Global vigilance urged on ‘genocidal experiments’ by Sinhala Buddhist monks

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 January 2014, 07:29 GMT]
A recent documentary by a leading Japanese television network depicted the work of a Sinhala Buddhist monk, Kalyana Tissa Thero of the ‘Seth Sevana Lama Nivasa of Attambagaskanda’, an orphanage in the Sinhala-ruled Tamil town of Vavuniyaa, as a ‘reconciliation’ work by a ‘true Buddhist’ who was looking after war-affected Tamil children. But, the monk was sexually abusing the children. The Tamil children, subjected to a genocidal ‘orphanage’ experiment were deprived of their language and religion and were being sent to Sinhala school. Following a specific complaint on sexual abuse committed on a 9-year-old child and amidst prevailing protests by the local child protection activists, the monk was arrested in October. But, two months later, Kalayana Tissa Thero was released on bail with the backing of Colombo's National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), on 31 December 2013.
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Colombo has annulled ‘arrest warrant’ says Sitsabeisan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2014, 10:25 GMT]
“Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that their previous claims of an arrest warrant in my name does not exist and I now look forward to exploring and learning more about the country of my birth,” says Ms Rathika Sitsabeisan, the elected Eezham Tamil MP from Canada, in a statement released by her party, NDP, in Canada on January 01, 2014.
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Transcend SA model, SL State and West’s mechanisms in seeking justice: Fr Rajan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 January 2014, 07:04 GMT]
The South African model that betrayed its people is now taken up by Colombo just to save war criminals. It is futile for Tamils to expect justice from any future government of SL State. Tamils also have to reconsider approaching their struggle once again through West’s mechanisms of justice. The current TNA failed to combine moderate politics with the politics of struggle. Steering Tamil national polity for crumps can’t be justified as ‘diplomacy.’ Tamil intellectuals have to think beyond the trap of ‘Transitional Justice’ and investigate potentialities of the concept Post-Transitional Justice, which is non-state, multi-sited, multi-actor and multi-referential, said Fr Elil Rajan, advocating Chile model, at a gathering in Batticaloa last week that remembered slain TNA parliamentarian Mr Joseph Pararajasingham.
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Australia’s conduct on Tamil deportations comparable to Hitler’s deniability on Jewish question: Haigh

