Batticaloa inscription refers to visit of founder of Sikh religion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 15:50 GMT]
A Tamil-Sanskrit-Gurmukhi inscription, dateable to 1511 CE, excavated in the Batticaloa (Maddak-ka’lappu) district of the country of Eezham Tamils, refers to the visit of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion, to the island. The inscription refers to a conversation between the Guru and Vikramabahu VI, a king in the island at that time, The Times of India reported on Wednesday, citing Ashok Kumar Kainth, a Punjabi historian working in the island since 2004. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) will send a delegation to the island to study the inscription and site, the historian was further cited.
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Colombo accelerates Sinhala colonisation in Batticaloa: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 July 2013, 23:54 GMT]
The Colombo government is accelerating the Sinhala colonization in the Batticaloa district. More than one hundred Sinhalese families were brought down from Ampaa'rai district and have been settled down in Kevu'liya-madu village in Paddippazhai DS division, according to Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr. P. Selvarasa.
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SL military provides lands to Sinhalese in North ahead of PC elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 July 2013, 22:46 GMT]
More than five hundred Sinhala families from the border villages of the Northern Province are being settled down within the Northern Province by the occupying Sinhala Army, which systematically violates the Land Development Ordinance and the Election Law, civil sources in Vavuniyaa said. One thousand and five hundred members of these families would be entitled to vote in the forthcoming election to the Northern Provincial Council that is scheduled to be held in September, media sources said.
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China to build new port-city in Colombo on 99-year-lease

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 July 2013, 09:47 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State, which has been trading human rights with the West and ports with China for completing the structural genocide on the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, has now signed a US$1.43 billion deal with China Communications Construction to build a port facility with a 99-year-lease on a 230 hectares reclaimed land in Colombo, Sri Lanka Ports Authority chairman Priyath Wickrama has announced. “The Chinese firm will be given 50 hectares of reclaimed land and the construction project, schemed to start in September will last for 39 months,” said a report by Latvia-based Transport Weekly on Monday.
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London Black July event rejects 13th Amendment

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 July 2013, 22:20 GMT]
Tamils across the UK, braving showers to attend the Black July event held in Mitcham, London on Saturday, rejected the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Councils system under the unitary Sri Lankan system as even a starting point of resolution of the Eezham Tamils’ national question. A statement by the TNPF elaborating on the subject released earlier in the day was read out at the event. A play by youth activists depicted the possible negative aftermaths of accepting the Provincial Council system. The play also urged the older generation to hand over the struggle to the next generation who are willing to fight from principled positions instead of accepting half-baked solutions that will only deny the youth their space to take forward the struggle.
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Documentary on Tamil Nadu student uprising released in Chennai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 July 2013, 21:42 GMT]
A documentary based on the Tamil Nadu student uprising that challenged establishments’ abetment of the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, was released to the public in Chennai on Sunday. Titled “A'rappoar” (Righteous Struggle), the documentary focuses on the student upsurge against the pro-LLRC US Resolution in March 2013. The documentary, screened at Book Point Hall in Anna Salai on Sunday to packed audiences, also saw speakers talking about the continued international injustice to the Eezham Tamil nation and the future of the students’ struggle in Tamil Nadu.
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Administer justice to GoSL genocidaires on basis of Truth, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 July 2013, 18:51 GMT]
Commenting on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's statement that India has “long advocated the creation of an environment in Sri Lanka in which all communities, particularly the Sri Lankan Tamils, are masters of their own destiny within the framework of a united Sri Lanka,” Professor Boyle, an expert in International law, said that this was not an appropriate remedy to deal with genocidaires, adding, "It would be like asking the Jews to engage in a Truth and Reconciliation Process with the Nazis. The very idea is absurd and insulting upon its face alone." India's Prime Minister was responding to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa statement urging the Center to ensure that the process of democratic decentralization, integral to the survival of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, should lead to the Tamils realising their legitimate aspirations.
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‘13th Amendment, PC system cannot provide political solution to Tamils’: TNPF

