ITAK must act to revoke Gazette notifications, transfer Land Commissioner in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 March 2019, 20:21 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena has only revoked one of the Gazette notifications that had been issued by his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa who had seized the lands of Tamils in Champoor. After the revocation of Gazette notification of transferring lands to SL Board of Investment under the Urban Development Act (UDA), the people resettled. However, a previous Gazette notification, which was made by Mr Rajapaksa who acquired the lands of the people under an urgency clause of the Land Acquisition Act (LAA), remains in force. Although repeated requests were made by Moothoor Divisional Secretary to re-issue necessary land permits to the people who had owned these lands for decades, Provincial Land Commissioner of the Eastern Province D.D. Anura Dharmadhasa has been blocking the move citing the initial Gazette notification, say Tamil-speaking Muslim officials at Moothoor DS.
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IC urged to pressure Colombo to allow ICMP to detect more mass graves in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2019, 09:23 GMT]
If the Colombo government wants to establish that there are no war-time mass graves in Mannaar district, it should invite the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) to initiate systematic scanning of all former and present military zones for mass graves, say families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances during the times of genocidal war in the district. More than 800 Tamil people have been subjected to enforced disappearances in Mannaar district alone within 19 years between 1990 and 2009. The families of the victims want to initiate a broader campaign calling for an independent international competent authority to take charge of the entire process. The families suspect there are potential sites of mass graves the Sunny Village in Mannaar island as well as in the notorious SL military base in the mainland.
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Sinhala monks deploy different tactics to make inroad into Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 March 2019, 21:18 GMT]
Trincomalee and Ampaa'rai, two of the three districts in the East, are long subjected to systematic Sinhala-Buddhicisation. Although the district of Batticaloa is facing structural occupation across the interior villages that border with Polonnaruwa and Ampaa'rai districts, the supremacist Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment and the unitary state system were unable to make headway for Sinhalicisation agenda in the urban areas of the district. However, two Sinhala monks have been experimenting with different tactics to achieve that agenda in the city and its suburbs after the end of the genocidal war in Vanni in 2009. The latest experiment seeks to deceive Tamils through accommodating two Hindu temples within the Sinhala Buddhist monastery establishment which is being expanded with a Vihara at “Jayanthi-pura,” 5 km northeast of the city where no Sinhala people reside.
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SL ministry behind Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Muslims' lands in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 March 2019, 20:28 GMT]
The National Housing Development Authority (NHDA), which comes under the SL Ministry of Housing and Construction, has illegally allocated a housing scheme to intruding Sinhala colonists in Pulmoaddai, Trincomalee. The colonists are backed by four Sinhala Buddhist monks and the Sinhala-only Civil Defence Force (CDF), previously known as ‘home guards’ paramilitary. The construction is taking place at 12th Mile Post (Maalaanoor) and the 10th Mile Post (Ea'raa-madu) in Kuchchave'li division of Trincomalee district. The houses are being hurriedly constructed in the same fashion as the lands were occupied in September 2018, when the intruders put up almost 30 huts within a few days.
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TNA hierarchy backs controversial Sinhala extremist project at Jaffna entrance

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2019, 21:02 GMT]
The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, which constitutionally accords ‘foremost place’ to Buddhism, has stepped up the hurried erection of a large Buddhist stupa at the entrance to Jaffna city in Naavatkuzhi. The ruling UNP has exerted pressure on the elected Divisional Council (PS) of Chaavakach-cheari to silently withdraw the case against the controversial project through its TNA collaborator M.A. Sumanthiran, civil servants who were forced to withdraw the case told TamilNet. The vihara was not to be built without the permission from the democratically elected civic council, the Magistrate of Chaavakach-cheari had previously ruled. After getting the TNA to withdraw its objection, SL Minister of Megapolis & Western Development ‘Patali’ Champika Ranawaka, a Sinhala extremist, visited Naavatkuzhi on 22 February to accelerate the ‘development’ of the hostile project in Jaffna.
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Colombo wants to mark ancient villages in East as ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ villages

