Eezham Tamil man self-immolates in front of Geneva UN office

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 September 2013, 18:22 GMT]
An Eezham Tamil diaspora Tamil man, 35-year-old Senthilkumaran Ratnasingam, has immolated himself in front of the UN office in Geneva on Thursday around 1:10 a.m. The authorities in Switzerland were initially reluctant to confirm or release the details of the incident. However, Tamil circles at Geneva told TamilNet that the Swiss police together with a group of Iranian activists, who were engaged in protests at the time of the incident, attempted to save his life and rushed him to Chuv hospital in Lausanne, where he succumbed to his injuries on Thursday around 4:15 p.m. Meanwhile, Iranian persons present at the site of the incident said they found a photo of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan at the site. The latest self-immolation comes amidst disappointment prevailing among Eezham Tamils following the recent visit of UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanetham Pillay to the island.
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Swiss agency brings in genocidal governor to open schools in Jaffna Peninsula

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 September 2013, 07:24 GMT]
The Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), a Switzerland government ‘development’ outfit operating in the country of Eezham Tamils, shows its ‘cooperation’ with the genocidal Sinhala State and sends a humiliating development message to Tamils by bringing in the military governor occupying North, Maj. Gen. (retd) G. A. Chandrasri to open two schools at Thadduvaan-koddi and Uduth-thu’rai in the Jaffna Peninsula on Thursday, commented local people who provided a copy of the invitation to TamilNet. The SDC has made an impressive image among the people by the quality of the work it has done, but a ‘development’ that comes with impunity culture and justification of occupation is not development but spiritual and psychological subjugation and degradation, they further said.
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Buddhist vihara being constructed at Tamil village in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 September 2013, 23:54 GMT]
A group of Buddhist monks and Buddhist extremist elements from the South are constructing a Buddhist Vihara in the Tamil village of Thangka-vealaayutha-puram in Ampaa'rai district. The occupying Sri Lankan military is assisting the monks, news sources in Thirukkoayil told TamilNet.
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UN faces political pressure from powers that withhold casualty figures: Jude Lal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 September 2013, 23:21 GMT]
While the UN Security Council is the most decisive political organ, why did the US chose to move the UN Human Rights Commission and that too avoiding any reference to UN's own Expert Panel report, questions Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, one of the organizers of the Peoples' Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in Dublin in 2010, explaining the ‘tension’ found within the UN human rights and humanitarian system. Observing two reactions by the UN system, he also details how the casualty figures were intentionally withheld by major powers during war to let the SL State to complete its genocidal onslaught. Even now, the powers sitting on the issue at the UN are exerting political pressure on the system to control and to ‘interpret’ the vast pool of evidence that is against the SL State as well as themselves, Dr Fernando said in a video interview to TamilNet on Saturday.
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‘Military presence in North-East worrying’: Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
“I was concerned to hear about the degree to which the military appears to be putting down roots and becoming involved in what should be civilian activities, for instance education, agriculture and even tourism,” Ms Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a press conference in Colombo on Saturday. Speaking at the conclusion of her visit to the island, Ms Pillay said that that the military presence in the North-East seemed “much greater than is needed for strictly military or reconstruction purposes,” also referring to the vulnerability of women to sexual abuse. While sympathizing with the spirit of the address of Ms Pillay, who has been at the receiving end of vulgar verbal abuse from Sinhala nationalists, Tamil activists in the island expressed regret that she was still conferring legitimacy to the GoSL’s genocidal blueprint called LLRC.
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Australia’s refugee policy draws flak from UNHRC, activists

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2013, 20:26 GMT]
“Australia’s indefinite detention of 46 recognized refugees on security grounds amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, inflicting serious psychological harm on them,” the UNHRC said in a statement last week. The statement further said that Australia should release the refugees, of whom 42 are Tamils from Sri Lanka, who have been held for at least two and a half years, and offer them compensation and rehabilitation. Speaking to TamilNet on the UNHRC observations, Trevor Grant, veteran journalist and spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council, said the judgement vindicated the strong belief of many advocates and lawyers that indefinite detention was not only illegal but intolerable in a just society. However, the Australia’s Coalition still maintains a hardline approach against refugees.
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Norwegian ambassador in Colombo bares agenda in Oslo

