Released Tamil prisoner says all inmates subjected to wrongful convictions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2016, 23:07 GMT]
The kith and kin of imprisoned Tamil prisoners of war and political prisoners staged a protest in front of Jaffna Bus Station on Wednesday morning expressing their solidarity with the political prisoners who are on hunger-strike at New Magazine prison in Colombo. Two Tamil prisoners recently released from the prison, attended the protest and one of the released prisoners, 32-year-old Komahan Murugiah, a former member of Jaffna Municipal Council, gave an emotional speech, in which he said all of the inmates languishing with him during the past 6 years were wrongfully convicted based on forced confessions in the past.
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What is left of the Left sans the Tamil national question, asks Diaspora Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 February 2016, 21:53 GMT]
"Only a process of national liberation of the oppressed Eelam Tamil nation can facilitate the grounds for the revolutionary conditions necessary to undertake and advance all other revolutionary struggles within the island; that pertaining to the rights of the Tamil speaking interspersed minorities, the struggle of the Sinhala masses, the anti-caste struggle and the proletarian struggle at large,” writes Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. “Any prospect of anti-imperialism, without accommodating the indivisible right of Tamil self-determination and the recognition of the multi-national nature of the island with the historically evolved Tamil and Sinhala nations and homelands, will paradoxically remain in the service of imperialism by safeguarding the unitary structure of the imperialist implanted Sri Lankan state,” he further writes.
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Haaliyaa-mulla, Saaliyaa-gama

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2016, 10:11 GMT]
The cinnamon peeler's corner or the weaver's corner

The village of cinnamon peelers or weavers
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‘Home-made’ solution not possible, NPC councillor calls for protest on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2016, 23:05 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam on Monday urged the public to attend a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday expressing their opposition to the deceptive politics being staged by the Colombo regime, particularly its leaders Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who are scheduled to visit Jaffna in just another PR stunt on Friday, when Tamils across the globe mark the secular festival of Thaip-Pongkal. Mr Shivajingam said there has been no progress at all on five important fronts: release of 200 political prisoners, establishing the whereabouts of 20,000 missing persons, de-militarisation and releasing lands seized by the occupying military in the North and East, internationally mediated negotiations to resolve the national question and investigations on crimes against international law including the genocide.
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Thumba-liyadda, Æl-liyadda, Karal-liyadda

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 January 2016, 23:27 GMT]
The grid for the cultivation of a kind of gourd

