1000-mile trek by Canadian students reaches half way mark

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2009, 01:52 GMT]
Three Canadian college students, who started a 1000-mile trek from Chicago to Washington D.C. on the 26th of June to raise awareness of the general American population to the several thousand Tamil civilians killed by the Sri Lanka military during the first two weeks of May, and the 300,000 Tamil civilians held in Sri Lanka military supervised internment camps, have now nearly reached the half-way mark. "The men arrived in Dayton Monday morning after starting their trip in Chicago. By the time the trip is done, the men will have walked more than a thousand miles," the Dayton Television station WDTN reported.
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Details emerge on Tamil media workers killed in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2009, 00:52 GMT]
TamilNet recently compiled details on Tamil journalists and media workers confirmed killed during the height of war in Vanni, between March and May. The list is not exhaustive. These media persons, committed to the human cause and engaged in the noble task of bringing out information to the people inside and to the world outside, have laid down their lives in achieving what the international media shamefully couldn't accomplish. TamilNet will be serialising compilations on the losses of other humanitarian workers too in due course.
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Manhattan GAP becomes target to trade boycott dry-run

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 August 2009, 01:12 GMT]
About twenty protesters stood in front of the fashionable clothing store GAP located at 34th street and Broadway intersection in Manhattan, New York, Saturday afternoon carrying placards urging U.S. shoppers to stop buying goods made in Sri Lanka. Placards claimed that Sri Lanka is one of the worst human rights violator nations in recent history, slaughtering more than 20,000 civilians in April and May 2009, according to a reputable British broadsheet, and keeping more than 300,000 Tamil civilians in military supervised internment camps as collective punishment. Protesters said, by engaging in apparel trade with Sri Lanka, GAP is funding genocidal war against the Tamil people.
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Emotional rehabilitation should precede IMF, GSP politics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 22:55 GMT]
If structural changes are what the West aims in the island of Sri Lanka through IMF and GSP+ loans, those cannot be achieved without first emotionally rehabilitating the Eezham Tamils. Emotional rehabilitation, which is fundamental to all other rehabilitation is possible only when the West openly acknowledges Eezham Tamils as a nation and their cause as a national liberation struggle, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. “Tamils are deeply hurt by IMF and Indian assistance to Colombo failing to take note of this fact, the commentator said, adding that the GSP+ should not make the same mistake.
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President Rajapakse will give nothing to Tamils – Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 06:49 GMT]
“Tamils should be vigilant of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse’s intentions. He says that there is no minority race in the country but only a majority race. It is clear that his intention is to assimilate the Tamil race into the Majority Sinhala race in Sri Lanka,” Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet Saturday in an interview in Jaffna.
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Grass root organisations form Global Tamil Forum

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 23:57 GMT]
A number of grass root Tamil organisations across the world on Thursday launched an initiative in forming Global Tamil Forum (GTF) said Suren Surendran of British Tamil Forum, which is one of the constituent organisations of the Forum. The Tamil diaspora is united in restoring the sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in their homeland and bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice, Mr. Surendran told TamilNet. The Forum will work for the benefit of Eelam Tamils based on the principles of the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution that recognises Self-Determination of Eezham Tamils in creating an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, said Dr. Sampavi Parimalanathan, a diaspora activist in Australia.
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Opening A9 route, an election gimmick – Mudiyappu Remedias

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 19:23 GMT]
“Though the Government of Sri Lanka had control of the A9 land route to Jaffna eight months ago it had kept it closed until now when it opens the route for public use as an election gimmick to lure voters in but no one can fool the people of Jaffna, Mudiyappu Remedias, the chief candidate of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), contesting Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, said in an interview to TamilNet Wednesday
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Galle MC opposition leader shot dead

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 08:34 GMT]
Unknown gunmen riding on a motor cycle shot and killed Galle Municipal Council opposition leader (UNP) Dushantha Senaviratne Wednesday morning around 7:00 a.m. while he was on his way to a shop nearby his residence at Bellgaha Kandiya in Galle town, Police said. The UNP had selected Mr. Seneviratne to contest in the forthcoming Southern Provincial Council election, party sources told TamilNet.
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New political formation of LTTE claimed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 16:42 GMT]
Addressed as originating from the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, an Executive Committee on Tuesday, announced restructure of the organization and the leadership of Selvarasa Pathmanathan in taking up the future course of the movement. “We have set up a head office for our liberation movement and formulated various sector-based working groups and an executive committee," a press release on behalf of the Executive Committee said adding that the details will be shared in due course. Meanwhile, LTTE watchers said that the new formation has the burden to prove its credibility with the grass root at home and among the diaspora that aspire not incumbencies but a strong mass organisation to address the national cause.
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Castes, religions and Eezham Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 23:34 GMT]
“Tamil nationalism needs to realise its potentialities and weaknesses in making it progressive, benevolent and an internationally recognised culture in the future world,” writes Opinion Columnist Ampalam. “The secular linguistic identity of Tamil nationalism, based on a classical language in which more than two millennia of human experience and discourses both spiritual and temporal are recorded, and its inclusiveness cum plurality are strong points in making criteria for nationalism and in contributing to the paradigm ‘culture and development’. But jingoism of religions, which soon will be used as cards by imperialisms regional as well as international, and castes cum hierarchies old as well as new, are the liabilities,” he further writes.
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Free election in Jaffna improbable – Manickasothy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 04:31 GMT]
Abimanasingham Manickasothy, the chief candidate of the Independent Group II contesting Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, told TamilNet Saturday that with the paramilitary groups operating with the government blatantly breaching election regulations with the blessing of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the police by intimidating and issuing death threats voters will not be free to cast their votes to the candidates of their choice. Despite the promise of Jaffna district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) to remove all wall posters, paramilitaries, alleged to be allied with the government, paste election campaign posters of the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) during curfew hours in places where the SLA is present, flouting election regulations, Manickasothy added.
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People in Jaffna live in fear – Suresh Premachandra

