Tamils show solidarity with Kurdistan, Palestine

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 August 2014, 00:17 GMT]
In a series of protests that happened across the globe, Tamils demonstrated their solidarity with the nations of Kurdistan and Palestine. Condemning the Islamist ISIS’ brutality and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in the Kurdish territories of Syria and Iraq and Israel’s unrelenting assault on Palestine, Tamil activists conveyed their support for independent Kurdistan and Palestine. Over the past few weeks, protests for these causes in Chennai, London, Washington, Los Angeles, Sydney, Toronto and other places saw active Tamil participation. Over 2000 activists of different organizations staged a protest in Chennai on Friday for Kurdistan and Palestine. Likewise, Tamil activists who attended a Kurdish demonstration in London on Friday highlighted the need for greater solidarity among Nations-Without-States.
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Tamil man dies at hospital, SL police shields traffic crime by SL Navy

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 August 2014, 10:54 GMT]
A speeding tractor belonging to the Naayaa’ru camp of the occupying SL Navy in Mullaiththeevu on 02 August hit a motorbike causing serious injuries to two 24-year-old Eezham Tamil men from Mullaiththeevu. One of the victims, Arumukam Sivakumar from Chilaavaththai South of Mullaiththeevu district, succumbed to his injuries at Jaffna Teaching Hospital on Thursday after struggling for his life for four days. The victim is a father of two children. The SL Navy trooper who was riding the tractor and his fellow troopers in the trailer had run away into a nearby military camp after the accident, and they have not been ‘identified’ by the SL police.
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Occupation of grazing lands in Batticaloa is big scale Sinhalicisation: EPC Councillor

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 August 2014, 08:40 GMT]
Colombo is engaged in a sinister move to Sinhalicise and colonise a large territory of the Batticaloa district with Sinhalese, Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councillor K. Thurairajasingham told TamilNet. The area consists of more than 30 Tamil villages that come under the Koara’laip-pattu South (Kiraan) and Ea’raavoor-pattu (Chengkaladi) divisions. The Sinhala colonisation project is taken forward through militarisation. Buddhist monks and Sinhala politicians from Ampaa’rai and Polonnaruwa districts are deployed by Colombo to give political leadership to the Sinhalicisation phase of the project.
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Monks-led mob disrupts Tamil victims’ meet in Colombo church

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 August 2014, 12:35 GMT]
Encouraged by BJP New Delhi’s stand against UN crimes investigation in the island, a Sinhala-Buddhist mob, led by monks, flexed muscles against Tamil rights activists and family members of missing persons, who went to Colombo from the Vanni districts to present their case in a meeting held at a Catholic church at Maradana in Colombo on Monday. The meeting was organised by the Center for Society and Religion and by Inform Human Rights Center and the incident took place in the presence of the US Deputy Ambassador in Colombo. The Tamil victims who went to present their plight to southerners and diplomats were largely led by Catholic church personalities of the Mannaar Diocese.
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Sinhala division hijacks civil affairs of Tamil division in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 August 2014, 23:49 GMT]
After Sinhalicising the strategic land-link between the Northern and Eastern provinces and demographically changing the Ma’nal-aa’ru region of Eezham Tamils into a fully Sinhalicised DS division in the south of Northern province, the Colombo government and its military Establishment have now instructed the Sinhala Divisional Secretariat of Padavi Sripura in Trincomalee to take charge of the civil affairs in the northernmost part of Kuchave’li division of Trincomalee district in the Eastern province. The move intends to carve out a Sinhala district, occupying the strategic land and the sea link between the Northern and Eastern provinces and annex that part with the North Central Province, fear informed Tamil civil officials in Trincomalee.
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Fr. Thaninayagam centenary statue unveiled in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 August 2014, 23:27 GMT]
A memorial statue was unveiled in Jaffna marking the centenary of the grand Tamil scholar Rev. Fr. Xavier Thani Nayagam on Saturday and the location known as Madaththadi situated on the Jaffna Main Road in the city, has been declared Thani Nayagam Square. The peaceful opening ceremony comes after the organisers had been firm in braving the harassment by the occupying Sri Lankan military that wanted to erect a Buddha statue at the locality, residents told TamilNet.
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Media groups protest against SL military’s shadow war on Eezham Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 July 2014, 14:14 GMT]
Following the SL military sabotage against Tamil journalists, who were on their way to attend a workshop held in Colombo on Friday, 25 July, and against the continued threat and harassment of the involved Eezham Tamil journalists, Tamil journalists in the five districts of Northern Province came together at a protest organised by the Jaffna Press Club in Jaffna city on Thursday. Media organisations based in South also took part in the protest in Jaffna expressing their solidarity with the Eezham Tamil journalists, who are being threatened and harassed by the occupying military of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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British-trained STF brings night terror back to Jaffna streets

