Senior Jaffna reporter Navaratnarajah passes away

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 March 2016, 17:21 GMT]
61-year-old N. Navaratnarajah (Navam GS) from Mallaakam in Jaffna, who briefly served in TamilNet as a reporter for Jaffna during the turbulent times in the past, has passed away in the early hours of Tuesday due to heart attack at the Teaching Hospital in Jaffna. Mr Navaratnarajah was a Village Officer (GS), a committed social activist and was engaged in news reporting as a freelance journalist for at least 2 decades. Despite his busy schedule, Mr Navaratnarajah remained committed as a full time journalist, working for Uthayan, Chudar-O'li, Veerakesari, Tamil Mirror and to certain Tamil language websites for a long time. He was born on 14 April, 1954.
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Tamil Diaspora Youth vow solidarity with Kurds against global injustices

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 March 2016, 23:49 GMT]
The younger generation of Eezham Tamil Diaspora has expressed solidarity with the Kurds, condemning the Turkish State atrocities and the global injustices that criminalize Kurdish resistance. The U.S., NATO, and E.U. made evident, with the exclusion of the PYD from the UN hosted Syria-talks in Geneva in February, their brazen support of their regional ally Turkey, while it is intensifying its six month long war against the Kurdish population of Northern Kurdistan (Bakur). The Western media have also failed the Kurds by avoiding to cover the crimes against the Kurds. Amidst global silence on the ongoing massacres of Kurds, voices of solidarity have emerged from Tamils in the form of a collective response through the opinion platform Tamil Diaspora Youth Network and the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) in UK taking part in a national protest on Sunday.
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Sri Lanka still precarious for returning Tamil asylum seekers, says Swiss NGO

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 18:34 GMT]
While Amnesty International and Swiss NGOs, including the Swiss Refugee Council, said that the situation for Tamils in Sri Lanka is still precarious and that it is too early for asylum seekers from Switzerland to be returned to Sri Lanka, the Swiss Government and the visiting Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera, signed a "migration partnership" the technical consulatations [on involuntarily returning Tamil refugees] of which is to take place soon, according to a Swiss Embassy press release.
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Largest donor US orchestrates UN OHCHR actions, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 16:50 GMT]
"He who pays the piper calls the tune. That is why the UN Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have gone along with the U.S.-sponsored GOSL “domestic mechanism” that is designed to whitewash, cover-up and facilitate the ongoing GOSL war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Eelam Tamils," said Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law.
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Colombo resumes surveillance of Eezham Tamils through ‘registration’ in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2016, 11:11 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Sinhala police, the intelligence operatives of the SL State and military surveillance officers are conducting fresh ‘registrations’ of people living across the 14 divisions of Batticaloa district, citing section 76 of the SL ‘Police Ordinance’ which states that householders should furnish the officer of police of his or her division with a list of all the inmates in the house and that any change occurring in the households should be reported to the police or legal authorities of the SL State. The surveillance measure is now being systematically implemented in the entire district of Batticaloa. In addition, Sinhala military intelligence officers are visiting selected households every month and some others every third month. Those who have been in Vanni earlier are being harassed with ‘terrorist’ questions, Tamil civil sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Friday.
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Fr Fontgalland sacrificed his entire life for downtrodden Upcountry people: Fr Jeyasegaram

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 March 2016, 16:00 GMT]
Following the example set by the late Rt Rev Leo Nanayakkara OSB, the first Bishop of Badulla, who was a Sinhalese and was renowned for his committed actions among the downtrodden masses, Rev Fr Guy de Fontgalland, who was a Tamil from Jaffna, decided to work among the Upcountry Tamils, continuing the legacy of committed action grounded in grassroots development since the demise of Leo Nanayakkara in 1982. The late Rev Fr Guy de Fontgalland was preparing to launch a big project of planting 10,000 palmyra seedlings in the islets off Jaffna in 2017, said his close associate Rev Fr A.F. Jeyasegaram, the director of Neitha'lam, which is a diocesan center for fishing workers in Jaffna. Fr Jeyasagaram has known Sathiyapillai Guy de Fontgalland since his childhood till his demise on Monday.
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Veteran development activist Fr Sathiyapillai Guy de Fontgalland passes away

