India and world needs prod to recognize, act on Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 February 2014, 15:36 GMT]
Finding fault with the USA and EU for spoiling negotiated solution by banning the LTTE, the former head of SLMM says that North America and Western Europe lack interest in what is happening in the island as it is not in their backyard, and he points to India to now act on its regional matter. He also implied that effective public and media pressure is a prerequisite for any action in the island in the lines of Bosnia. Tamils in the island, in the diaspora, and especially in Tamil Nadu, will be miserable failures if they show any timidity, or find excuse in diplomacy in not telling the world in no uncertain terms the genocide faced by Eezham Tamils, said Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
Full story >>

EU made big mistake in banning LTTE: Henricsson, former head of SLMM

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 February 2014, 07:58 GMT]
It was a big mistake for the EU to ban the LTTE. There was pressure from the USA and the Sri Lankan government, said Major General Ulf Henricsson, who was heading the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in 2006. “I would say that was a big mistake, because it stopped the possibility to get a peaceful solution and negotiation,” Henricsson told TamilNet in an interview in Sweden on Saturday. Acting on solutions now, compared to Bosnia, he cited lack of interest in the West. He was stressing on the importance of India in acting on the question, but said that India is not interested in getting engaged. China and India and other countries are not interested in having the international community on that territory, he added.
Full story >>

Diaspora, Tamil Nadu youth organizations endorse TSC declaration

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 February 2014, 22:59 GMT]
The Tamil Youth Organizations (TYOs) of 12 countries and four Tamil Nadu youth organizations that were active participants in the student uprising of 2013 in a joint statement released on Sunday endorsed the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration. In addition to the TSC declaration, which recognizes the historical, earned and remedial sovereignties of the Eezham Tamil nation, the youth organizations also passed a declaration of principles, calling on the new generation of leaders from Tamil Eelam, Tamil Nadu and the Diaspora to “challenge the international community to re-evaluate its approach to self-determination for unrecognized nations and peoples and to build solidarity with other nations living under occupation to challenge the present geopolitical order.”
Full story >>

New Delhi bans Channel 4 documentary on ‘killing fields’ of Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 February 2014, 20:32 GMT]
India's Central Bord of Film Certification has refused to allow permission to screen No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, Hindustan Times reported on Sunday. Responding to the censorship imposed by New Delhi, the director of the documentary, Callum Macrae has gone on record stating that the documentary would be freely available on line for the Indian public. Mr Macrae was earlier denied visa to enter India.
Full story >>

Tamils in UK protest against British role in EU ban on LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 February 2014, 23:12 GMT]
Tamil activists in UK gathered at 10 Downing Street, London, on Friday condemning Britain’s lead role in the suppression of independent Tamil political opinion, both before and after Sri Lanka’s genocidal onslaught in 2009. While the UK itself has stated that the LTTE is defunct for the past 5 years, it continues to justify the ban on the Tamil movement, still criminalising all the individuals who were associated with the armed struggle in the past, the protesters said. In the meantime, young Tamil activists who took part in the protest were of the opinion that the fight against the injustice of the past, especially the political struggle against EU ban on the LTTE, an act that enabled the Sri Lankan State to end the peace process in a genocidal onslaught, was a crucial component of the Tamil struggle.
Full story >>

Beware of war crimes investigation leading to ‘reconciliation’ deception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 February 2014, 20:07 GMT]
In the event of a US-tabled resolution at UNHRC calling for “an independent international accountability mechanism to evaluate reports of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations committed by both sides during and after the war in Sri Lanka,” it will have all the potentialities of becoming yet another form of the ‘reconciliation’ deception. It will help to continue harping on ‘reforms’ within a unitary State, will give space and time in a camouflaged way to Colombo to complete genocide, prod Tamils into accepting models as of South Africa that are absurd to them, negotiate escape to culprits, and at maximum, may bring in ‘regime change’, but no political justice or release from genocide to Eezham Tamils, cautioned Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
Full story >>

