Poonakari becomes another major hub of Sinhala militarisation, colonisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 February 2013, 07:50 GMT]
Similar to the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) on the northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula, including KKS harbour and Palaali airport that has now become a permanent enclave for Sinhala military cantonment, colonisation and corporatism, another enclave in the Poonakari division is in the making, news sources in Vanni said. Around 31,000 Sinhala military personnel are stationed in the Poonakari division where currently only 6216 families live, which means that for every Tamil family there are 5 personnel from the genocidal military. While the SL military alone occupies 800 acres of land, the Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s siblings Basil and Gotabhaya, and progeny Namal have appropriated many more acres of land. Building a Chinese assisted international airport at Poonakari is in the centre of the plans.
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Civil Society insists on pre-constitutional recognition of Tamil nation, self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 February 2013, 01:41 GMT]
In a set of preliminary points submitted at a conference held in Berlin, 26-27 January, facilitated by the Berghof Foundation, the Tamil Civil Society (TCS) from the island insisted on “pre-constitutional recognition of Tamil nationhood and self-determination” before Tamils could sit down and debate institutional proposals for a constitutional design within a united Sri Lanka. Such recognition “does not mean a separate state,” the TCS added. The Tamil Civil Society or any other party or group based in the island are not free bodies to comprehensively or authentically talk on the issue as they are bound by the 6th Amendment of the constitution of the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. Such organisations should first insist on the IC and its outfits to create conditions going beyond the 6th Amendment to have honest discussion on the issue, commented new generation Tamil activists in the island.
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Tamil Heritage Month Bill Proposed in Canadian Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 February 2013, 23:48 GMT]
Tamil Canadian federal MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan introduced Bill C-471 in the Canadian Parliament on January 31, to designate the month of January as Tamil Heritage Month in Canada by an Act. This bill, a private member’s bill that doesn’t often become law, if passed, will enshrine at the federal level an ongoing practice among Tamil community organizations. Neethan Shan, founder and chair of the Tamil Heritage Month Committee, believes that such a commemoration of Tamil heritage will provide a platform for discussion of Tamil national identity. "We have been working hard for two years to get both the federal and provincial governments to recognize Tamil Heritage Month formally and we are hopeful that it will happen before our fifth year anniversary in January 2014," Neethan Shan, founder and chair of the Tamil Heritage Month Committee, told TamilNet.
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TESO urges New Delhi to move for referendum at Geneva

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2013, 07:39 GMT]
New Delhi should take firm efforts to bring forward a resolution at the UNHRC sessions next month for conducting a referendum among Ilangkai Tamils, said a resolution passed by Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) in Chennai on Monday. The organisation cited its earlier resolution passed in this regard in August last year and said that it had already presented the case for the consideration of the UN, member countries of the UN, the Government of India and the UNHRC. In presenting the plight of Eezham Tamils, TESO has resolved to convene an all-India level meet of political party leaders in New Delhi in March. Condemning New Delhi encouraging Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa visiting India this week, TESO has also resolved to organise a black-clad demonstration in Chennai on Friday morning, protesting his visit.
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Russia celebrates 70th anniversary of Stalingrad

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2013, 02:57 GMT]
Russians commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles waged during World War II, on Saturday. Stalingrad, later named as Volgograd in 1961 under Khrushchev, marked the decisive turning point on the Eastern Front of the War since Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. With over a million civilian and military casualties, the Soviets were able to repulse the Nazi invasion in February 1943 and push forward right into Berlin. While Russians have an obligation to celebrate the monumental event, which is also held in high regard by progressives world over, what moral right does the Russian government, that practices oppression of nations in its territory and extends political and military support to genocidal regimes like Sri Lanka, have to do the same, asks an Eezham Tamil Marxist.
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Tamils will lose land forever by failing to address US, India in time

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2013, 01:25 GMT]
Any international resolution on the island of Sri Lanka that doesn’t recognize and protect the nation of Eezham Tamils and its territoriality is not only useless to the affected people but also worse than the genocidal war waged against them by the International Community of Establishments. In a coordinated way, a concrete demand has to be globally made by Tamil politicians in the island, activists and public in the diaspora, and by political parties and masses in Tamil Nadu, addressed specifically at Washington and New Delhi to not hoodwink any more by deviating resolutions but to come out with meaningful international action to restore the country of Eezham Tamils to them.
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Colombo converts Jaffna ‘HSZ’ into zone of Sinhala Military Corporatism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2013, 18:11 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which had completed the construction of a huge bund three months ago, from Chelva-channithi shrine in Tho’ndamanaa’ru to Vasaavi’laan near the Palaali military base through Oddakappulam across the former ‘High Security Zone’, has now started to construct another major bund from Kurumpasiddi to Kaangkeasanthu’rai (KKS) through Kadduvan and Thellippazhai, according to S. Sugirthan, the head of the divisional civic body (Piratheasa Chapai / PS) of Valikaamam North. Informed civil officials said that these bunds are being hurriedly put up to carve out a vast area consisting 26 GS divisions for Sinhala Military Corporatism.
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Canadian minister fails to address genocide, annihilation of Tamil territory

