Tamil villagers fear Sinhalicisation of South Bar in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 September 2014, 19:25 GMT]
The officials of the occupying Sri Lanka have been harassing 8 uprooted Tamil families to vacate from their huts at the village of Shanthi-puram, situated in South Bar GS division of Mannaar DS division. The officials, under the instruction of Sinhala Government Agent of Mannaar District, have claimed that the land has been allocated for the construction of Buddhist vihara.
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'LTTE ban contributes to further oppression of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2014, 19:29 GMT]
The international proscription of the LTTE only contributes to criminalizing the political struggle of the Tamils and facilitates increased oppression in their homeland, argues Chris Slee in an article published on the Green Left Weekly on Saturday. "These bans were imposed because the governments of these countries were opposed to the Tamil national liberation struggle. Most Tamils living in exile were sympathetic to the LTTE, seeing them as freedom fighters, not terrorists. The banning of the LTTE in various countries was aimed at intimidating Tamils from supporting the struggle for self-determination in their homeland," he writes. A case challenging the ban on the LTTE in EU is pending in European courts.
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SL TID in Jaffna terrorises Tamil Catholic priests who served in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 September 2014, 10:02 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’, which receives direct instructions from SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, in recent days has been monitoring, intimidating and ‘interrogating’ Eezham Tamil Catholic priests, who have been with their people in Vanni during and before the genocidal onslaught on Vanni. One of the six priests, who were detained in military-controlled barbed-wire camps in Menik Farm in 2009, Fr. A. Anton Stephen, was questioned by the TID officers at the Bishop’s House as the TID of the occupying Colombo was speculating that he is one of the key witnesses submitting an eyewitness account to the three member OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) panel tasked to produce a report on the investigation process in Sri Lanka after collecting direct reports from individuals, organisations and governments.
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Thousands of Tamil Nadu fishermen protest India's apathy to their plight

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 September 2014, 04:35 GMT]
Thousands of Tamil Nadu fishermen in Rameshwaram protested against India's continued apathy to their plight and condemned BJP member Subramaniam Swamy for his remarks supporting the Sri Lanka Navy's seizure of the boats of Tamil fishermen. In the demonstration organized outside Fisheries Department, the protesters burnt Swamy's effigy and demanded an apology from him. Protests were held in other parts of Tamil Nadu as well on Thursday.
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Jayalalithaa condemns Swamy’s stance on Tamil Nadu fishermen issue

