Major Sinhala colony crops up at entrance to Jaffna city

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 February 2013, 11:06 GMT]
A permanent Sinhala colony is in the making at Naavat-kuzhi in Jaffna with the assistance and backing of the genocidal government in Colombo and with the protection of its occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna. Buddhist associations in the south and EPDP collaborating with the Rajapaksa regime are also involved in the process, news sources in Jaffna said. Naavat-kuzhi is a major junction located 5km east of Jaffna city, where the two highways A9 and A32 that come from the south join and enter into the city. To give protection to the colony, a Sinhala military camp is also established there amidst the colonisers. The Sinhala colony at the location is planned to control the arteries of the city and to even Sinhalicise Jaffna city itself, as similar tactics were tested earlier at Trincomalee, the sources further said.
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SL military operatives attack peaceful protest against Jaffna SMZ

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 February 2013, 12:20 GMT]
More than ten Sri Lankan military operatives, co-mingling with and camouflaging as protestors in front of Thurkkai Amman temple in Thellippazhai, where a token fast against Colombo converting the former SL Miltiary High Security Zone (HSZ) into Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Jaffna, attacked the peaceful protestors on Friday. The attack came after the SL Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe had left the site taking part and addressing the protestors. The SL military men went amok on Tamil parliamentarians and journalists at the site of the protest. However, the attackers who were causing panic among the participants were confronted by the protestors. More than one hundred SL policemen silently watched the unfolding episode without restraining or arresting the civil clad military operatives.
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Colombo shuns Tamil representation in Delimitation Committee in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 February 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Not a single Tamil officer was appointed to the six-member Trincomalee District Local Authorities Delimitation Committee that is headed by the Sri Lankan Government Agent (SLGA) who is a retired Major General of the occupying Sri Lanka Army, civil sources in Trincomalee said. Four members are Sinhalese, including the SLGA, and the remaining two are Muslims. The Trincomalee District Local Authorities Delimitation Committee is empowered to demarcate the boundaries of the existing wards and carve out new wards of the 13 local authorities under the Amended Local Government Ordinance.
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R2P doctrine failed in Sri Lanka to protect Tamil Nation: TNPF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 February 2013, 11:37 GMT]
“What is now public knowledge of credible allegations of what transpired during the last stages of the war, amply points to the complete failure of the UN and the international community in its obligations under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to have intervened on behalf of the Tamil Nation,” said Tamil National Peoples Front, in an open appeal on Thursday urging UNHRC member states to resolve to set up a transitional administration in the Tamil homeland comprising of the North East provinces in the island of Sri Lanka, as a matter of urgency. The said transitional administration will have to necessarily lie outside the present constitutional apparatus.
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Navi Pillay pre-concludes ‘procedures’ to adopt by UNHRC process

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 22:46 GMT]
While the US officials, who visited the island of Sri Lanka last month, were talking of tabling a ‘procedural resolution’ to approach affairs of the island at the March sessions of the UNHRC in Geneva, the report that has come from the office of Ms Navi Pillai (OHCHR) on Monday outlined what procedures have to be taken to further the processes started with last year’s resolution at the UNHRC. When the US-tabled resolution, watered down by India and passed last year, was fundamentally responsible for the acceleration of structural genocide of Eezham Tamils as witnessed in the course of the year, any further ‘procedural’ enhancement of the resolution is like decorating the rat’s tail with a silk tassel, as the saying in Tamil goes (eli vaalukku padduk kungncham), commented human rights activists in Jaffna.
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SL commander admits converting HSZ into permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ)

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 07:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s military commander occupying Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe, on Monday openly admitted to media in Jaffna that the so-called High Security Zone of Valikaamam on the Northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula, occupied and displaced of its Tamil inhabitants in the guise of High Security Zone (HSZ) two decades ago, will now be converted into a permanent Sri Lanka/ Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ). Meanwhile, genocidal Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, visiting Jaffna on Monday, has opened a ‘tourist resort’ of the SL Navy at Mayiliddi in the said SMZ. The major fishing port of Eezham Tamils at Mayiliddi will cease to exist hereafter and the occupying Sinhala military has undertaken cultivation of onions using spring irrigation in the traditional horticultural lands of Eezham Tamils in the SMZ that has been created.
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Protests against ‘regime change’ President intensify in Egypt

