Dias refused of participation in ICRC meet for alleged war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2013, 12:51 GMT]
Major General Jagath Dias, who was previously a deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, and was recalled by Colombo in 2011 "in response to accusations he was involved in war crimes," was refused participation in an ICRC conference to be held in Australia this December, media in Colombo reported. ICRC, while refusing to spell out the reason barring Dias from the meeting, said that "procedural matters, relating to international travel, were beyond the control of the ICRC." Dias was the commander of Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 57th division during the last phase of the Vanni war, where according UN estimate more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed. Another U.N document, the Petrie report, estimated the killings to be more than 70,000.
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EPC silent on appropriation of Tamil lands in Thennaimaravadi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 October 2013, 01:16 GMT]
The Mahaweli Development Authority that is under the control of the Colombo government is engaged in appropriating several acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in their traditional village of Thennai-maravadi on the border of Trincomalee district and Mullaith-theevu district, despite repeated appeals to Eastern Provincial Council by the concerned people and their elected representatives. On Tuesday, a team of Mahaweli ‘Development’ Authority officials visited the lands to earmark these lands for appropriation.
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US, South Korean ambassadors meet Wigneswaran in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 23:50 GMT]
The US Ambassador in Colombo, Michele Sison, visited Jaffna Wednesday to greet the newly elected Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran in the presence of media at a photo session at the Chief Minister's residence. The US Ambassador told the journalists in Jaffna that the NPC election was a ‘big milestone’ for the people of the Northern province. The provincial administration under unitary and genocidal Sri Lanka, set up in Jaffna by Indo-US ‘strategic partnership,’ focuses on every inroad it could make without conceding any of the fundamental aspirations of Eezham Tamils, commented political observers in Jaffna, adding that the picture is becoming increasingly clear that the Tamil struggle has to be now waged directly against Washington and New Delhi.
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Media organizations condemn SL military intimidation of 5 journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 23:12 GMT]
The Jaffna Press Club (JPC) and Colombo-based Sri Lanka Tamil Media Association (SLTMA) have condemned SL military for intimidation, censorship and death threat on five Tamil journalists on Monday at Valikaamam North in Jaffna, where the journalists working for different media organisations, went to cover the visit by a delegation comprising of Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian and Northern Provincial Council members.
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Muslim party protests in New Delhi against Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2013, 07:09 GMT]
The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a pan-Indian Muslim political party, demonstrated on Tuesday at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi demanding India to expel the Sri Lankan State from the Commonwealth. If that is not possible, the very least India could do is not to participate in the CHOGM held at the genocide-accused country, the protestors from the grassroots Muslim organization emphasized. Speakers at the demonstration also condemned Indian Minter for External Affairs Salman Khurshid’s recent statement that he would represent India at the CHOGM in Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala paramilitary attacks resettling Tamils in Trincomalee, 7 wounded

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 20:08 GMT]
Seven Tamil farmers were seriously injured Monday evening when Sinhala encroachers, accompanied by Sinhala paramilitary known as ‘home guards’ attacked them using axes and swords at Padu-kaadu in Kangkuveali of Moothoor division of Trincomalee district. The wounded victims were rushed to Moothoor hospital. Four of the victims have been admitted to the emergency ward, according to medical sources at Moothoor hospital. Sinhala paramilitary men, who attacked the uprooted Tamils, have come from Deyyata village. The brutal attack took place when the uprooted Tamil farmers were preparing to resume agriculture at their 900 acres of paddy land after securing permission from the divisional secretary and the SL police to engage in farming.
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Alarm over malnutrition in North East

