Text books, school uniform issue event conducted in Sinhalese in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 December 2009, 02:23 GMT]
A "national" event of issuing free text books and school uniforms to students in Jaffna was held entirely in Sinhalese Wednesday in Jaffna Veampadi Girls’ College, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was to preside in this event and later his brother Basil Rajapaksa was to participate in the event instead of the president. But Basil Rajapaksa too did not attend the event as announced in the local media. In the meantime, the Sri Lankan president visited Vanni Wednesday to open a "national war memorial" north of Mullaiththeevu at the centre of Puthukkudiyiruppu tank.
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“Trinco district turned into military garrison”- Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 December 2009, 15:30 GMT]
Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian brought to the notice of the parliament that Trincomalee district is being turned into military garrison day by day by the Sri Lanka Army and historic Hindu Koayils there are being desecrated and destroyed to settle Buddhist Sinhalese in traditional Tamil villages. He cited the recent incident where unidentified gangs had desecrated the several centuries’- old Sivan Koayil called as Agasthiyar Thaapanam and located in Kanguveali. He added the said temple was founded by Hindu sage Agasthiyar. He said the government agent of the district is a retired Major General in the Sri Lanka Army and the governor of the eastern province is a retired naval commander.
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US Senate Committee evaluation pushes aside political solution to Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 December 2009, 07:32 GMT]
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recommending Monday on ‘recharting’ US strategy on Sri Lanka, said the US should focus on economy and security of the island instead of humanitarian considerations, IDPs and civil society; should also invest in Sinhalese parts of the country instead of just focussing on North and East; should resume training of Sri Lankan military officials to ensure human rights in future operations as well as to build critical relationships and implied that US should not emphasise on political reform as a condition to assistance, bringing rift in US- Sri Lanka relations making the latter to align with countries of alternative model of development. While the report based on evaluation by two staffers, one of whom a US Sinhalese, is viewed by Tamil circles as an open insult to their struggle, it is also seen as an election ‘manifesto’ to woo Sinhalese votes.
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Hindu temple of ritual significance destroyed in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 December 2009, 09:22 GMT]
A Siva temple located at an ancient Hindu site called Akaththiyar Thaapanam, at Kangku-veali in the Moothoor division of the Trincomalee district, where Hindus gather especially to perform the Aadi Amaavaasai ritual for ancestors, was destroyed without any traces coinciding the Heroes’ Day on 27 November. The location of the temple is under the control of Sri Lanka Army stationed at a nearby Sinhala village, Neelaappola. The Sinhala villagers of Neelaappola protected the Tamil villagers of Kangku-veali from displacement in 2006. The Tamil villagers who were shocked and wept to see the temple razed to the ground now, suspect ‘outsiders’ and are scared whether this is a prelude to wipe out their traditional village as well.
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SL Police Sub-Inspector, businessman abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 December 2009, 10:29 GMT]
An unidentified gang Wednesday night abducted four persons, including a leading Sinhalese businessman from Wattala and a police sub-inspector of the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) at Borella police division Wednesday night, Police said. They were abducted while they were returning after dinner after a famous fast-food outlet along Cotta Road in Borella.
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Total rejection of SL Constitution should be the demand - Sachithananthan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 December 2009, 01:22 GMT]
Mere removal of Sixth Amendment as an election agenda of any Tamil candidate will not do justice to the Tamil cause. It will be tacitly approving the rest of the Constitution. Therefore, a total rejection of the Constitution should be the demand, writes academic and former UN consultant Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan, responding to a TamilNet feature appeared on 28 November 2009.
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Facing offensive presidential election with self-respect

