SL Military turns back Ranil visiting Valikaamam

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 April 2013, 11:34 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army, which is busily transforming the former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North in Jaffna into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), turned away a delegation led by SL opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe on Thursday evening, denying them access to visit the area and witness the scale of the land acquisition. In the meantime, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told the visiting UNP leader to voice for the rights of the uprooted people of Valikaamam North.
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Colombo begins legal appropriation of former HSZ lands in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 April 2013, 22:59 GMT]
The occupying Colombo, which is converting the lands of the former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North in Jaffna into permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), has now instructed Village level Officials of 24 GS divisions, under SL military occupation, to visit and place legal notices announcing the ‘State takeover’ of the lands in the already SL military-occupied zone on Monday. Placing such takeover-notices inside the lands of the owners without allowing them to view the announcement, is a calculated move to deny them the legal opportunity of filing suits against the appropriation move, say legal activists representing the uprooted people in Jaffna. In the meantime, informed sources said some of the land owners are scheduled to be taken to their lands on Tuesday to give consent to the move or else suffer some negative consequences.
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‘Idea of Tamil nation not dead despite aftermath of genocide’: Tehelka report

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2013, 21:10 GMT]
Even in the aftermath of terror and genocide, the idea of nationhood has not disappeared among the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, writes journalist Revati Laul in an investigative feature published on the Indian news magazine Tehelka on its April 27 issue. Travelling to the militarily occupied Tamil homeland in the north and east and interacting with politicians, civil society activists, NGO workers, priests, ex-LTTE cadres and ordinary people, Ms Laul provides through their accounts a picture of the intense oppression that the Sri Lankan state is subjecting the Tamils to through various means, she further notes how the UN’s “pussyfooting on the war” and the Geneva resolution in March 2013 gave a cloak for such oppression, arguing that “It is this refusal to take in the whole narrative that allows Rajapaksa to tell the world all is well now with the Tamils in his country.”
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Kerala researcher speaks on facets of Indo-Eezham discourse

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 April 2013, 07:35 GMT]
“Eelam and Kerala share similar history. We were ruled by the same colonial powers, the Portuguese, Dutch and later English. Kerala is not very far from Eelam and the war in Eelam was something happening right in front of our eyes. Yet Eelam never became the agenda before any political organizations in Kerala. Keralites were in the streets in solidarity with Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan. This never happened in the case of Eelam,” said Dr Vinod Krishnan from Kerala in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. Dr Krishnan, an academic researcher involved in studies related to social exclusion in South and Southeast Asia, is currently attached to the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) in India.
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Joke and a fraud, Boyle slams Kerry's New Year message

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 April 2013, 11:46 GMT]
Noting the new U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry's New Year Statement that included, "[t]he New Year brings with it a new opportunity for all Sri Lankans to join together in the spirit of peace and reconciliation," Professor Boyle, an expert in international law and a keen watcher of the treacherous conduct of the international community in watching the genocide of Tamils unfold in Sri Lanka, said, "Kerry [is] lumping the Tamils in with the genocidal Sinhala. It would be like Kerry congratulating the German Jews together with the German Nazis on the German New Year."
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Wild elephants deployed by Colombo's forest department claim lives of Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 April 2013, 09:12 GMT]
Sri Lankan Forest Department, in recent weeks, has brought in a number of wild elephants from Sinhala areas into the jungles adjacent to Koa'ra'laip-pattu South Division of the Batticaloa district, where uprooted Tamil people have resettled after the end of war. The Divisional Secretary of Koa'ra'laippattu South, Mr Thanabalasundaram, when contacted by reporters in Batticaloa, admitted that two Tamil civilians have been killed within the last 30 days by the wild elephants that have gone amok on the villagers and their properties. The lives and the livelihood of 3,000 Tamil villagers are threatened by the presence of more than 50 wild elephants of the Sinhala forest department.
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Colombo, Shuler, new US lobby firm, cozy alliance rumored

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 April 2013, 00:02 GMT]
Colombo has inked a lobbying and government affairs contract with the US-based "The Majority Group," after the previous lobby firm, Patton Boggs, terminated its representation of Sri Lanka in early February, sources in Washington said. While the diplomatic performance of Jaliya Wickremesuriya, Sri Lanka's President's relative and the current Ambassador to Sri Lanka in Washington, has been lackluster, Wickremasuriya-mooted relationship with North Carolina Congressman, Heath Shuler, is rumored to have played a role in the selection of the lobby firm, even while the Congressman's nexus to the Majority group has raised questions on the "revolving door" ambitions of Shuler, political sources in Washington said.
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Sri Lanka is Sinhala to Colombo film industry, media and academics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 April 2013, 19:57 GMT]
Responding to the protest waged by the Actor’s Guild of the Tamil Nadu Film industry in Chennai against the genocide of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, a Colombo media Ceylon Today on Thursday came out with a feature written by a “special Correspondent,” titled “A friend turned foe.” The feature detailed the long and two-way connections between the film industries of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The implied message, against the backdrop of ‘economic embrace’ contemplated in the corporate circles of India, is that ‘business should not be affected.’ Whether India’s economic embrace of the Sinhala State should take place over the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils, and whether the Indian Establishment and corporatism are unable to conceive anything alternative, are the questions righteously raised by the protest coming from the Tamil artists, writes an academic in Jaffna.
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New Buddhist shrine built at Trinco Saiva sacred site