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 12:08 GMT]
Malnutrition level has reached 50% in North and East while the island-wide rate stands at 29%, according to a leading Community Medicine Specialist attached to Sri Lankan Ministry of Health in Colombo. Dr Murali Vallipuranathan, who held a workshop to journalists in Jaffna on reporting health, revealed the latest malnutrition rates from the districts in North and East as 53% in Batticaloa, 51% in Vanni (comprising 4 districts), 45% in Trincomalee, 44% in Ampaa’rai and 43% in Jaffna district. The alarming malnutrition rate in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils comes after more than 4 years of the so-called ‘development’ propaganda waged by the Sri Lankan State.
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SL military issues death threat to NPC members, TNA parliamentarian in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2013, 10:13 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers deployed in transforming the former High Security Zone in Valikaamam North into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) on Monday rounded up and threatened a delegation of TNA parliamentarian, elected members of the Northern Provincial Council and the members of two civic bodies, at gunpoint on Monday, when the delegation went to the site following the complaints by the uprooted people that the occupying SLA was demolishing their houses using bulldozers. When the TNA parliamentarian E. Saravanapavan and the elected members of Northern Provincial Council M.K. Sivajilingam and Tharmalingam Sitharthan were watching the demolition, armed SLA soldiers with their officers rounded up and threatened the delegation at gunpoint and threatened them to leave the site after deleting photos and recordings from their cameras.
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SL military harasses ex-LTTE female members in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 October 2013, 23:39 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army soldiers, coming from the so-called S-cave camp at Thikili-veddai in Batticaloa have been harassing former LTTE female members 6 years after they have been re-united with their families. When some of the women subjected to sexual harassment by the SLA soldiers, complained to rights activists and NGOs, the women were given death threat by the SL military. The Sri Lankan soldiers were also harassing the women to join the SL military.
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Penang Chief Minister calls for boycott of CHOGM in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 October 2013, 20:14 GMT]
Chief Minister of the State of Penang in Malaysia, Mr. Lim Guan Eng, has called for the boycott of CHOGM in Colombo, Sri Lanka, scheduled to take place in November. Lim Guan Eng is also the Secretary General of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), which is the ruling party in the state of Penang. In the DAP’s Central Executive Council (CEC), which is the highest decision making body of the DAP, it was unanimously endorsed that the party, long known for its firm stand on human rights, democracy and justice, would call for the boycott of CHOGM in Colombo, sources close to DAP told TamilNet. The Penang CM's boycott call follows similar call by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and a unanimous resolution in the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Thursday.
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Tamil Nadu protest on Sri Lanka CHOGM targets New Delhi, London

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 October 2013, 18:33 GMT]
Do not conduct Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka and suspend Sri Lanka from Commonwealth till a referendum on independence of Eezham Tamils is held under UN supervision, demanded protestors belonging to 12 political parties and movements that participated in a protest in front of the British Deputy High Commission in Chennai and the Shastri Bhavan office of the Central Government of India at Nungambakkam on Friday. Describing the protest as a siege on Indian and the UK offices in Chennai, May 17 Movement, the organisors of the protest, characterised the Sri Lanka CHOGM as a ‘neo-colonial summit’.
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NPC member Ananthi thanks Jayalalithaa for CHOGM resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2013, 22:20 GMT]
Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, popular member of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), thanked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayaalithaa on Friday, for initiating and passing a unanimous resolution in the Tamil Nadu State Assembly, urging New Delhi to completely boycott the CHOGM scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in November. We are already grateful for the two earlier resolutions brought out by the Tamil Nadu assembly. The present resolution, calling for boycott of Sri Lanka accused of war crimes and genocide, convinces us further on the umbilical cord relationship we have, Ananthi said, adding, “I request her with affection to continue to voice for us and to bring the culprits of genocide to justice.
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Wigneswaran attempts bailing out genocidal military of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2013, 12:21 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, speaking at the inaugural session of the council on Friday, urged Colombo to confine the SL military in Jaffna to the barracks and suggested that Colombo should consider deputing its military to UN peace-keeping missions abroad. NPC will give full support for Colombo getting international assistance for the rehabilitation of the SL military into civilian life, he further said, linking the process with the rehabilitation of the LTTE cadres. In addition to usurping the right of forfeiting the independence claim of Eezham Tamils, Wigneswaran also went on record in vesting the security of the nation of Eezham Tamils with the military of Colombo.
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Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously demands full CHOGM boycott by New Delhi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 October 2013, 14:02 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa on Thursday moved a resolution in the Tamil Nadu State Assembly demanding the Indian Central Government to completely boycott its participation in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka this November. The resolution was particular in demanding that there should not even be a token participation from the Indian side. Instead, India should take steps to temporarily suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth till the Sri Lankan State acts upon ensuring the freedom and equality of Tamils on a par with the Sinhalese. All the political parties present in the Assembly, including the Congress, passed the resolution unanimously.
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Colombo ‘legalizes’ land distribution to Sinhalaese at North-East link