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 September 2014, 04:26 GMT]
In a letter sent to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said that the views of BJP member Subramanian Swamy on the fishermen issue “has given rise to resentment and angst not only amongst the fishermen community but also amongst the entire population of Tamil Nadu.”Ms. Jayalalithaa was referring to an interview of Swamy where he had said that he had given the idea to the Sri Lankan government to seize the boats of Tamil Nadu fishermen who crossed the IMBL. This letter comes in the wake of the arrest of 9 fishermen, the sinking of one boat and the seizure of another by the SL Navy on Monday. Separately, TESO staged a protest on Wednesday where the DMK chief Karunanidhi said that Tamils in the island lived like slaves, PTI reported.
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Time for Norway to speak out against SL stand on OHCHR investigation: Paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 September 2014, 11:55 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s arrogance against the international community cannot be passed over in silence, opined VG (Verdens Gang), the popular Norwegian daily with largest circulation, in a editorial column on Tuesday, reminding the Norwegian State and politicians who have involved in resolving the conflict in the past of their duty. “If Norway or Norwegian interests continue to have a say on the regime in Sri Lanka, it is now time to speak out,” the newspaper said putting Sri Lanka in the same league as that of North Korea and Syria.
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Colombo steps up Sinhalicistion of public sector in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 September 2014, 21:37 GMT]
While hundreds of Tamil nurses who have completed their studies in the Northern Province are without jobs, 84 Sinhalese from South have been provided appointments filling the vacancies in the hospitals in war-affected hospitals in Mannaar, Ki’linochchi, Vavuniyaa and Mullaiththeevu districts in the Northern Province and at the Point Pedro, Chaavakachcheari and Thellippazhai base hospitals that come under the health ministry of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), news sources in Jaffna said. Colombo is Sinhalicising the public sector in the North and East along with transformation of the SL military cantonments into Sinhala Military Zones in Jaffna and Trincomalee.
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Political fundamentals cannot be surrendered to military requisites of imperialism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 August 2014, 15:33 GMT]
Five years of actual ground experience of Eezham Tamils since the Vanni War ending in genocide, is nothing but the thorough and accelerated militarisation of their land by the Sinhala military, carried out with active patronage coming from New Delhi, Washington and Beijing. Militarisation of this nature, that too by a historically proven genocidal State and by its military, is perhaps the most important reason, why the military-less nation of Eezham Tamils can’t expect any political solution working within a united island and that they should seek independence. Eezham Tamil individuals and forums in the diaspora hijacked by imperialisms of militaristic interest should think twice before telling that Tamils have given up the claim for their country.
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STF deployed to muzzle protests against environmental genocide in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 August 2014, 07:01 GMT]
Hundreds of commandos from the occupying Special Task Force (STF), a full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police that has committed genocidal massacres against Eezham Tamils in the East, have been deployed in Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna to muzzle renewed protests from Tamil villagers against the environment-destroying sand-scooping that is being carried out by Colombo-backed EPDP paramilitary's Maheswary Foundation and Gotabhaya-operated ‘Neythal’ outfit. On Thursday, a 25-year-old pregnant woman was killed on the spot when a speeding vehicle belonging to Maheswary Foundation hit her on Saraswathy Lane at Navakkiri in Valikaamam East.
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Sinhala-Military show in Nalloor alienates Tamils in religion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 August 2014, 06:40 GMT]
An astonishing number of Sinhala Army soldiers in traditional Tamil devotional dress were paraded on the last day of Nalloor temple festival in Jaffna, in a newly found ‘devotion’. The show aimed at subtly ridiculing Eezham Tamils of their religion, intimidating them psychologically and sending them a message that the occupying Sinhala military would even take away the religion from them, news sources in Jaffna said on Wednesday. In various numbers, the Sinhala military has been occupying Jaffna for several decades. But, the newly discovered ‘devotion’ for Murukan has become another weapon of structural genocide to go along with the thousands of houses that are now being built for the occupying Sinhala military personnel and their families, the sources further said.
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‘Hindutva’ needs edification from South

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 August 2014, 09:00 GMT]
The New Delhi Establishment has to be made to realise that it has touched a wrong nerve on the national question of Eezham Tamils, in the name of its ‘national interests’. If the BJP’s stand is going to be the ‘majority State’ formula in India and in upholding genocidal Sri Lanka, the boundaries of both created by the British whom the BJP condemns otherwise, it is time for the peoples of India to prove who is the real majority and who has the real people’s power– whether the power-centric mobilisation harping on ‘Hindutva’ or others. If the Tamils, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Lingayats (Veera Saivas), Dalits, Tribals and peoples of Northeast States join together, the picture would be totally different.
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UK Tamils remember Chegn-choalai massacre, condemn genocidal sex abuse

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 August 2014, 22:01 GMT]
Tamils from UK gathered at Downing Street, London on Saturday to remember the Chegn-choalai (Sencholai) massacre and to condemn the ongoing genocidal sex abuse of Eezham Tamil women in the Tamil homeland by the occupying Sinhala forces. The protesters, most of whom were youth activists, held placards and banners stating that "Sri Lanka's LLRC report is a blueprint for genocide of Eelam Tamil nation" and demanding the UN to investigate genocide and conduct referendum for Tamil Eelam.
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TNPF leader speaks on independent, concerted, Tamil foreign policy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 August 2014, 02:32 GMT]
Realising that our struggle has long been used by powers in their engagements with the island, we as a nation must work towards a concerted foreign policy, although we don’t have State, said Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in an interview to TamilNet on Saturday. In meeting the challenge of achieving this, we should incorporate Tamil Nadu in creating a power centre in a geopolitical sense and the dynamics will change very quickly. Compared to the Congress, the BJP is little bit more blunt and more strident in containing the nationalist nature of the struggle. This is the carrot to the Sri Lankan State and the TNA is a co-partner. The TNPF leader argued for a breakthrough by addressing the situation in three ways.
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13-A hoodwink continues under BJP New Delhi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 August 2014, 22:41 GMT]
The 27 year-old treacherous deceit of the New Delhi Establishment, committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils in the name of implementing the 13 Amendment of the unitary constitution of genocidal Sri Lanka, continues under Narendra Modi’s regime, with an ultimate aim of completing the genocide and structural genocide in the island, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, responding to the outcome of TNA-Modi meeting that took place in New Delhi on Saturaday. What is privately and separately said to Rajapaksa or TNA doesn’t count at all. What actually takes place on the ground tells what is in the agenda, the activists further said.
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Australian author Trevor Grant documents genocide of Eezham Tamils in new book

