SL Military motives questioned while Colombo trio visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 March 2015, 23:19 GMT]
The SL military has suddenly fenced off a crucial link road in the area supposed to be handed over back to the people of Vasaavi'laan East, just one day ahead of the much-orchestrated visit to the area by the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena together with SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga. On Sunday, Northern Provincial Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran visited the area and was shocked to see the link road been fenced off by the SL military. The Chief Minister said the lands have not been released as promised by the Colombo government. Only a small area has been released, he said questioning whether there was a conflict between the Colombo government and its military or whether there was anything else. The people are disappointed to see that the lands have not been handed over as promised by the government.
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Colombo stages eyewash resettlement amidst military cantonment in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
211 families, who registered on Friday to resettle in Vasaavi'laan East in Valikaamam North and were allowed to visit and see their villages, have complained that the Colombo regime was still upholding the militarisation of their villages in the former ‘High Security Zone’. The SL military is still occupying their residential areas. Even the few houses situated in the area being released to the people have been totally demolished while the houses within the areas fenced off for continued military use are intact. In addition, most of the lands being released are either agricultural lands or quarry lands unfit for resettlement or agriculture, they complained. The SL military is still occupying the fertile agricultural lands, which have been converted into farms run by the military.
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Premachandran challenges Colombo on ‘Gota’ detention camp in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2015, 08:42 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Monday said he was in possession of evidences to prove that there existed a notorious detention camp at the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) base in Trincomalee with more than 700 Tamil detainees and 35 families. “We can provide such evidences only if the witnesses could be protected,” Mr Premachandran said. After the TNA MP had raised the issue in the Sri Lankan Parliament in February, the new regime in Colombo promised to come up with answers. Now, the SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe (UNP) has responded citing the Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy as saying that there was no such detention camp. The Sri Lankan Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe (UNP) has also gone on record denying the accusation of the so-called Gotabhaya camp.
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Families of missing persons under Kumaratunga regime revive protest in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 March 2015, 23:45 GMT]
Around 800 Tamil youth were forcefully disappeared in Jaffna peninsula by the occupying Sri Lankan military under Chandrika Kumaratunga's rule between 1996 and 1998 when Tamils returned to Jaffna peninsula, which was seized by the SL military in 1995 through Operation Riviressa. The family members, who have been struggling to know the whereabouts of their kith and kin for years and were looking for answers through international investigations, have revived their protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat on Wednesday after learning that the United Nations, under the influence of Washington and New Delhi, is now trying to promote domestic investigation mechanism of Colombo by diluting the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) process from evolving into international investigations.
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Wigneswaran exposes US delay tactics at Geneva

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2015, 13:56 GMT]
The US Asst. Secretary of State Nisha Biswal was not in favour of pursuing the Geneva OISL investigation on Sri Lanka in the March sessions as scheduled, revealed NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran in his speech in Tamil at the council on Tuesday, while introducing the resolution that demanded urgent international investigation on historically continuing genocide against Tamils. “In my recent conversation with Ms Biswal, I understood that the USA wants to be in favour of the present Sri Lanka government, as this government is favourable to the USA,” Wigneswaran said. “When Ms Biswal asked what could be the appropriate time for the release of the Geneva report and when I replied that it should be in March, she didn’t accept it,” the NPC-CM said.
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ITAK youth wing leader urges Tamils not to be deceived by deviators

