Colombo's propaganda on releasing lands in former HSZ proves futile

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 April 2015, 21:08 GMT]
After making propaganda announcements naming entire GS divisions as to be released for resettlement in Valikaamam North and Valikaamam East, the Sri Lankan State and its occupying military, once again demonstrated on Saturday that only a small pocket was being released, that too under appalling conditions of militarisation near Chaanthai Junction in Valikaamam North. The people of Thaiyiddi and Mayiliddi who went there to see their lands had to return without gaining access to their lands. The SL military has put up fences around the pockets of lands being released to the public while maintaining the militarisation of the occupied villages with all their military installations being intact, the people of Thaiyiddi said.
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Sirisena's Commission ‘demonstrates’ deceptive investigations in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 April 2015, 23:02 GMT]
A Sri Lankan military intelligence officer was present inside the hearing hall at Kalmunai in the Eastern Province when the SL Presidential Commission on Missing Persons held its hearings, which were chaired by Mr Maxwell Parakrama Paranagama, said Selvarajah Kanesh, the president of the organisation representing the families of the abducted and missing persons in Ampaa'rai district in an interview to TamilNet on Tuesday. In the meantime, Village officer (GS) in Aalaiyadi-vempu was deployed by the SL authorities to instruct the victims to appear in front of the Commission if they wanted to receive 100,000 SL rupees in return for accepting death certificates of the persons registered as missing following their appearance in front of the Commission. A large number of the victims have boycotted the sittings.
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Sirisena's regime protects corrupt SL minister from Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2015, 23:29 GMT]
Rishad Bathiudeen, the notorious Sri Lankan minister who has been unleashing communal hatred in Mannaar under the previous regime, continues to be a minister in the new regime of Maithiripala Sirisena. Mr Bathiutheen has been promoting and protecting the criminal Divisional Secretary (DS) of Maanthai West, Manickavasagar Sriskandakumar, to appropriate ‘public lands’, which had been properly allocated to the people during the times of the LTTE. As a favour in return for appropriating these lands for his voters, the SL minister backed the DS to grab some lands for himself and a collaborating Village Officer (GS). Mr Sriskandakumar and T. Sivanesan, the GS, were allegedly complicit in ordering the assassination of social activist K. Nakuleswaran last November. Now, their personal appropriation of lands have been exposed, the people of Ve'l'laang-ku'lam say.
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Bisokotuwa, Biso-uyana

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 April 2015, 21:19 GMT]
The water releasing structure (of the tank)

The royal park or the anointed queen's park
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Money allocated to prevent attacks by wild elephants didn't reach Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 April 2015, 19:34 GMT]
At least 27 people have been slain by wild elephants that have been brought from South into the jungles in Batticaloa district by Colombo government's Department of Wildlife Conservation after the entire district has been brought under the SL military control, according to District Secretariat sources. In the meantime, money allocated for protective measures against the wild elephants by the SL Economic Development Ministry of the previous regime, has not reached the district, TNA parliamentarian P. Selvarasa has complained to the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa.
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Colombo stages ‘deceptive resettlement’ in isolated pockets within military zone

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 April 2015, 23:38 GMT]
The uprooted people from Valikaamam North, who were disappointed to see that their residential lands not released as promised by the Colombo regime, gathered on Friday at Vasaavi'laan MMV to discuss the next course of action. The civic representatives from Valikaamam North complained that the SL military wants to maintain the former High Security Zone as Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) while selectively allowing Tamil civilians into isolated pockets surrounded by military cantonments and business establishments run by the SL military within the SMZ. In the meantime, Non Governmental Organizations have also conveyed their reservation to the SL Government Agent in Jaffna in sending their employees into these pockets, informed civil sources at the District Secretariat of Jaffna told TamilNet.
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Liberating Champoor is fundamental to Tamils' existence in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2015, 23:53 GMT]
Liberating Champoor is liberating Tamils from permanent subjugation in Trincomalee district, say the Tamil people of Moothoor East in Trincomalee. From the average Tamil families languishing in the camps to experts among Tamils coming from Moothoor East, having in-depth knowledge of their region and the politics, are unanimous in their opinion that both the Indian Coal Power Plant, for which lands are allocated 7-8 kilometres close to the residential area in Champoor and the so-called Special Economic Zone where the Sinhala rulers in Colombo are aiming for Sinhala colonisation and the SL military which is going to clear more lands close to the coastal strip for maintaining its military cantonment are going to be the main challenges of the future existence of Tamils in Moothoor East.
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Colombo manipulates land figures in Champoor to retain lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2015, 11:02 GMT]
Champoor region in Trincomalee district has seen displacement since 1990. But, Colombo’s officials have been instructed to use the voter’s registry of 2005 in deciding those ‘eligible’ for resettlement in Champoor. Several families were uprooted within the 15 years. Further, the people demanding resettlement are asked to hand over ownership documents. Many families have lost their documents during the times of the war due to displacements. The uprooted people who are able to document their ownership to lands within the occupied ‘Economic’ zone will receive alternative lands elsewhere is the position of the SL Governor in the East. Through such manipulations, the figures of lands belonging to people within the occupied ‘Special Economic Zone’ have been manipulated down to 138 acres, the people complain.
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NPC Chief Minister hands over Genocide Resolution to UN Special Rapporteur

