Sivanesan Memorial Hall declared open in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 February 2015, 18:40 GMT]
A memorial hall has been declared open in Jaffna on Saturday in commemoration of Maamanithar K. Sivanesan, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian who was assassinated in a targeted claymore explosion by the Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 06 March 2006 inside LTTE-controlled Vanni. Sivanesan worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of the deprived sections of population among the Eezham Tamils for a long time. He played also a key role in the democratic mobilization of the Tamil masses at the grassroots level.
Full story >>

Nationhood, Self-Determination non-negotiable: V.T. Thamilmaran in 2003

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 January 2015, 21:01 GMT]
“The nationhood of Tamils and their right to self-determination are non-negotiable. Any political solution that might emerge out of the on-going peace process can't go below these,” opined V.T. Thamilmaran, 12 years ago in January 2003, just a few days after the so-called Oslo Declaration (Dec 2002). The international community, by volunteering to back the Internal Right to Self-Determination based solution, is duty-bound to extend its support for future Tamil struggle, he said in 2003: “It would impose on them a moral duty to extend their support for any further struggle by the Tamils.” Five years after 2009, the IC needs to be reminded again of this moral duty as it failed to protect the nation of Eelam Tamils from a brutal genocide, comment youth activists of the Tamil National Alliance in the North. The IC should now respect Tamils Right to External Self-Determination, they said.
Full story >>

Learning lessons from political discourses of past

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 January 2015, 23:36 GMT]
The last advice of the late Professor A.J. Wilson, a highly respected academic who had the closest connections with the hierarchy of the government echelons from time to time, and who was an optimist genuinely believing the possibility of Tamils and Sinhalese co-existing, was that the Tamil academics and professionals should not let themselves to be lured by promises, sweet talk, and false vanity liberally dispensed by their Sinhala counterparts and Sinhala leaders. According to him this is what that had spoiled Sir P. Ramanathan, G. G. Ponnambalam, M. Thiruchelvam and to a certain extent Thanthai Selva (SJV Chelvanayagam) and A. Amirthalingam. Writing in 2003 on the positions and policies in Tamil politics in the past, Mr. V.T. Thamilmaran was comparing the discourses of two political intellectuals, A.J. Wilson and the other being the doyen of ITAK, V. Navaratnam.
Full story >>

Sinhala occupation continues at gunpoint in East despite ‘regime change’ in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 19:39 GMT]
A Sinhala squad claiming as ‘forest guard’ raided the huts of Tamil cattle herders in their grazing lands situated in Koa'ra'laippattu-South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district Tuesday around 5:00 a.m. The squad assaulted the dairy farmers, burned down their huts, robbed off their belongings at gunpoint and separated the cattle herders from the cattle numbering around 1,000. “Although Maithiripala came to power securing Tamil votes, there is no change on the ground for the Tamil dairy farmers who are undergoing untold hardship caused by the occupying Sinhala settlers, who have encroached into the grazing lands that has been ours for years and years,” Nimalan Chelliah, the president of farm owners association, told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Poo-malarnthaan, Poop-pooththaan-ku'lam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 January 2015, 03:01 GMT]
The flower-blossomed (pond or tank)

The flower-blossomed tank
Full story >>

Resettling Tamils silently expelled from Champoor in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2015, 23:43 GMT]
Following the election of Maithiripala Sirisena as new Sri Lankan President, the uprooted families from a section of the 5th Division and 7th Division of Champoor situated along both the sides of Champoor main road, started to clear their lands for resettlement. Their lands, seized by Colombo under the so-called ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) were to be handed over to a Chinese-owned corporate. The occupying Sri Lanka Navy was blocking the uprooted Tamils from resettling in their lands. Despite the ‘regime change’, the Sri Lanka Navy occupying Champoor and the Sri Lankan Police have chased away the 162 families, who were clearing their plots to prepare for resettlement in the 1,430 acres of lands appropriated by Colombo under the so-called SEZ.
Full story >>

Investigating ‘root cause’ of injustice to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2015, 23:25 GMT]
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG) in the UK and the British Tamil Forum (BTF), jointly host an annual dinner on 29th January, this time with the theme “Tamil People’s Right to Democracy and Justice in Sri Lanka.” The highlights of the dinner hosts’ requests to British government are: Justice for the war crimes and crimes against humanity (including the ‘intent of genocide’); Political solution to address the root cause to the conflict and that the UK government should put pressure on the Sri Lankan regime. What actually needed is an international investigation on the root cause of Britain forging and enforcing a single State of genocidal dimensions in the island and Washington and New Delhi following the footsteps, resulting the genocide and on-going genocide, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
Full story >>

