Eezham Tamils await dividends to come from Mahendran’s book

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 February 2012, 22:23 GMT]
“It is not a mere documentation sharing opinion, but it is on the demand for justice by the genocide-surviving Eezham Tamils, the plight of whom has not been experienced by any other society in the world,” writes Communist Party of India stalwart C. Mahendran, in the introduction to his book on the Vanni War. He encapsulates the global shame in a nutshell when he says “Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal is the heroes’ land in the 21st century world, where life was the weapon to claim one’s land.” The book in Tamil, “Veezhveanen’ru Ninaiththaayoa” (Have you thought that I would fall), brought out in December 2011 by veteran media publications Vikatan, Chennai, is on hot sales and has already found overwhelming appreciation among Tamil readers all over the world. Any good book is eventually judged by the impact it makes on society and Eezham Tamils await that dividend to come from the Tamil-speaking world.
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Pirapaharan postal stamp released in Norway

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2012, 21:52 GMT]
Eezham Tamil activists in Norway on Saturday released stamps featuring LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan, the map of Tamil Eelam and some of the LTTE declared national symbols of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, including the Tamil Eelam national flag. The stamps were released in front of the Norwegian Parliament by Jeyasri Balasubramaniam, a candidate elected to represent the Eezham Tamils in two elections held in that country. The event coincided with the so-called independence day of Sri Lanka. On 4th February 1948, the British conferred dominion status to the island then called Ceylon and transferred power to a Colombo-centric, ethnic majoritarian and unitary system of government.
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‘Development means 14-storey tourist hotel in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2012, 08:50 GMT]
Keeping genocide-afflicted Eezham Tamils in sheds and shelters, occupying Sri Lanka plans to build massive ‘tourist’ hotels in Jaffna with Sinhala investment and management, eventually to create Sinhala business enclaves and colonies, news sources in Jaffna said. SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa laid foundation for a 14-storey tourist hotel in the heart of Jaffna city on Friday. Mr. Milinda Moragoda, opposition leader, Colombo municipal council, is said to be closely associated with the investment carried out by a tourism corporate named Jetwing-Yarl. Mr. Moragoda was bracketed with Norwegian development minister Mr. Erik Solheim in luring the LTTE to the peace process in 2001. Meanwhile, Norway conducts a seminar to select participants this weekend, on Norway Tamils contributing to peace, reconciliation and development of Sri Lanka that will be addressed by Mr. Erik Solheim.
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Tamil woman's death in Norway bares plight of a Nation deprived of international justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 February 2012, 19:18 GMT]
24-year-old Garolin Vinotha Nesarajah, who killed herself along with her 20-month-old baby boy on 16 January in a refugee centre in Førde in Western Norway, was not prepared for her deportation, as she feared she would be interrogated and tortured by the Sri Lanka Army back home, reporters in Jaffna said. Garolin immolated herself along with the baby, the Norwegian police think. Garolin’s death raises several questions at the international system that continues to keep the people of the nation of Eezham Tamils deprived of State, deprived of international justice and deprived of psychological security or hope in life, maddening them further and further by pushing them into the hands of genocidal Sri Lanka, social workers in Jaffna said.
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TID arrests two Tamil fishermen in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 February 2012, 02:51 GMT]
A group of persons, arriving in a white van and identifying themselves as from the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorism Investigation Division’ (TID), arrested two Tamil fishermen in Mannaar on January 19th, sources in Mannaar said. The TID officers had later had informed relatives of the fishermen after inquiry that TID police had detained the fishermen on reports that they had helped he LTTE.
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Protests, non-cooperation, need to be addressed directly against USA, India, UN

