‘Military presence in North-East worrying’: Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 August 2013, 21:09 GMT]
“I was concerned to hear about the degree to which the military appears to be putting down roots and becoming involved in what should be civilian activities, for instance education, agriculture and even tourism,” Ms Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a press conference in Colombo on Saturday. Speaking at the conclusion of her visit to the island, Ms Pillay said that that the military presence in the North-East seemed “much greater than is needed for strictly military or reconstruction purposes,” also referring to the vulnerability of women to sexual abuse. While sympathizing with the spirit of the address of Ms Pillay, who has been at the receiving end of vulgar verbal abuse from Sinhala nationalists, Tamil activists in the island expressed regret that she was still conferring legitimacy to the GoSL’s genocidal blueprint called LLRC.
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Australia’s refugee policy draws flak from UNHRC, activists

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2013, 20:26 GMT]
“Australia’s indefinite detention of 46 recognized refugees on security grounds amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, inflicting serious psychological harm on them,” the UNHRC said in a statement last week. The statement further said that Australia should release the refugees, of whom 42 are Tamils from Sri Lanka, who have been held for at least two and a half years, and offer them compensation and rehabilitation. Speaking to TamilNet on the UNHRC observations, Trevor Grant, veteran journalist and spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council, said the judgement vindicated the strong belief of many advocates and lawyers that indefinite detention was not only illegal but intolerable in a just society. However, the Australia’s Coalition still maintains a hardline approach against refugees.
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Norwegian ambassador in Colombo bares agenda in Oslo

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2013, 00:58 GMT]
Norway, once hoodwinked the nation of Eezham Tamils with an ‘internal self-determination’ formula in the Oslo Declaration, now bares its deceptive face by talking about ‘development’ of Tamils with diaspora ‘partnership’ within a ‘Sri Lankan minority’ formula and the PC model. While the Norwegian ambassador in Colombo Ms Grete Løchen was baring the agenda in Oslo on Monday, the Tamil participants looped in were not only confirmed revisionists, habitual upholders of the Sri Lankan State and tangent-polity activists, but were also the representatives of the NCET, Tamil Women Organisation, a TCC outfit and the TECH-Norway. If the agenda can’t be perceived with its nuances and rejected outright at the face of Norway, the diaspora will prove only its impotence, commented Tamils for alternative politics in the island.
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Tamils stopped at gunpoint, Sinhalese demonstrate during Pillay visit to Trinco

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2013, 04:09 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Trincomalee visited all the camps where uprooted Tamil civilians were staying and threatened them that they would be facing dire consequences if they were to take part in awareness gatherings anywhere in the district during the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navanetham Pillay. The SL police didn’t allow local media reporters to any of the venues where Ms Pillay was interacting with the people and the civil society. Meanwhile, the SL military deployed its paramilitary and intelligence operatives to organize a protest giving placards portraying that LTTE was the main culprit in ‘abducting’ people. The Sinhala extremist JVP and JHU elements were also behind bringing false victims to the stage-managed protest held in front of the District Secretariat.
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SL military vehicle hits children in Batticaloa, 3 wounded

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2013, 03:39 GMT]
A speeding Sri Lankan military water bowser in Kiraan knocked down three children on Wednesday. 14-year-old Chinna Kannan, 12-year-old Janithan and 11-year-old Kousalyan were rushed to Chanthi-ve'li hospital and transferred to Batticaloa Teaching Hospital for further treatment, medical sources in Batticaloa said.
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‘You may whisper in my ear’, Pillay told Mullai people

