Pompeo cancels Colombo visit, concentrates on US-India relations in New Delhi

Colombo escalates charges against three political prisoners as ‘war crimes’

SL Attorney General's Department has formulated its false charges against three Tamil political prisoners (TPPs) as LTTE's war crimes. Dropping the earlier expressed charge, which was also not based on evidence, the SL-AG has introduced a new 27 point charge. The three TPPs, Mathiyarasan Sulaxan, Rasathurai Thiruvarul and Ganeshan Tharshan, have been languishing in the prison for ten years. They are now being ‘punished’ for their unrelenting protests in prison in the past, legal sources said. One of the prisoners managed to explain the baseless accusation to the journalists who were present at the High Court in Vavuniyaa, when he was brought for the hearings. The hearings are scheduled for three days. Full story >>

Ploy of monks and bigotry of politicians critical to TNA's Quisling politics

A section of Tamil politicians, who claim that they are opposed to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on principles grounds regarding Tamil rights, have fallen right into the sophisticated trap laid by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist establishment in the district of Ampaa'rai. The Tamil politicians, who were attending the hunger-strike in which the role of Ven Ranmuthugala Sangharathana Thero had become the ‘foremost’ attention-drawer, were not only contributing to severing the ties between the Tamils and Muslims in the future. By making their presence at the platform promoted by the Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Gnanasara Thero, JHU Parliamentarian monk Athuraliye Rathana Thero and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, they were betraying the legitimate cause, including their objective criticism of the Quisling hierarchy of the TNA. Full story >>

Time for Canadian Eezham Tamils to chart next course of diaspora action

The political parties in Canada have unanimously called upon the UN to “establish an international independent investigation into the allegations of genocide against Tamils committed in Sri Lanka including the last phase of the armed conflict in 2009” along with two other demands to Colombo. A resolution was unanimously adopted extending condolences to all of the victims of violence while demanding the SL government to deliver justice to the Easter Sunday attacks, including protection of all religious places of worship and to fulfil its obligations made in Geneva within a clearly specified timeframe. Welcoming the move, the Tamil activists in the island urged the Canadian Tamil diaspora to concentrate on educating their host country on the unworkability of transitional justice in the island without international investigations on the genocide taking precedence over the other two demands. Full story >>

Another Buddha statue placed near Trincomalee private bus stand

A group of persons led by a Sinhala Buddhist monk installed a Buddha statue at the auto-rickshaw parking place located near the private bus stand in Trincomalee city on Sunday morning when the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the settlers were marking Poson Full Moon Poya. The 75 cm high Buddha statue, placed inside a glass cover, has replaced a smaller figure at 20 cm height, Tamil residents said. The move was part of a systematic plan, they said. The smaller statue had been placed at the locality after 2009. Now the extremist section has installed the statue with glass cover, which usually precedes the installation of a giant Buddha statue, the people said. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (Update)

Militant monk warns Tamils not to challenge ‘foremost’ stake of Sinhala Buddhism

Sinhala extremist militant monk Ven Bengamuwe Nalaka Thero, the chief organiser of so-called ‘National Rights Movement,’ was visiting the disputed heritage site, Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East, Naayaa'ru, in the district of Mullaith-theeevu on Sunday. He was taking hardline Sinhala protesters in three buses from Colombo, Anuradhapura and the Sinhala colony of Janakapura at Weli-Oya (Ma'nal-aa'ru) in Mullaiththeevu to stage a protest against the removal of the Sinhala name board of the illegally constructed Buddhist temple at the disputed heritage site. Nalaka Thero, along with a couple of other speakers, issued a stern warning to the Tamils that they better dare not to challenge the heritage genocide being waged by the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment and the SL ‘Army and Archaeology’. Full story >>

Mano Ganesan misleads on Kanniyaa heritage dispute: Trincomalee Councillor

SL Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs and ‘National’ Integration, Mr Mano Ganesan, was appreciated by Tamils in Trincomalee for confronting the Sinhala Buddhist monks regarding the ancient Tamil heritage of Kanniyaa during his recent trip attending the District Coordinating Committee meeting, on Monday. However, the monks were unmoved. They categorically told Mr Ganesan and the TNA Parliamentarian C. Yogeswaran that it was the Sinhala Buddhist Establishment and no one else in the island – not even the Executive President or the Prime Minister– who had the power to determine the fate of the heritage affairs of Kanniyaa. The minister could very well proceed taking up the issue with Maithiripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe in Colombo, but it would not change the ground reality, was the message, says Piratheasa Chapai (PS) councillor Chandirarajah Vipooshan, who was at the meeting. Full story >>