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2013, 00:58 GMT]
Norway, once hoodwinked the nation of Eezham Tamils with an ‘internal self-determination’ formula in the Oslo Declaration, now bares its deceptive face by talking about ‘development’ of Tamils with diaspora ‘partnership’ within a ‘Sri Lankan minority’ formula and the PC model. While the Norwegian ambassador in Colombo Ms Grete Løchen was baring the agenda in Oslo on Monday, the Tamil participants looped in were not only confirmed revisionists, habitual upholders of the Sri Lankan State and tangent-polity activists, but were also the representatives of the NCET, Tamil Women Organisation, a TCC outfit and the TECH-Norway. If the agenda can’t be perceived with its nuances and rejected outright at the face of Norway, the diaspora will prove only its impotence, commented Tamils for alternative politics in the island.
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‘You may whisper in my ear’, Pillay told Mullai people

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2013, 02:55 GMT]
UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay, who met a section of the uprooted people of Champoor in Trincomalee on Wednesday, told them that she was aware of their plight. On Tuesday, Ms Pillay, who visited Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal in Mullaith-theevu sympathized with the victims struggling to resettle amidst the prevailing SL military occupation and the ongoing structural genocide. Noticing fear in the people in speaking out in the presence of the surrounding SL military personnel clad in civil, she told them that they may whisper in her ear. Her direct contact with the victims in Vanni and Trincomalee comes after criticism on the conduct of the UN officials, who in Jaffna on Tuesday had opted to take her away through the backdoor following ‘advice’ by the SL authorities, preventing her meeting with around one thousand parents and victims of the missing people at the Jaffna Public Library.
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Navi Pillay meeting Tamils in Jaffna ended in eyewash, say Tamil activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 01:04 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillay met a group of 15 Tamil rights activists and civil representatives at the UN office in Jaffna. While she spent more time with the Sri Lankan State officials, the independent Tamil activists were given just 90 seconds each to present their cases under 8 different themes that included the cases of missing persons, detention of prisoners, land grab, colonization and attacks on religious institutions.
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Navi Pillay taken through backdoor to avoid public in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 07:01 GMT]
Many among more than a thousand people gathered in front of the Jaffna Public Library on Tuesday morning to personally convey their feelings to the visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Ms Navi Pillay, started shedding tears when they found out that Ms Pillay was taken away, through the backdoor, by the Sri Lankan officials. The gathering that was mostly the kith and kin of the people missing in the war and the aftermath, was told by the organisers of the visit to peacefully assemble in front of the Jaffna Public Library so that Ms Pillay would be seeing them. Some of the people had even travelled from the South to convey their bereavement. But, after meeting the SL Colonial Governor, SL Government Agents of the districts in the North and SL-run provincial council heads of departments at the Public Library hall, Ms Pillay was led through the backdoor. 
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Even constitutional restructure is no solution: Kasi Ananthan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 00:30 GMT]
A constitution, even after any reform or restructure, is meaningless in the context of the island Ilangkai (Sri Lanka), as the single State for the whole island is not disposed towards honouring any constitution. In a two-nation island, where one nation is dominant, there are no safeguards as in the case of the multi-nation India under one federal constitution. There is no point in India and the USA harping on the 13 Amendment under a unitary constitution or any other constitutional changes. The 13th Amendment is not a part of Sri Lankan constitution but a part of Sri Lankan conspiracy. The TNA leadership announcing abandonment of Tamil Eelam is the greatest treachery in our liberation struggle, said poet and veteran Tamil political activist Mr Kasi Ananthan in an interview to TamilNet this week.
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Removing gender bias in social institutions