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 July 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Reiterating their position that “the recognition of the distinct sovereignty of the Eelam Tamil Nation and our right to self-determination is non-negotiable,” the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) in a statement released on Saturday asserted that the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Councils system, rejected by the Eezham Tamil nation way back in 1987, “can never play any part of a process to reach a political solution today.” The statement released on the 30th anniversary of Black July, further said “if there is a firm resolve of the Eelam Tamil Diaspora to be true to this righteous cause at all occasions and venues, we in the homeland believe that it can ultimately serve to reinvigorate the Tamils in the homeland to mobilize and democratically counter the machinations of the Genocidal intent of the Sinhala Buddhist state.”
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‘US-British imperialism helps Sinhala colonization of Tamil homeland’

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 July 2013, 21:32 GMT]
The help of US and British imperialism assists the Sinhala state’s colonization of Tamil areas, observes a solidarity statement by Europe based Kurdish and Turkish diaspora youth organizations. Released on the occasion of Black July, the statement in German language, signed by 4 Left-leaning youth organizations and published on the official website of the German based Kurdish youth organization the Union of Students from Kurdistan (YXK), besides condemning the massacre in July 1983 also traced the continuity of genocide to May 2009 and after, stating that the rulers “had no interest in the scheduled peace process and negotiations”.
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Colombo steps up Sinhalicisation of Pulmoaddai to wedge North and East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 July 2013, 22:45 GMT]
Tamil-speaking Muslims living in their village of Pulmoaddai, situated near the administrative border to the districts of Trincomalee in the East and Mullaiththeevu in the North, now face appropriation of their lands by Sinhala Buddhist monks who have come from Hambantota in the South, news sources in the East said. Local Muslim leaders fear that the Sri Lankan State and the occupying Sri Lanka Navy are planning to colonize their traditional Muslim village with Sinhalese, outnumbering them. Pulmoaddai is situated on the edge of strategic Ma'nal-Aa'ru, which has been recently carved out as a Sinhala division to wedge the North from the East. Pulmoddai also has one of the richest deposits of Titanium ore in the world. The sands in the area contain ilmenite and rutile, raw materials for manufacturing Titanium Dioxide.
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Manmohan Singh gives half-baked reply to Jayalalithaa on Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 July 2013, 19:31 GMT]
Responding to a letter sent by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said that India has “long advocated the creation of an environment in Sri Lanka in which all communities, particularly the Sri Lankan Tamils, are masters of their own destiny within the framework of a united Sri Lanka.” The half-baked reply does not address any of the issues raised by Ms. Jayalalithaa’s July 14 letter. Instead, it only shows the adamant attitude of the Indian centre in forcing the genocide-affected Eezham Tamil nation to “reconcile” with a fundamentally oppressive Sri Lankan state. The text of Dr. Singh’s letter was released to the public as part of a press statement by the Tamil Nadu government on Thursday.
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Diaspora Tamils remember Black July

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 July 2013, 23:27 GMT]
Tamils in the diaspora took part in events in countries in the West on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Black July massacres of 1983 on Tuesday. Black July commemorations are held by Tamils across the world every year to remember over 4000 Tamils who perished in a pogrom organized by the UNP regime in 1983 in Sri Lanka. As a generation passes with three decades since the horrific event, a general opinion among new generation activists across the diaspora is that had the International Community positively intervened in favour of the Eezham Tamil nation recognizing the genocidal intent of the Sinhala rulers of unitary Sri Lanka, the genocide in Mu’l’livaaykkaal could have been averted.
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UN Sri Lanka tribunal will avoid ICC jurisdictional issues, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 July 2013, 00:43 GMT]
The United Nations General Assembly (GA) must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka (ICTSL) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22, and organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council, said Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, while commenting on the appointment of Samantha Power as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and advocating that Ms Power should follow the leadership of Madeline Albright who spearheaded the setting up of the ICTY. This will avoid the jurisdictional hurdles in the ICC taking up criminal matters related to a non-signatory state, Boyle added.
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Colombo engages in widespread Sinhalicisation of Mannaar: TNA-MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 July 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The Colombo government is actively engaged in colonising around 6000 Sinhala families in the Mannaar district of the Northern Province, including its coastal areas, while it is not taking care of the resettlement of the Tamils and Muslims displaced by the war, accused Mr Selvam Adaikkalanathan, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian for Mannaar. The TNA may have to seek judicial remedy if the government is bent on bringing in Sinhalese without resettling people affected by the war, he further said. The TNA parliamentarian should first have the guts to mobilise the people to ask the USA, Co-Chairs, India and the UN that have asked the people to come into the barbed-wire camps, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Hezbollah military wing added to EU terror list

