Colombo not prepared to return military-seized lands belonging exiled Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2019, 20:39 GMT]
Suren Raghavan, the SL Governor to North, has told 71-year-old Maheswary Thambirajah, whose lands the occupying SL Army had seized for military purposes, that the properties which she had transferred to her daughters were unlikely to be released back to the rightful owners as they were staying outside the island. The mother of seven met the SL Governor on Wednesday seeking his support to exert pressure on the SL government in Colombo to release her lands back to the rightful owners. The SL Government could only consider providing alternative lands for those who were residing in the island and that too at a distant locality in Vanni, the SL Governor has told the mother.
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Photos from Tamil feast of uprising in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 July 2019, 18:17 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils from all walks of life got together on Saturday to mark a Pongkal feast at the small temple for Neeraaviyadi Pi'l'laiyar at Naayaa'ru in Mullaith-theevu. The locality is exposed to Sinhala Buddhicisation, erection of controversial Buddha statue and other associated structures while the SL State-run ‘Archaeology’ department backing the militant sections of Sinhala Theravada Buddhists. The occupying Sinhala Army stationed at the locality has been grooming the monk who wants to transform the entire area into a Sinhala Buddhist enclave. The marking of the temple feast on Saturday evolved as a manifestation of Pongku-Thamizh resistance.
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Unprecedented uprising marked at Sinhala-Buddhicised Naayaa'ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 July 2019, 20:16 GMT]
Eezham Tamil grassroots activists from the Northern and Eastern provinces transformed the mobilisation for the feast of their deity, Neeraaviyadi Pi'l'laiyaar in Naayaa'ru in the Mullaiththeevu district, into a successful uprising, establishing it as a wave of unceasing Pongku Thamizh. They were braving the harassments of the occupying Sinhala police, military and the extremist Sinhala-Buddhist section, Sinhala Ravaya, that had come to the locality with a confrontational attitude on Saturday. The grassroots activists-cum-devotees came from all directions from six of the eight districts in the North-East. The scheduled 108 Pongkal pots were increased to 150 as more than four hundred people from all walks of life took part in the emotional marking. Hindus, Christians and non-believers came together in the sense of Tamilness. The mobilisation has taken place through the social media.
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SL military, Sinhala monk exploit poverty among Tamils in East for religious conversion

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 July 2019, 23:12 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk, Ven Katugastota Mahindalankara thero, stationed at Mayilang-karaichchi village in Vaazhaich-cheanai, 31 km north of Batticaloa city, has been operating a Theravada Buddhist Dhamma School targeting conversion of poverty-stricken Tamil children into Buddhism since 2014. The Sunday school, named ‘Mahindalangkara Dhamma School’ is functioning at the Buddhist temple called Sri Bodhirajaramaya (also named Sri Mahindarama Viharaya). The monk has also arranged a Sinhala lady teacher, L Sisiliya, to teach Sinhala language to the Tamil children in Mayilang-karaichchi for some years. For the last one month she is also teaching Sinhala at her residence, Tamil rural society activists told TamilNet adding that the Sinhala Buddhist vihara establishment was systematically attracting the poverty-stricken Tamil children at a village where all other facilities remained neglected.
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Trinco DS infringes 13th Amendment by allocating lands to Buddhist hermitage at Kanniyaa: TNPF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 July 2019, 20:24 GMT]
The intruding extremist Sinhala Buddhist monks at Kanniyaa have been demanding the Divisional Secretariat to allocate four acres of lands, and the Divisional Secretary had reportedly agreed to allocate a land plot at the extent of one acre. The move was not adhering to the item numbers 2 and 2.7 of the 13th Amendment, 9th Schedule, says Dr Ra Shrignaneswaran, the deputy leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), who is also the district organizer of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF).
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Tamils vow to stage feast at Naayaa'ru, disregard ‘advice’ on not to provoke monks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2019, 10:37 GMT]
How about Tamils considering an approach of collaborating with the Sinhala Buddhist establishment and adopting a line without provoking the monks, the US Ambassador in Colombo recently asked a Tamil minister, informed sources in Colombo said. The SL minister was also working hard to contain the escalating dispute at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaiththeevu and at Kanniyaa in Trincomalee in an attempt to strike a compromise. However, the monks were not listening. They came with expanding plans of Neeraaviyadi and stepped up their hostile protests. The militant monks started to threaten the Tamils by naming and shaming a prominent activist of the anti-Mahaweli protests at a demonstration they staged recently at Neeraaviyadi. Now, the Tamil grassroots activists in Vanni have vowed to carry 108 Pongkal pots to the Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Neeraaviyadi on 06 July 2019 to stage a feast to their deity.
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Anti-Muslim harassment escalates in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 June 2019, 23:51 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala Navy and Army along with the SL Police are harassing the Tamil-speaking Muslims in two hotspots in Mannaar district as never before, and the trend is worsening every day without anyone to voice for the rights of the affected innocent people. The predominantly Sinhala soldiers, particularly the SL Navy personnel at Thaaraa-puram in Mannaar island and those stationed in the mainland in Musali division, are humiliating the residents of more than 20 colonies. These settlements were put up by the controversial politician, Rishard Bathiudeen, who was serving the successive regimes in Colombo while creating a voter base for himself with the funding he facilitated from the Arabic world. The former SL Minister's opportunistic political behaviour has not only backfired against him but also against the Muslim residents of Thaaraa-Puram, which is his native village in Mannaar.