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 January 2012, 07:03 GMT]
Nearly three years after the genocidal war and amidst speedily on-going structural genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils, the Establishments of the US, India and the UN increasingly prove that they are the real culprits buttressing the genocidal state of Sri Lanka and the crimes-accused Rajapaksa regime. A few individuals sitting in these Establishments take the entire human civilisation for a ride in setting a criminal paradigm for international polity. But, despite the presence of a large number of Tamils in North America, millions in the rest of the diaspora all over the world and 70 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu, Tamils still don’t know where to address and how to address their struggle in a concerted way showing strength and solidarity, for their polity is continually kept under deception, says a new generation Tamil politician in the island.
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SL environmental plunder wipes out timber trees in Vanni, protected long by LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 January 2012, 21:30 GMT]
Sinhala plunderers from South who enter Vanni through Mannaar have been cutting valuable timber trees in large numbers and removing them to other parts of the island, people in Vanni complain. The Sri Lankan police is assisting the gangs that enter Vanni through Mannaar. The gangs are in possession of ‘permits’ from the so-called ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in Colombo, which is headed by Sinhala ultra nationalist political party leader Champika Ranawake who founded the Sihala Urumaya promoting Mahawansa mindset of anti-Tamil sentiments, comparing Tamils with Jews against an "Aryan Sinhala" supremacist philosophy. He later became the political advisor of the predominantly Buddhist monks party, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and a minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa cabinet.
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Colombo backed Muslim group threatens Tamils to leave their lands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 January 2012, 17:11 GMT]
A gang of Tamil-speaking Muslim persons with the backing of government politicians has been engaged in a campaign of threat against Tamil families of Upcountry origin residing in U'rukaamam in Kiththu'l area in the Ea'raavoor Chengkaladi DS division to leave their place and seek residence elsewhere. U'rukaamam-Kiththu'l area is located along Chengkaladi-Badulla highway (A-15). The villagers are of upcountry Tamil origin who fled from their area in the SL state-sponsored anti Tamil pogrom of 1957 and had settled in U'rukaamam-Kiththu'l area after clearing the forest. The villagers were also affected in 1983 anti Tamil ‘Black-July’ pogrom.
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Colombo-backed gang threatens resettled Tamil families in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 January 2012, 02:59 GMT]
A gang of more than one hundred fifty Sinhalese who were brought to Channaar village in Mannaar district on Sunday by a government minister had threatened resettled Tamil families to leave the village immediately to give room for the majority community. The intimidation of Tamil families who have suffered in the conflict and relatives of the killed LTTE cadres had been engineered by Minister Rischard Bathiudeen and Maanthai West Divisional Secretary with the blessing of the Colombo government, according to reports emerging from the area.
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Tamil sovereignty alone can check protracted genocide: Jose Maria Sison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 January 2012, 13:28 GMT]
“The Eezham people have a very direct obligation of fighting for their own sovereignty against a state that presumes to have a unitary power over them,” stressed veteran Filipino left ideologue, Prof. Jose Maria Sison. In an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Sunday, Prof. Sison spoke on the questions of sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation, the protracted nature of genocide that Sri Lanka imposes on Tamils in their homelands, the principled position of leftists on the national question, and on the imperative to look beyond both the human rights and reconciliation paradigm. Prof. Sison, a long standing activist of the left movement in Philippines, criticised the Sri Lankan government’s military strategy as ‘barbaric’ and western governments for supporting this, and welcomed the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration that aims to build solidarity among progressive forces.
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JVP student faction seeks Tamil youth for military inspiration: SL Minister

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 January 2012, 02:31 GMT]
Calling themselves as a student group, a group of the factionalised JVP is seeking to exploit former LTTE cadres in its search for military inspiration and the group is targeting to exploit the Tamil students for a military cause, claimed S.B. Dissanayake, the SL minister of Education, who has been visiting the islets of Jaffna and the University of Jaffna with the backing of EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, who is also a minister in the cabinet of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Commenting on the statement by the SL minister, who met some students at the University of Jaffna, student circles in Jaffna said the comment has exposed the level of paranoia prevailing in the Colombo establishment that has used its military to abduct two JVPers who are still missing.
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Internment continues unchecked in Sri Lanka, as an era ends in US

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 January 2012, 02:54 GMT]
During the final assault in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, Sri Lanka's armed forces herded nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians, including close to 50,000 children and elderly, and LTTE non-combatants, in 21st century version of over-crowded internment camps encircled by barbed wire fences. While GoSL manipulates its demographic politics with the captive internees, in the U.S., an internment era, where 70 years ago more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were interned after the bombing of Pearl Harbor (7th Dec 1941), ended with the death this week of the famous internee, Gordon Hirabayashi, who leaves a legacy that still resonates whenever individual citizens force a Government to live up to its highest and best ideals.
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Sound of Silent Speech

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 January 2012, 16:57 GMT]
One can speak not only through words but through expressive conduct often called "Symbolic speech" - legally defined as nonverbal gestures and actions intended to communicate a message. In Western liberal democracies, most forms of symbolic speech are constitutionally protected. The Tamil diaspora's recent use of such protected expressive speech to publicize symbols of Colombo oppression as philatelic stamps has infuriated Sri Lanka diplomats, and is posing a long-term threat to Sri Lanka's image abroad. The autocratic suppression of free speech and threat to life have progressively shaped a local compliant media that exercises self-censorship, and have ill-prepared Sri Lanka's diplomats to confront the individual freedom enjoyed by the Tamil diaspora in the West.
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Colombo Tamil group fallen into GoSL net?

