Sinhala occupation of Kokku'laay lagoon tripled after 2009

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2013, 23:35 GMT]
Strategically located Kokku'laay lagoon on the borders of Trincomalee district and Mullaith-theevu district has become the haven for Sinhalese fishermen who arrive from south of the island. With the end of the war in 2009, the number of Sinhalese fishermen occupying lagoon area had been trebled, civil sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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Tamil youth in East face stiffer racial discrimination: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 June 2013, 23:22 GMT]
In yet another instance of the structural genocide taking place in the country of Eezham Tamils, students from the East stand now to lose the opportunity to learn technical education in their GCE Advanced Level studies since the Colombo government seems to have deliberately ignored Tamil educational institutions in the selection of institutions for introduction of technical education under higher standards. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Pon Selvarasa has alleged that the Tamil educational institutions from the East have been deliberately ignored by the Colombo government in the selection of institutions for introduction of technical education under the higher standards of general education.
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Diaspora women mobilize against Sri Lankan use of genocidal rape

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 June 2013, 23:48 GMT]
A public meeting and exhibition at the Imperial College London on Saturday organized by Tamil women activists condemned the Sri Lankan state’s systematic use of rape against the Eezham Tamil nation as a weapon of genocide. The event titled ‘Rape! Sterilisation! Mutilation!’, besides involving presentations by women activists on the nature and extent of sexual violence faced by Tamil women in the island of Sri Lanka, also presented recordings of Tamil women survivors of abuse.
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Colombo seizes 4,000 acres of paddy lands from Tamil farmers in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 June 2013, 22:09 GMT]
Around 4,000 acres of paddy lands belonging to Eezham Tamil farmers in the western side of Thirukkoayil of Ampaa'rai district in the East are under appropriation by the Sri Lankan State in Colombo through its Department of Forest Conservation. This also includes more than 1,000 acres of lands with paddy crops. The Colombo Establishment is committing a systematic demographic genocide on the ancient Tamil villages in the East while the Establishments in Washington and New Delhi, fully aware of Sri Lanka's Sinhalicisation, Buddhicisation and Colonisation programmes, continue to provide the necessary ‘time and space’ to Sri Lanka by seeking to deceive Eezham Tamils with LLRC-based empty resolutions in Geneva and by upholding the 13th Amendment of the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka.
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Ban on water supply threatens agriculture of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2013, 22:34 GMT]
By banning water supply to agriculture and paper mills and supplying water to tourist houses, the Colombo government is putting lives of many Eezham Tamils in stake in Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan Finance Ministry, which comes directly under SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the finance minister in Colombo, has imposed on ban on supply of water from Vaakaneari lake to the agricultural farms, agriculturalists from the area complain.
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‘UK should support call for international investigation on Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2013, 23:45 GMT]
Expressing disappointment with the UK’s decision to endorse the CHOGM in Sri Lanka, Allan Hogarth, Head of Policy and Government Affairs at Amnesty International, UK writes that the British government should “put pressure on Sri Lanka to end impunity for past abuses, use the September Session of the UN Human Rights Council to ensure human rights in Sri Lanka are scrutinized and they should support calls for an independent international investigation to be established into all allegations of war crimes.” In an article on the Huffington Post on Wednesday, debunking the myth of the island as a tourist spot by referring to cases of torture, Mr. Hogarth further opined that the UK must condemn the attacks on human rights and civil society activists in the island.
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Tamil Nadu protests condemn Indo-Sri Lanka military co-operation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2013, 05:18 GMT]
Protests in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu came down sharply on the Indian government for its continued military co-operation with the Sri Lankan military, which is accused not just of the genocide of the Eezham Tamils but also of murdering hundreds of Tamil Nadu fishermen. The protests erupted in the wake of the news that two SL military officers were to be given training at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, Nilgiris. While this opposition led to the transfer of the officers to another facility in Andhra Pradesh followed quickly by the GoSL’s recall of the officers, Congress minister E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan defended India’s military relationship with Sri Lanka, playing the China card.
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Tamil youth in UK demand referendum for Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2013, 11:53 GMT]
Second generation Eezham Tamil youth in the UK demonstrated at 10 Downing Street on Sunday demanding a referendum towards the creation of the state of Tamil Eelam. The Tamil youth and student activists from different universities who assembled for the protest called for an independent international investigation into the genocidal war crimes of Sri Lanka, also urging Prince Charles and the British Prime Minister David Cameron to boycott the CHOGM summit in Sri Lanka. The activists affirmed that British authorities' endorsing the CHOGM was tantamount to an approval of the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation. The protest was held under the banner of 'Student's Uprising Day', to commemorate the sacrifice of the late Pon. Sivakumaran, a pioneer of the Tamil resistance movement in the early 70s.
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SLA interferes, sabotages civil group's public awareness event

