Tamil activist film director Manivannan passes away in Chennai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2013, 08:53 GMT]
Tamil activist, film director and actor P Manivannan has passed away due to cardiac arrest at his residence on Saturday. He was 59. Mr Manivannan has directed nearly 50 films. He has also made a mark in acting Tamil cinema by playing sharp character roles having shades of comedy and political sarcasm in more than 400 films. Director Manivannan took an active role of an artist in expressing solidarity with the Tamil struggle and was instrumental in maintaining the link between the Tamil Nadu cinema artists and the nation of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Sinhala military wants ‘Kappan’ from Batticaloa Tamil farmers

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2013, 22:38 GMT]
Aiming at totally bankrupting the Tamil farmers of Koa'raippattu South (Kiraan) division in Batticaloa district, the occupying Sri Lankan military, which schemes Sinhalicisaton and colonisation of the pasturelands in the division, now demand 3,000 rupees per 10 cattle from the Tamil farmers. The ‘Kappan’ military of Sri Lanka has instructed the Tamil farm-owners to pay the money before 25th of this month. The extortion is taking place in the name of providing ‘housing’ to disabled Sinhala soldiers, the farmers from Alli-oadai village told TamilNet on Friday.
Full story >>

NESoHR revives reporting, highlights collective rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2013, 20:30 GMT]
“Tamil Eelam today is a crucible of ‘excess of power’ - Lankan President with unchecked executive power, the very heavy presence of his military in Tamil Eelam and the Prevention of Terrorism Act still in place almost four years after the defeat of the LTTE,” says the latest Human Rights report issued by the North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR). “The leading human rights groups are hoping to deal with this situation of ‘excess of power’ only through appeals to individual rights. Indeed their mandates restrict them from dealing with it in any other way,” the NESoHR, which was formed during the internationally mediated peace process as the Human Rights body of the Tamil Nation, said on Friday, reviving its reporting on human rights in the country of Eezham Tamils and launching an international wing for dissemination of its reports.
Full story >>

Paa'nama model envisaged to Sinhalicise Ukanthai in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2013, 18:21 GMT]
The SL government move to construct a Buddhist temple adjacent to the Saiva-Vedda, Murukan temple at the Ukanthai hill sanctuary is now abandoned after heavy protests by Tamils in Ampaa’rai district of Eastern Province, but Sinhalicisation of the place continues unabated following the model of another Tamil village Paa’nama, 16 km south of Ukanthai that is now dominated by Sinhalese, news sources in the East said. In front of the Ukanthai Murukan temple, in the one and a half acres of land claimed for the Buddhist temple, hundreds of Sinhala fishermen from the South are camped now. The Buddhist temple claim is based on this camp settlement and the one who spearheads the move is the incumbent of the Paa’nama Buddhist Vihara, who was born a Tamil and converted to become a Buddhist monk, news sources further said.
Full story >>

Auschwitz survivor recognizes Sri Lanka genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2013, 01:29 GMT]
Supporting Tamil activists efforts to raise the awareness of Sri Lanka's genocide of Tamils, a noted holocaust survivor, 79-year old Eva Mozes Kor, told the activists, "Remembering is not enough, we must take all actions possible to stop, and prevent genocides such as in Sri Lanka today." Ms. Kor, who formed a close kinship with the Tamil group on the second workshop day of the "One Million Bones" rally in Washington last Sunday, is a tireless activist for prevention and stopping Genocide, and runs a holocaust museum, doesn't simply project the wrongs of the holocaust but is forward looking on using the past experiences to prevent and stop Genocide, the organizer of the Tamil protest said.
Full story >>

Rapp disappointed at Sri Lanka's lack of accountability to atrocities

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2013, 00:58 GMT]
US Ambassador at Large on War Crimes Issues, Stephen J. Rapp, during his visit to the UN in New York June 11, said on Sri Lanka, he is disappointed on the "accountability for the alleged grave atrocities near the end of the conflict on both sides," and on the lack of implementation of the provisions of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, Inner City Press (ICP) which covers UN, said.
Full story >>

