Buddhist monk, SL military obstruct territorial contiguity of Tamil homeland at Kokku'laay

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 June 2015, 23:48 GMT]
An extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk, Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero, who has occupied the lands of Eezham Tamils at Kokku'laay, located along the coastal Mullaiththeevu - Batticaloa Road, has deployed the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers to proceed with the construction of the Vihara, completely ignoring an interim order issued last week by Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat to not to proceed with the construction of the ‘Sri Sambodhi Vihara’ until the dispute of lands occupied by the Incumbent monk is solved. The monk and the soldiers of the occupying army continue to the work despite the pressure and objection coming from the Eezham Tamils. The area surrounding Kokku'laay is the focus of Sinhala colonisation presently, as it is the key location for wedging the demographic contiguity of the North and East as well as direct communication between Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee.
Full story >>

‘LLRC’ Palihakkara promotes pompous ceremony for genocidal ‘War Heroes’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 June 2015, 23:20 GMT]
The office of the SL Governor to North, 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), was an an official co-organiser to the pompous ceremony organised together with Ranaviru Seva Authority (RSA) of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Wednesday. ‘LLRC’ Palihakkara himself was the chief guest of the ceremony organised in remembrance of the ‘fallen war heroes of three forces and the Police’. Mr Palihakkara has forced a section of Tamil public servants in the North to accompany him to the military ceremony. Tamil journalists in Jaffna have boycotted the event. The NPC councillors said they were not informed of public servants associated with the NPC being taken to the event.
Full story >>

Sinhala occupation of pastureland causes existential threat to Batticaloa Tamil farmers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 June 2015, 23:19 GMT]
316 Tamil farmers belonging to two administrative divisions in Batticaloa district own around 85,000 cattle. The cattle-herders from this region have been officially demarcated 45,000 acres of lands in Maathava'nai, Periya-maathava'ani and Mayilaththa-madu. More than 5,000 Tamils are dependent on the cattle industry in the region. They supply 15,000 litres of milk to three collecting centres run by Milko and Nestlé in Kiraan and Chengkaladi. The Sinhala colonisers have seized 12,000 acres (one fourth) of the allocated pastureland. Operatives belonging to SL Wildlife Conservation Department and the occupying Sinhala soldiers have been chasing the Tamil cattle herders away as the intruding Sinhala farmers engage in Chena-cultivation. The Tamil farmers demand a permanent solution before the Sinhala intruders are set to commence Chena cultivation for next season in August 2015.
Full story >>

Diaspora urged to document flow of narcotics into Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 May 2015, 15:37 GMT]
The Sri Lankan police will not be investigating to the fullest degree possible to assert what kind of narcotics were used by the gang rapists, who committed the brutal crime earlier this month, informed Tamil paramilitary operatives in Jaffna claim. The occupying Sri Lankan military has systematically deployed a number of Sinhala and Muslim narcotic sellers from South into Jaffna and Vanni over a long period of time. The Sri Lanka Navy sustains the flow of narcotics from India. Even the narcotic traffickers who earlier operated from Mannaar have shifted their activities to the islets off Jaffna in recent years. So-called rape drugs have been introduced in recent times, the Tamil paramilitary sources further say. The Chief Minister of Northern Province, Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, was also expressing the same message last week.
Full story >>

SL military collects details of family members of ex-LTTE activists in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 May 2015, 15:06 GMT]
The soldiers of the occupying Sri Lanka Army have been collecting details including the names of family members, their occupation at Chelvaa-nakar East in Aaraiyampathi, Batticaloa during the last five days. The SL soldiers are visiting the houses and huts of the families in the villages in bicycles with a printed list of names of ex-LTTE members in their hands. Why the SL military is harassing the families by registering all the details of family members and their places of employment, Tamil families in Aaraiyampathi question.
Full story >>

Oppressed nations shouldn’t take mere existence of geopolitics for granted: Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 May 2015, 23:31 GMT]
“Despite the emergence of a multipolar world, in which international and regional powers will battle each other and intervene in various conflicts in order to enhance their respective geopolitical dominance, oppressed people and Eezham Tamils should be wary,” writes Norway-based Anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. The patronage given by rivalling geopolitical powers to the genocidal policies of Sri Lanka and Pakistan in South Asia imply that a multipolar world does not by itself serve the interest of oppressed nations, the academic from the second generation diaspora, concludes that the national political mobilization within the oppressed nations themselves and a global solidarity transcending the State borders, would create the necessary de-facto situations to empower the nations without States to achieve their freedom.
Full story >>

