Colombo schemes another demographic change to permanently wedge North and East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 December 2013, 23:12 GMT]
Colombo has schemed a sinister move to demographically annex Thennai-maravadi, a strategic ancient Tamil village in Kuchchave’li division on the border of Northern and Eastern Provinces with the Sinhala dominated Padavi Sripura division of Trincomalee district, civil sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet. By annexing Thennai-maravadi to Padavi-Sripura, all the administrative affairs of the village would be taken over by the Sinhala officials. This will make it easier for Colombo to carry out the Sinhalicisation of the entire area, Tamil officials in Kuchchave’li Divisional Secretariat said. The lands belonging to Tamils will be seized and handed over to Sinhalese settlers with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces.
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Facebook lifts spirits of Kosavars on State recognition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 December 2013, 17:55 GMT]
Facebook provided a much needed moral boost to Kosovars as it granted legitimacy last month in the digital world by approving a number of changes, including giving users registering from the diamond-shaped area on the Balkan Peninsula the option to identify themselves as citizens of Kosovo, rather than the decidedly less attractive option for many there, Serbia. Kosavars call the changes important while they seek recognition from the United Nations, which confers legitimacy, and the European Union, whose members are divided on the question, ever since Kosovo proclaimed a separate state five years ago. Jubilant Kosavars say the Facebook's recognition is important as a matter of identity and economics. Kosovar businesses have been included on Facebook’s powerful advertising engine, helping companies target Kosovo’s small but growing consumer market.
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UN failed in Sri Lanka, says Dieng

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 December 2013, 04:11 GMT]
United Nation's Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General (SG), Adama Dieng, said during a UN panel discussion Wednesday that not only the United Nations but all member states failed the people of Sri Lanka. He implied that while the SG did not make use of Article 99 which bestows power on the SG to refer to the Security Council situations that threatened international security, the SG set up panels to identify witnesses and has now set up the "Rights Up Front plan," which might have prevented the situation [killings] in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Amady Ba, the Deputy Prosecutor to the International Criminal Court, referring to the killings, said that the ICC has no jurisdiction over countries that are not party to the Rome Statute.
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Sri Lanka guilty of genocide: PPT verdict

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 11:08 GMT]
After an assessment of evidences presented by eyewitnesses and experts, judges of the Permanent People’s Tribunal reached unanimous consensus that the Sri Lankan state was guilty of crimes of genocide against the Eezham Tamils and that the genocide is continuing even after the end of the military operations against the LTTE. Concluding the four day session with a press conference at Bremen on Tuesday, the judges also noted that the Sri Lankan military did not have capacity to commit genocide on its own and that it was supported by the UK-USA-India axis. While the judges held the USA and the UK to be complicit in the genocidal process, they were of the opinion that more evidence was needed as regards India’s role.
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ICC's failure to prosecute Sri Lanka, no shelter to Africa's criminals, says HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 December 2013, 19:42 GMT]
African leaders are raising concern over the actions of the 11-year old court of last resort, the International Criminial Court (ICC), where the eight cases that are currently active and the twenty-one defendents are all from Africa, Washington Post reported Sunday. The article quoted Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch who countered Africa's arguments saying that African nations cannot deny redress to victims (in Darfur or Kenya) just because it is not possible to provide victims in Sri Lanka justice, implying that while ICC has failed to go after war-criminals in Sri Lanka even after the UN's Petrie Report has accused Sri Lanka of killing more than 70,000 Tamil civilians in the no-fire zone, this is not sufficient to deny african victims redress through the Court.
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Victims coerced to produce false affidavits on controversial birth control in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 December 2013, 23:49 GMT]
Colombo has instructed Tamil health officials in Ki’linochchi district to obtain ‘affidavits’ from women who were subjected to a controversial coercive population control in three coastal villages of the district. The women are being approached to sign a document stating that they received subdermal implants on their own request for contraceptive protection. The latest move has come as the women, who were coerced to receive a long-term hormonal birth control implant inserted under the skin of their upper arm, have been complaining of side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress after 2 months of the birth control experiment by the SL State. On 30 November, a 26-year-old woman, who was one of more than 50 victims subjected to contraceptive control, died at Jaffna hospital after a mysterious infection.