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2013, 02:55 GMT]
UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay, who met a section of the uprooted people of Champoor in Trincomalee on Wednesday, told them that she was aware of their plight. On Tuesday, Ms Pillay, who visited Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal in Mullaith-theevu sympathized with the victims struggling to resettle amidst the prevailing SL military occupation and the ongoing structural genocide. Noticing fear in the people in speaking out in the presence of the surrounding SL military personnel clad in civil, she told them that they may whisper in her ear. Her direct contact with the victims in Vanni and Trincomalee comes after criticism on the conduct of the UN officials, who in Jaffna on Tuesday had opted to take her away through the backdoor following ‘advice’ by the SL authorities, preventing her meeting with around one thousand parents and victims of the missing people at the Jaffna Public Library.
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Rajapaksa party brings in gangster politics to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 06:45 GMT]
A clash between two factions of the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA alliance in Jaffna ended up in gunfire on Tuesday in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna. SLFP Jaffna organiser Mr Ankajan Ramanathan’s group and Mr Saravananthan’s group in Thenmaraadchi were chasing each other in vehicles, from Kodikaamam to Chaavakach-cheari. At the end, Saravananthan’s squad smashed vehicles belonging to Ankajan’s squad. Ankajan's father Ramanathan, who was armed with a handgun, opened fire on Sarvananthan’s group, seriously wounding a Saravananthan supporter, the sources further said. Ankajan’s’s gang was also behind the death threat to a TNA candidate in Jaffna, Mr Thambirasa.
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Navi Pillay meeting Tamils in Jaffna ended in eyewash, say Tamil activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 01:04 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillay met a group of 15 Tamil rights activists and civil representatives at the UN office in Jaffna. While she spent more time with the Sri Lankan State officials, the independent Tamil activists were given just 90 seconds each to present their cases under 8 different themes that included the cases of missing persons, detention of prisoners, land grab, colonization and attacks on religious institutions.
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SL forces chase out Tamils waiting to see Navi Pillay in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 00:47 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence and SL policemen brutally attacked and chased out a group of 30 families and relatives of missing persons, who had gathered near Paranthan junction in Ki’linochchi district on Tuesday to express their message to the visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Ms Navanetham Pillay. The families had come as they were told that Navi Pillay would be traveling through A9 on a visit to Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal from Jaffna. Commenting on the nature of the public response to Ms Pillai’s visit to the North, observers said that had Ban Ki Moon come, people wouldn’t have cared or even if they had gathered they wouldn’t have shed tears but would have responded differently.
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Navi Pillay taken through backdoor to avoid public in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 07:01 GMT]
Many among more than a thousand people gathered in front of the Jaffna Public Library on Tuesday morning to personally convey their feelings to the visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Ms Navi Pillay, started shedding tears when they found out that Ms Pillay was taken away, through the backdoor, by the Sri Lankan officials. The gathering that was mostly the kith and kin of the people missing in the war and the aftermath, was told by the organisers of the visit to peacefully assemble in front of the Jaffna Public Library so that Ms Pillay would be seeing them. Some of the people had even travelled from the South to convey their bereavement. But, after meeting the SL Colonial Governor, SL Government Agents of the districts in the North and SL-run provincial council heads of departments at the Public Library hall, Ms Pillay was led through the backdoor. 
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Removing gender bias in social institutions

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2013, 00:02 GMT]
After a hundred years of its establishment, the Young Men Hindu Association (YMHA) of Thirunelveali in Jaffna proposes to do away with gender bias in its membership and name. In a letter to all lovers of Thirunelveali and the YMHA on Sunday, the current president of the YMHA, Mr S. Muthulingam was seeking their views on enrolling women as members and changing the name of the institution into Hindu Youth’s Association. It is high time that we do away with the idea of gender segregation not only in social institutions like the YMHA but also in our educational institutions like the Jaffna Hindu College. The Victorian outlook of religion, society and education that came with British colonialism has long outlived the times, commented social activists in Jaffna.
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Trust only the peoples of the Palk Bay: Jaffna fishermen leader