Ampaa’rai Sinhala administration schemes Buddhicisation of Saiva-Vedda site

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2013, 00:16 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s Government Agent in the Eastern Province’s Ampaa’rai district, Mr Neil de Alwis, who held a meeting with the Va’n’nakkars (trustees) of the historic Saiva shrine at Ukanthai-malai last Wednesday, has asked the trustees to cooperate with the SL authorities in constructing a Buddhist stupa, at a one and a half acres plot of land, 400 meters close to the Saiva shrine, informed sources in Ampaa’rai told TamilNet this week. The SLGA was particular in urging the trustees that this news should not be leaked to media. The disappointed trustees find themselves at a delicate situation, unable to reveal the truth to the Saiva devotees of the sacred abode. The Ukanthai-malai temple of Saiva-Vedda tradition is located at a rocky hillock in Lahugala division.
Full story >>

Kathirkaamam festival postponed, pilgrims on foot from Jaffna stranded midway

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 June 2013, 12:41 GMT]
Saivaites in the country of Eezham Tamils have expressed deep concern over the sudden change of dates of the annual festival of the Kathirkaamam Murukan Koyil this year without any notice to them. Hundreds of Saiva devotees who are on foot pilgrimage that commenced last month from Jaffna Chella Channithi Murugan Koyil via districts of Ki'linochchi and Mullaith-theevu to reach Kathirkaamam on the day of flag hoisting that was to take place on July 8 have been stranded in midway in the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa with the announcement of the new dates by the Kathirkaamam Koayil administration that is now exclusively Sinhala-Buddhist.
Full story >>

Canada youth initiate ‘Thazhumpakam’ for genocide awareness

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2013, 23:41 GMT]
”The end of May completes the first stage of a genocide memorial project called ‘Thazhumbakam’ targeted toward civil society in an effort to educate and to raise awareness about the ongoing structural genocide of the Tamil nation,” says Shagana Thangaraj, a coordinator for rights advocacy in the Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance. Thazhumbakam project by the CTYA has started in the form of a traveling mobile art exhibition that has made appearances at remembrance events, University campuses and other high traffic public areas. The collection of artwork by Eezham Tamil artists depicts many of the ground realities faced by the nation of Eezham Tamils subjected to a protracted genocide.
Full story >>

Sinhala paramilitary steps up land appropriation in border villages of East

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2013, 22:17 GMT]
A retired Sinhala police officer and his son who is currently employed in the Sinhala paramilitary ‘Civil Defence Force’, operate as key persons in appropriating lands by force from Eezham Tamils from the villages of Kevu’liyaa-madu and Chuvaami-malai in Batticaloa district, say affected Tamils, whose lands have been occupied for Sinhalicisation, Buddhicisation and colonization by the Sinhalese from South. Sinhala officials in the bordering Ampaa’rai district are tasked to carry out the administrative side of the demographic genocide while the extremist Sinhala Buddhist Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) is deployed in bringing in hardcore Sinhala nationalists from the South to occupy the appropriated lands by offering an attractive assistance of 100,000 rupees per family.
Full story >>

Vedda priest of Saiva temple murdered in Chella Kathirkaamam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 June 2013, 23:46 GMT]
70-year-old, Rajapaksa Mudiyansalage Premadasa of the aborigine Vedda culture, and the chief folk priest (Kapuraala) of the Siva temple at Va’l’li Kukai cave in Chella Kathirkaamam, was hacked to death by unknown assailants in the jungle area near the temple on last Tuesday night. The killing took place amidst the currently on-going drive against Saiva temples in the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by the Sinhala-Buddhist State in the island. The Vedda aborigines are either Tamil-speaking or Sinhala-speaking, depending on the territories they live in. The Kapuraala tradition of them worshipping Saiva deities Murukan, Siva etc., is a unique strain of religion in the island. Sinhala-Buddhist priests spearheading colonisation marginalising the Veddas and erasing out their culture have gone on record in the past several decades.
Full story >>

British trade unions unequivocally support Tamils’ right to self-determination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 June 2013, 22:48 GMT]
Representatives of mainstream British trade unions, student unions, solidarity groups and Tamil activists came together on a solidarity day observation in London on Saturday, unconditionally supporting the Eezham Tamils nation’s right to self-determination. Tamil attendees of the event termed it a landmark meeting considering the principled support given by major British grassroots organizations to the fundamental demands of the Tamil nation. The British trade-union speakers at the event also promised to take further initiatives to take the Tamil issue to other trade unions across the country.
Full story >>