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 March 2016, 23:18 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil development activist Rev Fr Sathiyapillai Guy de Fontgalland, who has dedicated his life to the upliftment of the Upcountry Tamils in the island, passed away at the age of 69 on Monday after being hit by a sea wave in Trincomalee. Fr S Guy de Fontgalland, who hails from Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts) island in Jaffna, was the founder of Leo Marga Ashram (LMA) in Bandarawela, which is an alternative development-oriented action group, based in Badulla district. With a vision of liberating the plantation community and a mission of creating an alternative leadership in the plantation sector through conscientization programs aimed at a people’s movement.
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Released Tamil prisoner says all inmates subjected to wrongful convictions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2016, 23:07 GMT]
The kith and kin of imprisoned Tamil prisoners of war and political prisoners staged a protest in front of Jaffna Bus Station on Wednesday morning expressing their solidarity with the political prisoners who are on hunger-strike at New Magazine prison in Colombo. Two Tamil prisoners recently released from the prison, attended the protest and one of the released prisoners, 32-year-old Komahan Murugiah, a former member of Jaffna Municipal Council, gave an emotional speech, in which he said all of the inmates languishing with him during the past 6 years were wrongfully convicted based on forced confessions in the past.
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Protesters in Jaffna demand UN to restore media access to ICP at UN HQ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 March 2016, 14:20 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillors Ananthy Sasitharan and M.K. Shivajilingam along with the kith and kin of missing persons staged an emotional protest on Tuesday morning in Jaffna in front of UN's Sub Office (WFP office) demanding the United Nations Headquarters in New York to restore UN-accredited media access to Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, who has been continuously revealing how human rights affairs of Eelam Tamils are being handled at the United Nations HQ at New York. “On behalf of the stateless nation of Eelam Tamils, I am urging you to resolve the dispute and restore UN accreddited media access to Matthew Russell Lee and take disciplinary action against the elements threatening free speech at the esteemed world body,” Ms Ananthy Sasitharan said.
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S.T. Arasu remembered by his disciple and friend

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 February 2016, 22:50 GMT]
The multi-faceted personality of the late Mr S.Thirunavukkarasu (S.T.Arasu) was remembered in an interview given to TamilNet last week by Rajaratnam Nadarajah (75), the owner of Baby Photo in Jaffna. Mr Nadarajah was recollecting his close relationship with Mr Arasu since 1958, right from the days of their photography work at Sellams, which was involved in the production of the pioneer Eezham Tamil film ‘Kadamaiyin ellai’. He was also recollecting the encounter of Mr Arasu with the Ceylon military during the non-violent protest of Eezham Tamils in 1961 under the leadership of Mr S.J.V. Chelvanayakam.
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Uprooted Tamils in Jaffna to launch occupy movement carrying ‘white-flags’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 February 2016, 21:31 GMT]
The uprooted Eezham Tamils from Valikaamam North in Jaffna, languishing in so-called welfare camps in Jaffna for 25 years, on Friday resolved that they were no longer prepared to wait in silence trusting the empty promises from David Cameron made in 2013 to Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in 2016 that they would be soon resettled. The genocidal State of Sri Lanka and its occupying Sinhala military, being groomed as a ‘Lascarine’ force, have transformed their lands from ‘High Security Zone’ into ‘Sinhala Military Zone’. Now, the SL Defence Secretary in Colombo has claimed that Colombo is to sign an agreement with India in June on transforming SL military occupied Palaali airport into an international airport and that the uprooted people should only expect alternative lands citing ‘development’.
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UN DPI stands exposed after summarily expelling ICP's Matthew Lee

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 February 2016, 23:40 GMT]
UN Department of Public Information (UN-DPI) last Friday summarily expelled, without due process, UN accredited journalist Matthew Russell Lee, who is well known for his independent and critical coverage on matters related to the injustices committed by the UN officials in New York since 2005. Mr Lee has been continuously questioning the UN officials whenever they were attempting to conceal the demand for independent international investigations on Tamil genocide under the carpet. The ICP journalist was behind bringing out leaked UN documents during the times of the war exposing the casualty figures. After May 2009, he was systematically exposing the tip of the iceberg findings of UN shielding the genocidal SL State through his sharp observation of the workings from within the UN premises itself as an independent journalist.
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Colombo continues with ‘Sinhala-only’ circulars, Tamil officials in Batticaloa complain