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 00:02 GMT]
After a hundred years of its establishment, the Young Men Hindu Association (YMHA) of Thirunelveali in Jaffna proposes to do away with gender bias in its membership and name. In a letter to all lovers of Thirunelveali and the YMHA on Sunday, the current president of the YMHA, Mr S. Muthulingam was seeking their views on enrolling women as members and changing the name of the institution into Hindu Youth’s Association. It is high time that we do away with the idea of gender segregation not only in social institutions like the YMHA but also in our educational institutions like the Jaffna Hindu College. The Victorian outlook of religion, society and education that came with British colonialism has long outlived the times, commented social activists in Jaffna.
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Vanni teachers ‘ordered’ to back Rajapaksa candidate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Pre-school teachers who come under the so-called Civil Defence Force have been instructed by three UPFA operatives named Ilangko, Sutharsan and Inthiran, who were ex-LTTE members, now operated by the SL military, to woo voters for UPFA candidate Geethanjali Nakulesvaran, news sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Saturday.
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NPC election is no mandate test: Sivagnanam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:11 GMT]
The environment under which the people of the North and East were able to give a mandate [based on Vaddukkoaddai Resolution] in 1977 is not available today or not given to us by the international as well as domestic situation, said Mr CVK Sivagnanam, a candidate for the Northern Provincial Council election held by Colombo in September with the active support of New Delhi and Washington. The NPC election is based on what is already there [in the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka in the last 25 years]. Therefore, outcome of this election could never be interpreted as conveying any mandate, Mr Sivagnanam said, adding that he is personally consistent in the stand, “two nations in one country” and the Tamil right to self-determination. We would take up a people's struggle in the event of Colombo blighting the NPC, he further said, responding to questions put forward by TamilNet on Saturday.
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Theatres in Tamil Nadu unlikely to screen controversial ‘Madras Cafe’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 August 2013, 23:32 GMT]
The screening of contraversial film ‘Madras Cafe’, which has been declared as ‘anti-Tamil’ film by Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu, is facing protests across Tamil Nadu State and in Mumbai, Indian media reports said Thursday on the eve of the release of the film adding that the theatres in Tamil Nadu are unlikely to screen the film as the Theatre Owners' Association had left the decision of screening the film to individual theatre owners. In the guise of a fiction story and dubbed a thriller, the film portrays the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as terrorists, the Tamil activists opposing the screening of the film said.
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Diplomacy could work only when mass mobilisation is ground reality: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
Do we have an environment to talk about Tamil nation and its right to self-determination? Do we have to ask for internal self-determination? Should we go step-by-step in achieving the goals? Do we have the right to call for a referendum? Could we insist on a transitional administration? Are they all realistic in our situation: asking these questions at the Kumar Ponnambalam Memorial Lecture to a fully packed audience in Jaffna on Sunday, Jaffna University Law Lecturer Kumaravadivel Guruparan said that we cannot wage a struggle by seeing what is in the international law, as international law is purposefully ambiguous leaving space for further discourses, and as what needed more than the international law are the mass mobilisation and the backing of powerful friends.
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SL military bans devotional song at ancient Saiva temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 23:44 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in the East has banned Saiva devotional songs authored by popular poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts are still not known after the occupying Sri Lankan military had him into custody during the final hours of the Vanni war in May 2009. The SL military personnel have warned the temple administration of the historic Siva temple Thaan-thoan'ri-eesvarar at Kokkaddichchoalai not to play the popular devotional song "Piddukku ma'n chumantha perumaanaar” on the temple loud-speakers or on at any occasion. Together with the popular song on Kokkaddich-choalai, TamilNet also releases a few other songs for the wider Tamil audience throughout the world.
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Tamils should boycott Conservatives: British activist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 August 2013, 20:35 GMT]
“There is no point in any vote or any penny of Tamil money or Tamil votes going to the Conservative party. They have shown time and again whose side they are on. They are not on our side,” Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, British activist working with Tamil Solidarity, stated. In a video interview to TamilNet, referring to the systematic deception of the British Conservatives on the issue of Sri Lanka, Sachs-Eldridge said that “The Tamil community is getting nothing from these people.” The British activist, commenting on the recent response of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the trade union Unison, wherein the FCO had defended Britain’s participation in CHOGM, argued that the British government had no intention of putting any significant pressure on Sri Lanka.
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‘Stand firm on referendum demand for Tamil Eelam’: Tamil Nadu activist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2013, 05:55 GMT]
The student uprising in Tamil Nadu, which erupted in the wake of the pro-LLRC US resolution tabled at Geneva in March, strongly stands for a referendum for Tamil Eelam said V. Vettrivel Chandrashekar, the director of the recently released documentary on the student protests ‘A’rappoar’, urging Tamils across the world to remain firm on the demand. In an interview to TamilNet, Mr. Vettrivel, talking about the need to document the historically and politically significant students’ uprising, also spoke about the positive influence the Tamil Nadu students’ movement had on regional and global Tamil politics. Referring to the London event in early July by diaspora youth ‘Seeking Perception sans Conditioning’, he said that the Tamil Nadu and the diaspora youth stood in one political line as regards the question of a referendum.
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‘13th Amendment, PC system cannot provide political solution to Tamils’: TNPF

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 July 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Reiterating their position that “the recognition of the distinct sovereignty of the Eelam Tamil Nation and our right to self-determination is non-negotiable,” the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) in a statement released on Saturday asserted that the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Councils system, rejected by the Eezham Tamil nation way back in 1987, “can never play any part of a process to reach a political solution today.” The statement released on the 30th anniversary of Black July, further said “if there is a firm resolve of the Eelam Tamil Diaspora to be true to this righteous cause at all occasions and venues, we in the homeland believe that it can ultimately serve to reinvigorate the Tamils in the homeland to mobilize and democratically counter the machinations of the Genocidal intent of the Sinhala Buddhist state.”
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