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 July 2013, 23:26 GMT]
Foreign ministers of the European Union have reached a consensus to classify the military wing of the Lebanese based militant-political group Hezbollah as a terrorist group. This decision was arrived at on Monday after Foreign Ministers of the EU met at Brussels and moved to place Hezbollah’s military arm under the EU terror list. Hezbollah, which functions as a legitimate political party in Lebanon, as such was not banned. In a statement they condemned the EU's "aggressive and unjust decision which is not based on any proof or evidence", Reuters reported, the group further alleging that the US and Israel were behind this move. Hezbollah’s active support to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is also claimed to be a factor influencing EU’s move.
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Precedence setting determination by British court on SL Country guidance: legal activist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 July 2013, 23:19 GMT]
In an interview to TamilNet, Mr. Geetharthanan Kulasegaram, a Tamil legal activist based in the UK who assisted one of the solicitor firms in preparing material for UK’s Sri Lanka country guidance case, elaborated on the significance of the determination by the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal in UK. Initially, the Home Office in the UK had tried to paint a picture of normalcy in Sri Lanka, basing on the findings of the report by Norway based Landinfo report. This was challenged and the recent ruling takes note of the ongoing oppression of Tamils in the island, especially ex-LTTE cadres.
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Activists discuss strategies of resistance at London event

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 July 2013, 23:33 GMT]
Activists involved with different contemporary political and social movements came together on Thursday at an event in London to discuss strategies of resistance in the 21st Century. Titled ‘Modern Day Protest’, the event was chaired Hugh Muir, columnist with the Guardian, and saw the panellists, with experience in different spheres and types of activism, engage in lively debate and sharing their views on the models of effective activism to be considered especially in the West. Eezham Tamil activist Gobi Sivanthan’s argument that non-violent direct action was a very effective strategy to be pursued in the West given the level of criminalization of activists and protests was taken up well by the participants.
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Can Power, silent on Sri Lanka genocide, redeem herself in UN, asks Boyle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 July 2013, 00:50 GMT]
The Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the U.S. National Security Council, Samantha Power, who has been nominated for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been attending a Senate hearing on the nomination this week where she has been forcefully advocating action to stop “the grotesque atrocities being carried out by the Assad regime,” Washington media reported. Professor Boyle, pointing out Power's conspicuous silence during the killing of Tamil civilians reaching genocidal proportions by the Sri Lanka military, said that Power now has a chance to "redeem" herself by establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka, as did her predecessor Madeline Albright to the former Yugoslavia.
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EU parliamentarians request GoSL to ensure accountability

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 July 2013, 15:16 GMT]
A delegation of European Union parliamentarians visiting Sri Lanka requested Colombo to “ensure accountability in the face of what the UN calls "credible allegations" of up to 40,000 civilians killed in the final battles in 2009” the AFP reported on Friday. "On the physical side in terms of roads and reconstruction, the progress is very, very visible, but a lot more needs to be done on political issues," the AFQ quoted the delegation head, UK’s Jean Lambert. Ms Lambert had also said that the EU wanted Sri Lanka “to implement recommendations of its own domestic war probe which called for independent investigations into alleged rights abuses.” The “domestic war probe” by the genocide-accused Sri Lankan government has been condemned as a farce by many Tamil political activists.
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Affiliating Trinco university campus with Anuradhapura: civil society calls for protest

