NPC election is no mandate test: Sivagnanam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:11 GMT]
The environment under which the people of the North and East were able to give a mandate [based on Vaddukkoaddai Resolution] in 1977 is not available today or not given to us by the international as well as domestic situation, said Mr CVK Sivagnanam, a candidate for the Northern Provincial Council election held by Colombo in September with the active support of New Delhi and Washington. The NPC election is based on what is already there [in the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka in the last 25 years]. Therefore, outcome of this election could never be interpreted as conveying any mandate, Mr Sivagnanam said, adding that he is personally consistent in the stand, “two nations in one country” and the Tamil right to self-determination. We would take up a people's struggle in the event of Colombo blighting the NPC, he further said, responding to questions put forward by TamilNet on Saturday.
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Navi Pillay signals balanced preliminary assessment as Rajapaksa continues LLRC-farce

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 August 2013, 16:41 GMT]
The AFP, Press Trust of India (PTI) and The New Indian Express have given significance to a story originating from Colombo that SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday ‘bifurcated’ the SL Defense Ministry, which has been in-charge of the police as well as the three armed forces, by bringing the Police under a new ministry. In reality, the announcement is just a farce as both Defence Ministry and the newly created ‘Law and Order’ ministry remain under the same powerful minister who is none other than the SL President himself. Former Chief of Staff of the genocidal SL military, Major General (retd) Nanda Mallawarachchi is to be the Secretary of the new ‘police’ ministry. Both the PTI and the New Indian Express reports have also noted that the LLRC had recommended the SL government to exclude the police from the Defence Ministry's control.
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SL military aims to mar Ananthi meeting Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence in Jaffna on Wednesday staged a ‘protest’ against Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the representative of thousands of Eezham Tamil women, who are demanding the Sri Lankan State to reveal the whereabouts of their husbands who were filtered away from the civilians in the final hours of the Vanni war by the SL military that had announced ‘general amnesty’ through the loudspeakers. Sinhala workers, intelligence operatives and some ex-LTTE members brought from elsewhere, were holding placards written in broken Tamil against Ananthi Sasitharan in front of the Jaffna Bus Stand. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo said that the SL State was seeking to ‘influence’ certain foreign missions in Colombo to avoid UN Human Commissioner for Human Rights Navanetham Pillay meeting Ananthi, who is also contesting in the Provincial Council election on behalf of the TNA.
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23 resettled Tamils slain in Batticaloa since 2009 by wild elephants

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2013, 17:43 GMT]
At least 23 resettled Tamils have been killed in Batticaloa district by wild elephants that have been brought into the jungles close to Tamil villages by genocidal Colombo's Forest Department after 2009. Disregarding the repeated objections of the people, the SL Forest Department has brought in more wild elephants from Hambantota where Rajapaksa government recently launched ‘Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport’. The resettled people have been complaining to the SL Police and civil officials each time a person is slain by the wild elephants brought in from the South.
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Diplomacy could work only when mass mobilisation is ground reality: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
Do we have an environment to talk about Tamil nation and its right to self-determination? Do we have to ask for internal self-determination? Should we go step-by-step in achieving the goals? Do we have the right to call for a referendum? Could we insist on a transitional administration? Are they all realistic in our situation: asking these questions at the Kumar Ponnambalam Memorial Lecture to a fully packed audience in Jaffna on Sunday, Jaffna University Law Lecturer Kumaravadivel Guruparan said that we cannot wage a struggle by seeing what is in the international law, as international law is purposefully ambiguous leaving space for further discourses, and as what needed more than the international law are the mass mobilisation and the backing of powerful friends.
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Katu-pælælla, Kanu-pælælla

