Colombo SLT extends TamilNet censorship to south of the island

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 January 2016, 00:03 GMT]
The Colombo regime of Maithiripala Sirisena (SLFP) and Ranil Wickramsinghe (UNP) have once again proved that they are not different from the previous regime of Rajapaksa in suppressing access to tamilnet.com for the vast majority of Internet users in the island who connect through ADSL broadband provided by ‘Sri Lanka’ Telecom PLC (SLT). The main stakeholder of the SLT ownership is the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’. The other dominant shareholder of the SLT is Egypt-based Global Telecommunication Holdings. The SLT has been continuously blocking access to TamilNet in the North and East despite the claim by the Maithiripala regime last January that the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’ would not be practicing Internet censorship anymore as it was during the Rajapaksa regime. Ironically, the marketing slogan of the SLT is: ‘One Country. One Voice.’
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Uprooted Tamils demand occupying SL military to vacate from Keappaa-pulavu

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 January 2016, 19:32 GMT]
More than one hundred families, languishing at a jungle pocket named Sooriyapuram a few kilometres away from their fertile village Keappaa-pulavu, which has been occupied by the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Colombo, staged a protest on the first working day of 2016 demanding Colombo to fully de-militarize their village and hand over their village back to them for resettlement. The occupying SL military was harassing the protesters by posing intelligence wing soldiers to take photos and videos of those participated in the protest. Despite the intimidation by the occupying SL military, the protesting people remained firm in demanding the SL military to vacate from their ancient village.
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Colombo continues to demographically erase Tamil villages in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 January 2016, 08:32 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils from Kanakar-kiraamam village in Ampaa'rai district complain that their lands have been permanently seized by Maithiripala Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry in Colombo through SL Forest Department in December 2015. Colombo continues to deploy Sinhala military at Tamil settlements. The Tamil villagers who received permit lands in mid 1970s have been unable to renew their permits as they were uprooted from these settlements. The mechanisms that come under the provincial and central ministries operate with the motive of permanently erasing these settlements. Ever since 1956, when the Tamils in the district were chased out from their traditional and later settlements for the first time, the successive regimes in Colombo have operated against resettlement of Tamils in Ampaa'rai, Tamil civil officials complain citing the latest example of Kanakar-kiraamam.
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10th Anniversary of STF murder of Trincomalee Tamil students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 January 2016, 02:36 GMT]
Dr Kasippillai Manoharan and four other families will be commemorating the tenth anniversary of the murder of their sons extra-judicially executed by the Special Task force (STF) of the Sri Lanka Government on the 2nd January 2006. The high school students, all then nearly 20-years old, were spending an afternoon at a seafront in Trincomalee when the allegedly planned crime took place. Dr Manoharan told TamilNet that while he is disappointed with the Western powers who are acquiescing with Colombo to impose 'victor's justice' in SriLanka, he will continue to fight to seek justice for his son, and expressed his appreciation to the support he has received from individuals and organizations for his work.
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De-militarize Mu’l’likku’lam in 2016: Uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 January 2016, 00:31 GMT]
Rt Rev Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and the civil organisations in Mannaar district should demand the Sri Lankan State to fully de-militarize Mu’l’lik-ku’lam GS division of Musali division in the district in 2016 and enable more than 1,200 Eezham Tamils, who were uprooted from their village in September 2007 to resettle in their village, said the representatives of the uprooted Tamils, who have not received any response for their repeated appeals in 2015. The villagers talking to TamilNet in December 2015 urged the concerned stakeholders to come forward in demanding full de-militarization of Mu'l'likku'lam in 2016. The villagers managed to mark the dawn of 2016 at their own church in Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on January 01.
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Colombo finds new ways to extend detention of Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 December 2015, 20:39 GMT]
The Tamil prisoners, who are being indefinitely detained for several years in the prisons of occupying Colombo, are going to be subjected for prolonged proceedings once more under a new Colombo-based ‘special court’, legal sources in Jaffna said. There are cases where false confessions obtained under torture by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) have been already rejected by the district courts in the North and East. These prisoners were awaiting their cases to be dismissed. But, the judiciary of occupying Sri Lanka wants their cases to be addressed again in Colombo.
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White-van abductions continue in North with ‘UNP sophistication’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 December 2015, 21:42 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence is operating white-van abductions through diaspora and homeland based intermediaries, a well-informed right activists in Jaffna told TamilNet on Wednesday. There have been at least three cases in the recent weeks where abductions were carried out in the Northern Province. The affected parties were given death threats if they chose to go public through other channels than the intermediaries through whom they were released after abductions. The targeted people were Tamil journalists, family members of diaspora activists and traders.
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Tamils should identify natural allies against US-UK military geopolitics: Viraj Mendis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 December 2015, 23:09 GMT]
The strategic location of the island of Sri Lanka becomes hot and very important, especially when the paradigm of war becomes more dominant than the peace paradigm at a global level, says Viraj Mendis, a progressive Sinhala rights activist who is a long-term supporter of the struggle of Eezham Tamils. In an in-depth interview to TamilNet Palaka'ni, the exiled veteran activist details his understanding on how the successive external powers, pre-occupied with the war-paradigm and the geopolitical significance of the island in a military sense in the Indian Ocean Region, have shaped the ‘genocidal consciousness’ of the Sinhalese to their benefit in the past as well as at the present. The Eezham Tamils, particularly their diaspora, should have no illusions about who their adversaries are and whom they should rely upon as their natural allies in their continued freedom struggle, he says.
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SL Governor Austin Fernando schemes Sinhala colonization of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 December 2015, 16:14 GMT]
Colombo’s colonial Governor to Eastern Province, Austin Fernando, who is a former Defence Secretary of the occupying Sri Lankan military, is working behind the scene to settle Sinhala colonisers in Batticaloa district. A settlement is being schemed close to the railway station at Punaa’nai. The nearby ‘Sinhapura’ military camp situated on Batticaloa – Colombo Road is being transferred into a Sinhala military cantonment. Additional lands to the extent of 1,500 acres have been seized for this military purpose. Both the sides of the road stretching to 1.5 km along the main road have been fenced off with barbed-wire. There were only five Sinhala families at Pu’naanai before 1990. Now, 29 families have been settled down. The SL Governor has instructed the SL civil officials to increase the figure to 56 families in the near future.
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TPC success depends on geopolitically addressing national question

