http://www.tamilnet.com Latest 20 TamilNet reports from Sri Lanka en Copyright (c) 1997-2013 TamilNet Sat, 25 May 2013 09:57:21 GMT Sat, 25 May 2013 09:57:21 GMT tamilnet@tamilnet.com http://www.tamilnet.com/img/feedlogo2.gif http://www.tamilnet.com 88 31 TamilNet logo http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36346 Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Friday that DMK Chief M Karunanidhi has requested New Delhi to provide citizenship to over 100,000 Eezham Tamils living in South Indian state of Tamil Nadu as refugees. Pointing out to the immigration reforms in the U.S., Mr Karunanidhi was quoted as saying, "[s]imilarly, it is also our wish and request to the Centre to come forward and provide citizenship to over one lakh Eezham Tamils living in the country ensuring their permanent safety," the PTI added. Sat, 25 May 2013, 05:19 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36347 Following a writ-application filed at the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal by 1,474 Eezham Tamils owning lands in Valikaamam North on 14 May, which was an initiative taken by Colombo-based lawyers, including those belonging to the Tamil National Alliance, a group of lawyers based in Jaffna have filed legal action in Sri Lankan Supreme Court on 22 May, challenging the publication of the Section 2 notice to acquire lands from the owners in Valikaamam North. In the meantime, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, who recently faced questions from the visiting United Nations representatives on the acquisition of lands in the former High Security Zone (HSZ), was attempting to play down the scale of the Sinhala militarization by hiding the extent of land acquisition outside the Valikaamam North area. Fri, 24 May 2013, 23:34 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36345 While New Delhi and Washington harp on either the 13th Amendment or holding Northern Provincial Elections (NPC) as solutions to the national question in the island of Sri Lanka, a statement coming from SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa reconfirms the unworkable nature of the Provincial Council (PC) model in a unitary constitution of the Sinhala state, Tamil political observers in the island said. Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was warning the government of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa that giving police and land powers to the provinces meant that the Northern Province comprising the districts of Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa, Mannaar and Ki'linochchi could pose a ‘major security challenge’, reported the Island on Thursday. Fri, 24 May 2013, 11:31 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36344 An armed squad that came in a white van on Tuesday abducted a 68-year-old activist, Thangathurai Veluppillai, a supporter of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Ampaa'rai district. The victim was blindfolded while he was at Kalmunai public market and was taken away by the squad that tortured him to obtain the names of the TNA activists in Ampaa'rai district. The abduction comes a few days after the intelligence of the occupying SL military ‘investigated’ him following a meeting against the land grab by the SL military in his division. After 3 days of interrogations in Batticaloa, Mr Thangathurai was taken back to Kalmunai and released there, the sources further said. Thu, 23 May 2013, 23:33 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36343 The commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, together with all of his senior officers and a section of soldiers, observed a ‘Sil’ campaign on Thursday, according to a news release by the SL military in Jaffna. At the event, the SL commander Hathurusinghe and his personnel were all clad in white. In contrast, the occupying SL commander and his officers have been wearing military uniform while entering Hindu temples, an act considered as showing disrespect to the deities and as desecrating the shrines, observers in Jaffna commented. One of the topics discussed by the Buddhist clergy and the academics at the Buddhist religious event on Thursday was ‘music therapy as a remedy to youth unrest’, the news release by the SL military further revealed. Thu, 23 May 2013, 22:11 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36341 The English edition of ‘War Journey: Diary of a Tamil Tiger’ authored by the late Capt. Malaravan has been published and released by Penguin Books, India this month. The work originally written in Tamil by Malaravan as a first-person account of the battlefield was first published by the LTTE as ‘Poar Ulaa’ posthumously in 1993. The English translation of the work by Dr N. Malathy, a key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’, published by Penguin includes translator’s note, a description of Malaravan by the late LTTE Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan, and a note from Malaravan’s mother. In a comment on ‘War Journey’ sent to TamilNet, Dr. Malathy said that ‘War Journey’ was an exceptional work, noting there was no space given by the establishments for writers to portray the positive aspects of the LTTE-led struggle for Tamil Eelam. Wed, 22 May 2013, 23:01 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36340 Sinhala Buddhist extremists, with the backing of the occupying Sri Lankan government in Colombo, have planned to appropriate about six hundred acres of paddy fields belonging to Muslims and Tamils in Pasarich-cheanai in Poththuvil electorate in Ampaa'rai district, claiming that the said lands belong to Sinhala Buddhists. The paddy