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 August 2013, 08:01 GMT]
The perspective of the coastal people of North is that the States of Sri Lanka and India collaborate in the destruction of Eezham Tamils, said Mr N.V. Subramaniam, a fisheries society leader from Maathakal in Jaffna, who is taking part in the Northern Provincial Council elections representing the Tamil National Alliance. Based on his experience in the grassroots activism and participation in the negotiations and meetings held in India and in Colombo, Mr Subramaniam said the coastal people of North had lost all hope in negotiating with the Establishments of both the States. Instead, the only hope for the fishermen now is strengthening the understanding between the fishermen societies across the Palk Strait and also with the fishermen from South in a people-to-people discourse.
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Tamil Nadu students burn 13th Amendment, call for referendum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 August 2013, 21:17 GMT]
Tamil students burnt symbolic copies of the 13th Amendment at a protest at Va'l'luvar Koaddam, Chennai on Sunday, urging that only an internationally monitored referendum could provide a solution to the national question of the Eezham Tamil nation. The protestors also called for the expulsion of genocidal Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth.
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Vanni teachers ‘ordered’ to back Rajapaksa candidate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Pre-school teachers who come under the so-called Civil Defence Force have been instructed by three UPFA operatives named Ilangko, Sutharsan and Inthiran, who were ex-LTTE members, now operated by the SL military, to woo voters for UPFA candidate Geethanjali Nakulesvaran, news sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Saturday.
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NPC election is no mandate test: Sivagnanam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:11 GMT]
The environment under which the people of the North and East were able to give a mandate [based on Vaddukkoaddai Resolution] in 1977 is not available today or not given to us by the international as well as domestic situation, said Mr CVK Sivagnanam, a candidate for the Northern Provincial Council election held by Colombo in September with the active support of New Delhi and Washington. The NPC election is based on what is already there [in the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka in the last 25 years]. Therefore, outcome of this election could never be interpreted as conveying any mandate, Mr Sivagnanam said, adding that he is personally consistent in the stand, “two nations in one country” and the Tamil right to self-determination. We would take up a people's struggle in the event of Colombo blighting the NPC, he further said, responding to questions put forward by TamilNet on Saturday.
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SL State divides communities in East: Batticaloa MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 August 2013, 19:29 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government is doing the opposite to what it wants portrayed to the outside world with the beautiful term ‘reconciliation’, declared Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Batticaloa, Mr P. Selvarasa, Friday, at the agricultural development meeting held at the Batticaloa District Secretariat. Allowing the SL State officials to collaborate with the Buddhist prelate of Mangalarama vihara while there is a court order against the illegal settlement in Paddip-pazhai division and literally banning the Tamils at Navakkiri in Vellaa-ve’li division from accessing their tank to engage in their livelihood of fresh water fishing, is nothing else than setting one community against the other, he said citing the latest reports.
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Navi Pillay signals balanced preliminary assessment as Rajapaksa continues LLRC-farce

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 August 2013, 16:41 GMT]
The AFP, Press Trust of India (PTI) and The New Indian Express have given significance to a story originating from Colombo that SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday ‘bifurcated’ the SL Defense Ministry, which has been in-charge of the police as well as the three armed forces, by bringing the Police under a new ministry. In reality, the announcement is just a farce as both Defence Ministry and the newly created ‘Law and Order’ ministry remain under the same powerful minister who is none other than the SL President himself. Former Chief of Staff of the genocidal SL military, Major General (retd) Nanda Mallawarachchi is to be the Secretary of the new ‘police’ ministry. Both the PTI and the New Indian Express reports have also noted that the LLRC had recommended the SL government to exclude the police from the Defence Ministry's control.
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Theatres in Tamil Nadu unlikely to screen controversial ‘Madras Cafe’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 August 2013, 23:32 GMT]
The screening of contraversial film ‘Madras Cafe’, which has been declared as ‘anti-Tamil’ film by Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu, is facing protests across Tamil Nadu State and in Mumbai, Indian media reports said Thursday on the eve of the release of the film adding that the theatres in Tamil Nadu are unlikely to screen the film as the Theatre Owners' Association had left the decision of screening the film to individual theatre owners. In the guise of a fiction story and dubbed a thriller, the film portrays the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as terrorists, the Tamil activists opposing the screening of the film said.
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Tamil parliamentarians protest against Sinhalicisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 August 2013, 22:54 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians in Batticaloa staged a peaceful protest in front of Paddippazhai Divisional Secretariat (DS) on Wednesday against the Sinhalicisation of Paduvaankarai, Kevu'liyaa-madu and Puluk-kunaavi. The SL police, operated by Colombo, was telling the protesters to leave the site arguing that a group led by the Buddhist prelate of Batticaloa Mangalarama vihara was coming to the site to stage a counter-protest. However, Tamil parliamentarians objected the explanation by the SL police and held the protest for one hour as planned.
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SL military aims to mar Ananthi meeting Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence in Jaffna on Wednesday staged a ‘protest’ against Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the representative of thousands of Eezham Tamil women, who are demanding the Sri Lankan State to reveal the whereabouts of their husbands who were filtered away from the civilians in the final hours of the Vanni war by the SL military that had announced ‘general amnesty’ through the loudspeakers. Sinhala workers, intelligence operatives and some ex-LTTE members brought from elsewhere, were holding placards written in broken Tamil against Ananthi Sasitharan in front of the Jaffna Bus Stand. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo said that the SL State was seeking to ‘influence’ certain foreign missions in Colombo to avoid UN Human Commissioner for Human Rights Navanetham Pillay meeting Ananthi, who is also contesting in the Provincial Council election on behalf of the TNA.
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Abducted Mannaar Tamil youth ‘escapes’ from Sinhala squad