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 December 2015, 18:22 GMT]
Tamil People’s Council (TPC), a 30-member body launched in Jaffna on 19 December consisting of three-member co-chairs that includes NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, has gained momentum and hype despite the shortcomings in the formation of an institution bringing together political, religious, civil activists and professionals at a critical juncture. The TPC is set to meet on Sunday to discuss the way forward to articulate the Tamil outlook for a political framework in resolving the Tamil national question. Those involved in the move should rise above the average introvert dialectics and conceive the TPC as a platform in articulating the real aspirations of the nation of Eezham Tamils to the outside geo-political ‘conflict managers’, who seek to contain the aspirations of the people, Tamil political observers in the island said.
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Resettlement remains a far dream for uprooted Tamils from Vidaththal-theevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 December 2015, 13:11 GMT]
Eezham Tamil fisher families, who were uprooted from the strategic coastal village of Vidaththal-theevu in Mannaar mainland during the times of war, are again facing pressure from Mannaar District Secretariat officials to vacate from Koanthaip-piddi jetty and their temporary settlement at Thoadda-ve’li, situated in Mannaar island, where they have been residing for 16 years since their displacement. Meanwhile, the naval officers of the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which has already seized 90% of their jetty in Vidaththal-theevu, claimed in November this year that the SLN would be seizing more coastal lands at Vidaththaltheevu. The navy of genocidal Sri Lanka is transforming the naval installation at Vidaththal-theevu into a full-fledged naval cantonment.
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Tamil youth from Batticaloa reported missing at Colombo airport

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 December 2015, 21:45 GMT]
A 22-year-old Tamil youth from Batticaloa, who returned from Qatar, has been reported missing after he arrived at Colombo Katunayake Airport on 12 December, according to a complaint made to SL Police at Katunayake. The missing person, Gunathas Navaratnam, who hails from Periya Ma'ndapaththadi in Vavu'na-theevu left Batticaloa for employment in Qatar a month earlier in October. According to CCTV footage at the airport, his son had arrived in the airport, says his father Navaratnam Samithamby.
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Occupying Colombo seeks 450 Tamil deserters enlisted by SL military in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 December 2015, 23:36 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka is silently deploying targeted search operations to arrest conscripted Tamils, who are absconding from their military enlistment in the Northern province. A total of 450 of 600 Tamils, recruited to SL military through deceptive methods after 2009, have escaped from the genocidal grips of the SL military in the North, informed sources told TamilNet on Monday. They were deceived with the promise of non-military civil work and good salaries, but after they signed up, they were given a basic form of ‘disciplinary’ training and showcased in parades with military uniforms against their wish. Later, they were deployed as slaves in the military-run farms inside the so-called High Security Zones (HSZ). Now, the absconding victims have become subjects for search and arrest operations by the SL military. The victims are now seeking protection.
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Repeal 6th Amendment for free discussion: VIS Jayapalan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 December 2015, 08:55 GMT]
There could be no claim of reconciliation without the release of political prisoners in the island. Attempting reconciliation and engaging in reconciliation are two different things. So far, the incumbent SL president has only been attempting reconciliation, VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, said in an interview to TamilNet Palaka’ni this week. Stating that a political solution, be it separation or federation, should be achieved through an open debate in a free environment between the Tamil-speaking people and the Sinhalese people, Mr Jayapalan urged the civil society in the South to realise the significance of creating the necessary non-violent space through making the SL State to repeal the 6th Amendment to the SL Constitution.
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UN failing Eezham Tamils recognises rape, genocide by IS

