TNPF prepared to join TNA, if pre-2009 goals upheld: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 May 2013, 23:28 GMT]
Amidst news reports on split within the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and disunity in the Tamil political camp, the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam on Wednesday came forward to tell that his party is prepared to join with the TNA, if the TNA could stick to pre-2009 political goals of Tamils. The current split within the TNA is between the ITAK, the major constituent party of electoral political origins and other parties of militant political origins. Both factions have now approached the TNPF. The deceptive prospects of Northern Provincial Council elections, which the LLRC-based Geneva resolution urged to conduct, and Indo-US competitive engineering in the hijack of Tamil polity are behind the split, news sources in Jaffna said.
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TN responded, diaspora should come forward: Gajendrakumar urges addressing IC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 08:14 GMT]
“Just 25 miles away, across the sea, there are 70 million people in Tamil Nadu prepared to give their voice for our struggle […] At the same time, the Tamils living across the world who constitute the global Tamil Diaspora, should also come forward to strengthen this struggle by taking it forward in their countries, demonstrating their strength, as they voiced for us during the last phase of the war,” said TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam on Wednesday, urging the Tamils in the West and in Tamil Nadu to address the concerned States that allowed the genocide in war, to remind their responsibility when the process of genocide reaches its peak four years later. He was addressing people demonstrating against SL military seizing an entire region of their lands in Jaffna.
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People rise up against SL military seizure of Valikaamam in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 06:57 GMT]
Hundreds of people, braving the hurdles put up by the Sri Lankan military, gathered on Wednesday in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna, protesting against the systematic seizure of their already SL-military occupied lands in Valikaamam North, transforming the former ‘High Security Zone’ area into a permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ). The successful protest, for the first time saw active participation of law students and activists, news sources in Jaffna said. Despite the deployment of SL military, intelligence operatives and the SL police in blocking peoples’ participation, around 500 people gathered in front of the District Secretariat passing a strong message to not only the occupying military, but also to the powers abetting the continued LLRC-based structural genocide.
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‘Idea of Tamil nation not dead despite aftermath of genocide’: Tehelka report

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2013, 21:10 GMT]
Even in the aftermath of terror and genocide, the idea of nationhood has not disappeared among the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, writes journalist Revati Laul in an investigative feature published on the Indian news magazine Tehelka on its April 27 issue. Travelling to the militarily occupied Tamil homeland in the north and east and interacting with politicians, civil society activists, NGO workers, priests, ex-LTTE cadres and ordinary people, Ms Laul provides through their accounts a picture of the intense oppression that the Sri Lankan state is subjecting the Tamils to through various means, she further notes how the UN’s “pussyfooting on the war” and the Geneva resolution in March 2013 gave a cloak for such oppression, arguing that “It is this refusal to take in the whole narrative that allows Rajapaksa to tell the world all is well now with the Tamils in his country.”
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Conference at Danish Parliament highlights need for international investigation on Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 April 2013, 08:12 GMT]
Expressing deep concern for the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the island of Sri Lanka, Danish politicians from both the ruling left parties and the opposition party, academics, Eezham Tamil politicians from the island and the diaspora, Sinhala journalists, and other civil society activists called for an independent international investigation into the crimes of the Sri Lankan state during the war and after, in a conference organized in the Denmark Parliament on Wednesday. The event titled “A forgotten conflict: Conference on Human Rights in Sri Lanka” saw a general consensus among participants that Sri Lanka was incapable of investigating its crimes through its own mechanisms.
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Tamil National People’s Front rejects Geneva resolution

