Colombo executing structural genocide, not reconciliation - Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 11:54 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the President of the Tamil National People's Front, in a discussion with Phil Miller of "Open Democracy" in Geneva, criticized the language of "reconciliation" promoted by British officials and asserts that “structural genocide, not reconciliation, is the phrase which most accurately describes what is going on,” and adds that “[t]he land grab is not peculiar to this [Rajapakse] regime. It has been happening for the last 65 years. The only time it stopped was during the armed struggle of the LTTE, because then Sinhalese people were not willing to settle in the north and east, where a de-facto Tamil state existed."
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Karagaha-ulpatha, Paalai-oottu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 March 2013, 00:38 GMT]
The spring (in the locality) of Kara shrub
The spring (in the locality) of Paalai tree
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Academics criticize R2P, emphasize inapplicability to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 March 2013, 20:12 GMT]
Even as certain groups of the establishments are suggesting the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine to the Eezham Tamils, the concept has come under severe criticism by academics who attended the “Conference on Tamil People’s Rights” at Geneva on 02 March. While British academic Dr. Andy Higginbottom argued that R2P was “a humanitarian face to further US interests”, Ireland based Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando stated that “At a time when the powers are giving economic diplomatic and military support to the Sri Lankan state, talking about R2P is nonsensical”, in their opinions conveyed to TamilNet. Dr. Fernando also stressed the need for “the application of remedial sovereignty by means of an UN referendum conducted by powers who were not involved in the genocide.”
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Tamil women in UK begin campaign to highlight genocidal sexual abuse by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 March 2013, 09:04 GMT]
Seeking to inform the British public on the sexual abuse perpetrated on Tamil women by the Sri Lankan state forces, Tamil women activists in the UK began a campaign on International Women’s Day, from the Boudica statue in Westminster, London, which is an important cultural symbol in British history. “The systematic sexual violence against Tamil women by the Sri Lankan state is not cases of individual human rights violations but part of an intended genocide to break the Eezham Tamil nation. This is a structural problem in unitary Sri Lanka and the International Community should recognize that only in an independent Tamil Eelam, Tamil women can aspire for a life with dignity and safety,” Bairavi Ratnabal, second generation Eezham Tamil youth activist told TamilNet.
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BJP cell of Tamil Nadu ex-servicemen apologises to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 March 2013, 02:42 GMT]
“The deepest psychological wound rankling the minds of every veteran in Tamilnadu is the killing of Tamilians during the Indo-Srilankan war of 1987-90 by the Indian Armed Forces,” says the President of the Tamil Nadu BJP Ex-Servicemen’s Cell, Lt Col CR Sundar, in a statement circulated to media this week. Had the war crimes been taken up for investigations at that time itself, the later tragedy befallen on Tamils in the island could have been averted, he told Tamil Nadu correspondent of TamilNet on Tuesday. The need that has arisen for Tamil ex-servicemen to take up party line of politics on the Eezham Tamil issue is a significant development in India, political observers said.
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Thousands rallying in Geneva question TNA MPs on compromise