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 April 2013, 22:47 GMT]
A Buddhist shrine has been built at the precincts of Kanniya Hot Wells a Saiva sacred site in a traditional Tamil village in Trincomalee district. A fifteen-acre land has been appropriated by the SL Government Agent Major General (retd.) Ranjith de Silva on the instruction of Colombo. The Buddhist shrine has a signboard giving the name of the place of worship as ‘Unuthiya Lin Rajamaha Viharaya’, meaning the ‘Royal Great Temple of the Hotwater Wells’. The term ‘Viharaya’ used in the board implies that a Buddhist Sangha (monastery) has been established there. The local Saiva myths associate the place with pre-Buddhist times of the King Ravana of the Ramayana epic. For centuries, the Hindu population of the region used to come to this site to perform rituals to the deceased and ancestors like the Hindus in India go to Gaya and Varanasi.
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SL military squad attacks paper office, curbs paper dissemination in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 April 2013, 10:55 GMT]
A squad operated by the Sri Lankan military intelligence on Wednesday stormed the Ki'linochchi office of the Uthayan daily around 4:30 a.m., when the distributors of the paper arrived at the office to unload the papers for distribution. The branch manager of the office and four distributors sustained injuries and three of them with serious injuries have been admitted at Ki'linochchi hospital. The office, subjected to the attack is situated on Karadippoakku Junction on A9 Road, heavily guarded by the occupying SL military. The attack has been carried out in a similar fashion as the one reported Saturday on the meeting of ITAK, a constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance.
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TNA MP cautions on PC elections harped on by Geneva resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 March 2013, 15:05 GMT]
“We are a distinct Nation with historic records in this soil, proving our evolution [as a Nation]. The Sinhala Nation destroyed us. A nation was destroyed by another nation here. But, the international community has handed us over to those who destroyed us to investigate the crimes against us; we have been handed over to those who fired upon us; to those who fired shells on us; to those who fired phosphorus bombs against us; to those who fired cluster munitions on us. How can you expect justice from this country [of the Sinhala Nation],” asked Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan, in a press meet in Jaffna on Wednesday. “Therefore, an intervention by the international community is a must and an urgent one,” failing which the existence of the Tamil nation in the island would be wiped out from the maps of the world, he further said.
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Sinhala military takes over UN demining following Geneva resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 March 2013, 07:10 GMT]
One of the immediate results of the US-resolution at Geneva “welcoming and acknowledging the progress” of genocidal Sri Lanka in various avenues, including in demining the country of Tamils, is the UN entirely handing over demining and supervision of demining to the occupying Sinhala military. This will pave way for the genocidal SL military to make money, Sinhalicize even demining and to come out with excuses for years in handing back lands, news sources in Jaffna said. The last international organisation involved in demining the country of Eezham Tamils and has an office in Jaffna, i.e., a UN outfit of Tamil staff that was supervising, monitoring and issuing certificates on demining, will be closed down in June. The work will be handed over to the SL military and its Sinhala staff.
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Ambassador Blake cannot reverse Tamil genocide: Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 March 2013, 00:43 GMT]
Responding to the statements made during the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Robert Blake's, interview with the BBC, where Blake appears to characterize the "GOSL’s mass extermination of over 100,000 Tamils in Vanni in 2009" as nothing more than “some of the negative trends that have occurred with respect to rule of law and human rights in Sri Lanka," that needs to be "reversed," Professor Francis A. Boyle, an expert in international law, said, while Blake cannot reverse the genocide, the "start of “revers{ing}” them is to establish an International Investigative Commission in order to prosecute them." Blake also denies in the interview that he [and the international community] had any knowledge of the magnitude of the casualties during the final months of the war.
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Tamils should resist being taken into current western agenda: N Malathy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2013, 12:36 GMT]
Tamils should be wary of the intentions of the Western Establishments that are pricking Sri Lanka with this or that war crimes evidence released year after year. They hold possession of a lot more hard evidence of Sri Lankan atrocities, but still do not address the question of genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, opines N. Malathy, arguing that, “the best option for the Tamils world all over is to use the insights they have gained in recent years and refuse to be taken into the Western fold. Tamils should firmly stand their ground about the genocide of Eelam Tamils and the necessity of the creation of independent Tamil Eelam.” In an article to TamilNet, Dr. Malathy, a key member of the NESoHR and the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my County’, gives a concise outline of how the West was playing the human rights card to bring both Sri Lanka and the Eezham Tamils into its fold.
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‘US resolution annihilates aspiration of Eezham Tamils’: Tamil Nadu writer

