Tamils resisting demographic genocide at North-East border, stricken by poverty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 May 2014, 23:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State is accelerating Sinhala colonization with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces at Kokkuth-thoduvaay, a strategic village situated in Mullaiththeevu district. “Nobody has listened to our repeated pleas for freeing our lands. We went from divisional offices to SL president placing our appeals. We have also done our maximum in mobilising against the demographic genocide,” says civic member K. Sivalokeswaran from Kokkuth-thoduvaay North. Now, the Eezham Tamils, who have resettled in the village are stricken by poverty, similar to what the world has witnessed in Somalia, he says. All the agricultural lands owned by Tamils have been appropriated. The residential areas where Tamils managed to resettle are also being appropriated by Colombo, he says.
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146,000 acres of lands appropriated through militarisation of Batticaloa in 5 years: Tamil MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 May 2014, 23:42 GMT]
Colombo has established 54 new military camps in Batticaloa district. 650 acres of lands have been appropriated for the occupying SL military, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian P. Ariyanethiran addressing May day rally in Batticaloa. Within the last 5 years alone, 145,885 acres of lands belonging to Tamil workers have been seized, Mr Ariyanethiran further said. The major land appropriation has taken place through the SL ministry of tourism seizing 122,063 acres through gazette notification within the last 5 years, the parliamentarian from Batticaloa said.
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Terror squad assaults Tamil journalist in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 April 2014, 23:43 GMT]
A squad, believed to be operated by the Sri Lankan military intelligence on Monday evening chased and attacked 29-year-old Sivagnanam Selvatheepan, a leading journalist in Vadamaraadchi. When the journalist attempted to escape from the squad, the attackers chased him on foot and assaulted him causing severe internal injuries to his head. The squad also broke one of his legs. The brutal assault comes just one week after the so-called Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of occupying Colombo had obtained his motorbike registration number, identity card number and cell phone details through Nelliyadi police in Jaffna.
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SL military threatens former LTTE members, civilians from Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 April 2014, 14:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives have detained 3 Eezham Tamils from Batticaloa district in recent days. A couple and their kids living in Vavuniyaa were detained by the so-called Terrorist Investigation Division, interrogated at Vavuniyaa TID office and later transferred to Boossa detention in Colombo. The arrest was made in Vavuniyaa on 06 April. Both, the husband and wife were former LTTE members in Batticaloa who had left the movement before the defection of Karuna. They were arrested in Vavuniyaa where they were employed. Their three children have been handed over to the grand parents in Aayithiya-malai, news sources in Batticaloa said.
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Tamil politicians demand international investigation at Jaffna protest

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 March 2014, 23:36 GMT]
When Sinhala prisoners protested in Kandy, Namal Rajapaksa, the son of SL President went to the prison and ordered a report on the condition of prisoners. But, when Tamil political prisoners and prisoners of war, subjected to torture on a daily basis, stage protests, no one from the SL government cares about visiting them, said Sundaram Mahendran, the head of the Colombo based Committee on Missing Persons on Sunday when addressing the people protesting against the mysterious death of a Tamil prisoner Gopithas Visuvalingam, a British citizen who was imprisoned in Colombo since 2007. The protest was staged in the morning of the funeral day of the victim Gopithas, who is a father of two from the UK.
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Tamil Nadu should be welcomed to give jolt to Indian foreign policy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 February 2014, 00:44 GMT]
“The running of foreign policy by federal units is not advocated, but they can and should make benign inputs into its making. Think-tanks specialising in foreign relations and Area Studies Departments in Universities can play a meaningful role in this direction,” writes Chennai-based former South and Southeast Asian Studies Professor V. Suryanarayan, who was also a member of the National Security Advisory Board of India during the Vanni War. Claiming that his “essay is a perspective from Chennai,” Suryanarayan was particularly elucidating and detracting the moves of Tamil Nadu on the cause of Eezham Tamils in his foreign policy discourse that appeared in the website of New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), on Friday.
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Resettled survivors of Vanni onslaught languish in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2013, 17:14 GMT]
95% of the 1080 families of Batticaloa Tamils who survived the 2009 genocidal onslaught in Vanni and resettled back in Batticaloa district have been completely neglected from any help and still languish without basic facilities. When the families displaced from Batticaloa to Vanni in 2004 from different places of the district, Karuna group paramilitary destroyed their houses and their possessions were robbed. When they returned to their district, surviving the genocidal onslaught, Europe-based NGOs and UN agencies provided temporary huts to these families. All support stopped there, and these huts became the ‘markers’ for these families to get isolated from further aid, the families complain. They have also been sidelined from the Indian housing assistance.
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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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UN offers immunity to Indian diplomat accused of visa fraud