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 March 2013, 23:34 GMT]
Thousands of Eezham Tamils from across Europe, who took part in a rally at Geneva on Monday demanded a UN sponsored referendum for a sovereign Tamil Eelam. In the meantime, sections of protestors, who confluenced in Geneva, approached the hotel where TNA politicians, who had come to attend a conference, were residing. Parliamentarians Maavai Seanthirajah and Ariyanethran were encircled by the people who questioned them on the compromising polity forgetting fundamentals adopted by the TNA leadership. According to informed circles, TNA leader Mr Sampanthan in London last week has claimed that the US government use to extend invitations for talks only to him and to Mr Sumanthiran.
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Daily Mirror fabricates news: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 March 2013, 00:01 GMT]
“It is sometimes possible for journalists to misunderstand what is being said, and as a result misquote. But in this case, the major part of the said news item is entirely fabricated,” says Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam responding to Colombo-based English media Daily Mirror reporting his speech at the Press Club in Jaffna on Monday. While he had cited the report of Ms. Navi Pillai in appreciation for evidencing the grave violations committed against Tamils in the last one year, the Daily Mirror titled its news report on Wednesday as “Pillai responsible, says Ponnambalam,” Gajendrakumar said. Following protests by Gajendrakumar, Daily Mirror carried another report on Thursday, titled “Ponnambalam clarifies.” This was even more disappointing and completely inadequate, Gajendrakumar told TamilNet.
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UNHRC heads for structural genocide if Tamil nation territory is not guaranteed: TNPF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 February 2013, 15:02 GMT]
An internationally monitored interim administration in the North and East under UN supervision outside the parameters of the Sri Lankan Constitution is the only way forward to stop the genocide being committed on Tamils, especially to put an immediate end to the accelerated structural genocide taking place in the Tamil homeland, reiterated Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), in the first press meeting held at the newly opened press club in Jaffna on Monday. The current indications are that the UNHRC would end up giving another year of time and space to Colombo and the TNA that supported the resolution last year without a principled approach is answerable to what resulted from the resolution in the past 12 months, Gajendrakumar further said.
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Pita-kotte, Pita-kotuwa, Pettah

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 February 2013, 08:31 GMT]
The outside of the fort/
The backside of the fort
The extramural suburb of the fort/
The town adjacent to the fort

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Flood victims deprived of relief by Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 February 2013, 23:35 GMT]
63,386 members of 13,903 families have been displaced in the Northern and Eastern provinces while two died and one hundred thousand and thirty four thousand persons have been affected in the whole island due to torrential rain with strong winds in recent days. Hundreds of acres of paddy crops ready for harvesting are under water and harvested paddy crops floating in flood water. But no action has been taken to provide any relief to affected families, civil officials say. Heavy torrential rains and floods have repeatedly affected the lives of the people struggling to resettle in their homeland subjected to structural genocide by the occupying Sinhala military and its administrative apparatus in the North and East.
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Swiss, South Africa reconciliation attempt in Sri Lanka ‘ill-conceived’, says ICG

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 February 2013, 00:59 GMT]
Switzerland's backing of a South African post-Apartheid reconciliation initiative to bring adversarial parties in Sri Lanka to the negotiating table, is ill-conceived and has little chance of yielding any positive results, Alan Keenan, an ICG [International Crisis Group] Sri Lanka expert commented. Keenan "accused the Sri Lankan government of having no interest in fair negotiations with Tamil political parties, no intention to devolve meaningful power to the Tamil-majority northern province or the Tamil-speaking majority eastern province, and of going back on its many promises." The Swiss government funding and the South African brokering were behind the GTF convened and Burghof Foundation facilitated Berlin conference, informed circles say.
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SL military operatives attack peaceful protest against Jaffna SMZ

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 February 2013, 12:20 GMT]
More than ten Sri Lankan military operatives, co-mingling with and camouflaging as protestors in front of Thurkkai Amman temple in Thellippazhai, where a token fast against Colombo converting the former SL Miltiary High Security Zone (HSZ) into Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Jaffna, attacked the peaceful protestors on Friday. The attack came after the SL Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe had left the site taking part and addressing the protestors. The SL military men went amok on Tamil parliamentarians and journalists at the site of the protest. However, the attackers who were causing panic among the participants were confronted by the protestors. More than one hundred SL policemen silently watched the unfolding episode without restraining or arresting the civil clad military operatives.
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Colombo shuns Tamil representation in Delimitation Committee in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 February 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Not a single Tamil officer was appointed to the six-member Trincomalee District Local Authorities Delimitation Committee that is headed by the Sri Lankan Government Agent (SLGA) who is a retired Major General of the occupying Sri Lanka Army, civil sources in Trincomalee said. Four members are Sinhalese, including the SLGA, and the remaining two are Muslims. The Trincomalee District Local Authorities Delimitation Committee is empowered to demarcate the boundaries of the existing wards and carve out new wards of the 13 local authorities under the Amended Local Government Ordinance.
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Uprooted Champoor families live in fear following arrest of 7 persons by TID