Singapore Principles of 2013: Tamil polity taken for ride from Oslo to Singapore

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2015, 07:19 GMT]
Right from the Indo-Lanka agreement of 1987 to Oslo Declaration of 2002 and to hitherto unrevealed Singapore Principles of 2013 that brought the Sampanthan polity into a conceptual framework for the recent regime change in Colombo, the external forces seeking to influence the affairs of the island have taken the Eezham Tamils for a ride to confine the Tamil polity into the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka without securing any concrete and descriptive guarantee from the Sinhala polity. By its latest move, the ITAK has pushed the Tamils back into the past, Tamil political observers in Jaffna said citing the so-called Singapore Principles from 2013. TamilNet brings out the text of the so-called Singapore Principles for the edification of global Tamils.
Full story >>

Protests erupt in Jaffna against continued militarisation, unemployment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2015, 23:44 GMT]
The owners of five houses and lands that have been illegally seized by the Sri Lankan military for more than two decades at Koozhaavadi, situated on Maanippaay Road at Aanaik-koaddai in Jaffna protested on Wednesday against the attempt by Colombo to transform their lands into State property with the motive of permanently sustaining a war-time military camp, which was notorious for extra-judicial interrogations, abductions and disappearances since 1996. At the same time, unemployed graduates staged a protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat demanding jobs.
Full story >>

SL military in Batticaloa continues to exploit families returned from Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2015, 22:15 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State and its military intelligence in Batticaloa district continue to harass 1,080 families that survived the genocidal onslaught in Vanni in 2009. The families from Batticaloa returned to their native villages situated in 10 of the 14 Divisional Secretariat divisions in the district. The DS Secretaries in these divisions have also been instructed to refuse assistance to these families by the genocidal military. There is no change in the harassments on the ground despite the ‘changes’ taking place in Colombo, the families said. Even those affected by the recent floods have been neglected in the humanitarian assistance. Women-headed families continue to complain about targeted sexual harassments by the occupying Sinhala military in Batticaloa. Two of the 10 divisions where the families have resettled, Koa'ralaippattu South and Koa'ra'laip-pattu North are worst affected.
Full story >>

UNP Batticaloa branch wants anti-people elements isolated from politics

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The District Organiser of the United National Party (UNP) in Batticaloa Mr Arasaretnam Sasitharan said that a resolution has been passed at the UNP Batticaloa District Executive Committee to the effect that anti-people elements and former paramilitary operatives, who were deployed under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, should not be absorbed into the UNP or the polity associated with the UNP in the new regime in Colombo. The resolution has named four persons who should be kept away from the politics of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramaisnge if UNP needs to win credibility among the Tamil public in Batticaloa district, Mr Sasitharan further said.
Full story >>

Extra-government authority to supersede government in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 January 2015, 14:24 GMT]
Tamil ‘National’ Alliance Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan and genocidal Sri Lanka's former military commander Sarath Fonseka, who led the onslaught during the war, being together in a superseding extra-government authority constituted in Colombo would mean nullifying genocide investigation and even war crime investigation, as well as endorsing the unitary Sri Lankan State of US-Indian interests, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, responding to SL president Maithiripala Sirisena, constituting a 11-member ‘National Executive Council’ that would be superseding his newly formed cabinet. The TNA earlier said that it would not participate in the SL government's cabinet. But, now Mr Sampanthan is a member of a Colombo-centric arrangement, higher than the cabinet.
Full story >>

New Tamil-Muslim equation engineered for Colombo-centric agenda

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 January 2015, 23:37 GMT]
Negotiations are under way for bringing in a new alliance among the political forces of Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims in the North and East that are orientated for collaboration with the Washington - New Delhi - Sinhala State agenda, reconfirming the Colombo-centric genocidal State, informed sources told TamilNet. This follows the electoral engineering in the island in which Tamils victimised in the US-designed war ending in genocide and Muslims internationally at loggerheads with the US views of imperialism were brought together to vote for a regime change that has put the USA at the helm of affairs. The follow-up ‘ground operations’ now take place in the North and East provincial councils and the first victim is likely to be the EPDP, which would be losing its opposition leadership in the NPC to Rishard Badurdeen's All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC), the sources further said.
Full story >>