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 February 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Demanding Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to step down, thousands of Egyptians demonstrated on streets across the country against the President and the Muslim Brotherhood. The demonstrators accused Mursi's and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood “of hijacking Egypt's democratic revolution and seeking to monopolise power”, Reuters reported on Monday. Mursi coming to power through democratic elections after toppling Hosni Mubarak, the erstwhile dictator of 30 years, and the much spoken about Tahrir square protests were considered by certain sections of political analysts to be a successful case of ‘regime change’ politics of the West. The recent spate of unrest has been going on in Cairo since 24 January, the second anniversary of the Egyptian uprising.
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‘Extra-constitutional interim solution to counter Sinhala militarization must be probed’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 February 2013, 17:33 GMT]
Arguing that while the strategy for Tamils world over should be the restoration of Eezham Tamil sovereignty over their traditional homeland, RM Karthick writes that the Tamil diaspora organizations must arrive at a consensus for an immediate tactic to alleviate the mutilation of the Eezham Tamil nation in the Tamil homeland by the occupying Sinhala military via an interim solution of an intervention of international powers in the island to facilitate the dismantling of the Sinhala military apparatus. Contending that such an interim solution should not give any legitimacy whatsoever to the Sri Lankan constitution, the writer further argues that any interim solution can be successful only on an extra-constitutional basis that has pre-constitutional recognition of the Eezham Tamil nation’s territoriality and historical sovereignty.
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SL military steps up land grab in Vaakarai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 February 2013, 22:40 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has demanded thirteen Tamil families in Thoa'nithaa'ndamadu, a village in the Koa'ralaip-pattu North (Vaakarai) DS division in Batticaloa district to hand over photo copies of their deeds in an attempt to grab their lands saying that they would be paid rent for its use. The residents say that the SLA promise is not genuine but a ploy to grab their lands where a SLA camp is already is located.
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Poonakari becomes another major hub of Sinhala militarisation, colonisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 February 2013, 07:50 GMT]
Similar to the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) on the northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula, including KKS harbour and Palaali airport that has now become a permanent enclave for Sinhala military cantonment, colonisation and corporatism, another enclave in the Poonakari division is in the making, news sources in Vanni said. Around 31,000 Sinhala military personnel are stationed in the Poonakari division where currently only 6216 families live, which means that for every Tamil family there are 5 personnel from the genocidal military. While the SL military alone occupies 800 acres of land, the Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s siblings Basil and Gotabhaya, and progeny Namal have appropriated many more acres of land. Building a Chinese assisted international airport at Poonakari is in the centre of the plans.
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Civil Society insists on pre-constitutional recognition of Tamil nation, self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 February 2013, 01:41 GMT]
In a set of preliminary points submitted at a conference held in Berlin, 26-27 January, facilitated by the Berghof Foundation, the Tamil Civil Society (TCS) from the island insisted on “pre-constitutional recognition of Tamil nationhood and self-determination” before Tamils could sit down and debate institutional proposals for a constitutional design within a united Sri Lanka. Such recognition “does not mean a separate state,” the TCS added. The Tamil Civil Society or any other party or group based in the island are not free bodies to comprehensively or authentically talk on the issue as they are bound by the 6th Amendment of the constitution of the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. Such organisations should first insist on the IC and its outfits to create conditions going beyond the 6th Amendment to have honest discussion on the issue, commented new generation Tamil activists in the island.
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Tamil Heritage Month Bill Proposed in Canadian Parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 February 2013, 23:48 GMT]
Tamil Canadian federal MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan introduced Bill C-471 in the Canadian Parliament on January 31, to designate the month of January as Tamil Heritage Month in Canada by an Act. This bill, a private member’s bill that doesn’t often become law, if passed, will enshrine at the federal level an ongoing practice among Tamil community organizations. Neethan Shan, founder and chair of the Tamil Heritage Month Committee, believes that such a commemoration of Tamil heritage will provide a platform for discussion of Tamil national identity. "We have been working hard for two years to get both the federal and provincial governments to recognize Tamil Heritage Month formally and we are hopeful that it will happen before our fifth year anniversary in January 2014," Neethan Shan, founder and chair of the Tamil Heritage Month Committee, told TamilNet.
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British Under Secretary’s ‘war picnic’, misleading comments, draw flak from Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 February 2013, 21:17 GMT]
While Alistair Burt, British Under Secretary of State at FCO, endorsed on Twitter on Wednesday the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara, in his Twitter discussions on Tuesday with Eezham Tamils, he opined that “Detail of political settlement must be for Sri Lankans themselves. We encourage TNA and govt to make serious progress.” Likewise, in a video recording taken with the British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka a few days back at the Mullaitheevu coast, which witnessed the worst massacres in May 2009, he welcomed the defeat of the LTTE calling it “terrorism” and picked only politically insignificant flaws with the Sri Lankan government. Civil society activists from the North remarked that the minister seemed to be on a sort of a “war picnic”, appreciating some aspects with Sri Lanka and criticizing others. Activists in the UK have also reacted to Mr. Burt’s comments.
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TESO urges New Delhi to move for referendum at Geneva