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 July 2013, 12:33 GMT]
In one of the worst moves of educational genocide of Eezham Tamils, efforts are now being undertaken to affiliate the Trincomalee Campus of the Eastern University with the Rajarata University of Anuradhapura, informed sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet on Thursday. The university-level educational institutions of Tamils in Jaffna and Batticaloa, started by the missionaries in the 19th century, became secondary schools when the British rule transferring power to the Sinhalese towards its closing days, encouraged only a Colombo-centric education. Later, when the Tamils demanded a university after the so-called independence, they wanted it to be based in Trincomalee. Affiliating the Trincomalee Campus with the Sinhala University at Anuradhapura is the height of educational genocide, said, Tamil academic and civil circles in the East.
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Dr Malathy’s ‘A Fleeting Moment’ to be released in Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2013, 22:23 GMT]
Tamil Nadu based publication house Vidiyal Pathippakam will be releasing the Tamil version of Dr. N. Malathy’s book ‘A fleeting moment in my country’ by the end of this month. The book in Tamil, titled “Enathu naaddil oru thu'li nearam: viduthalaip pulika'lin nadaimu'rai arasin i'ruthi naanku varudangka'l” will be ready for sale on 30 July, and will be on display at the Erode Book fair by the first week of August.
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Kumaarapuram massacre case comes up for trial after 17 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 July 2013, 10:44 GMT]
Four witnesses to the February 1996 brutal massacre of 24 Tamils by the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at Kumaarapuram village in Trincomalee district have been summoned to appear on Wednesday in Anuradhapura High Court that is situated in predominantly Sinhala district. The trial in the case is listed for hearing on July 17, July 18 and July 19 more than 17 years after the genocidal massacre. Many of the witnesses are poor labourers who do not know Sinhala.Meanwhile observes say that the Colombo government hoodwinks the international community on one side summoning the witnesses to give evidence and the on the other hand threatening them not to appear in court to give evidence.
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US Navy, Sinhala military engage in joint training operations in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 July 2013, 05:28 GMT]
American Navy SEALS and the Sri Lankan military are currently conducting joint training operations at the Sinhala military occupied Trincomalee. The Annual Joined Combined Exchange Training (JCET) between the US Naval Special Warfare Community and the Sri Lankan military named ‘Flash Style’, which commenced on 2 July at the naval dockyard in Trincomalee, is scheduled to conclude on 19 July. Joint training exercises with the same name had been conducted earlier in 2000, before the commencement of the internationally abetted war on the de-facto state of the LTTE. Given this prolonged cooperation between the US armed forces and the genocide-accused Sinhala military, one is forced to arrive at the conclusion that the Pentagon’s policy approves of the genocidal policy of the Sri Lankan state, a Tamil analyst commented.
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Mullaiththeevu protests against poaching by Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 July 2013, 19:45 GMT]
Tamil fishermen in Mullaiththeevu have vowed to step up protest campaign till Sri Lankan Fisheries Minister, his representative or the SL Government Agent of the district meet them and assure that no southern fishermen would be allowed into Mullaiththeevu for fishing.
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‘Crimes against women on increase in Sri Lanka’: AHRC

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 July 2013, 19:38 GMT]
“In Sri Lanka the citizens live in an environment that has no respect for women and it is estimated that 95% of women using public transport are at risk of being subjected to sexual harassment,” states a news report by the Asian Human Rights Commission on Monday. Further citing from a press conference held in Colombo on July 14 by Women for Rights, the report alleged that crimes causing violence relating to women and children is on the rise in the island. Commenting on this report, a Tamil social activist from Jaffna said that while the information provided was a matter of grave concern, it was regrettable that the Colombo-centric reportage took no account of the genocidal nature of crimes perpetrated against Tamil women.
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‘Abuse of Tamil women part and parcel of intended genocide’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 July 2013, 11:02 GMT]
The abuse of Eezham Tamil women committed by the Sri Lankan state apparatus should not be seen as individual human rights violations but as a part and parcel of an intended genocide of a protracted nature, write Dr. N. Malathy, key member of NESoHR and author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’ and RM Karthick, research scholar at University of Essex, UK. In an article published on Indian journal Sanhati’s 6th issue for 2013, the authors, criticizing international organizations for their failure to properly deal with the issue of genocidal rape by Sri Lankan forces, also call on the Tamil community to have a change of social approach towards rape survivors, noting how violence against Tamil women is deeply intertwined with communal identity.
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Sinhala military takes up Buddhicisation of East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 July 2013, 05:59 GMT]
The Sinhala military occupying the East of the country of Eezham Tamils is directly engaged in Buddhicising the province, news sources in Batticaloa said, citing the mushrooming Buddha statues in the district in the recent times. Meanwhile, Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr R. Thurairatnam said that an effort is now being undertaken to create permanent Buddhist establishments out of the improvised Buddhist shrines built in the SL military camps. Such shrines were ostensibly built for the ‘religious purposes’ of the occupying military and they could be found everywhere, as the Sinhala military is occupying every junction and other strategic locations.
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GA inefficient in Sinhala colonisation of Tamil land transferred