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 July 2014, 20:42 GMT]
The STF, trained by the British, which is a full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police and was directly engaged in acts of genocide in the East as well as in Vanni during the war, has started arbitrary arrests in Jaffna peninsula during the night time. Tamil youths are being detained for being spotted on the streets without identity papers in their own villages and towns. The civilian freedom of movement has been severely restricted and the people are again afraid to move around after 8:00 p.m. A so-called ‘Zonal Commander’ of the STF has been appointed for Jaffna peninsula, receiving direct instructions from the SL Military Establishment, informed sources said.
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6,000 families in Poaratheevup-pattu, Batticaloa, suffer without potable water

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 July 2014, 22:33 GMT]
2,219 Tamil civilians are still residing in temporary huts and 747 families lack permanent housing in 43 Village (GS) Divisions of Poaratheevup-pattu Divisional Secretariat (DS) division in Batticaloa district, according to Divisional Secretary N. Vilvaratnam. The families have suffered not only from the genocidal onslaught, but also from the seasonal flooding and draught. 5,602 families have no access to toilets, according to the statistics from the divisional secretary. “This is the development brought to Batticaloa by the genocidal State and its Mahinda Chinthana,” a Tamil official who didn’t wish to be named commented providing the figures to TamilNet on Monday.
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JMO report reveals child gang rape by Sinhala navy in Jaffna islet

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 July 2014, 23:18 GMT]
The brutal gang rape of 13-year-old girl and severe sexual abuse of 9-year-old girl have been medically established by the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) attached to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, informed legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. The girls have also stated that they were abused by Sinhala-speaking blue-uniformed men who took them to an abandoned building and subjected to the cruelty, the legal sources further said adding that the Sri Lankan judicial system was under heavy pressure from the SL military and the sources close to the SL Defence Secretary and SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa not to indict the SL Navy personnel who were involved in the heinous crime.
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Eezham Tamils uphold national identity at Glasgow while Rajapaksa evades event

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 18:14 GMT]
Over a thousand Tamils from across the UK gathered outside the Celtic Park venue in Glasgow, Scotland, where the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was taking place, to remember the victims of Sri Lanka's genocidal pogrom of Black July 1983 and to condemn participation of Sri Lanka in the event. However, Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa, who was scheduled to be present at the event, evaded it owing to fear of protests reports say. The Tamils, who gathered with the national flag of Tamil Eelam in huge numbers, were treated cordially by the Scottish police, activists present at the demonstration said.
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Sinhala-Buddhist land grab threatens Muslims at Thoappoor in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 July 2014, 23:46 GMT]
The divisional secretary of Serunuwara in Trincomalee district has issued letters to more than 35 Tamil-speaking Muslim families to vacate their lands at Naavatkaadu (Selvanakar) village near Thoappoor. The Muslim families are residing in the lands with necessary papers for decades and they have engaged in agriculture in the lands since 1960. However, Colombo’s officials claim that 85 acres of lands were taken over by the SL State and declared as ‘Arachaeological Reserve’ already in 1962. Now the Muslims have been given instructed to vacate from their lands before August 30.
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Genocidal SL military threatens family of child rape victim in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 July 2014, 21:46 GMT]
The family of a 11-year-old child, who was repeatedly raped by Sinhala soldiers of the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in the islet of Kaarai-nakar off Jaffna, has come under severe threat not to identify the soldiers, sources in Kaarai-nakar told TamilNet Friday. On Wednesday, the villagers of Oori, near the main naval base of the Sri Lanka Navy, captured a soldier after being identified by the child. The angered Tamil villagers demanded immediate arrest of the rapist Sinhala solider and handed him over to the SL Police at Oorkaavaththu’rai (Kayts). In the meantime, US-trained commander of the genocidal Sri Lankan military in North has instructed his officers to suppress the identification of the culprit by the child.
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Terracotta artefacts of folk culture found in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 July 2014, 23:51 GMT]
A large number of terracotta images and other artefacts in sherds were found at an agricultural land in Chinna-Poovarasang-ku’lam in the Mullaiththeevu district of the country of Eezham Tamils this week. The villagers handed over the artefacts found in the private land to occupying Sri Lanka’s ‘Government Agent’ in Vavuniyaa, who in turn deposited them at the local museum in Vavuniyaa. However, occupying Sri Lanka’s military intelligence was after everyone involved in the discovery as well as the site, sources in the district told TamilNet. Meanwhile, some Tamil inscriptions have recently been found at Padaviya in the Anuradhapura district, but their contents and the present whereabouts of the stone slabs are now unknown, academic sources said.
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British State complicity in genocide of Eezham Tamils explored in new report

