Tamil politicians urge global action in releasing POWs, political prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 13:52 GMT]
Addressing a press conference in Vavuniyaa on Tuesday, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called for immediate release of all political prisoners who are held without any charges in the Sri Lankan prisons. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, representing the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) said that the International Community, especially the countries that backed the internal LLRC mechanism of Colombo in the resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Council's Sessions in Geneva earlier this year, are primarily responsible for the fate of the Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners. Those who attended the funeral of Nimalarooban, braving the threats posed by the Sri Lankan military and intelligence operatives, told TamilNet that the victim had sustained fatal injuries on his head.
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Fasting in London against genocidal Sri Lanka timed for Black July, Olympics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2012, 22:52 GMT]
The Black July remembrance event held at London on Sunday addressed the systematic injustice that Sri Lanka had been meting out to the Tamils, with activists placing emphasis on the protracted nature of genocide Eezham Tamils face in unitary Sri Lanka. Gobi Sivanthan, a Tamil youth activist, began his hunger-strike vigil which will end on the Olympics closing ceremony on August 12 demanding, among others, the immediate halting of land grabs in the Tamil homeland. Conveying solidarity with the demands of the demonstrators, Kurdish and British activists who spoke at the event urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to immediately suspend Sri Lanka from the 2012 London Olympics. “States committing genocide should not be part of Olympic games,” Akif Wan, a representative from the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) said, speaking at the event.
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Paramilitary groups threaten TNA candidates in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 July 2012, 23:19 GMT]
Paramilitary groups operated by the occupying SL military in Batticaloa district have threatened candidates who are being fielded by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the forthcoming elections to the Eastern Provincial Council. The main doors of the houses of the lead candidate in TNA list for Batticaloa district K.Thurairajasingham and another candidate Indrakumar Prasanna had been padlocked from outside by an unidentified gang on Tuesday night. Both had to complain with the SL Police in Batticaloa to break open the doors to get out.
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Nelliyadi protest urges coherence in Tamil politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 16:51 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF), addressing the peaceful protest on Wednesday at Nelliyadi, which was organised against the slaying of Nimalarooban in Sri Lanka’s prison, urged the people to see things in the context of Sri Lankan government’s systematic annihilation of the existence of Tamils as a Nation in the island. “Until we fail to establish the recognition of the Tamil nationhood and its distinct sovereignty, we will be failing in our political work,” he said. In the meantime, TNA MP S. Sritharan, addressing the protesters at Nelliyadi said Tamils are not a defeated Nation. “What has happened to our youth in 2012 in Vavuniyaa is nothing different than what had happened to our youth at Welikade prison in 1983,” he said adding that until the injustice continues, the struggle for liberation would continue.
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TNA should reject PC model, field independents in East elections: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 July 2012, 22:15 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should demonstrate to the world the Tamil rejection of the Provincial Council model of the 13th Amendment by not participating in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) elections, but the TNA could field a front of independent candidates to meet the political challenge of the times. The candidate list already prepared could go as an independent list with a specific political message on the cause to the people, said Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), presiding over a press conference in Jaffna on Saturday. The TNPF promised support to the TNA in any such move. In the meantime, former TNA parliamentarian and TELO leader M.K Sivajilingam urged the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the TNA to field candidates jointly. It is time for the East to have a Muslim chief minister, who is also elected by Tamils, he told TamilNet.
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Tamil, Muslim farmers in Trincomalee file writ application against land appropriation

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2012, 23:29 GMT]
Two member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday fixed the inquiry for August 28 into the writ application filed by a group of Tamil and Muslim farmers against the appropriation of their fertile paddy fields for the construction of a high way by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in Thampalakaamam of Trincomalee district.
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Unemployed graduates protest in Jaffna, UPFA dominates public sector employment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2012, 18:29 GMT]
SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's Colombo government is widely blamed for handling new and temporary appointments in the Northern province for electoral political purposes. Recent temporary appointments have been provided with the condition that the employees should extend support the UPFA government in the provincial elections, unemployed graduates demanding justice said. On Thursday, a section of unemployed graduates, who have been sidelined in such appointments, demonstrated in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna amidst harassment from the SL military intelligence and police commandos.
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SL military has grabbed 5,210 acres of land in Mannaar, say protestors