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 08:50 GMT]
A Tamil youth engaged in removing sand legally in Kooraay area in Mannaar district was abducted on Monday by a group of 22 Sinhalese persons deployed by a Sinhalese trader from the South in sand removal in the country of Eezham Tamils. The Sinhala trader operates with the backing of the occupying SL military. The abduction took place while the Tamil youth was at the Anuradhapura office of the SL authority to renew his sand removal permit. However, the 21-year-old youth managed to escape from the custody of the abductors on Tuesday and made a complaint to the SL police in Ilupaaik-kadavai, news sources in Mannaar said. The ‘escape’ was reported after the Tamil villagers in Kooraay held 5 Sinhalese workers deployed by the Southern trader at the house of the Tamil victim.
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Pulmoaddai Muslims protest against Colombo's land survey

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2013, 22:30 GMT]
Stating that 500 acres of lands were being taken over for archaeological research, the lands were being seized from Muslims at 14th Mile Post in Pulmoaddai in Kuchchave'li division in Trincomalee district, said protesting Muslims who opposed the move by the Sri Lankan government on Monday. The residents of predominantly Muslim village took to the streets when SL survey department officials attempted to survey the lands despite repeated objections by the Muslims.
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23 resettled Tamils slain in Batticaloa since 2009 by wild elephants

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2013, 17:43 GMT]
At least 23 resettled Tamils have been killed in Batticaloa district by wild elephants that have been brought into the jungles close to Tamil villages by genocidal Colombo's Forest Department after 2009. Disregarding the repeated objections of the people, the SL Forest Department has brought in more wild elephants from Hambantota where Rajapaksa government recently launched ‘Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport’. The resettled people have been complaining to the SL Police and civil officials each time a person is slain by the wild elephants brought in from the South.
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Ampaa'rai GA, DS officials step up Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 August 2013, 02:53 GMT]
Deputy Elections Commissioner of Batticaloa District, RMAL Ratnayaka, has recently instructed Paddippazhai divisional secretariat to register the Sinhalese, who have recently encroached into the public lands in Kevu’liyaa-madu, on the voters' registry of the district, civil sources in Batticaloa said adding that Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa district is being accelerated while the Sri Lankan Government Agent of Batticaloa Ms PSM Charles, who is a Tamil, is on vacation and the SLGA of Ampaa’rai district, Mr Neel de Alwis, is tasked by Colombo as the acting SLGA of Batticaloa district. The Deputy Elections Commissioner has recently visited the Sinhala encroachers and handed over forms to register in voters’ registry for 25 families.
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TNA’s woman candidate in NPC elections seeks appointment with Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 01:17 GMT]
“As a representative of the kith and kin who have been struggling for four years without knowing the whereabouts of thousands of family members who had surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in the final hours after the Sri Lanka Army had promised a general amnesty, and as the only woman taking part in the provincial council elections in Jaffna district representing the interests of war widows, I am looking forward for an appointment with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay, who is scheduled to visit the island soon,” said Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Ezhilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE and a mother of three girls, when addressing the press at Jaffna Press Club on Friday on her participation at the forthcoming Provincial Council elections in the Jaffna district.
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Tamil Nadu activists condemn India, USA for imposing 13A on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 00:01 GMT]
“Northern Provincial Council election is a farce. Conduct UN referendum for Tamil Eelam, NPC elections is only a step further in structural genocide” said an influential section of Tamil activists in Tamil Nadu on Saturday when they came together to stage a protest at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai organized by the May 17 movement. Condemning the Indian and US establishments for imposing wrong and non-descript solutions on Eezham Tamils, the speakers at the event also blamed the global outfits such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) for advocating solutions within the unitary structure of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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Colombo deploys extremist NGO to fund Sinhalicisation in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2013, 16:00 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist extremist ‘NGO’ named ‘Helabima’ is being deployed by the occupying Colombo government to encourage the Sinhala people to occupy Tamil lands in the border villages between Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai. Major Bertie Perera, a Sinhala military official appointed by the Colombo government coordinates the structural genocide programme being carried out in the name of ‘development’. He collaborates with Helabima’s colonization operative Sunil Chandrakumara and the Buddhist prelate of the Batticaloa Mangalarama Vihara to enact Sinhalicisation of Kevu’liyamadu village in Paddip-pazhai division.
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Desecration of Saiva temples goes unabated in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 August 2013, 14:53 GMT]
Two Saiva temples at Tharmapuram in Ki’linochchi district were burgled for the eighth time last Sunday, news sources in Ki’linochchi said. All the statues of Pi’l’laiyar koayil and Ampaa’l koayil, located between Tharmapuram and Neththali-aa’ru were destroyed and valuable jewelleries attached to the statues have been removed.
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Professor Sanmugadas clarifies to media on London conference

