Continued denial of justice and Colombo's ban on remembering Tamil fighters condemned

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2016, 23:43 GMT]
All the norms of war were broken to target a distinct race. The people in Vanni were targeted in a mass-slaughter, from children in womb to elders, by merciless ethnic chauvinism because they were all Tamil-speakers, said Jaffna University Student Union. Seven years have elapsed with continued denial of justice. Those who committed the crimes are walking scot free under the so-called good-governance, the JUSU said calling for Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance within the premises of Jaffna University at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. In the meantime, NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who lit the flame of sacrifice at the memorial site in Trincomalee for those subjected to genocidal slaughter in the Welikade prison in 1983, condemned the Sri Lankan State for denying Eezham Tamils the right to honour their fallen fighters.
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Neduntheevu marks Genocide Remembrance on 31st anniversary of Kumuthini massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 May 2016, 23:32 GMT]
Coinciding with the 31st anniversary of the massacre of 36 Tamil civilians on Kumuthini boat in 1985, the people of Nedun-theevu (Delft) island, the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula, marked the fourth day of Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance Week on Sunday by paying tribute to all those who perished in the decades long genocide against Eezham Tamils. On 15 May 1985, 36 Tamil passengers, including four children and one of them being a two-year-old, were hacked to death by Sinhala Navy personnel, who came in two boats. The SL Navy later refused the people of Neduntheevu to commemorate their dead by destroying the memorial site, which was constructed at the jetty. This year, the remembrance took place at the newly constructed memorial site.
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Mu'l'livaaykkaal remembrance gains momentum amidst renewed harassments

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 May 2016, 17:18 GMT]
Elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), former members of civic bodies, militant-turned political parties in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) are engaged in organising memorial events in the country of Eezham Tamils amidst recently renewed threats and harassments against former Tamil fighters in the North and East. The SL military intelligence circles have been telling former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that there will be consequences if they were seen paying tribute to fallen LTTE members. Not only the LTTE fighters, all the Tamils who wanted to be free and stood with the LTTE in Vanni while all the global Establishments were directly or indirectly assisting Colombo were all real Tamil Heroes, said NPC Councillors who are organising a series of memorial events and meetings in the North.
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Colombo's attempt to survey church lands for permanent militarisation foiled at Poonakari

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2016, 08:29 GMT]
Three days after the last attempt to survey the lands belonging to 6 families and a Saiva temple at Paraman-kirray in the strategically situated Poonakari, the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka attempted on Thursday to survey lands belonging to St. Jude's Church at Pa'l'lik-kudaa in Poonakari without prior notice. However, the Parish Priest of the church and more than 100 villagers blocked the survey department officials, who were brought to the spot with SL Navy escort, news sources in Poonakari said. In addition to the protest, the public spontaneously mobilised making a written signature campaign against the militarisation. The SL military intelligence operatives and SL Navy sailors were taking photos of the journalists who were covering the protest and recording video of the protestors in a threatening manner, news sources further said.
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Eezham Tamils protest against continued military land grab at strategic Poonakari

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2016, 18:35 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka has planned to grab further 3,087 acres of private and permit lands in the strategically situated Poonakari, which is situated to the northwest of Ki'linochchi at the entrance to Jaffna Peninsula, Jaffna Lagoon and its location facing the Palk Bay and the opposite coast. The landowners of 6 families and an Amman temple blocked SL Survey Department officials for the 4th time at Paraman-kiraay on Monday. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heavily garrisoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed.
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War-affected, poverty-stricken Tamil villagers complain of neglect in housing assistance

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2016, 23:35 GMT]
104 Eezham Tamil families, who have resettled in Isaimalaith-thaazhvu village, which is located 3 km southeast of Murungkan town along Mannaar - Mathavaachchi Road in Naanaaddaan division, complain that they are being systematically neglected in all the housing schemes reaching Mannaar district. The families, mostly dependent on animal farming or agriculture close to their temporary huts, live below the poverty line, and are among the poorest in Mannaar district. Their houses were either demolished or taken over by the occupying SL military and the notorious Special Task Force (STF) in February 1997 during the brutal military operation code named ‘Edibala’.
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SL Governor condemned for justifying military-run preschools in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2016, 22:55 GMT]
NGO sources in Vanni recently released photos exposing the SL military-run preschools where Tamil children were being made to wear ‘Civil Security Division’ uniforms with CSD and Lion symbols of the occupying Sri Lankan military. More than 8,000 Tamil children are attending the military-run preschools in Vanni at 270 locations. While the SL military is refusing to hand over the administration of these preschools to the provincial council, the SL Governor to North, Reginald Cooray, has rushed to Vanni last week to justify continued military administration of these preschools. Former LTTE members at three different locations were forced to sing ‘Sri Lanka’ anthem in Sinhala and the CSD women had to garland him after dancing in Kandyan Perhara style, news sources in Vanni said. NPC Minister P. Aingaranesan has condemned SL Governor's description of SL military as a ‘development’ agency.
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Returning Tamil journalists forced to pledge written oath to unitary State

