Protests on International Day of Disappeared signal emboldened resolve for justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitaries in the past staged two coordinated demonstrations in the North and East on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared on Friday. More than 500 people, including the grassroots activists and supporting politicians, marched for two hours from Pa'nrik-keytha-ku'lam to Oamanthai, the former entry point to the erstwhile de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. Those handed over to the occupying Sinhala military at the entry point in Vavuniyaa, and at Vadduvaakal in Mullaiththeevu were taken to undisclosed detention camps, and their whereabouts are since not known. The wives and the mothers of the missing persons denounced the reparations mechanisms of the so-called Office of Missing Persons (OMP) and demanded international justice.
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Widespread logging backed by SL military in Mannaar continues to escape scrutiny

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 August 2019, 23:35 GMT]
The commanders of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in three of the five divisions of Mannaar district have been partnering with millionaire wood traders from the South in a widespread and systematic illegal logging going on for a long time after 2009, Tamil officials in Mannaar District Secretariat said. The massive-scale exploitation has reached dangerous proportions and was causing severe environmental effects, the officials told TamilNet. The SL Forest Conservation Department or the SL Police do not act against the conduct of the SL military officers. Now, the SL military is also enjoying the police powers, overriding the authority of the SL Police, the officials further said.
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Wigneswaran warns of bleak future for Tamils, urges planning for next step

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2019, 20:23 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena appointing Shavendra Silva as the SLA commander is the logical outcome of the Sinhala thinking that remains unchanged. “Secondly, he may also be thinking that if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were to come in as the president next, Shavendra Silva would be an ideal lieutenant to him, because they have worked together in the past,” commented former Chief Minister of North Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. The Sinhala political leaders would not grant any political rights to the Tamils in the future because, in their position there had been no genocide, no war crimes and they maintaint that those killed were all ‘terrorists’. “We may expect a very difficult time ahead. Tamils, both internationally and locally, must start thinking as to what should be our next step in the event of such people becoming very violent against our people,” the former chief minister told TamilNet.
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SL TID detains outspoken Tamil doctor at Pazhai hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2019, 23:50 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) of occupying Colombo’s SL Police has detained a Tamil doctor, 41-year-old Sinniah Sivaruban, who is the medical superintendent of the Divisional Hospital of Pazhai in Jaffna peninsula on Sunday night. The father of three was on duty and was on his way to hospital from a field trip around 10:00 pm., when the SL Army intelligence wing detained him at Elephant Pass and handed him over to the TID. The doctor was taken to the hospital where a raid was carried out. The TID was alleging that the devoted doctor was engaged in ‘reviving the LTTE’ with Tamil diaspora links, eyewitnesses at the hospital told TamilNet.
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SLA Jaffna commander refuses to release Palaali lands at meeting presided by Wickramasinghe

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2019, 23:08 GMT]
The commander of the SL Army in Jaffna Major General Ruwan Wanigasooriya, has openly refused to release the SL military-occupied lands in Palaali and Vasaavi'laan citing the expansion of Palaali airport. The revelation was made at the District Coordinating Committee meeting which was presided by the visiting SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at the District Secretariat of Jaffna on Saturday. The scheme is projected as ‘development’ by New Delhi and Colombo while the uprooted people of the villages demand their lands released back to them. The TNA is observing silence. However, the uprooted land-owners are not going to tolerate the military grabbing these lands anymore permanently, said Chairman of Valikaamam North Resettlement Committee Mr Shageevan Shanmugalingam, who is also an elected member of the Divisional Council of Valikaamam North.
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SL Archaeology Department resumes plans to construct controversial ‘chaitya’ at Koonith-theevu