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Pompeo cancels Colombo visit, concentrates on US-India relations in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2019, 18:41 GMT]
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has cancelled his visit to Colombo which was scheduled for Thursday. The US Embassy in Colombo was citing “scheduling issues” for the annulment. However, Mr Pompeo dropping his short visit had “more to do with rising local sentiments against a proposed American military base” on the island reported The Economic Times on Tuesday. The US Secretary of State was focusing more on the longer-term strategic partnership and on ironing out the trade disputes between the USA and India on Wednesday. Pompeo was scheduled to visit New Delhi and Colombo, before meeting US President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Japan and accompanying him to South Korea after that. While India is a major defence partner, the US has been seeking defence partnership with ‘Sri Lanka’ and three other countries, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal, in South Asia.
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Another Buddha statue placed near Trincomalee private bus stand

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2019, 18:38 GMT]
A group of persons led by a Sinhala Buddhist monk installed a Buddha statue at the auto-rickshaw parking place located near the private bus stand in Trincomalee city on Sunday morning when the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the settlers were marking Poson Full Moon Poya. The 75 cm high Buddha statue, placed inside a glass cover, has replaced a smaller figure at 20 cm height, Tamil residents said. The move was part of a systematic plan, they said. The smaller statue had been placed at the locality after 2009. Now the extremist section has installed the statue with glass cover, which usually precedes the installation of a giant Buddha statue, the people said.
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Mano Ganesan misleads on Kanniyaa heritage dispute: Trincomalee Councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2019, 18:48 GMT]
SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and ‘National’ Integration, Mr Mano Ganesan, was appreciated by Tamils in Trincomalee for confronting the Sinhala Buddhist monks regarding the ancient Tamil heritage of Kanniyaa during his recent trip attending the District Coordinating Committee meeting, on Monday. However, the monks were unmoved. They categorically told Mr Ganesan and the TNA Parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran that it was the Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and no one else in the island – not even the Executive President or the Prime Minister– who had the power to determine the fate of the heritage affairs of Kanniyaa. The minister could very well proceed taking up the issue with Maithiripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe in Colombo, but it would not change the ground reality, was the message, says Piratheasa Chapai (PS) councillor Chandirarajah Vipooshan, who was at the meeting.
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SL military targets Tamil grassroots activists in Mullaiththeevu, GS officer receives death threat

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2019, 22:45 GMT]
The occupying Colombo’s Army in Mullaiththeevu has issued death threat to an Eezham Tamil Village Officer (GS), K. Bede Jeyaharan on 06 May, a couple of days before SL President Maithiripala Sirisena visited Mullaiththeevu promoting Sinhala colonisation of the region. The GS officer said he was able to recognise the offenders as SLA soldiers, although they were wearing tinted glasses and were covering their faces with black clothes. The incident took place at Va'n'naag-ku'lam where the SLA soldiers, conducting a cordon and search operation, stopped the GS who was on his way to give tuition at a private education centre. As the masked soldiers turned him away from reaching the institution, a captain rank SLA officer arrived at the site and issued the death threat, the GS has complained to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Vavuniyaa.
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SL State-run Timber Corporation escalates logging of teak trees in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2019, 22:47 GMT]
The SL State-owned Timber Corporation (STC) which comes under the SL Mahaweli Development and Environment Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has been engaged in wide-scale felling of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis) in Oddu-chuddaan area in Mullaiththeevu. The occupying SL military, empowered with police powers under the Emergency Regulations, has been prohibiting Tamil journalists from entering the area to monitor and report on the anti-environment activity which has been stepped up after the visit of Mr Sirisena to Mullaiththeevu on 08 May. The teak trees being cut down are carried out by an all Sinhala team of workers from the South. The trees were planted by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) during the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam before 2009.
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Occupying Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhist settlement in Chemmalai-East, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2019, 21:30 GMT]
The controversial erection of the giant Buddha statue at Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East of Mullaiththeevu district is to be further expanded into a Buddhist enclave encapsulating 33,376 hectares of land area to the southeast of Naayaa'ru lagoon, reveals a poster put up by Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the ‘chief incumbent’ of the so-called Gurukanda Purana Rajamaha Vihara at the disputed heritage site. The monk is groomed by the occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarter-base at Naayaa'aru. Scheming a large hermitage under the name of Gurukanda Purana Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda PRMV), the SL Archaeology Department, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development and Environment’ are backing the scheme, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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SL authorities plan to seize 50 acres as ‘Buddha Pooja Boomi’ in Thennai-maravadi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 June 2019, 20:39 GMT]
Tamil civil sources at Kuchchave'li said the controversial monk Galgamuwa Sandhabodhi thero has been harassing the Divisional Secretariat to demarcate fifty acres of lands at the temple site of Eezham Tamils along the strategic border between the Northern and Eastern provinces. The monk has claimed that the properties were needed to generate income for a future Buddhist temple. SL Archaeology Department and the occupying Sinhala military are planning to erect a Sinhala Buddhist temple at the locality after destroying the Hindu temple, the sources further said.
