Grenade attack injures 5 Sinhalese workers in Kaaththaankudi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 October 2008, 16:30 GMT]
Two unidentified persons arriving on a motorcycle lobbed a hand grenade Tuesday around 6:45 p.m on a house in Naavatkudaa in Kaaththaankudi police division in Batticaloa district, seriously injuring five Sinhalese drainage workers in the house, Kaaththaankudi police said. All the five injured men are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Batticaloa Teaching Hospital.
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Paradigm shift is the need of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 October 2008, 15:41 GMT]
The International Community and especially India, should not burden any further the peoples of Sri Lanka by insisting on a united Sri Lanka. The first step to diffuse tension is to recognize the right to self-determination of Tamils, not necessarily to mean partition, but to achieve parity and to provide a conducive platform needed for meaningful negotiations of the concerned parties to decide the future of the island of Sri Lanka, peacefully. The way sentiments have been built up, initially it may stir emotions among the Sinhalese, but it may not take long for them to realize that it was for their good as well, writes opinion columnist Chivanadi, quoting paradigm changing global thinking on ethnonationalism.
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3 Sinhalese contract workers shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 October 2008, 08:59 GMT]
Unknown attackers shot and killed three Sinhalese building contractors while they were sleeping in a house at Arasadi in Kokkaddichchoalai, 15 km south of Batticaloa city Monday around 9.30 p.m., police said.
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Indian federal model insufficient to Sri Lanka, says senior leader of CPI

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 October 2008, 08:31 GMT]
Unlike India, which has a multitude of ethnicities, the Sri Lankan question is confined only to two identities, Sinhalese and Tamils. Legacies of struggle and military situation have made a contextual difference in Sri Lanka. Therefore the Indian federal model is insufficient to Sri Lanka. It should be higher than that, perhaps a confederation having constitutional guarantees, preventing one unit militarily interfering with the other, said C. Mahendran, senior leader of the Tamil Nadu unit of the Communist Party of India, in a recent interview to TamilNet.
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Time for India to re-think, says Singaporean scholar

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 October 2008, 16:21 GMT]
The all-party resolution in Tamil Nadu should provide New Delhi an opportunity to do some introspection about its Sri Lanka policy, says TS Gopi Rethinaraj of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore in an article that appeared in Hindustan Times on Thursday. Unless India is able to lock SL in a broad bilateral security relationship, their leadership will have no qualms about allowing China or Pakistan to get a foothold, he says. "This is the real danger of India's current policy facilitating the military defeat of the LTTE. If India were to take a hard-nosed view of its interests, a subtle shift in its position on the LTTE will go a long way in safeguarding its strategic interests in the region besides securing the interests of ethnic Tamils in the island."
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Break diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka: Vaiko tells India

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 October 2008, 18:48 GMT]
The MDMK General Secretary Vaiko on Wednesday blamed the union cabinet of India for its 'crime and treachery' against Eezham Tamils by providing military assistance to Sinhalese. The fact of India's military help to Sri Lanka has been conceded in a letter written to him by the Indian PM, he said. "This is being done with full knowledge that such assistances are used for the genocide of Tamils. India should withdraw all assistance and compel Colombo to stop the war. Failing, India should warn Sri Lanka of severed diplomatic ties and imposition of economic sanctions. DMK should withdraw its support to the Congress-led coalition government and the Tamil ministers in the union cabinet should resign if India is not acting in these lines", he demanded in a statement issued from the headquarters of MDMK in Chennai.
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37 civilians arrested in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2008, 19:55 GMT]
Thirty seven civilians, including Tamils and Sinhalese, were taken into custody for questioning in a search operation conducted Sunday from dawn till dusk, civil sources said. Following the killing of Major General (retd) Janaka Perera and 29 others, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are conducting cordon and search operations in hotels and business establishments in Anuradhapura town and suburbs daily.
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Sinhala woman arrested over Borelesgammuwa attack

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2008, 16:35 GMT]
A Sinhalese woman was arrested by the police Sunday in connection with suicide bomb attack on the convoy of Minister Maithiripala Sirisena, General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), main constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), Thursday afternoon at Borelesgammuwa. She is being held in detention and is being interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division, media sources said.
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Tamil nationalism undefeatable - Prof. Kumar David

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2008, 10:59 GMT]
Looking at the characteristics of Tamil nationalism within the four demographic groups, North, East, Colombo and the diaspora Tamils, Professor Kumar David, in an opinion column in the weekend edition of Lakbima, says that the anger of the Tamils with the Sinhala state, though very real, will always remain muted and the "rise of the LTTE in the shape of a militarist alternative is precisely the dialectical response, the antithesis, the rejection, that this [Sri Lankan] state of affairs gave rise to." The Tamil diaspora can drive the nationalist movement forward for decades, irrespective of the outcome of today's military campaigns, he says.
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Diaspora Tamils in Germany exhibit humanitarian aid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2008, 08:54 GMT]
More than 3,000 Eelam Diaspora Tamils in Germany, organised by 16 Tamil organisations, demonstrated on Friday through a central part of Berlin, exhibiting humanitarian supplies that they have collected to be sent to their kith and kin in Vanni, urging the International Community to facilitate transport from Colombo to Vanni.
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Vaiko courts arrest with thousands of cadres on Eelam Tamil issue

