Indo-US manoeuvrings impact TNA's political future

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 April 2013, 23:30 GMT]
The sophisticated competition between the Establishments of the USA and India in winning Colombo to their side exploiting the plight of the genocide affected nation of Eezham Tamils, has resulted in divisions among the constituent parties of the Tamil National Alliance. The exploitations now revolve around the provincial council elections. Informed sources said that EPRLF Varathar-wing has been recently consulted by New Delhi. Likewise, the son of the late SJV Chelvanayakam and a son of the late A. Amirthalingam have also been consulted by India to back up the ITAK faction that has been aligning with India. Informed circles further told TamilNet that the US officials have been disappointed with the ITAK alignment with New Delhi.
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Justice Wigneswaran delivers ITAK’s Chelva Memorial Lecture

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 April 2013, 07:01 GMT]
Marking the 36th death anniversary of S.J.V. Chelvanayagam Q.C., Justice C.V. Wigneswaran delivered this year’s Thanthai Chelvanayagam Memorial Lecture, titled “Whither Sri Lankan Tamils,” at the New Kathiresan Hall in Colombo on Friday. The Lecture was organised by the Colombo District Branch of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), formerly known in English as Federal Party and is currently the leading constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Justice Wigneswaran’s lecture gains significance, as there are speculations about TNA fielding him as Chief Minister in the Geneva Resolution-urged Northern Provincial Council elections. Despite logic and eloquence in aptly bringing out the cause of Tamils, the lecture was ultimately reeking of the agenda of India and the USA, political observers in the island commented.
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Tamils were not the ‘favoured’ under British colonialism: Theva Rajan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 April 2013, 23:44 GMT]
It is noted that D S Senanayake advised the British to grant independence to Ceylon early, citing that the Tamils will be problematic as they were followers of Gandhian principles led by the Jaffna Youth League that agitated for full independence, writes Mr. A Theva Rajan in New Zealand, commenting further on a TamilNet feature last Saturday that refuted a repeatedly told myth about British colonialism favouring Tamils. The feature, “Tehelka report misled on British treatment of Tamils,” challenged a recent statement by Ms Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga that the frustration of Tamils was due to lost privileges they had enjoyed under British favouritism aimed at ‘divide and rule’. The myth, constructed by Sinhala polity to justify State-conducted genocide in the island has misled a recent report by Tehelka too.
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CPI urges TN government to initiate Eezham Tamil heritage centre at Chithamparam

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 April 2013, 15:33 GMT]
Speaking at the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Friday on the budget allocations of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Communist Party of India’s Tha’li constituency member, Mr. T. Ramachandran urged the Tamil Nadu Government to initiate an Eezham Tamil Cultural Centre at Chithamparam by taking over and protecting the enclave of Eezham Tamil Mutts in Chithamparam. The Mutts date from the times of the Kingdom of Jaffna. King Pararaja Sekaran, who ruled in the 16th century, before the advent of the Portuguese, built the earliest known among them. Most of the Eezham Tamil Mutts at Chithamparam are located as an enclave around a large tank called Gnaanap-pirakaasam, excavated by the ascetic Gnaanap-pirakaasar who came from Jaffna in the 17th century.
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Tamil from Australia tortured, abused by Sri Lankan forces during visit to island