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 March 2019, 21:52 GMT]
SL Minister of Internal Home Affairs, Provincial Council and Local Government Mr Wajira Abeywardhana has instructed the district secretariats in the three districts of the Eastern Province to declare each village having at least one Sinhala Buddhist family as a Buddhist village, highly placed civil sources at the Trincomalee District Secretariat told TamilNet on Friday. Mr Abeywardhana is a UNP politician, who hails from the Galle District in the South. The UNP is following the footsteps of notorious Cyril Mathew (1912 - 1989), an outright racist UNP politician who was the SL Minister of Industry and Scientific Affairs (1977 - 1986) under J.R. Jayewardene, commented the civil sources at Trincomalee District Secretariat.
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Colombo accelerates Sinhalicisaton of disputed heritage hilltop in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2019, 22:38 GMT]
A team of technicians from the SL Archaeology Department were deployed to copy stone inscriptions found at the disputed heritage site of Vedukku-naa'ri hill-top in Vavuniyaa on Thursday and Friday. The members of the group were claiming that they had come following special requests from the District Secretary of Vavuniyaa, a Sinhalese, and the secretariat of the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, said Thamilchelvan Thurairajah, an elected councillor at the Civic Divisional Council of Vavuniyaa North, who confronted and interacted with the team on Thursday. Two armed Special Task Force commandos and two police officers were providing ‘security’ to the technicians to carry out the recordings on Thursday and Friday. They were also making some other measurements at the hilltop, the witnesses said.
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Racist UNP Minister from Ampaa'ari deploys ‘human rights’ to terminate Tamil school

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 December 2018, 11:06 GMT]
SL Minister of ‘Labour, Trade Union Relations and Social Empowerment’ Daya Gamage, widely known for his anti-Tamil politics in the district, has been working behind the scene to terminate the operation of the only government Tamil school in the town, Ampaa'arai Tamil Maha Viththiyaalayam, Tamil civil officials in the East told TamilNet this week. In 2016, the then Zonal Director of Education, Sunil Gunathilake, a Sinhalese, handed over the classrooms of the school to the ‘National Youth Corps’ under the influence of Mr Gamage without consulting the principal of the school, K Loganathan, they said. However, the racist minister has deployed a Sinhala journalist and the ‘Sri Lanka’ Human Rights Commission office in the district to harass the Tamil principal and a teacher to issue leaving certificates to the students in an apparent bid to cease the operation of the Tamil school, they said.
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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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Protest spoils SL Police move to protect Sinhala sand-scooper causing fatal accident in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2018, 07:02 GMT]
A 29-year-old young Tamil-speaking Muslim man, identified as Mahrub Mahzoom succumbed to fatal injuries caused by a speeding vehicle, which was transporting sand through Batticaloa Moothoor road on Friday. The driver of the tipper vehicle, a Sinhalese, went into a police post and was trying to escape legal action. The Tamil-speaking Muslims launched a spontaneous protest demanding immediate legal action against the driver of the sand scoop vehicle. The people blocked roads and assaulted a police post at Periya-paalam, and the Sinhala policemen were forced to fire shots into the air to control the tense situation.
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Sinhala officials intimidate Tamil, Muslim land-owners at Kuchchave'li in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2018, 13:16 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Deputy Land Commissioner has demanded 17 Tamil and Muslim landowners at the agricultural village of Vaazhai-oottu to share their lands with Sinhalese and has claimed that the Tamil-speaking people have seized the properties of Sinhala land-owners. A similar claim was made five years ago, and the case was resolved at the courts in favour of the Tamil land-owners. However, the land officials are now exerting political pressure, the Tamil farmers said.
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Colombo withdrew Wigneswaran's security after his Remembrance Day statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Inspector General of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara instructed his Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in Jaffna W.F.U. Fernando to immediately withdraw the personal security provided to the former Tamil Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran when Fernando reported to the IGP that Wigneswaran had issued a statement supporting the commemoration of Tamil liberation fighters. His statement was released on 26 November, a day before Tamil Heroes Day and the occupying Colombo withdrew his security on 28 November. A Tamil-speaking source with close links to the SL Defence Establishment in Colombo revealed the details on condition of anonymity. The IGP had also told the Jaffna DIG to instruct the two police personnel who were with Justice Wigneswaran in Colombo to report to a police station in Colombo with immediate effect, the source further said.
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Tamil, Sinhala policemen slain in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2018, 10:31 GMT]
Unknown attackers have killed two SL policemen, a Tamil and a Sinhalese, who were manning a check post near Valai-i'ravu bridge, 5 km south-west of Batticaloa city in the early hours of Friday. 23-year-old Ganesh Dinesh, a Tamil policeman from Periya-neelaava'nai in Ampaa'rai was found shot and killed and bound to his chair outside the check-post. 34-year-old W N L Prasanna from Udugama in Galle was found dead at his bed inside the post with cut injuries to his throat. Residents said the killings could be related to a dispute between the police and a criminal gang operating with its backing. However, Colombo media was quick to blame it on Rajapaksa-aligned ex-paramilitary V. Muralitharan alias Karuna.
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Germany abets Sinhalicisation of education in occupied Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 November 2018, 18:02 GMT]
A'riviyal-nakar (Knowledge city) was a concept developed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the de-facto administration of the Tamil state in the suburb of Ki'linochchi. The University of Jaffna established the Faculty of Engineering in 2013 at A'riviyal-nakar, which is located 7km south of Ki'linochchi town. The ‘Sri Lanka’ German Training Institute (SLGTI) conceived during the regime of Rajapaksa in 2010 as a “vocational training project for the regions affected by the war,” started to function in 2014. Now, 80% of the students are Sinhala students. While all other technical institutions operating in the North use Tamil as the default language of learning and teaching, Tamil is not used as the language of education at the SLGTI, which is operating in “A'riviyal-nakar”.
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Tamils should form global action group on mass grave investigation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 October 2018, 14:41 GMT]
Extreme racist sections of the Sinhala establishment in the south of the island would go to whatever extent possible in their attempt to cover up and suppress investigations on exhumed mass graves in the north, legal activists representing the kith and kin of enforced disappeared Tamils in Mannaar said. At the same time, the justice system of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is sophisticatedly derailing every attempt to conduct forensic analyses on the exhumed human skeletons by a neutral and international third-party, they said. The legal activists urged global Tamils to form an action group to demand international legal organisations such as the International Commission of Jurists to address the issue.
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SL Police instructed to clarify authenticity of letter issued to monks by SL Archaeology Department

