Diplomacy could work only when mass mobilisation is ground reality: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
Do we have an environment to talk about Tamil nation and its right to self-determination? Do we have to ask for internal self-determination? Should we go step-by-step in achieving the goals? Do we have the right to call for a referendum? Could we insist on a transitional administration? Are they all realistic in our situation: asking these questions at the Kumar Ponnambalam Memorial Lecture to a fully packed audience in Jaffna on Sunday, Jaffna University Law Lecturer Kumaravadivel Guruparan said that we cannot wage a struggle by seeing what is in the international law, as international law is purposefully ambiguous leaving space for further discourses, and as what needed more than the international law are the mass mobilisation and the backing of powerful friends.
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Tamil Nadu activists condemn India, USA for imposing 13A on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 00:01 GMT]
“Northern Provincial Council election is a farce. Conduct UN referendum for Tamil Eelam, NPC elections is only a step further in structural genocide” said an influential section of Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu on Saturday when they came together to stage a protest at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai organized by the May 17 movement. Condemning the Indian and US establishments for imposing wrong and non-descript solutions on Eezham Tamils, the speakers at the event also blamed the global outfits such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) for advocating solutions within the unitary structure of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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Colombo deploys extremist NGO to fund Sinhalicisation in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2013, 16:00 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist extremist ‘NGO’ named ‘Helabima’ is being deployed by the occupying Colombo government to encourage the Sinhala people to occupy Tamil lands in the border villages between Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai. Major Bertie Perera, a Sinhala military official appointed by the Colombo government coordinates the structural genocide programme being carried out in the name of ‘development’. He collaborates with Helabima’s colonization operative Sunil Chandrakumara and the Buddhist prelate of the Batticaloa Mangalarama Vihara to enact Sinhalicisation of Kevu’liyamadu village in Paddip-pazhai division.
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Sri Lanka UGC threatens Tamil academics

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 August 2013, 11:15 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission (UCG) will carry out “extensive investigations” about the participation of some Tamil university academics of the island in a conference in London, and will take “stern action” against them, said News.Lk, SL Govt.’s official news portal on Friday, citing SL-UGC Chairperson Prof Kshanika Hirimburegama. According to the Chairperson, the academics obtained permission to attend a Tamil Language seminar in London, but they were participating in an anti-Sri Lanka gathering. A conference that currently takes place in London, with the participation of Tamil academics from the island at the venue of SOAS, is a World Conference on Tamilology, felicitating centenary of Fr. Xavier Thaninayagam.
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Tamils chased away from paddy fields of ‘Weli Oya’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
The Sinhala officials of Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority and the Divisional Secretary of Ma’nalaa’ru Sinhalicised into ‘Weli Oya’, on Sunday chased out the uprooted Tamil people of Kokkuth-thoduvaay, which is situated at the border of Mullaiththeevu and Trincomlaee districts, when the Tamil farmers attempted to resume cultivation in their paddy fields, news sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The Sri Lankan State evicted the Tamil cultivators in 1984. Although some of them were resettled in 2011, they were not returned with their lands even after two years of their ‘resettlement’.
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Archaeological Report on Maanthai comes after 29 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 22:36 GMT]
Archaeological report on the excavations at the ancient port city of Maanthai (Thirukeatheesvaram) in the Mannaar district of the country of Eezham Tamils, conducted between the years 1980 and 1984 and co-directed by John Carswell then from the University of Chicago, has finally seen the light of publication this June. Edited by John Carswell, Siran Deraniyagala and Alan Graham, and copyrighted to the Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka, the publication supported by Ceramica-Stiftung Basel has been released by the publishers Linden Soft Verlag, Aichwald in Germany. Professor Carswell, now turning 83, has succeeded in presenting the material he had excavated, which would have otherwise been lost forever with the kind of State in the island.
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Ampaa'rai uprooted Tamils urge independent diaspora help to resettle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 22:57 GMT]
Despite the repeated news reports that the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the European Union, USA, Japan, India and China were providing multi-billion assistance and loans to the Sri Lankan State and Non-Governmental Organisations operating in the island to provide basic facilities to the uprooted families to resettle in their villages, no such assistance has reached the uprooted Tamils in Ampaa'rai district in the Eastern Province. Now, the Tamils in Ampaa'rai say they have lost all hopes in meaningful assistance coming through the Establishments and urge the Diaspora Tamils to act without looking for the same forces and their outfits to rebuild their lives and livelihood. Six years have elapsed in waiting for the humanitarian assistance for several villages in the divisions of Thirukkoayil, Naavithan-ve'li, Aalaiyadi-vempu, Kalmunai (Tamil) and Akkaraip-pattu.
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Border division of Mannaar district Sinhalicised