SL State agencies, occupying military accelerate Sinhalicisation in Madu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2015, 20:18 GMT]
Two departments of the occupying Sri Lankan State, the Wildlife Department and the Forest Department, have been blocking the uprooted Eezham Tamils from resettling and owning lands in the four villages that come under Poomalarnthaan GS division, which is one of the 17 GS areas of Madu division in the Mannaar District, the uprooted Tamil villagers complain. The policy of social engineering targeting Sinhalicisation of Madu division has not changed under the ‘new’ regime, as these departments seem to compete with each other in the occupation of the lands. The threatening presence of Sinhala soldiers in the villages and the jungles facilitates the occupation. The programme of Sinhalicisation is accelerated following the commencing of railway line to Mannaar, the civil sources said.
Full story >>

OISL in acid test over witness submissions on ‘Gota camp’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2015, 21:30 GMT]
The revelations on the so-called Gota camp, a secret incarceration camp run by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Trincomalee, where at least 700 former LTTE members were illegally detained for more than five years, will be an acid test to conclude whether the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) has taken the eyewitness submissions seriously, one of the survivors who got out from the notorious detention just a few days before the regime change told TamilNet on Saturday. The whereabouts of those detained at the undisclosed ‘Gota’ camp also constitute a serious question on the conduct of the ‘new’ regime in South. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet that the SL military has given a figure of less than 400 former LTTE members as being alive in its custody throughout the island.
Full story >>

Missing Tamil journalist: octogenarian parents urge international investigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2015, 23:09 GMT]
Eight years have passed since 37-year-old Tamil journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran was arrested by the occupying Sinhala military at Kalikai Junction in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. One month after the SL military ‘abduction’, France-based media watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated in March 2007 that it was in a position to affirm that the Sri Lankan military participated in the arrest of journalist Mr Ramachandran, who was the Vadamaraadchi regional correspondent for newspapers Valampuri and Yaazh Thinakkural. His 85-year-old father and 83-year-old mother are still languishing without knowing what had happened to their son. Ramachandran's nine and twelve-year-old children have been expecting the return of their father for 8 years, the aged grandparents said in a video interview to TamilNet urging global attention on the plight of their missing son.
Full story >>

SL military harassment continues to target ex-LTTE members in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 March 2015, 23:11 GMT]
Former LTTE members who met the touring Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at Ki'linochchi on Sunday told the SL premier that the occupying Sinhala military was harassing them even after the so-called regime change in Colombo. SL military intelligence operatives continue to interrogate them, they complained adding that the SL soldiers were threatening the families by frequent inspections. The wives of former LTTE members were being harassed after their husbands leave for work, Mr Wickramasinghe was told. However, the SL Prime Minister was using his trip to encourage the occupying SL military to continue the genocidal occupation of the Tamil homeland, informed sources in Jaffna and Vanni told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Colombo continues to block uprooted Tamils from resettling in Poththuvil, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and Sinhala officials belonging to SL Forest Department and SL Archaeology department continue to block hundreds of uprooted Tamil families from resettling in their own villages situated along the border of Poththuvil Divisional Secretariat in Ampaa'rai district. Mr T. Kaliaiyarasan, a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet on Saturday that 485 families have been blocked from resettling in their residential and agricultural lands. The new regime in Colombo is also blocking the people from accessing these lands, he said.
Full story >>

Jaffna voices grief at Indian PM's cosmetic visit

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2015, 13:19 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to North ended up as a ceremonial tour on Saturday. The uprooted people, who were promised resettlement, just one day ahead of his visit to Jaffna, complained that the occupying Sri Lankan military was robbing even the remaining roofs of their houses till the last minute. The families of the victims of enforced disappearances, who marched from Jaffna Bus Stand to the office of the Consulate General of India at Nalloor, were disappointed to learn that Mr Modi was visiting the North-East after advising the TNA Parliamentary Group in Colombo to ‘re-strategize’ its approach and maintain ‘patience’ with regards to what it expects from the new regime in Colombo. They urged the Indian PM to exert pressure on Colombo to act without further delay.
Full story >>

Protesters demand international prosecutions, decry supervision of domestic mechanisms