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 July 2013, 03:14 GMT]
Colombo’s Government Agent (GA) in the Mannaar district of the Northern Province, Mr A.S. Sarath Ravindra, who is a Sinhalese, has been transferred with immediate effect for poor performance in the Sinhalicisation of the Tamil district, news sources in Mannaar said. Similar to Ma’nal-aa’ru in the Mullaith-theevu district that is now Sinhalicised into ‘Weli-oya’ division, grabbing a part of the North at its border, the genocidal State has been planning for a massive Sinhala colonisation at the Musali division of the Mannaar district too that borders the North Central and North Western Provinces. The new GA of the occupying State, Mr M.N. Desapriya, who is also a Sinhalese, assumed duties even before handover by his predecessor and has immediately conducted a meeting with the Bishop of Mannaar.
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Sudanese President’s impunity an affront to justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 July 2013, 20:29 GMT]
The impunity of genocide-accused Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, allegedly responsible for the deaths of over 2.5 million Darfuris, echoes far beyond the borders of Sudan, write Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and Tom H. Andrews, President of United to End Genocide. “As the first sitting president wanted by the ICC, Bashir is a symbol of what could be the destiny of Assad and other leaders. They are committing more atrocities to remain in power,” the authors assert, in an article published on the Huffington Post on Friday, adding that “If Bashir is to be held accountable then the countries that enable his impunity must also be held accountable. And if the UN Security Council and the world's governments will not cry out against such an affront to justice, then it is up to citizens to do so.”
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USPACOM positive about military-to-military relation with India, China

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 July 2013, 10:37 GMT]
In a press briefing before the US Department of Defence on Thursday, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, the current commander of the US Pacific Command (USPACOM), stated that the US was positive about a strategic military-to-military relation with India and China in the Asia-Pacific region. Responding to questions on India he opined that there was a positive trajectory of increased relations with the country, adding that "we also had an initiative to try determine how we can do more defence trade with each other, and how to remove barriers on both sides, bureaucratic barriers, that are keeping us from being able to do cooperative military procurement projects together." The Admiral also said that while the US did not have any plans to open new bases in the Asia-Pacific, they were looking for opportunities to help allies in their defence or to assist in case of disasters.
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Genocidal intent of Serbian leader a factor in UN reinstating of charges