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2018, 23:39 GMT]
The SL Police in Oddu-chuddaan in Mullaiththeevu didn't act against the intruding group of Sinhala youth, led by two extremist Theravada Buddhist monks from South, who were blocked by the people of Kumuzha-munai on Tuesday. The people of the ancient Tamil village laid siege to the group that came with a Buddha statue and claimed it was authorised to do so by the SL Archaeology Department. How could the erection of a brand new Buddha statue be called conservation work and how come a religious group to engage in such action, was the question raised by the Tamil villagers, who interrupted the group on its way and turned it over to SL Police with demand for legal action against the intruders. However, the SL police released the group on the same day and attempted to file cases against the Tamil youth.
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Judicial investigations on Mannaar killing fields marred by Colombo transferring judges

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 September 2018, 23:19 GMT]
The all-Sinhala Judicial Service Commission (JSC) of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has been subjected to political influence by the regime of occupying Colombo sabotaging the independent investigations of the mass graves in Mannaar. The judicial investigations on mass graves exhumed four years ago at Thirukkeatheesvaram in Mannaar mainland with 88 human skeletons and the latest excavations at the entrance to Mannaar city at the premises of Cooperative Wholesale Establishment, where traces of 111 slain humans, including children and women, have been marked so far since 28 May, informed sources in Mannaar and in Colombo told TamilNet. The local media is thoroughly avoiding to report the controversy, and the lawyers are avoiding to talk about it fearing charges against them based on Contempt of Courts, the sources further said.
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Sajith Premadasa's ministry revives Sinhala colonisation of Kevu'liyaa-madu in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2018, 12:49 GMT]
SL Minister for Housing and Construction Sajith Premadasa is creating ethnic disharmony in the district of Batticaloa by launching ‘model villages’ with housing and infrastructure, allege grassroots Tamil activists in Batticaloa. Similar to the controversial projects in Trincomalee district, the SL Minister, the son of the late SL President R. Premadasa, is creating conflicts by scheming one of the four ‘model villages’ in Batticaloa district at Kevu'liyaa-madu. The ‘model village’ projects have become places of ethnic tensions as Tamil-speaking Muslim beneficiaries were brought into traditional Tamil villages and Sinhala settlers into predominant Muslim and Tamil areas, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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Maithiripala's ministry escalates Sinhala-Tamil coastal disputes in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 22:19 GMT]
The Colombo-based Mahaweli Authority, which is the implementation agency coming under SL President Maithiriapala Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, has recently allocated permit lands in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils to two main violent proponents of SL Navy backed Sinhala occupation at Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu. Mr Maithiripala's ministry and its implementing authority were intervening to sustain their conflict of fisheries occupation by allocating new public lands to the violators after the three judges of SL Supreme Court in February defended the initial verdict of Mullaiththeevu District/Magistrates’ Court that had instructed the encroachers to vacate from the public lands used as their base.
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NPC Minister responds to SLA Commander, British Archaeologist on Jaffna Fort controversies

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 August 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The recent statement made by Lt Gen Mahesh Senanayake, the SL military chief, who claimed the SL military as the rightful owner of the Jaffna Fort, was invalid, illogical and a fabricated one, said Education Minister of Northern Provincial Council Sarveswaran Kandiah, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this weekend. “There is no rule stating that all the fortresses [in the island] should belong to the [SL] military,” Dr Sarveswaran said. Senanayake should mind his own business by confining himself to the leadership of the elected leaders in a democracy and by refraining from intervening in the civil affairs in the North-East, the NPC minister said. He was also responding to British Archaeologist Professor Robin Coningham's proposition of ‘visitor experience’ and ‘tourism’ shaping the so-called post-conflict future of Jaffna through advancing tangible and intangible heritage.
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