Catholic peace group in Jaffna details structural genocide to Apostolic Nuncio

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 15:28 GMT]
The Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah, has written a detailed letter on Friday to the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Colombo, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Spiteri, elucidating the structural genocide being carried out by occupying Sri Lanka on the country of Eezham Tamils. The letter comes following the move by the Colombo's colonial regime handing over a report to the Apostolic Nuncio, detailing the so-called development activities carried out in North and East. The JPC Chairman was categoric in his letter that external ‘development’ cannot substitute the settling of the political solution and urged the Vatican to exert political pressure on Sri Lanka to put forward a political solution framework. The detailed letter summarises the genocidal programme of the Sri Lankan State under 10 topics.
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Malaysia should drop charges for film screening - HRW

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 11:18 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based rights organization said in a press release that the Malaysian authorities should immediately drop charges against Malaysia's Lena Hendry of the Pusat KOMAS human rights group accused of showing Channel-4's No Fire Zone depicting Sri Lanka's massacre of Tamils. The charges alleged that the the film was screened without the approval of Malaysia's censorship board. "Malaysian authorities are flipping the switch off on basic freedoms by threatening to jail someone for showing a documentary,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, adding, “[t]hey should immediately drop the charges against Lena Hendry and find a way to undo the damage to Malaysia’s cultural reputation.”
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SL military blamed for brutal gang rape, murder at Jaffna suburb

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 October 2013, 23:35 GMT]
Women rights activists in Jaffna have blamed the occupying Sri Lankan military for yet another brutal rape and murder of a mentally affected woman in Jaffna this month. The accusation comes in the wake of the brutal killing of a war-displaced Tamil woman from Nelukku’lam, Vavuniyaa, who was being looked after by the Holy Family Convent in Jaffna and reported missing since October 03. She was recovered dead on Thursday at the temple chariot park site of Naachchimaar koayil, which is frequently used by the SL military, according to the residents of the area. The temple is situated on KKS Road, just 1 km from the city of Jaffna. The residents of the area staged a protest against the killing on Friday. In the meantime, another woman has been reported missing in Jaffna according to woman rights activists.
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Colombo CHOGM means condoning Sri Lanka: HR expert

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 October 2013, 23:44 GMT]
“Sri Lanka has got a lot to answer internationally in actually accepting an investigation into the atrocities. We don’t think that the CHOGM should be happening in Colombo, because it is like an almost condonation [of Sri Lanka],” said Margaret Owen, the director of Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD), 3 months ago at a conference held in London by the Centre for Community Development (CDC). “Could we talk [on Sri Lanka] to the Foreign Office, whom we are in discussions with the whole time on revising the UK national action plan,” Ms Owen said she had asked her group. The response from the members of her own group was that even attempting to mention Sri Lanka to the FCO may blow everything else the group was working with the British FCO. “That is the attitude, I am afraid at the moment. The UK doesn't feel it can get involved.”
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New Delhi following British imperialism does no justice to Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2013, 05:59 GMT]
200 years of imperialist outlook, knowing very well that there are two historically evolved nations in the island but engineering unification for imperialistic purposes, has always gone against the nation of Eezham Tamils and contributed only to its genocide in every respect, including in its territory and demography, writes an academic in Jaffna. The academic was commenting on New Delhi’s External Affairs Minister visiting Jaffna harping on making Sri Lanka ‘tri-lingual and united’. The academic compared it to early English Governor Sir Robert Brownrigg’s policy outlook in 1813, recognizing parity between Sinhala and Tamil languages, but that policy foundation not leading to parity in territory and power.
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Occupying Sri Lanka rushes to legalize Sinhalicisation of strategic entrance to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 October 2013, 17:34 GMT]
Colombo's ‘National Housing Development Authority’ (NHDA) and the Cvil Military Coordination Office (CIMIC) of the occupying SL military in Jaffna have been jointly engaged in legalising the Sinhala occupation of the strategic entrance to Jaffna city at Naavat-kuzhi this week. The NHDA and CIMIC have been distributing lands to 126 Sinhala families that have been occupying the public lands at Naavatkuzhi under the security of SL military despite the protest by the Tamil residents and refugees still struggling to resettle at the locality. Naavatkuzhi is a place just 5 km east of Jaffna city where the two highways A9 and A32, the only existing land arteries that lead into Jaffna from the south and the western coast meet.
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EPC opposes affiliation of Trinco campus with universities in South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2013, 10:22 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) has unanimously adopted a motion against the proposed affiliation of the Trincomalee campus of the Eastern University with the Rajarata University of Anuradhapura or with the Jayewardanapura University in Colombo. The motion was moved at EPC's September session by the Leader of the Opposition Mr C.Thandayuthapani, the group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the council. Mr R.Thurairatnam, TNA’s Batticaloa district councillor seconded the motion.
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Anti-Eezham fanaticism in India cites NPC to save Colombo on CHOGM