SL State-run Timber Corporation escalates logging of teak trees in Vanni

The SL State-owned Timber Corporation (STC) which comes under the SL Mahaweli Development and Environment Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has been engaged in wide-scale felling of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis) in Oddu-chuddaan area in Mullaiththeevu. The occupying SL military, empowered with police powers under the Emergency Regulations, has been prohibiting Tamil journalists from entering the area to monitor and report on the anti-environment activity which has been stepped up after the visit of Mr Sirisena to Mullaiththeevu on 08 May. The teak trees being cut down are carried out by an all Sinhala team of workers from the South. The trees were planted by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) during the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam before 2009. Full story >>

Occupying Colombo schemes Sinhala Buddhist settlement in Chemmalai-East, Vanni

The controversial erection of the giant Buddha statue at Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East of Mullaiththeevu district is to be further expanded into a Buddhist enclave encapsulating 33,376 hectares of land area to the southeast of Naayaa'ru lagoon, reveals a poster put up by Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the ‘chief incumbent’ of the so-called Gurukanda Purana Rajamaha Vihara at the disputed heritage site. The monk is groomed by the occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarter-base at Naayaa'aru. Scheming a large hermitage under the name of Gurukanda Purana Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda PRMV), the SL Archaeology Department, the SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development and Environment’ are backing the scheme, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu said. Full story >>

Kokku'laay-centric united action needed to counter Colombo wedging North-East

The resettled Tamil residents of the strategic Thennai-maravadi village bordering the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the Trincomalee district are facing Sinhala colonisation and Sinhala Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage sites on two fronts, at Pa'nikka-vayal to its west and at Kanthasaami-malai, which extends eastwards into Kokku'laay lagoon. The Sinhala colonisation and the Buddhicisation of Tamil heritage site of Kanthasaami-malai are being accelerated under the Emergency Regulations and the situation prevailing after the Easter Sunday attacks that have triggered the extremist monks to escalate their chauvinistic schemes in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The two-pronged attack, which is being stepped up in the recent days, is part of a larger design of permanently wedging the territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland along the narrow border between the North and the East. Full story >>

Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism ultimate trump card in unitary ‘Sri Lanka’: Suresh

The successive SL governments continue to behave hostile towards the Tamil people through ‘celebrating’ victory in the month of May. Furthermore, the SL State and its military sustain the Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism unabatedly erecting Buddhist temples in the North and the East. The same trend is also witnessed in the way the Islamophobia is deployed in the electoral politics of the South, particularly after the Easter Sunday attacks, commented Tamil politician Suresh Premachandran in a video interview to TamilNet this week. The SL Army’s 11-day ‘Walk of Warriors’ launched from Medawachchiya to Colombo coinciding with the May’ victory celebration’ seems to be a display of warning to the Muslim people as well as being propaganda targeting the Sinhala people with the message that the military force is their ultimate protection, the former Tamil militant turned politician observed. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (Correction)

SL military, police suppress traces of officer involved in fatal accident

The occupying Sinhala military and the police are trying to suppress photographic traces of a fatal accident as well as exerting pressure on the family of the 67-year-old victim who was killed on the spot in the accident caused by the speeding vehicle, which was driven by an officer-rank SL Army person. The accident took place in front of Nedungkea'ni Maha Viththiyaalayam school on Sunday around 7:00 pm in Vavuniyaa North. The driving officer was wearing a green military uniform, eyewitnesses said. The victim, Kanapathippillay Perampalam, was on his way to buy short eats for his grandchildren. He was on a bicycle. Full story >>

SL Forest Department seizes 1,500 acres of lands opposite Tamil Heroes Cemetery in Champoor

Sinhala guards belonging to the SL Forest Department have hurriedly marked many of the outgrown trees in the private agricultural lands at Aalang-ku’lam in Champoor, Trincomalee with the letter ‘F’ claiming the trees as the properties the SL department, Vairamuthu Pathmanathan, the chairperson of Aalang-ku’lam Farmers Federation, said. The SL Forest Department has marked the trees at the extent of 1,500 acres of lands, located just opposite the razed Aalang-ku’lam Tamil Heroes Cemetery where more than 800 LTTE fighters lay buried. The latest move indicates that the SL Forest Department was also claiming the private agricultural lands that belong to the people, who possess deeds and permits to prove their ownership to many plots of farms in the area. Full story >>

IC failing to impose mediated solution, ultimately responsible for escalating Sinhala chauvinism

Even though one feared the outbreak of an anti-Muslim pogrom immediately after the Easter attacks, silence prevailed for two weeks. Then the mob violence targeted the properties of Muslim traders. It was not an act of immediate responsive impulse, but an engineered move instigated by an organised force. Despite their differences in the scale, there are certain similarities between the 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogrom and the post-2009 anti-Muslim pogroms, says Batticaloa-based human rights activist Kathir Barathythasan. During the war, the International Community (IC) was acting as a mediator. But, it was also abetting the SL State, causing massive civilian deaths. The IC, now wants the anti-terror legislation to fit its global designs ignoring the drastic internal consequences. The IC must, therefore, be convinced to deliver a negotiated settlement to the national question, he said. Full story >>