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2013, 23:54 GMT]
The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has reinstated the charge of genocide against former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic on the basis of evidence that could indicate that the Serbian leader possessed genocidal intent in the campaign again Muslims and non-Serbs at the beginning of the Bosnian war in 1992. This move “reversed the former Bosnian Serb president's acquittal last year on one of the two genocide charges he faces, but it does not amount to a conviction,” The Guardian reported on Thursday. But the ruling means that Karadzic has to face a further charge of genocide, in addition to ten other charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Malaysia should boycott CHOGM, IC should call for referendum: Penang Dy-CM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 July 2013, 19:31 GMT]
Malaysia should not participate in CHOGM in Colombo simply because what took place in 2009 was a genocide against Tamil people. Unless the Sri Lankan government is taken to task on the genocide against Tamils, I think the Commonwealth countries should boycott CHOGM in Colombo this year, said Malaysia’s Penang State Deputy Chief Minister, Prof Ramasamy in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. While the Tamil issue has been so much internationalised, countries like India try to go back to the 13th Amendment. Rather than undemocratically imposing a solution, I suggest that the International Community should call for a referendum among Tamils, whether they want a separate state or not, because it was the Tamils who were victimised. Let’s not judge from what others say, let’s ask what the Tamils want, he further said.
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Parliamentarians banned while military stages programmes in schools in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2013, 23:55 GMT]
A circular sent to schools in the Northern Province of the country of Eezham Tamils at the orders of the occupying governor of the Sinhala State, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasri aimed at banning Tamil parliamentarians participating any school programmes in the province. The circular dated 20 June and signed by Education, Culture and Sports Secretary, S. Sathiaseelan, functioning under the Sinhala governor, said that without prior permission from the SL governor, no function could take place in the schools in which parliamentarians participate. The target is the TNA-MPs, public circles said. Meanwhile, schools in Vanni, especially the Ki’linochchi High School, have become permanent programme centres for the occupying Sinhala military, said TNA-MP Mr Sritharan.
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Stop Sri Lankan assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen: Jayalalitha to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 July 2013, 23:05 GMT]
In a stern letter condemning India’s “stoic and apathetic silence” on the assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen by the SL Navy on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, addressing the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, urged him to impress upon Sri Lanka “to stop these continuing unprovoked assaults upon innocent Indian fishermen on the high seas by the Sri Lankan Navy." The letter was sent in the wake of the arrest of 21 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the SL Navy on 6 July, which Ms. Jayalalitha termed a "high-handed and illegal abduction." The AIADMK leader further called on the Indian Prime Minister to summon the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in New Delhi and to advice him to stop such assaults.
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Mission seeks answers to killing of Tamil MPs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2013, 23:57 GMT]
Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union's [IPU’s] Committee on the Human Rights are to begin a three-day mission, 9-11th July, to Sri Lanka to advocate investigations into the attempted assassination of an opposition Tamil MP, as well as seek answers on the unresolved cases of two other Tamil MPs killed in Sri Lanka, a press release issued by the IPU said. The mission is being led by the Vice-President of the Human Rights Committee, Chilean MP Juan Pablo Letelier. The timing of the visit, ahead of the Commonwealth meeting in Colombo, by an organization which has not been vocal on Sri Lanka's human rights record, raises questions on the motives of the key players behind the mission, political sources in Colombo said.
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India, Sri Lanka, Maldives frame maritime security pact

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 July 2013, 23:15 GMT]
At the conclusion of a meeting on ‘Trilateral Cooperation on Maritime Security’ held in Colombo on Monday, India, Sri Lanka and Maldives have entered into a maritime security pact to ensure tripartite co-operation in sea routes in the region. The agreement was signed by Shivshanker Menon, National Security Advisor of India, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Maldives’ Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim. Concurrently, reports also say that Mr. Menon was in the island with a six-member delegation to plead with the Rajapaksa government to provide devolution to the Tamils on the basis of the 13th Amendment, which has been rejected time and again by the Eezham Tamil people, “for early political settlement and national reconciliation.”
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Occupying SLA hoodwinks resettlement of uprooted people in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 July 2013, 14:55 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army and the Trincomalee district Government Agent, who is also a retired Major General in the army, have been spreading false information via media regarding the resettlement of uprooted Tamil villagers from Champoor area in Trincomalee. Uprooted people are not resettled in their original villages in Champoor area. Some selected displaced who preferred to move out of the IDP camps due to personal reasons are settled in alternative sites that are not fit for habitation, according to reports emerging from the area.
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Malaysia assisting Sri Lanka hide genocide evidence?

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 July 2013, 16:14 GMT]
The Malaysian Police operating under the Ministry of Home Affairs (Malay: Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN)) intervened 3rd July in Kaula Lampur in the film screening of “No Fire Zone” directed by Callum Macrae of Channel-4 organized by the Pusat Komas, a Malaysian human rights NGO, a press released issued by the organizers said. After engaging in harassing attending journalists the KDN officials allowed the screening, and later checked the identity cards of the attendees, and took three Komas officials to the local police station for questioning. The Komas event followed a parliamentary screening of the film where, according to Macrae, "MPs were visibly shocked and pledged themselves "to renew their calls for an independent international inquiry into all the crimes committed in the final months of the civil war.""
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Sri Lanka diplomat's twitter tirade jeopardizes British PM's CHOGM visit

