None among political prisoners are real convicts, says released Tamil prisoner

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 January 2016, 23:25 GMT]
36-year-old Tamil political prisoner Jeneevan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena on January 08 told TamilNet that almost none of the 230 Tamil prisoners currently languishing inside the prisons of Colombo had command responsibilities or even contributed to the ‘crimes’ they had been accused of. Most of those detained for decades and those given prison terms beyond the scope of their lifetimes were all innocent people like A.G. Perarivalan of Tamil Nadu who had no knowledge that the battery he was buying was to be used in an assassination. The act of continued imprisonment of these people itself constitutes a crime against humanity, Jeneevan Sivarasa told TamilNet in a video interview this week.
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Sirisena's Mahaweli Ministry continues demographic genocide in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 January 2016, 22:13 GMT]
The UNP government in 1984 kicked off a genocidal project of settling Sinhalese in large numbers in the Tamil-speaking district of Batticaloa in East with the same agenda of Sinhaliciation that took place in Trincomalee district earlier. Eezham Tamils were chased out of their villages as more than ten thousand Sinhalese were almost moved overnight by the SL Ministry of ‘Mahaweli Development’ to occupy the key areas in Batticaloa coming under the so-called Left bank of the B System. The SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who is also the SL Minister of ‘Mahaweli Development’, is now carrying out the same project in a sophisticated manner, Tamil civil officials in Batticaloa said. 30,400 Sinhalese and have been settled under the Mahaweli programme in the district, which is predominantly Tamil-speaking while only 1,281 Tamil-speaking Muslims and 34 Tamils have been given lands, they said.
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Coerced confessions determine Tamil prisoners' fate

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 January 2016, 19:57 GMT]
While rights groups highlight the continued torture and rapes of Tamils even after Sri Lanka's President Sirisena came to power, the 217 political prisoners languishing in Sri Lanka's high security jails expose another dark side of Sri Lanka's failed criminal justice system. The predicament of Valayuthan Varatharajan from Karava'nai South, Karaveddi who had been in remand for nearly 16 years in the New Magazine Prison, and was hurriedly given a sentence for "conspiring to carry out suicide attack" on the then President Kumaratunge, a verdict given three days before Sri Lanka resolution was passed in the UN on the 25th of September 2015, highlights Sri Lanka's judicial bankruptcy, legal sources in Colombo said. The main evidence the prosecution was able to assemble against Varatharajan was a coerced confession signed in Sinhala language by the defendant, according to these sources.
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Colombo makes mockery of UN endorsed domestic mechanism - Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 January 2016, 23:52 GMT]
Noting Sri Lanka Cabinet spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne's statements that there was no deadline to complete the accountability process on the war, that his Government is in talks with the United Nations with regards to the accountability process, and that the process will be a domestic process and not a “hybrid process” as proposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law, and who teaches at University of Illinois, College of Law, said that by these words "GOSL has publicly stated that it will continue its Crimes against Humanity against the Eelam Tamils. This makes an absolute and total mockery of the so-called “domestic mechanism” that was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council."
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Hæthækma

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 January 2016, 23:19 GMT]
The highway stage or post where burden-bearers, palanquin bearers etc take rest; the milepost
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Time is running out for Colombo leaders to prove statesmanship: Shivajilingam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 January 2016, 22:27 GMT]
Colombo regime, which came to power claiming ‘good governance’, has failed to address the urgent demands of releasing 200 Tamil political prisoners, reveal the whereabouts of more than 20,000 people in the past and the genocidal military occupying the Tamil homeland continues to seize lands from Mannaar to Ampaa'rai. “Unless we see any credible move within a few months time this year, the Tamil people will be mobilised to wage a civil disobedience campaign,” said Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who organised a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday. “The few Tamil politicians who are telling Tamils not to protest against the visit of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, have a very short time now to prove their claims,” he further said.
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Sirisena’s promises to Champoor Tamils not fulfilled, SL Navy refuses to vacate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 January 2016, 23:21 GMT]
The uprooted Eezham Tamils from Champoor in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district complain that the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which was supposed to vacate from Champoor Maha Viththiyaalayam School and the adjacent residential areas of 237 acres, has indefinitely postponed the hand over of lands back to the people. The promises made by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena have not been fulfilled, the uprooted Tamils said. The Eastern Provincial Governor Austin Fernando, who is a former defence secretary of occupying Colombo went on record on December 15 that the SL Navy would be handing back the lands before January 05. But, the SL Navy is now telling the people it would not move away for another 6 months, Champoor Tamils told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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Endeara-mulla, Idaik-kaadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 January 2016, 20:15 GMT]
The cattle-herders' corner