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 March 2013, 00:07 GMT]
“The resolution asks that local mechanisms to be put in place in order to carry out the investigations. We find it unacceptable and we reject it completely. […] The second reason why we reject the resolution is that it puts emphasis and a lot of faith in the recommendations of the LLRC report. […] And finally, the third reason, why we distance ourselves from this resolution is, because unlike the first resolution passed in 2012, in this resolution there is a specific mention of the provincial council system. […] Our party’s considered view is that we are not only unable to associate ourselves anywhere close with the resolution, but also that we have come to a difficult decision of rejecting the decision that was passed,” announced Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, President of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), at the Press Club meet in Jaffna on Friday.
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Gajendrakumar at UN calls for transitional administration to safeguard Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 15:48 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF), who addressed the UPR Review session in Geneva on Friday, has called for an internationally supervised transitional administration of the Tamil homeland in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. Noting that the genuine grievances and aspirations of Eezham Tamils are reduced to “mere individual human rights problems” rather than the “destruction of their Nation”, Mr. Gajendrakumar, who represented the NGO, International Education Development (IED), at the UN forum called for independent international investigation on Sri Lanka. In a carefully drafted statement, he further said that the UPR is “de-Tamilized” to the point that, anyone not fully cognizant of the facts of the 65 year long Tamil-Sinhala conflict would not even know who is to be a party to “reconciliation.”
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Colombo executing structural genocide, not reconciliation - Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2013, 11:54 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the President of the Tamil National People's Front, in a discussion with Phil Miller of "Open Democracy" in Geneva, criticized the language of "reconciliation" promoted by British officials and asserts that “structural genocide, not reconciliation, is the phrase which most accurately describes what is going on,” and adds that “[t]he land grab is not peculiar to this [Rajapakse] regime. It has been happening for the last 65 years. The only time it stopped was during the armed struggle of the LTTE, because then Sinhalese people were not willing to settle in the north and east, where a de-facto Tamil state existed."
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Daily Mirror fabricates news: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 March 2013, 00:01 GMT]
“It is sometimes possible for journalists to misunderstand what is being said, and as a result misquote. But in this case, the major part of the said news item is entirely fabricated,” says Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam responding to Colombo-based English media Daily Mirror reporting his speech at the Press Club in Jaffna on Monday. While he had cited the report of Ms. Navi Pillai in appreciation for evidencing the grave violations committed against Tamils in the last one year, the Daily Mirror titled its news report on Wednesday as “Pillai responsible, says Ponnambalam,” Gajendrakumar said. Following protests by Gajendrakumar, Daily Mirror carried another report on Thursday, titled “Ponnambalam clarifies.” This was even more disappointing and completely inadequate, Gajendrakumar told TamilNet.
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UNHRC heads for structural genocide if Tamil nation territory is not guaranteed: TNPF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 February 2013, 15:02 GMT]
An internationally monitored interim administration in the North and East under UN supervision outside the parameters of the Sri Lankan Constitution is the only way forward to stop the genocide being committed on Tamils, especially to put an immediate end to the accelerated structural genocide taking place in the Tamil homeland, reiterated Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), in the first press meeting held at the newly opened press club in Jaffna on Monday. The current indications are that the UNHRC would end up giving another year of time and space to Colombo and the TNA that supported the resolution last year without a principled approach is answerable to what resulted from the resolution in the past 12 months, Gajendrakumar further said.
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R2P doctrine failed in Sri Lanka to protect Tamil Nation: TNPF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 February 2013, 11:37 GMT]
“What is now public knowledge of credible allegations of what transpired during the last stages of the war, amply points to the complete failure of the UN and the international community in its obligations under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to have intervened on behalf of the Tamil Nation,” said Tamil National Peoples Front, in an open appeal on Thursday urging UNHRC member states to resolve to set up a transitional administration in the Tamil homeland comprising of the North East provinces in the island of Sri Lanka, as a matter of urgency. The said transitional administration will have to necessarily lie outside the present constitutional apparatus.
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UK should exert pressure on Sri Lanka: BTF

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 January 2013, 21:28 GMT]
Referring to the systematic repression and attacks on Eezham Tamil political activists, civil society and students by the Sri Lankan state, the BTF called on the British government to “to exert serious diplomatic pressure on Sri Lanka.” Speaking to TamilNet, BTF Coordinator Ravi Kumar said that since the so-called ‘independence’, concentration of powers in the Sinhalese rulers has systematically increased and that after a successful genocidal war on the Tamil nation in 2009, now all powers in the Sri Lankan state, executive, legislative and judicial powers are concentrated under the President. “Under such circumstances, UK and the International community should not focus on internal mechanism to provide justice to the Tamil Nation. This is the time for the UK government to call for an external mechanism towards an international independent investigation,” he added.
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Colombo’s military establishment steps up psyop war on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2013, 23:32 GMT]
The Sri Lankan “Terrorist” Investigation Department (SL-TID), which had summoned Mr Sivagnanam Sritharan, the Tamil parliamentarian from Ki’linochchi, to Colombo Police Headquarters in June 2012 to grill him on his interviews published in diaspora and Tamil Nadu media, was first looking to frame the parliamentarian as someone who had violated the 6th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. Three months later, the police bodyguards provided to him from the Ministerial Security Division were withdrawn by Colombo without any explanation. On Saturday, the SL-TID entered the office of Mr Sritharan alleging that they had information on explosives. Later, they “discovered” 300 grams explosives inside the kitchen allegedly after “planting” the evidence. Two of the TNA activists, working at Sritharan MPs office, were subjected to interrogations.
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Sri Lanka’s TID summons Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2012, 18:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) has sent summons to Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) President, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, asking him to be present at its investigating office in Colombo on Saturday for inquiries. The summon note, entirely in Sinhala language, was served at Gajendrakumar’s residence in Colombo by a TID officer on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Gajendrakumar is currently outside of the island, informed sources told TamilNet. Meanwhile, notices in Sinhala and English, viciously implicating TNPF Secretary and former TNA parliamentarian, Selvaraja Kajendran as one of the key persons behind the ‘pro-LTTE and TNA/ TNPF network’ in the Jaffna University, is being circulated in the south of the island.
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TNPF condemns Sampanthan’s statement on SL military, LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 00:58 GMT]
The Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) on Tuesday strongly condemned the SL parliamentary speech made by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan last Friday. Mr. Sampanthan had said that the TNA was not demanding the complete withdrawal of the SL military from the Tamil territory and that the LTTE had had earned its destruction by being a ‘terrorist’ organization not observing human rights and democracy and by engaging in the killing of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala leaders. The statement coming from the leader of the TNA should be taken as the policy stand of the TNA. Neither the constituent parties of the TNA nor its parliamentary members have so far contradicted the statement, said the TNPF press release, signed by its president Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and secretary, Selvarasa Kajendran.
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Jaffna demonstration backing students demands IC action, appeals to Tamil youth outside