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 July 2013, 02:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka's self-proclaimed "new school diplomat" and consul-general in Sydney, Bandula Jayasekara's twitter attacks against the Channel-4 film maker and British national, Callum Macrae, may cause potentially embarrassing diplomatic fallouts in the UK ahead of the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in November this year, political sources in Australia said. Mr Jayasekara has labeled Macrae as an "LTTE terrorist from London," and has threatened that he will block Macrae getting a visa to attend the CHOGM in Colombo. Macrae is currently touring Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Canada to screen the film, No Fire Zone: The Killing fields of Sri Lanka, which tells the story of the last 138 days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.
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Sinhalicisation, demographic wedging accelerated in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 July 2013, 17:11 GMT]
Sinhalicisation of the Mullaith-theevu district of the Northern Province and demographically wedging it from the adjacent Trincomalee district of the Eastern Province in the country of Eezham Tamils, is structuralised in an accelerated way by the occupying genocidal Sri Lanka through recent activities in the newly created division called ‘Weli-oya.’ The name of the division itself is Sinhalicisation of its Tamil name Ma’nal-aa’ru. At the end of the war the Establishments of the USA, India, several other stooges and the UN were in complicity in sending the Eezham Tamils into barbed-wire camps. While their resettlement is stalled in many ways, every structural effort is now being made with full financial and material support to bring in Sinhalese into the land of Tamils.
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Twelve STF arrested for 2006 killing of five Trinco students

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 July 2013, 23:59 GMT]
Twelve members of Sri Lanka Police Special Task Force (STF) were arrested in connection with the extra-judicial killings of five Tamil students, all aged 21, at a beach in Trincomallee on 2nd January 2006, and remanded in custody till the July 18th court hearing, Colombo media reported Friday. Colombo has been resisting pursuing the killers amidst accusations that high-level officials connected to the Government were allegedly complicit in the killings. Amnesty International, and Dr Manoharan, the father of one of the victims, Ragihar, have relentlessly raised the matter in the UN and other international human rights fora. Polical observers speculate that the arrests are likely intended to mitigate serious fallouts from the impending visit to Sri Lanka of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
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Philippines to allow US, Japan strategic access to military bases

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 July 2013, 23:28 GMT]
Philippines president Beningno Aquino, in a statement on Tuesday, said that his government would allow America and Japan, long time “strategic partners” of successive regimes, exclusive access to former US military bases in the country. This development has provoked reactions from the Chinese, who are currently locked in a maritime dispute with Philippines. AFP reported Chinese general Luo Yuan on Thursday as condemning the increased US-Philippines cooperation.
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Sri Lanka bans Time Magazine’s issue on Myanmar Buddhist extremism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 July 2013, 23:36 GMT]
The GoSL has banned the Time Magazine’s July 1st edition that had coverage of Buddhist extremism in Myanmar as its cover story. Sri Lankan officials claimed that the issue, which focuses on the anti-Muslim “Buddhist terror” of the 969 Movement in Myanmar led by the monk A. Wirathu, would offend “religious sentiments” in the island. However, progressive media activists from the island questioned why is it that not one international magazine has bothered to cover the several faces of Sinhala ‘Buddhist terror’ that have been collectively responsible for the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation.
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Buddha statue forcibly placed in playground of Muslim school in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 July 2013, 21:17 GMT]
Muslims of Oaddamaavadi village in Batticaloa were shocked on Monday early morning this week when they saw a Buddha statue placed on a table in the middle of the playground of Pi'rainthu'raich-chenai Ashar Viththiyaalayam in Vaazhaich-cheanai. Oaddamavadi is a Muslim dominated town, located 32 km north of Batticaloa city. The playground is located close to Buddha Jayanthi Vihara in Vaazhaich-cheanai. The head of the Buddhist vihara had attempted to seize the playground from the school in 2010.
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Eezham Tamil refugees arrested in Trichy

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 July 2013, 22:09 GMT]
Five Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka were arrested in Trichy on Sunday for allegedly planning to migrate to Australia through brokers, the PTI reported on Sunday. Citing police sources, the report said that the arrest was made by the Q Branch “who kept an eye on them” and that the police were on a hunt for the brokers. The Indian establishment which engages with the Sri Lankan government in facilitating and legitimizing genocidal conditions in the occupied homeland of the Eezham Tamils, is particularly cruel towards such refugees who are only seeking a chance for living, commented a Tamil Nadu activist working for the rights of the Eezham Tamil refugees.
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