2006 genocidal massacre at Chengchoalai campus marked in Vanni, Jaffna amidst PTA-threats

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2019, 23:31 GMT]
Amidst PTA-threats coming from the occupying Sinhala Army, military intelligence and the SL Police against inscribing the names and photos of the school-girls, who perished in a targeted aerial massacre by the SL Air Force in 2006, the parents of the students commemorated the victims of the attack by putting up temporary paper photos on the arch. An emotional remembrance event took place at Va'l'li-punam in Mullaiththeevu district with the participation of TNA politicians. Vanni Cross and Chegnchoalai Remembrance Organisation organised the event jointly. In the meantime, Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) also staged a remembrance event within the premises of the Jaffna University on Wednesday.
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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 Governor dodges Ki'linochchi DCC meeting, Colombo's military and departments confronted

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 July 2019, 23:13 GMT]
The so-called Civil Security Division (CSD) and the occupying SL Army, which come under the SL Defence Ministry in Colombo continue to occupy more than 400 acres of farmlands in Ki'linochchi district. The Tamil people suspect the SL Police of backing the Sinhala miners who operate almost all the tipper trucks, which scoop the sands in the region excessively. At the same time, various departments working under the unitary system of the SL State continue to exercise their power in seizing the properties ignoring the divisional authorities and the civic councils. Knowing that these crucial matters were scheduled to be taken up for discussion at a plenary session, Suren Raghavan, the deceitful Tamil SL Governor to North, was absconding from attending the District Coordination Committee meeting on Monday.
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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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SL Police shoots and kills young Tamil motorcyclist at Chuthu-malai in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 July 2019, 23:54 GMT]
The SL police has shot and killed a 23-year-old Tamil man who was riding a motorbike on Maanippaay - I'nuvil Road in Jaffna around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday. Another youth, injured in the incident, has managed to escape with fellow motorcyclists. The police was quick to claim that the man belonged to a criminal sword gang and that they had fired as the group of six in three bikes didn't adhere to the instructions to stop. However, the residents suspect the SL police was manipulating evidence by planting a sword at the site of the incident, especially before allowing the media to photograph the scene. The youth group had come from Kodikaamam in Thenmaraadchi 40 km away from Maanippaay. It is unlikely that the group had such a large sword visibly during their long trip across several police posts, the journalists who inspected the site and talked to the residents said.
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Suppression of Kanniyaa protest, yet another lesson for Tamils: Trinco councillor

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2019, 14:15 GMT]
The discrimination meted out to the peaceful protesters at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee on Tuesday was yet another lesson for Tamils, says elected Piratheasa Chapai (PS) Councillor Vipooshan Chandirarajah, who was reflecting upon the level of SL injustice he witnessed during the occasion. The way the SL State's security and justice system chose to deal with the rally has exposed the inherent militarised nature of the state apparatus. The system advances the chauvinistic Sinhala-Buddhist agenda as its foremost interest. The deployment of more than five hundred Army and Police personnel with riot control and STF commandos was uncalled for at a peaceful protest, he said. Five busloads of Sinahal goons had been brought into the venue in advance, and how could they be allowed to enter Kanniyaa heritage site while a restriction was in force limiting tourism to the ‘archaeological’ place, he asked.
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Eezham Tamils set to mobilise against heritage genocide in Kanniyaa, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 July 2019, 19:03 GMT]
Following the call from the Saiva priest of Thenkayilai Aadheenam at Kanniyaa, Trincomalee, the grassroots of the Eezham Tamils are mobilising for a unified protest against the heritage genocide at Kanniyaa Hot Wells. Former Chief Minister of Northern Province Justice CV Wigneswaran expressing his solidarity named the joint activity against Tamils at Kanniyaa as an “open act of genocide”. The pattern of the cultural and heritage destruction as well as the landgrab by the various SL Departments has become a widespread phenomenon especially after the Easter Sunday attacks, he said in a statement issued in Tamil on Monday. In the meantime, the District Organiser of the Tamil National People's Front in Trincomalee Dr Ra Shrignaneswaran urged the UN agencies such as the UNICEF and UNESCO as well as the foreign governments that fund the SL State not to back the heritage genocide.
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ITAK's failure brings Sinhala extremists to Jaffna's entrance with challenging ceremony

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 July 2019, 09:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna has hurriedly organised a ceremony, Puṇya Mahōtsavaya, at the controversially erected Buddhist ‘Sammidhi Sumana’ Vihara at the entrance to Jaffna city at Naavat-kuzhi in Jaffna on Saturday evening. The construction of the stupa is yet to complete. However, the SL military has announced the move to coincide with the first-year Kumbhabhishekham of the nearby Tamil Saiva temple of Siva-thedcha'naa-moorththi, which has been constructed by a Tamil Saivist organisation in Jaffna. The latest ‘confrontation’ has come as the elected civic council (Piratheasa-chapai) with a majority of ITAK (TNA) members was tricked into withdrawing its legal objection to the construction of the Vihara by the SL Minister of Megapolis & Western Development, ‘Patali’ Champika Ranawaka, a well exposed extremist of the militant section of the Sinhala Buddhist establishment.
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Trustee vows to take up legal fight for restoration of Kanniyaa temple