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 April 2015, 22:20 GMT]
The Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Justice C.V. Wigneswaran has handed over the NPC resolution on Tamil genocide to the visiting UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Pablo de Greiff, who met him in Jaffna on Wednesday. Almost all the representatives including the Chief Minister, Bishop of Mannaar and the representatives of the Tamil Civil Society Forum have categorically denounced any effort by the UN to sanctify domestic investigations, informed sources said. Mr Pablo de Greiff declined to respond to questions by the journalists. The UN Special Rapporteur has also urged the Chief Minister not to release the details of their discussions to journalists, informed NPC sources told TamilNet.
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UNP wants to continue geopolitical occupation of Champoor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2015, 23:46 GMT]
Colombo's Governor to the Eastern Province, Austin Fernando, who was the SL Defence Secretary under the UNP government during the Norwegian mediated peace process, is now defending Colombo's occupation of the so-called ‘Economic’ zone in Champoor as demarcated by the Rajapaksa regime, informed Tamil National Alliance (TNA) circles in the East told TamilNet on Tuesday. Talks between the TNA and the SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe on resettling civilians in Champoor failed to produce any positive outcome. In the meantime, Mr Fernando is opposed to release the lands from the occupied ‘economic’ zone. The uprooted Tamils are being told to expect alternative lands from the SL military occupied zone, civil sources in Trincomalee said. In the meantime, a geo-political deal is being worked out involving a foreign power, informed sources told TamilNet.
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Priests blame SL military for desecration of Catholic ashram in Vasaavi'laan

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2015, 23:35 GMT]
Catholic priests who inspected the 90 acres of released lands in Vasaavi'laan East (GS Division of J/244) in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, say that proper resettlement is not feasible without getting the remaining residential and agricultural lands released. The access road, cut off by the SL military should be restored, they said. The Roman Catholic school and the main church of the village are still occupied by the SL military. The first indigenous contemplative congregation (Ashram) of the Catholic Church in Asia, has been released. But, it is fully ruined. The entire building has been robbed of everything, except the walls, Catholics priests in Jaffna said. TamilNet publishes a short video of the first visit by a section of Catholic priests to the convent of the Rosarian Sisters (nuns) in Vasaavi'laan East.
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SL military harassment continues to target ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
Former LTTE members who met the touring Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at Ki'linochchi on Sunday told the SL premier that the occupying Sinhala military was harassing them even after the so-called regime change in Colombo. SL military intelligence operatives continue to interrogate them, they complained adding that the SL soldiers were threatening the families by frequent inspections. The wives of former LTTE members were being harassed after their husbands leave for work, Mr Wickramasinghe was told. However, the SL Prime Minister was using his trip to encourage the occupying SL military to continue the genocidal occupation of the Tamil homeland, informed sources in Jaffna and Vanni told TamilNet.
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Colombo continues to block uprooted Tamils from resettling in Poththuvil, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and Sinhala officials belonging to SL Forest Department and SL Archaeology department continue to block hundreds of uprooted Tamil families from resettling in their own villages situated along the border of Poththuvil Divisional Secretariat in Ampaa'rai district. Mr T. Kaliaiyarasan, a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet on Saturday that 485 families have been blocked from resettling in their residential and agricultural lands. The new regime in Colombo is also blocking the people from accessing these lands, he said.
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Growing nexus between India’s corporates and diplomatic minds