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 August 2014, 21:36 GMT]
While there is a general climate of silence in the Western establishments to recognize the oppression of the Eezham Tamil nation by the unitary Sri Lankan state as genocide, Australian writer and veteran journalist Trevor Grant is perspicuously unsparing in criticizing these establishments for their silence and complicity in the genocide. In his recently released book “Sri Lanka’s Secrets: How The Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away With Murder”, Mr. Grant besides documenting the various forms in which genocide is being perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state on the Tamils, also blasts the world establishments for their hand in this crime. Speaking to TamilNet, Mr. Grant said “This book condemns not only this latest potent strain of Sinhalese chauvinism in power in Colombo but also those in the halls of power in Canberra, Westminster, Washington and Delhi who give the green light to the genocide.”
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Peoples of India should see real danger coming from Swamy polity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 August 2014, 15:33 GMT]
The genre of Subramanian Swamies, ostracized by mainstream Tamils and politically orphaned in Tamil Nadu, try to settle score with their own people by making their local bias and paranoia to influence all-India policy, unjustly affecting the immediately neighbouring nation of Eezham Tamils. This is the real danger for entire India in the long run. Peoples of India, especially the peoples of North India should realise the impending danger coming from this genre of individuals, who threaten India’s national interests by causing disintegration in the South and by marring India’s image in the eyes of world humanity, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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SL military deploys clustered-houses for Sinhala colonisation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 August 2014, 23:34 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which has fenced off several thousands of acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils and have bulldozed the public and private buildings, has now started to put up clustered houses, says Deputy Chairman of Valikaamam North Piratheasa Chapai (PS) Sageevan Sanmugalingam, who is also the president Valikaamam North Uprooted People’s Welfare Society. The people who have visited their properties along the line of the fence, which has been put up from Vasaavi’laan West to Achchuveali, also confirmed the report. SL military deployed clustered houses are visible from the fence bordering the occupied Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Valikaamam North.
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Educationalist, veteran civil activist Varatharajan passes away

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 August 2014, 20:32 GMT]
Sinnathurai Varatharajan, a popular teacher of economics, who stood with his people throughout his life, has passed away in Jaffna on Monday due to cancer-related complications at the age of 63. With his extensive knowledge on the economic potentials in the Tamil homeland, both in the North and East, Mr Varatharajan paid a particular attention to the demographic genocide being committed against the Eezham Tamils in the North and East. Apart from serving his people as an educationalist, Mr Varatharajan stepped in as a grassroots civil activist whenever his people faced a challenging time under outside occupations. Eezham Tamils are a distinct nation with their own sovereignty in the unified North and East of the island was his political stand and he advocated a confederal model as the minimum acceptable solution.
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Majority Tamil Councillors from North, East request OHCHR to investigate genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 August 2014, 07:36 GMT]
“Tamil people strongly believe that they have been, and continue to be subjected to Genocide by Sri Lanka […] Systematic Sinhalese settlements and demographic changes with the intent to destroy the Tamil Nation are taking place. We request the OHCHR investigative team to look into the pattern of all the atrocities against the Tamil people, and to determine if Genocide has taken place,” states a joint letter by the majority of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and Tamil opposition councillors form the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC). 28 elected Eezham Tamil councillors from the 38-member Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and 5 of 11 opposition Tamil National Alliance members from the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) have sent the letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navaneetham Pillay on Monday.
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SL military seizes agricultural lands form Trincomalee Tamils in massive scale

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 August 2014, 21:43 GMT]
More than 25,000 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils have been seized through Sinhala militarisation in the three DS divisions of 11 DS areas of Trincomalee district, informed civil sources told TamilNet on Friday. The occupation has been going on through the last 6 years. Now, the Colombo government has blocked water supplies to Eezham Tamils at Maavilaa’ru, diverting the water to the occupied lands where Sinhalese are deployed by the military to do agriculture in Moothoor division.
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