SL colonial governor, EPDP, intrigue against Indian delegation

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 April 2012, 05:58 GMT]
While displaying a big show with welcoming posters particularly aimed at pleasing Sushma Swaraj, and with a dominated presence in receiving the Indian delegation, the SL colonial governor in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and SL minister Douglas Devananda, on the other hand played intrigues against the delegation, which were thwarted by the Deputy High Commission of India in Jaffna, news sources in Jaffna said. The delegation cancelled visiting Nalloor Kandasamy temple after being tipped on Devananda orchestrating a fishermen agitation in front of the temple during its planned visit. The SL governor ordered the secretariat officials not to attend a meeting convened by the delegation. On Thursday, the Sinhala colonial governor accused India for the delay in the construction of houses promised to the war victims.
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Indian money used in Sinhalicisation, Buddhicisation of Thirukkeatheesvaram

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 April 2012, 00:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Sinhala military occupying the famous archaeological site Maanthai in Mannaar, where the historically pivotal sacred Tamil-Saiva temple Thirukkeatheesvaram is located in the country of Eezham Tamils, has embarked upon building a Buddhist temple at a forcefully confiscated private land, just 200 metres away from the Saiva temple. Sometimes back, the New Delhi Establishment gave much publicity for the money it gave to preserve the Thirukkeatheesvaram sacred site. But the money is now used by genocidal Sri Lanka to build a Sinhala-Buddhist ‘pilgrim’ centre at the site in order to Sinhalicise the cultural landscape in the way Kathirkaamam was Sinhalicised and is now lost to the Eezham Tamils. The temple management that has now fallen into Colombo-centric hands is silent on the issue.
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Indian delegation disappoints civil representatives in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 23:53 GMT]
Civil representatives in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday said that they were not provided any opportunity to meet and convey the plight of resettled Tamils in the district to the visiting delegation of Indian parliamentarians led by Mrs Sushma Swaraj. The Tamil representatives belonging to several civil organisations in the district had been invited and were waiting for a long time since 10:00 a.m. to meet the delegation. But, no meeting took place. The visiting delegation was taken on a ‘guided tour’ giving priority to inaugurations and distributing gifts. The Congress group of the delegation which came late to the opening ceremony of a housing scheme was seen quarrelling with the group of parliamentarians led by Mrs Sushma Swaraj of the BJP, who had declared the scheme open, news sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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Tamil student abducted, killed near SL military zone in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 17:33 GMT]
18-year-old Sivalingam Sivakumaran, a student from Kerudaavil village in Vadamaraadchi North of Jaffna district, was found slain inside a bush, 2 km away from his house on Wednesday. The Tamil student was abducted five days ago, on 13 April after 6:00 p.m., when he had left his house towards the historic Chelvach-channithi temple, according to the family of the victim. The Kerudaavil village is situated along the eastern border of the Valikaamam ‘High Security Zone’ of the occupying SL military. The student has been tortured and killed, the villagers who witnessed the recovery of the dead body told media. In the meantime, Indian parliamentarians were taken to Jaffna Wednesday evening, after being taken on a ‘guided’ tour, which was fully packed with ceremonial events, carefully avoiding interactions with civil representatives in Mullaiththeevu.
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New Delhi delegation’s Sri Lanka visit loses face in its own country

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 17:18 GMT]
With four major political parties, including the two government-making political parties of Tamil Nadu, boycotting the ‘All Party’ delegation of New Delhi visiting Sri Lanka, New Delhi’s approach to the national question of Eezham Tamils in the island and its strategic partnership with the genocidal regime of Rajapaksa lose face in its own country, political observers said. The ruling AIADMK of Tamil Nadu State and the New Delhi regime’s coalition partner DMK have announced in advance about their boycott. Mamata Banerjee’s AITMC, the ruling party of West Bengal, and United Janata Dal pulled out in the last minute. Communist Party of India was not invited. The ‘All Party’ delegation ultimately turned out to be only a five-party delegation of the ruling Congress, Opposition BJP, Rajapaksa-friendly Marxist Communists and two other regional parties.
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‘Development’ gives no light to people while SL cantonment gets electricity in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 April 2012, 21:41 GMT]
More than 30 months have elapsed since the Sri Lankan government was promising electricity link to the resettling people in Ki'linochchi under the so-called Spring of North ‘development’, which is nothing but a camouflage for the structural genocide committed by Colombo in the country of Eezham Tamils. Electricity posts were put up creating hope among the people that power would be supplied. Many trees were also felled in Vanni jungle in the name of putting up infrastructure. Renewed hopes were again given during the civic elections held a year ago by SL Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka, the theoretician of the JHU, the Sinhala Buddhist extremist monks party, who declared opened a transformer at Chalvaa-nakar, a suburb of Ki'linochchi. The suburb is yet to see the light promised by the ‘Spring of North’, while the power lines are directed only to illuminate an SL cantonment.
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SL military's draconian ‘civil’ rule hardens further in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 April 2012, 17:58 GMT]
The village level Rural Development Societies (RDS), which have started functioning again, especially in the agricultural areas of Vanni mainland, have been subjected to harassments by the occupying SL military in recent days. On the one hand, the Sri Lankan authorities have gone on record as if they were encouraging the re-emerging RDS societies, and on the other hand, the SL military is curbing the activities of the rural development organisations. The SL military has instructed the RDS societies not to conduct any meeting without securing permission in advance from the nearby military camps. In the meantime, female members of the families of former LTTE cadres and even the temple deities face sadistic treatment from the occupying Sinhala military, say civil sources in Ki'linochchi district.
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SL military steps up harassment on resettled Tamils in Poonakari