The grid for the cultivation of Æl-vee paddy

The cereal cultivation grid
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De-militarize Mu’l’likku’lam in 2016: Uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 January 2016, 00:31 GMT]
Rt Rev Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and the civil organisations in Mannaar district should demand the Sri Lankan State to fully de-militarize Mu’l’lik-ku’lam GS division of Musali division in the district in 2016 and enable more than 1,200 Eezham Tamils, who were uprooted from their village in September 2007 to resettle in their village, said the representatives of the uprooted Tamils, who have not received any response for their repeated appeals in 2015. The villagers talking to TamilNet in December 2015 urged the concerned stakeholders to come forward in demanding full de-militarization of Mu'l'likku'lam in 2016. The villagers managed to mark the dawn of 2016 at their own church in Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on January 01.
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Family of imprisoned Muslim joins Tamils demanding release of political prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2015, 16:37 GMT]
The wife and a daughter of a 41-year-old Tamil Muslim political prisoner, who is languishing in the Sri Lankan prison in the South since January 2009 after being alleged of assisting the LTTE, joined the Tamil mothers on Tuesday morning at Mannaar where they staged a protest demanding the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena to release their kith and kin, who are on a fast-unto-death campaign. Along with Ms Segu Mohadeen Noorjahan, Tamil mothers walked from St. Sebastian Church in the city of Mannaar towards the District Secretariat appealing for the release of their family members. “If this is the plight of the declared-prisoners in jail, what is going to be the response on the missing Prisoners of War and others believed to be in secret prisons,” the mothers asked the journalists covering the protest.
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Colombo intensifies demographic genocide in Moothoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 November 2015, 23:51 GMT]
After settling local scores with a corporate outfit associated with the previous regime of Rajapaksa by releasing some of the lands seized from Eezham Tamils in Trincomalee back to the uprooted people from Champoor and making use of the act involved in a larger re-alignment of the geopolitical nexus with external powers that were trading on influencing the OISL recommendations and finally a resolution by ‘consensus’ at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in October, the current regime of genocidal Sri Lanka has silently intensified the plans to permanently Sinhalicise 1,500 acres of lands that were already seized from Eezham Tamils at Kangkuveali, located southeast of Champoor in Moothoor division of the Trincomalee district.
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Diaspora should mount independent legal campaign: Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2015, 23:18 GMT]
Pointing out that the United Nation's actions on Sri Lanka are unlikely to lead to establishing criminality for the Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre on the State, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law and who teaches at the College of Law, University of Illinois, advocates that the Tamil diaspora should organize a comprehensive legal campaign to bring charges in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and in parallel, bring criminal and/or civil charges against Sri Lanka's genocidaires in the courts of the democracies of the West using domestic legal mechanisms underpinned by universal jurisdiction. Boyle asserted that genocide, crimes against humanity and war-crimes are international crimes that have no statute of limitations, and Rajapaksas can be subjected to legal actions for the rest of their lives like the Jewish people's hunt for the Nazis.
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SL Navy continues to occupy church lands in Peasaalai, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 November 2015, 22:16 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Mannaar has transformed illegally seized lands belonging to one of the largest churches in the island, into military-owned property during the regime of Maithiripala Sirisena. The SL Navy which occupied the lands in 2006 after carrying out a genocidal attack on the church killing a woman and injuring more than 44 by lobbing grenades on people who had sought asylum at the church, was telling the Parish Priest Fr. Vincent Patrick at that time the SLN was going to be stationed for a while as a temporary measure and that the lands would be handed back to the church. The lands seized for the camp were 3,000 square meters in 2006. But, later the SLN base was expanded to 8,000 square meters and now under Maithiripala Sirisene's regime, the occupation has been further expanded to 14,000 square meters.
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ITAK leaders stand exposed as powers deceive Tamils with hypocritical investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2015, 21:48 GMT]
Refusing to look at the affairs of the nation of Eezham Tamils through their homeland in the North-East and being bent on approaching the Eezham Tamils through Colombo-centric geopolitical designs, the West and the UN mechanisms have nakedly exposed themselves even before the ink went dry on the OISL report and the ‘US-Sri Lanka’ co-sponsored resolution in the UN Human Rights Council. In the meantime, the leaders of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) stand exposed for their lack of statesmanship and for the failure of not clarifying TNA's position regarding the deceptive path of ‘domestic’ investigations. The ITAK leaders have also failed the nation of Eezham Tamils by not demanding the release the Tamil political prisoners, who have been rotting in the jails of genocidal Sri Lanka for years.
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Health of hunger-striking Tamil political prisoners worsens

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2015, 23:42 GMT]
At least 20 of around 300 Eezham Tamil political prisoners on hunger strike at 11 prisons in the island have been admitted to hospital by Friday night, according to news sources in Colombo and Jaffna. The prison authorities of genocidal Sri Lanka have refused access to the relatives and rights activists to witness the deteriorating situation of the hunger strikers in the prisons. While ITAK Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran failed to secure tangible results in his meeting with SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, the students and teachers of Jaffna University, together with the relatives of the imprisoned Tamils, have stepped up their mobilisation demanding immediate release of the political prisoners. The Commission For Justice and Peace of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, in a statement issued on Friday, has demanded immediate release of the Tamil political prisoners.
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Tamil civil groups, political parties, come a step forward if the line is their own

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 September 2015, 19:13 GMT]
Thoroughly deceived by the Washington-Colombo genocide partners even in minimum expectations of justice, Eezham Tamil civil groups and a significant section of political parties on Tuesday came hard on the resolution tabled at Geneva. Urging reconsideration of the current draft, the statement coming from 40 civil groups and 4 political parties pointed out that the mechanism largely managed and controlled by the Sri Lankan State loses credibility with the victims, and ‘deeply regretted’ the removal of references to demilitarisation of North-East. With impending further deceptions, whether the response would lead to substantial alternative initiatives and appropriate non-cooperation movement is the question, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics.
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Tamils should assess main adversary: Jude Lal