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 07:32 GMT]
“The people in Jaffna live in fear of the government armed forces and the paramilitary groups operating with them. They are scared to air their views or to openly participate in election related activities,” Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet in a special interview Friday in Jaffna. “Though government ministers invading Jaffna continue to offer promises to the people of Jaffna they cannot be deceived as they fully well know that the promises will not be kept because the government does not have the money to fulfill the promises,” he further said.
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Policy on Tamils haunts India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 05:20 GMT]
Setting the parameters based on 13 plus and ruling out federal, the Colombo – Chennai – New Delhi axis is learnt to be pressurising Tamil political circles to come out with a political formula, as early as possible, to hastily close the file on Tamil nationalism and to hide all skeletons under the cupboard. The haste in the Indian Establishment is said to be arising from the fear of China’s growing influence in the island resulted from India’s folly of not maintaining balance in the ethnic war. “Grasping geopolitics and aspirations of people, the Tamil political circles need to play the cards with dexterity,” said TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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US Congress places Rights barriers on Sri Lanka IMF loan

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 July 2009, 01:41 GMT]
The language inserted in the Department of State Appropriations bill S.1434 soon to be passed in the United States Senate, has virtually blocked U.S. Treasury Secretary from authorizing the projected $1.9B IMF loan to Sri Lanka, unless Secretary of State Hilary Clinton certifies that Sri Lanka "is treating internally displaced persons in accordance with international standards, including by guaranteeing their freedom of movement, providing access to conflict-affected areas and populations by humanitarian organizations and journalists, and accounting for persons detained in the conflict," and Sri Lanka is promoting "reconciliation and justice including devolution of power to provincial councils in the north and east as provided for in the Constitution of Sri Lanka."
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Percival was not an apostate - Prof. Hoole

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 22:54 GMT]
“The late Rev. Dr. Kingsley Muthiah (former President of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka) has told me of cowardly verbal claims that Percival turned apostate to undermine his efforts but this is the first time I have seen it being openly stated”, writes Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole responding to a statement appeared in a TamilNet feature that Percival deviated from evangelism and concentrated on education and accusing the article for adding another dimension to anti-Christian diatribes. Prof. Hoole says Jaffna Tamils have made an icon of Navalar as the translator of the Bible and as father of prose, but earliest Tamil prose may be traced to catechisms of the Roman Catholics.
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Inclusion is effective nationalism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 10:01 GMT]
Ethnic identity is not genetic but of social origin caused by political action, argues Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz of Temple University, USA, explaining what made the Tamil speaking Muslims in the island of Sri Lanka opting for a separate identity seeking power. In a recent article ‘The Eastern Muslims of Sri Lanka: special problems and solutions,’ published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies, Dr. Imtiyaz emphasizes that the divide, a reality of today caused politically, has to be addressed by appropriate political models for the mutual benefit of Tamils and Muslims in their homeland. The academic, hailing from Colombo, rejects feasibility of power-sharing units for Muslims in such an inter-dependent landscape, but suggests consociationalism, i.e., proportional allocation of power.
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The onus is on the diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 00:22 GMT]
The military outcome of the crisis has emboldened a bunch of people to chant that ‘we told you so’ and now collaborate with thy oppressors. This group is not new to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo. "Ever since universal suffrage was introduced in the ethnically divided island in 1931, there was always a section willing to play stooges to the majority. Yet the struggle of the freedom seekers also remained alive. If the fighters are accused of not achieving any, so are the collaborators and the ‘we told you so’ groups," the commentator writes. "The onus of facing the situation now entirely rests on the Eezham Tamil diaspora, as it is the only entity that has the freedom of expression. Response to Karunanidhi has to come from the diaspora through reaffirming the Vaddukkoaddai resolution," he further writes.
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Animosity of Tamils will not help India’s maritime ambitions

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 16:46 GMT]
Dominating the Indian Ocean, the shores of which are shared by 47 countries, has been the long-cherished dream of India ever since its independence. As China entering into a competition, the Indian Ocean is fast emerging as the new hotspot of Sino-Indian rivalry, says an article appeared Wednesday in Pakistan Observer. India’s security concerns as well as its needs to assert as a world power may be justifiable, but it is making a grave blunder in earning the animosity of Tamils, which is not going to help in its maritime ambitions, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Buddhism among Tamils is quenched from two sides: Peter Schalk

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2009, 06:09 GMT]
“To say that Tamil tradition has always been all-inclusive of religions is modern Tamil national ideology projected into an invented past. It is not history of the Tamils”, writes Professor Peter Schalk, challenging the perspectives of looking at Tamil identity from the point of the use of Tamil language that simultaneously accommodated various religions in its history, despite of them contradicting one another or coming and going. Responding to an article on Buddhism appeared in TamilNet, Tuesday, Prof. Schalk said that Buddhism among Tamils he objectifies is different from what the Sinhala-Buddhists are envisaging.
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Elie Wiesel: Sri Lanka's victimization of Tamil people must stop

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 02:42 GMT]
Holocaust surviver, Jewish icon, and Nobel laureate, Professor Elie Wiesel, in a message posted on his website said: "Wherever minorities are being persecuted we must raise our voices to protest. According to reliable sources, the Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities. This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland."
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