Genocide a national policy of Sri Lanka, says Tamil Nadu professor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2010, 11:59 GMT]
Genocide is a national policy to State in Sri Lanka since independence, says Professor Dheeran in Tamil Nadu in an article sent to TamilNet, citing the various facets, stages and sequences of State-orchestrated genocide against Tamils in the island, denying land, suffrage, polity, economy, culture and ultimately free physical existence. Eezham Tamils have more reasons to claim independence than many other such cases. The twist of the national question by the International Community only resulted in removal of guarantee against genocide. It paved way for China’s entry. The new equations provide new opportunities for the recognition of Tamil Eelam. The diaspora, free and powerful enough, should be steadfast in the only goal of liberation. Referendum is an international way to achieve it and efforts of re-mandating Vaddukkoaddai Resolution follow that line, he writes.
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Polling cards delivery in Jaffna peninsula incomplete

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2010, 03:20 GMT]
Polling cards of the registered voters have not been delivered completely in Jaffna as many of them are not at their addresses due to displacement and being evicted from the High Security Zones, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Many voters were seen searching for the registration particulars of their votes at Jaffna Secretariat until the last moment on Monday.
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TNA accuses EPDP for voter fraud in the islets of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2010, 03:04 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarians accused Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) for having taken large number of persons to the islets of Jaffna with the intention of committing voter fraud, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, EPDP men have instructed the post masters in the islets of Jaffna to issue polling cards to persons without calling for their identity documents and that EPDP supporters have collected the polling cards of many persons in many parts of Jaffna peninsula, TNA parliamentarians further accused.
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70% of relocated Vanni IDPs in Jaffna not allowed to reside in their homes

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 January 2010, 17:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Armed Forces in Jaffna district have not permitted the Vanni IDPs brought to Jaffna district in the name of resettlement to live in their own houses, Jaffna NGO sources said. Particularly the IDPs in the islets in Jaffna are forced by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) to stay in makeshift shelters located in private lands near their camps, the sources said.
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Voting Mahinda or Fonseka is submission to Colombo-centric system

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 18:10 GMT]
Eezham Tamils need not bother much about the outcome of the presidential elections. Whether Mahinda or Fonseka matters the same, says a senior journalist in Jaffna. Only the war criminals, their international abetters and the geopolitical competitors have to worry about the elections and it is their problem. Tamils have to concentrate in organizing their own polity and in demonstrating it. But if they abstain from voting there are people waiting to stuff the boxes. If Tamils want to register opinion and see neither of the main candidates get 50 percent they should cast the first vote to a third person and of all the candidates the moral obligation of Tamils is to vote for Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne. Looking upon the Colombo-centric system is the curse of Tamils for ages and instead of destabilising it, any participatory politics amounts to only submission to the system, he further said.
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“Tamils’ votes indispensable to send Mahinda home” - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 03:55 GMT]
“The votes of Tamils are of great value in this presidential election,” Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader, R. Sampanthan said Saturday in a big election campaign meeting held Saturday around 3:00 p.m in Nalloor Chaddanaathar Koayil area, in which nearly four thousand people from various parts of the peninsula participated, sources in Jaffna said. “After considering various pressing issues including the resettlement of Vanni people in their places we decided to offer our support to Sarath Fonseka,” he said. “He agreed to consider our demands favourably while Mahinda was not prepared to give in on any of them and therefore we decided to support Sarath Fonseka in this presidential election,” Sampanthan further said.
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'Conquerors feed language to the conquered'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 01:45 GMT]
The signboard in the illustration, displayed outside of a newly started food joint along the A9 Highway in the Tamil heartland of Vanni is self-explanatory. This should open the eyes of those who still don’t want to see Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam are two countries of two different nations, the former colonising the latter after conquest, commented a Tamil academic in Jaffna. With the opening of the highway after the war, nuclei of new townships are planned along the highway with military establishments, Sinhala trade and Buddhist temples. Already they have become new halting places for the buses operated by the government. This ‘development’ plan is to eventually push the native population to the hinterland and to demographic oblivion, cautions a senior Tamil civil servant now engaged in development work.
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SLA harass relatives, friends visiting resettled IDPs in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 January 2010, 05:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers restrict and harass the relatives and friends of the small number of Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) allowed to resettle in Ki’linochchi, the IDPs said. SLA soldiers inspect the National Identity Cards of the relatives and friends of the IDPs visiting them besides registering their particulars. Meanwhile, the soldiers subject the IDPs to severe interrogation after the visitors had left and these harassments have made the IDPs to request their relatives and friends not to visit them.
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Government plans election-rigging in Jaffna, say Fonseka supporters

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 03:59 GMT]
Although the delivery of polling cards ended on Monday postmasters in Jaffna have been unofficially instructed to continue to issue the cards by high government authorities, according to postal department officials who wish to remain anonymous. IN addition, Sri Lanka's Minister Douglas Devananda and former Inspector General of Police, Chandra de Silva, are engaged in activities aiming at rigging the votes of people in K’linochchi district which falls under Jaffna electoral division, Sarath Fonseka’s supporters in Jaffna alleged.
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Mahinda inciting racial hatred between Sinhalese and Tamils - Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 January 2010, 14:01 GMT]
“President Mahinda Rajapakse, on learning Tamil National Alliance (TNA) intention of supporting his rival Sarath Fonseka in the presidential election, is actively engaged in whipping up racial animosity between the Sinhalese and the Tamils,” Suresh Premachandran, TNA parliamentarian said in a press briefing held Tuesday in his Jaffna office. “Mahinda, Minister Douglas Devananda and other government supporters are deceiving the Tamils with their false promises,” he further said.
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Satellite imagery evidence of Hospital attack recorded in Dublin