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2013, 02:15 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had interfered and had stopped Mannaar Government officials from attending an event organized by the Mannaar Citizen's Committee (MCC) to bring awareness of the laws and regulations governing ownership and transfer of lands, the President of MCC, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Sebamalei, said in a media release issued during the second week of June. The agenda for the first two days of the event held for the NGOs was carried out without any difficulty, the organizers said, but that they had protested to the attendance of an SLA Intelligence officer during the first day of the seminar. Consequently, the organizers believe, the SLA took action to disrupt the event aimed at the Government officials, the memorandum said.
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Girl student sexually assaulted in Batticaloa near SLA, STF camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2013, 01:36 GMT]
Tamil women from the East continue to be vulnerable to sexual assaults allegedly at the hands of Sinhala men even as another incident of sexual assault on a 17-year-old student was reported in Batticaloa district on Thursday last week.
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Snowden, Thulasi force US into legal extradition quagmire

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2013, 00:04 GMT]
In 2008, the United States Government requested the extradition of Eezham Tamil defendant, Thulasitharan Santhirarajah, from Australia for an alleged offense in providing material support to a "terrorist" organization, and now the US is requesting, or will request, the extradition of Edward J Snowden from Hong Kong, and other likely destinations of Snowden, for alleged offenses of “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person." In the Thulasitharan case, the Melbourne Court determined that the charged offenses are "either pure or relative political offenses," and in the high-profile Snowden case, legal experts acknowledge that U.S. will likely meet with the same fate for similar reasons.
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Survivors of 1991 Kashmir mass rape case assert struggle for justice

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 June 2013, 12:13 GMT]
A court in Kupwara district, Kashmir on Tuesday ordered the re-opening of the infamous Kunan Poshpora mass rape case, allegedly committed by Indian military personnel during a cordon and search operation in the Kunan Poshpora village on February 23, 1991. Despite the case gaining international attention and sparking condemnation by human rights bodies like Amnesty and HRW, the Indian government had officially been in a state of denial as regards the incident. In the wake of this court order, an event titled “Kunan-Poshpora mass rape and torture: Case reopening and future struggle for justice” was organized by Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society on Saturday in Srinagar in which the rape survivors and their relatives spoke to the public, asserting their struggle for justice.
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India's Taj Hotels to ‘invest’ in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2013, 14:48 GMT]
Taj Hotels, considered to be India’s largest luxury-class hotel chain, is reportedly planning to invest in expanding a branch in occupied Trincomalee. The hotel chain, which already has branches in the Sinhala south, is now looking at six new hotels, Indian media reports. At a time when structural genocide through land-grabs and sinhalicisation in Trincomalee is happening unchecked, it is hard not to see such corporate ‘investments’, which almost always occur through the assistance of the Sinhala military apparatus, as ‘co-investor’ in genocide, civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Sinhalicisation of Chu’ndik-ku’lam to permanently choke Jaffna Peninsula

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2013, 08:55 GMT]
The Eezham Tamil fishermen’s efforts to reconstruct their war-torn lives face fresh threats from the occupying Sri Lanka’s rampant Sinhalicisation of the North. During the last two weeks, hundreds of Sinhala fishermen are being settled at Chu’ndikku’lam, a coastal village situated in Vadamaraadchi East of the Jaffna district. By employing banned methods of fishing, the invading Sinhala fishermen have been posing a grave threat not only to the resettlement of the uprooted Tamils in the village, but also to the livelihood of the Tamil fishermen of Vadamaraadchi East. However, the worst threat is Sinhala military and fishermen permanently choking the one and only natural entry point into the Jaffna Peninsula, as Chu’ndik-ku’lam is the sandbar that links the peninsula with the main island. 1000 houses are planned for colonizing Sinhala fishermen at this location, says TNA-MP Sritharan.
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India’s housing in un-freed land facilitates Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2013, 09:32 GMT]
Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr P Selvarasa has warned that the occupying Colombo government has planned to grab several houses allocated under the Indian aid for war-affected Tamil families in the Eastern Province especially in Batticaloa district to be handed over to Sinhalese who are being brought down to the Batticaloa district from the South. The ultimate culprit that makes the housing meaningless is the Indian policy of not recognising or freeing the land of Eezham Tamils for them. If the policy is tacit support to demographic genocide, the result will be a Palestinian crisis for Eezham Tamils in the island. What has to be primarily addressed is the policy of New Delhi, commented activists of alternative politics in the East.
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Attacks on Muslims continue unabated