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2013, 02:55 GMT]
On Monday, writing a letter to DMK chief Karunanidhi, requesting him to persuade Thoazhar Thiyagu to call off his fast unto death campaign, New Delhi Establishment’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that “ a decision on the issue of my participation in the CHOGM conference will be taken only after considering all relevant factors, including the sentiments of your party and the Tamil people.” On Tuesday, Chennai-based V. Suryanarayan, who has spent a lifetime in serving New Delhi’s security–intelligence outfits and in opposing independence of Eezham Tamils, wrote that if New Delhi boycotts CHOGM it will harm the NPC ‘experiment’ and “it would be playing into the hands of the fanatical sections among the Tamil diaspora.”
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NPC culture deviating from secularism of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 21:02 GMT]
The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution (VR) of 1976, mandated by Tamil speaking people of the North and East in the 1977 general elections, calling for the creation of a secular State of Tamil Eelam is well known. Whether the overwhelming mandate by the people of the North to the TNA in 2013, hijacked by the Sampanthan-Sumanthiran-Wigneswaran trio to interpret it as something that has superseded the VR, is also hijacked to supersede the secular outlook in the polity of the nation of Eezham Tamils, asked Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna. They were cautioning on certain politico-cultural expressions surfacing with the Wigneswaran administration and said that Tamils have to rise above the culture of the genocidal State in Colombo than imitating it.
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Sinhala colonization to wedge North and East stepped up after NPC elections

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2013, 20:53 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military is being hurriedly deployed in clearing 2,000 acres of agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Karaithu'raippattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, after the conclusion of the Northern Provincial Council elections. Even though the uprooted people were allowed to resettle in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in 2011, their paddy fields had not been returned to them and they continue to suffer for their survival without livelihood assistance. Now, the Tamil villagers are shocked to learn that their paddy fields are being taken away to carve out a Sinhala colony in the middle of their village where they have been struggling to start their livelihood after 30 years of displacement.
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9 NPC members of EPRLF, TELO, PLOTE to take oath in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:57 GMT]
“We are not going to let a [Colombo-centric] group in the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) to take a different political course than what had been promised to the people during the elections, especially with regards to our demand of international investigations and the delivery of a political solution in a unified North-East as a single unit ensuring Tamils sovereignty,” said former TNA parliamentarian from TELO, MK Sivajilingam on Saturday. EPRLF's Suresh Premachandran, a TNA MP and PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Sitharthan, a former MP were also addressing the journalists in Jaffna. Meanwhile, Suresh Premachandran said that the NPC members who didn’t take oath on Friday will take their oath on Monday in Mullaiththeevu. “We have been part of the TNA for a long time and we will not be weakening the unity because of the newcomers,” he further said.
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People's mandate projected differently by TNA MPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:15 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian S. Sritharan from Ki'linochchi delivered an emotional speech in Jaffna on Friday during the oath-taking ceremony of the members of the NPC. The address, also containing satire messages directed at the Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, reminded the CM and his fellow NPC members on the aspiration of Eezham Tamils and what the real mandate the TNA had promised to its people at the grassroots level during the election campaign, while TNA parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan and national list parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran were interpreting the mandate according to their manuscript produced without involving the majority of the TNA politicians or the candidates.
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New Delhi poses new challenge to Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 18:57 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister Mr C.V. Wigneswaran has to be profusely thanked and appreciated by Tamils for his honesty in conceding that he is not a natural leader of Eezham Tamils representing their aspirations, but a planted one by New Delhi to implement the 13th Amendment. Wigneswaran’s revelation and his efforts to muffle voices in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora have to be understood in the background of what M.K. Narayanan had told the TNA in May 2009 that, “we know better what is good for Tamils.” New Delhi simulating a leadership for the political surrender of the Tamil cause poses new challenge to Tamils all over the world, writes an activist for alternative politics in Jaffna.
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Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united, sovereign, devolved and connected’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:12 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who visited Jaffna on Tuesday, ceremonially opened two houses of the controversial ‘50,000 House Project’, by visiting Thanthai Chelvapuram village at Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, after landing in Palaali, meeting SL military officials and paying tribute to slain Indian soldiers in the war 23 years ago. Mr Khurshid then proceeded to lunch with the war-crimes accused Sri Lankan colonial governor in North and thereafter met the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council. Salman Khurshid, addressing the beneficiaries of financial asssistance and the journalists at Tilko hotel was talking of devolved Sri Lanka under the 13 Amendment, for a happy, prosperous and tri-lingual Sri Lanka which is sovereign and united and connected with India.
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TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-trio effigy burnt in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 11:44 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) supporters in Mullaiththeevu on Tuesday have burnt the effigy of NPC Chief Minister Mr CV Wigneswaran who took his oath before genocidal Colombo’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday. New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Mr. Salman Kurshid had already arrived in Colombo when Wigneswaran was taking oath to function under the 13th Amendment. Immediately after the ceremony, the visiting New Delhi minister received leading TNA personalities in Colombo itself on Monday evening and congratulated them. The effigies of TNA leaders Mr R. Sampanthan and Mr M.A Sumanthiran were also burnt along with that of Wigneswaran on Tuesday. Except four, all the elected TNA representatives in the NPC as well as in the SL parliament, had boycotted the oath-taking ceremony.
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Fast-unto-death activist demands New Delhi to respect TN Assembly, boycott CHOGM

