Colombo accelerates Sinhalicisaton of disputed heritage hilltop in Vavuniyaa

Tamil refugees returned from India languish for seven years along border village of Vavuniyaa

Thirty-seven Tamil families that have returned from the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in India to their native village of Maruthoadai of Naavaladi in Vavuniyaa North after three-decades of exile are struggling without gaining access to their lands located along the border of Northern Province in Vavuniyaa North. The SL Forest Department is not allowing the people to set foot into their properties at Maruthoadai since 2010 when it gazetted their village as a forest conservation area. The intention is to block resettlement of Eezham Tamils and absorb the village into the expanding Sinhala colonisation programme, the uprooted families complain. They urge human right groups as well as the community organisations of Tamils to focus on their plight. Full story >>

Top military post for genocidaire Sinhala commander, Quisling acid-test to Tamil academic

Two appointments recently made by the president of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka have evoked much attention. One is the appointment of a Tamil person, Dr Suren Raghavan, who has been serving him for some time, as the Governor of the Northern Province; and the other is the appointment of Major General Shavendra Silva as the new Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army. The appointments manifest in a classic setting of the genocidal Mahavansa-and-Mahaweli mindset of the Polonnaruwa-Anuradhapura establishment of Maithiripala Sirisena, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. The intentions behind the appointment of a Tamil academic, who is loyal to Sirisena and ‘acceptable’ to the Maha Sangha of the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment, should be easy to grasp, they said. Full story >>

Speeding SL military truck claims lives of three Tamils on A9 highway

Three Tamil passengers riding a three-wheeler including its driver were killed on the spot when a speeding truck of the occupying Sinhala military crashed into the vehicle on Tuesday afternoon. The fatal incident has taken place on the A9 highway at Iyak-kachchi, north of Elephant Pass in Ki'linochchi district. Eyewitnesses said that a group of military soldiers rushed to the spot in a pickup vehicle immediately after the accident and transported the Sinhala military driver that seemed drunk away from the locality. By the time when the SL Police came, another SLA soldier had taken his place. The SL military started to claim that the wrong driving of the auto-driver had caused the accident. Full story >>

Tamil POW, detained for 10 years, launches hunger-strike at Anuradhapura prison

Sivaseelan Sivapragasam was 22 years when the SL military detained him on 19 May 2009 at Oamanthai in Vavuniyaa. He had lost his mother and a brother during the genocidal onslaught by the advancing SL military which directed indiscriminate artillery fire into the so-called ‘safe zone’. His father, Mr Sivapragasam, the only remaining family member outside the SL Prison who was tirelessly demanding the release of his son, also passed away on 16 December at Vaddak-kachchi in Ki'linochchi. The lone survivor of Sivapragasam family is now waging hunger-strike urging his release to at least conduct the 31st-day ritual ('Anthiraddi' rites) to his deceased father, his fellow inmates told media on Sunday. Full story >>

Tamil dairy farmers face two-frontal attacks in interior Batticaloa

Ex-paramilitary Karuna Group, which is aligned with former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been gunning down the cattle belonging to dairy farmers at the pasturelands of Paalai-vaddavaan (Paalai-madu) in Paduvaan-karai, the interior northwestern part of Batticaloa district which was protected by the LTTE before 2007 from Sinhala colonisation coming from Polonnaruwa, the home district of Mr Sirisena. In the meantime, Sinhala encroacher ‘home guards’ paramilitary men have stolen eight calves within the last 20 days. The SL police are taking the side of the encroachers and demands the Tamil dairy farmers to identify the ‘thieves’ to register a complaint. The calve thefts have taken place at Mayilaththa-madu pasture land, which is located within two kilometres from the Paalai-madu tank, where the former paramilitary men who have been firing at the cows. Full story >>

Occupying Colombo turns SL military-employed pre-school teachers against TNA

The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is planning to appoint Sinhala health sector workers and pre-school teachers for vacant posts at the absence of the democratically elected provincial council in the North, Tamil civil officials at the Northern Provincial Council said. In the meantime, the unitary state system has been inciting the pre-school teachers employed in the SL military-operated ‘Civil Security Division’ to protest against the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) through propagating false propaganda that the TNA was attempting to scrap their job contracts, the sources further said. Full story >>

Sirisena didn't keep word on resettling Tamil Catholics of Musali before 31 December

SL President Maithiripala Sirisena promised to resettle the people of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam before the end of 31st December 2018. Despite the repeated pleas the people made through their political representatives in the SL Parliament and the Bishop of Mannaar taking up the matter with the SL President and his secretariat in Colombo, nothing has taken place, complained Rev Fr Lawrence Leon on Monday. The SL Navy was refusing to release the lands and is still putting up constructions while the people are languishing without infrastructure and roads. Last year, a bus transporting people narrowly escaped from a fatal accident during the Christmas time. The new year mass at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption at Mu'l'li-ku'lam has therefore been moved to the morning on 01st of January 2019, the parish priest further said. Full story >>

