SL military claims village-level sweeping powers over civil officers in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 April 2020, 22:09 GMT]
The occupying SL Army, a predominantly Sinhala force, has brought more than two hundred Village (GS/GN) Officers and village-level Samurdhi Development officers, most of them Tamils, under its control citing instructions from SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to monitor the delivery of relief measures caused by the COVID-19 lockdown. The SL Army, which convened a meeting on Wednesday, instructed the village-level civil officials to accompany the soldiers on a house-to-house control operation. The public officials are severely disrupted from carrying out their work according to their priorities as they are being forced to accompany the soldiers in their surveillance-style control of civil affairs in Vanni, a group of GS officers told TamilNet.
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Colombo uses COVID-19 situation to militarise civil administration in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2020, 20:19 GMT]
The Community Based Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations involved in assisting the people, who have lost their livelihood due to the long-lasting curfew imposed to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, are complaining about military restrictions hampering their work in Jaffna. The occupying SL military has beefed up its checkpoints on the main highways that connect peninsular Jaffna with the Vanni mainland and the rest of the island. The SL soldiers operating the Elephant Pass (EPS) and Poonakari (Pooneryn) checkpoints are refusing to accept the documents provided to the organisations even though the SL Police has sanctioned such permits at the request of Village (GS) and Divisional Secretaries in the public sector.
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Shavendra-ban, COVID-19 no hindrance to SL Navy “Balanced Style” training with US Green Berets

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2020, 22:23 GMT]
Members of a US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) Operational Detachment Alpha (SFOD-A) team, attached to the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) have conducted a four-week-long training with two notorious wartime formations of the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka in Trincomalee in March. The Green Berets providing specialised training to SL Navy has a long history. The “Operation Balanced Style” sessions went on at secret locations in the South in 1996 and 2001. After 2009, the USINDOPACOM started to conduct naval port visits, various training programmes including the latest Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET). The US military has also experimented with “temporary air logistics hub concept” as well as grooming a marine force for the unitary state in the Sinhalicised and militarised district of the capital city of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils.
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US Marine Corps shifts focus to expeditionary littoral warfare in Indo-Pacific

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2020, 21:37 GMT]
Since 2017, the US Marine Corps has been training and grooming a marine force of the genocidal SL Navy at Trincomalee in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. In the meantime, the US Marine Corps is undergoing significant transformation in the context of the great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, as revealed by a recently released unclassified report, “Force Design 2030,” which describes the modernization progress. The transformation means a sharp shift from the current ability to conduct amphibious landing operations. Commandant of the US Marine Corps (CMC) General David Berger describes the new focus as the ability to be a “force-in-readiness” or what he articulates as the concept of “Stand-In Forces”. The term Stand-In Force implies a force, which is deployed in peacetime within the potential weapons engagement zones (WEZ) of China in the context of the Indo-Pacific.
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Militarised troika intervenes in civil affairs of North-East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2020, 23:17 GMT]
Occupying Colombo is introducing a military-controlled troika to each of the eight districts in the North and East to determine who is permitted to venture out during the lockdown, now imposed as a curfew to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, informed civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Tuesday. A colonel-rank Sinhala military officer is liaising with a Sinhala Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and an Additional Government Agent to administer a “pass system,” that determines who gets access to livelihood assets. Fishers, traders and farmers have to submit applications seeking permission to engage in their livelihood activities. The SL military is now in control of all aspects of civil affairs in the five districts in the Northern Province, sources attached to the district secretariats said.
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Politics of statements failing to call a spade a spade

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2020, 21:51 GMT]
The latest presidential pardoning of a massacre-convicted SL Army soldier is an outcome of the Mahawansa mindset, which is the ideology triggering the specific intent (Dolus Specialis) for Tamil genocide. In the chosen island of “Sri Lanka,” it is the genocidal Mahawansa doctrine that ultimately determines the delivery of justice as well as sustaining the unitary character of the state. Any roadmap, which seeks to improve the Colombo-centric system through gradual reforms without reconfiguring the underlying state structure in the first place, only paves the way for reversing even the cosmetic outcomes of the concerned deceptive progress. Those who contribute to such an experiment, directly or indirectly — even if they intend to disprove the approach through partaking in it — are complicit in sophisticated genocide denial as long as they are not prepared to call a spade a spade.
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New Delhi's prolonged Kashmir-lockdown causes concerns amidst Corona pandemic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2020, 20:07 GMT]
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has demanded the regional grouping SAARC place the COVID-19 Emergency Fund under the disposal of the Secretary-General of SAARC. New Delhi offered an initial contribution of US $10 million, which was followed by Colombo offering $5 million, Malé $2 million, Dhaka $1.5 million, Kathmandu $1 million and Thimphu $100,000. While the heads of states of seven countries took part in a video conference, Pakistan deployed Dr Zafar Mirza, a ministerial rank special assistant to its prime minister to represent the country. Dr Mirza was urging India to relax the lockdown in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the meantime, news reports from Srinagar said anxiety and fear were high in the Indian-administered Kashmir as the speed restriction imposed by New Delhi on internet services continues under the pandemic outbreak.
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Monk praises Gota for releasing SLA soldier from death row, celebrates genocidaire soldier as “hero”