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 December 2009, 23:04 GMT]
The Tamil parties thinking of fielding a common candidate should rise above outside diktats, should do justice to the Tamil cause at this formative stage of new Tamil polity and should come out with an election agenda that doesn’t harm the cause of Tamils in the long run. Any mistake made now will be irreversible, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Grabbing land for wrecking contiguity of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2009, 10:22 GMT]
‘Investors’ may see the eastern coastal tract of the island of Sri Lanka, from Kokku’laay to Kuchchave’li, potential for minerals, tourism and fisheries. But the tract is of utmost importance to Eezham Tamils in linking the north and east of their historic homeland. Tamils wouldn’t have been averse to the idea of anyone coming and investing in this tract had there been a guarantee to the territorial integrity of their nation. It would have even been welcomed. But the genocidal Sinhala State and powers of greed have chosen the cruel way to achieve ambitions by crushing the Tamil nation – killing, maiming, chasing, incarcerating and weakening the historical inhabitants. If India that has a particular eye on this tract wants its gratification peaceful and long lasting it should take the responsibility of not altering the demography, writes a university academic of the Eastern Province.
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4 youths arrested in Katunayake HSZ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2009, 08:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force and Sri Lanka Police Saturday took four youths- two Tamils and two Sinhalese into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted covering the high security zone of the Katunayake International airport complex. The Katunayake Police said they are being detained and interrogated as they failed to prove their identity and justify their stay at that time.
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Heroes’ Day address highlights political formation for liberation

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 11:58 GMT]
Heroes’ Day Address 2009, released from the headquarters of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Friday, stressed the importance of people evolving elected political bodies in the diaspora for the liberation of their home country and to mobilise international support for the liberation. “We are aware that Tamil people will not accept or forgive structures already formed for achieving the goal of Tamil Eelam and activists of them deviating at anytime from the goal,” the address said, citing in the meantime that “the way ‘Sinhala chauvinism’ behaved even after causing grave human catastrophe has brought in permanent rift between Tamils and Sinhalese.” The address came hard on Colombo for serious human rights violations it is committing on interned LTTE cadres, especially women and mothers, and urged the silent IC to act immediately.
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Vikramabahu Karunaratne invokes support among Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 10:17 GMT]
After supporting the federal aspiration of Eezham Tamils in the 1956 elections, now for the first time left political parties led by Sinhala leaders have come forward to field a common presidential candidate, Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne, with a main programme recognising Tamil Nation, its homeland in the north and east, its right to self-determination and autonomy as solution for the unity of the island. When agenda-setting powers harping on chauvinistic elements keep mum on recognising the fundamentals, and when Tamil political parties including some Tamil left leaders locked in agendas don’t have guts to spell out the fundamentals, why not voice-deprived Tamils and peace-loving Sinhalese register opinion and explore co-existence through support to the Left Front, is a topic widely discussed in the Tamil circles.
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Heroes and rulers, eternal struggle of humanity

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 November 2009, 22:50 GMT]
The roots of the current tragedy of the island lie in the unscrupulous competition between India and USA over the control of the island as a whole. None of the adamantly competing powers wanted to address the national question in the island with justice. In a way, over the death and captivation of Tamils, powers are now wooing and competing for the ‘democratic’ votes of the Sinhalese. The war has metamorphosed the main personalities in the election fray to full-fledged dummies, as they are not as brave or honest as Pirapaharan in resisting the diktats of powers. When viewed against this backdrop, the universal as well as civilisation-perspectives of the struggle under the LTTE of Pirapaharan and the sacrifices made by thousands and thousands of fighters and people could be understood in an altogether different light, sidelining all the accusations on the modus operandi of the struggle.
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'Future bleak, but do not give up,' veteran Marxist reviewed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 21:19 GMT]
“Fifty years of ethnic cleansing have wiped out whole generations who knew any sort of peace, and made cohabitation with the Sinhalese people virtually impossible,” says veteran Marxist A.Sivanandan on the political future of the island of Sri Lanka in an interview to the New Left Review 60, November-December 2009. The 87 years old ideologue, who in his younger days “had no sense at all of being a Tamil” while living in the south, and who now feels “not only for the Tamils but also for the Sinhalese people,” further said: “The Sinhala elite has transformed the country into a counter-insurgency state like Colombia, in which repression, torture, imprisonment without trial and disappeared people are institutionally embedded. I don’t think anything now can be done from above, let alone from the debased self-interests of the ‘international community’.”
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Retired SLA major arrested for assisting LTTE in past