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 00:36 GMT]
The entrance shutter made of thorns
The gate panel made of poles or logs
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Cheanaik-ka'ndam, Thava'naik-ka'ndam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 01:54 GMT]
The paddy field under slash-and-burn cultivation
The paddy field that is cultivated under seasonal lease
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TNA’s woman candidate in NPC elections seeks appointment with Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 01:17 GMT]
“As a representative of the kith and kin who have been struggling for four years without knowing the whereabouts of thousands of family members who had surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in the final hours after the Sri Lanka Army had promised a general amnesty, and as the only woman taking part in the provincial council elections in Jaffna district representing the interests of war widows, I am looking forward for an appointment with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay, who is scheduled to visit the island soon,” said Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Ezhilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE and a mother of three girls, when addressing the press at Jaffna Press Club on Friday on her participation at the forthcoming Provincial Council elections in the Jaffna district.
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Tamil Nadu activists condemn India, USA for imposing 13A on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 00:01 GMT]
“Northern Provincial Council election is a farce. Conduct UN referendum for Tamil Eelam, NPC elections is only a step further in structural genocide” said an influential section of Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu on Saturday when they came together to stage a protest at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai organized by the May 17 movement. Condemning the Indian and US establishments for imposing wrong and non-descript solutions on Eezham Tamils, the speakers at the event also blamed the global outfits such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) for advocating solutions within the unitary structure of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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Colombo deploys extremist NGO to fund Sinhalicisation in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2013, 16:00 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist extremist ‘NGO’ named ‘Helabima’ is being deployed by the occupying Colombo government to encourage the Sinhala people to occupy Tamil lands in the border villages between Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai. Major Bertie Perera, a Sinhala military official appointed by the Colombo government coordinates the structural genocide programme being carried out in the name of ‘development’. He collaborates with Helabima’s colonization operative Sunil Chandrakumara and the Buddhist prelate of the Batticaloa Mangalarama Vihara to enact Sinhalicisation of Kevu’liyamadu village in Paddip-pazhai division.
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Sri Lanka UGC threatens Tamil academics

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 August 2013, 11:15 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission (UCG) will carry out “extensive investigations” about the participation of some Tamil university academics of the island in a conference in London, and will take “stern action” against them, said News.Lk, SL Govt.’s official news portal on Friday, citing SL-UGC Chairperson Prof Kshanika Hirimburegama. According to the Chairperson, the academics obtained permission to attend a Tamil Language seminar in London, but they were participating in an anti-Sri Lanka gathering. A conference that currently takes place in London, with the participation of Tamil academics from the island at the venue of SOAS, is a World Conference on Tamilology, felicitating centenary of Fr. Xavier Thaninayagam.
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Sinhala soldiers brutally rape Tamil mother in Poonakari, Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 August 2013, 14:10 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on Tuesday evening brutally raped a Tamil woman, who had gone to the nearby shrub to collect firewood in Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi district. The 38-year-old mother of two was rushed to Poonakari hospital by the neighbours after her children discovered her at unconscious state. The victim has told the medical staff at Poonakari hospital that two Sinhala soldiers had forced her into a bush and brutally raped her after binding her legs with her hands using their belts. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heaviliy garrsoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed, committing all kinds of abuses on them. The latest rape victim is from Vinaasiyoadai village. Her husband is reportedly a former LTTE-member who is still in SL military custody.
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Archaeological Report on Maanthai comes after 29 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 22:36 GMT]
Archaeological report on the excavations at the ancient port city of Maanthai (Thirukeatheesvaram) in the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, conducted between the years 1980 and 1984 and co-directed by John Carswell then from the University of Chicago, has finally seen the light of publication this June. Edited by John Carswell, Siran Deraniyagala and Alan Graham, and copyrighted to the Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka, the publication supported by Ceramica-Stiftung Basel has been released by the publishers Linden Soft Verlag, Aichwald in Germany. Professor Carswell, now turning 83, has succeeded in presenting the material he had excavated, which would have otherwise been lost forever with the kind of State in the island.
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Ka’lukondayaawa, Konda-gala, Ko’ndaichchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 02:21 GMT]
The dark hair-knot (shaped rock)
The hair-knot shaped rocky hill
The place found with a species of crested bird
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New mass-grave site found in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna has warned the original house-owners of a recently released former SLA camp-site at Pallappai at the heart of Vadamaraadchi, not to dig the wells at the site where 52 houses had been seized by the SL military for more than 14 years since 1999. The main camp of the SLA 524 was situated at Pallappai. A few days ago, SL military personnel who blocked the owners of a house from renovating their well, recovered human skeletons of 16 to 18 victims and instructed the owners not to reveal the details to media or human rights groups. More than 100 victims have been buried inside another public well that has been filled up by the SL military, the villagers say.
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Ampaa'rai uprooted Tamils urge independent diaspora help to resettle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 22:57 GMT]
Despite the repeated news reports that the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the European Union, USA, Japan, India and China were providing multi-billion assistance and loans to the Sri Lankan State and Non-Governmental Organisations operating in the island to provide basic facilities to the uprooted families to resettle in their villages, no such assistance has reached the uprooted Tamils in Ampaa'rai district in the Eastern Province. Now, the Tamils in Ampaa'rai say they have lost all hopes in meaningful assistance coming through the Establishments and urge the Diaspora Tamils to act without looking for the same forces and their outfits to rebuild their lives and livelihood. Six years have elapsed in waiting for the humanitarian assistance for several villages in the divisions of Thirukkoayil, Naavithan-ve'li, Aalaiyadi-vempu, Kalmunai (Tamil) and Akkaraip-pattu.
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Border division of Mannaar district Sinhalicised