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EPDP paramilitary stricken by internal strife

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 December 2013, 23:37 GMT]
Following the arrest of EPDP’s Jaffna District organizer and the opposition leader in the Northern Provincial Council Kamal Kamalendran for alleged involvement in the killing of the EPDP chairman of Neduntheevu civic body Mr Daniel Rexian alias Rajeev, the internal strife in the paramilitary group has widened. The involvement of EPDP operatives in the killing of Tamil journalists will be exposed, informed sources said. The Sri Lankan military intelligence has been using EPDP operatives to exercise control over the occupied Jaffna. Some of these operatives would be deployed as scapegoats when Colombo would be forced to conduct a show of investigations in the near future, the sources further said.
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Reminding Britain of its geostrategic injustice against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 December 2013, 23:35 GMT]
The British Prime Minister David Cameron seeking ‘engagement’ with Tamils needs to be reminded of the root injustice the imperial Britain had committed against Eezham Tamils by making them prone to more than 60 years of genocide in the hands of the unitary Sri Lankan State. The British cabinet in 1947 decided to short-circuit the discourse of an evolutionary constitutional approach with an accelerated process of handing over of power to Sinhalese, an exercise it carried out on the basis of its own geostrategic considerations amidst the pressure exerted by DS Senanayake, a shrewd politician on the Sinhala side. In their geostrategic concerns to secure defence, trade and external-affairs control of the independent Ceylon within the British Commonwealth, the British ignored the Tamil ‘50-50’ balanced representation demand as well as the Kandyan claim of three federal units.
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SL Justice System incapable of investigating Moothoor massacre: ACF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 December 2013, 15:30 GMT]
“Facing growing pressure by the international community for an effective investigation, Sri Lankan authorities are attempting to deflect public attention by claiming that another investigation into the Muttur massacre has been opened. However, deliberate subversion of the investigative process over the past 7 years and continuous harassment of witnesses and journalists who have raised the case have demonstrated that no effective legal action can be taken in today’s Sri Lanka in relation to the Muttur massacre,” said France-based NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF), whose 17 humanitarian workers were shot and killed at point blank range by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Moothoor, Trincomalee, in August 2006.
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PPT names panel of judges to hear genocide case against Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
The Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) in Rome has announced the names of 11 judges, who would be hearing the long-awaited case on the accusation of genocide against Eezham Tamils to be heard by an independent panel. “Like in the first session, a respected panel of judges consisting of experts in Genocide studies, former UN-officials, experts in international law and renowned peace and human rights activists will hear the evidence that is presented and make a determination,” a press statement signed by Mr Gianni Tognoni, the secretary general of the PPT, stated. The first session held in January 2010, known as the Dublin Tribunal, was the first independent international undertaking that recognised the need to look into the case of genocide in the island of Sri Lanka. The second session is to take place between December 07 -10, 2013 in Bremen, Germany.
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Students protest against Colombo's discriminatory closure of Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 18:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State through its administration kept the universities across the island closed while the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) took place in Colombo. Except the University of Jaffna, other universities were opened before 02 December. The reason for Colombo instructing its authorities to keep the Jaffna University closed till Monday was to make sure that the students were away from the University premises during the Heroes Day, the university management in Jaffna said. When the university was opened on Monday, the students staged a demonstration inside the premises. Sinhala and Muslim students also took part in the demonstration. Hundreds of riot control police commandos of the occupying Sri Lanka were deployed around the premises.
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Heroes Day in homeland, Diaspora, Tamil Nadu gains more significance than previous years

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:22 GMT]
The Indian prejudice and the global injustice, committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils by the various powers, enabled the Sri Lankan State to wage its genocidal war on Eezham Tamils to its end. But, the Tamil Heroes together with their steadfast people, who had no support from any State party in the world, achieved a superior moral victory. This is a unique case in modern human civilisation. This year, the remembrance of Tamil Heroes gained far more significance than the previous years after 2009, as Eezham Tamils in their homeland defied the ‘gag order’ by the occupying SL military, Diaspora Tamils marked the day without giving room for divisions engineered by the intelligence outfits of the Establishments and in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil national grassroots and political movements marked both LTTE leader Pirapaharan's birthday on 26 November and Maaveerar Day on 27 November.