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2015, 20:13 GMT]
Ms. Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary of the New Delhi Establishment, has been appointed on Thursday as an independent director of the board of an Ambani-led media company that owns CNN-IBN and CNBC in India, according to an Associated Press report on Friday. Mr Mukesh Ambani the second richest Indian, heads the petrochemicals to telecoms corporate, Reliance Industries Ltd. Sponsored by this Ambani conglomerate, The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) was vocal in supporting Rajapaksa as well as the Colombo-centric State in the island. Ms Nirupama Menon Rao served as New Delhi’s High Commissioner in Colombo (2004 - 2006) and later became Foreign Secretary (August 2009 to July 2011), before going as New Delhi’s ambassador to Washington – all during the NSA tenure of MK Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon.
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New regime should demonstrate attitudinal change, says Bishop of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2015, 23:16 GMT]
Whatever the step the new president of Sri Lanka is taking, seems to be too slow and is beyond the expectations of the affected people in the North and East, the Bishop of Batticaloa Rev. Dr. Joseph Ponniah told TamilNet in an interview this week. The new government should demonstrate that it possesses the ability to take bold steps such as the appointment of non-military governors. What is mostly needed now is an attitudinal change on the part of the Colombo government. Even today, whenever someone raises the issues of the affected people in the North and East, the government leaders in Colombo seem to brush off the critiques as coming from ethno-nationalists. This attitude is one of the main problems, the Bishop of Batticaloa said.
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While UN charges ISIS for genocide, SL military gets space for exoneration

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2015, 23:25 GMT]
While deferring the report on Sri Lanka, the UN Human Rights Office acting in sharp contrast called on the UN Security Council earlier this month to refer the ISIS to International Criminal Court, charging the ISIS for genocide committed against Yezidi people in Iraq as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including children. Obviously the contrast comes from the fact that the genocide of Eezham Tamils was determined by the USA and India, conducted by a military needed by the both, and was allowed by the UN. The regime change in Colombo is yet another time and space tactic to exonerate the genocidal Sinhala military and to use it as anchor for the furtherance of the original designs of the ultimate culprits, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics, citing recent reports coming from Colombo.
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Wigneswaran urges SL State to respect international principle on resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2015, 12:04 GMT]
“Unless Grama Sevaka Divisions 244 and 252 are released in full as promised earlier, what has been gingerly granted today would hardly be of any use to the few families now selected to enter their erstwhile denied lands,” Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran said in his address at Vazhalaay during the visit by SL President, Prime Minister and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. “It may not be out of place for me to mention here of the land grabs taking place in the Vanni not only by the military but also by certain Politicians who wielded power earlier and who continue to wield power now, may be more so. They still influence in selecting inappropriate beneficiaries for the Indian Housing Schemes,” the CM said, urging the SL State to adhere to the UN Principles for Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs, which is known as the Pinheiro Principles.
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SL Military motives questioned while Colombo trio visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 March 2015, 23:19 GMT]
The SL military has suddenly fenced off a crucial link road in the area supposed to be handed over back to the people of Vasaavi'laan East, just one day ahead of the much-orchestrated visit to the area by the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena together with SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga. On Sunday, Northern Provincial Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran visited the area and was shocked to see the link road been fenced off by the SL military. The Chief Minister said the lands have not been released as promised by the Colombo government. Only a small area has been released, he said questioning whether there was a conflict between the Colombo government and its military or whether there was anything else. The people are disappointed to see that the lands have not been handed over as promised by the government.
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Colombo stages eyewash resettlement amidst military cantonment in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
211 families, who registered on Friday to resettle in Vasaavi'laan East in Valikaamam North and were allowed to visit and see their villages, have complained that the Colombo regime was still upholding the militarisation of their villages in the former ‘High Security Zone’. The SL military is still occupying their residential areas. Even the few houses situated in the area being released to the people have been totally demolished while the houses within the areas fenced off for continued military use are intact. In addition, most of the lands being released are either agricultural lands or quarry lands unfit for resettlement or agriculture, they complained. The SL military is still occupying the fertile agricultural lands, which have been converted into farms run by the military.
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Ex-LTTE woman returned from France escapes assassination attempt in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 08:03 GMT]
A group of assailants believed to belong to a surveillance squad of the Sri Lankan military attempted on Wednesday night to assassinate 41-year-old Baheerathy Murukesu, who was arrested earlier this month at Colombo airport and later released on bail with a restriction to leave the island. The two-member squad, which was waiting outside her house at Ka'ndaava'lai in Mullaiththeevu, followed Ms Baheerathy and hit her with their motorbike. Baheerathy was thrown away, but survived the attempt on her life. She was arrested by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ earlier this month when she was visiting her family on vacation from France. Baheerathy headed a naval wing of the LTTE's Sea Tigers between 1997 and 2000 and had left the island in 2005, the SL police has stated earlier.
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