The cattle-herders' jungle
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‘Home-made’ solution not possible, NPC councillor calls for protest on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2016, 23:05 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam on Monday urged the public to attend a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday expressing their opposition to the deceptive politics being staged by the Colombo regime, particularly its leaders Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who are scheduled to visit Jaffna in just another PR stunt on Friday, when Tamils across the globe mark the secular festival of Thaip-Pongkal. Mr Shivajingam said there has been no progress at all on five important fronts: release of 200 political prisoners, establishing the whereabouts of 20,000 missing persons, de-militarisation and releasing lands seized by the occupying military in the North and East, internationally mediated negotiations to resolve the national question and investigations on crimes against international law including the genocide.
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Eastern Province Governor interferes in teachers’ transfers violating established procedures

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 January 2016, 23:11 GMT]
Colombo's colonial Governor to East, Austin Fernando, who is a former Defence Secretary of the occupying military of the unitary ‘Sri Lanka’, was interfering in processing the applications by Tamil teachers in the Eastern province who have been seeking transfer to schools situated near their villages. Principals and teachers who approached the Provincial Director of Education M.T.A. Nizam were told that their applications were now at the desk of the SL Governor in the East.
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Mæssa-gammana, Mæssalæwa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 January 2016, 22:04 GMT]
The cultivated outskirts of the village having a watchtower or platform to watch paddy fields

The place of the watchtower or platform to watch paddy fields
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Released Tamil political prisoner pays tribute to Senthuran, vows to stay the course

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 January 2016, 11:58 GMT]
36-year-old Tamil political prisoner Jeneepan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, paid a visit to the family of 18-year-old Senthuran Rajeswaran, who sacrificed himself jumping in front of a speeding ‘Sri Lankan’ train on 26 November demanding the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena to release all the Tamil political prisoners. In the meantime, Jeneepan's father 62-year-old Nagamuttu Sivarasa condemned the Colombo-based correspondents of international news agencies, who didn't see ‘news value’ in giving coverage to the struggle waged inside the prison by his son and others. “It was only because of the supreme sacrifice of Senthuran and the efforts of Tamil journalists operating from Jaffna, Jeneevan's case got focus,” Mr Nagamuttu told TamilNet.
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Aided by UN, US, genocide continues under Sirisena, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 January 2016, 02:02 GMT]
Noting recent rights groups reports that Tamils continue to face torture and gang rapes a year after President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in Sri Lanka promising reform, Professor Boyle, an expert in international law, who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that it is obvious that the "Sinhala Genocide against the Eelam Tamils continues apace under Sirisena," and that the GoSL, the U.S. Government and the UNHRC "perpetrated..a fraud upon the Eelam Tamils by calling for the establishment of nothing more than a so-called “domestic mechanism” by the GOSL Genocidaires that will give them the legal cover and fig-leaf to continue their campaign of outright genocide against the Eelam Tamils."
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PTI and Express correspondent in Colombo contradict on Pak fighter jet