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 August 2013, 19:35 GMT]
After Sinhalicising a border division in the Mullaiththeevu district of the Northern Province as ‘Weli-Oya’ on the eastern coast, genocidal Sri Lanka is now engaged in the Sinhalicisation of a border division, Musali, in the Mannaar district of the Northern Province on the western coast, news sources in Mannaar said. Both the Sinhala colonisations take place as demographic projections from the Anuradhapura district of the North Central Province. Around 400 acres of forest has been cleared for settling 1300 Sinhala families at the Ko’ndaichchi coast of Mannaar district. The families, who have nothing to do with the district are not only brought down hurriedly and settled as ‘re-settlers’, but also are advised to register as voters before the NPC elections.
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US condemns violence in Welweriya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 August 2013, 23:08 GMT]
“The United States has expressed concern over the fatal shooting of three civilians by the Sri Lankan military, which attacked people seeking protection in a church during a recent protest to demand clean drinking water,” Associated Press reported on Saturday, citing from a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, who said that “there was no excuse for violence, especially in a house of worship.” Ms. Psaki has also called for “a thorough and transparent inquiry” into the violence at Welweriya. While taking into consideration the US consternation over the Sri Lankan military’s brutality, activists in the island urge that if America is genuinely concerned about the highhanded behaviour of the Sri Lankan military, then Pentagon should suspend all military-to-military relationship with a state accused of genocide.
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Erasing Tamil nation prioritized over political justice

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 August 2013, 08:55 GMT]
“If India opens dialogue with moderate groups, extremists will be isolated and India can influence diaspora people for solution within a united Sri Lanka," said V. Suryanarayan of the New Delhi think tank, cited by The Times of India on Friday. In July, writing in The New Indian Express, the same person said “In order to allay Sinhalese apprehensions, iron-clad guarantees should be provided that devolution to provinces should not lead to demand for separation.” The explicit and unashamed priority in the heart of the academic and the Mumbai-New Delhi-Chennai-based media corporates in India, is to only negate at any cost the possibility of Eezham Tamils getting independence than delivering even paltry political justice, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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SL military bans devotional song at ancient Saiva temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 23:44 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in the East has banned Saiva devotional songs authored by popular poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts are still not known after the occupying Sri Lankan military had him into custody during the final hours of the Vanni war in May 2009. The SL military personnel have warned the temple administration of the historic Siva temple Thaan-thoan'ri-eesvarar at Kokkaddichchoalai not to play the popular devotional song "Piddukku ma'n chumantha perumaanaar” on the temple loud-speakers or on at any occasion. Together with the popular song on Kokkaddich-choalai, TamilNet also releases a few other songs for the wider Tamil audience throughout the world.
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