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 August 2013, 19:35 GMT]
After Sinhalicising a border division in the Mullaiththeevu district of the Northern Province as ‘Weli-Oya’ on the eastern coast, genocidal Sri Lanka is now engaged in the Sinhalicisation of a border division, Musali, in the Mannaar district of the Northern Province on the western coast, news sources in Mannaar said. Both the Sinhala colonisations take place as demographic projections from the Anuradhapura district of the North Central Province. Around 400 acres of forest has been cleared for settling 1300 Sinhala families at the Ko’ndaichchi coast of Mannaar district. The families, who have nothing to do with the district are not only brought down hurriedly and settled as ‘re-settlers’, but also are advised to register as voters before the NPC elections.
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Muslims react strongly against Buddhist mob attack on Mosque in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2013, 21:22 GMT]
“There is a limit to our patience, there is no point regretting if this breaks out into a major clash. But some fools do not understand this,” Mohamed Miflal, a Muslim community worker, told Associated Press, following the Buddhist mob attack on a mosque in the Grandpass area of Colombo on Saturday resulting in over a dozen people getting injured and a police curfew being declared in the capital. A few individuals praying in the mosque have reportedly been hospitalized. There were also clashes between Muslim youth and the Buddhist mobs after attack.
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Erasing Tamil nation prioritized over political justice

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 August 2013, 08:55 GMT]
“If India opens dialogue with moderate groups, extremists will be isolated and India can influence diaspora people for solution within a united Sri Lanka," said V. Suryanarayan of the New Delhi think tank, cited by The Times of India on Friday. In July, writing in The New Indian Express, the same person said “In order to allay Sinhalese apprehensions, iron-clad guarantees should be provided that devolution to provinces should not lead to demand for separation.” The explicit and unashamed priority in the heart of the academic and the Mumbai-New Delhi-Chennai-based media corporates in India, is to only negate at any cost the possibility of Eezham Tamils getting independence than delivering even paltry political justice, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Colombo schemes new ways to appropriate more lands for Sinhalicisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 August 2013, 22:50 GMT]
Thousands of acres of land in the Batticaloa district in the Eastern Province are likely to be appropriated under the Land Reform Laws of the occupying Sri Lankan State, according to informed civil sources in Batticaloa. The Colombo government is to appropriate lands that have been legally possessed by Tamils for the last fifty years under the one-acre permit scheme. Colombo and its Eastern Provincial Council are to formulate necessary legislation to appropriate lands above one-acre in 14 DS divisions in the Batticaloa district. More than one hundred acres of lands are to be appropriated under the Land Reform Laws of the Sinhala government.
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Tamil contiguity to be wedged at district level in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2013, 01:04 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Council headed by Chief Minister Najeeb Abdul Majeed of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is keeping mum while covert plan is being designed to carve out a separate Sinhala district called Seruvila district out of Trincomalee district, by selling lands in coastal areas to Sinhalese businessmen of the South. Valuable lands along the coastal areas in Trincomalee district are being appropriated to be given on lease and to be sold for outsiders by the Colombo government. While on one side the contiguity of the Tamil speaking people are wedged between the North and East provinces by the creation of the Weli-Oya division, on the other side, the contiguity is wedged even within the Eastern Province itself, between the Tamil-speaking people of Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Seruvila comes between Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
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Tamils should boycott Conservatives: British activist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 August 2013, 20:35 GMT]
“There is no point in any vote or any penny of Tamil money or Tamil votes going to the Conservative party. They have shown time and again whose side they are on. They are not on our side,” Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, British activist working with Tamil Solidarity, stated. In a video interview to TamilNet, referring to the systematic deception of the British Conservatives on the issue of Sri Lanka, Sachs-Eldridge said that “The Tamil community is getting nothing from these people.” The British activist, commenting on the recent response of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the trade union Unison, wherein the FCO had defended Britain’s participation in CHOGM, argued that the British government had no intention of putting any significant pressure on Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala military takes over Muslim cemetery at Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 August 2013, 18:29 GMT]
Even the sole Muslim cemetery in Pulmoaddai at the narrow border between the North and East of the country of Ezham Tamils was not spared from appropriation by the occupying Sinhala military that bents on Sinhalicising and militarizing the strategic link. While the Tamil-speaking Muslims, who make 90 per cent of the traditional village of Pul-moaddai is left without a cemetery, about 500 acres of land in that place has been given to a Buddhist monk to build a Sinhala-Buddhist enclave. The military and Survey Department of the Sinhala State were openly involved in the project. The blatant demographic genocide takes place while there is a Muslim Chief Minister in the East, proving what is ultimately aimed by the Provincial Councils backed by New Delhi and Washington, political activists in the East said.
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Tamil Nadu activists protesting Manmohan Singh Trichy visit detained