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2015, 13:01 GMT]
There is no change in Sri Lankan military deployment in the Tamil homeland. On the contrary, the SL military seems to be enthusiastic about setting up bigger noticeboards than before along the border of Valikaamam North ‘High Security Zone’ said VS Sivakaran, the youth wing leader of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) in a video interview this week. “However, a section among Tamils are being deceived to expect that there will be positive changes and that the SL military deployment would be reduced under Maithiripala Sirisena,” Sivakaran said. “But, this is not going to happen,” the ITAK youth wing leader said. The USA and India wanted to reverse the Chinese influence in the island. They needed a regime change, which they got. But, this has taken place at the expense of the political aspirations of the small nation of Eelam Tamils, he said.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka insists full continuation of military occupation of Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2015, 16:20 GMT]
“We, as a government, will never remove any of the military camps established in the North and East to ensure security of the Tamil people as well as other people,” claimed Ruwan Wijewardene, the new Sri Lankan State Minister of Defence, who visited the Palaali headquarters of the occupying military in Jaffna. “We are not prepared to reduce the number of troops under any condition,” he said. Ruwan Wijewardene was addressing the SL military officers and soldiers calling them as ‘war heroes’ who ended the ‘frightening terrorism of Tigers’. Wijewardene is on a three-day trip to North and East, visiting the officers and soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) to boost their morale, informed military sources said.
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UN investigation key to resolve Tamil question: Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2015, 22:47 GMT]
“Be it Ranil Wickramasinghe, Chandrika Kumaratunga, the new president Maithiripala Sirisena, or whoever it may be [in the South], they don't have a basic idea of how to resolve the Tamil national question, because they are always talking about a unitary constitution,” said Tamil National Alliance Spokesman Suresh Premachandran in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. In order to change the existing SL Constitution from unitary into a united form of government, one needs international leverage. That leverage is only possible through proceeding with international pressure in tandem with the regime change in tandem. Therefore, the much-anticipated OISL report should not be postponed, Mr Premachandran told TamilNet.
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Singapore Principles of 2013: Tamil polity taken for ride from Oslo to Singapore

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2015, 07:19 GMT]
Right from the Indo-Lanka agreement of 1987 to Oslo Declaration of 2002 and to hitherto unrevealed Singapore Principles of 2013 that brought the Sampanthan polity into a conceptual framework for the recent regime change in Colombo, the external forces seeking to influence the affairs of the island have taken the Eezham Tamils for a ride to confine the Tamil polity into the unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka without securing any concrete and descriptive guarantee from the Sinhala polity. By its latest move, the ITAK has pushed the Tamils back into the past, Tamil political observers in Jaffna said citing the so-called Singapore Principles from 2013. TamilNet brings out the text of the so-called Singapore Principles for the edification of global Tamils.
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UNP Batticaloa branch wants anti-people elements isolated from politics

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The District Organiser of the United National Party (UNP) in Batticaloa Mr Arasaretnam Sasitharan said that a resolution has been passed at the UNP Batticaloa District Executive Committee to the effect that anti-people elements and former paramilitary operatives, who were deployed under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, should not be absorbed into the UNP or the polity associated with the UNP in the new regime in Colombo. The resolution has named four persons who should be kept away from the politics of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramaisnge if UNP needs to win credibility among the Tamil public in Batticaloa district, Mr Sasitharan further said.
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Extra-government authority to supersede government in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 January 2015, 14:24 GMT]
Tamil ‘National’ Alliance Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan and genocidal Sri Lanka's former military commander Sarath Fonseka, who led the onslaught during the war, being together in a superseding extra-government authority constituted in Colombo would mean nullifying genocide investigation and even war crime investigation, as well as endorsing the unitary Sri Lankan State of US-Indian interests, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, responding to SL president Maithiripala Sirisena, constituting a 11-member ‘National Executive Council’ that would be superseding his newly formed cabinet. The TNA earlier said that it would not participate in the SL government's cabinet. But, now Mr Sampanthan is a member of a Colombo-centric arrangement, higher than the cabinet.
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New SL regime fails to give policy-based assurance on de-militarisation: TNA circles