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 January 2012, 13:33 GMT]
“After the war, with protection of Tamil civilians neutrralized, the Eezham Tamils have become powerless even to conduct their routine day-to-day activities to survive. The occupying Sri Lankan army, the military-led administration of Colombo, and Sri Lankan ministers such as Rishad Bathiutheen, who intervene in the affairs of resettlement, have become the authorities of ‘appeal’ in resettling the Muslims in Jaffna and other places,” says a Colombo-based Tamil academic responding to an appeal that appeared Thursday in the Island paper. The appeal was made by a group of 68 Colombo-based Tamils. The academic describes the move as an attempt to create divisions among the Tamil speaking people and as a move to counter the real civil society in the North and East that has recently spoken up on course correcting the Tamil National Alliance.
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‘Champions of Change’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 January 2012, 15:02 GMT]
Even as the nation of the Scots enjoys limited autonomy in the United Kingdom, its desire for independence coupled with other political and economic developments compels the leader of the Scottish National Party to optimistically assert that Scotland and other similar small independent nation-states will be the champions of change in the near future. On the other hand, as the efficiently functioning de facto state of the Eezham Tamils was crushed by Sri Lanka with support of world powers in May 2009, there is a need to soar above mere war crimes calls and other similar discourses, which only blunt the aims of our political goals. The year 2012 must involve reinvigorated efforts to assert sovereignty of the Eezham Tamils and to set the moral victory of our national liberation struggle as a standard to natural allies, writes TamilNet Economic and Geopolitical Analyst in the Asia Pacific.
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ICG Report on Eezham Tamil women receives flak from diaspora feminist

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 January 2012, 23:49 GMT]
In an article published on Countercurrents, an Indian online journal, Janani Paramsothy, a student in a British University, criticized the ICG report on Eezham Tamil women report for having deliberately ignored the real problem of genocide of Eezham Tamils, in which, sexual violence on Tamil women is an essential component. Ms. Paramsothy, who had been a vocal participant in protests in the UK during the period of Mu’l’livaikaal genocide and after, came down heavily on the ICG for maligning genuine voices in the diaspora addressing the national question and for having produced a distorted picture of the progress of women achieved under the LTTE. “Tamil women- safe under LTTE, raped and pillaged under Sri Lankan forces with no one to support them... For Tamil women to be safe under a Sri Lankan state is simply impossible”, she said.
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Extra-judicial execution of Trincomalee students, Sixth anniversary

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 January 2012, 00:05 GMT]
Two Tamil organizations in the U.S. jointly issued a commemorative stamp to mark the 6th anniversary of the extra-judicial execution by Sri Lanka security forces of five Trincomalee high school students on the 2nd January 2006, when the highly accomplished students were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee. The stamp, the issuing organizations said, is a mark of respect to the families that are fighting for justice, and to celebrate the indomitable spirit of Dr Manoharan, the father of one of the students, Ragihar, who had made the fight to bring the killers of his son to justice his life's mission. Meanwhile, Amnesty International conducted a "Write-for-Rights" campaign seeking justice for Dr Manoharan's family during the first week of December 2011.
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TamilNet releases LTTE documents of 2006 talks

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 December 2011, 16:34 GMT]
A set of documents prepared by the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat during Geneva peace talks held in February 2006, in June 2006 in Oslo and in October 2006 in Geneva, some of which have not yet reached public domain, are being released by TamilNet to facilitate a deeper understanding of the peace process and its eventual collapse. While 2011 has been a "year of reports," the UN panel report, Norway’s ‘Pawns of Peace’, the genocide model LLRC report etc., the LTTE documents provide valuable insight into the Tigers' efforts undertaken to fulfill LTTE's commitment to the International Community. Though groups such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) reject the application of the concept of "earned sovereignty" to Eezham Tamils, the documents prepared by the Peace Secretariat show how the concept was validated in practice by the LTTE.
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SLA assaults, threatens activists who protest against sand mining in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2011, 10:55 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers at Mu'rakkoddaagn-cheanai camp in Batticaloa district have summoned civil activists from Chantha'na-madu river basin to their camp, intimidating them and issuing death threats to some of the activists for having protested against illegal sand mining carried out by TMVP paramilitary operated by the SLA. The villagers, intimidated by the soldiers not to protest against the sand mining, revealed that two activists, 30-year-old Muthupillai Nadesan, the second ‘vanniyanaar’ (temple administrator) of Chiththaa'ndi Murukan temple and 28-year-old Velautham Ruban, were severely assaulted by the SLA soldiers and were issued death threats on December 18.
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LLRC criticisms escalate as Colombo threatens legal action

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 December 2011, 14:27 GMT]
Questioning the need for "a seven-man presidential Commission costing millions of rupees for platitudinous recommendations that the government will ignore," Prof. Kumar David, in an opinion column in Lakbima says, "[t]his game [LLRC] is not being played for reconciliation with the Tamils; it is being played to get the human rights and international agencies baying for blood off the government’s back," and notes, "[i]f GoSL wants to settle the national question it knows what it needs to do and could have done so a long time ago; no need for commissions. End the military occupation of Tamil areas and close down the High Security Zones, implement full devolution of power, and release Tamil youth held in illegal detention for years. For starters, these few steps will do more than a hundred commissions of inquiry."
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