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2013, 23:48 GMT]
Hundreds of activists who protested Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Trichy were detained by the Tamil Nadu police on Friday. The protestors, who gathered near the Trichy airport with black flags, sought to express their dissent to the Dr. Singh over India’s continued complicity in the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation and its endorsement of the CHOGM meeting in Sri Lanka. The detained include MDMK leader Vaiko, Tamizh Desiya Pothuvudamai Katchi leader Maniarasan, Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam leader Ramakrishnan and Thirumurugan Gandhi from the May 17 Movement. Separately, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha had sent another letter to Dr. Singh on Thursday condemning India’s ignoring of repeated assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy.
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‘Stand firm on referendum demand for Tamil Eelam’: Tamil Nadu activist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2013, 05:55 GMT]
The student uprising in Tamil Nadu, which erupted in the wake of the pro-LLRC US resolution tabled at Geneva in March, strongly stands for a referendum for Tamil Eelam said V. Vettrivel Chandrashekar, the director of the recently released documentary on the student protests ‘A’rappoar’, urging Tamils across the world to remain firm on the demand. In an interview to TamilNet, Mr. Vettrivel, talking about the need to document the historically and politically significant students’ uprising, also spoke about the positive influence the Tamil Nadu students’ movement had on regional and global Tamil politics. Referring to the London event in early July by diaspora youth ‘Seeking Perception sans Conditioning’, he said that the Tamil Nadu and the diaspora youth stood in one political line as regards the question of a referendum.
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Tamil activist group condemns British FCO’s Sri Lanka deception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 August 2013, 23:55 GMT]
Criticising the UK government for providing legitimacy to Sri Lanka through the CHOGM, the activist group Tamil Solidarity in a statement on Thursday condemned a deceptive response provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to a leading British trade union who had questioned the morality of Britain participating in the CHOGM. Responding to the protest by UNISON, Britain’s largest trade union, the FCO had in a letter dated 26 July defended UK’s participation in the CHOGM, while making token remarks on peace and human rights. “We believe that CHOGM will either highlight progress and respect for Commonwealth values in Sri Lanka, or draw attention to the absence of such progress.” Tamil Solidarity condemned this “shoddy explanation” of the FCO and argued that UK was participating in CHOGM only for its own interests, calling on British Tamils to boycott the Conservatives.
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Gajendrakumar explains why TNPF boycotts NPC elections

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 August 2013, 02:50 GMT]
Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam addressed a press meet in Jaffna on Tuesday, explaining why the TNPF totally boycotts the Northern Provincial Council elections held under the 13th Amendment of the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka. Rejecting rumours that the TNPF might support an independent group and a media report that the TNPF has shown green signal to the PC election, as misleading, Gajendrakumar said that the TNPF totally boycotts the election. We will not contest and under no circumstances we will support any independent group directly or indirectly, Gajendrakumar said, adding that let people decide with clarity what to do with the election.
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Batticaloa inscription refers to visit of founder of Sikh religion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 15:50 GMT]
A Tamil-Sanskrit-Gurmukhi inscription, dateable to 1511 CE, excavated in the Batticaloa (Maddak-ka’lappu) district of the country of Eezham Tamils, refers to the visit of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion, to the island. The inscription refers to a conversation between the Guru and Vikramabahu VI, a king in the island at that time, The Times of India reported on Wednesday, citing Ashok Kumar Kainth, a Punjabi historian working in the island since 2004. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) will send a delegation to the island to study the inscription and site, the historian was further cited.
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Wigneswaran seeks mandate for ‘IC-facilitated’ Northern Provincial Council

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 01:12 GMT]
People's participation in the polls to Northern Provincial Council will be significant to the implementation of the 13th Amendment. Since Colombo has agreed to conduct the election merely because of international pressure, people have to be prepared to resist any sabotage. The elected PC will help to end the governor’s rule and interferences in civil administration, said Tamil National Alliance's Chief Minister candidate for Northern Province and retired Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Monday in Jaffna, after fielding TNA's list of candidates for Northern PC elections. Meanwhile, Colombo President Mahinda Rajapaksa implied ‘understanding’ with the candidature of Wigneswaran, when he said on Tuesday that he would be willing to meet Wigneswaran to discuss land and police powers to provinces.
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