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 January 2010, 12:49 GMT]
Do the facts made available to the Dublin war-crimes tribunal on the available direct and circumstantial evidence that between 9 January 2009 and 25 March 2009, in areas in or nearby Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) Hospital, legally establish that the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) committed, purposely, intentionally or knowingly, via act or omission, war crimes against Tamil civilians? - was the legal question presented to the tribunal. "The legal admissibility of evidence, currently available and to be discovered in the future, and the question of culpability of Sri Lanka of war-crimes, are likely to continue well beyond Dublin," said a spokesperson for the US-based pressure group, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), on the attack on the PTK hospital during the early months of 2009.
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TNA MP Sathasivam Kanagaratnam released

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 January 2010, 09:39 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Vanni district Sathasivam Kanagaratnam was released on condition after being produced before Vavuniyaa Magistrate Alex Raja Wednesday night. Mr. Kanagaratnam was taken into custody while he was staying with his people in one of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, for displaced civilians from Mullaiththeevu.
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Polling cards for Vanni IDPs to be issued in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 02:54 GMT]
The Commissioner of Elections has announced that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Vanni held in the detention camps in Vavuniyaa will be issued with polling cards for the presidential election, from Tuesday at Vavuniyaa Maththiya Mahaa Viththiyaalayam. However, the Election Commissioner’s announcement did not say anything about the IDPs from Ki’linochchi district who are not permitted to resettle in their own places. Ki’linochchi district falls within Jaffna electoral district and this gives room for election rigging by the ruling party, according to allegations made by Tamil political observers in Jafnna.
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Patten: Sri Lanka to choose between two alleged war criminals

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 02:31 GMT]
Chris Patten, currently the co-chairman of the International Crisis Group, notes in a New York Times article that public in Sri Lanka is "faced with a choice between two candidates who openly accuse each other of war crimes," and adds, "[w]hoever wins, the outside world should use all its tools to convince the government to deal properly with those underlying issues to avoid a resurgence of mass violence....In short, this means not giving Colombo any money for reconstruction and development until we know how it will be spent. And if we see funds not being used as promised, it means not being afraid to cut them off until." Patten is a senior international figure and is the last British governor of Hong Kong.
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President’s wife in Jaffna wooing votes for husband

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2010, 14:22 GMT]
Shiranthi Rajapakse, wife of President Mahinda Rajapakse, arrived in Jaffna Monday to seek support for her husband in the forthcoming presidential election, accompanied by Thilak Kumara Udugama, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) organizer for Vanni and Jaffna district, sources in Jaffna said. Parents and relatives of persons gone missing after arrest by armed forces who attended Monday Shiranthi Rajapakse’s meeting at Veerasingham Hall in Jaffna in the hope of getting them found or released, were disappointed as she failed to address the issue, the sources added.
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TAK passes 25 resolutions in its 60th anniversary meeting

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2010, 04:23 GMT]
The General Committee of Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (TAK) met Sunday in Jaffna on the 60th anniversary of its formation and passed 25 resolutions unanimously on issues related to Tamils, sources in Jaffna said. TAK said that it continues to stand firm that the Tamil ethnic issue should be resolved on the principles based on Tamil traditional homeland, Tamil Nation and self-rule based on the right to self-determination. The leader of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R. Sampanthan presided the meeting which was held in the I’lam Kalaignar Hall in Nalloor.
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British Minister calls for independent war-crimes probe

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2010, 02:32 GMT]
A senior British Minister Friday said that the allegations of war crimes especially during the last phase of war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) including the killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge in Sri Lanka should be probed independently. British International Development Minister, Gareth Thomas MP made these remarks in his address at the First Anniversary of the killing of late editor of Sri Lanka’s weekly, Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunge, during an event held at Mahatma Gandhi Hall, 41 Fitzroy Square London on Friday, 08 January 2010 between 07:00 – 09:00 PM. The event was organized by Tamil Legal Advocacy Project (TLAP).
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Thousands pay last respects to Pirapaharan’s father

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 January 2010, 03:43 GMT]
Thousands of people, including men, women, and children Saturday paid their last respects to the remains of late Thiruvengadam Vellupillai, father of LTTE leader Mr. V. Pirapaharan, at Theeruvli in Valveddiththu’rai (VVT) near the memorial monument of Lt. Col. Kumarappa, Lt. Col. Pulenthiran and Col. Kiddu. Mr. Velupillai passed away while he was being kept in isolation and illegal custody by the Sri Lanka Army at the age of 86.
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LTTE leader Pirapaharan's father passes away in SLA custody

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2010, 12:39 GMT]
Thiruvengdam Velupillai, the father of LTTE leader Mr. V. Pirapaharan, passed away following a brief illness in Panagoda Sri Lanka Army camp Wednesday night, Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo said. The headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a message Thursday conveyed its condolences to Mrs. Velupillai, children and relatives. The entire Tamil Nation laments for the demise of Mr. Velupillai, who preferred to be with the people during the war, the statement said. Mr. Velupillai was kept in isolation and illegal custody by the SLA and was denied of proper medical care at his grand old age, the LTTE further said.
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Alternative world to hold tribunal on Sri Lanka's war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2010, 02:00 GMT]
An independent commission of jurists of the Rome based Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT) will be meeting in Dublin, Ireland, on 14th and 15th of January 2010 to investigate allegations that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and its armed forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during its final phase of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The commission will also examine violations of human rights in the aftermath of the war and the local and international factors that led to the collapse of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. The provisional findings of the Peoples' Commission will be announced to the public on January 16.
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