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 April 2012, 16:29 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Vanni has stepped up harassment on resettled civilians in Poonakari and in the adjoining coastal areas, news sources in Poonakari told TamilNet Thursday. Recently, Sri Lanka Navy has taken over the occupation of the strategically located coastal stretch from the SL Army and has imposed strict ‘pass’ regulations on fishing in the seas, Tamil fishermen complain. Southern intruders with the backing of occupying military are also forcing people to sell their lands following recent reports that the Colombo establishment was planning to invite China to build an airport of international standard at Poonakari to balance India’s projects centring around KKS harbour and Palaali airport in the northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula.
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The Hindu envisages India building business over Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 April 2012, 03:59 GMT]
“Sri Lanka's desire to stamp out separatism is more than understandable, it is welcome,” even though its approach results in “undesirable, though unintended, side effects,” said The Hindu’s Business Line, Monday. Debating whether or not Indian vote at UNHRC would end ethnic discrimination achieves nothing. The key take away is that there is at least a perception of ethnic discrimination. “The [SL] government seems to be diverting all its energy and resources to economic development. This, from India's perspective, is great, because 20 million prosperous people in the neighbourhood is a big market for India […] There is only way for India to make use of Sri Lanka's economic development and also exert influence over it to end any ethnic discrimination” the feature said ignoring the gravity of genocide committed with Indian complicity and the on-going structural genocide in full swing.
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Colombo builds Sinhala cantonment in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 April 2012, 05:15 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka, which poses Thiruvadi-nilai area of Maathakal, the north-western tip of the Jaffna Peninsula as a ‘Sacred Zone’ of the Sinhala-Buddhists, is now engaged in constructing permanent quarters for the occupying Sri Lanka Navy in the lands of uprooted Tamils who are denied access to their land that had gone under SL military declared High Security Zone 20 years back, news sources in Jaffna said. The families of SL Navy personnel will be provided these quarters, establishing a permanent Sinhala military colony 200 meters from Thiruvadi-nilai in the close vicinity of the Buddhist Stupa erected in 2009. The way the structural genocide is escalating, especially after the Geneva resolution, has made many Eezham Tamils to lose faith in the intentions of the USA and India that have never done anything to check the post-war crimes of the Sri Lankan state.
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UK accused of permitting alleged war-criminal to escape prosecution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 April 2012, 03:02 GMT]
Questions have been raised over the failure of the British Foreign Office to investigate Prasanna de Silva, ex-Sri Lanka army general alleged to be complicit in war-crimes, as reports emerged that the Mr Silva's return to Sri Lanka is imminent, sources in London said. European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) assisted by Society for Threatened Peoples Switzerland, and TRIAL, submitted to the British Foreign Office in January 2012, a 28-page dossier on the alleged involvement of De Silva in war crimes committed during the last months of the Sri Lankan civil war. The dossier is widely believed to be the reason for De Silva's war crimes predicament, according to political observers in UK.
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Buddhist Stupa to become ‘cultural landmark’ of Jaffna harbour

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 April 2012, 21:30 GMT]
A massive Buddhist Stupa that is being constructed at the Beach Road of Jaffna harbour by the occupying Sinhala military will be the new ‘cultural landmark’ of Jaffna city for vessels coming towards its harbour. The Stupa with pre-fabricated parts and statues, brought from the South, is being built day and night by the Sinhala soldiers. The Stupa is built in the locality of a Saivite Amman temple, between Jaffna Fort and Kurunakar, known as Aluppaanthi, meaning the wharf of the harbour. Many more Buddhist Stupas are hurriedly constructed by the SL military and one of them with extensive residential facilities is going to be just in front of the Jaffna Railway Station. During the liberation war, colonial Sri Lanka constructed a huge Buddha statue overlooking Trincomalee to give a Sinhala Buddhist cultural image to the world-renowned harbour of Eezham Tamils in the East.
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SL military, police protect Sinhala soldier caught by villagers for attempted rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 April 2012, 19:10 GMT]
A 16-year-old Tamil girl narrowly escaped from a Sinhala soldier, who attempted to rape her, while she was on her way from her house in Paalamoaddai to Olumadu in Mullaiththeevu district around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The soldier of the occupying SL military was manning a military check post near the American Mission Tamil Mixed School at Paddadai-pirintha-ku'lam. He threatened the girl and took her to into the school building where he attempted to rape her. The residents who heard the girl shouting gathered at the site and saved the girl from the hands of the soldier of the occupying military.
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Conforming to mandate more important than getting offices of position: Suresh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2012, 23:54 GMT]
It was a last resort for the democratic political struggle of Thanthai Chelva to call for the independence of Tamil Eelam in 1976, after a series of political deceits and finally his 6-point demand following the 1972 constitution to resolve the Tamil question within a united Sri Lanka was also rejected, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, while speaking at the 114th birth anniversary of SJV Chelvanayakam in Jaffna on Saturday. But after Tamils paying a heavy price in the armed struggle only the world has now started looking at the issue, which has now become international. TNA has the mandate and responsibility at a crucial time and it should not make even a small slip. Petty offices of position are not the answer to the price paid by our people. We are conscious of the mandate given to us by our people, he further said.
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Norway’s ‘Sinhalicisation of development’ in Tamil country continued in 2011

