Armed robberies escalate in SLA-deployed areas of North

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Night robberies are on the increase in Sri Lanka Army deployed areas of the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni after the ‘grease devil’ episodes, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. On Tuesday night, a group of armed men entered the house of 60-year-old Ponnaiah Balasingam and attacked him and his 24-year-old son Dinesh Balasingam, at Thirvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi district. The attackers later robbed the house. The occupying Sri Lanka Army was heavily deployed in the area while the attack and the robbery were taking place. Meanwhile, medical staff at Jaffna hospital staged a one-hour token strike Wednesday against the recent attack on two doctors of the hospital at their residence in Kokkuvil. Normalcy remains disturbed in Jaffna as armed robberies were escalating in areas with heavy SLA presence.
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Regimes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, forge questionable alliance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 06:09 GMT]
Maldivian Vice-President Dr Mohammed Waheed, meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa over the weekend at the UN General Assembly Sessions, assured the latter of the support of Male to Colombo’s stand on its human rights issues, according to Maldivian media Haveeru, Tuesday. “Early this month Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed defended Sri Lanka’s position at the UN Human Rights Council sessions held in Geneva,” Haveeru said in its feature “Maldives assures support for Sri Lanka amidst UN allegations.” The undue extra efforts taken by the present regime in Male to shield Colombo against the struggle of Tamils and Muslims in the island need careful scrutiny by the people in Maldives and peoples movements across South Asia, commented a political observer in Male.
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Targeted attacks in Jaffna show war of Establishments against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 23:50 GMT]
The US Asst. Secretary of State visiting the island recently, wanted the ‘Grease Devil’ attacks to be stopped as though the ‘switch’ was in his hand. But targeted attacks taking place in Jaffna after his visit, against the backdrop of dubious manoeuvrings currently engineered in the West, only show a continued and concerted war waged against Eezham Tamils by elements in the Establishments guilty of genocide trying politics of intimidation, commented political circles in Jaffna. A house of a judge, two doctors and a bank official were targeted in the attacks in Jaffna last week taking the life of one and injuring at least seven in localities swamped by occupying SL military. The student community in Jaffna would have performed much better by showing righteous resentment to the visiting US dignitary rather than allowing the EPDP to hijack the show, the political circles further said.
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Sitrampalam proves self-determination not a diaspora fantasy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 05:24 GMT]
Prof SK Sitrampalam, Senior Vice President of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), writing in Thinakkural this month on the importance of Eezham Tamils asserting to their right to self-determination, disproved a distorting campaign by Colombo, New Delhi, Washington, international crisis managers and even the UN panel report trying to tell that this right is not an aspiration of the Tamils in the island but only in the diaspora. While the concerted campaigners assert to their audacity without seeking a referendum and while the Eezham Tamils in the island are constitutionally and militarily gagged to open mouth on the issue, the bold voice of Sitrampalam coming from the island was highly appreciated by many. Today, Tamils in the island are left to feel more compellingly for liberation than Tamils in the diaspora, Tamil political circles said.
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Sri Lanka relocates uprooted civilians by force in jungles to cover-up war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 15:40 GMT]
Closing down the infamous Manik Farm barbed-wire camp where several thousands of war-displaced Tamil civilians were detained under extremely difficult conditions since early 2009, the genocidal Rajapaksa regime has now decided to relocate them in some strange jungle areas by force, under the name of ‘resettlement’ of internally displaced people (IDPs), mainly to cover up war crimes. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence this week announced that preparations were under way to construct 600 acre new village in Koampaavil in Puthukkudiyiruppu area to resettle the remaining 7,394 IDPs from 2,097 families at the Manik Farm Camp.
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US cables show how international silence enabled Sri Lanka’s genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 03:55 GMT]
In March 2009 Sri Lanka had come to the attention of the UN’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, but despite his disquiet he did not take further steps as Sri Lanka had assured him the United States and India supported its military campaign, according to a leaked US cable. The account of the meeting on March 16, 2009 between Mr. Deng and the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, as well as other US cables, shows how international inaction and silence, rather than ignorance, made it possible for Sri Lanka to continue and escalate its mass killings of Tamil civilians.
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Genocide proceeds inside Geneva, within diaspora: Viraj Mendis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 22:31 GMT]
“We all know that the process of Genocide is continuing. In Eelam the colonization process and the enslavement process in continuing, as the power of the LTTE is not there to stop it. The process of Genocide is continuing here too. It is happening inside these buildings here in Geneva,” said Mr. Viraj Medis, a progressive Sinhala rights activist and a long-term supporter of the struggle of Eezham Tamils, while addressing the Pongku Tamil rally held in front of the UN office in Geneva on Monday. The real external architects of the genocidal war are now trying their ultimate spin. The US/British political offensive which is a crucial part the genocidal process is taking place right now within the Diaspora, cautioned Mr. Mendis of the International Human Rights Association, Bremen, Germany.
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Pongku Thamizh in Geneva reinvigorates call for Eezham Tamil Independence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 14:11 GMT]
More than 5,000 Eezham Tamil activists across Europe confluenced Monday in what the organizers of the event described as successful Pongku Thamizh rally in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in Switzerland where 18th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is taking place. “We demand the Human Rights world to denounce Tamil Genocide in the island of Sri Lanka in both word and deed,” an exiled Tamil activist with a personal experience of the genocidal war, who met the representatives of the UNHRC at its 18th Session, told TamilNet. Professor John P. Neelson, an experienced scholar on the international dimensions of the conflict in the island and Stéphane Gatignon, a mayor from France, who asserted that he had come to the rally reflecting the interests of 30,000 Tamils in his constituency, met the representatives of the Human Rights Council with the Tamil representatives.
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Disappearances again on increase in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2011, 23:50 GMT]
26-year-old Puvanedra Shakthithara Sharma, an assistant priest at Nalloor temple has been reported missing since September 09. Puvenendra Sharma, who went to Jaffna city from his village Kalviyangkaadu failed to return, the family has complained at SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna and with the SL Police in the city. In the meantime, the number of complaints on missing children is on the increase, officials of the SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna said.
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“We deployed DPU teams inside safe zone”: Rajapaksa confided to US envoy in May 2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 21:43 GMT]
During the final days of the genocidal war in Vanni when the international community was repeatedly urging Colombo to cease attacks on the ‘safe zone’, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa admitted to a top US envoy that his military had deployed Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) missions, also known as Deep Penetration Units (DPU) inside the so-called safe-zone to “organize people to breach the LTTE earth bunds.” Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa has ‘confidentially’ shared this military secret to Charge d'Affaires of the US embassy James R. Moore, while holding a meeting with Co-Chair Ambassadors in Colombo, barely two week before Colombo massacred thousands of civilians and claimed military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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21st anniversary of Chaththurukko'ndaan massacre remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 16:29 GMT]
Local residents of Chaththurukko'ndaan village in the Batticaloa district held the 21st anniversary remembrance of the 184 Tamil civilians massacred by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army at the village on 9th September 1990, civil sources said. 184 Tamil civilians including infants, children, women and men were pulled out of their homes and were bludgeoned to death or extra-judicially executed by SLA soldiers from the Chaththurukko'ndaan 'Boys Town' army camp. Five of the dead were infants under year one, 42 children under years 10, 09 pregnant mothers and 28 adults over 68 years of age. 38 were from Chaththurukko'ndaan village, 37 from Panichchaiyadi, 62 from Pi'l'laiyaaradi and 47 from Kokkuvil.
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Multilingualism, multiculturalism and Sinhala academia