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 February 2016, 21:33 GMT]
The occupying Colombo continues to issue almost all official circulars in Sinhala language to the administrative offices that come under the ministries of the Colombo government, provincial and local administrative bodies, Tamil civil officials in Batticaloa complain. 90% of the population in the district is Tamil-speaking. Regardless of repeated complaints, SL ministries of genocidal Sri Lankan are bent upon Sinhalicisation of governance in the district, the Tamil officials in Batticaloa told TamilNet. While the global actors are not prepared to see physical, psychological, structural and cultural genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island and are not prepared to even spell the word Tamil in their resolutions being presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, how would their agent State in Colombo be prepared to issue the circulars in Tamil, the officials asked.
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Maithiripala deploys ‘Mahaweli’, monks, military to grab Tamil lands in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 February 2016, 23:30 GMT]
The Tamil people, who are trying to resettle in their traditional villages in Poththuvil area in Ampaa'rai district complain that the continued presence of the occupying Sinhala military along the two sides of the main access road to Poththuvil Road threaten their resettlement. Tamil civil service officials observe a pattern of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's so-called ‘Mahaweli Development’ ministry systematically deploying its departments to seize lands from Eezham Tamils in the same area. In the meantime, Sinhala Buddhist extremist monks and their operatives are seeking inroads to establish their temples in the villages where no Sinhalese are found citing they want to help Tamils to ‘confront’ occupation by Muslims.
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What is left of the Left sans the Tamil national question, asks Diaspora Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 February 2016, 21:53 GMT]
"Only a process of national liberation of the oppressed Eelam Tamil nation can facilitate the grounds for the revolutionary conditions necessary to undertake and advance all other revolutionary struggles within the island; that pertaining to the rights of the Tamil speaking interspersed minorities, the struggle of the Sinhala masses, the anti-caste struggle and the proletarian struggle at large,” writes Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. “Any prospect of anti-imperialism, without accommodating the indivisible right of Tamil self-determination and the recognition of the multi-national nature of the island with the historically evolved Tamil and Sinhala nations and homelands, will paradoxically remain in the service of imperialism by safeguarding the unitary structure of the imperialist implanted Sri Lankan state,” he further writes.
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UN officials aid, abet rape of Tamil women by SL military -Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 February 2016, 02:04 GMT]
Responding to recent news items that criticized the direct engagement of visiting foreign envoys including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, with the genocidal SL military, Professor Boyle, an expert in internationla law who teaches at the University of Illinois, College of Law, said, "[t]hey [the UN officials and foreign envoys] are all aiding and abetting the GOSL Genocide against the Tamils-- including the Mass Rape of the Tamil Women-- in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention article 3 (e) that criminalizes their “complicity” in genocide."
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Veteran drama artist Maamanithar S.T. Arasu passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2016, 23:18 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil drama artist Kalaapooshanam S.T. Arasu, who was betowed with the highest civilian Maamanithar title by LTTE Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan in 1990, passed away after a brief illness at the age of 89 in Nalloor, Jaffna on Friday. Sivakkolunthu Thirunavukkarasu (S.T. Arasu) received an emotional funeral service, attended by Tamil artists, academics and politicians on Sunday. As a multi-talented creative artist, S.T. Arasu has worked with prominent drama directors of his times and has contributed at various fronts including make-up and music. S.T.Arasu had a keen interest in sculpture and was also a professional photographer.
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Tamil solidarity with Kurds to go beyond IS-US paradigm

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 February 2016, 23:01 GMT]
Since the Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings of 2009, the Tamil diaspora has mostly focused political efforts towards demanding justice for the inhuman crimes committed against Tamil civilians. While such efforts have elevated international awareness of the gross human rights violations committed by the Sri Lanka military during the war, the approach has not yielded results on prosecuting the perpetrators of the international crimes. In light of this situation, it is imperative for the Tamil diaspora to establish alliances with the Kurds and other people marginalized by oppressive states and the International Community.
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Genocidal military rapists harass Tamil female teachers at Muzhangkaavil

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 February 2016, 21:19 GMT]
The occupying SL military soldiers, who have been earlier captured by the villagers while attempting to sexually abuse Tamil women, have this week gone amok on the ladies hostel of Muzhangkaavil MV School in Ki’linochchi district. The SL military is occupying 10 acres of lands near the school, where the Sinhala soldiers have been deployed in large numbers at the farms run by the military at close vicinity to the MV school and the primary school. The villagers rushed to help the teachers at the ladies hostel as they shouted for help when Sinhala soldiers were trying to break the door of the building Monday night. Despite repeated complaints, the SL military has not been withdrawn from the residential areas of Tamil villages in the district.
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Colombo accelerates demographic genocide along border villages of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 February 2016, 22:55 GMT]
Rural Development Society representatives from the villages situated along the border of Batticaloa district in the Eastern Province, complain that their native villages are being systematically Sinhalicised under the Maithiripala regime. The occupying Sinhala military has brought a number of extremist Buddhist monks into these villages in recent times. Buddhist temples (Pansala) and SL military positions have been mushrooming along these villages since 2007 when Sinhala military brought the entire district under its control. The same pattern of structural occupation is also observed along the Tamil villages bordering the Polonnaruwa district, which is the native district of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena.
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