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 January 2014, 15:17 GMT]
Bruce Haigh, a retired diplomat, a rights activist, and an expert witness to the Bremen People’s Tribunal established to adjudicate on whether Sri Lanka committed genocide on Tamil people, in an article appearing in Canberra Times, compared the “deniability adopted and refined by Hitler's Third Reich towards the final solution of the Jewish question” to Rudd and Abbott’s Governments conduct over Tamil asylum seekers. Haigh said that Tamil witnesses from Sri Lanka told him that Australian diplomatic mission has been briefed adequately on the situation, and that he believes the Australian Government(s) have ignored these for reasons of policy and politics. “This would suggest that both major parties knowingly acted illegally with respect to processing Tamil asylum seekers,” Haigh said.
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SL immigration officials ‘investigate’ Canadian Tamil MP in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 January 2014, 10:28 GMT]
Following the interrogation on Tuesday by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Department, who placed the visiting Eezham Tamil parliamentarian from Canada, Ms Rathika Sitsabaiesan, from 7:00 p.m. to midnight under an unofficial house-arrest, the immigration officials of occupying Colombo have subjected her for a second round of investigations Wednesday noon. As the Canadian MP was on a private visit to the island, the SL immigration officials would be carrying out an investigation to see whether she had violated the kind of visa utilized to her, the officers have told Wednesday.
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Canadian Eezham Tamil MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan under house arrest in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 20:51 GMT]
Canadian Eezham Tamil parliamentarian Rathika Sitsabaiesan representing Sacarborough-Rouge River constituency, who was on a visit to the island has come under the harassment of the occupying Sri Lankan military and police establishment in Jaffna on Tuesday evening. SL ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ Officer-in-Charge in Jaffna Ranaweera accompanied by two TID female officers, who were waiting at a hotel in Jaffna, where Ms Rathika Sitsabaiesan was staying, have placed the visiting Canadian parliamentarian under an ‘unofficial’ house-arrest after she entered the hotel around 7:00 p.m., concluding a visit to the uprooted people of Valikaamam North and Vadamaraadchi with the chairman of Valikaamam North Piratheasa Chapai (PS) Mr S. Sugirthan.
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Sri Lankan TID declares ‘shadow war’ on Tamil journalists in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 09:10 GMT]
“We will not abduct you or take you for 4th floor for interrogations. But, we will make sure you die in the road hit by our encounter teams in natural accidents and dispute-like killings. You will not become heroes among your own people and die like street dogs,” is the message re-iterated by the so-called ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ interrogators, who operate various interrogation-cells in the North chasing the journalists in Jaffna. A Colombo-based media rights activist observing the pattern of the psychological warfare by the TID on journalists in Jaffna described the unfolding scenario as Colombo's latest ‘shadow war’ on Tamils, similar to the one that preceded the 2009 genocidal onslaught.
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Colombo's motive of using China for forensic examinations on Mannaar mass grave questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2013, 08:42 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's police officials in Mannaar have said that the skeletons recovered at the mass grave at Thirukkeatheesvaram were being dispatched to China for forensic examinations. Responding, legal sources in Mannaar asked the motive of Colombo using China for DNA testing of the skeletons discovered at the mass grave and questioned the fate of similar cases earlier sent to China for ‘forensic examinations’. In 2009, China had allegedly provided Colombo with ‘movable crematory vehicles’ to get rid of the dead bodies of the genocidal victims in Vanni. Tamil activists urged the alternative world to assist the nation of Eezham Tamils to undertake forensic examinations in future in a credible and independent manner.
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Local contacts of visiting Indian journalist exposed to TID interrogators in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 December 2013, 21:34 GMT]
In one of the strongest investigations and monitoring conducted so far on a foreign journalist visiting the island, the experienced interrogators of the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ of Colombo had not only confiscated the electronic and non-electronic possessions from the young journalist from Tamil Nadu, but also monitored and traced all his contacts from the moment he landed at Colombo airport for the second time, informed media sources in Colombo told TamilNet Sunday. In the meantime 22-year-old Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, when contacted by TamilNet after his deportation to Chennai, said he was subjected to ‘psychological torture’ like condition at the hands of the TID interrogators in Colombo and that the TID had his Tamil book of his first visit translated when they questioned him on his affiliations.
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Colombo’s wildlife department appropriates lands in Paddippazhai for Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 December 2013, 12:40 GMT]
Colombo government’s Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), deploying Sinhala settlers from Ampaa’rai district and paramilitary known as Home Guards, has put up a fence covering 800 acres of Tamil villages of Batticaloa district. The land appropriation is taking place under the guise of constructing a fence to prevent wild elephants from entering Batticaloa district from the jungles of Ampaa’rai district, according to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council.
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CPJ calls for immediate release of Indian journalist

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 20:18 GMT]
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, on Friday called for the immediate release of an Indian journalist and film-maker, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran who was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and Police in Vanni on Wednesday.
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Sri Lanka’s TID interrogates Indian journalist in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 December 2013, 13:19 GMT]
The journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested by the occupying SL military and police in Vanni, while he was visiting Ki’linochchi was still under the custody of the ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ as late as Thursday night, informed sources in Colombo said. Earlier, the SL police spokesman in Colombo had stated that the Mr Thamizh Prabhagaran was being handed over to the immigration authorities for deportation. But, Colombo's TID officers were interrogating the Indian journalist on his contact network in the island by going through his article series that has appeared in Junior Vikatan, the sources further said.
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Vadamaraadchi East remembers Tamil tsunami victims