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 August 2019, 13:25 GMT]
The Acting Assistant Director of SL Archaeology Department WHA Sumanadasa, who is in charge of the regional office in Trincomalee, is pushing ahead with the plan of constructing a controversial ‘Buddhist chaitya’ at Maththa’la-malai hill-top in Choodaik-kudaa at Koonith-theevu, located to the south of Trincomalee. While all the attention is focused on Kanniyaa, Mr Sumanadasa has started to plan the reconstruction through various field trips to the disputed hill-top as well as to the lighthouse area, the trustees of the Saivaist “Kun’raththoor Maththa’la-malai Thiru-murukan temple” told TamilNet this week.
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Wickramasinghe lacks courage to meet protesting Tamil mothers in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 August 2019, 21:39 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has started an election campaign trip to North using the funds and loans provided by the Western countries which uphold occupying Colombo's ‘development’ paradigm. The same powers are negotiating and backing both the camps in the election campaign as they are preoccupied with securing geopolitical access to the island regardless of those gaining control of the executive presidency. On Wednesday, Mr Wickramasinghe chose to take a different route to Vavuniyaa hospital when the protesting mothers of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying SL military attempted to lay siege to the entrance demanding a direct meeting with him. The SL Police confronted the mothers. SL military intelligence operatives without uniform were also present along with the police commandos.
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Tamil awareness urged on geopolitics-driven genocidal ‘development’ in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2019, 17:45 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has met stiff resistance from the people of Mannaar against its ‘development’ plan, which paves the way for industrialisation with a looming danger of Sinhala colonisation changing the demographic pattern of the Mannaar Island. The ‘transformation’ has been schemed to take place within 12 years before 2030. Colombo’s Urban Development Authority (UDA), an almost all-Sinhala ‘regulatory body’ had conceived the overarching plan in 2016. The SL Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development had been tasked to accomplish the construction of a controversial project of Fishery Harbour at Peasaalai as part of Northern Province Sustainable Fisheries Development Project (NPSFDP) with project funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2020. The Tamil Catholic residents in Peasaalai have been opposing the controversial harbour project.
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PTA-threats against constructing memorial arch for student victims of 2006 aerial massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2019, 20:32 GMT]
The occupying SL Army and its Intelligence have warned the workers, who were engaged in setting up a memorial road arch in Mullaith-theevu on Sunday. The arch was being constructed in memory of 51 school-girls and four staff members, whom the SL Air Force had brutally killed in a targeted aerial massacre at Chengchoalai compound on 14 August 2006 at Va'l'li-punam in Mullaiththeevu. The SL military personnel who came to the site on Sunday and instructed the workers to cease all the work threatened to detain them under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In the meantime, the SL Police, which took the workers to the station told them that there should be no photographs of the school children, who were slain in the aerial massacre carried out by the SL Air Force. The workers were engaged in completing the construction before the 13th Commemoration on Wednesday.
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Sinhala encroachers storm into 100 acres of lands at Kanneeraavi in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 August 2019, 22:49 GMT]
A group of Sinhala encroachers, led by Sinhala Buddhist monks, are clearing one hundred acres of lands for the third consecutive day on Saturday at Kanneeraavi in Pulmoaddai. The area is located northwest of Pulmoaddai town and southeast of Kokku'laay lagoon near the cremation of grounds of Tamils. It consists of both the crown and private lands, grassroots activists in Pulmoaddai said. Kuchcha-ve'li Divisional Secretary P. Thaneswaran is reluctant to act against the latest encroachment, Tamil-speaking Muslim activists said. Panamure Thilakawanse Thero, the well known extremist monk is leading the intruders. The monk seems to have the backing of Sajith Premadasa, who is the SL Minister of Housing, Construction and ‘Cultural’ Affairs, the sources further said. When TamilNet contacted the civil officials in Pulmoaddai, they urged immediate media attention to the problem.
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SL Forest Department retains 8,034 hectares of pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2019, 14:28 GMT]
Eight thousand and thirty-four hectares of grass plain in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa district was tentatively traced in a map to demarcate the area as pastureland in 1976 by the SL Survey Department. However, the process didn't complete into accurate demarcation, said Rajbabu Suntharamoorthy, the divisional secretary of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan). The SL Forest Department retains the area as belonging to Thopik-kal (Thoppigala) thick forest. The incumbent Government Agent has taken necessary steps to get the pastureland secured as demanded by the farmers, the Divisional Secretary maintained. TamilNet contacted the DS on Friday following the report on Thursday that more than one thousand cows had died since January as the SL authorities were dragging their feet concerning the allocation of the pasturelands and access to the drinking water reservoir to the cattle.
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State discrimination causes death of 1000 cows, milk production drops by 5,500 litres in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2019, 23:27 GMT]
The drought has taken a big toll on dairy farmers as the SL State has been systematically neglecting their repeated requests for drinking water reservoirs for the cattle. The occupying Colombo has also been desisting from safeguarding the pasture lands in the interior Ko'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district targeting Sinhala colonisation through the Mahaweli scheme. Nimalan Kanthasamy, the Secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi, told TamilNet on Tuesday that the milk production supplied to the SL State-owned dairy Milco (Pvt) Ltd from the region has dropped from 6,000 litres to just 400 litres on average between January and July 2019. It is a human-made disaster intended to obliterate the particular livelihood, say the grassroots activists in the district.
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SL Army puts up military post, Buddhist chanting dominates Kanniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 August 2019, 23:55 GMT]
The Sinhala Buddhist monks are playing the sound of Pirith through loudspeakers at the disputed heritage site of Kanniyaa Hot Wells round the clock. At the same time, occupying Sinhala Army soldiers of 221 Brigade have started to put up new military posts between the road arch and the Hot Wells. The Tamil visitors feel that the loud Pirith chanting was highly disturbing their visit to the place of geological heritage with Saivaist religious significance. SL Army and Sinhala officials attempted to block the Tamil journalists from taking photos and video. The SL Army and the officials who claimed to be the representatives of the Archaeology department tried to prevent the visiting Tamil journalists from taking pictures or videos of the locality. However, the ‘Archaeology’ officials withdrew from the site after the journalists demanded them to document their identity papers on Saturday.
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Tamils must fight back against illegal seizure of lands by SL Forest Department: Kurunathan