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2013, 07:39 GMT]
New Delhi should take firm efforts to bring forward a resolution at the UNHRC sessions next month for conducting a referendum among Ilangkai Tamils, said a resolution passed by Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) in Chennai on Monday. The organisation cited its earlier resolution passed in this regard in August last year and said that it had already presented the case for the consideration of the UN, member countries of the UN, the Government of India and the UNHRC. In presenting the plight of Eezham Tamils, TESO has resolved to convene an all-India level meet of political party leaders in New Delhi in March. Condemning New Delhi encouraging Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa visiting India this week, TESO has also resolved to organise a black-clad demonstration in Chennai on Friday morning, protesting his visit.
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Tamil diaspora protests Sri Lanka’s freedom committing genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2013, 07:13 GMT]
Tamil diaspora activists in Europe, Canada and Australia staged protests on Monday coinciding with the Sri Lanka’s official 65th ‘independence day’, with activists alleging that this so-called ‘independence’ was only a freedom given to the Sinhala nation to commit a protracted genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation. Speaking to TamilNet from a solidarity gathering in Geelong in the state of Victoria, Australia, labour union leader Tim Gooden said that there was a need to recognize the sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation. “Unless the aspirations of people are met then there is no peace. One side will always have to suppress people if they are not going to recognise their sovereignty. People on both sides cannot develop culturally, economically or morally until the national question is resolved,” he said.
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Tamils will lose land forever by failing to address US, India in time

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2013, 01:25 GMT]
Any international resolution on the island of Sri Lanka that doesn’t recognize and protect the nation of Eezham Tamils and its territoriality is not only useless to the affected people but also worse than the genocidal war waged against them by the International Community of Establishments. In a coordinated way, a concrete demand has to be globally made by Tamil politicians in the island, activists and public in the diaspora, and by political parties and masses in Tamil Nadu, addressed specifically at Washington and New Delhi to not hoodwink any more by deviating resolutions but to come out with meaningful international action to restore the country of Eezham Tamils to them.
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Book on Malayan educationist, Thuraisingham, released

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2013, 00:04 GMT]
The role and influence of Eezham Tamil, Datuk Sir Ernest Emmanuel Clough Thuraisingham (28 August 1898- 30 March 1979), in Malaysian politics during the formative years of Malaya, is chronicled in a recently released book written by three lecturers from the Malaya university’s History Department. At the book’s launch, Prof Abdullah Zakaria, one of the authors, described Thuraisingham as an "unsung hero who played an instrumental role in the struggle for Malayan independence."
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Colombo converts Jaffna ‘HSZ’ into zone of Sinhala Military Corporatism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2013, 18:11 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which had completed the construction of a huge bund three months ago, from Chelva-channithi shrine in Tho’ndamanaa’ru to Vasaavi’laan near the Palaali military base through Oddakappulam across the former ‘High Security Zone’, has now started to construct another major bund from Kurumpasiddi to Kaangkeasanthu’rai (KKS) through Kadduvan and Thellippazhai, according to S. Sugirthan, the head of the divisional civic body (Piratheasa Chapai / PS) of Valikaamam North. Informed civil officials said that these bunds are being hurriedly put up to carve out a vast area consisting 26 GS divisions for Sinhala Military Corporatism.
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Canadian minister fails to address genocide, annihilation of Tamil territory

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2013, 00:13 GMT]
Speaking to media at a gathering in Markham, Ontario (where Eezham Tamils live in considerable number), Mr Jason Kenny, Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism, who recently visited Colombo, was speaking on failure of Sri Lanka in addressing reconciliation, war-crimes accountability and general failure in protecting human rights and rule of law. He also mentioned excessive militarization of the North and East, even though in answering questions he said that he understands militarization to some extent. But the minister, seeing Tamils as minorities and not as a nation, failed to address the pressing question currently faced by Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island, i.e., structural genocide, Sinhala colonization supported by militarization and annihilation of the territoriality of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Sri Lanka's STF commandos on sexual spree harass people of Peasaalai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 February 2013, 22:26 GMT]
Armed squads of the occupying Sri Lanka’s Sinhala commandos of the notorious Special Task Force (STF) in Mannaar have been sexually harassing the coastal people of Peasaalai in the country of Eezham Tamils, on a daily basis for more than a week now, residents complain. The STF has virtually banned the movement of men of all ages after 6:00 p.m. in Peasaalai so that its abuses would go unnoticed.
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