SLA combing in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 April 2012, 17:53 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army and Police, backed by special teams of the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ from Colombo, have been entering selected houses in the villages of Trincomalee district, detaining ex-LTTE members since Saturday evening. The SL forces have detained around 220 Tamil males and females from their houses. The detained men have been taken to Welikande and the females have been taken to Poonthoaddam in Vavuniyaa, informed sources told TamilNet Wednesday. Ex-LTTE members who had left the movement more than 10 years ago have also been detained. The arrested also include returnees from Tamil Nadu and those who have been detained earlier and released for reunification with their families. While India and the West talk only about the North nowadays, the operations of genocidal Colombo in the East largely go unnoticed.
Full story >>