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 August 2013, 17:07 GMT]
Amidst threats coming from Sri Lanka’s UGC Chairperson, Military Chief, and government news portal against a conference in London, un-named but alleged by them that it is being organized by “Tamil Eelam Government of the tiger terrorists in London,” Professor A. Sanmugadas, who is academically leading the World Conference on Tamilology currently being held in London, clarified to media on Friday about the nature of the conference. The chief guest for the inauguration of the conference on Wednesday was the director of the International Institute of Tamil Studies in Chennai and the Special Guest was the Registrar of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil [an Indian Central Government institution] in Chennai. None of the 124 papers of the conference is politically orientated, Sanmugadas said.
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Sri Lanka UGC threatens Tamil academics

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 August 2013, 11:15 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission (UCG) will carry out “extensive investigations” about the participation of some Tamil university academics of the island in a conference in London, and will take “stern action” against them, said News.Lk, SL Govt.’s official news portal on Friday, citing SL-UGC Chairperson Prof Kshanika Hirimburegama. According to the Chairperson, the academics obtained permission to attend a Tamil Language seminar in London, but they were participating in an anti-Sri Lanka gathering. A conference that currently takes place in London, with the participation of Tamil academics from the island at the venue of SOAS, is a World Conference on Tamilology, felicitating centenary of Fr. Xavier Thaninayagam.
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Sinhala soldiers brutally rape Tamil mother in Poonakari, Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 August 2013, 14:10 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on Tuesday evening brutally raped a Tamil woman, who had gone to the nearby shrub to collect firewood in Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi district. The 38-year-old mother of two was rushed to Poonakari hospital by the neighbours after her children discovered her at unconscious state. The victim has told the medical staff at Poonakari hospital that two Sinhala soldiers had forced her into a bush and brutally raped her after binding her legs with her hands using their belts. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heaviliy garrsoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed, committing all kinds of abuses on them. The latest rape victim is from Vinaasiyoadai village. Her husband is reportedly a former LTTE-member who is still in SL military custody.
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Tamils chased away from paddy fields of ‘Weli Oya’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
The Sinhala officials of Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority and the Divisional Secretary of Ma’nalaa’ru Sinhalicised into ‘Weli Oya’, on Sunday chased out the uprooted Tamil people of Kokkuth-thoduvaay, which is situated at the border of Mullaiththeevu and Trincomlaee districts, when the Tamil farmers attempted to resume cultivation in their paddy fields, news sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The Sri Lankan State evicted the Tamil cultivators in 1984. Although some of them were resettled in 2011, they were not returned with their lands even after two years of their ‘resettlement’.
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New mass-grave site found in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna has warned the original house-owners of a recently released former SLA camp-site at Pallappai at the heart of Vadamaraadchi, not to dig the wells at the site where 52 houses had been seized by the SL military for more than 14 years since 1999. The main camp of the SLA 524 was situated at Pallappai. A few days ago, SL military personnel who blocked the owners of a house from renovating their well, recovered human skeletons of 16 to 18 victims and instructed the owners not to reveal the details to media or human rights groups. More than 100 victims have been buried inside another public well that has been filled up by the SL military, the villagers say.
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Ampaa'rai uprooted Tamils urge independent diaspora help to resettle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 22:57 GMT]
Despite the repeated news reports that the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the European Union, USA, Japan, India and China were providing multi-billion assistance and loans to the Sri Lankan State and Non-Governmental Organisations operating in the island to provide basic facilities to the uprooted families to resettle in their villages, no such assistance has reached the uprooted Tamils in Ampaa'rai district in the Eastern Province. Now, the Tamils in Ampaa'rai say they have lost all hopes in meaningful assistance coming through the Establishments and urge the Diaspora Tamils to act without looking for the same forces and their outfits to rebuild their lives and livelihood. Six years have elapsed in waiting for the humanitarian assistance for several villages in the divisions of Thirukkoayil, Naavithan-ve'li, Aalaiyadi-vempu, Kalmunai (Tamil) and Akkaraip-pattu.
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SL military intelligence collects details of TNA candidates in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 August 2013, 23:43 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military in Mannaar have been visiting the houses of candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) taking part in the provincial elections and ‘registering’ the personal data, their affiliations and details of the family members in an intimidating way, the candidates taking part in the Northern Provincial Council elections say. Some of the ‘visits’ have taken place during the nights.