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2016, 21:27 GMT]
None of the Tamil journalists or political activists, who were exiled during and after the Vanni war, could return to their native Northern or Eastern provinces without getting whitelisted by the military intelligence of the occupying Sinhala military prior to their entry into the North and East. Media activists from Colombo who met a group Tamil journalists in Vanni this week told TamilNet that a section of journalists in North had met Major General Mahesh Senanayake on 06 April at Palaali military base. When the journalists questioned the SL commander that some of their exiled journalists, currently residing in Tamil Nadu and other countries, were wondering about returning to the island. The SL commander had refused to officially comment, but shared this information in a ‘unofficial’ way, the sources further said.
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Key Tamil organisations boycott Colombo's dialogue meet in Norway

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2016, 11:35 GMT]
The mainstream political and development related diaspora organisations of Eezham Tamils in Norway boycotted a so-called “high level” dialogue meeting organised by two NGOs funded by Norway on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry of Norway has been advocating behind the scene to lock the Tamil organisations into the ‘dialogue’ meeting with the Netherland-based NGO operative Ram Manikkalingam, who is a close associate of former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) and is an official member of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's “Office for National Unity and Reconciliation”. At least 8 of the 12 invited organisations either boycotted or abstained from attending the meeting on Wednesday. Five of the boycotting organisations came out with a joint communiqué clarifying their position.
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UN ‘rewards’ Erik Solheim

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2016, 21:13 GMT]
Mr. Erik Solheim’s name in history is inseparably intertwined with the genocide of Eezham Tamils that followed a peace facilitation decidedly failed by international criminal outlook in world establishments. Mr. Solheim was placed to play a key role in the facilitation and he is a key witness to the tilt of balance carried out in deception to the world. By forwarding his name to the UN General Assembly to become Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with the rank of Assistant Secretary General, the UN system and its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon make a pointed mockery at Tamils and peoples of similar plight all over the world, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Maithiripala’s structural genocide targets Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2016, 23:21 GMT]
Colombo’s Forest Department, which comes under SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development’ and Environment, has been blocking Tamil farmers from taking their cattle to graze in the northern and eastern parts of Thivulaanaik-ku’lam, which is situated across the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai districts in the East. Wealthy Sinhalese businessmen from Kurunegala and Gampaha districts have seized thousands of acres of public and forest lands to grow cowpea crop in large scale in the area, says T. Sivapatham, the president of Poaratheevup-pattu Cattle Farmers Association. Meanwhile, the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa is prioritizing the interests of Colombo’s business elite and the projects by foreign NGOs involving the employees in the public sector. Tamil farmers are being completely ignored in Batticaloa district, according to divisional civil sources.
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SL TID cites Facebook ‘private messages’ as evidence to restrict Tamil political activism

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID), currently engaged in containing the voices against the abduction and hostage taking styled arrests in the North and East, has claimed in communication to Chaavakachcheari Magistrate's Court that they have accessed Facebook private messages and chats that have taken place between individuals in the Diaspora and the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In a recent case where the secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) Youth Wing V.S. Sivakaran was detained and later released on surety bail, the TID had submitted the above argument as ‘evidence’ to the courts, the sources said adding that the TID was silencing critical voices in the island by deploying surveillance agencies outside the island.
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May Day events illustrate divisions in Jaffna, Colombo and Oslo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2016, 23:44 GMT]
While R. Sampanthan of the ITAK and Gajendrakumar Ponnamabalam of the TNPF organized May Day events in Jaffna that reflected the political divide as well as funded manipulations within the ITAK, Sinhala leftists in Colombo who were calling for the release of political prisoners and political equality were disturbed as Maithiripala Sirisena’s Police intentionally allowed Mahinda Rajapaksa supporters to use the same route to travel in buses despite repeated requests in advance against the move. In Norway’s capital Oslo, Eezham Tamils marched denouncing the genocidal concept of ‘Sri Lanka’. In the meantime, two Norwegian NGOs that claim to be independent were attempting to broker ‘development assistance’ manipulated ‘diaspora engagement’ between a member of the so-called ‘Special Presidential Task Force on Reconciliation in Sri Lanka’ and invited Tamil individuals and groups in Oslo.
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Justice more important than motorbikes and houses: Journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2016, 15:25 GMT]
More than one hundred Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists in Colombo organised a protest in front of the Fort Railway Station on Friday condemning the Sri Lankan State for not investigating the assassinations of popular journalist Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, who was abducted on 28 April 2005 and found shot dead behind the SL Parliament on the following day. Sivaram's assassination took place during the regime of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK), who now heads the so-called ‘Office of the National Unity and Reconciliation’ while remaining tight lipped on the genocidal crimes committed under her rule. A Sinhala journalist described the protest as a big success demonstrating the continued solidarity among the sections of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim journalists, who were behind the principled demand of Justice.
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Undeterred by civil actions, extremist monk at Kokku'laay vows to complete controversial Vihara

