Chinese Op-Ed condemns US ‘security’ projection of ‘China threat’ in South Asia

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 December 2019, 21:28 GMT]
“China does not object to the development of cooperative relations between the US and other countries. However, some US steps in the guise of a response to the so-called China threat theory aim at affecting China's overseas security interests and interfering in the BRI. China is firmly opposed to such moves,”  Global Times, the English version of the paper operated by the Communist Party of China, said in an Op-Ed piece on Tuesday. “Sri Lanka has an important strategic position in the Indian Ocean, and its significance is increasingly valued by major countries. It will be the new [Gotabaya] government's strategic choice to strike a diplomatic balance and avoid being involved in the conflicts between great powers,” the piece further said.
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Gotabaya seems to have bought 5 years from India to wage ‘development’ genocide in North-East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 December 2019, 23:46 GMT]
Genocidaire Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the newly elected SL president has refused to implement the pending devolution powers such as police and land powers to the provincial councils in the North and East. “[Y]ou can’t do anything against the wishes and feeling of the majority community,” he told The Hindu during his stay in India. “Look, the 13th Amendment is part of the constitution and is functional, except for some areas like control of police powers, which we can’t implement. I am willing to discuss alternatives to that,” he told the paper. Only a day before the interview appeared, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had expressed confidence at the presence of Mr Rajapaksa that the latter would be implementing the 13th Amendment to the SL Constitution.
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New Delhi appeases Colombo as Eelam Tamil leaders fail to demand international mediation

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 November 2019, 18:45 GMT]
While Eelam Tamil political parties, particularly the TNA, are yet to place their demands to the geopolitical actors of an internationally mediated settlement to the national question in the island, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has offered a $450 million line of credit to Colombo, which includes $400 million for developing infrastructure and $50 million for anti-terrorism, media reports from India said on Friday. The move, announced during the new SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s maiden visit to India, is seen as a bid to outdo or reduce the influence of China in the strategically located island. In the meantime, New Delhi-based Hindustan Times reported that Gotabaya’s government wants to undo the previous regime’s move to lease the southern port of Hambantota to China. Rajapaksas were citing “national interest” as the reason, the paper said.
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People mobilise in resolute to mark Tamil Eelam Heroes Day amidst Rajapaksas return

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2019, 23:32 GMT]
The people of occupied Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island, who face an uncertain future due to the return of Rajapaksa siblings as the rulers from the South, have mobilised to mark Tamil Eelam Heroes Day with unwavering resolute also this year. There were reports of occupying SL military and the police at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal in Mullaith-theevu in North and at Champoor in Trincomalee in the East, issuing threats to the volunteers. However, various grassroots organisations along with Tamil national political leaders and parties have engaged in Sramadanam work clearing and decorating the grounds and vicinities of the Heroes cemeteries, which the occupying Sinhala military had razed to the grounds during the previous regime of Rajapaksas.
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Demand Tokyo Co-chairs, India to bring international mediation between Tamils and GoSL

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 November 2019, 19:59 GMT]
Unlike during the genocidal onslaught in 2009, the US and India are now more tightly intertwined in their foreign policy approach on the maritime affairs of the states in the Indian Ocean. There is a joint Indo-Pacific outlook, especially after the 2013 launch of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). There would be no different approaches or nuances between the two powers, as it was the case in the previous decade. The US and India, along with two other key partners in the region, Japan and Australia, would be acting en bloc. The Rajapaksa establishment is very well aware of this reality. It is time that Tamils muster their historic courage and articulate a joint demand for international mediation. It is also the time that the foreign actors who were pulling the wrong strings during the 2009 genocide and its aftermath now take account of their earlier practices.
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Former IFS diplomat advises New Delhi to embrace Rajapaksas trading off rights with interests