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 17:48 GMT]
An Eezham Tamil male currently residing in Melbourne, Australia was tortured and sexually abused by Sri Lankan forces when he paid a visit to the island a few weeks before, Australian media reports. Speaking under a different name of ‘Kumar’ to the ABC on Wednesday, the father of three described in graphic detail of how he was abducted and tortured. This was, however, flatly rejected as “false allegations” by the SL High Commissioner for Australia, Thisara Samarasinghe, himself a military officer accused of war crimes. Despite living in Australia, the torture survivor is unable to come out in public owing to fear of retaliation by the GoSL on his family back in the island. Tamil sources from Australia further said that as long as the US and its bloc are going to churn out only impotent resolutions, this arrogance of the genocide-accused SL state would continue.
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TN responded, diaspora should come forward: Gajendrakumar urges addressing IC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 08:14 GMT]
“Just 25 miles away, across the sea, there are 70 million people in Tamil Nadu prepared to give their voice for our struggle […] At the same time, the Tamils living across the world who constitute the global Tamil Diaspora, should also come forward to strengthen this struggle by taking it forward in their countries, demonstrating their strength, as they voiced for us during the last phase of the war,” said TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam on Wednesday, urging the Tamils in the West and in Tamil Nadu to address the concerned States that allowed the genocide in war, to remind their responsibility when the process of genocide reaches its peak four years later. He was addressing people demonstrating against SL military seizing an entire region of their lands in Jaffna.
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People rise up against SL military seizure of Valikaamam in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 April 2013, 06:57 GMT]
Hundreds of people, braving the hurdles put up by the Sri Lankan military, gathered on Wednesday in front of the District Secretariat in Jaffna, protesting against the systematic seizure of their already SL-military occupied lands in Valikaamam North, transforming the former ‘High Security Zone’ area into a permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ). The successful protest, for the first time saw active participation of law students and activists, news sources in Jaffna said. Despite the deployment of SL military, intelligence operatives and the SL police in blocking peoples’ participation, around 500 people gathered in front of the District Secretariat passing a strong message to not only the occupying military, but also to the powers abetting the continued LLRC-based structural genocide.
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Sinhala-Buddhist temple to replace Kaa’li temple in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 April 2013, 13:51 GMT]
A massive Sinhala-Buddhist complex is planned by the occupying Sinhala military at the site of an ancient Kaa’li temple of Eezham Tamils at Verukal in the Eechchilam-pattai division of Trincomalee district. A five-feet tall Buddha statue has already been installed at the site where the Kaa’li temple, called Malai-neeli-amman, is located. Huge stone slabs have now been brought and stored at a two-acre land of the Saiva temple for the construction of a Buddhist temple. About 10 acres of land will be eventually appropriated for the Sinhala-Buddhist complex, news sources in Trincomalee said. Seeing precedents in the other parts of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, the local Tamils of the ancient village that has public buildings, schools etc., are now afraid that they would be chased out and would lose their village permanently.
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Sinhala military assaults Trinco villagers for calling their village in Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 April 2013, 11:02 GMT]
Ilangkaith-thu’rai, meaning in this context “the islet-port,” is an ancient Tamil coastal village at a scenic location in the Eechchilam-pattai division of Trincomalee district. The occupying Sinhala military has Sinhalicized the place-name as “Lankaa-patana” and insists the local villagers to use the Sinhala name even in their speech. If any of the villagers mention their village name in Tamil, they are beaten up by the Sinhala military, news sources in Trincomalee said. Two years ago, the occupying military destroyed a Murukan temple located at the port entrance, appropriated 15 acres of land, and built a Buddhist temple named “Samudra-giri Vihara,” at that spot. While the village roads are in dilapidated condition, a new, broad road now links the Buddhist temple, facilitating Sinhala visitors from the South who come in thousands nowadays.
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Indian news magazine highlights accelerated Sinhalization of Tamil north

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 21:35 GMT]
In a commentary on the ‘post-war’ scenario in the northern part of the Tamil homeland in the island of Sri Lanka, a correspondent for The Weekend Leader, a Chennai based online news magazine, highlights the accelerated Sinhalization of the Tamil north through political, social, cultural, economic and military means, giving cases for each. In the article titled ‘Erasing the cultural leftover of Tamils to convert Sri Lanka into Sinhala country’ published on Tuesday, the correspondent writes that the Tamil north “is in the grip of Sinhala hegemony”, adding that Sinhala and Sinhalization are the watchwords in the region. The writer also underscores the vital role that the occupying Sinhala military plays in facilitating this process and how development projects are used as a ruse by the GoSL to further colonize Tamil areas.
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Thikkam,
Tikkam-pothana

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 17:32 GMT]
The land defined by title deeds
The grassland defined by title deeds
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Geneva resolution responsible for genocidal militarisation of Tamil country

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 07:19 GMT]
The March resolution at UNHRC in Geneva, designed by the USA and watered down by India, is directly responsible for all the current ‘legalisation’ of the genocidal militarisation carried out by the occupying Sinhala State in the country of Eezham Tamils in the island, said alternative Tamil political activists in Jaffna, citing the ‘legal’ appropriation of 6400 acres of Tamil civilian lands at Jaffna HSZ and another 6000 acres in Vavuniyaa, openly for Sinhala military cantonment purposes, within one month of passing the resolution. The genocidal State was internationally allowed to do so by the LLRC-based resolution. Its basic concept ‘reconciliation’ a camouflage for structural genocide is a brainchild of the US State Department, the activists said.
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Toronto conference discusses international injustice on Tamil PoWs

