Student leaders fail to pinpoint ITAK, blame all five Tamil parties for ‘approach failure’

SL military warns Tamils against protesting land-grab along Pooneryn sandbar

The commander of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in Ki'linochchi, Major General GV Ravipriya, has threatened the people of Kauthaari-munai and the nearby villages along Ma'n'nith-thalai sandbar of Poonakari (Pooneryn) not to object SL Governor's plan of alienating lands to a planned hotel by an Australia-based Tamil trader collaborating with the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. The SL military is fully backing the land grab, which is promoted by the SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (UPDATE)

ITAK betrays Tamils once again: Suresh Premachandran

The leading Sinhala presidential candidates have categorically rejected the thirteen-point joint demands, which were articulated by the main six Tamil parties and unanimously accepted in whole by five of them, including the ITAK. Furthermore, it is evident to anyone that the UNP is not going to deliver the constitutional changes. What happened to the constitutional discourse of the same regime during the past four and a half years? The proposals were dumped into the dustbin. How could then the ITAK, which is also a signatory to the joint declaration make a unilateral decision of extending support to Sajith Premadasa, asked EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran. Full story >>

Eezham Tamil fishers detained by Indian Coast Guard return home

Eighteen Tamil fishermen from Jaffna who were detained by the Indian coastguard that trespassed into the waters off Jaffna on 03 October 2019 reached Colombo airport on Wednesday morning after 27 days of detention in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Coastguard entered the territorial waters off Jaffna, near Ezhuvai-theevu, and towed their vessel for five nautical miles inside the Indian border before getting onboard, the fishermen who reached Jaffna on Thursday said. The investigators from the SL Defence Ministry were harassing the fishers for almost six hours at Colombo airport, Annalingam Annarasa, the secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Federation who had gone to Colombo to receive the returning fishers said. Full story >>

Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday. Full story >>

“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile. Full story >>

Gotabhaya's presidency would dash Musali people's hopes on incremental resettlement

The uprooted Tamils in Musali division of Mannaar district fear permanently losing the militarised villages at the hands of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa if he becomes the next SL President. The Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam have been waiting for the SL Navy to honour its pledges on returning some of the occupied properties since 2017. It was Mr Rajapaksa who declared their village as a high-security naval area in December 2012. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Cardinal of Vatican, personally accompanied his friend, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to silence the then Bishop of Mannaar Rayappu Joseph and the Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in 2012. Full story >>

Monks from South visit disputed Neeraaviyadi temple at Naayaa'ru

A group of Sinhala Buddhist monks from the South visited the disputed ‘heritage site’ Neeraaviyadi at Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. The group was inspecting the Pi'l'laiyaar Hindu temple and the recently erected Buddha statue at the locality. Then, the group proceeded to the hut, where the late monk, Kolamba Thero, was preserving his collection of ‘artefacts’ claiming them as the remains of an ancient Sinhala Buddhist Chaitya. The collection of stones have been stored inside a small hut inside the SL military base located across the road, just opposite the disputed temple. The latest visit by the monks comes as the court is set to investigate the controversial cremation of the late Kolamba Thero, which took place near the Hindu temple in September. Full story >>

US trick of coercion: Carrot to entice Gotabhaya, stick to strike Shavendra

US Acting Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asia of the US State Department, Alice G. Wells, was turning a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East during her testimony on human rights in South Asia to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The US was “encouraged by the SL government’s progress on the operationalization of an Office of Missing Persons and the establishment of an Office of Reparations,” she said. Alice G Wells was accompanied by Robert Destro, the assistant secretary at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who was also citing “Sri Lanka” as the country in the South Asian region where the US have had some “notable successes”. The only strong complaint they had was the recent promotion of pro-Chinese SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva. Full story >>

Sinhala supporters of Gotabhaya encroach into pasturelands in Batticaloa

Former Sinhala paramilitary affiliated colonists (also known as home-guards), who encroached into the pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa during the Rajapaksa regime, have again started cultivation activities in the area, Tamil dairy farmers complain. When contacted by TamilNet, Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division, confirmed the intrusion. At least fifteen encroachers have sown seeds clearing the pasturelands in Mayilaththa-madu within the last ten days, he said. The activity comes in the wake of killing around 1,500 cattle that belonged to Tamil dairy farmers in the area during the past ten months, he said. Full story >>

Monk backing Gotabhaya wants Tamil owners to stay away from their lands in interior Batticaloa

A Sinhala Buddhist monk engaged in hostile colonisation activities in Batticaloa district along the border to Ampaa'rai district has threatened Tamil farmers who were levelling lands at Maalaiyar-kaddu village to stay away from the ‘reservation’ lands on Friday. The Tamil landowners were stopped by the SL Police who accompanied the monk while they were cleaning the property using a bulldozer. The SL Police has instructed the Tamil farmers to come to Vellaa-ve'li police station on Monday. The Tamil families have been doing agriculture in three acres of lands beside the plot which they were levelling. They had purchased six acres of lands from another Tamil landowner 15 years ago, the families said. However, the monk from Chinna-vaththai was claiming that the SL State had reserved the three acres of lands. Full story >>


2ND LEAD (Update)

Chennai Connect and Eezham Tamils reminding Tamil Nadu to assert Tamil geopolitics

After wrapping up his informal Summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu, Chinese President Xi Jinping this week paid a two-day State visit to Nepal, where he announced a strategic partnership with the landlocked country situated between India and China. While the Nepalese President and Prime Minister extended their commitment to China’s Belt & Road Initiative, Xi Jinping announced the plan for the transformation of the landlocked country into a “land-linked” country in South Asia. He was effectively pitching for a ‘Trans-Himalayan Corridor’. China launching yet another land-based economic corridor in South Asia, in addition to that of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is the latest manoeuvre of geopolitics. Full story >>


2ND LEAD (Update)

Tamil parties in North-East stipulate ‘acid test’ terms to SL presidential candidates

The main political parties of Eezham Tamils, which claim to uphold the principles of the concept of Tamil nationhood through the Right of Self-Determination and distinct sovereignty of Tamils to their traditional homeland, have come to an understanding of the terms to be placed as the acid-test conditions to the candidates running for the executive presidency of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. While the parties have unitedly formed the main demands towards the presidential candidates, they have failed in two crucial aspects. Firstly, the failure to course-correct the ‘Quisling politics’ of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Secondly, the inability to stipulate the conditions and choices of Eezham Tamils if and when the actors in the South fail to meet the acid-test terms, especially before the SL Presidential elections. Full story >>

Monks step up campaign against Muslims, want to carve out Sinhala colony in Ampaa'rai

Sinhala Theravada Buddhist monks in robe have again started to escalate a land dispute along the coast in Poththvuil division of Ampaa'rai district in the East. The elected Divisional Council (PS) was prepared to allocate three acres of lands to the Buddhist vihara, which the monks had put up in illegally seized plot of three-quarter of an acre. The vihara was erected four years ago with the backing of the SL Navy and the presidential election in 2015. Now, the monks want a large tract of land, up to 42 acres and more, MS Abdul Wazeeth, the chairman of the elected Divisional Council told TamilNet on Saturday. The Tamil-speaking Muslims in Poththuvil fear that the monks were scheming a Sinhala colony at the locality, which is known as Mathuragn-cheanai in Tamil. Using the presidential race, the monks seek to secure additional resources for a future Sinhala colony there, they complained. Full story >>