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2009, 11:06 GMT]
A retired Major of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was arrested last week by the Terrorist Intelligence Division for allegedly assisting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) while in service and after retirement. The suspect is a Sinhalese and a resident in a suburb in Colombo. He worked in the SLA intelligence unit while in service. He served in the SLA for fifteen years, police sources said.
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'Norway finances humiliation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 03:18 GMT]
Norway is up to appease Colombo as the Tamil Tigers are out of the picture and the only way to do this is abetting Colombo’s discrimination of Tamils in the line of Iran, Burma and China, writes Professor Øivind Fuglerud of the University of Oslo adding that a revealing cue comes from Norway insensitively sponsoring a Buddhist organisation to conduct a music festival on 27th November in Galle, timed to humiliate Tamils on the Heroes' Day. Norway sat silently like a mouse in the final phase of the war. Now its ‘humanitarian’ aid helps the internment camps of captivity and death. In future Norway’s aid may be integral to Colombo’s military complex cum Buddhist temple infrastructure to dominate Tamil areas, he further says. Not surprisingly, Norway's leading news agency, NTB, on Monday came out with biased reporting on the first ever democratically elected council of diaspora Tamils.
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Protest demonstration against assault of Tamil political prisoners in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 12:47 GMT]
The Democratic People’s Alliance (DPA) staged a protest demonstration outside the main central jail in Colombo Tuesday against the assault of Tamil political prisoners by prison guards and fellow Sinhalese prisoners Friday, sources in Colombo said. The demonstrators demanded the release of Tamil political prisoners or to take legal action against them. Despite the assurance given by Sri Lanka government to United Nations (UN) Commissioner of Human Rights, Ms. Louis Arbour that the Tamil political prisoners would be released after speedy trials, during her visit last year, they are continued to be imprisoned without any legal action against them, the sources added.
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Voter turnout endorses NCET, 15 members elected

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2009, 05:27 GMT]
The Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) attracted enough number of participants in the poll that took place Sunday in 16 centres of the different regions of Norway, in which 2767 voters turned out to elect 5 members under a national list and 10 under regional lists. Noticeable of the results was Mr. Bjønar Moxnes topping the national list polling 1864 votes. Mr. Vijayshankar from Tamil Nadu is elected to the Council topping the list of Western Region. Considering the electoral history of Eezham Tamils, who have hitherto been imposed with constitutions and were voting in elections conducted by others, this is their first ever country-wide elections, conducted by them on their own, to form a political body of their own, based on their own constitution. The eight-member Election Commission performed the task with professional perfection, observers said.
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Encroachment of government lands in Batticaloa Tamil areas

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 November 2009, 16:46 GMT]
Ma’nmunai Southwest Divisional Secretariat has informed the Deputy Secretary to President Rajapakse confirming the illegal colonization of government lands in Batticaloa district in Eastern Province where Tamil people live predominantly. Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Ariyanenthiran had already brought the issue of illegal colonization to the President and his Deputy Secretary had called for reports from the three Government Agents (GAs) in Eastern Province.
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87 Welikada Tamil prisoners on hunger strike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 November 2009, 10:24 GMT]
Eighty-seven Tamil political prisoners began a hunger strike protest from Saturday morning demanding guarantee for their lives and to strengthen the security for them following the attack on fellow Tamil prisoners Friday by Sinhalese prisoners in the presence of prison officials, sources in Colombo said. Seven of the Tamil prisoners attacked are admitted in the prison hospital. The fasting Tamil prisoners sent a memorandum to relevant authorities requesting release on bail or to prosecute them in court and to hold an impartial inquiry into the Friday incident of attack on Tamil political prisoners, the sources added.
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Sri Lanka schemes ‘legal reform’ to negate identity and grab land

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 02:34 GMT]
News reports from Colombo indicate Sri Lanka government is planning to revise the Theasa Vazhamai law of Tamils, which is a constituent legal code, ever since the formulation of the island’s current legal system by the Dutch. The urgency of the Sri Lanka state at this juncture is not social reformation but grabbing the lands of Tamils without legal hurdles, besides removing last vestiges of Tamil sovereignty in the state apparatus, Tamil legal circles said.
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