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2020, 23:38 GMT]
While all attention remains focused on the lethal Corona pandemic, SL President Gotabaya has chosen to silently release a Sinhala soldier, Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for one of the brutal massacres committed on Eezham Tamils. In a genocidal act, eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers, were massacred by Ratnayake and five other soldiers at Mirusuvil in Jaffna on 19 December 2000. Ratnayake, a non-commissioned officer of the SL Army, was the only soldier to be punished by the court. The case was put off several times to facilitate escape routes to commissioned rank officers, except Ratnayake, whom the system intended to release at a later opportunity, as it has happened now, Tamil rights activists in Jaffna commented. In the meantime an extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk celebrated the release posting a video comment on Facebook.
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UNHRC urged to adopt multitrack investigations, including SL State responsibility for genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2020, 22:52 GMT]
Malaysian human rights activist lawyer Maha Ramakrishnan who addressed the UNHRC earlier this month told TamilNet this week that the UN human rights mechanisms must consider a multi-track approach on the SL State crimes. Forwarding the statements she delivered under Agenda Item 4 and prepared for Item 5, she said the UN needs to review its previous reports, resolutions, actions and enact stronger steps. Both the former “consensus” regime and present “confrontational” regime have demonstrated their lack of political will. The UNHRC resolutions failed as it didn’t foster conditions for the political will to emerge on the part of the SL State. Passing a strong resolution under Agenda Item 4 or creating an exclusive Agenda Item for “Sri Lanka” crimes, the UN must also address SL State responsibility on Tamil genocide as well as individual criminal liability, she said.
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Trump Administration politicises MCC assistance: US policy analyst

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2020, 19:34 GMT]
The Millennium Challenge Corporation “issued a blow to its own model by using its programs in Kosovo as a political bargaining chip,” writes Sarah Rose, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development, a think-tank based in Washington DC. Describing the last week development as an unprecedented move, the CGD analyst writes that the US foreign policy goal of exerting pressure on Kosovo to remove its tariffs on Serbian goods was “decidedly out of sync with the agency’s model.” The MCC, a US government agency intended to independently work to reduce global poverty through economic growth since its inception in 2004, has come under fire as being a strategic tool to advance foreign policy interests also in the Indo-Pacific and a hot topic in Kathmandu and Colombo.
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Bay of Bengal study notes development disparity between North-East and South

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2020, 21:34 GMT]
All the successive regimes in Colombo have focused on improving the economy of the Sinhala South after the onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009. The SL State, which deploys ‘development’ coupled with geopolitics to sustain the protracted genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils, has a particular focus on shipping when compared to other maritime industry sectors such as fisheries, tourism and energy, reveals a study conducted by One Earth Future (OEF), a non-profit foundation based in the USA. “Sri Lanka” stands out as an emerging global hub and a “regional leader” in shipping, the OEF’s Stable Seas program observes in the study published on Monday. Although the report fails to identify SL State’s structural discrimination against the stateless Eezham Tamils, it doesn’t miss to note the disparity on Human Development Index (HDI) between the coastal districts of North-East and the South.
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Gotabaya appoints Silva as head of SL operation centre to prevent corona outbreak

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2020, 22:51 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who commanded the genocidal war on Eezham Tamils in 2009, has appointed his war-crimes alleged genocidal commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva to “spearhead the National Operation Center for Prevention of COVID- 19 Outbreak,” in the island on Tuesday. In his address to the people on the current status regarding measures against the Coronavirus outbreak, Mr Gotabaya said: “We have faced and won over challenges before. We are ready to face the challenges.” He was making an indirect reference to the 2009 genocidal onslaught against Eezham Tamils as a previous challenge. During the 2004 Tsunami catastrophe, it was the LTTE that received widespread recognition as the force that effectively and quickly responded in helping the people on the ground while the SL military was preoccupied with assessing the possible losses occurred to the LTTE.
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UN Rights Chief must act to refer “Sri Lanka” crimes to ICC

