Plans afoot to settle Sinhala people in Thiriyaay in Trincomalee district

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 August 2010, 13:46 GMT]
Moves are afoot by Sri Lanka government central land authorities to acquire about three thousand acres including paddy fields belonging Tamil farmers located close to the Buddhist temple called Kirihandu Seya in Thiriyaay, a traditional Tamil village, north of Trincomalee town. The residents of Thiriyaay said that this is part of a subtle move by the chauvinist elements in Sri Lanka government to attach more lands to the Buddhist temple in order to settle Sinhalese from South.
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2 Chinese key military officers on secret visit to Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 August 2010, 20:33 GMT]
Two key officers of China military paid a sudden and secret visit to Vanni where they met the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) top officers in the important bases in Vanni, sources in Vanni said. Even the key SLA officers based in Vanni had not been informed of the sudden visit of the Chinese military officials who arrived in a convoy of vehicles heavily guarded by Sri Lanka President's Special Security Force, the sources added.
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SLA exploits Chinese funds meant for resettlement of uprooted Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2010, 07:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni is exploiting funds donated by China for the resettlement of uprooted Vanni people to construct permanent housing schemes for its personnel, in Kokkaavil, located west of A9 road in Vanni, civil society organizations in K'linochchi said. Uprooted civilians forcibly taken by SLA soldiers to work in the constructions said that even two storey buildings are under construction in an area where new roads have been laid. Meanwhile, around 3,000 uprooted families, brought to be resettled in Vanni by Sri Lanka government, continue to live under trees left abandoned while Sri Lanka government exploits international assistance meant for them to settle Sinhalese families from South, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian said.
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SLN reintroduces pass system for fishing in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2010, 20:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has reintroduced pass system for fishing under which the fishermen have to obtain the pass to go fishing in Trincomalee district. Six months ago SLN had completely lifted the pass system. Now all fishermen engaged in shore fishing and deep sea fishing have been instructed to obtain pass before leaving to sea, fisheries society sources in Trincomalee said. The Sinhalese fishermen, however, engaged in deep sea fishing are allowed to fish without any restriction, the sources added.
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Assert Eezham Tamil identity in international arena: Es Po

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2010, 01:18 GMT]
“The identity of Tamils in the island is not Sri Lankan. For over half a century the Sinhala chauvinists constantly staging devil dance tell that the identity belongs only to the Sinhalese. A Tamil who has ancestry in the island has no choice other than claiming for the identity Eezhath-thamizhan in the international arena. If that identity is not there he has neither face nor name,” says veteran Eezham Tamil creative writer S. Ponnuthurai (Es Po), in writing a forward to a poetry collection a few months ago. Meanwhile, veteran academic Prof K Sivathamby in an interview to Frontline last month regretted that “we did not have a situation in which all our people could join as Sri Lankans”, but added, “ Now we realise... The Sinhalese people also should realise that we are part of the landscape, and Tamils also should realise that this is the only country where the Sinhalese live”.
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Development crimes, Norway and Tamil diaspora

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2010, 23:52 GMT]
“While the West is hoodwinking Tamils with war crimes investigations, what takes place in the island in full swing with the abetment of those who abetted the war are development crimes, demographic crimes and cultural crimes to complete genocide. The balance tilted by the international community has now placed Eezham Tamils to face several armies: an occupying army, settlement army, a retrogressive cultural army and the ‘development army’. Meanwhile, some Tamil individuals argue that diaspora should stop prioritising politics, but should ‘reconcile’ to subordination and engage in ‘rehabilitation’, without realising that it is they who have imperceptibly fallen into a vicious political agenda of the oppressors”, commented a social activist responding to ‘development’ circles in Norway advocating the diaspora to engage in ‘development’ accepting a questionable Sinhala NGO as the ‘monitor’.
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SLA personnel to be settled in uprooted civilians’ land in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 July 2010, 06:28 GMT]
Five thousand houses constructed in Mu’ruka’ndi area in Ki’linochchi district including Skanthapuram along A9 road are to be settled in August with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) senior and junior officials and their families permanently while the uprooted civilians brought to be resettled in Skanthapuram are left in a school building by Sri Lanka government officials, sources in Ki’linochchi said.
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Construction of fishing centre for Southern fishermen in Mannaar suspended due to protest