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 April 2013, 06:09 GMT]
The illegal confinement and brutal treatment of Tamil prisoners of war by the Sri Lankan state and the injustice by the International Community of Establishments (ICE) in facilitating this was elucidated by youth activist Krisna Saravanamuttu at the event ‘Criminalization of Dissent’ on the occasion of Palestine Political Prisoners’ Day held at the University of Toronto on Wednesday. Mr Saravanamuttu also gave examples of how former PoWs with legitimate claims to asylum were rejected by Western governments, noting that this put them at further risk from genocidal Sri Lanka. Activists from other communities also shared their opinions and experiences on other cases of incarceration for political reasons. Speaking to TamilNet, Issam Alyamani, veteran Palestinian activist, urged Eelam Tamils in the diaspora to make the release of Tamil prisoners of war and political prisoners as a priority.
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Tehelka report misled on British treatment of Tamils: Jaffna academic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 April 2013, 08:03 GMT]
The Tehelka feature on Friday by Revati Laul is highly appreciable on many counts, as it has brought out the multifaceted genocide committed on Eezham Tamils so that they would remain “people without a nation, much like the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the military-occupied situation that is worse than that of Afghanistan and the double game of the world cum UN expecting that the “idea of nationhood could be the next to disappear,” but yet the reality and determination of the people alive with the idea of a separate Tamil nation despite the terror and genocide. However, the feature is misled by a repeatedly told myth by the adversaries of Tamils and believed by the gullible even among the Tamils especially in the diaspora, that British colonialism once favoured the Tamils, writes an academic in Jaffna.
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Tehelka report brings out genocide at sea: Eezham Tamil activist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 April 2013, 05:29 GMT]
The Tehelka report on Friday by Revati Laul touches a crucial facet of the structural genocide against Eezham Tamils that takes place not only in land but also in sea, commented a Tamil political activist in the island. This facet of structural genocide, dating from the British rule in severing the natural relations of Eezham Tamils with the Tamils of Tamil Nadu was structured further by the Sinhala State after the so-called independence. It is now intensified with the complicity of New Delhi in coming to the level of sealing off the coasts of Eezham Tamils depriving of their traditional economic activity, industrial exploitation of their seas without their consent or participation, and even snatching away their subsistence by bringing in militarily protected Sinhala fishermen from the South to occupy the coasts and seas, the activist said.
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‘Idea of Tamil nation not dead despite aftermath of genocide’: Tehelka report

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2013, 21:10 GMT]
Even in the aftermath of terror and genocide, the idea of nationhood has not disappeared among the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, writes journalist Revati Laul in an investigative feature published on the Indian news magazine Tehelka on its April 27 issue. Travelling to the militarily occupied Tamil homeland in the north and east and interacting with politicians, civil society activists, NGO workers, priests, ex-LTTE cadres and ordinary people, Ms Laul provides through their accounts a picture of the intense oppression that the Sri Lankan state is subjecting the Tamils to through various means, she further notes how the UN’s “pussyfooting on the war” and the Geneva resolution in March 2013 gave a cloak for such oppression, arguing that “It is this refusal to take in the whole narrative that allows Rajapaksa to tell the world all is well now with the Tamils in his country.”
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Norway Tamil politician questions continued ICE bias against democratic mandate of Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 April 2013, 10:16 GMT]
Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, an Eezham Tamil youth politician of the ruling Labour Party in Norway, who states that her political engagement began with the agony of witnessing civil war in her homeland, questions the conduct of the world powers and the policy groups of the international community, for their continued bias against the democratically proven political mandate of Eezham Tamils, both in the island of Sri Lanka and in the diaspora. In a political column of the newspaper Dagsavisen, Ms Khamshajiny, a survivor of the brutal Utøya massacre carried out by the Norwegian killer Anders Breivik in 2011, also questions the conduct of the international community in leaving the responsibility of investigating the crimes committed by the Sri Lankan State to the very hands of that State, as seen in the recent resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2013.
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Conference at Danish Parliament highlights need for international investigation on Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 April 2013, 08:12 GMT]
Expressing deep concern for the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the island of Sri Lanka, Danish politicians from both the ruling left parties and the opposition party, academics, Eezham Tamil politicians from the island and the diaspora, Sinhala journalists, and other civil society activists called for an independent international investigation into the crimes of the Sri Lankan state during the war and after, in a conference organized in the Denmark Parliament on Wednesday. The event titled “A forgotten conflict: Conference on Human Rights in Sri Lanka” saw a general consensus among participants that Sri Lanka was incapable of investigating its crimes through its own mechanisms.
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Kerala researcher speaks on facets of Indo-Eezham discourse

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 April 2013, 07:35 GMT]
“Eelam and Kerala share similar history. We were ruled by the same colonial powers, the Portuguese, Dutch and later English. Kerala is not very far from Eelam and the war in Eelam was something happening right in front of our eyes. Yet Eelam never became the agenda before any political organizations in Kerala. Keralites were in the streets in solidarity with Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan. This never happened in the case of Eelam,” said Dr Vinod Krishnan from Kerala in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. Dr Krishnan, an academic researcher involved in studies related to social exclusion in South and Southeast Asia, is currently attached to the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) in India.
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Colombo revives colonial rule to monitor foreign tourists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 April 2013, 20:26 GMT]
Citing an obscure 1886 ordinance of the colonial times of British Ceylon, that has been largely ignored for decades, the Sri Lankan Police now says that it will monitor foreign tourists’ whereabouts in the entire island, a report by the International Business Times said Wednesday. The news report in the IBT has come while Eezham Tamils world over have been campaigning against tourists visiting the Sri Lankan ‘killing fields’.
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