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2019, 23:41 GMT]
“There is no way Rajapaksa will accept federalism in Sri Lanka. The Tamil community will have to come to terms with the grim implications of it and learn to live with what is on offer,” commented M K Bhadrakumar, a former Indian Foreign Service diplomat responding to a question from the Turkish Anadolu news agency on Thursday. Eezham Tamils were “dispossessed by Colombo and disowned by New Delhi,” he said advising New Delhi to trade-off Tamil rights-oriented concerns with the strategic interests of India. “The bottom line is that Gotabaya will be no less a strongman than Prime Minister Modi. It will be exceedingly foolish to adopt a prescriptive attitude toward Colombo. Any such attempt will meet with rebuff. Success lies in carrying the new president along,” the former envoy Bhadrakumar said.
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US ambassador-turned-consultant hints at capitalising on ‘shared interests’ with Gotabaya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2019, 23:04 GMT]
“The key question for the United States is now whether the two countries [Sri Lanka and the US] can reset their dialogue on the Indo-Pacific and regional peace and capitalize on the interests they share,” says Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, a retired career member of the U.S. Foreign Service and a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka (1992-1995). In an interview conducted for the blog of the Council on Foreign Relations, by Alyssa Ayres, one of her colleague at the Washington DC based consulting firm, McLarty Associates, Shaffer mentions one of the ‘interests’ shared by the US as “preventing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from resuming their campaign”.
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Indian FM visits Gotabaya to ensure Colombo’s conformity to US-India geopolitics in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 November 2019, 22:50 GMT]
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was quick to visit Colombo and meet the newly elected SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday evening. Jaishankar has been a key figure influencing the Indo-US geopolitical outlook in the recent times, and his unscheduled direct presence in Colombo inviting Mr Gotabaya to India at his earliest was nothing else than an indication that the USA is pulling strings. Informed diplomatic sources in Colombo said Gotabaya Rajapaksa was also well aware that India and the USA were tightly synchronised than ever before on defence and maritime affairs of the Indian Ocean.
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Reject engagement with genocidaire Gotabaya

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2019, 23:10 GMT]
Newly sworn-in SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has denounced the existence of Eezham Tamils as a nation in the North and the East of the island. The wartime genocidaire Defense Secretary wants Tamils to become ‘Sri Lankans’ capitulating to the Sinhala Mahawansa doctrine, which possesses the requisite intent for Tamil genocide. The Tamils and their political leaders must unambiguously state now that there would be no engagement with genocidaire SL President and the SL State unless he openly and publicly declares Eezham Tamils as a nation entitled to the right of self-determination. The foreign state actors upholding the engagement paradigm are ultimately responsible for the continued crimes against Eezham Tamils in the island.
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Tamil message goes contrary to realpolitik of world powers: Premachandran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 November 2019, 13:29 GMT]
Tamil people have cast their votes indicating their sharp opposition to génocidaire Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is the SL president-elect. The voting pattern of Tamils must be interpreted as a message to the South as well as to the international community, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran in a comment to TamilNet on Sunday. However, the USA and India are preoccupied with the thought of how best they could engage with the new SL President, because they consider China as having established deeper inroads into the island through trade, infrastructure-development and the 99-year lease of Hambantota harbour in the South, he said. Suresh Premachandran was implying that the powers that embrace the new president must be regarded as accountable for continued injustices against the Eezham Tamils in the island.
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High voter turn-out in North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The people in the North-East have voted in large numbers in the SL presidential elections held on Saturday. The Tamil voters have ignored the calls for boycott as they didn’t want to see the return of the war-time SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the next president and opted to back Sajith Premadasa, the lesser evil of the two main candidates. The Chairman of the SL Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya, has described the polls as the most peaceful presidential election in the history of the island. However, war-displaced Tamil-speaking Muslims transported from Puththa’lam to cast their votes in Mannaar were attacked by the supporters of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
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Shivaji manifesto demands IC make Colombo to provide autonomy to Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 November 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The Tamil people call upon the International Community (IC) to make the SL State grant autonomy to them in the merged North-East. If the SL State fails to offer Tamils their legitimate rights within the first one year of the new term of the incoming SL President, the IC and the UN should conduct a UN-monitored referendum to determine the political preference of the Tamil people. Furthermore, the IC and the UN should launch international investigations on the crimes committed in the island against the Tamil people, including the genocide, says M.K. Shivajilingam, the Tamil candidate contesting the presidential elections. The Tamil-speaking Muslim people and the Up-country Tamils are entitled to self-determination. They shall be given full autonomy to look after their affairs in their regions, the manifesto released in Trincomalee states.
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Concentrate on nation-building beyond choiceless electoral politics of South: TCSF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2019, 22:09 GMT]
The post-war electoral politics in the South of the island has narrowed down the options available to the Tamils in the presidential elections to the survivalist choice between the lesser of two evils, as witnessed in 2010, 2015 and also this time, says Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) in a statement issued on Tuesday. It is outright stupidity to believe that one should choose the long-term danger than the immediate one or vice versa. The Tamil people should have this in mind while voting, the TCSF statement said.
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Canada should move ICJ on Tamil genocide, US position disappointing: Ananthy