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2013, 00:13 GMT]
Speaking to media at a gathering in Markham, Ontario (where Eezham Tamils live in considerable number), Mr Jason Kenny, Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism, who recently visited Colombo, was speaking on failure of Sri Lanka in addressing reconciliation, war-crimes accountability and general failure in protecting human rights and rule of law. He also mentioned excessive militarization of the North and East, even though in answering questions he said that he understands militarization to some extent. But the minister, seeing Tamils as minorities and not as a nation, failed to address the pressing question currently faced by Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island, i.e., structural genocide, Sinhala colonization supported by militarization and annihilation of the territoriality of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Vanni visit ‘pleases’ British Under Secretary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 February 2013, 00:21 GMT]
Visiting the Vanni region that bore the brunt of Sri Lanka’s genocidal offensive in 2009 and which has been under military occupation and accelerated Sinhala colonization post-Mu’l’livaaykkaal, Alistair Burt, British Conservative MP and Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), said "I have been pleased to see progress in some areas since the end of the conflict. The destructive force of war-tearing lives, families, societies and countries apart, is only too evident in this part of the country," the PTI reported on Thursday. Mr. Burt, who was a guest at the British funded ‘Sri Lanka Unites’ center, showed more interest in lauding “reconciliation and recovery” but was conspicuously silent on addressing the need for a just political solution for the genocide affected Eezham Tamil nation, Tamil activists from the UK told TamilNet.
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‘Slap on the face reception’ to UK Under Secretary visiting Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 February 2013, 16:53 GMT]
People of Vanni closed themselves inside their huts and refused to come out when the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Alistair Burt MP, accompanied by the occupying Sinhala military, wanted to ‘speak’ to the uprooted Eezham Tamils at Keappa-pulavu on Thursday. The reason was two-fold: loss of faith in the modus operandi of foreign dignitaries visiting them with the occupying military and then coming out with statements not recognizing the on-going genocide but buttressing the genocidal State; and the other reason was suffocating intimidation by the occupying Sinhala military that no one should tell anything controversial to visiting foreigners. The same military officials bringing visitors to them in the daytime would turn into torture-interrogators in the night time, Eezham Tamils of Vanni commented.
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Occupying military in ‘civil’ is more dangerous than military in uniform

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 February 2013, 01:17 GMT]
The Commander of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe appeared in ‘civil’ in playing the role of ‘chief guest’ at the Malayala Martial Arts performance in Jaffna on Thursday, organized by New Delhi’s Consulate General in Jaffna to mark India’s 64th Republic Day. Earlier, Hathurusinghe used to visit even temples in Jaffna in uniform. His transformation, which should be first questioned by the uniformed personnel of Sri Lanka’s genocidal military for insulting the ‘beautiful’ services they are rendering to Tamils, mark a dangerous stage of the Sinhala militarisation imposed on Eezham Tamils by the powers of vested interests in complicity with the genocidal State in the island, commented alternative political activists in Jaffna.
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Sinhala colonisation in sacred land of Tamil martyrs

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 January 2013, 01:01 GMT]
Puthu-maaththa’lan, a part of the Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal sacred land of the Eezham Tamil martyrs, was subjected to Sinhala colonization this week with the protection of the Sinhala military occupying the land, news sources in Vanni said. The resettled Tamil fishermen at Ira’naip-paalai and Puthu-maththa’lan resisted the arrival and colonisation of their coast by Sinhala fishermen from the South on Tuesday. The Sinhala fishermen, keeping their equipment for safe custody with the SL military, vowed that they would come back and colonize the land during the scheduled visit of Mahinda Rajapaksa to Mullaith-theevu on Sunday. But they didn’t go back. The Sinhalese were hiding in the SL military camp, and on Wednesday when the Tamil fishermen returned from the sea, to their surprise they found their coastal stretch was colonised by the Sinhalese.
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Colonial governor diverts more education funds to Sinhala colonisation in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 January 2013, 22:44 GMT]
Colombo’s colonial governor in North and the former Jaffna commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Maj Gen (retd) GA Chandrasiri, has again diverted a major portion of the funds, allocated for education and health sectors in the five districts in the Northern Province, to the newly carved out Ma'nalaa'rau (Weli-Oaya) Sinhala division in Mullaiththeevu district for the construction of 72 new Sinhala schools and health stations as part of a hurried expansion of the Sinhala colonisation scheme, informed sources in Vanni told TamilNet on Wednesday. To facilitate the accelerated occupation, contractors hired from South are working day and night, putting up the schools and health stations, the sources further said.
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Resistance event in London criticises security-obsessed outlook of West