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 05:03 GMT]
Putting forward 9 concrete demands, Thoazhar (Comrade) Thiyagu, a veteran Tamil activist from Tamil Nadu, has been on a fast-unto-death campaign since October 01st at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai in Tamil Nadu. As his campaign entered 6th day on Monday, Thoazhar Thiyagu is determined to take forward the struggle, despite doctors warn him about deteriorating health. The genocidal Sri Lankan State should be suspended from the Commonwealth, the venue for the upcoming CHOGM meet should be shifted away from Sri Lanka and the Indian leaders should not take part if Colombo is to host the meet, are among the top demands of the 9-point list. Prominent activists and leaders of movements and parties have been expressing solidarity with Thoazhar Thiyagu and are accompanying him in observing the fasting campaign.
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Diaspora teenager records the Vanni she witnessed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 23:37 GMT]
“Was I a Stranger in My Homeland? Has One Two Lives?” is the title of a book by a young Norwegian Eezham Tamil girl, Malavi Sivakanesan. The book tells the story of how she, as an 8-year-old girl visiting Vanni, enjoyed playing in the sands of her homeland to how she, 6 years later at the age of 14, powerlessly witnessed from Norway the unfolding genocidal onslaught on the coastal strip of the same Vanni in 2009. With a lot of questions on why the global Establishments didn’t do anything to stop the genocidal onslaught despite hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including the children of her age, took to the streets staging demonstrations in an unprecedented way in the West, to why the Tamil youth are still struggling with questions on what is going on and what they should do, she publishes the book at the age of 17.
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SL govt service in East means officialising genocidal land grab

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2013, 23:53 GMT]
The occupying Colombo government has forced the Tamil divisional secretaries in Trincomalee district to comply with its genocidal land grab and Sinhalicisation schemes if they are to retain their jobs, informed civil sources in Trincomalee said. The latest victim to such pressure is the divisional secretary of Trincomalee Town and Gravets division, the sources said alleging that the divisional secretary Ms Sasithevi Jalatheepan has been instructed to identify lands without deeds and to allocate those lands to the occupying Sri Lankan military to set up new camps.
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Legendary Vietnamese General passes away at 102

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2013, 15:58 GMT]
General Vo Nguyen Giap, whose legendary military victories against the occupying armies of France and the USA facilitated the independence and integrity of Vietnam, passed away on Friday evening at the age of 102. Born on 25 August 1911, the former history teacher, who taught a lesson to world imperialism in the second half of 20th century, was a self-taught soldier. General Giap’s book was translated into Tamil by the LTTE in the early 1980s.
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Sri Lanka fails to stop screening of Channel-4's Killing Fields in Nepal

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2013, 11:53 GMT]
"The producers of the feature documentary No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka have condemned an unsuccessful attempt by the Sri Lankan government to prevent the screening of the film as part of the Film Southasia film festival in Nepal. The film’s director Callum Macrae accused the government of attempting to suppress the truth about their complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity," a press release posted in a website affiliated with Channel-4 said.
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