Sinhala colonists step up hate crimes against Tamil fishermen in occupied Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2017, 22:37 GMT]
A fishing boat, nets and a motorbike parked along Tha’n’ni-mu’rippu reservoir were destroyed by Sinhala colonists on Tuesday, allege the villagers of Tha’n’ni-mu’rippuk-ku’lam in Karai-thu’raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district. There are only Tamil-speaking fishermen in all the villages surrounding the reservoir. The reservoir used for irrigation of agricultural lands during the cultivation seasons is also the source for fresh-water fishing for Tamil and Muslim villagers. They depend on fresh-water fishing in between the cultivation seasons. A systematic and large-scale invasion by intruding Sinhala fishermen, who come from distant Padawiya and Ma’nal-aa’ru (Sinhalicised into Weli-oya) has not only threatened the livelihood of the native villagers, but also destructive to the eco-system, the local fishermen complain.
Full story >>

ITAK leaders have violated Tamil people’s democratic mandate: Premachandran

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 January 2017, 22:39 GMT]
The very basic demands of Tamils have been totally denied, both by the constitutional assembly tasked with drafting the new constitution and by the political parties in the South. On what basis, the two ITAK politicians R. Sampanthan and M. Sumanthiran continue to be part of the constitutional assembly, asks EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran, who took up the matter in a recent coordinating committee meeting of the TNA. The Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), under the leadership of Thanthai S.J.V Chelvanayakam, boycotted the 1972 Constitution as the constitutional proposal didn’t respect the demands of Tamils. Similarly, the TULF boycotted the 1978 constitution brought by J.R. Jayawardene. There has been no democratic discussion or debate within the ranks of the ITAK. The two other parties, Sitharthan's PLOTE and TELO led by Selvam Adaikalanthan are also answerable, he said.
Full story >>

Goḍa-vela, Gal-ēdańḍu-goḍa, Koḍikkāra-goḍa, Goḍa-para-gaha-hēna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 January 2017, 21:32 GMT]
The highground paddy field or the hill paddy field

The bank of the improvised stone-slab bridge

The standard bearer's village; or the village of the person having the family name 'Standard Bearer'

The shifting cultivation field in the locality of the hill-variety Para trees
Full story >>

Colombo wants to transfer cases of 38 Tamil prisoners to courts in Sinhala suburb

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 15:36 GMT]
SL Attorney General’s Department, which has been trying to transfer the cases of Tamil political prisoners away from the courts in the North and East, is now applying the same tactic also in Colombo by attempting to transfer the cases from Colombo Court to Homagama, an all-Sinhala area situated 30 km southwest of Colombo city, Tamil lawyers in Colombo said. The cases of 38 Tamil political prisoners are going to be transferred to the courts in Homagama and it will not be easy for the Tamil detainees and their families to secure Tamil-speaking lawyers, who are prepared to travel from Colombo to Homagama, says TNA Parliamentarian Mr Charles Nirmalanthan.
Full story >>

Sinhala Buddhist monks assault Tamil cattle-herders in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 22:43 GMT]
Three cattle-herding Tamil farmers were brutally assaulted on Tuesday by Sinhala Buddhist monks at Maathava’nai pastureland, situated in Koa’ra’laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. Three monks in robe emerged from Mayilaththa-madu camp of the occupying Sinhala military while the Tamil farmers were feeding water to their cows at Maanthalai-aa’ru river. The violent monks seized the tools from the farmers before assaulting them. 69-year-old Poopalapillai Selvam, a father of six from Pearillaa-ve’li, 30-year-old Kumarasamy Perinpam, a father of four and 25-year-old Manikam Nadarajah, a father of two from Chiththaa’ndi 2nd and 3rd cross streets, were the cattle-herders who sustained injuries.
Full story >>

SL military deploys ‘media agents’ to deceive uprooted Tamils in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 January 2017, 15:07 GMT]
Major General Mahesh Senanayake, the Jaffna commander of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, Reginald Cooray, who is Colombo's colonial governor to North and Angajan Ramanathan, the SLFP’s nominated parliamentarian who was earlier promoted by the Rajapaksa regime to circumvent Colombo regime’s dependency on Douglas Devananda's EPDP in Jaffna, are now jointly deployed in a covert operation of counter-insurgency and subversive nature with the intension of bringing disunity among the poverty-stricken section of uprooted people from Valikaamam North who are still languishing in 29 of 34 ‘welfare’ camps in Jaffna district.
Full story >>

8,500 landowner families remain uprooted due to Sinhala militarisation of Jaffna District