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 February 2013, 20:11 GMT]
Tension and fear prevail among uprooted Tamil families from Champoor area currently being sheltered in temporary sheds described as welfare centres at four places, Kaddai-pa'richchaan, Paddith-thidal, Ma'nat-cheanai and Ki'liveddi since the arrest of seven Tamils by a special TID team from Colombo last week alleging them as LTTE members. Two of them are inmates of Paddith-thidal welfare camp. They are all breadwinners of their families. They were taken to a place out of the Trincomalee district for military ‘rehabilitation’.
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British Under Secretary’s ‘war picnic’, misleading comments, draw flak from Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 February 2013, 21:17 GMT]
While Alistair Burt, British Under Secretary of State at FCO, endorsed on Twitter on Wednesday the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara, in his Twitter discussions on Tuesday with Eezham Tamils, he opined that “Detail of political settlement must be for Sri Lankans themselves. We encourage TNA and govt to make serious progress.” Likewise, in a video recording taken with the British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka a few days back at the Mullaitheevu coast, which witnessed the worst massacres in May 2009, he welcomed the defeat of the LTTE calling it “terrorism” and picked only politically insignificant flaws with the Sri Lankan government. Civil society activists from the North remarked that the minister seemed to be on a sort of a “war picnic”, appreciating some aspects with Sri Lanka and criticizing others. Activists in the UK have also reacted to Mr. Burt’s comments.
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Tamil diaspora protests Sri Lanka’s freedom committing genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2013, 07:13 GMT]
Tamil diaspora activists in Europe, Canada and Australia staged protests on Monday coinciding with the Sri Lanka’s official 65th ‘independence day’, with activists alleging that this so-called ‘independence’ was only a freedom given to the Sinhala nation to commit a protracted genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation. Speaking to TamilNet from a solidarity gathering in Geelong in the state of Victoria, Australia, labour union leader Tim Gooden said that there was a need to recognize the sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation. “Unless the aspirations of people are met then there is no peace. One side will always have to suppress people if they are not going to recognise their sovereignty. People on both sides cannot develop culturally, economically or morally until the national question is resolved,” he said.
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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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‘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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Sinhala military, Malayala martial arts to mark Indian celebrations in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 January 2013, 00:36 GMT]
Marking India’s 64th Republic Day (26-01-2013) celebrations, a performance of Malayala Martial Arts, called Ka’larip-payattu, has been organized at Veerasingam Hall in Jaffna on Thursday, by New Delhi’s Consulate General in Jaffna. The Commander of the Sinhala military occupying Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe, will be the Chief Guest at the celebrations, presided over by New Delhi’s Consul General in Jaffna, Mr. V. Mahalingam. Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Culture and Arts and New Delhi’s Indian Council of Cultural Relations jointly sponsor the programme. Meanwhile, India is in the top in training genocidal Sri Lanka’s Sinhala military at the rate of 1400 personnel per year, admitted, New Delhi’s envoy in Colombo Ashok K. Kantha.
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Eezham Tamil writers in UK criticize India’s role in genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 January 2013, 22:32 GMT]
UK based Eezham Tamil writers and journalists criticized the role of India in abetting the genocide of the Eezham Tamils and shielding the genocide perpetrators at book release function at London on Sunday. Speaking at the release of the book “Thookkuk-kayittil: Rajiv padukolai nijam” written by Tiruchi Velusami and compiled by P. Egalaivan, the Eezham Tamil writers expressed their opinions on how under the cover of eliminating the LTTE, India and other world powers effectively covered up the genocide of the Eezham Tamils.
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