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2012, 17:34 GMT]
Providing details of private and public lands being appropriated by the SL military in Mannaar district, Tamil activists, who came together for a protest on Saturday said, the militarisation seriously affects the lives of people of Mannaar. Tamil civilians, who are denied resettlement in Channaar in Maanthai West, where the occupying Sri Lankan military has appropriated 3,500 acres of lands, were the majority of the participants in the protest. Mannaar Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, together with Catholic priests and other civil activists from Mannaar, took part in the protest, which was organised by the youth activists of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK). The protest was supported by the other parties in the TNA, the parties outside the alliance, and by the elected representatives of the civic bodies in Mannaar as well as the Democratic People Front from South.
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Public land becoming military land is strategy of ICE in the island

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2012, 23:48 GMT]
Converting all public lands or community lands of Eezham Tamils into Sinhala military lands, in the guise of ‘legally’ asserting them as ‘State Land’ of Sri Lanka is the strategy now promoted by the International Community of Establishments (ICE), partnered in the context by India and the USA that are in war with the nation of Eezham Tamils in proving a new order based on State terrorism and genocide, said political observers in Jaffna commenting on the accelerated land and sea appropriations taking place in the country of Eezham Tamils, ‘conquered’ in a genocidal war designed by the said culprits. As genuine Eezham Tamil nationalism would not agree to the grab, the culprits employ the genocidal Sinhala military to do the job, protect it from international indictment and that is why they deny any genocide taking place in the island, the activists further said.
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‘IC turns deaf ear to struggling Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2012, 09:05 GMT]
The international community of establishments and their agenda-driven outfits continue to turn deaf-ear to the plight of the Eezham Tamil Prisoners of War (POWs), failing to accord the necessary international legal status to Eezham Tamil POWs, who have become the ‘pawns of genocide’, activists in the island blamed following the reports on Wednesday that a 28-year-old Tamil prisoner, Ganesan Nimalarooban from Nelukku'lam in Vavuniyaa, had succumbed to his injuries at Mahara prison in South. All the 122 prisoners who were inside the raided prison cell in Vavuniyaa last Friday were taken to Anuradhapura prison, where Sinhala prison guards and criminal inmates tortured them for more than 10 hours. 22 of these Eezham Tamil POWs were later transferred to Mahara prison and Nimalarooban, hailng from a poverty-stricken family in the suburb of Vavuniyaa, was one of them.
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Right to free assembly worsens further in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2012, 16:48 GMT]
The occupying SL military-run ‘civil’ administration of the Northern province, led by Colombo's colonial governor of North Maj. Gen. (retd) GA Chandrasir, has instructed the educational sector officials in Vanni about whom they should invite as guests to events and meetings of the schools. Those who could be invited are military officers, SL ministers, state officials and the politicians or operatives of the ruling UPFA alliance or the paramilitary outfits such as the EPDP. Those banned from the stages are elected parliamentarians of the TNA and representatives of civic bodies. The SL military has almost imposed an undeclared emergency in Vanni, prohibiting people from getting together for meetings without prior permission from the military.
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20% of Mannaar faces genocidal land grab, TNA activists to protest on 07 July

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 June 2012, 22:40 GMT]
The Secretary of Youth Affairs of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi and a TNA political activist in Mannaar, VS Sivakaran, told media in the island Saturday that Colombo has appropriated at least one fifth of the lands in Mannaar district for military purposes and a long-term Sinhalicisation and colonisation of the district. “The land grab in Mannaar should be seen in the light of planned Sinhala settlements, demographic changes and construction of Buddhist stupas throughout the North-East,” he said, providing a comprehensive list of focal points of the land grab in Mannaar district. Calling for a democratic civil protest on July 07 in Mannaar city, Mr Sivakaran, on behalf of the grassroot of the TNA in Mannaar has urged all Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala forces that promote justice, to take part in the civil protest on coming Saturday.
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TNA politician in Ampaa'rai threatened not to contest against UPFA

