Colombo deprives livelihood of 2500 Tamil, Muslim families in Kuchchave'li

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 August 2011, 01:44 GMT]
Nearly two thousand five hundred Tamil and Muslim families in Periya-karaichchi village in the Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat division in Trincomalee district have been deprived of the their permanent livelihood following the construction of a saltern by a southern based firm with the permission of the Colombo government. The project is named Raigam Saltern employing Sinhalese from South. “Nearly 2000 families of Tamils and Muslims who were doing prawn farming on this Periya-karaichchi land and another five hundred families who benefited from the subsidiary employment related to prawn farming have been pushed out and some outsiders from other districts have come started a saltern. This is extremely unfair,” said R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian in a letter to the Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Attack on Uthayan editor portrays renewed attacks on Tamils: JDS

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 August 2011, 06:18 GMT]
Holding the political and military leadership of the Rajapaksa regime responsible for the recent pre-planned attack on the news editor of the Janffa-based Uthayan newspaper, the Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a media organisation of exiled group of Journalists from the island, has said that the attack has portrayed “the vicious nature of the renewed and accelerated violent attacks on democratic rights of Sri Lanka's Tamil people”.
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Colombo unable to bury facts of ACF massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 July 2011, 21:15 GMT]
Fifth anniversary of the massacre of seventeen staffers of the French NGO, Action Contre la Faim (ACF), by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers falls on the 4th of August. Later investigations established that the workers, trapped inside their Moothoor branch office residence of ACF located close to Moothoor Cultural Centre, were shot and killed at point blank range, by SLA soldiers. Colombo has continued to sabotage investigations, failed to provide protection for witnesses, and has failed to make public findings of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report on the ACF killings. Meanwhile, a former wife of slain ACF worker, Premas Anandarajah, has filed a civil suit in the District Court of District of Columbia, U.S., against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse as responsible for the crime, claiming damages of $30m (all three plaintiffs).
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Stop treating Tamils as minority: Premachandran MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 July 2011, 20:37 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Sunday touched on an important conceptual issue related to the national question in the island that affects equality between Tamils and Sinhalese, when he criticized those who treat Tamils as a ‘minority’. “We will not allow the government or anyone else to treat the Tamils as a minority anymore. If the Sri Lankan government thinks the Sinhalese are the majority and the Tamils are the minority, then they are mistaken,” Mr. Premachandran told The Sunday Leader.
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Court inquires into Writ Petition regarding disappeared Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal Wednesday directed the Sri Lanka Treasury Secretary and the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Ministry to appear in court on September 7 on a writ application filed by the father of a disappeared Tamil youth, as the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to pay compensation of 3 million rupees recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). The youth, Thevaraja Sarma, was reported missing in Trincomalee on 23 June 1990 after his arrest by the Sri Lanka Army.
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Colombo targeting Tamil civil service is more than revenge

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 18:02 GMT]
Orders have been issued by Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and by his sibling Basil Rajapaksa to colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri for immediate and full-swing replacement of Tamil civil service in the north. The act may superficially look as a revenge for the defeat in the civic elections, but it is actually aimed to make any political solution that will be ‘accounted’ to the outside world completely meaningless to Eezham Tamils, and is a part of a long-contemplated agenda of structural genocide, political observers said. Meanwhile, knowing what is happening and what will happen in demography, political representation, civil administration, militarisation and in all other respects, why should the TNA commit to seek solutions under a ‘united Sri Lanka’ just because the powers that abetted the genocide want it, ask non TNA Tamil nationalists.
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News Editor attacked in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 15:08 GMT]
Two unidentified men who came in a motorbike attacked the Chief News Editor of Uthayan Daily in Jaffna, Gnanasundaram Kuganathan, Friday around 7:45 p.m., causing serious injuries to the 59-year-old news editor. Till the end of war, Mr. Kuganathan was living inside the paper office for 3 years as the news paper had come under attacks by occupying SL Army-backed operatives in May 2006 and in March 2009. The staff at the paper office have been threatened by the EPDP paramilitary on several occasions. The timing of the attack signals that it was a ‘punishment’ by the SL military intelligence not favouring the ruling UPFA alliance during the campaign for civic elections.
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‘Dropping call for justice and independence is worst crime’

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 21:03 GMT]
Voicing on behalf of the present establishment in New Delhi, sections in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) unnecessarily declaring against independence of Eezham Tamils and discouraging war crimes investigations are worst of the crimes committed not merely against Eezham Tamils but against human civilization, said Tamil national as well as Left political circles in the island and in the diaspora to TamilNet on Monday. The comments have come responding to TNA views expressed after its victory and during its campaign in the civic elections. TNA leader Sampanthan interpreted the victory as Tamil wish for solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’ and a confidential document circulated among ‘friends of the TNA’ during the civic elections said that the war crimes investigations were actually directed against India than against Colombo, and hence Tamils should not pin hopes on them.
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Colombo is not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence: New Zealand MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 17:51 GMT]
“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
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TNA councilors swearing in event to be held in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 16:24 GMT]
Chairmen and members elected to the local authorities on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the North and East will be sworn in at a special event held to be held in Ki'linochchi town in the first week of August, said Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the TNA and the Trincomalee district parliamentarian.
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Tamils reject collaboration-reconciliation, favour identity-based peace