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SL minister punishes Batticaloa villagers for supporting TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2013, 22:38 GMT]
More than 1,830 acres of paddy crops lying on the left hand channel of Unnichchai tank are in the verge of dying without water supply. Spill gates of the tank have been closed from July 25 as SL Deputy Minister in Rajapaksa government Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan has imposed a ‘ban’ on water supply to farmers on the left channel as ‘punishment’ for their support to the parliamentarians of Tamil National Alliance in the Eastern Province, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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Muslims react strongly against Buddhist mob attack on Mosque in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2013, 21:22 GMT]
“There is a limit to our patience, there is no point regretting if this breaks out into a major clash. But some fools do not understand this,” Mohamed Miflal, a Muslim community worker, told Associated Press, following the Buddhist mob attack on a mosque in the Grandpass area of Colombo on Saturday resulting in over a dozen people getting injured and a police curfew being declared in the capital. A few individuals praying in the mosque have reportedly been hospitalized. There were also clashes between Muslim youth and the Buddhist mobs after attack.
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US condemns violence in Welweriya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 August 2013, 23:08 GMT]
“The United States has expressed concern over the fatal shooting of three civilians by the Sri Lankan military, which attacked people seeking protection in a church during a recent protest to demand clean drinking water,” Associated Press reported on Saturday, citing from a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, who said that “there was no excuse for violence, especially in a house of worship.” Ms. Psaki has also called for “a thorough and transparent inquiry” into the violence at Welweriya. While taking into consideration the US consternation over the Sri Lankan military’s brutality, activists in the island urge that if America is genuinely concerned about the highhanded behaviour of the Sri Lankan military, then Pentagon should suspend all military-to-military relationship with a state accused of genocide.
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SL military bans devotional song at ancient Saiva temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 23:44 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in the East has banned Saiva devotional songs authored by popular poet Puthuvai Ratnathurai, whose whereabouts are still not known after the occupying Sri Lankan military had him into custody during the final hours of the Vanni war in May 2009. The SL military personnel have warned the temple administration of the historic Siva temple Thaan-thoan'ri-eesvarar at Kokkaddichchoalai not to play the popular devotional song "Piddukku ma'n chumantha perumaanaar” on the temple loud-speakers or on at any occasion. Together with the popular song on Kokkaddich-choalai, TamilNet also releases a few other songs for the wider Tamil audience throughout the world.
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Sampanthan in SL Parliament lists out details of Sinhala militarization

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 22:44 GMT]
The Parliamentary Group leader of the Tamil National Alliance, Mr R. Sampanthan, on Thursday came out with a list explaining how the SL military was occupying the lands of Eezham Tamils in the North and East. Ten thousand houses are under construction in appropriated lands belonging to Tamils in Ki'linochchi district for the use of occupying SL military in an attempt to change the demography of district, he said adding that it is a massive housing scheme for the Sri Lanka Army. The TNA leader and parliamentarian moving an adjournment motion in the SL parliament said that the militarisation has gained massive proportions after the end of Vanni war in 2009.
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Colombo transfers Tamil officers for opposing demographic changes in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 August 2013, 23:54 GMT]
While the SL Government Agent of Batticaloa, Ms PSM Charles is on vacation, Mr Neel De Alwis, the SL Government Agent of Ampaa’rai, has been appointed as Additional Government Agent to look after the affairs of the Batticaloa district, news sources in Batticaloa said. The SLGA of Ampaa’rai has been behind the recent encroachments by Sinhalese in the villages of Paddippazhai bordering Ampaa’rai, the sources further said adding that the Buddhist prelate of Batticaloa had been waging a campaign for the last two years demanding appointment of Sinhala officials at the key posts in the administration of the Batticaloa district.
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SL-UGC steps up Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 August 2013, 22:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka's University Grant Commission (UGC) has been admitting more Sinhala students to the universities in the North and East. About 600 to 700 Sinhala students have been enrolled to the faculties of Arts and Culture, Management, Science and Agriculture in the Eastern University (EUSL) in Batticaloa alone, news sources in the East said. A Sri Lankan police station has been established inside the University premises in the name of providing protection to Sinhala students. The SL policemen have been monitoring the activities of Tamil-speaking students with the assistance of paramilitary groups. A Buddha statue has been declared opened last month at the presence of the Vice Chancellor inside the campus by the Buddhist Students Forum, which was backed by the UGC.
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Thirukkoayil land Sinhalicised through diaspora transaction