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2012, 18:14 GMT]
The chairman of the Kaaraitheevu Divisional Council (Piratheasa Chapai) who was elected on the ticket of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to the civic council, has been threatened in Sinhala by telephone on Thursday, according to a complaint made at Chammaanthu'rai Police station, sources in Ampaa'rai said. He would have to face serious consequences if he failed to contest on Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in the forthcoming election to the Eastern Provincial Council, which is expected to be held in September this year, the caller had said ‘inviting’ him for a meeting to the SL military camp, news sources in Ampaa'rai said.
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Colombo's CIDs grill TNA MP behind recent protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2012, 17:28 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police investigators in the notorious 4th floor at the Colombo Police Headquarters on Thursday interrogated Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Sivagnanam Sritharan, who has been behind the recent protest at Thirumu'rika'ndi against Colombo's genocidal land grab undertaken through occupying SL military in Vanni. The SL CIDs interrogated Mr Sritharan for three hours confronting him with questions about an interview to a diaspora radio in Tamil, an alleged interview in English in Tamil Nadu, his interactions with the Tamil diaspora in Western countries and his diplomatic connections with the foreign missions, especially his recent interactions with the US Embassy in Colombo, TNA sources said.
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TNA MP warns legal action against genocidal land grab in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2012, 19:40 GMT]
From Point-Pedro in the North to Pa'nama in the East, the Sri Lankan government is suppressing Eezham Tamils from protesting against the State-sponsored land grab, which seeks to Sinhalicise the Tamil homeland, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Batticaloa P. Selvarajah said adding that a large area in Paduvaankarai region of Batticaloa district has been appropriated by the Colombo government for Sinhala colonisation. 25,000 acres of lands have been appropriated by Colombo in the Batticaloa district to be given to Sinhala ‘home guards’ a Sinhala-colonisation-paramilitary, he said warning legal action against providing lands to Sinhala ‘home guards’.
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SOS of Eezham Tamils seeks global Tamils, world humanity to respond

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 June 2012, 19:20 GMT]
Mu’l’livaaykkaal was only a beginning for the Sinhala State and its international abetters to perpetuate genocide of Eezham Tamils to suit overlapping agendas. After three years of Colombo’s accelerated structural genocide facilitated by the international community of establishments, the Tamil leaders in the island have once again voiced an SOS in unison on Tuesday, appealing to global Tamils and global community of humanity, to intervene and save their nation from militarised annihilation. Gagged, but experiencing the realities of the hoodwink of ‘post-war reconciliation,’ the voices coming from the island show better clarity and bearing, compared to the hijacked diaspora confused over where to address the issue and a Tamil Nadu leadership silent after a resolution that doesn’t address fundamental solutions, political observers in the island said.
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Political parties protest against SL military land grab in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 June 2012, 23:57 GMT]
The constituting parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) from the North-East together with Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) led by Mano Ganesan and the United Socialist Party (USP) led by Sritunga Jayasuriya and NSSP activists from South staged a protest demonstration in front of the Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Thirumu'rika'ndi on Tuesday. Suresh Premachandran of the TNA, who was among the politicians taking part in the protest, said that the Sri Lankan military is following the Israeli model and is engaged in rapid Gazafication of the Tamil homeland.
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SL military goes amok on uprooted civilians in Vanni, 2 injured, 1 suffers heart attack

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2012, 17:08 GMT]
Children were thrown into vehicles and the occupying Sinhala Army assaulted uprooted Tamil families using gun butts and batons Monday evening at Thiru-mu'rika'ndi Hindu Tamil Viththiyaalayam in Ki'linochchi. A section of the uprooted families who had been brought from Menik Farm by the SL military a few weeks ago had declined to accept what they called an ‘enslavement’ offer of ‘resettlement’ by the SL military. They were placed temporarily at the school. On Monday, as one day was remaining till the protest organised by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) against the military land grab assisted by China, the SL military entered the school, bargained with the families at gunpoint for more than 4 hours and finally assaulted them forcefully transporting them back to Vavuniyaa. Tension prevails at Thiru-mu'rika'ndi after the horror let loose by the SL military on the uprooted civilians.
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SL military extends HSZ in Jaffna, evicts resettled people from Kuppuzhaan North

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2012, 23:46 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna has re-confiscated more than 250 acres of land in Kuppuzhaan North in Valikaamam South division of Jaffna district in recent days, evicting resettled families from their land, complain the uprooted families. The Sinhala Army has been putting up permanent concrete fences and has instructed people not to cross the fence. The news of the latest land grab by the SL military and the news of people being evicted again from the resettled areas of the former ‘High Security Zone’, on top of the news that the SL military planting land mines in de-mined areas of Maathakal, have slashed hopes of resettlement among the 40,000 people, who still remain as uprooted people after their eviction from Valikaamam HSZ.
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Ampaara, Ampan, Ampanai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 June 2012, 19:21 GMT]
The watercourse
The water source or watery area
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