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 January 2015, 10:33 GMT]
Informed sources close to the hierarchy of the Tamil National Allaince (TNA) told TamilNet Wednesday that the newly elected Executive President of Sri Lanka, Maithiripala Sirisena, has failed to give a positive response to the request placed by the TNA to look at the issue of the de-militarisation of North and East as matter of a principled decision, marking a policy change. Mr Sirisena has reportedly told the TNA that the Sri Lankan military being stationed in strategic locations was largely based on the ‘national security’ concern and has justified the militarisation of public lands. Mr Maithiripala Siriesena, like his predecessors, is projecting the major issue as ‘isolated incidents of disputes’, which need to be addressed by the two separate committees, the disappointed TNA circles told TamilNet.
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‘LLRC’ Palihakkara expected to replace Military Governor of North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 January 2015, 20:17 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Governor of North, Major General (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri, on Saturday told his staff that he would resign his job before anyone on the top coming with the instruction of transfer to him, informed civil sources in Jaffna said adding that Colombo's regime-changers have proposed HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists earlier appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which was aimed at buying space and time for Sri Lanka to escape international investigations. Colombo-centric agenda-setters are replacing a military governor with a more sophisticated diplomat concerned with safeguarding the unitary state of Sri Lanka.
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Sirisena sworn in as 6th SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 14:06 GMT]
The SL President-Elect Maithiripala Sirisena was sworn in as the 6th Executive President of ‘Sri Lanka’ before Justice K. Sripavan on Friday at the Independence Square in Colombo on Friday evening around 6.20 p.m. Mr Maithiripala had declined to take oath before the current Sri Lankan Chief Justice Mohan Peiris, who is considered as a political appointee after the impeachment motion against the 43rd Chief Justice Ms Shiranee Bandaranayke, news sources in Colombo said. Later, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president of the United National Party and the leader of the opposition in the current SL parliament took oath as the Prime Minister before the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena at the same venue.
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Sirisena declared SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 09:50 GMT]
Sri Lankan Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya has officially declared Maithripala Sirisena as the new President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka around noon at his secretariat. Except the UPFA candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, all the other presidential candidates were present at the event.
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Sinhala elite succeeds proving Rajapaksa a liability for genocidal State

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 January 2015, 05:24 GMT]
Sections of Sinhala elite have succeeded in removing Mahinda Rajapaksa as a liability for the continuation of the genocidal Sinhala State and its monopoly over the island, Tamil political observers commented on the outcome of the ‘presidential’ election for the Establishment in Colombo. According to latest reports on Friday morning, Mahinda Rajapaksa left the charge of his official residence in Colombo to the current opposition leader Ranil Wikramasinghe, who in turn is expected to invite the winning candidate Maithripala Srisena to become the next president. Rajapaksa was open in his campaign that the choice between the two main candidates was a choice between China and the USA. India had a tacit understanding with the USA, political observers said.
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TNA agrees to hijack Tamils for ‘unconditional’ support to Maithiri

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 18:50 GMT]
At a so-called high-level meeting held Monday in Colombo between the main delegation of the Sri Lankan opposition and the constituent parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the national list parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran has promised TNA's unconditional support to Maithiripala Sirisena, informed TNA sources told TamilNet. “The opposition was not prepared to provide any assurance to Tamils. Suresh Premachandran of the EPRLF raised certain questions that on what promises the opposition is expecting the support of the Tamils. There was none from the opposition. The discussion on the topic was knocked down by TNA's national list parliamentarian in front of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe,” the source further told TamilNet.
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SLMC likely to back Sirisena in SL presidential election

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 14:08 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) has appealed to public servants that they should cast their votes according to their conscience giving 'preference' to 'democracy'. Mr. Rauf Hakim, the SL minister of Justice has said that the SLMC had not taken any decision as to whom the Muslim voters should cast their votes in the SL presidential election to take place on January 08. Postal voting of government servants is to begin on Tuesday.
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Controversial SL minister Badurdeen backs Sirisena

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 December 2014, 13:21 GMT]
Rishad Badurdeen, a cabinet minister in the Rajapaksa regime, who has been causing ethnic unrest between the Muslims and Tamils in the North has defected from SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA and joined hands with the joint opposition on Monday, news sources in Colombo said. Mr Badurdeen, who is elected from North and Amir Ali, elected from East, together with many other All Ceylon Muslim Congress (ACMC) members have pledged their support to common opposition’s presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena a short while ago in Colombo.
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Sumanthiran makes challenges to shield political bankruptcy

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 December 2014, 23:35 GMT]
Colombo-based parliamentarian of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), M.A. Sumanthiran, who visited Batticaloa on Thursday challenged the SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa to release the purported ‘secret agreement’, signed between the common opposition candidate Maithiripala Srisena and the TNA. Responding, the grassroots activists from Aalaiyadi-vempu who met Mr Sumanthiran told TamilNet Friday that the TNA had failed to come out with a people-centric political move challenging the real perpetrators of the plight faced by Tamils and instead comes out with empty challenges to shield its political-agenda bankruptcy. The TNA should have made use of the opportunity to mobilise the Tamil masses to send message to the forces that stage the deceptive game of presidential election for the perpetuation of the genocidal State, the activists in the East further said.
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