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2016, 05:27 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military is deployed round-the-clock to construct the controversial Buddhist temple-centric establishment, conceived as a tool for Sinhalicisation of the strategic coastal stretch at Kokku'laay, which links Northern and Eastern provinces of the country of Eezham Tamils. The construction is proceeding despite repeated requests to find an alternative place from Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran and despite instructions from Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat to halt the construction till the dispute of private land, which has been occupied by the Sinhala extremist monk, is resolved. On Sunday, Ven Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero, the extremist monk was demonstrating his vow to continue with the construction when he spotted Tamil journalists taking video of the resumed construction work from a distance.
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Sirisena's party rejects federalism, Sinhala mob in Italy wants Tamils to hoist ‘Lion’ flag

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 April 2016, 16:59 GMT]
A group of Sinhalese carrying genocidal Sri Lanka's Lion flags protested on Monday against a sport event of Eezham Tamils at the city of Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy. The sport event was organised by the Eezham Tamil diaspora organisations to mark the Italian Freedom Day and to honour the pioneer of the Tamil freedom struggle, Pon Sivakumaran. The Sinhala mob was mobilised through posters that called ‘every Sri Lankan’ from Bologne to come to “Muandi Aiya's” shop to protest against the sports event organsed in support of the ‘Barbarous LTT’, according to a poster put up the mob, which was not even unable to write proper Sinhala, commented a Sinhalese who is close to Eezham Tamils. In the meantime, Mahinda Samarasinghe, a key Sinhala leader has described federal demand of Tamils as “unconstitutional” and as something that would strengthen “extremism”.
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23 Tamils detained under PTA in recent weeks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 April 2016, 21:27 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) of occupying Colombo has detained at least 23 Eezham Tamils from North and East at various prisons since 29 March. The arrests have taken place in white-van abduction style and through hostage-taking of family members. One of the victims is a woman, who is detained at Vavuniyaa. Two males are being interrogated at the so-called 4th Floor torture chamber in Colombo, while the remaining 20 are being detained at Boosa prison in Galle district in the South. All the ‘arrests’ have been carried out under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), with judicial evidence standards for arrest lower than even "reason to believe."
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No sign of ‘change’ in shifting genocidal military away from residential areas in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 April 2016, 23:29 GMT]
The 11th Regiment of the occupying Sinhala Army, organized under the 233 Brigade of the military of genocidal Sri Lanka, is refusing to release the lands belonging to Murakkoddaan-cheanai Government Tamil Mixed School, situated 18 km north of the city of Batticaloa on Batticaloa – Vaazhaichcheanai Road zonal education officials told TamilNet on Friday. The SL military is also occupying the lands that belong to 25 Tamil families in the surroundings of the lands of the school. There is no sign of SL military making the area suitable for civil life. The school is operating at a different location 200 meters away from the seized lands. Continued militarisation of residential areas should be perceived by Tamils realising how large tracts of farm lands are being seized for demographic genocide by occupying Sri Lanka and how ‘Mahaweli’ scheme is conceived to complete the genocide in East.
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Tamil political prisoners urge strong outside efforts to secure their release

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2016, 06:15 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners in Anuradhapura prison told a delegation of Mannaar Citizens' Committee and a Northern Provincial Council member from Mannaar who were visiting them at Anuraadhapura prison on the traditional New Year Day on Thursday that they had lost all the hopes in the Colombo regime, which had come to power using the votes of Tamils. The regime is adamant in not taking a principled approach to their release. In the meantime, the political prisoners, who met the delegation from Mannaar told TamilNet over the phone that they had urged the visiting NPC councillor to impress upon the Chief Minister of the NPC and other councillors to also address the plight of Tamil political prisoners with Up-Country Tamil origin languishing in Anuradhapura prison.
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Road accidents involving occupying military escalate, jouranlists threatened

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 April 2016, 17:10 GMT]
The increasing accidents and aggressive behaviour by the occupying Sinhala military is on the increase as witnessed this week in two accidents in Poonakari in the North and in Trincomalee. A 59-year-old Tamil mother and her 33-year-old daughter were killed Monday night near Vigneswara College in Trincomalee city when a speeding military vehicle crashed on their autorickshaw. The driver and another 33-year-old woman were rushed to hospital. At Poonakari in Ki'linochci district, a 23-year-old Sri Lanka Army driver of a military water bowser was killed and a civilian driver of a dump truck (Tipper) sustained injuries in the accident on Tuesday night.
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