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 18:49 GMT]
The construction of a fishing jetty and a cooler facility for Sinhalese fishermen from South that was begun in Naachchikkudaa coast in Mannaar district with the support Sri Lanka government top officials was suspended as the local fishermen organizations had raised their strong protest, sources in Mannaar said. The above constructions were begun in the Nachchikkudaa coast where uprooted civilians were allowed to resettle.
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Weiss: Colombo dominated by racist ideologues

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 July 2010, 23:28 GMT]
Arguing the reasons why Sri Lanka is making "fanciful" claims that "as many as half of all Tamil boatpeople have "links" to the Tigers," Gordon Weiss, UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka during the war, says "Its [Sri Lanka's] government is dominated by racist ideologues who promote the notion of the Sinhalese as a "chosen people." Government death squads have snatched thousands of people from the streets over the years. The country's highest court has explicitly rejected the role of international human rights instruments in Sri Lanka's affairs. And the government continues to deny that it killed civilians during the recent war, that there were battlefield executions, that it bombed hospitals, or that there is anything wrong with the sham democratic machinery of the state. The repressive creature of extreme nationalism is alive and well in Sri Lanka."
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Cabinet meeting in Ki'linochchi aims to deceive Sinhala people: UNP MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 July 2010, 18:17 GMT]
“All should understand that the Sinhala people also have to bear the burden of foreign loans Sri Lanka has to borrow to develop the North which was destructed by Tigers,” Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa claimed in a public meeting in Ki’linochchi Wednesday after having held the Cabinet Meeting in Ira’naimadu Sri Lanka Army (SLA) head quarters in Vanni. Nearly a hundred people brought by SLA participated in the meeting held under tight security. “There is no minority in the country but all are majority in the sense that all are Sri Lankans,” Mahinda Rajapaksa further claimed. Meanwhile, Jayalath Jeyawardene, an opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian said in a statement to media in Colombo Wednesday that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s cabinet meeting in Ki’linochchi was a political drama to deceive the Sinhalese in the South, condemning the Ki’linochchi cabinet meeting.
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Houses constructed for SLA in Vanni as resettled civilians suffer, abandoned in huts

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 July 2010, 14:38 GMT]
While the resettled civilians in Vanni suffer in makeshift huts in broiling sun Colombo government is hastily constructing semi-permanent houses for Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers near Muruka’ndi in Vanni in a Sinhalese colonization scheme consisting of 12,000 houses with facilities including hospitals, schools, post offices, sources in Vanni said. The houses are being constructed in a newly declared SLA High Security Zone, strictly out of bounds for all outsiders. Hundreds of container vehicles bring the construction material for the semi-permanent houses and heap them along A9 road. These materials are transported in SLA trucks to the construction site so as to prevent any outsider seeing the work in progress, the sources added.
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Tamil Nadu Naam Tamilar party leader Seeman arrested, detained

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 July 2010, 12:21 GMT]
Tamil Nadu police arrested and detained popular film director and the leader of Naam Tamilar political party Seeman Monday noon allegedly for inciting violence, sources in Chennai said. Seeman had condemned the killings of Tamil Nadu fishermen by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in a demonstration held in front of Chennai Government Secretariat and is alleged to have said that if SLN continues to attack Tamil Nadu fishermen Sinhalese in Tamil Nadu will not be allowed to live in Tamil Nadu, the sources added. Consequently Tamil Nadu police filed a case against Seeman for inciting violence and searched for Seeman to arrest him before he could meet the press in Chennai Press Club. The police arrested Seeman when he came to Chennai Press Club after the demonstration.
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War crimes and human civilisation