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:31 GMT]
‘Celebrating multilingualism’ in Sri Lanka, and delivering a keynote address in a language award ceremony in Colombo in July, Professor of Sinhala K.N.O. Dharmadasa said that Tamil came to be introduced into the island at a later time, especially after the Polonnaruva period (c. 13th century AD). According to the Mahavamsa myth he was relying upon, culture of multilingualism in the island began when “a group of settlers led by Prince Vijaya, who would have been speaking a dialect which linguists call Prakrit, came and settled down in the northern plains.” Meanwhile, delivering a lecture on Buddhism at the UN General Assembly in May and using it for campaigning Sri Lanka’s ‘reconciliation,’ another Sri Lankan Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne said, arrival of Buddhism and other north Indian social ideologies heralded the beginnings of civilization in the island.
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Chengkodi remembered in New Zealand

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Thoazhar (comrade) Chengkodi of Kaangncheepuram, Tamil Nadu, a dedicated social worker and fighter of the rights of the weaker sections of the society immolated herself, to save the three Perarivalan, Murugan and Shanthan from being hanged. It is really sad that the 21-year-old lass should have taken a hasty decision. At the climax of the Vanni war, fourteen Tamil Nadu brethren including Muththukkumar immolated themselves urging the people and Government of India to safeguard the Eezham Tamils. These sacrifices should not end in vain, said Mr. A. Thevarajan, while addressing the gathering last Sunday at the function organised by the New Zealand Tamil Society to mark the sacrifice made by Thoazhar Chengkodi.
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SL 'grease devils’ in Jaffna target uprooted Vanni families