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2020, 22:26 GMT]
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet should act, using powers vested with her, to prompt the UN Security Council to pass a referral to the ICC to investigate the crimes committed against the Tamils between 2002 and 2009 and post-2009, Tamil legal activists based in Jaffna said. The legal activists, who didn’t wish to be named due to the fear of persecution, said the Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute and Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, were the only available means towards an ICC-led criminal process. The Statute’s Article 15, Article 13(a) and (c) were not helpful in the case of Eezham Tamils, they said referring to the recent ICC Pre-Trial Chamber decisions on Myanmar (Rohingya) and Afghanistan situations.
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Phil Miller’s work reveals British role in dividing Tamils and Muslims in East: Dr Malathy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 March 2020, 18:46 GMT]
The British mercenary outfit Keenie Meenie Services (KMS), made up mostly of ex-SAS personnel, and serving the ‘anglophile’ SL President, the late Richard Junius Jayewardene by secretly training the Sinhala Special Task Force (STF) commandos against the armed struggle of Eezham Tamils back in the 1980s. The STF advised by the KMS on divide-and-rule and use of religion, recruited Tamil-speaking Muslims to commit massacres. All of this was done with full awareness of the British government, which too was worried about the solidarity between the Tamils and the Muslims, writes New Zealand based Dr N.Malathy in her book review on the recent book by UK-based Phil Miller. “Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes,” is making this vital revelation, writes the Tamil diaspora survivor of SL State’s 2009 genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in Vanni.
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Moragoda’s “think tank” justifies Sinhala apprehension to MCC, proposes renegotiations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2020, 23:47 GMT]
The so-called Colombo-Trincomalee Economic Corridor (CTEC) was only a new name given to decades-old agenda of demographic genocide wedging territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland. Previous Rajapaksa government named it “North Central Metro Region (NCMR)” as envisaged by its “National Physical Planning Department” in April 2010. The selection of districts for the implementation of one of the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project on land administration has “ironically led to the perception that MCC was to build an economic corridor between Colombo and Trincomalee and facilitate a land grab by foreigners,” claims a recent writeup originating from Milinda Moragoda’s Pathfinder Foundation. The outfit claims its reading of the MCC proposal justified some of the public concerns [of the Sinhalese].
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SL State-funded Buddhist vihara declared opened in Ki'linochchi campus of Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 March 2020, 19:52 GMT]
Occupying Colombo launched its plan to construct a grand Buddhist vihara inside the Ki'linochchi campus of Jaffna University in 2018. Following the controversial move, the administration of Jaffna University allocated lands for the construction of Christian, Saiva, Islamic and Buddhist temples. However, only the Buddhist temple was awarded large sums of money from the SL State as well as by the extremist Buddhist organisations in the South. The construction launched during the previous regime was accelerated within the last three months. On Saturday, the Buddhist temple, named Sarasavi Viharaya, was declared opened amid a grand ceremony by the Sinhala students as well as the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist groups from the South.
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Abduction-style TID detention said to be revenge against social, environmental activist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2020, 17:10 GMT]
SL ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division detained 40-year-old Selvarasa Uthayasivam, a father of four at Keavil in Vadamaraadchi East on 04 March as reported earlier. The TID was alluding to SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna that the detention was linked to the arrest of four persons alleged of having explosives on the previous day. However, the neighbours of Uthayasivam told TamilNet on Tuesday that the SL TID had intentionally targeted Mr Uthayasivam for his environmental and social activism in recent times. Vadamaraadchi East coordinator of National Fisheries Solidarity Movement Ratnasingham Muralitharan said the detained family man was active against exploitative sand mining by the SL Army and the SL Navy. He had also opposed illegal logging activities carried out with alleged involvement of the SL Police.
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International Women's Day: Families of missing condemn UN failure to deliver international justice

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 2020, 14:33 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Council based discourse has failed to deliver justice to the families of Eezham Tamils, who were subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military, particularly during the 2009 genocidal onslaught. The victims have thoroughly rejected the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) as a farce. However, the Geneva-based UN rights institutions continue to uphold the deceptive OMP as a positive achievement, despite repeated appeals from the organisations representing the kith and kin of the persons subjected to enforced disappearances. The Geneva-based system was closing its eyes to the truth, and turning deaf ears to the three-year-long protests, the protesting mothers complained on International Women's Day. Hundreds of people gathered to express solidarity with the protesting mothers at Mullaith-theevu on Sunday.
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Colombo brings back EPDP terror assassins from exile

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2020, 23:42 GMT]
The military intelligence of occupying Colombo has allowed SL Cabinet Minister Douglas Devananda to bring back exiled assassins of his war-time paramilitary outfit EPDP back to the island and into Jaffna in the recent days, informed sources in Colombo said. Some of the EPDP terror operatives deployed by the SL intelligence establishment to commit targeted assassinations and abductions to destabilise the 2002 ceasefire towards the run-up to the genocidal onslaught in 2009 exiled during the previous Rajapaksa regime. These are the ones, now returning to Jaffna, the sources said.
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SL ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division resumes abduction-style arrests in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2020, 21:07 GMT]
Leaked reports from SL’ Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) in Jaffna to local media earlier this week claimed that it had detained four Tamil youth from Poonakari (Pooneryn) with explosives at an uninhabited area in Vallipuram in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna on Tuesday night. There was no independent verification of the incident. So far, no one has lodged any complaint with the Jaffna office of the SL Human Rights Commission, according to Thangavel Kanagaraj, the coordinator of the commission. However, he was able to confirm that 40-year-old S. Uthayasivam, a resident of Maruthangkea’ni in Valikaamam East, was being detained by the TID.
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