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 08:03 GMT]
The results of civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils decisively show that despite maximum intimidation and ‘development’ lures, people reject the paradigm of ‘collaboration-reconciliation’ but determinedly favour a polity of peace, based on the identity of their nation, political observers in the island said on Sunday. The message should be useful in seeking innovative and creative ways to resolve the national question in the island in order to achieve peace and stability in the region, they further said.
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TNA wins Trincomalee Town and Gravets PS

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 05:14 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has captured the administration of the Trincomalee Town and Gravets Piratheasa Chapai in the election held Saturday. The TNA polled 8,986 votes and won five seats in the nine-member council. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) polled 6,353 votes and obtained 3 seats and he United National Party (UNP) polled 2,869 votes and obtained one seat. However, the TNA failed to secure power in the Kuchchave'li PS.
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EPDP assaults youth leader of TNA in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:14 GMT]
Ki'linohchi EPDP chief organizer V. Thavanathan and Sri Lanka Army intelligence personnel at Viveakaananthaa Nakar in Ki'linochchi severely assulted the youth wing leader of the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) of Ki'linochchi district Suntharalingam Lokeswaran while he was returning from a polling booth Saturday aroiund 4:30 p.m. Mr. Lokeswaran was admitted to the Ki'linochchil hospital and was later transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with serious injuries, reports from Ki'linohchi said.
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TNA wins Thirukkoayil PS in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has secured 72.87% of the votes polled in Thirukkoayil Piratheasa Chapai (PS) in Ampaa'rai district. The ruling UPFA and the UNP received one seat each. The victory of the TNA in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai is an expression of Eezham Tamil unity across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, political observers in Colombo said.
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TNA wins civic elections in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 17:58 GMT]
Despite widespread SLA harassments in Ki'linochchi administrative district and violations by UPFA-EPDP of election practices in Jaffna, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has won the civic elections in North by more than two third majority in all of the urban councils and most of the Piratheasa-Chapai (PS). Of 16 Piratheasa Chapais, the TNA has won 14. The UPFA captured two islands off Jaffna, Neduntheevu (Delft) and Oorkaavat-thu'rai (Kayts). These islands were completely sealed off for campaign by the occupying SL Navy. The SL Governor for the Eastern Province who was formerly a Navy commander in the islands was brought to Delft for Rajapaksa's election campaign. In Ki'linochchi, where Rajapaksa regime let loose its military even on the election day, the TNA has managed to secure at least 50% of the polled votes. In Mullaiththeevu, the TNA secured 7 seats polling 72% of the votes.
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Widespread SLA attacks reported on voters, candidates in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 13:02 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army let loose its soldiers in civil cloths on house-to-house attack in many of the villages in Ki'linochchi district in the early hours of Saturday, causing panic and fear among the voters in Vanni and forcing the voters to stay inside their houses. The armed men in civil, speaking broken Tamil, came in vehicles as early as 3:00 a.m. and attacked the civilians instructing them to stay indoors on the election day. Knowing that it would be difficult to entirely change the mindset of the people of Jaffna, the SLA was ordered to stay inside the barracks in Jaffna. But, the SLA was deployed in Ki'linochchi, threatening both the candidates and voters, with a clear intent to capture the councils by intimidation.
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91 killed in Norway, Tamil politician escapes massacre

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 20:38 GMT]
At least four Eezham Tamil youths, including a politician of the ruling Labour Party of Norway, Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, were amongst those who escaped the indiscriminate shooting by a lone gunman at the summer camp of the youth wing of the party (AUF) on Friday. The attack killed at least 84 people. A short-while before the gunman struck at the camp held at Utøya island, a bomb blast ripped through the political enclave of central Oslo, killing at least seven people and injuring many more in the locality where government offices and ministries including the Prime Minister's Office are located. Oslo police are questioning a 32-year-old ethnic Norwegian man, who is reportedly a right-wing extremist, in connection with both the attacks, described by Norwegian media as the worst episode of violence in the country since World War II.
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US official foresees elections in the north as way for ‘indigenous leadership’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 12:17 GMT]
While the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton visiting Chennai was looking at “some innovative and creative ideas” to break the impasse over the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday that the US government was looking towards Sri Lanka conducting provincial council elections in the north to facilitate the emergence of indigenous leadership for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, campaigning for Rajapaksa in the intimidated civic elections in the north that is now taking place ‘guided’ by the Rajapaksa regime and its occupying Army, SL minister Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said in Jaffna that Tamils should vote for Rajapaksa to “ensure that there is no foreign interferences.”
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SL Minister Nanayakara accepts mass killings of civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 22:57 GMT]
A top minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has publicly accepted the mass-scale killing of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. SL Minister and the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said that his party accepted the important fact that innocent civilians have been killed during the Vanni war. Amid growing international pressure for an international probe into the credible allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nanayakara, who was on a propaganda drive seeking the public in Jaffna to support the Rajapaksa alliance in the upcoming civic elections in North, said that Tamils could only exert meaningful pressure on the SL government by supporting his alliance.
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Clinton’s analogue contradicts political reality

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 11:26 GMT]
Visiting Chennai and appreciating the Tamil Nadu state in India, the US Secretary of State Ms. Hilary Clinton on Wednesday said, "Every Sri Lankan deserves the same hope and opportunity." If Ms. Clinton implies an Indian-modeled federal solution to the chronic national crisis in the island then she is making a historic mistake in her analogy, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Federalism in India had an altogether different origin beginning from the days of the English East India Company compared to the vicious experiment of the British ‘Crown Colony’ in the island. Ms. Clinton should now delete the word ‘Sri Lanka’ if she means talking about Eezham Tamils or about ‘reconciliation’ in the island, he further writes.
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