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 August 2013, 23:52 GMT]
35 acres of land, known as Muththiah land, is being taken away from the Tamil owners living at the coastal land, news sources in Ampaa'rai said. Around 150 fishermen living in huts are being forced to vacate their lands after Muththiah land is projected as being ‘sold’ to a Sinhalese residing in London. The Sinhalese who purchased the land is engaged in fencing and asking the Tamil fisher families to get out of that land.
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Colombo schemes new ways to appropriate more lands for Sinhalicisation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 August 2013, 22:50 GMT]
Thousands of acres of land in the Batticaloa district in the Eastern Province are likely to be appropriated under the Land Reform Laws of the occupying Sri Lankan State, according to informed civil sources in Batticaloa. The Colombo government is to appropriate lands that have been legally possessed by Tamils for the last fifty years under the one-acre permit scheme. Colombo and its Eastern Provincial Council are to formulate necessary legislation to appropriate lands above one-acre in 14 DS divisions in the Batticaloa district. More than one hundred acres of lands are to be appropriated under the Land Reform Laws of the Sinhala government.
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US-Sri Lanka collaboration conducts ‘Exercise Pacific Angel’ in occupied Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2013, 18:16 GMT]
A joint ‘disaster response’ training operation by the US Pacific Air Force and the genocide-accused Sri Lanka Air Force is being conducted in occupied Jaffna. Named ‘Exercise Pacific Angel’, the collaborative activity began on 5th August and is scheduled to end on the 10th. Sri Lanka’s Defence.lk reports that the exercise will comprise of two components, namely a medical program and a renovation program. The irony of the name of the exercise and of the training of Sri Lanka Air Force, which caused genocidal disaster during the war on the Eezham Tamil nation, in ‘disaster response’ is not lost on Tamil activists, sources in Jaffna commented.
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US impressed by India’s ‘successful’ COIN operations, seeks joint training

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 August 2013, 16:24 GMT]
“Impressed by the Indian Army's successful counter-terrorism operations, the US Army chief has proposed joint training between the armies of the two countries,” PTI reported on Sunday. The US Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, observing the need for greater cooperation between the militaries of the two countries, has called for “joint training to benefit from India's experiences in counter-insurgency in a tough environment and difficult terrain.” In an interview to PTI, Gen. Odierno expressed interest in learning from India in conducting military operations in difficult terrain.
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Occupying Sri Lanka Army threatens Tamil protesters in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 August 2013, 12:13 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army on Sunday threatened the Tamil residents of Maangkaadu and Kurukka'l-madam from participating in the protest march organized by the Tamil National Alliance against desecration of Saiva koayils. Troops of the occupying Sri Lanka Army visited every household and threatened the inmates not participate in protest march.
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Tamils should boycott Conservatives: British activist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 August 2013, 20:35 GMT]
“There is no point in any vote or any penny of Tamil money or Tamil votes going to the Conservative party. They have shown time and again whose side they are on. They are not on our side,” Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, British activist working with Tamil Solidarity, stated. In a video interview to TamilNet, referring to the systematic deception of the British Conservatives on the issue of Sri Lanka, Sachs-Eldridge said that “The Tamil community is getting nothing from these people.” The British activist, commenting on the recent response of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the trade union Unison, wherein the FCO had defended Britain’s participation in CHOGM, argued that the British government had no intention of putting any significant pressure on Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala military takes over Muslim cemetery at Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 August 2013, 18:29 GMT]
Even the sole Muslim cemetery in Pulmoaddai at the narrow border between the North and East of the country of Ezham Tamils was not spared from appropriation by the occupying Sinhala military that bents on Sinhalicising and militarizing the strategic link. While the Tamil-speaking Muslims, who make 90 per cent of the traditional village of Pul-moaddai is left without a cemetery, about 500 acres of land in that place has been given to a Buddhist monk to build a Sinhala-Buddhist enclave. The military and Survey Department of the Sinhala State were openly involved in the project. The blatant demographic genocide takes place while there is a Muslim Chief Minister in the East, proving what is ultimately aimed by the Provincial Councils backed by New Delhi and Washington, political activists in the East said.
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US to increase military ties with Burma despite escalating Buddhist extremism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 August 2013, 16:20 GMT]
“The United States will boost military ties with Burma later this month to encourage greater professionalism and more civilian oversight over the Southeast Asian country’s armed forces,” news portal The Irrawaddy said on Friday, citing the Myanmar Times. This engagement happens despite a steadily growing Buddhist extremism in the country and the state-supported persecution of ethnic Kachins and the Rohingya Muslims. US ambassador Derek Mitchell has said that through the military engagement, the US was not planning to sell arms but only to focus on humanitarian issues. US officials have also called for amendments to the military-written constitution of Burma, Irrawaddy reported. Critics however look at these steps as a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to bring Burma into the US ambit, while ignoring the structural problems in the country.
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Tamil Nadu activists protesting Manmohan Singh Trichy visit detained