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2019, 21:18 GMT]
The SL Forest Department has been systematically thrusting upon the divisional secretariats in the North-East various mischievous interpretations of forest conservation laws of the unitary state system to seize the lands of the uprooted Tamils. The SL department was violating the constitution by declaring 220 acres of lands that belonged to 200 landowners at Kanakar-kiraamam in Ampaa'rai as coming under its domain in December 2015. It took four years for the SL Forest Department officials to admit the seizure as a 'failure', said Former Eastern Provincial Land Commissioner Kathrigamathamby Kurunathan. He was confronting the SL department officials at a meeting organised by the SL Human Rights Commission in Ampaa'rai on 20th July. However, the people are yet to see any positive sign on the ground.
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SL Wildlife Department converts farmlands of Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay into sanctuary

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 July 2019, 16:25 GMT]
The Tamil farmers who had been uprooted for 35-years from Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Mullaith-theevu district and managed to return to their village in 2012, lost their low-lying irrigable lands along with reservoirs to Sinhala colonists. Now, the SL Wildlife Conservation Department has seized their upper-lying “Maanaavaari” agricultural lands and converted these into a bird sanctuary. The aim is to wedge the contiguity of the occupied Tamil country’s northern and eastern territories up to the very coastline. Kokkuth-thoduvaay is an agricultural and fisheries village, sandwiched between the lagoon of Kokku'laay and the sea in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of the Mullaiththeevu district.
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Questions raised over ‘double-edged conduct’ of ITAK on Kanniyaa affairs

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 July 2019, 19:08 GMT]
Just a day after TNA (ITAK) Parliamentarian and President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran made a sudden legal move of securing interim orders from the courts in favour of Tamil concerns regarding the heritage site of Kanniyaa, Mr Kugathasan, a coordinator of the party in the district, has caused controversy by meeting the extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk at Velgam Vihara on Tuesday. The coordinator of the so-called mega-development of Trincomalee, which has been conceived by an extremist Sinhala nationalist politician, Patali Champika Ranawake, was meeting the monk with a pro-Sinhala group of Tamils aligned with the JVP along with the controversial outfit calling itself “Raava'na Senai”. The latest move has raised several questions, says Vipooshan Chandirarajah, who is an elected Councillor of Trincomalee Town and Gravets Divisional Council (PS).
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Students, TNPF mark 36th Black July Remembrance in Jaffna, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 July 2019, 23:38 GMT]
The student community of the University of Jaffna and Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) offices in the North and the East marked the 36th anniversary of the collective trauma of the ‘Black July’, the SL state-sponsored genocidal pogrom that claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Tamil residents in the south of the island in 1983. Tamil-speaking Muslim students also took part in the remembrance event organised by the students in Jaffna.
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SL Archaeology must be reconfigured to respect Tamil parity on heritage: Ganesan

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 July 2019, 23:30 GMT]
The SL Archaeology Department is the evil of all heritage related tensions in the North and East, and thirty-two Sinhala only experts currently advise it. This ‘Sinhala’ Archaeology must be reconfigured, said SL Minister of ‘National Integration’ and Hindu Religious Affairs Mr. Mano Ganesan, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Monday. The conservation of the protected sites in the North-East, including the ancient traces of the Tamil Buddhist heritage, must be carried out with the advice of Tamil historians. Mr. Ganesan said he would be moving a cabinet paper to this effect. At least five Tamil experts must be assigned the specific task, he said. Ganesan also warned Tamils against falling prey to the heinous designs of the anti-Muslim extremist monks who want to set the Tamils against the Tamil-speaking Muslims.
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Vedanta sections in North-East divided over backing Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 July 2019, 12:36 GMT]
Apart from the secular Eezham Tamil activists, including the Saivites and the Catholics, some sections of Vedanta Hindus have braved their North Indian inclination and condemned the escalating heritage genocide against the Tamils in the North-East. The North Indian Vedanta line wants to sustain the anti-Tamil nexus between the Hindutva and Theravada Buddhism. It is also orientated against Tamil-Muslim unity. However, Swami Chidakashananda of Chinmaya Mission Jaffna, who took part in the mobilisation heeding to the call made by the Saivaist Then-Kayilai Aatheenam at Kanniyaa was addressing media at the Jaffna Press Club on Wednesday. He said the accelerating Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites in the North-East must be stopped through exerting international pressure on the SL State.
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Colombo wants to grab lands once again for power plants in Champoor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2019, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala-Buddhist unitary state in Colombo has once again schemed to acquire the agricultural and residential lands of the Eezham Tamils in Champoor in Trincomalee for the construction of two power plants. The project seems to have been outsourced to a Japanese firm this time. The Tamil people were protesting against the controversial project as the SL authorities came to survey the locality last week. Former Provincial Land Commissioner to East, Kathrigamathamby Kurunathan, who made a trip to help the Tamil landowners earlier this week, condemned the latest acquisition of lands as a fundamental violation of the human rights of the resettling Tamils. Furthermore, the land expert characterised the project as detrimental to the environment, which has already been compromised by the five cement plants already constructed in the eastern port city.
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