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2019, 16:33 GMT]
Canada is home to the largest number of Eezham Tamils in the diaspora. Recently, a resolution has been passed in the Canadian parliament calling for international investigations on the allegation of Tamil genocide. Therefore, Canada could consider suing the SL State in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, also known as the Genocide Convention. Canada could reasonably justify the move as a significant group of its population, being Canadian Eezham Tamils directly and indirectly affected by the genocide that has taken place in the island, said former Northern Provincial Council Minister Ananthy Sasitharan. She had accompanied Tamil presidential candidate M.K. Shivajilingam in his meeting with the US Embassy officials in Jaffna after they jointly filed his nomination, Ms Ananthy said.
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SL military warns Tamils against protesting land-grab along Pooneryn sandbar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2019, 18:02 GMT]
The commander of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in Ki'linochchi, Major General GV Ravipriya, has threatened the people of Kauthaari-munai and the nearby villages along Ma'n'nith-thalai sandbar of Poonakari (Pooneryn) not to object SL Governor's plan of alienating lands to a planned hotel by an Australia-based Tamil trader collaborating with the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. The SL military is fully backing the land grab, which is promoted by the SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan.
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Sand mining mafia intimidates Divisional Secretary in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2019, 15:05 GMT]
Three Sinhala sand mining traders, scooping sands in Kathirave'li in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division, have threatened the Divisional Secretary M. Karan saying that they were capable of transferring him away from his division. One of the Sinhala sand mining traders from Kanthaa'laay in Trincomalee is demanding to increase the extent of the sand permit to cover the expenses to sponsor one of the leading presidential candidates, the officials further said. The latest threat has come as the DS was trying to limit the extensive scooping. The traders operate with the backing of the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, which comes under the unitary State system in Colombo.
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Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2019, 21:22 GMT]
The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday.
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“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2019, 23:02 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile.
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Sajith Premadasa intensified heritage genocide against Tamils through departments in his ministry

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The successive governments of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka have gazetted 167 ancient heritage monuments, which they want to convert as ‘Sinhala only’ Theravada Buddhist monuments in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East after 2010. Rajapaksa government gazetted 123 sites in two notifications in May and August 2013. The regime led by Maithiripala and Wickramasinghe has gazetted forty-four monuments in May 2015 and March 2016. The heritage genocide accelerated under Sajith Premadasa as minister of cultural, housing and construction affairs. A range of departments from the SL Department of Archaeology to Central Cultural Fund, which sophisticatedly undermines Tamil heritage involving Tamil and foreign academics function under him, Tamil civil officials and activists in Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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US trick of coercion: Carrot to entice Gotabhaya, stick to strike Shavendra

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2019, 23:51 GMT]
US Acting Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asia of the US State Department, Alice G. Wells, was turning a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East during her testimony on human rights in South Asia to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The US was “encouraged by the SL government’s progress on the operationalization of an Office of Missing Persons and the establishment of an Office of Reparations,” she said. Alice G Wells was accompanied by Robert Destro, the assistant secretary at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who was also citing “Sri Lanka” as the country in the South Asian region where the US have had some “notable successes”. The only strong complaint they had was the recent promotion of pro-Chinese SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva.
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