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 January 2017, 15:31 GMT]
The Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka is still occupying 5,322 acres of private lands owned by 8,065 families in Jaffna district, according to latest figures from the District Secretariat. Among the 14 administrative divisions in the district, 7,921 families uprooted from their 4,589 acres of lands are from Valikaamam North, which is administratively managed by Thellippazhai Divisional Secretariat. Of these, only 791 families (10%) reside in the so-called welfare camps. The remaining 7,130 landowner-families, uprooted from the fertile Valikaamam North, reside outside these camps in the island or elsewhere. In the meantime, Colombo's regime and its global backers are trying to deceive the poverty-stricken 10% in order to ensure permanent genocidal occupation of fertile Valikaamam North and the strategic coastline with its rich fish beds that belong to the nation of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Unknown gangs desecrate Hindu temples in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 January 2017, 13:23 GMT]
The main statue in the Garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum) of a Pi'l'laiyaar temple situated near Naavaladi Nursery in Kiraan division, 40 km northwest of Batticaloa city, has been removed by unknown persons on Thursday. A military base of the occupying Sri Lanka Army is located 500 meters from the temple, both of which are situated on Batticaloa - Colombo main road. This is the second incident within one month in the same division. Hindu temples are being targeted in Trincomalee and Battialoa in recent times.
Full story >>

Outside forces abet genocidal Colombo, deceive uprooted Tamils in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 January 2017, 23:18 GMT]
The Foreign Ministry and Resettlement Ministry of occupying Colombo are working together with a number of Colombo-based foreign ‘diplomats’ and ‘development’ conquistadors in silencing the opinion of uprooted Eezham Tamils languishing in 34 ‘welfare’ camps in the Jaffna peninsula, Tamil development workers in Jaffna say. The main agenda of outside funders is targeting on sustaining the UNP-SLFP regime of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe rather than adhering to their own principles and procedures of development assistance. In the meantime, representatives of uprooted people from Valikaamam North said public civil servants were being actively deployed by the SL State with the offer of finding ‘alternative lands’ abandoning their 25-year-old struggle of regaining their villages in Valikaamam North.
Full story >>

Erection of Buddha statues in areas where no Buddhists live, has become despicable: MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 January 2017, 23:11 GMT]
The widespread erection of Buddha statues in the Northern and Eastern provinces, especially in places where no Buddhists live and Bo trees being regarded as the exclusive property of Sinhala Buddhists, have now become analogous to ‘despicable’ symbols in the minds of Tamil-speaking people as these have been used as tools of occupation disrespecting the prospects for harmony between the different religions, say senior Tamil-speaking politicians in the North and East. Tamil-speaking people are not opposed to peaceful co-existence of religions, but when these symbols reflect ethno religious aggression, these become despicable in their minds, says K. Thurairatnasingham, a senior Tamil National Alliance (TNA) national list parliamentarian from Trincomalee. In the meantime, several Hindu temples in the East have witnessed theft and desecration in recent days.
Full story >>

Paṉaṅ-kāṇi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 January 2017, 21:27 GMT]
The land or landed property having palmyra palms; or the measure of land having palmyra palms
Full story >>

Colombo frames cases to prolong imprisonment of Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 January 2017, 22:13 GMT]
30-year-old Sulaxan Mathiyarasan, who was detained by the occupying Sinhala military at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on the final day of genocidal onslaught on Vanni on 18 May 2009, and later languished in three prisons for more than 7 years without a valid case, is now facing a newly framed case in which the so-called ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ has used statements obtained under torture from other inmates, who were former LTTE members. The TID is arguing that for security reasons, the cases where ex-LTTE members’ statements were being used, should be moved to courts in the South for ‘security’ reasons. There are 132 Tamil political prisoners currently detained in the prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka while whereabouts of thousands, subjected to forced disappearance or filtered away from the survivors of 2009 genocide, is not yet known
Full story >>

Kaňkānam-gama, La-gamuva, Gampola, Brẹnḍi-gampala, Gaňgoḍa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 January 2017, 23:10 GMT]
The village of the supervisor

The young (small) village

The village site or the riverside place

The village site of the Bhairava temple

The village or the riverbank
Full story >>

Overfishing by Sinhala intruders out of control, Tamil fishermen at the verge of anger

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 January 2017, 21:27 GMT]
While the number of families dependent on fishing in the five districts of Northern Province has sharply grown by 6,000 units within the five years since 2010, the coastal stretch dotted with fishing ‘paadu’s (sea beds falling within the scope of draw-nets of local fishermen) between Mullaiththeevu and Mukaththuvaaram have been drastically reduced due to the encroachment by intruding Sinhala fishermen from other provinces. According to the district-wise figures, there were 35,478 families, dependent on fishing as their livelihood in 2010. By November 2015, the figure had risen to 41,491 families due to resettlement and due to the lack of other income sources. The 19% growth of fishing families comes despite the most densely populated district in the North, the Jaffna district, registering the lowest population growth in the entire island.
Full story >>