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 December 2015, 23:02 GMT]
The United Nations has said that Islamic State may have committed genocide in trying to wipe out the Yazdi minority and has urged the UN Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court for prosecution, reported Reuters on Thursday, after the UNSC listening to a Yazdi rape victim at its meeting on Wednesday. In 2009, the UNSC deliberations took a line that the Tamil struggle was long blighting the SL State, and thus allowed Colombo’s rape and genocide of Eezham Tamils and further institutionalisation of structural genocide in the island. Meanwhile, any attempt by Tamil polity to tell the truth is intimidated by certain media writers that such a polity is earning the wrath of the USA and India.
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Tamil political prisoners on hunger strike face death threats inside SL prisons

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 December 2015, 20:21 GMT]
The families of Tamil political prisoners expressed fear on Tuesday that the prison authorities of occupying Sri Lanka have started to deploy harsh methods against their detained kith and kin inside the jails in South to contain their struggle. A violent group of criminal Sinhala prisoners were deployed at the same room of the prison hospital, where 36-year-old Jeneevan Sivarasa was warded at the New Magazine prison. The Sinhala prisoners harassed Mr Sivarasa with racist and death threats, the families of the Tamil prisoners told TamilNet. Another Tamil political prisoner, 32-year-old Komahan Murugiah, was also subjected to similar harassments. The two Tamil prisoners are continuing their hunger strike amidst deteriorating health conditions.
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Systematic enforced disappearances, an international crime, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 December 2015, 23:21 GMT]
Noting the re-emerging threat of white van abductions and enforced disappearances in the historic homeland, the NorthEast, of Eezham Tamils, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law, said that systematic enforced disappearances is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute, and in Sri Lanka this criminality of the Government of Sri Lanka is "an indicium of genocide against the Eelam Tamils." Boyle noted, as evidence of his concern, the recent incident in Jaffna where Colombo's military intelligence operatives threatened the editors of a local newspaper that they would have to face the "white van" if the paper failed to retract a published story on missing persons.
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Paalu-kadawala

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 December 2015, 07:21 GMT]
The desolate passage or the desolate locality to pass through
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SL military intelligence threatens Jaffna daily, reminds editors on ‘white-vans’ of past

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 December 2015, 23:28 GMT]
Four Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives, who entered the office of the Jaffna edition of Thinakkural newspaper on Wednesday night, threatened the editorial staff for publishing a news item that exposed the ‘activities’ of certain surveillance operatives, who were camouflaged as journalists and deployed to monitor a meeting held on the previous day. The paper had published a story detailing the presence of four to six ‘operatives’, who were monitoring the participants at a meeting organised by the families of missing persons from all the 8 districts in the North and East on Tuesday. The SL military intelligence operatives who entered the office of the paper on Wednesday warned the editors to withdraw their story with a correction and apology to be issued on Thursday.
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Colombo seeks to contain political prisoners' struggle through adding ‘complications’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 December 2015, 23:32 GMT]
When Tamil political prisoners and prisoners of war waging their struggle demand release through existing SL mechanisms such as the presidential pardon and rehabilitation, they do not mean the SL ‘military rehabilitation’ or to get subjected further to the complicated procedures under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the political prisoners planning their next phase of the struggle told TamilNet on Saturday. Although the Tamil prisoners have waged two phases of hunger strikes to bring attention to their plight, the Colombo regime has only complicated the matter citing the PTA. The outside world should take note of the conduct of the Colombo regime, the prisoners who are expected to announce their next phase of the struggle after December 15, said.
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