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 July 2014, 23:24 GMT]
Phil Miller, a researcher for Corporate Watch in London, who gave expert evidence on ‘British State complicity in genocide of the Tamil people’ at the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka (Bremen Session), has brought out an updated report titled “Britain's Dirty War against the Tamil people - 1979–2009” published by the International Human Rights Association Bremen. “This report draws on original research conducted at the UK National Archives and from Freedom of Information requests, as well as pooling together disparate information that is available in the public domain,” Phill Miller says in the preface. Dr N. Malathy, a key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’, who survived the genocidal onslaught on Vanni, introduces the report by Philip Miller to TamilNet readers.
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Wigneswaran briefs Tamil journalists on meeting South African Envoy Ramaphosa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 July 2014, 14:08 GMT]
A South African delegation, comprising South Africa's Special Envoy to Sri Lanka and South Sudan, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nomaindia Mfeketo, the deputy minister of South African International Relations and Cooperation, visited Jaffna on Tuesday and spent one hour with Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran. Addressing the press following his meeting with the South African delegation, Mr Wigneswaran said Mr Ramaphosa assured him that the 'South African involvement' would not be contradictory to the 'political initiatives' by New Delhi and to the Geneva-based war-crime process supported by the Western countries.
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Eezham Tamils and duplicity of West’s human rights campaigns

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 June 2014, 23:28 GMT]
The progress in women security achieved through liberation movements in Asia are more substantive than any that was achieved or could be achieved by the campaigns of the West-activists. Yet, why do they ignore the former and focus only on the latter? Is it because it gives the West-activists and by implication those in the West in general the moral high ground to look down upon the “others”, asks Dr. N. Malathy, in an article sent to TamilNet. Discussing the topic through the Eezham Tamil case study, and comparing the West-activists’ campaign on child soldiers then and sexualised violence against women now, she is bringing out the duplicities and deficiencies inherent in the human rights campaigns run by West-activists.
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Rajaratnam Snr, an icon in Tamil philanthropy, passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2014, 16:24 GMT]
Jesuthasan Rajaratnam (JMR), born in Alvai, Point Pedro, and an old boy of Hartley College, later of Jaffna Central College, passed away at the age of 86, in Tenafly, New Jersey 17th June, Tuesday. His funeral was held on the 21st Saturday with a large gathering of his relatives, friends and leaders of various Tamil diaspora organizations in which he was a prominent member. A long-term friend who had known JMR for more than 60 years, while Rajaratnam was a student in accounting in U.K. in the 50s and later while holding executive positions in several Colombo-based corporations, described JMR as the most noteworthy person in his life "who has shown singular commitment to the rights and welfare of Tamil people in the NorthEast of Sri Lanka, and who took action to alleviate the debilitating conditions of his people."
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Another Eezham Tamil refugee attempts self-immolation in Australia

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2014, 00:06 GMT]
A 40-year old Eezham Tamil, who was seeking asylum in Australia, has attempted self-immolation in Melbourne on Friday evening. The Tamil man, who hails from the Eastern part of the Eezham Tamil homeland, was rescued by his friends and escaped with minor burns, sources from Melbourne said. This follows the tragic incident of Leo Seemanpillai, another refugee, who had self-immolated on 31 May and succumbed to his burns on 01 June. Tamil activists in Australia who are working with refugees are gravely concerned that this trend is likely to be repeated in the future, mainly because the nexus between the Australian government and the genocidal Sri Lankan State facilitates a brutal policy towards Eezham Tamil refugees in Australia.
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Anti-Muslim violence is systematic pogrom, not communal riot

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2014, 21:09 GMT]
After waging war against the nation of Eezham Tamils, there is a clear, systematic pattern of violence against the Muslims in the island of Sri Lanka during the last two years, said the State president of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Mr KKSM Tehlan Baqavi, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. The Tamil Nadu politician of the pan-Indian Muslim political party urged the world to pay particular attention that the Buddhist extremist Bodu Bala Sena is a creation of the SL military system led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. There is a clear nexus between the military and the extremist force, he said. There is also a serious question why the pogrom is getting instigated at this juncture, despite the global focus on the records of the SL State, he said.
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