US Tamils join "One Million Bones" genocide protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2013, 21:18 GMT]
Several Tamil activists attended the "One Million Bones," protest, a project conceived by a U.S. visual artist, Naomi Natale, to raise awareness of ongoing genocides and mass atrocities in places Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo and other countries, held in the Mall in Washington D.C. Saturday. The event was attended by more than four thousand volunteers who laid several hundred thousand man-made bones in the rectangle covered by the 3rd, 4th Streets and Madison and Jefferson streets, and several thousand spectators including tourists. Tamil volunteers displayed prominent posters describing Sri Lanka's troubled history, and the genocide of Tamils, and distributed leaflets describing the mass atrocities committed by Sri Lanka military during Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings.
Full story >>

Saiva temple sculptures smashed in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2013, 12:18 GMT]
An unknown squad has vandalized 13 Hindu Terracotta sculptures on the entrance tower (Koapuram) being constructed at the Katpaka Vinyaakar temple in Trincomalee on Friday night, the administration of the temple told media after filing a complaint with the SL police on Saturday. In addition to the sculptures that have been smashed, a number of Terracotta sculptures were also found displaced, according to Mr A. Nadarajah, the secretary of the temple administration.
Full story >>

Ampaa'rai officials overstep into Batticaloa district to Sinhalicise Tamil village

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2013, 18:31 GMT]
Sinhala authorities from Ampaa'rai district in the East have laid a brand new carpet road to the ancient Tamil village, Chuvaami-malai that comes under the jurisdiction of the Batticaloa district administration. The name of the village has been changed to Booja-boomi. New cottages are being built using beaten earth by Sinhala settlers with funds provided by the Sinhala Buddhist extremist outfit Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force), Tamil civil officials from Paddippazhai division of Batticaloa district told TamilNet Friday. At least 100 acres of lands have been appropriated at Chuvaami-malai for Sinhala colonists, the sources further said.
Full story >>

Colombo brings in more Sinhala colonists to Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2013, 15:08 GMT]
2,000 Sinhala families from the South are being brought into Trincomalee district by the occupying Sri Lanka's Government Agent in the district, Major General T.T.R. de Silva, who is a former commander of the Sri Lanka Army in Trincomalee, informed civil sources in the city told TamilNet Friday adding that Colombo is in the process of completing a demograhic genocide on Eezham Tamils in the district while the global powers locked in a geopolitcal race provide necessary time and space to the Colombo Establishment.
Full story >>

Spectators to Sri Lanka genocide ascend in Obama's inner circle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2013, 11:25 GMT]
President Barack Obama Wednesday announced that he is reshuffling the US national security team by appointing the current United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice to the White House and nominated Samantha Power to take Rice's place in the UN. Sri Lanka observers point out to the ineffective role played by the two appointees during the Sri Lanka conflict, and despite the high flown rhetoric of the author of the acclaimed "A Problem from Hell" author, Samantha Power, who met with Sri Lanka's alleged genocidaire Rajapakse after the Mu'l'l'vaaykaal massacres, Rice and Power have been noted silent spectators to the Sri Lanka genocide.
Full story >>

SL military, Mannaar GA blamed for sabotaging seminar on land resources

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 June 2013, 22:50 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, with the help of the SL Government Agent of Mannaar district has blocked Tamil officials employed in the civil administration from attending a seminar organized by the Centre for Human Rights and Development with the support of the Citizen Committee of Mannaar on Saturday, according to Mr D.P. Sinnathurai, the secretary of the Citizen Committee in Mannaar. The seminar, which was to be held on matters relating to land resources, was intended for the officials working at government departments.
Full story >>

"US action on Sri Lanka necessary to protect Tamils"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 June 2013, 00:22 GMT]
Dr. Karunyan Arulanantham, the executive director of the Tamil American Peace Initiative, an organization of American Tamils, in a article in the CNN World website says, "[j]udging by recent history, one thing seems clear: Sri Lanka won’t solve its problems on its own," and advocating that "U.S. pressure is necessary," suggests that "[a] U.N. mechanism that would allow the international community to act decisively and initiate independent investigations and conduct a U.N. supervised referendum on options for peaceful coexistence is long overdue. This is by far the best way to achieve real reconciliation."
Full story >>

BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena to meet Rajapaksa behind the back of New Delhi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2013, 01:06 GMT]
A top-level delegation led by Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, a senior leader of New Delhi’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and participated by RSS and Shiv Sena members, is visiting Colombo from Tuesday to Friday to have discussions with the Rajapaksa brothers. The visit takes place without diplomatic protocols or arrangements by New Delhi’s High Commission in Colombo, news sources in Colombo said citing High Commission officials. A visit of the delegation to Jaffna is organised by the Rajapaksa regime. In Jaffna, the occupying Sinhala governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and Rajapaksa minister Mr Douglas Devananda will receive the delegation. A counter ‘civil society’ is simulated to meet the delegation. New Delhi’s diplomat in Jaffna Mr. Mahalingam is blank on the agenda of the visit and is sidelined from the programmes.
Full story >>

Tamil farmers lose title-deed lands to Sinhala colonisers in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 June 2013, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has appropriated more than one hundred acres of paddy lands owned by Tamil farmers at Koozhaa-mu’rippu in Vedi-vaiththa-kal area of Nedungkea’ni DS division in the Mullaiththeevu district for Sinhalese being brought from the South by the Colombo government.
Full story >>

Canadian Tamil film to debut at Shanghai festival

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 June 2013, 00:40 GMT]
Canadian Tamil film 'A Gun & A Ring' made by Lenin M. Sivam, an Eezham Tamil of Canada and a software architect by profession, has been nominated for the prestigious Golden Goblet Award, the highest prize awarded at the 16th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) in June, according to media reports. This is the second full-feature production of the largely self-made filmmaker whose first Tamil film '1999' was featured in the 2009 Vancouver International film Festival’s Canadian Images session. '1999' also won the “Midnight Sun” award at the Tamil Film Festival-2010 held at the Filmenshus Kino in Oslo, Norway in 2010.
Full story >>

3 Saiva temples simultaneously plundered of idols in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2013, 21:46 GMT]
Unidentified squads that came in heavy vehicles to three Saiva temples in Ka’luvaagnchik-kudi in Batticaloa district on Saturday midnight forcibly entered the temples and robbed the temples, stealing historic bronze statues, golden plates, jewellery and cash. Civil sources in the district suspect that the attack on temples, following the recent protest against the move by Buddhist extremists to install a Buddha statue at the entrance to the Batticaloa city, has been carried out by the SL military intelligence, which has threatened the protestors during their protest on Wednesday. Altogether 19 idols have been removed from one of the temples, situated 20 km south of Batticaloa city on Batticaloa - Kalmunai Road.
Full story >>

White House honoree pays tribute to his hometown in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2013, 01:55 GMT]
Professor Sivalingam Sivananthan, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory (MPL) at the Department of Physics at University of Illinois, who was recently honored in the White House as a "Champion of Change," attributed the strong values inculcated in him while growing up as a child in Chaavakachcheari, a town 10 miles east of Jaffna, by his parents, and his local village community, and the freedom, dignity, and opportunity provided to him in his adopted country, U.S., as the main reasons for his achievements and success. Sivananthan's innovations are in infra-red sensors, which have both commercial and military applications. He was recognized by the White House under the Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovators category of the Champion of Change program last week.
Full story >>

Maavai questions credentials of Natchiappan meet

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2013, 23:10 GMT]
TNA parliamentarian and ITAK General Secretary Mr. Maavai Senathirajah, on Thursday, questioned the credentials of the New Delhi meet of ‘Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders’ organised by Congress parliamentarian Dr E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan. We don’t know whether it was organised by the government, a political party or by individuals, Maavai said. While we are already engaged in direct talks with the Indian Central Government over our political demands, in between what is the validity of such meets taking the 13th Amendment position and to what extent this is going to be beneficial, he raised his doubts. The dates fixed by Mr Natchiappan (June 5-6) may not be convenient to us but we anticipate that there will be a meeting with the Indian government by the middle of June, the TNA parliamentarian further said.
Full story >>

SL military intelligence backs Buddhist extremist move in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2013, 22:25 GMT]
The threatening act of Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives, who took close-up photographs of the Tamil protestors against the construction of Buddha statue at the entrance to Batticaloa city on Wednesday, has exposed the nexus between the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry and the Sinhala Buddhist extremists, alternative political activists in Batticaloa said. The harassment by the SL military intelligence has also provoked Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr S. Yogeswaran to react saying that if any untoward incident befalls the peaceful demonstrators, it would be considered as the work of the Sri Lankan intelligence operatives who were involved in the act of public harassment on peaceful demonstrators. In the meantime, Batticaloa Magistrate NMM Abdulla has issued an injunction order prohibiting the construction of the Buddha statue, legal sources in Batticaloa said.
Full story >>