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 March 2013, 00:43 GMT]
Criticizing the pro-LLRC US resolution passed at Geneva, Tamil Nadu based writer, activist and poet, Meena Kandasamy argues that “Carrying out the diktats of such a document will only annihilate the genuine aspirations and right to self-determination of the Eelam Tamils” basing her argument on the fact that the LLRC categorically denies the existence of a Tamil homeland in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. Criticizing both the US and India for abetting the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, she further states “Justice in this unipolar world revolves around the UN and the imperialist powers that it serves. Even though the Eelam Tamils have historical sovereignty and earned sovereignty, if they believe that separation alone can guarantee them safety, their last recourse to save themselves from complete extermination is to stake a claim to remedial sovereignty before the UN.”
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New US Secretary of State responsible for Geneva injustice: Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 March 2013, 15:15 GMT]
The New US Secretary of State John Kerry, who assumed office on 1 Feb 2013, was the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 2009 that brought out a report advising the USA to help Sri Lanka’s military without insisting on political solutions. Finding a clear link between the 2009 Kerry Report and Kerry’s State Department, US Professor of Law, Francis A Boyle said, "The callous and callow Kerry Report came right after the GOSL genocidal massacre of about 100,000 Tamils in Vanni, recommending that the United States government abandon all principles and instead aid and abet the continued GOSL repression and persecution of the Tamils. That is precisely the policy we now see in operation with Kerry as U.S. Secretary of State. This latest UNHRC Resolution sponsored by Kerry’s State Department and acting pursuant to his instructions proves it. Kerry should be fired," said Boyle.
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95 Tamil girls ‘alter’ the image, says 300,000 strong Sinhala military

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 March 2013, 14:09 GMT]
The 300,000-strong genocidal Sinhala military of Sri Lanka on Thursday took ‘pride’ in recruiting for the first time 95 Tamil girls for ‘office’ work and said that it is an evidence for the military not discriminating on ethnicity. Out of 150 Tamil girls who were originally forced to enter Sri Lanka’s military, 55 managed to escape. During the ‘training,’ around 20 driven to the stage of hysteria were admitted in hospital. The Tamil psychiatry doctor who came forward to their help himself was branded as mentally challenged. He is imprisoned and yet to be released. On the passing out parade day, four of the girls fainted, while their kith and kin were helplessly watching. Promises were made for one million rupees housing aid and 44 girls received Indian-made scooters, but parents complained that their daughters, held against their will, are not allowed to visit homes.
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TN upsurge transcending establishments inspires NZ Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 March 2013, 01:12 GMT]
In a demonstration held in Auckland in New Zealand on Wednesday, the demonstrators profusely thanked the students of Tamils Nadu for internationally highlighting the genocide issue of Eezham Tamils at a most wanted time and for taking the issue beyond the party politics of India in convincing the world that creation of Tamil Eelam is the only solution. “Our struggle begins here and a hard road is ahead,” said one of the speakers at the demonstration, participated by professionals, university students and a large number of women. New Zealand Tamils were one of the first to openly caution the entire diaspora last month itself on the dangers portended by the ‘doing nothing’ approach of the USA towards the question of Eezham Tamils.
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PKK leader declares ceasefire with Turkey, calls for peaceful solution

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 March 2013, 01:02 GMT]
Abdullah Ocalan, PKK founder-leader, has given a call for a ceasefire and for a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish national question through democratic means. In a statement from Ocalan read out by Kurdish legislators in Diyarbakir, Turkey on Thursday, coinciding with the celebrations of the Kurdish New Year festival Newroz, he said "let the arms silence, opinions and politics speak", further adding that “this is not an end, this is a beginning. It is not the end of our struggle, it is the start of a new sort of struggle.” Urging the Kurdish armed units to withdraw to Turkish borders, he called on people of “Armenian, Turkic, Assyrian, Arabic and other backgrounds to see the light of freedom and equality as much as Kurdish people do.” He was also of the opinion that a future solution for the Kurds should not be based on “conquest, denial, forced assimilation and annihilation”.
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Unprecedented demonstration in Tamil Nadu denounces empty resolution at Geneva

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 March 2013, 03:29 GMT]
Several hundreds of thousands people across Tamil Nadu took to streets on Wednesday in a students-led demonstration unprecedented in recent decades in Tamil Nadu, denouncing the US-tabled empty resolution further diluted by New Delhi at Geneva, and demanding international investigations and plebiscite on the question of Eezham Tamils. Peaceful demonstrations took place at every part of Tamil Nadu, including all the major cities. Conservative estimates put the total number of participants, mostly students, at a million. The positions taken by Washington and New Delhi, the leading architects and abetters to the genocidal war in the island, in bringing out a deceptive resolution at Geneva have contributed immensely to the confirmed awareness among the people of Tamil Nadu that Tamil Eelam is the only solution to the genocide-affected Eezham Tamils, political observers in Chennai commented.
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