Pope Francis at Madu: ‘Our Lady remained always with you’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 January 2015, 21:55 GMT]
Pope Francis on Wednesday paid a pilgrimage to Madu shrine, which is the famous pilgrim centre of Tamil Catholics, where even the Sinhalese Catholics of the western coast, who were Tamils a century ago, flock in for festivals. “No Sri Lankan can forget the tragic events associated with this very place, or the sad day when the venerable statue of Mary, dating to the arrival of the earliest Christians in Sri Lanka, was taken away from her shrine. But Our Lady remained always with you. She is the mother of every home, of every wounded family, of all who are seeking to return to a peaceful existence,” the Pope said. Tamils who came in large numbers from all parts of the island appreciated his call for wartime ‘truth’ in future peace making. The Tamils also welcomed his call for harmony without forsaking the identity of the peoples, whether ethnic or religious.
Full story >>

New SL regime fails to give policy-based assurance on de-militarisation: TNA circles

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 January 2015, 10:33 GMT]
Informed sources close to the hierarchy of the Tamil National Allaince (TNA) told TamilNet Wednesday that the newly elected Executive President of Sri Lanka, Maithiripala Sirisena, has failed to give a positive response to the request placed by the TNA to look at the issue of the de-militarisation of North and East as matter of a principled decision, marking a policy change. Mr Sirisena has reportedly told the TNA that the Sri Lankan military being stationed in strategic locations was largely based on the ‘national security’ concern and has justified the militarisation of public lands. Mr Maithiripala Siriesena, like his predecessors, is projecting the major issue as ‘isolated incidents of disputes’, which need to be addressed by the two separate committees, the disappointed TNA circles told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Resettlement meaningless without guarantee against structural genocide in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 January 2015, 23:22 GMT]
Governments may come and go, but the State of Sri Lanka gets strengthened in its genocidal project whether there is war, peace or talk of ‘change’, comment the resettled women of Mu'raa-oadai village, situated 5 km south of Vaazhaich-cheanai town in Batticaloa district. 400 houses have been destroyed. Two temples are damaged. Almost all the resettled families are women-headed households, poorest of the poor. The women of the village say: “It is only when we have permanent security from future genocide, we can breath the air of freedom.” The SL military has vacated last year from the village. But, a Buddhist statue and a ‘sacred’ Bo tree are still threatening the villagers who are haunted by the mere existence of the symbols of structural genocide.
Full story >>

Karaiyaakkan-theevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 January 2015, 17:40 GMT]
The water-surrounded place found with Karaiyaakan trees

The water-surrounded place of the spirit called Karaiyaakkan
Full story >>

Ananthy urges Pope to see genocide, get answers from local, international players

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 2015, 13:59 GMT]
As Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the island from Tuesday to Thursday, NPC Councillor Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, urged him to grasp the underlying factor of the conflict in the island, i.e. genocide and sought his help in getting answers from the government in Colombo and the international players, including the UN, the Co-chairs and India. “I hope Your Holiness is aware that there is an ideology behind the genocidal process,” she wrote in a letter addressed to the Pope on Saturday. She was citing a key case of Fr Francis Joseph towards the end of the war in perceiving the dimensions and said: “The Catholic Church, having witnesses among the people, has a moral duty to safeguard the people from the protracted crime of genocide.”
Full story >>

‘LLRC’ Palihakkara expected to replace Military Governor of North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 January 2015, 20:17 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Governor of North, Major General (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri, on Saturday told his staff that he would resign his job before anyone on the top coming with the instruction of transfer to him, informed civil sources in Jaffna said adding that Colombo's regime-changers have proposed HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists earlier appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which was aimed at buying space and time for Sri Lanka to escape international investigations. Colombo-centric agenda-setters are replacing a military governor with a more sophisticated diplomat concerned with safeguarding the unitary state of Sri Lanka.
Full story >>

Tamil-speaking voters decided new SL President, says JVP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 January 2015, 14:19 GMT]
The major share of the victory of Mr Maithiripala Sirisena as the sixth president of the country belongs to Tamil-speaking people although the JVP had a ‘little say’ in the outcome of the result, said Anura Dissanayake MP, the president of the Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), at a media briefing held in Colombo on Friday evening. Currently, the JVP is prepared to give ‘pressure’ from outside to ensure ‘good governance’ via the new SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, the JVP leader further stated.
Full story >>