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2016, 14:27 GMT]
At the heels of Press Trust of India (PTI) coming out with a report on Tuesday that Pakistan “sealed a landmark deal to sell JF-17 Thunder Fighters to Sri Lanka as the two countries signed eight agreements”, the Colombo correspondent of New Indian Express, who also contributes to the PTI, came out with a counter report on Wednesday, citing ‘Sri Lankan’ Air Force that no decision had been taken yet on the purchase. Meanwhile, Ranil Wikremesinghe on Tuesday was revealing his plans of facilitating Pakistan to have free trade with the USA through Colombo, using genocidal Sri Lanka’s proposed ‘Free Trade Agreement’ with the USA.
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Justice to Tamils impossible under ‘Sri Lanka’, but ITJP seeks ‘reforms’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2016, 08:07 GMT]
One year after the change of government in ‘Sri Lanka’ the security forces continue to detain, torture and sexually violate Tamils in a net work of sites across the island, and one of the purposes is to maintain control over the Tamils through an atmosphere of oppression and tyranny and deter them from testifying against the government in upcoming justice initiatives, said a January 2016 International Truth & Justice Project, Sri Lanka Report, citing available recording of the violations that took place in 2015. “It is hard to see how a war survivor could safely testify to a Truth Commission in this atmosphere of on- going repression and intolerance,” the ITJP press release from Johannesburg in South Africa said on Thursday, citing Yasmin Sooka, who is the executive director of the ITJP.
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IC-backed Colombo hurriedly erases evidences of Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2016, 00:15 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has hurriedly burnt and destroyed the remaining traces of a newly discovered makeshift torture chamber within the recently released lands in Valikaamam North in Jaffna at a locality known as Pazhai-Veemankaamam. Tamil journalists filmed the locality a few days ago. After the video evidence was published, the SL Defence Ministry in Colombo instructed its military at Palaali to remove the traces of the torture chamber, informed sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Wednesday. In the meantime, former TNA Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran and Valikaamam North Deputy Chairman of Divisional Council S. Shageevan, have blamed Maithiripala - Ranil regime in Colombo for removing the crucial evidences instead of protecting the alleged traces that need to be investigated.
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Thumba-liyadda, Æl-liyadda, Karal-liyadda

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 January 2016, 23:27 GMT]
The grid for the cultivation of a kind of gourd

The grid for the cultivation of Æl-vee paddy

The cereal cultivation grid
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Pakistan joins global warmongers, furthering genocidal Sri Lanka militarisation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 January 2016, 07:28 GMT]
Pakistan’s entry into genocidal Sri Lanka through the supply of ‘fighter jets’, frequent port calls, participation and training of military personnel and combating ‘terror financing’ raises serious questions that against whom and at whose behest Islamabad and Colombo embark on the military programme; for what world war the preparations are being made and who are the ultimate facilitators of the paradigm of bartering genocide and geopolitics, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island. So far, only Washington, New Delhi and Beijing were the ones that were openly and significantly involved in the genocidal military paradigm in the island. Pakistan’s entry and Colombo’s reception are not without the blessing of some, the activists further said.
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Colombo SLT extends TamilNet censorship to south of the island

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 January 2016, 00:03 GMT]
The Colombo regime of Maithiripala Sirisena (SLFP) and Ranil Wickramsinghe (UNP) have once again proved that they are not different from the previous regime of Rajapaksa in suppressing access to tamilnet.com for the vast majority of Internet users in the island who connect through ADSL broadband provided by ‘Sri Lanka’ Telecom PLC (SLT). The main stakeholder of the SLT ownership is the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’. The other dominant shareholder of the SLT is Egypt-based Global Telecommunication Holdings. The SLT has been continuously blocking access to TamilNet in the North and East despite the claim by the Maithiripala regime last January that the Government of ‘Sri Lanka’ would not be practicing Internet censorship anymore as it was during the Rajapaksa regime. Ironically, the marketing slogan of the SLT is: ‘One Country. One Voice.’
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Uprooted Tamils demand occupying SL military to vacate from Keappaa-pulavu

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 January 2016, 19:32 GMT]
More than one hundred families, languishing at a jungle pocket named Sooriyapuram a few kilometres away from their fertile village Keappaa-pulavu, which has been occupied by the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Colombo, staged a protest on the first working day of 2016 demanding Colombo to fully de-militarize their village and hand over their village back to them for resettlement. The occupying SL military was harassing the protesters by posing intelligence wing soldiers to take photos and videos of those participated in the protest. Despite the intimidation by the occupying SL military, the protesting people remained firm in demanding the SL military to vacate from their ancient village.
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