Sirisena accelerates ‘Army and Archaeology’, Ampa'rai becomes first target in 2017

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 January 2017, 23:48 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena has officially assigned SL military-run ‘Civil Defence Force’ the responsibility of guarding SL 'Army and Archaeology' paradigm from January 2017. Allocating more than 100 million rupees to Defence Ministry which comes under his direct rule, Mr Maithiripala has assigned weapons, ammunitions and armed personnel through the CDF to SL Archaeology Department, news sources in Colombo said. Commenting, Tamil-speaking Muslim activists in Ampaa'rai said they were being increasingly targeted by Sinhala extremist ‘Archaeology and Army’ paradigm being waged against them by H.B.A.K. Nilmalgoda, the assistant director of Archaeology for Ampaa'rai and Batticaloa and the Director General of Archaeology Department in Colombo Senerath Dissanayaka.
Full story >>

Merged North-East, spelt-out federal solution should be TNA's ultimatums: Ariyanethiran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 January 2017, 23:43 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the East remains firm in the demand that the leadership of the TNA should reconsider its continued cooperation with Maithiripala and Wickramasinge regime if Colombo is not prepared to spell-out federal solution and merged North-East in the constitutional proposals, said TNA politician and former parliamentarian P. Ariyanethiran passing a clear message to Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and the incumbent hierarchy of the TNA alliance. The TNA politician from Batticaloa, has condemned Wijayadasa Rajapaksha, the ‘Justice’ and Buddha Sasana minister of Colombo for the remarks he made in Batticaloa during his latest visit to Batticaloa. While legal cases are lodged in the courts, the SL ‘Justice’ minister should not have gone on record calling the extremist Sinhala monk as representing the aspirations of Sinhala people in Batticaloa district, he said.
Full story >>

Fan club in Jaffna struggles to erect birth centenary statue for MGR

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 December 2016, 22:10 GMT]
The birth centenary of the late M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), the actor-turned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, falls on 17 January 2017. To mark the contribution of both MGR and the late Jayalalithaa to the Tamil cause in the island, All Ceylon MGR Fan Club, based in Jaffna has been trying to erect memorial statues within the city limits of Jaffna in remembrance of both the late chief ministers of Tamil Nadu. However, the Colombo Establishment, which is controlling the affairs of Jaffna Municipal Council through an appointed Commissioner, is sabotaging the attempt, complained Pon Mathimukarajah Vijayakanth, the chairman of MGR Club at a press conference held at the Jaffna Press Club on Friday.
Full story >>

Unabated construction of Kokku’laay vihara in 2016, a premonition of 2017 demographic genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 December 2016, 22:25 GMT]
Totally undeterred by civil protests and interim orders coming from local authorities, the construction of the controversial Buddhist vihara has continued throughout the year in 2016 at the strategic coastal stretch at Kokku'laay in Mullaith-theevu district. The scheme, conceived as a project of Sinhalicisation to permanently wedge the territorial integrity of the homeland of Eezham Tamils, has been continued with the backing of occupying SL military and the blessings of various ministries under the so-called good governance of genocidal Sri Lanka. This act alone is enough to explain how the structural and demographic genocide against Eezham Tamils would be continued through the sophisticated constitutional process that seeks to permanently trap Eezham Tamils into the ‘territorial integrity’ of genocidal unitary ‘Sri Lanka’ in 2017, Tamil political observers in Vanni commented.
Full story >>

Nā-pā-vala, Valāna, Val-ińguru-kẹṭiya, Mẹṭi-gat-vala

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2016, 21:25 GMT]
The Nā-tree forest

The forest

The part found with wild ginger plants

The pit or mine from where clay was taken
Full story >>

TNA should quit constitutional steering committee: EPRLF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2016, 20:26 GMT]
The position of the TNA was that talks on political solution should precede the discourse on constitutional proposals. This has not taken place. The parties comprising the TNA are kept at dark by Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran. The duo has completely disregarded the exercise of participatory democracy of others in the TNA alliance, including the majority of other ITAK parliamentarians, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran on Wednesday this week. Except some ‘secret meetings’ organised by SL Foreign Ministry at Singapore and in London with some of their collaborators in the Tamil diaspora, the duo have kept the entire Tamil nation uninformed of their work, Mr Suresh Premachandran said.
Full story >>