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 October 2008, 22:58 GMT]
Tamil leader Vaiko, General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and a staunch supporter of the cause of Eezham Tamils, was arrested Friday along with thousands of his cadres in Chennai while staging a demonstration to condemn Indian involvement in the Sri Lankan military. He called upon the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu, headed by Kalaignar Karunanidhi, an important ally of the Central Government in India, to take the blame for every Tamil being killed in Eelam. "In the name of safe-guarding Sri Lanka's sovereignty, don't lose India's sovereignty and national integration," warned Mr. Vaiko in an emotional, vociferous speech, said media sources in Chennai.
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2 farmers missing in Yala

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2008, 18:50 GMT]
Two Sinhalese farmers went inside Yala sanctuary for cultivation have been reported missing since October 1st, according to a complaint lodged with the Kotiayagala Police Sunday by the third farmer who accompanied them.
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Compulsory registration of Tamils, another act of oppression - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 October 2008, 13:14 GMT]
Compelling all Tamils from North and East currently residing in Western province to register with police is another act of oppression, and has caused fear and apprehension, stated K.Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian in a media communique released Thursday.
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Ethnocentric military dictatorship in the making in Colombo - Vanni MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2008, 09:47 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian for Vanni, Selvam Adaikkalanathan, who blamed Sri Lanka Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his Sinhala ethnocentric comments to a Canadian paper, said Sunday that the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as Commander-in-Chief and the Executive President, should instruct the SLA commander to apologise for the statement. Fonseka's statement not only undermined democracy by justifying an ethnic majoritarian rule in the island of Sri Lanka, but also alluded that a military dictatorship was in the making in Colombo, he said. Meanwhile, Rauff Hakim, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, also blamed that the "attack on the minorities " by the SLA commander "bordered on racism."
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Veeramani, Thirumavalavan court arrest to condemn Indian aid to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 19:17 GMT]
Tamil leaders in Tamil Nadu, K. Veeramani, President, Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) and Thol. Thirumavalavan, President, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Kadchchi (VCK), courted arrest along with five hundred cadres while attempting a rail blockade in Chennai to protest against Indian aid to the Sri Lankan state. "The Indian Government should not assist the Sinhalese regime in any manner either through imparting military training, or deputing Indian defence personnel to help Sri Lanka unleash its genocidal war," Veeramani said while he addressed an enthusiastic gathering of thousands of cadres of both the parties.
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Eezham Thamizh and Tamil Eelam: Understanding the terminologies of identity

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 00:43 GMT]
Many readers, Tamils as well as non-Tamils, wonder at the way words and phrases such as Eezham, Thamizh, Eezham Tamil or Eezham Thamizh, Tamil Eelam or Thamizh Eezham, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan etc., are presented today in the media and the connotations implied by them. Culture Columnist Akazhaan discusses the etymology, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics of these terms in the context of the Tamil and Sinhala national questions in the island known as Sri Lanka today.
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Slain Sinhalese farmers identified in Moneragala

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 September 2008, 08:49 GMT]
Seven dead bodies, located by police at Ethimale in Kotiyagala in Moneragala district on Thursday were identified by the relatives of the victims Friday morning in front of Moneragala magistrate Srinath Gunasekara.
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4 Sinhalese villagers abducted in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 September 2008, 16:09 GMT]
Unidentified armed men in uniforms similar to that of Special Task Force (STF) commandos abducted Friday four villagers who had gone to collect honey in Paa’namai Aa’lavai jungle area in Poththuvil police division in Ampaa’rai district, according to the complaint made Sunday to Poththuvil police by one of the four abductees who had managed to escape.
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'It is now the Tamil diaspora'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2008, 07:02 GMT]
A conference on Sri Lankan diaspora that took place last week in Kuala Lumpur provided an opportunity to understand the broad perspectives of the Eezham Tamil diaspora, its universal aims and development agenda on one hand and to witness the subtle efforts by certain elements to nullify its identity and hijack its noble agenda to the diplomatic benefit of the Sri Lankan state on the other hand, according to a Malaysian Tamil scholar.
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Silence of IC indelible for Tamil memory - Fr. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 September 2008, 13:15 GMT]
"The roles played by the major powers in overlooking the state terrorism and human rights violations of the Sri Lankan state, will stay permanent in the Tamil memory for ever," said Rev. Prof. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, the former Vicar General of Vanni region, in an open letter from Germany, reacting to the silence of the International Community to the unfolding catastrophe of civilian sufferings in the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi, overcrowded with IDPs seeking protection from the atrocities of the Sri Lankan forces. His statement comes as Sri Lanka Army's artillery shells reached Ki'iinochchi in the early hours of Thursday.
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