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, 16:39 GMT]
Recent revelations on Norwegian foreign ministry’s deployment of funds have shown that Norway had allocated major funds to Sinhala institutions in Sri Lanka even in the year 2011 to carryout activities in the country of Eezham Tamils, which Tamils see as ‘Sinhalicisation of development’. Following a controversy about handling of funds by Norway’s foreign minister allegedly favouring one of his friend’s foundations, Mr. Torry Pedersen, the chief editor of VG, Norway’s largest newspaper, came out with an open call to the public on Thursday to assist journalists in the investigation on the spending of all ministries. It was unusual for Norwegian media to investigate the country’s ‘foreign spending’, but when it happened this time it also exposed Norway’s controversial role played on the affairs of Eezham Tamils facing structural genocide.
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Mass-rape alleged in Theavipuram amid civilan slaughter

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, 04:34 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group that seeks legal redress to Tamil victims of war, said Saturday that the organization is piecing together evidence based on an eye-witness testimony that up to 20 women, separated from nearly 200 civilians who surrendered to the SLA, were alleged to have been raped by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers near the village of Theavipuram, in Mullaiththeevu, in April 2009. While lack of witness protection programs in Sri lanka, and threat to life of witnesses who appear against Sri Lanka military have placed TAG's legal effort in UK on hold, TAG said that the recent legal action in UK involving Ex-Army Commander, Prasanna de Silva, may provide the momentum required to seek witnesses and to obtain corroborative evidence to identify the perpetrators of the alleged crime.
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Headline Today's “I witnessed Genocide” wins journalism award in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 March 2012, 06:01 GMT]
Indian television Headlines Today journalist Priyamvatha's investigative reports from Vanni last year titled "I Witnessed Genocide: Inside Sri Lanka's killing fields," has won the prestigious "Best Investigative Report" award at the 2012 News Television Award in New Delhi, media sources in Chennai said.
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Norway plays with words on investigation, sees failed 13 Amendment as solution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 12:48 GMT]
During a parliamentary interpolation seeking to know Norway’s stand on independent international investigations of Sri Lanka’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, when Conservative MP Peter Skovholt Gitmark asked the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr-Støre on Monday, whether Norway would back such an investigation, the minister answering a clear “yes,” later stopped at only “independent investigations,” dropping the international part. On political solutions, the foreign minister was harping on the 13 Amendment failed for 25 years, backtracking even from the constitutional experiments envisaged by the so-called Oslo Declaration. After playing with the lives of thousands, Norway now plays with words escaping from spelling out international investigations and leaves Eezham Tamils subjugated by unitary and genocidal Sri Lanka, commented diaspora activists.
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Case shows vulnerability at the top of world’s financial institutions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 05:05 GMT]
Immediately after the Vanni War, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) committed the worst financial misdeed of coming to the rescue of genocidal Sri Lanka in July 2009, by passing a whopping US$ 2600 million loan. Colombo’s Central Bank chairman AN Cabraal described the IMF decision as a “big victory” and a “huge boost in confidence” for Sri Lanka, adding, “The IMF has accepted the Mahinda Chintanaya policy.” The USA, UK, France and Germany having around 30 per cent of the IMF votes, only chose to abstain but didn’t block the loan. French national Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the Managing Director of the IMF during that time. Recent revelations of the life style at the highest echelons of world’s financial control show how vulnerable they are to petty influences.
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Indian ‘cooperation’ stalls OHCHR acting on UNHRC resolution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2012, 23:41 GMT]
The Indian cooperation in passing the resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC has in fact facilitated possibilities of stalemate in acting on the resolution. It is well known that India was behind the change in the tabled resolution that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has to function “in consultation with and with the concurrence” of the SL government in implementing the LLRC recommendations and also in addressing alleged violations on international law. Writing on the resolution on Saturday, Prof V. Suryanarayan says, “What will be the consequence, if the Government of Sri Lanka refuses to accept the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner? A political stalemate will follow. How will this stalemate be resolved? The resolution is silent on the subject.”
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