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 21:12 GMT]
In a blatant exhibition of skullduggery and political nepotism, Secretary General of the United Nations (UNSG), Ban Ki Moon, Monday, has approved the appointment to a diplomatic position, a New York-based Indian diplomat, accused of visa fraud, thereby affording her diplomatic immunity from alleged criminal conduct. Earlier, U.N. raised no opposition to UN appointments of Sri Lanka's alleged war criminals, ex-military General Shavendra Silva, under whose command Tamil civilians were massacred, and Palitha Kohona, who has a complaint pending in the International Criminal Court over his complicity the killing of surrendees in the Sri Lanka war. Political observers say U.N. has become a safe haven for friendly states to provide diplomatic protection from past crimes and to whitewash alleged criminal conduct.
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Uprooted Tamils in Trincomalee demand justice for genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 14:37 GMT]
A section of uprooted Tamil families from Champoor, now staying at one of four so-called welfare centres in Trincomalee, staged a protest on Saturday carrying slogans that demanded justice for genocide and urged global attention on the continued refusal by the Colombo government in allowing them to resettle in their own lands in Moorthoor East. On Friday, a day before the protest, the occupying Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives, went on a house-to-house and camp-to-camp round instructing the Tamils not to take part in any protest during the ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’. Subsequently, the protest was held in the premises of Ki’liveddi camp. The SL police who came to the Ki’liveddi camp on Saturday confronted the protestors and said they should not carry any placards with slogans. However, the uprooted people were firm in staging their protest with the presence of Tamil politicians.
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Anti-Eezham fanaticism in India cites NPC to save Colombo on CHOGM

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2013, 02:55 GMT]
On Monday, writing a letter to DMK chief Karunanidhi, requesting him to persuade Thoazhar Thiyagu to call off his fast unto death campaign, New Delhi Establishment’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that “ a decision on the issue of my participation in the CHOGM conference will be taken only after considering all relevant factors, including the sentiments of your party and the Tamil people.” On Tuesday, Chennai-based V. Suryanarayan, who has spent a lifetime in serving New Delhi’s security–intelligence outfits and in opposing independence of Eezham Tamils, wrote that if New Delhi boycotts CHOGM it will harm the NPC ‘experiment’ and “it would be playing into the hands of the fanatical sections among the Tamil diaspora.”
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Uthayan faked, SL forces focus on targeting Ananthi on election day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 07:18 GMT]
While the Indian media, The Hindu and The Times of India, highlight NPC chief minister candidate Mr CV Wigneswaran condemning the call for Tamil Eelam and the call for boycotting the CHOGM meet, the focus of genocidal Colombo seems to be on targeting Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the Tamil homeland-based candidate, who has become popular among the people. On the morning of Saturday, which is election day, the popular daily in the North, Uthayan, was faked and in its name, a newspaper was circulated saying that Ms Ananthi has joined the Colombo government. The fake paper cited Mavai Senathirajah. Meanwhile, news reports from several parts of the North said that the occupying SL forces are intimidating and preventing Tamils from voting. In Mullaiththeevu, a voting booth captured by Sinhalese prevented local Tamils from voting. Despite the odds, people are seen actively engaged in voting.
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TNA activist killed in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 September 2013, 19:25 GMT]
A 35-year-old Tamil National Alliance (TNA) activist, Mr Rasiah Kavithan, also known as Suresh, was beaten to death by a criminal squad associated with the ruling UPFA of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Mullaiththeevu on Monday around 6:00 p.m., initial reports from Vanni said. The killing has taken place while the sons of the SL President, Namal Rajapaksa MP and Yoshitha Rajapaksa (SL Navy), have been spearheading the election campaign in Mullaiththeevu district for the ruling UPFA. A UPFA supporter and an operative of the SL military intelligence, Mr Raja Karuna, is contesting the elections in Ma'nal-aa'ru. The election campaign undertaken by Rasiah Kavithan on behalf of the TNA was challenging the UPFA in Mullaiththeevu.
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Colombo plans forced ‘militarisation’ of ex-LTTE members