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 January 2013, 17:40 GMT]
Speaking on the topic of “Opposing securitisation, linking our resistances”, Kurdish and Tamil activists from Campaign Against Criminalization of Communities (CAMPACC) criticized the policy of the denial of the freedom of expression and assembly of activists belonging to oppressed sections by governments in West in the name of “security”, at the TINAG annual festival at London on Sunday. The Kurdish and Tamil speakers, belonging to grassroots organizations of their respective communities, also observed the similarities in the criminalization of their respective movements by Western governments and the consecutive denial of a democratic political space for the articulation of their cause.
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TESO misrepresents Tamil cause by harping on UNHRC resolution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 January 2013, 16:51 GMT]
By calling for pressure on Colombo to immediately implement the 2012 UNHRC resolution as solution, TESO is misrepresenting the cause as well as plight of Eezham Tamils, and is misleading the world in lines with the agenda of New Delhi and Washington, Tamil activists in the island and in the diaspora commented. The UNHRC resolution harping on the implementation of LLRC recommendations of Colombo is actually ‘international legitimisation’ of the structural genocide and annihilation of the territoriality of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. This only serves the agenda of New Delhi and Washington that uphold the genocidal Sinhala State in the island for their geopolitical and imperialistic purposes. TESO has to urge the International Community of Establishments to revise the resolution, the activists further said.
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Soul searching in India, Obama wipes out tears

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 January 2013, 17:55 GMT]
If peoples of the USA and India care to scrutinize what their governments are doing to the country of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, they will realize that from which system certain disorders they face in their own countries originate. Both the Establishments that were in complicity in the genocide, and have tacitly approved a structural genocide to take place in the island, are engaged in another round of their machinations at Geneva in March. Once again, the USA is architecting a formula for the completion of the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils – this time with specific steps of instructions to be fulfilled by the agent state in Colombo – and India, the Strategic Partner, is given with the task of designing and managing the implementation infrastructure, informed sources say.
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Eighth Indo-Lanka Commission ends with no innovation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 06:36 GMT]
The Eighth meeting of the Indo-Sri Lanka Joint Commission held in New Delhi on Tuesday and was co-chaired by the External Affairs Ministers of the two Establishments, ended with nothing new either to the pressing issues of the genocide-facing island or to its bilateral issues with India, political analysts in the island commented. A Foreign Secretary level meeting on Monday preceded the ministerial meeting. Perhaps the only new programme found mentioned in the joint commission press statement was that both sides agreed to jointly celebrate the 150th birth anniversaries of Swami Vivekananda in 2013-14, and of Anagarika Dharmapala in 2014-15.
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Sri Lanka ex-Military Commander barred from visiting U.S for training

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2013, 12:29 GMT]
United States Department of State rejected the application for militiary training in the U.S. for Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe alleging that Ranasinghe was likely complicit in commanding one of the military divisions, speculated to be the notorious 53rd, which is alleged to have been responsible for killing Tamil civilians numbering more than 80,000 according to the Petrie report, during the last phases of war in Sri Lanka. The paper did not say if other Sri Lanka military personnel have been admitted to undergo training in the U.S. Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary said that "nothing could be as foolish as rejecting an officer on the basis of him being in command of the 53 Division or any other fighting formation during the conflict," according to a report in the Island.
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Indian students federation stands with Jaffna students, urges withdrawal of SL military

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 January 2013, 18:13 GMT]
The All India Students Federation (AISF), a wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI), in its national conference held in Mumbai on Saturday, unanimously resolved in condemning the Sri Lankan military detention of the Jaffna university student activists and in demanding their immediate release. The AISF urged the Indian government to intervene and facilitate the immediate release of the Jaffna students. The AISF also called upon the SL government to withdraw its armed forces from educational institutions and urged the Government of India to prevail upon the Sri Lankan government against stationing its armed forces in schools and educational institutions.
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SL military deployed ex-LTTE member, EPDP-journalist to frame Sritharan MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 January 2013, 23:41 GMT]

A former LTTE member, known as Premraj Vasanthan, allegedly recruited by the SL military intelligence for covert operations in the post-Mu’l’livaaykkal times, had visited the office of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Mr Sivagnanam Sritharan after a long time last Friday and was wandering around inside the office. On the following day, the SL “Terrorist” Investigation Department (TID) operatives raided the office of the TNA parliamentarian in Ki’linochchi, with Mr Vasanthan in their ‘custody’. The intelligence operative “located” explosives, while the SL military “discovered” pornography material and the EPDP journalist planted condoms in an apparent move to discredit and frame Mr Sritharan, who has been gaining public support from the people of Vanni.
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