Colombo diverts Indian housing assistance to wedge North and East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 February 2014, 23:18 GMT]
After Sinhalicising the civil administration of the Ma'nalaa'ru division, which is becoming almost a Sinhala only division in the Mullaiththeevu district, Colombo has seized the private lands of Eezham Tamils to allot the lands to Sinhala settlers in Kokku'laay, says Thurairasa Raviharan, an elected member of the Northern Provincial Council. While the war-affected Tamils languish without proper housing, new settlers brought from South are receiving houses intended for war-affected people under the Indian housing scheme, he says after visiting and witnessing the genocidal land grab taking place at Mukaththuvaaram in Kokku'laay.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu government decides to release 7 victims in Rajiv assassination case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 February 2014, 08:03 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu Government, in a suo motu statement to the State Assembly on Wednesday said it has decided to release the 7 prisoners, now imprisoned to lifetime in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The decision comes as the Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to commute the death sentence on Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan to life imprisonment. In the meantime, the family of Thilliampalam Suthenthiraraja (Santhan), one of the three victims, thanked the people of Tamil Nadu and the global Tamil community for their struggle for the release of the innocent victims and said their only hope now was the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa. We will never forget the supreme sacrifices of Chengkodi and Muththukkumar seeking justice, the family said from Jaffna.
Full story >>

Genocide Geography academic cites Tamil case, urges solidarity of victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 February 2014, 11:50 GMT]
The US government's record in directly perpetrating or being complicit in the crime of genocide in many regions of the world – even at the present time, as much as in the recent past - was deeply unsettling, and needed to be recognised and confronted, argued Desmond Fernandes, a former senior lecturer in Human Geography and the Geography of Genocide at De Montfort University in the UK. Speaking at a conference held in a UK House of Commons room earlier this month, and discussing genocide cases past and present across the world, Fernandes drew attention to the on-going genocide of Eezham Tamils and the PPT judgement. Noting with concern that struggle against genocide itself is criminalised nowadays, he emphasized on the need of action in solidarity by targeted peoples.
Full story >>

UN should deliver remedial justice to Eezham Tamils, say 23 groups from India

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 February 2014, 23:03 GMT]
Following the recommendations of the Internal Review Panel (IRP) on ‘United Nations Action in Sri Lanka’ brought out in November 2012 by the panel led by Charles Petrie, the United Nations has come up with a follow-up initiative in December 2013. The latest report, flagged as ‘Rights Up Front’ initiative, has also failed to focus on delivering remedial justice to the nation of Eezham Tamils, who have now become the abandoned victims exposed to Sri Lanka's accelerated onslaught of structural genocide, said the activists of May 17 Movement, that staged protests at five cities, both outside and inside India, on February 12. Endorsing the May 17 Movement's approach, 23 influential parties, groups and movements from India demanded two key remedial approaches: UN referendum on Tamil Eelam and International Investigations on War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide.
Full story >>

IC should address Tamil question coupled with international mechanism: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 February 2014, 23:02 GMT]
No internal mechanism would deliver justice to the people of Tamil homeland. The International Community should come up with a constructive international mechanism capable of delivering political solution to the Tamil question. If the IC that is in fact well able to grasp the situation fails Tamils would regard the IC also as being complicit in the act of suppression being meted upon them, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF). The prevailing suppression on the peaceful, non-violent and democratic voices of the people of Tamil homeland is equivalent to the act of annihilation of the existence of Tamils as a nation, he said while attending a demonstration organized by the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) in Jaffna on Saturday. The occupying SL military has blocked the affected people from taking part in the protest.
Full story >>

Wigneswaran pours out heart on ‘reconciliation-development’ deception

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 February 2014, 13:47 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister, C.V. Wigneswaran on Thursday openly came out with his frustration about the ways reconciliation and development is practised in the north and east of the island, and the ways the mandate of the NPC is sabotaged. He was referring to the gravity of militarisation, the conqueror's perspective of ‘reconciliation’ imposed on the conquered, and the conqueror's ‘development’ that is neither victim-specific nor owned by the people of the land. Given his background, his denunciations were confined to the State and government in Colombo. But the entire paradigm that frustrates him originates from elsewhere and the message is for the ultimate culprits, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
Full story >>

Colombo sabotages Tamil fishermen understanding across Palk Strait

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 February 2014, 22:23 GMT]
Amidst an existing understanding between the fishermen societies of Eezham Tamils and Tamil Nadu fishermen, who met recently in Tamil Nadu, that Indian fishermen could engage in fishing in the Palk Strait till March 15 without hindrance, the navy of the occupying Sri Lanka has arrested 116 Tamil Nadu fishermen in the territorial waters of the Eezham Tamils within the past 12 days, news sources in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the Indian coast guard has detained 25 fishermen from the island, 20 Sinhalese from South and 5 Eezham Tamils, who were engaged in day and night fishing in the deep waters of the strait, sources in Tamil Nadu said.
Full story >>