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2013, 00:11 GMT]
The Muslims in Ki’n’niyaa have questioned the credibility of the ruling UPFA’s action in awarding chief minister portfolio to a Muslim politician in Ki’n’niyaa, Mr Najeeb Abdul Majeed, even while unleashing the notorious Special Task Force (STF) elite commandos on Muslim villagers from Kuddik-Karaichchi on Tuesday evening after a dispute between the SL police and Muslim villagers involved in transporting wood from a nearby forest. The STF personnel deployed had fired tear gas and opened fire threatening the villagers who protested and a tense situation prevails still in the area following the violent episode. The chief minister of the Eastern Province hails from Ki'n'niyaa. The STF was particular in isolating and targeting the Muslim youth during the clash, Muslim leaders in Ki'n'niyaa complain. Colombo has beefed up SL military presence following the episode.
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UK Tamils gather at Cardiff protesting Sri Lankan cricket

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2013, 16:12 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils from the UK gathered near the cricket stadium in Cardiff on Thursday to protest the presence of the Sri Lankan cricket team on British soil, urging the UK for a complete boycott of sporting and cultural ties with the genocide-accused Sri Lankan state. This mass protest follows on the heels of a violent incident near the Oval stadium on Monday, where dozens of Tamil activists protesting on the occasion of the Sri Lanka-Australia cricket match were brutally attacked by Sinhala mobs.
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Jaffna University teachers boycott SL-UGC ‘academic reconciliation’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2013, 06:05 GMT]
Jaffna University Teachers’ Association boycotted a ‘national’ level conference on the “Role of Higher Education in Reconciliation” hosted in Jaffna last week by genocidal Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission. Even though Colombo media reports said that the conference was a joint venture of the SL-UGC and the University of Jaffna, it neither took place in the Jaffna University premises nor was it participated by the academics of the university. Fearing the prevailing mood at the university, the conference was held almost as a closed-door affair at a hotel in Jaffna. Only the VC and the administration that were obliged to go represented the Jaffna University. Among the 25 speakers brought by the SL-UGC, the star speakers to “set the tone and tempo of the conference,” were ‘Terrorism Professor’ Rohan Gunaratna and Law Professor C.G. Weeramantry.
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Veteran Canadian journalist criticizes Harper’s policy on refugees

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 22:46 GMT]
Karl Nerenberg, a veteran journalist with over 25 years of experience, came down sharply on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s policy towards refugees. In an article published on alternative news site Rabble.ca on Tuesday, Nerenberg, giving examples of refugees from Syria, Sri Lanka and Hungary, criticized the Harper government’s approach to refugees for being ‘inconsistent’ and ‘stigmatizing’. Giving the examples of the Tamils from the island, he opined Harper’s position on holding the CHOGM in Sri Lanka was in contrast to his government’s policy towards Tamil refugees. He further alleges that the new refugee law in Canada gives the Ministry of Immigration “untrammeled power” to pursue a discriminatory policy.
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GoSL’s new media code to further curtail free speech: HRW