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 11:31 GMT]
“While it is true that the Tamil people voted in large numbers for President Sirisena, we wish to emphasise that this was merely an anti-Rajapksa vote. We did not vote with the hope of any substantive change resulting from regime change,” said the appeal by the organisers of the massive protest in Jaffna on Tuesday. More than 5,000 students and people from all walks of life in Jaffna took part in the first largest demonstration after the end of genocidal war in Vanni on Tuesday. “International supervision of any domestic mechanism will only serve to waste time,” the appeal by the Jaffna University society said. The procession, which started at the University of Jaffna ended at the remains of the foundation of Thileepan monument at Nalloor.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

SL military assaults family man after playground dispute in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 January 2015, 23:28 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala soldiers at Ellaang-ku'lam camp in Uduppiddi in Vadamaraadchi brutally assaulted a 29-year-old father of three from the same village Saturday evening around 5:15 p.m. The victim, Selvaratnam Jegan, was admitted to the Valveddiththu'rai (VVT) Hospital with serious injuries. The SL military on Sunday threatened the family not to reveal the news to media and exerted pressure on the hospital administration to send the injured patient home, news sources in VVT told TamilNet. The SL military camp at Ellang-ku'lam has been a notorious place for torture.
Full story >>

More than 50% voter turnout in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 12:18 GMT]
Voter turnout was registered at 51% in Jaffna, 50% in Mannaar, 55.3% in Ki'linochchi, 68% in Mullaiththeevu and 60% in Vavuniyaa around 2:30 p.m., according to election department sources. The polling was peaceful in most of the places in the North apart form reports of a grenade explosion at Alvaay. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) canvassing for regime change in the South has arranged buses for the transport of the voters at many places in the North. In the meantime, SL military soldiers were instructed to distribute leaflets urging people to vote for Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Full story >>

SL military divided over voting in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2015, 08:06 GMT]
Despite the tension about possible violence in Tamil areas by the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitary, all arrangements necessary for brisk polling have completed in the two provinces, according to Sri Lankan Government Agents in the North and East. Voters were seen at many polling stations in queue. In the meantime, Sri Lankan military intelligence had stepped up disinformation campaign to divert the voting to another ‘Sirisena’ contesting the elections under the symbol of flag. While a section of the occupying military was hijacking the boycott call, thinking that it will be in favourable of Mahinda Rajapaksa, there were also SL soldiers encouraging the public to vote for the common opposition candidate Maithiripala Sirisena.
Full story >>

6-year-old child wounded in SL military assault on civilians in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 January 2015, 08:25 GMT]
A 6-year-old child was rushed to Ki'linochchi hospital at serious condition on Sunday when SL military soldiers at Paarathi-puram assaulted the Tamil civilians who were protesting against SL military violence on a tailor shop where a 46-year-old man from Paarathi-puram was brutally assaulted by a Sinhala soldier. The SL soldiers attacked the public when the public had gathered in front of the SL military camp demanding the arrest of SL soldier who went amok on the tailor shop. But, the SL military, which has been suppressing and exploiting the poverty-stricken resettled villagers, chose to assault the public in front of the military base.
Full story >>

UPFA deploys ‘Jihad’ operatives to harass Tamils in Mannaar to vote for Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2015, 23:26 GMT]
Two village (GS) areas in Mannaar, surrounding the public ground of the Urban Council, where the visiting Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa is scheduled to stage his election campaign activities on Wednesday, have been rounded up by the Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) commandos, SL military soldiers and policemen since New Year eve. Government workers belonging to construction, road development and electricity departments are forced to work round the clock to finalise the stage for Rajapaksa. People from Chaavat-kaddu and Chinna-kaddu villages complain that normalcy has been disturbed and they were unable to observe New Year celebrations. The people have also been subjected to harassment by the operatives of SLFP ‘Blue Brigade’ that has occupied the city.
Full story >>

Ex-LTTE members forced to vote for Rajapaksa at postal voting in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 December 2014, 21:17 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has forced around 4,000 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are under the captivity of the so-called Civil Security Division (CSD) in Vanni, to vote for the incumbent SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa through postal voting, which concluded on Wednesday. In the meantime, a special unit of SL military personnel, led by the officers handpicked by the SL presidential sibling and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has been monitoring the rank and file of the SL military stationed in the North. A section of the Sinhala soldiers, who have been advocating against the re-election of Mahinda Rajapaksa have been subjected to investigations by this special unit, informed sources told TamilNet.
Full story >>