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Australia's Lawyers blast Abbott, Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 November 2013, 14:29 GMT]
In hard-hitting articles appearing in the Lawyer's Weekly, the Law Council of Australia's (LCA's) president Michael Colbran QC, criticized Sri Lanka over the worsening rule of law in Sri Lanka and expressed concern over the "reports of threats and intimidation directed at members of the legal profession and judiciary." The Law Weekly also slammed Prime Minister Tony Abbott whose recent comments appeared to condone the allegations of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, as “deplorably simplistic," and that Abbott's assertion "is contrary to international law as well as Sri Lanka’s own Constitution which prohibits torture without exception," adding also that "[Abbott's] remark underscores a basic lack of understanding regarding the problem of impunity that Sri Lanka, now the chair of the Commonwealth, faces."
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Heroes Day remembrance by public gains significance in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 18:31 GMT]
Almost all sections of Eezham Tamils in North on Wednesday remembered the Tamil Heroes Day in North amidst heavy deployment of the armed soldiers of the occupying Sri Lankan military. This year, the public observing remembrance in Jaffna, Vanni, Mannaar and Mullaiththeevu gains importance above all the events in the country of Eezham Tamils. University lectures, students across all the schools and grassroots political activists observed the Day paying tribute inside their houses amidst the gagged condition and attacks launched by the SL military operatives. While the Sri Lankan soldiers, anticipating a lightning event in the University premises were deployed in large numbers there, the students and the public lit the main flame of remembrance at the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the Jaffna Teaching Hospital at 6:00 p.m.
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EPDP chairman of Neduntheevu civic body shot and killed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 08:23 GMT]
Tension prevails in Nedun-theevu (Delft) where the president of civic council, Daniel Rexian alias Rajeev, was shot and killed on Tuesday. Although the exact motive behind his killing is not known, civil sources said Mr Rexian was at odds with the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on reconstructing a monument in memory of the brutal boat massacre by the SLN, news sources at the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula said on Wednesday. The killing also comes following reports of internal conflict within the EPDP in Neduntheevu.
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Naa'na'r-pul-meadu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 07:05 GMT]
The rising ground of reed grass
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SL military threatens Tamil Catholic priests in Jaffna, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military have threatened Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar and Jaffna, who have been active in exposing the genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan State. The threats against the priests in escalated following the visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights and have topped after British PM visited North on 15 November. The Catholic priests were active in exposing the recent genocidal experiment of birth control carried out by the Sri Lankan authorities and the priests joined the peaceful march by the kith and kin of the missing persons when they wanted to berate their plight to the visiting British PM and the foreign journalists who accompanied him to Jaffna.
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Colombo arrests visiting Tamil poet, bans gatherings ahead of Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 13:53 GMT]
The operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military on Friday arrested VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, while the Norwegian passport holder was visiting the island on a tourist visa. The arrest took place in abduction-style. By arresting Jayapalan, Colombo was sending a message to Eezham Tamil diaspora that Tamils visiting the island should not address any meeting or gathering. Colombo's TID operatives could claim any meeting as a ‘gathering causing communal unrest,’ academic circles in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the SL Police in Ki'linochchi, on Friday told 40 people it detained that all gatherings and meetings have been banned until further notice in the district.
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Sinhala military colonization escalates further north in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2013, 21:35 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has seized 3,200 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in Odduchuddaan DS division situated in the heart of Mullaith-theevu district, civil sources in Vanni told TamilNet on Thursday. The latest military land grab aims to hurriedly Sinhalicise the ancient Tamil villages in Othiyamalai GS area situated in the south of Odduchuddaan division, where a genocidal massacre was carried out by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. The colonisation is being done while the recently elected Northern Provincial Council and its Chief Minister are yet to take up the burning issue of Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu. The Tamil people also blamed the global powers for providing funds to Sri Lankan State system, enabling it to channel the funds and resources, in continuing to commit a demographic genocide, permanently wedging the North and East.
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Ve'l'lai-ma'nal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 07:03 GMT]
The white sands
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