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2011, 06:52 GMT]
While news reports from the East earlier this week said that the Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa has been harassing the families of former LTTE members, including those who had left the movement 20 years ago, reports from different areas in the Jaffna peninsula indicate that the SL military operated ‘grease devils’ and ‘abduction units’ in the peninsula have been increasingly targeting uprooted families from Vanni, who have settled themselves in the Jaffna peninsula after the Vanni war. Amidst the tension and chaos created by ‘grease devils’, reports of children being abducted are on the increase, civil activists in the peninsula said.
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Using ‘grease devils’ Colombo sets next stage of militarisation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 September 2011, 06:36 GMT]
Citing ‘grease devils,’ Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils sets the next stage of its militarisation by creating a ‘civil’ paramilitary that will be formally led by SL minister Mr Douglas Devananda, but actually ‘steered’ by the commander of the occupying forces, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe and the colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. Openly accusing SL government and SL military for staging ‘grease devil’ attacks on Tamils and Muslims, the demonstrating Jaffna University students on Tuesday called upon the attention of the International Community. But the kind of International Community we see sitting on the world today will only be happy to receive more military lessons from Gotabhaya and ‘Asian Nobel’ laureate Hathurusinghe on how to use devil strategy for militarisation, commented a civil rights activist in Jaffna.
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India needs foundational policy change if past is catalogue of failures

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2011, 05:46 GMT]
“The need of the hour is for India to undertake a thorough reappraisal of its Sri Lanka policy and make the necessary changes so that it is in consonance with the traditions of Nehru-Indira Gandhi years. The international community will be watching how India will react to the situation in the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly when the matter [Sri Lanka’s war crimes] comes up for discussion, writes V. Suryanarayan and Ashik Bonofer in Tuesday’s paper of SAAG. The paper catalogues Nehru-Indira Gandhi era interventions in protecting Tamils from pogroms, criticises India’s failure in protecting Tamil civilians in 2009 and argues for a policy change. Tamil politicians commented that the change should be foundational if piecemeal interventions proved a catalogue of failures and the writers treating a nation, as “Tamil minority groups in Sri Lanka” won’t help such a change.
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Genocide in Sri Lanka targets Tamil women, affects fertility: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 September 2011, 06:17 GMT]
While talking on the past and on-going genocide of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian for Vanni, S. Sritharan on Sunday said in a meeting in London that Tamil women are particularly targeted now and the fertility of Tamils is systematically jeopardized. He cited the examples of ‘grease devil’ attacks on women and the plight of young widows in child-producing age group. Eezham Tamils are increasingly convinced today that a united Sri Lanka would not work, he said. Later, when a question was asked why the TNA had not raised the issues of genocide and right to self-determination in the recent meet convened by a Congress MP at New Delhi, the deputy leader of TNA Maavai Senadhiraja answered that their unawareness of the agenda of the organizers and the desire not to exhibit disunity among the invited groups had been the reasons.
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Sri Lanka conspires for a Sinhala division in Mullaiththeevu district

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 02:22 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s Colonial Governor in the North Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa are all set to create a new Sinhala division in the Ma’nal Aa’ru part of the Mullaiththeevu district that will be delinking the contiguity of Northern and Eastern Provinces. India that has committed to the integration of the northern and eastern provinces but now collaborates with Colombo in the genocide and structural genocide of Eezham Tamils is particularly answerable to the situation, demand Tamil politicians in the island. Last week, while talking to diaspora Tamil groups, the US Asst Secretary of State feigned ignorance on the intense Sinhala colonisation that is taking place in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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World Bank aid diverted to Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 00:06 GMT]
The assistance given by the World Bank to North East Services Improvement Project (NELSIP) to improve road development in recently resettled areas in the Puthukudiyiruppu and Karaithu’raippattu divisions of the Mullaiththeevu district is diverted to a recently initiated Sinhala colony called Sampath Nuwara in the district at the instructions of presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa and SL colonial governor of the north Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. SL minister Rishad Baddiudeen is also involved in the racket. The World Bank has allotted the funds to help the war-torn people and while the local administration has almost finalised the programme of road development, all of a sudden the fund amounting to 15 million has been diverted to an intrusive Sinhala colony Sampath Nuwara initiated in the Ma’nal Aa’ru area now Sinhalicised as Weli-oya in the district.
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Colombo brings in new legislation to replace Emergency Regulations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 September 2011, 14:22 GMT]
Having hoodwinked the international community by announcing an imminent withdrawal of the three decade-long Emergency Regulations, Colombo has decided to introduce new set of laws with immediate effect to replace the draconian law that gives sweeping powers to SL Police and military forces to arrest and detain people without any charges indefinitely. Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem has said that the new set of laws will be in place with the expiry of similar provisions under the island’s controversial emergency laws, which Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa proposed to lift by the end of August. Badly hoodwinked by the mere propaganda exercise by the genocidal Rajapaksa regime many members of the powerful international community, including the United States quickly hailed as “significant step” the move to do away with the emergency regulations.
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