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 10:19 GMT]
In an impressive show of solidarity on Tuesday, the TNPF-called demonstration in Jaffna condemning the attack on Jaffna university students and the arrest of student leaders by the occupying forces of Sri Lanka, was actively participated by the mainstream TNA, University Teachers Association, University Students Union, Jaffna Chamber of Commerce, Medical Association, Lawyers Association and other civil society organisations, besides progressive leftist party representatives from the South. The demonstrators demanded the IC to immediately recognize the nation, territoriality and right of self-determination of Tamils in order to ensure their safety and democratic rights. Questioning the trustworthiness of the IC, the demonstrators appealed to Tamil youth in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu to take up continued agitations to the edification of the IC.
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Tamil parties missed directing USA on LLRC: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 01:22 GMT]
Had the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) been firm on the stand of Eezham Tamils, the USA couldn’t have ended up with the LLRC solution at Geneva, but the TNA blindly backed the US resolution at Geneva. It is after the Geneva resolution the land grab and the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan state got accelerated, said former TNA parliamentarian and TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in his second part of interview to TamilNet's Palaka'ni, covering current political situation of Eezham Tamils. The US-backed resolution was passed in Geneva essentially to resolve the Tamil issue in the island, but it is not serving the Tamil issue, he further said.
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Ladies’ hostel lights Common Flame, bells stun SL military in Jaffna on Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 04:49 GMT]
Defying the strict instructions by the occupying Sri Lankan military, the people of Jaffna on Tuesday tolled temple bells amid military patrols at 6:07 p.m. in remembrance of heroes. SL soldiers were taken aback witnessing the resolve of the people and hearing the sound of temple bells coming from all directions. Heroes Day remembrance was peacefully and emotionally observed by all the sections of people in the peninsula and in Vanni who lit candles inside their homes. Meanwhile, SL soldiers who entered into the gents’ hostel of the University of Jaffna, where the Heroes Day Common Flame was lit last year, guarded every single room and climbed on to the terrace to prevent it this time. But the flame was lit at the second floor of the Ladies’ Hostel, sharply at 6.07 p.m.
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Autonomy within unitary structure paradoxical: Peter Schalk

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2012, 14:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s ambassador in France, Dayan Jayatilleke, calling for “autonomy within a unitary structure,” at a seminar in Paris earlier this month was a political-populist statement, responded Professor Emeritus Peter Schalk, who participated the seminar arranged by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). A unitary structure excludes autonomy. A social scientist would not have uttered such a sentence, Prof Schalk said, in a note sent to TamilNet on Thursday. Calling CNRS partial in providing propaganda platform to Colombo, he said that the violence by the governments of Lanka is structural and genocidal that is practiced over the decades and not just an occasional aberration or some nuts.
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Politics breaches international law in denying Eezham Tamil Nation: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 November 2012, 23:20 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the president of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF), interviewed by TamilNet's Palaka'ni on Saturday said that Eezham Tamils are legally qualified for nationhood under the existing international law. Nationhood is denied to Eezham Tamils not by the law, but by the international politics, he said.
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