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 20:26 GMT]
Referring to the ‘Code of Media Ethics’ official proposed by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Mass Media and Information two days back, Human Rights Watch in a release on Wednesday criticised the proposal for its “overbroad and vague language that could have a severe and chilling effect on free speech”. Noting how the proposed code could be used to curtail any dissent to the government and referring to the already existing repression of journalists, HRW reported that “Violence remains a real fear for journalists, which is only heightened by impunity for perpetrators.” Arguing that the vagueness of this code would lead to self-censorship by many journalists, Brad Adams, Asia Director of HRW, also commented that “The code would hand the Sri Lankan authorities a new tool to harass and threaten journalists who are already working in a very difficult environment.”
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TNA MP alleges 'planned sinhalicisation' of punaanai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 12:11 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance MP C Yogeswaran on Sunday demanded that immediate steps be taken to stop the aggressive and meticulously planned sinhalicisation of Punaanai East, situated 52 km northwest of Batticaloa city. During the times of the LTTE, the presence of the Tiger forces from Kudumpimalai in the South to Vaakarai in the North had thwarted the earlier attempts of sinhalicisation. In the absence of LTTE, sinhalicisation is now rapidly taking place along the Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa border, where Punaanai is situated. Besides occupation by Sinhala families, Punaanai has also witnessed various instances of Sinhalicisation such as demolition of Saiva temples in the guise of archeological excavations and the deity in the sanctum sanctorum of a Pi'l'laiyaar temple missing.
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Rising star in U.S. Justice

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 00:45 GMT]
Mythili Raman, the newly appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department and successor to Mr. Lanny Breuer, is widely acclaimed in legal circles as a trailblazer in the Justice Department. Her parents are from Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. Ms Raman had her undergraduate degree from Yale, and obtained a law degree from the University of Chicago.
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SL State backs Christian persecution, 30 churches attacked this year: World Evangelical Alliance

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2013, 23:32 GMT]
World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), which is a network of churches in 129 countries, in a ‘Research and Analysis’ report issued on Monday observed that Sri Lanka “appears to be seeking to establish social and political supremacy of the Sinhala Buddhist majority within a unitary state,” in the ‘post-war resurgence’ of Sihala Buddhist nationalism that no longer threatens only the Tamils, but also religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims. “The resurgence of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism can be attributed to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, which by some was seen as a victory of Buddhism over Tamil nationalism,” the report said. This year thus far, at least 30 churches have reported being attacked. Last year, Sri Lanka witnessed 52 incidents of Christian persecution.
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Sri Lanka provides harbour, state endorsement, to Chinese fishing

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2013, 15:22 GMT]
In a move delicately endangering local fishing of the peoples of entire southern South Asia, the Rajapaksa Establishment in Colombo has provided facilities of a state-of-the-art fishing harbour near Colombo and State endorsement to Chinese vessels fishing beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Island’s waters. A Company in China has been graced with the rights to ply its fishing vessels with the flag of the genocidal State in Sri Lanka and to use the facilities of the Dikovita fishing harbour. While the Establishment in Colombo would get paltry benefits, shoals of fishes coming from the Antarctica would be exploited in the no-country water itself, before they come to South Asia, affecting the livelihood of not only Tamils, Malayalis and Maldivians but also the Sinhalese, fisheries sources in the island said.
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Colombo schemes permanent occupation of two Tamil villages in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2013, 20:26 GMT]
Sinhala officials attached to Sri Lanka's Department of Forest Conservation, which comes under the SL Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy, have surveyed this weekend two traditional Tamil villages in the Thirukkoayil DS division of Ampaa'rai district, in a move to plant trees in the lands that belong to uprooted Eezham Tamils, who have not been allowed to resettle in the villages of Thangkavealaayuthapuram and Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru, news sources in Thirukkoayil told TamilNet Sunday. The Sinhala officials of the Eastern Provincial Council also back the move, the sources further said.
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Tamil "Mandate" Refugees, left homeless, languish in foreign camps

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2013, 15:21 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil refugees, including several hundreds who have been declared as "Mandate" refugees by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in compliance with the UNHCR Charter and associated statutes, are languishing in camps in East Asian countries, and recently in Dubai, while Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and the U.S., which have traditionally admitted mandate and convention refugees, are denying resettlement to many of these refugees. Australia, which is one of the contracting countries with UNHCR, is even keeping in detention, citing security threat, Tamil boat refugees who have been granted asylum.
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30 temples, 25 churches remain damaged in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2013, 22:47 GMT]
Even after four years have passed, More than 30 Saiva temples are found either destroyed or damaged in the three divisions of Ki'linochchi district, informed sources in Ki'linohchi told TamilNet on Saturday. In one division alone, 24 churches have been damaged during the war, according to civil sources in Ki'linochchi. In one of the division, Poonakari, two churches (St. Mary's Church and Our Lady of Refuge Church) were fully destroyed while 22 other churches have been partially damaged in Poonakri (Pooneryn).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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