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2013, 23:48 GMT]
Hundreds of activists who protested Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Trichy were detained by the Tamil Nadu police on Friday. The protestors, who gathered near the Trichy airport with black flags, sought to express their dissent to the Dr. Singh over India’s continued complicity in the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation and its endorsement of the CHOGM meeting in Sri Lanka. The detained include MDMK leader Vaiko, Tamizh Desiya Pothuvudamai Katchi leader Maniarasan, Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam leader Ramakrishnan and Thirumurugan Gandhi from the May 17 Movement. Separately, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha had sent another letter to Dr. Singh on Thursday condemning India’s ignoring of repeated assaults on Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy.
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‘Stand firm on referendum demand for Tamil Eelam’: Tamil Nadu activist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 August 2013, 05:55 GMT]
The student uprising in Tamil Nadu, which erupted in the wake of the pro-LLRC US resolution tabled at Geneva in March, strongly stands for a referendum for Tamil Eelam said V. Vettrivel Chandrashekar, the director of the recently released documentary on the student protests ‘A’rappoar’, urging Tamils across the world to remain firm on the demand. In an interview to TamilNet, Mr. Vettrivel, talking about the need to document the historically and politically significant students’ uprising, also spoke about the positive influence the Tamil Nadu students’ movement had on regional and global Tamil politics. Referring to the London event in early July by diaspora youth ‘Seeking Perception sans Conditioning’, he said that the Tamil Nadu and the diaspora youth stood in one political line as regards the question of a referendum.
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Tamil activist group condemns British FCO’s Sri Lanka deception

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 August 2013, 23:55 GMT]
Criticising the UK government for providing legitimacy to Sri Lanka through the CHOGM, the activist group Tamil Solidarity in a statement on Thursday condemned a deceptive response provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to a leading British trade union who had questioned the morality of Britain participating in the CHOGM. Responding to the protest by UNISON, Britain’s largest trade union, the FCO had in a letter dated 26 July defended UK’s participation in the CHOGM, while making token remarks on peace and human rights. “We believe that CHOGM will either highlight progress and respect for Commonwealth values in Sri Lanka, or draw attention to the absence of such progress.” Tamil Solidarity condemned this “shoddy explanation” of the FCO and argued that UK was participating in CHOGM only for its own interests, calling on British Tamils to boycott the Conservatives.
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Gajendrakumar explains why TNPF boycotts NPC elections

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 August 2013, 02:50 GMT]
Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam addressed a press meet in Jaffna on Tuesday, explaining why the TNPF totally boycotts the Northern Provincial Council elections held under the 13th Amendment of the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka. Rejecting rumours that the TNPF might support an independent group and a media report that the TNPF has shown green signal to the PC election, as misleading, Gajendrakumar said that the TNPF totally boycotts the election. We will not contest and under no circumstances we will support any independent group directly or indirectly, Gajendrakumar said, adding that let people decide with clarity what to do with the election.
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