SL Military psyops takes precedence over flood-assistance in North

For the first time after 2009, the Eezham Tamils in the North managed to mobilise on their own without to provide immediate assistance to more than one hundred thousand people, who were severely affected in the floods across Mullaith-theevu, Ki'linochchi, Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna and in the remote villages beyond the A9 road in Mannaar and Vavuniyaa. Despite some assistance through the hardworking Tamil civil servants, the attitude of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka was, as usual, discriminatory and propaganda-oriented. Also, the SL military which was duty-bound due to assist the victims of the flood, has gone to the extent of putting up ‘thanking note’ banners at several places, especially in Mullaiththeevu district, as if the people were thanking it for humanitarian assistance provided in the recent floods during which several thousand were affected. Full story >>

Ilmenite exploitation targets Vaakarai, civic members on alert

Alchemy Heavy Metals Ltd, a Dambulla-based private mining and processing company has recently stepped up an exploitative move to obtain lands for mineral excavation in Vaakarai, which is located in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. The activity of the company, also known as Mirama Minerals, was unusually high during the recent soft coup in Colombo. There were indications of a similar trend in the past in 2010 and 2013, says Koa'ra'lap-pattu North (Vaakarai) Divisional Council Chairman Sivagnanam Konalingam. The democratically elected Divisional Council functioning since June 2018 is now tracing the background of the move to exploit ilmenite mineral, he told TamilNet on Thursday. The council is deploying the Right to Information Act in investigating the matter as the exploitation has been targeting two hotspots, Kathirave'li (40 acres) and Puchchaak-kea'ni (13 acres). Full story >>

Racist UNP Minister from Ampaa'ari deploys ‘human rights’ to terminate Tamil school

SL Minister of ‘Labour, Trade Union Relations and Social Empowerment’ Daya Gamage, widely known for his anti-Tamil politics in the district, has been working behind the scene to terminate the operation of the only government Tamil school in the town, Ampaa'arai Tamil Maha Viththiyaalayam, Tamil civil officials in the East told TamilNet this week. In 2016, the then Zonal Director of Education, Sunil Gunathilake, a Sinhalese, handed over the classrooms of the school to the ‘National Youth Corps’ under the influence of Mr Gamage without consulting the principal of the school, K Loganathan, they said. However, the racist minister has deployed a Sinhala journalist and the ‘Sri Lanka’ Human Rights Commission office in the district to harass the Tamil principal and a teacher to issue leaving certificates to the students in an apparent bid to cease the operation of the Tamil school, they said. Full story >>

Sinhala Navy pelts stones at Tamil fishers at Vadduvaakal lagoon in Mullaith-theevu

The sailors of the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka's largest naval base in Mullaiththeev, SLNS Gotabhaya, which is located to the north of the narrow Vaddvaakal lagoon which links the largest Nanthik-kadal lagoon with the sea, have imposed an unofficial ban on fishing activities in the Vadduvaakal lagoon, complain the representatives of Mullaiththeevu Fishers Association. The SLN personnel started to warn the Tamil fishers to stay away from the lagoon which engulfs the SLNS garrison. When the fishers continued to engage in fishing and pleaded with the SLN that their families were dependent on the income from prawn fishing, the SLN sailors started to threaten the fishers away by pelting stones at them. Full story >>

Sirisena brings ‘sacred area’ deception to subvert Madu Shrine into ‘Anuradhapura’ paradigm

SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and a section of Sinhala Catholics in Colombo are pushing to demarcate the Madu area, where Our Lady of Madu shrine is located. The sinister move is based on the advice coming from the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment, which wants to assert a mythical ‘Pathini Deiyo’ legacy in the next phase through the ‘Anuradhapura’ perception of so-called Sinhala heritage. Sections of Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar have already sensed the heat in Sinhala establishment in Colombo and advocate caution without much public attention, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet. The Sanctity of Madu (Madhu) has always been beyond the scope of the boundary of a non-secular state apparatus and it should remain so also in the future is the general opinion being whispered within the ranks of Mannaar Diocese, the sources further said. Full story >>

China steps up investment on Sinhala propaganda assets in South

The Chongqing Normal University (CNU) in China is promoting 20 annual scholarships for carrier journalists through the organisation known as Sri Lanka China Journalist’s Forum (SLCJF). A Memorandum of Understanding signed between the CNU President Prof. Zhou Zeyang, and Nalin Aponso of the SLCJF outfit mentions the Belt and Road Initiative as the main platform for the scholarships. Mr Aponso is also the Public Relations Manager of the ‘Sri Lanka’ Port Authority. The MoU was signed at the presence of Chinese Embassy officials and the representatives of the Confucius Institute at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Kelaniya at an event held in Colombo on 12 December. The SLCJF, established in 2001 has been promoting China with Sinhala language periodical ‘Mahajana Cheenaya’ (People’s China), several exhibitions for educational institutions in China and arranging trips to China. Full story >>