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2015, 05:47 GMT]
Colombo's LLRC was used by Washington as the basis for sponsoring the three UN resolutions on Sri Lanka in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Through sponsoring resolutions in the UNHRC, the USA has thrown away UN’s own Expert Panel Report as well as its Internal Review Panel Report, which pointed towards war crimes and crimes against humanity, says Professor Jude Lal in his second part of the interview to TamilNet. “In fact, it is the Expert Panel Report that recommended an international investigation. What has happened to these reports and their recommendations,” he asks adding that the same path will be adopted through the upcoming OISL report and the proposed domestic war crime investigation. Tamil people will have to carefully assess, which of the powers that they want to accuse as the primary international protagonists of the genocide, the exiled Sinhala academic says.
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Gal-gediyaawa, Gedi-gas-walaana

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 September 2015, 08:23 GMT]
The place of the stone rampart/ enclosure; or the place for cut-stones ready for the mason

The forest of fruit trees
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Lawyers in Mannaar seek external assistance on mass grave investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 August 2015, 23:39 GMT]
Colombo-based Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department officer H. Ranasinghe was confronted last Wednesday by leading lawyers from Mannaar, when the case on continued exhumation of the alleged killing fields of Mannaar was taken at Mannaar Magistrate Court. Colombo's CID officers were trying to annul further investigations by sabotaging DNA based forensic investigations to judge the exact time when the victims were slain and by projecting a false claim that the skeletons belonged to a graveyard. However, Judge Aseervatham Gracian Alex Raja, after hearing the arguments from both the Colombo's Police and the lawyers representing the missing persons in Mannaar and the lawyers association in Mannaar, ordered for further excavation of another site, which is believed to be a well, where the SL military is believed to have dumped slain Tamils, 14 years ago.
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Urum-piraay, Veam-piraay, Kaddaip-piraay, Vealam-piraay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 August 2015, 21:03 GMT]
A place name connected to a grove or a Piraay tree

The grove of Veampu trees

The grove enclosure or the short Piraay tree

The grove of Veal trees
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Turkey resumes war against Kurds with US approval

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2015, 12:57 GMT]
The Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has authorized the state armed forces to carry out air strikes against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) positions in Southern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), North Iraq (Southern Kurdistan) and Northern Syria (West Kurdistan). On 23 July and 26 July, Turkish war planes pounded PKK bases in North Iraq and South-Eastern Turkey. Whereas Turkey claims to have launched attacks on the IS (Islamic State) in Syria, reports indicate that it is the PKK and YPG/YPJ who are the prime targets of the Turkish aggression. On 21st July a NATO Security Council meeting was called for by Turkey, and the Washington centred defence alliance granted its approval to its allies in Ankara, promising political support for Turkish military efforts. Consequently, on 29th July, the Turkish government annulled the ceasefire with the PKK.
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Book on Eezham Tamil educationalist reproduced in Canada

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2015, 16:49 GMT]
The Toronto-based Saiva Siddhanta Manram in Canada has reproduced a valuable old publication on a unique Eezham Tamil educationalist, Aru'naasala Upaaththiyaayar, born 150 years ago at Kaarai-theevu (Kaarainakar), an island off Jaffna Peninsula. The reprint, which will be released on Saturday at Scarborough Civic Centre, is of much historical importance to today’s younger generation of Eezham Tamils as well as to academics studying the affairs of the island of Ilangkai/ Lanka, to understand the discourse of the struggle for self-respect waged by the nation of Eezham Tamils in the times of British colonialism. The teacher devoted his entire life in challenging and edifying the then British and American ‘educational imperialism,’ which demanded that one has to become a Christian in order to become a teacher in any of the government recognised schools.
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New act of structural genocide seeks to uproot 3,500 Tamils from Mannaar islet

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
The civil officers working under the SL Government Agent in Mannaar have been exerting pressure on 500 Eezham Tamil families living in three GS divisions within Mannaar DS division to vacate from their coastal villages in the islet and settle in alternative lands 15 km away in the mainland. The war-affected poor families, comprising 3,500 to 4,000 people, are dependent on fishing as their livelihood. They were given land deeds in the three GS divisions in 2008 and 2009. Utilized with land deeds, the families have constructed permanent houses and huts in their villages. The move would severely affect their access to the coast and their livelihood. But, the officials receiving instructions from Colombo's administrative system, are bent upon uprooting the fishing families without any promising alternative arrangements, concerned civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Wednesday.
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