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 July 2019, 07:29 GMT]
The Sinhala SL Government Agent (District Secretary) of Trincomalee District, NAA Pushpakumara, has been liaising with the SL Presidential Secretariat in Colombo and facilitating the SL Archaeology Department to resume the deconstruction of the base structure of Pi'l'laiyaar temple at the disputed heritage site of Kanniyaa Hot Wells. Mrs Ganesh Kokilaramany, who is the land-owner and the principal trustee of Pi'l'laiyaar temple, went to file a complaint with the SL Police. However, the Police showed four documents to her in an attempt to justify the resumption of the controversial work by the SL Archaeology Department. SL Presidential Secretariat has given go for the construction of the disputed Buddhist ‘chaitya’ by dismantling the construction of 200-year-old Hindu Pi'l'laiyaar temple at the private lands that belong to Mrs Kokilaramany.
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Occupying Colombo's justice system ridicules Tamil mother fighting to get her lands released

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2019, 21:17 GMT]
TNA parliamentarians-cum-lawyers such as President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran have failed politically and legally to challenge the SL Defence Ministry deploying the argument of ‘national security’ as a pretext to seize the lands of Tamil landowners. The SL Court of Appeal (CoA) in Colombo, delivering a recent determination has gone to the extent of claiming that “these are matters in relation to National Security, which need not and should not be discussed and probed openly”. The Sinhala judge, Mahinda Samayawardhena, was also ridiculing the petitioner, 71-year-old Tamil mother of seven Mrs Maheswary Thambirajah by stating that “[p]lanting coconuts cannot be more important than national security.” The 54 acres of lands in question at Aasaip-pi'l'lai-eattam in Ezhuthu-madduvaa'l in Thenmaraadchi Jaffna is the locality where the occupying SL Army's 52 Division Headquarters is situated.
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Tamils vow to stage feast at Naayaa'ru, disregard ‘advice’ on not to provoke monks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2019, 10:37 GMT]
How about Tamils considering an approach of collaborating with the Sinhala Buddhist establishment and adopting a line without provoking the monks, the US Ambassador in Colombo recently asked a Tamil minister, informed sources in Colombo said. The SL minister was also working hard to contain the escalating dispute at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu and at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee in an attempt to strike a compromise. However, the monks were not listening. They came with expanding plans of Neeraaviyadi and stepped up their hostile protests. The militant monks started to threaten the Tamils by naming and shaming a prominent activist of the anti-Mahaweli protests at a demonstration they staged recently at Neeraaviyadi. Now, the Tamil grassroots activists in Vanni have vowed to carry 108 Pongkal pots to the Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Neeraaviyadi on 06 July 2019 to stage a feast to their deity.
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Pompeo cancels Colombo visit, concentrates on US-India relations in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2019, 18:41 GMT]
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has cancelled his visit to Colombo which was scheduled for Thursday. The US Embassy in Colombo was citing “scheduling issues” for the annulment. However, Mr Pompeo dropping his short visit had “more to do with rising local sentiments against a proposed American military base” on the island reported The Economic Times on Tuesday. The US Secretary of State was focusing more on the longer-term strategic partnership and on ironing out the trade disputes between the USA and India on Wednesday. Pompeo was scheduled to visit New Delhi and Colombo, before meeting US President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan and accompanying him to South Korea after that. While India is a major defence partner, the US has been seeking defence partnership with ‘Sri Lanka’ and three other countries, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal, in South Asia.
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Ploy of monks and bigotry of politicians critical to TNA's Quisling politics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2019, 17:05 GMT]
A section of Tamil politicians, who claim that they are opposed to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on principles grounds regarding Tamil rights, have fallen right into the sophisticated trap laid by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment in the district of Ampaa'rai. The Tamil politicians, who were attending the hunger-strike in which the role of Ven Ranmuthugala Sangharathana Thero had become the ‘foremost’ attention-drawer, were contributing to severing the ties between the Tamils and Muslims in the future. By making their presence at the platform promoted by the Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Gnanasara Thero, JHU Parliamentarian monk Athuraliye Rathana Thero and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, they were betraying the legitimate cause, including their objective criticism of the Quisling hierarchy of the TNA.
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Time for Canadian Eezham Tamils to chart next course of diaspora action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The political parties in Canada have unanimously called upon the UN to “establish an international independent investigation into the allegations of genocide against Tamils committed in Sri Lanka including the last phase of the armed conflict in 2009” along with two other demands to Colombo. A resolution was unanimously adopted extending condolences to all of the victims of violence while demanding the SL government to deliver justice to the Easter Sunday attacks, including protection of all religious places of worship and to fulfil its obligations made in Geneva within a clearly specified timeframe. Welcoming the move, the Tamil activists in the island urged the Canadian Tamil diaspora to concentrate on educating their host country on the unworkability of transitional justice in the island without international investigations on the genocide taking precedence over the other two demands.
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SL military deploys paramilitary against Tamils in rural areas of Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
SL Military Intelligence has re-introduced Tamil paramilitary personnel who interfere in the day-to-day civil affairs of the poverty-stricken Eezham Tamils in the rural areas, situated 45 km northwest of Batticaloa in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division. The occupying SL Army wants to know everything in detail from private gatherings involving relatives of the families to public events and land usage of the resettled people through the paramilitary personnel who were previously on the pay-list of Karuna and Pillayan groups, informed sources said.
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Another Buddha statue placed near Trincomalee private bus stand