fields are located east of Naavilaa'ru at Poovarasadith-thoaddam in Poththuvil DS division. The Tamil-speaking farmers have been doing cultivation in these lands for more than five decades, civil sources said. Wed, 22 May 2013, 19:06 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36339 A part of the 50,000 housing aid promised by New Delhi for the war-affected people in the North and East is planned to be used for demographic genocide in the East at the village of Kachchat-kodi in the Paddip-pazhai division of Batticaloa district, according to Eastern Provincial council member R. Thurairatnam. The village, which was predominantly Tamil a few years ago and was affected by displacement during the war, now has 2 new Sinhala Buddhist Viharas constructed and a number of Sinhala families brought from outside settled with the assistance of Buddhist priests. Tue, 21 May 2013, 23:53 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36338 Stepping up the process of colonisation of the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sri Lanka has brought in 1,500 Sinhalese in buses to Musali DS division in Mannaar District, which is bordering the North Western and North Central provinces. The occupying Colombo government had already planned to settle down five thousand Sinhalese families from the South in Mannaar district in an attempt to change the demography of the district before holding the Northern Provincial Council election, according to a confidential document received by the Mannaar district secretariat. Tue, 21 May 2013, 22:11 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36334 The Mu’l’livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance event in Los Angeles, USA on Sunday stated emphatically that asking the Eezham Tamil nation to reconcile with genocidal Sri Lanka was fraudulent and that a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam was the only solution, further criticizing the ICE for failing to address the chronic national question of the Eezham Tamils. The speakers at the event further affirmed the necessity for sustained pressure from the masses in Tamil Nadu to effect a change in the regional and global order. Commenting on the recent series of Tamil Genocide Remembrance events, a diaspora activist from Canada said the fourth year after Mu’l’livaay-kkaal has seen an increase in protests challenging the injustice of the world powers towards the Tamil nation, lamenting, however the eagerness of some in the Tamil diaspora to forsake national symbols under the slightest pressure. Mon, 20 May 2013, 23:03 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36333 Articulating right demands and slogans in Genocide Remembrance events is crucial at a time when the Eezham Tamils in their homeland are barred from even silently mourning their heroes and civilians who sacrificed their lives in the culmination of the genocidal war at Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, said a Tamil political activist from Jaffna commenting on the slogans used by protestors at the May 19 event at Marina beach in Chennai. Civil society activists, artists, political leaders and ordinary people had participated a mass gathering near the Kannagi statue in the honour of those Eezham Tamils who perished in Sri Lanka’s genocidal war despite dissuasion by the police. Speaking to TamilNet from the gathering, Umar, an activist from the May 17 criticized the failure of UN in preventing the genocide, stating that Sri Lanka must be hauled in the UNSC. Mon, 20 May 2013, 08:29 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36331 Events remembering the internationally-abetted genocide in May 2009 were held in several countries in the West by the Tamil diaspora on Saturday. While over 10,000 Tamils participated in a mass rally in London, the remembrance event in Sydney had an innovative performance of ‘forum theatre’ to encourage the audience to frame their political discourse with conceptual clarity. Speakers at the event in Canada, referring to the Tamil Nadu student uprising, urged the second-generation diaspora youth to organize mass protests challenging the establishments that continue to abet the protracted genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation. Likewise, the events in London and Dusseldorf saw the participation of grassroots Kurdish activists who gave solidarity messages to the Eezham Tamil nation. Sun, 19 May 2013, 17:16 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36330 Sri Lankan military harassments continue at Jaffna University where a memorial event was silently observed by hundreds of students on Friday, news sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. The occupying SL military is on a continuous war with the university community of students and teachers in the last four years on the issue of remembering the slain. It took a serious turn on the Heroes Day last November. The arrests and the military ‘rehabilitation’ of the student leaders didn't deter the students from paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the genocidal war at Vanni. Despite refusal by the University administration to provide a hall to the event this year, hundreds of university students and teachers gathered at the Paramesvara temple premises in the university on Friday for a silent memorial without any speeches. Sun, 19 May 2013, 13:39 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36329 The SL police in Mannaar has released TNPF politicians Selvarasa Kajendren, Visvalingam Manivannan and a journalist, Joseph Fernando, together with 6 other males on personal bail Saturday night around 9:30 p.m. after producing