USA and India conspire to cripple genocide investigation: ITAK Youth Front

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 February 2014, 16:14 GMT]
The resolution tabled by the two US Senators, Richard Burr and Bob Casey, only shows that the US defence establishment is adamant on seeing that any investigation on Sri Lanka should not focus on genocide, said Youth Front General Secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), Mr Subramaniam Sivakaran, urging the global Tamils to be vigilant on what is taking place. Asking, “What are the Tamils in the USA doing,” he said, “The time has come for us in the homeland to raise the question.” India is in partnership with the USA in suppressing international investigation on the genocide. Our homeland will be totally lost while the IC deliberates on impractical reconciliation, he further said.
Full story >>

Padaviya/ Pathi-vaavi

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 February 2014, 00:03 GMT]
The tank of the town
Full story >>

Buddhist monk, Sinhala squad appropriate lands along Batticaloa-Ampaa'rai border

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 February 2014, 21:35 GMT]
Under the cover of ‘preventing’ wild elephants from entering the residential areas of the border villages situated between Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai district, a group of Sinhalese are engaged in putting up a new fence with the hidden agenda of appropriating the lands of Eezham Tamils in Kachchatkodi Suvami-malai and Kevu'liya-madu villages of Paddippazhai division of Batticaloa district. A Sinhala name, Bambara-kanda, has been introduced to the Suvaami-malai hillock, according to the Tamil villagers who have an ancient Saiva temple there.
Full story >>

Families of missing persons subjected to threats, intimidation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 February 2014, 20:24 GMT]
The intelligence wing of the occupying Sri Lankan military and the ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Department (TID) operatives in the North intimidate and threaten the families of the missing persons as many of the victims were not prepared to give up their complaints. The latest harassment comes in the wake of the so-called ‘independent’ Presidential Commission on Investigating Missing Persons had its first sitting in Ki’linochchi district last month. The current drive of genocidal Colombo, intimidating the kin of the missing to receive Rs 100,000 and withdraw the complaint or to face the fate of those who were ‘missing,’ raises question on what was actually meant by the US Asst Secretary of State reiterating ‘reconciliation’ last week.
Full story >>

Colombo deploys Indian assistance to commit structural genocide on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 February 2014, 16:37 GMT]
The housing assistance provided to war-affected uprooted families in the North and East is being used to colonise the Tamil homeland with Sinhala settlers from South in Mullaiththeevu district, says Tamil Councillor of the Northern Provincial Council Mr Thurairasa Raviharan. While the resettled Tamil families are deprived of housing at Chaa'lampaik-ku'lam in Mullaiththeevu district, Sinhalese settlers are being provided brand new houses constructed with Indian assistance, he said. This is not only a betrayal by India, but also a recognition of the structural genocide being committed by the Sri Lankan State, Mr Raviharan told media.
Full story >>

UK Tamil youth activists burn SL constitution, condemn British complicity

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 February 2014, 07:29 GMT]
Second-generation Tamil youth activists gathered outside the Sri Lankan embassy in London on the occasion of the 66th ‘independence day of Sri Lanka and burnt copies of the Sri Lankan constitution to assert that the unitary structure of GoSL has only genocidal connotations for the Tamils. The youth activists also condemned Britain’s historical role in buttressing the SL state and denying Tamils’ their sovereignty.
Full story >>

30,000 troops try imposing ‘SL Independence Reconciliation’ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 February 2014, 20:19 GMT]
Explicitly proving that Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa was lying on the number of troops in Jaffna peninsula and that the country of Eezham Tamils is under occupied and colonial rule, more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers were deployed to impose the ‘Sri Lanka Independence Day’ in Jaffna on Tuesday. As armed soldiers were posted throughout the streets and public buildings, the scenario depicted the times of war and such a paradigm was the one that was endorsed and blessed by the US Assistant Secretary of State talking of ‘reconciliation’ and imposing the ‘Sri Lankan’ identity, two days ago, commented political observers in Jaffna. Despite the terrorization, people responded by hoisting black flags and turning the SL Lion Flag upside down at several places in Jaffna.
Full story >>