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 16:06 GMT]
Families, relatives and friends of victims who perished in the 2004 tsunami gathered at Uduththu’rai, Ma'natkaadu and Thaazhaiyadi burial grounds on Thursday remembering their loved ones on the 9th anniversary of the devastating catastrophe. The gigantic waves of tsunami claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island on 26 December 2004 and most of the victims were from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the tsunami. The International Community of Establishments, who failed the victims of tsunami, were not only complicit in Sri Lanka's genocidal onslaught on them in 2009, but they continue to fail the victims of the tsunami and the genocide by allowing the Sri Lankan State to continue the structural genocide on the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Armed men abduct son of leading civil activist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 11:49 GMT]
Four masked men carrying handguns have abducted 22-year-old son of the leading fisheries society activist Kanthavanam Sooriyakumaran in the early hours of Thursday at Inparuddi, Point-Pedro, in Jaffna district, according to the relatives of the victim, Thamilamuthan Sooriyakumaran. The abduction took place while Mr Thamilamuthan was alone at his sister’s home, as the family had gone to Vadamaraadchi East to take part in the memorial event held for their children and others who had perished in 2004 tsunami tragedy. Mr Thamilamuthan has already complained to his family and friends that Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives were closely following him during the past few days. His father, Mr Kanthavanam, is the president of the Federation of fisheries societies in the Northern Province.
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Colombo arrests Indian journalist touring Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 01:48 GMT]
A young journalist from Tamil Nadu, Maga Thamizh Prabhagaran, who was touring in the North was arrested by the occupying Sri Lankan military and the SL police Wednesday noon, while he was talking to the parish priest of St. Antony’s Church in Ponnaavea’li, news sources in Vanni said. The Indian journalist visiting the island on tourist visa was together with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member S. Pasupathipillai and Karaichchi Piratheasa Chapai (PS) member S. Thayaparan during the detention, interrogation and arrest, the news sources further said.
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More skeletons to be exhumed from mass grave in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 20:23 GMT]
Medical experts from Colombo must be present in order to further excavate the recently located mass grave in Mannaar, Sri Lankan police officials said as the work was suddenly stopped on Monday after 11 full human skeletons were recovered from the site at Thirukkeatheesvaram. Northern Provincial Council minister of fisheries Mr Deinswaran, who witnessed the excavation, said the bones bore marks of torture. Local residents said that there were signs that more skeletons were buried under the road, running parallel to the excavated pit. The second largest camp of the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Mannaar was located at the locality from 1993.
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Colombo accelerates Sinhalicisation of land link between Jaffna and Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 18:25 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has almost transformed the narrow strip of Chu’ndik-ku’lam sandbar, which links the Jaffna peninsula with Vanni mainland, into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), denying the Tamil fishermen of Vadamaraadchi East and Vadmaraadchi, access to the coastal strip and the seas off Chu’ndikku’lam. While the occupying SL military is carrying out a new kind of Sinhalicisation with settlements for Sinhala fishermen, who endanger the fishing environment, the SL Ministry of Wildlife Resources Conservation has schemed occupation under the so-called extended development of the Chu’ndik-ku’lam Natural Park, bringing 11,149 hectares and a coastal strip of more than 50 square km into the exploitation of Colombo.
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Mukaththuvaaram, Modara

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2013, 20:04 GMT]
The river mouth
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SL Police officer threatens rights activist Sundaram in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 December 2013, 10:20 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Police Inspector, who is in charge of the Trincomalee Police Station had threatened the head of the committee of missing persons, Mr Sundaram Mahendran, when he went there to make a complaint on the attack on him and the protesters on the Human Rights Day. A squad of masked men, allegedly operated by the intelligence wing of the occupying SL military, attacked the peaceful protest organized on December 10 as the SL police was watching the Sinhala squad’s assault on the demonstrators. Mr Sundaram was wounded in the attack and admitted to the hospital.
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DNA testing, a persistent threat to Colombo on genocide culpability

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 December 2013, 18:08 GMT]
While in the western liberal democracies advanced DNA-based evidence collection has been the staple of modern crime investigations since the advent of DNA testing in 1985, in Sri Lanka DNA testing on Tamil victims have been systematically blocked by Colombo likely as part of the politically sanctioned strategy and forced on the subservient judicial branch to suppress evidence of Sinhala military criminality. While the blocking of Maanthai skeletal findings is the latest in Colombo's involvement in suppressing possible military complicity, the results of the DNA testing of the body of the popular Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, whose mutilated torso was found at Pungkudutheevu sea on 14 March 2007, was also suppressed by Colombo. Colombo media, under direct and indirect threat from Rajapaksas, self-censored the coverage of the Brown story in 2007.
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