them before the Judicial Medical Officer for examination. Sun, 19 May 2013, 10:59 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36328 “Using military operation, they can silence the voice for a time being, they cannot kill the ideology and idea. They cannot defeat ideology and ideas with military means,” Yasin Malik, Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Saturday. Speaking from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu where he had gone to address the public in solidarity with the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day event organized by the Naam Tamizhar party, he further said that if the international community thinks that it can suppress people’s movement through military means, peace and security cannot be achieved in the world. “If they want peace and stability in the world, then they will have to resolve the people’s issues. Otherwise, the people across the globe, who are the voiceless people, they will get together and they will form their own strategy,” the Kashmiri leader said. Sun, 19 May 2013, 07:51 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36327 Speaking to TamilNet from the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance Day event in London on Saturday, Conservative MP Mr. Lee Scott said that British PM Cameron should review his decision to visit Sri Lanka for the CHOGM meeting. When the criticism coming from some Tamil quarters that a person of the stature of Mr. Cameron visiting Sri Lanka will only give that state legitimacy was raised to Scott, he replied “I think what is important that up until now, with all the efforts that is made around the world, there has been nothing towards reconciliation. There has been nothing towards, before any reconciliation, getting justice for the Tamil people, and whatever it takes to achieve that must be done.” However, a Tamil activist from the UK questioned the wisdom of taking Mr. Scott to Geneva for lobbying when he seems incapable of convincing his own party’s leadership to boycott Sri Lanka. Sat, 18 May 2013, 20:20 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=36326 Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, who personally witnessed Sri Lanka military taking away her husband, Mr Elilan, a political leader of the LTTE, at the end the Vanni War in May 2009, speaks out her experience from a civilian point of view and as a mother caring for her children during the war and the genocidal onslaught. Still living in Vanni, at Ki'linochchi, the 46-year-old mother of three is also running an organization that seeks to establish what had happened to their beloved ones. The SL State is still refusing to reveal the fate of those who were filtered away from the civilians and taken into buses to undisclosed detention camps. The narration of the survivor of the genocidal massacre, told with courage from Ki'linochchi, brings out the spirit and courage of a people who stood with their liberation fighters until the last moment. TamilNet brings out a 40-minute recount by Mrs Sasitharan. Sat, 18 May 2013, 11:51 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36325 Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) politician and former parliamentarian Selvaraja Kajendran and Visvalingam Manivannan of the TNPF and thirteen others were arrested by the Sri Lankan Police at Mannaar Saturday afternoon while they were attending a Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance Day function. The SL police is trying to curb the activities of the TNPF politicians by attempting to detain them under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), initial reports from Mannaar said. Sat, 18 May 2013, 11:30 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36324 YEK-KOM, a Germany based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, demanding justice for the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, condemned the world powers who rejected “the just demands of the Tamil people, turned their backs and have instead supported a military solution” in a solidarity statement sent on the occasion of Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day. Emphasising the need for the state terror against the Tamils in the homeland to be halted, the federation further called on the German government and the European Union to “take diplomatic measures and exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government till the self-determination of the Tamils is recognized.” They also called for revoking the ban on the LTTE in the EU to ensure equality of parties and for a just peace. Sat, 18 May 2013, 09:50 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36323 “The international conspiracy was not against the Sri Lankan state, but against the Eelam Tamils as a nation,” said Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, urging the Tamils to not consider the powers who were culpable in their genocide as saviours. In statement for Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day, Dr. Fernando, lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin said “It is not only the Sri Lankan state, but all those who aided the state are guilty of genocide,” referring to US, UK and Indian support to the Sri Lankan state, asserting that the reluctance of the powers to recognize the genocide was in fact to cover it up. “As the genocide continues today with the blessings of the same powers that supported the Sri Lankan state we are been told to accept it in the name of post-conflict reconciliation and development,” he said, encouraging the Tamils to continue their struggle with the moral high ground. Sat, 18 May 2013, 06:13