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2019, 18:38 GMT]
A group of persons led by a Sinhala Buddhist monk installed a Buddha statue at the auto-rickshaw parking place located near the private bus stand in Trincomalee city on Sunday morning when the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the settlers were marking Poson Full Moon Poya. The 75 cm high Buddha statue, placed inside a glass cover, has replaced a smaller figure at 20 cm height, Tamil residents said. The move was part of a systematic plan, they said. The smaller statue had been placed at the locality after 2009. Now the extremist section has installed the statue with glass cover, which usually precedes the installation of a giant Buddha statue, the people said.
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Mano Ganesan misleads on Kanniyaa heritage dispute: Trincomalee Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2019, 18:48 GMT]
SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and ‘National’ Integration, Mr Mano Ganesan, was appreciated by Tamils in Trincomalee for confronting the Sinhala Buddhist monks regarding the ancient Tamil heritage of Kanniyaa during his recent trip attending the District Coordinating Committee meeting, on Monday. However, the monks were unmoved. They categorically told Mr Ganesan and the TNA Parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran that it was the Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and no one else in the island – not even the Executive President or the Prime Minister– who had the power to determine the fate of the heritage affairs of Kanniyaa. The minister could very well proceed taking up the issue with Maithiripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe in Colombo, but it would not change the ground reality, was the message, says Piratheasa Chapai (PS) councillor Chandirarajah Vipooshan, who was at the meeting.
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Kokku'laay-centric united action needed to counter Colombo wedging North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
The resettled Tamil residents of the strategic Thennai-maravadi village bordering the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the Trincomalee district are facing Sinhala colonisation and Sinhala Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites on two fronts, at Pa'nikka-vayal to its west and at Kanthasaami-malai, which extends eastwards into Kokku'laay lagoon. The Sinhala colonisation and the Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage site of Kanthasaami-malai are being accelerated under the Emergency Regulations and the situation prevailing after the Easter Sunday attacks that have triggered the extremist monks to escalate their chauvinistic schemes in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The two-pronged attack, which is being stepped up in the recent days, is part of a larger design of permanently wedging the territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland along the narrow border between the North and the East.
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Tamils, Muslims need strategic alliance to protect heritage rights in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2019, 17:16 GMT]
The Tamil Saiva Priest of Then-Kayilai Aatheenam, Thavath-Thiru Akaththiyar Adika’ laar, has urged legal activists to find ways to contain the hostile acts of the Sinhala Buddhist monk from the Velgam Vihara, who has dismantled the foundation of Hindu Pi’l’ laiyaar temple at the heritage site of Kanniyaa hot springs in Trincomalee. The Saiva priest said it was not merely a religious dispute, but rather a cause of preserving the heritage rights. The best option, in his opinion, was to address the issue through the courts. In the meantime, TNA Leader R. Sampanthan was taking up the burning question with the SL President and the Prime Minister. However, both the legal avenue and the political appeals made with collaborative orientation only have minimal impact in the unitary system of genocidal Sri Lanka, especially under the Emergency Regulations, commented legal activists in Trincomalee.
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Colonising Sinhala Buddhist monks, officials provoke Saiva Tamils in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 18:04 GMT]
A group of encroaching Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks, who had illegally built a Buddhist shrine in 2013 near the Saiva (Hindu) shrine of Kanniyaa hot wells in the traditional Tamil division of Uppu-ve’ li in the Trincomalee district, have recently started to dismantle the remaining foundation-structure of the Saiva Pi’l’ laiyaar temple. The Saiva temple was destroyed during the anti-Tamil pogroms, and the occupying Colombo establishment has been blocking the Tamil landowner from reconstructing the temple. After dismantling the square-shaped foundation of the Saiva temple, the occupying Sinhala monks started to lay a circular foundation at the locality on 21 May. The controversial move has drawn strong objections from the Tamils, including the owner of the lands, Ms Ganesh Kokilaramani, triggering religious tensions between the intruding Sinhalese and the native Tamils since 22 May.
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