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 September 2013, 09:09 GMT]
In a shocking revelation, it is reported that former LTTE members – both men and women – are being intimidated to join the SL military in the East. The paramilitary operatives of Karuna and Pillaiyan groups are being used by the SL military intelligence for this purpose. The former Tiger fighters are threatened that their parents would be in danger if they refuse to join the military. The intelligence operatives have been conducting door-to-door campaign in areas including Vaakarai, Vellaave'li, Kudumpi-malai and Veappa-vedduvaan in Batticoala district intimidating the former Tiger fighters in order to enlist them for the occupying SL military.
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Mysterious death amidst increasing reports on torture in SL prisons

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 September 2013, 23:49 GMT]
52-year-old Francis Nelson, a father of one, from Karunaadduk-kea'ni in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Mullaiththeevu, died in Sri Lankan custody at Kalutara prison on September 02. His wife, a Sinhalese, who has been living in Vanni with the parents of Nelson, has alleged that her husband's death was caused by continuous and systematic torture at the prison. Nelson had managed to phone his wife on September 01 and the news of his death the following day was a shocking news to the family, news sources in Vanni said. The mysterious death of the Tamil prisoner comes amidst increasing complaints of routine torture at the prisons in the South.
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Tamil parliamentarians protest against Sinhalicisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 August 2013, 22:54 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians in Batticaloa staged a peaceful protest in front of Paddippazhai Divisional Secretariat (DS) on Wednesday against the Sinhalicisation of Paduvaankarai, Kevu'liyaa-madu and Puluk-kunaavi. The SL police, operated by Colombo, was telling the protesters to leave the site arguing that a group led by the Buddhist prelate of Batticaloa Mangalarama vihara was coming to the site to stage a counter-protest. However, Tamil parliamentarians objected the explanation by the SL police and held the protest for one hour as planned.
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Archaeological Report on Maanthai comes after 29 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 22:36 GMT]
Archaeological report on the excavations at the ancient port city of Maanthai (Thirukeatheesvaram) in the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, conducted between the years 1980 and 1984 and co-directed by John Carswell then from the University of Chicago, has finally seen the light of publication this June. Edited by John Carswell, Siran Deraniyagala and Alan Graham, and copyrighted to the Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka, the publication supported by Ceramica-Stiftung Basel has been released by the publishers Linden Soft Verlag, Aichwald in Germany. Professor Carswell, now turning 83, has succeeded in presenting the material he had excavated, which would have otherwise been lost forever with the kind of State in the island.
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SL minister punishes Batticaloa villagers for supporting TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2013, 22:38 GMT]
More than 1,830 acres of paddy crops lying on the left hand channel of Unnichchai tank are in the verge of dying without water supply. Spill gates of the tank have been closed from July 25 as SL Deputy Minister in Rajapaksa government Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan has imposed a ‘ban’ on water supply to farmers on the left channel as ‘punishment’ for their support to the parliamentarians of Tamil National Alliance in the Eastern Province, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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Sinhala occupation of Kokku'laay lagoon tripled after 2009

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2013, 23:35 GMT]
Strategically located Kokku'laay lagoon on the borders of Trincomalee district and Mullaith-theevu district has become the haven for Sinhalese fishermen who arrive from south of the island. With the end of the war in 2009, the number of Sinhalese fishermen occupying lagoon area had been trebled, civil sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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Ibsen’s Doll’s House translated into Eezham Tamil in Norway

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2013, 00:02 GMT]
Modernism’s world famous playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Et Dukkehjem (A Doll’s House) has found earlier translations in Tamil. But what is special about the present translation by Kasinather Sivapalan is that it is in spoken Eezham Tamil, making the reading and staging of the play homely to Eezham Tamils in their country and in the diaspora across the world. A Doll’s House, written in 1879 and said to be the world’s most performed play by the early 20th century, is not new to Eezham Tamils. Even 50 years ago it was staged in Jaffna, scripted in Tamil and directed by veteran writer, the late Mr E. Mahadeva (Thevan-Yaazhppaa’nam), who was Mr Sivapalan’s teacher at Jaffna Hindu College. The current translation by Mr Sivapalan, produced in Norway where he is in exile now, comes as a publication of Mithra Arts and Creations in Chennai.
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