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 July 2010, 08:19 GMT]
A war will not end without the delivery of political justice to the core issue. Even the winners who waged World Wars for the monopoly of colonies couldn’t escape conceding independence to colonies. USA and India bungling political justice to the national question in the island will have a bearing on Afghan War, Western Civilisation and on Indian integrity. The solidarity of Eezham Tamil diaspora is as important a trump as the geopolitical trump of Sri Lanka. In its historic duty to its nation and to civilisation, the diaspora without succumbing to lures should intensely align with the people of Tamil Nadu and progressive Sinhalese in realising political justice and in seeing no others ever suffer like Eezham Tamils. The last diplomatic chance for the USA and India to make ‘strategic partnership’ a smooth affair is to jointly uphold the balance of nations in the island.
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Tension prevails in Veala’nai following alleged killing of nurse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 July 2010, 09:09 GMT]
More than a hundred residents of Veala’nai in the islets of Jaffna attempted to attack a Sinhalese doctor in Veala’nai government hospital Saturday morning on finding a local young woman nurse dead, hung inside the hospital, sources in Vela’nai said. Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers occupying the islets of Jaffna rushed to the scene and took away the Sinhalese doctor to their base, the sources said. The enraged residents allege that the Sinhalese doctor had killed the nurse and then hung her with a rope in an attempt to show that she had committed suicide.
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Batticaloa Tamils fear establishment of civil youth committees

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 July 2010, 05:36 GMT]
Civil youth committees are to be formed in all thirty Grama Niladhari divisions in the Batticaloa police division, according to Superintendent of Police in charge of the division, I. M. Kaurnaretna. Each committee will comprise of ten youths including the Grama Niladhari of the area in charge, he said at a meeting held Monday at Batticaloa Mahajana College. Tamil residents in Batticaloa district are perturbed over the move of setting up civil youth committees in the background that Sinhalese and Muslim members of such committees earlier appointed during the war time in the Ampaarai district had engaged in burglary and robbery.
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SLA changes traditional Tamil names of streets in Batticaloa district to Sinhalese

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 July 2010, 16:28 GMT]
People in Batticaloa district said that occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities are substituting traditional Tamil names of streets to Sinhalese names. Alli Oadai Tamil name for the street to Kudumpimalai has been changed into Ali O’luva, a Sinhalese name, they further said. Kudumpimalai is a traditional Tamil village in Koa’ralaippattu South Divisional Secretariat.
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SLA continues fishing ban in resettled areas in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 July 2010, 07:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continues its ban on fishing in the areas in Vanni where the uprooted civilians were resettled recently, allowing them access only to a space of 200 m from the shore, fishermen in Vanni said. Meanwhile, Sinhalese fishermen from South are permitted by SLA to freely fish with their trawlers in Mullaiththeevu seas, they complained. Despite Fisheries Minister’s assurance that the Southern fishermen will not fish in northern seas, they are welcomed by SLA to fish with their trawlers, they said.
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Scheme afoot to Sinhalicise part of Mullaiththeevu district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 July 2010, 09:36 GMT]
The leader of Tamil National Liberation Alliance (TNLF) and former MP Sivajilingam said in a press meet Tuesday in Jaffna that Sri Lanka government has built 5,000 houses for families of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on the east of A9 road between Maangku’lam and Mu’ruka’ndi with the aim to Sinhalicise Mullaththeevu district reducing the numerical strength of Tamil population. Sivajilingam accused the government for being a ‘dog in the manger’ as it refuses local and foreign volunteer organizations to assist the resettled uprooted civilians in Vanni who suffer without even food and drinking water. Government’s ‘Resettlement’ is nothing but taking the uprooted civilians from the camps in trucks and unloading them in places without any basic facilities, Sivajilingam further said.
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Ampaa’rai Tamil, Muslim volunteer teachers complain of discrimination

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 July 2010, 06:17 GMT]
The president of Ampaa'rai District Volunteer Teachers' Union (ADVTU) accused Sri Lanka government for not making their appointments permanent though they had served for more than twelve years under trying circumstances and for having granted permanent appointment for seventy Sinhalese volunteer teachers an year and half before, sources in Ampaa'rai said. The president of ADVTU, M. S. A. Sabras, said that 109 Tamil medium volunteer teachers had not been made permanent in their appointments though they had faced several interviews held by Education Department in the past. He added that their union has launched a protest to draw the attention of the authorities to their five demands and that they will go on hunger strike if the demands are not met.
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SLA demolishes Koappaay Thamizh Eezham Heroes Cemeteries

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 July 2010, 18:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers along with Sinhalese thugs are engaged in obliterating Koappay Thamizh Eezham Heroes War Cemetery (Thamizh Eezha Maaveerar Thuyilum Illam), the only one that remained in Jaffna peninsula, for the last three days, residents of the neighbouring villages said. The remnants of the graves, memorial plaques and monuments are taken away in the night to unknown destination, the sources added.
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