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Kokku'laay-centric united action needed to counter Colombo wedging North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2019, 20:36 GMT]
The resettled Tamil residents of the strategic Thennai-maravadi village bordering the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the Trincomalee district are facing Sinhala colonisation and Sinhala Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites on two fronts, at Pa'nikka-vayal to its west and at Kanthasaami-malai, which extends eastwards into Kokku'laay lagoon. The Sinhala colonisation and the Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage site of Kanthasaami-malai are being accelerated under the Emergency Regulations and the situation prevailing after the Easter Sunday attacks that have triggered the extremist monks to escalate their chauvinistic schemes in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The two-pronged attack, which is being stepped up in the recent days, is part of a larger design of permanently wedging the territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland along the narrow border between the North and the East.
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Tamils, Muslims need strategic alliance to protect heritage rights in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2019, 17:16 GMT]
The Tamil Saiva Priest of Then-Kayilai Aatheenam, Thavath-Thiru Akaththiyar Adika’ laar, has urged legal activists to find ways to contain the hostile acts of the Sinhala Buddhist monk from the Velgam Vihara, who has dismantled the foundation of Hindu Pi’l’ laiyaar temple at the heritage site of Kanniyaa hot springs in Trincomalee. The Saiva priest said it was not merely a religious dispute, but rather a cause of preserving the heritage rights. The best option, in his opinion, was to address the issue through the courts. In the meantime, TNA Leader R. Sampanthan was taking up the burning question with the SL President and the Prime Minister. However, both the legal avenue and the political appeals made with collaborative orientation only have minimal impact in the unitary system of genocidal Sri Lanka, especially under the Emergency Regulations, commented legal activists in Trincomalee.
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Prejudiced Archaeology Dept escalates ethnic tensions in Trincomalee: Civic Councillor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2019, 23:18 GMT]
Chandirarajah Vipooshan, a member of Trincomalee Town and Gravats Predesiya Saba, says that the overtly prejudiced behaviour of the SL Archaeology Department which selectively promotes the interests of the Sinhala Buddhists has escalated ethnic tensions between the Tamils and the Sinhalese in Trincomalee district. The civic member said it was the SL Archaeology Department, which was instigating construction projects of the monks to accelerate the Sinhala Buddhisication in Thennai-maravadi and in Kanniya. The monks were from different temples. It is the Archaeology Department that coordinates the activities timing the situation prevailing the in the island, he said.
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SL Archaeology Dept steps up controversial construction work in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2019, 17:37 GMT]
The SL Archaeology Department, which had stopped the controversial construction of a building at the hill-top of Kanthasaami-malai in the strategically located ancient village of Thennai-maravadi at the provincial border between the North and East, has all of a sudden accelerated the building project hurriedly completing the building, violating the ban imposed by the Divisional Secretariat. Eezham Tamil residents, their Rural Development Society (RDS) and the trustee board of the 400-year-old Saiva Kanthasaami-temple, have complained on Monday and Wednesday this week. Thennai-maravadi was the seat of a Tamil Vanni chieftaincy until the Dutch times in the mid 17th century. The interior hamlet is situated in the narrow strategic corridor linking the Northern and Eastern provinces, 70 km north of Trincomalee city.
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SL police, backing monk, commit hate-crimes against Tamils, says assaulted journalist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 May 2019, 21:28 GMT]
Two officers-in-charge (OICs) of the stations of Kokku’laay and Mullaith-theevu of the occupying SL police in Vanni, verbally abused a Tamil journalist, K. Kumanan, on Monday, a day after he reported their biased conduct against the Tamil Saiva devotees, who had gone to reinstate the name board at the disputed heritage site of Neeraaviyadi in Naayaa’ru. The OIC of Kokku’laay went a step further physically slapping the journalist at his neck as well as deliberately shaking his camera. The SL Police was also intimidating Kumanan by taking photos. “The police officers were not only attacking me, but they were also verbally abusing the entire Tamil media in a collective sense,” said the freelance reporter. The assault came a day after his report appeared in the Veerakesari daily.
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Colonising Sinhala Buddhist monks, officials provoke Saiva Tamils in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 18:04 GMT]
A group of encroaching Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks, who had illegally built a Buddhist shrine in 2013 near the Saiva (Hindu) shrine of Kanniyaa hot wells in the traditional Tamil division of Uppu-ve’ li in the Trincomalee district, have recently started to dismantle the remaining foundation-structure of the Saiva Pi’l’ laiyaar temple. The Saiva temple was destroyed during the anti-Tamil pogroms, and the occupying Colombo establishment has been blocking the Tamil landowner from reconstructing the temple. After dismantling the square-shaped foundation of the Saiva temple, the occupying Sinhala monks started to lay a circular foundation at the locality on 21 May. The controversial move has drawn strong objections from the Tamils, including the owner of the lands, Ms Ganesh Kokilaramani, triggering religious tensions between the intruding Sinhalese and the native Tamils since 22 May.
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