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 October 2013, 22:14 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan State has deployed its divisional secretaries and provincial land officials in the East to legally re-distribute thousands of acres of agricultural lands of the uprooted Eezham Tamils in Thennai-maravadi village in Trincomalee district to Sinhala villagers from the nearby ‘Padavi Sripura’. The latest move comes while hundreds of uprooted Tamil families are still awaiting resettlement in their village. The ancient Tamil village of Thennai-maravadi is situated in the strategic narrow corridor linking the North and East in Trincomalee district. Washington, New-Delhi and the UN, maintaining total silence on the geographical and demographic genocide undertaken by Colombo and imposing the LLRC-13A ‘experiment’ amounts to complicity with Colombo in the genocide, said Tamil civil sources in Trincomalee.
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SL military schemes Sinhalicisation of Vaakarai coast in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 October 2013, 20:59 GMT]
Increasing number of Sinhala fishermen from Moratuwa, Negombo, Chilaapam (Chilaw) and Puththa’lam are being brought to Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) DS division in Batticaloa by the occupying Sri Lankan military, complain Tamil fishermen from Vakkarai division. The intruding fishermen are being provided military protection at several coastal pockets.
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Jaffna hospital observes 26th year of IPKF massacre

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 15:54 GMT]
Donating modern scanners to the X-ray division of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the Indian government had recently requested the administration of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to do away with the memorial site situated within the hospital, but the employees were firm in refusing to erase the memory of 21 doctors, nurses and other medical staff together with 46 patients were slain by the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in one of the brutal massacres witnessed in Jaffna when the invading Indian military was at war with the LTTE in 1987. The medical staff and the kith and kin of the victims, who remembered their co-workers, patients and family members on Monday, demanded a public apology from the Government of India.
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Ram chairs KSL while Ravi becomes Chief Editor of The Hindu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 08:58 GMT]
The Board of Directors of Kasturi & Sons Ltd that owns The Hindu Group of publications has announced on Monday that Mr N. Ram would be its new Chairman and Mr N. Murali the Co-Chairman. Mr N. Ravi has taken over as Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, while Ms Malini Parthasarathy has become its Editor. In consequence, Mr Siddharth Varadarajan has submitted his resignation.
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Kenyan snub to add to Sri Lanka's CHOGM woes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 00:22 GMT]
Adding to Sri Lanka's jitters over the rights controversy surrounding the Commonwealth meeting [CHOGM] in Colombo next month, Kenya is reported to be quietly lobbying African countries including Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria, South and Zambia also to boycott, for another reason, as a protest against Commonwealth's failure to take a decisive stance against the prosecution of Kenya's President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto at the ICC. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier announced his decision to boycott the CHOGM, and UK's shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander also had urged Prime Minister Cameron to stay away from the summit to express British concern about Sri Lanka's lack of progress on improving human rights. South Sudan and Burundi which had launched bids to join Commonwealth have suspended their bids indefinitely to support Kenya's boycott.
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Catholic peace group in Jaffna details structural genocide to Apostolic Nuncio

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 15:28 GMT]
The Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah, has written a detailed letter on Friday to the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Colombo, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Spiteri, elucidating the structural genocide being carried out by occupying Sri Lanka on the country of Eezham Tamils. The letter comes following the move by the Colombo's colonial regime handing over a report to the Apostolic Nuncio, detailing the so-called development activities carried out in North and East. The JPC Chairman was categoric in his letter that external ‘development’ cannot substitute the settling of the political solution and urged the Vatican to exert political pressure on Sri Lanka to put forward a political solution framework. The detailed letter summarises the genocidal programme of the Sri Lankan State under 10 topics.
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Malaysia should drop charges for film screening - HRW

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 11:18 GMT]
Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based rights organization said in a press release that the Malaysian authorities should immediately drop charges against Malaysia's Lena Hendry of the Pusat KOMAS human rights group accused of showing Channel-4's No Fire Zone depicting Sri Lanka's massacre of Tamils. The charges alleged that the the film was screened without the approval of Malaysia's censorship board. "Malaysian authorities are flipping the switch off on basic freedoms by threatening to jail someone for showing a documentary,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, adding, “[t]hey should immediately drop the charges against Lena Hendry and find a way to undo the damage to Malaysia’s cultural reputation.”
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SL military blamed for brutal gang rape, murder at Jaffna suburb

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 October 2013, 23:35 GMT]
Women rights activists in Jaffna have blamed the occupying Sri Lankan military for yet another brutal rape and murder of a mentally affected woman in Jaffna this month. The accusation comes in the wake of the brutal killing of a war-displaced Tamil woman from Nelukku’lam, Vavuniyaa, who was being looked after by the Holy Family Convent in Jaffna and reported missing since October 03. She was recovered dead on Thursday at the temple chariot park site of Naachchimaar koayil, which is frequently used by the SL military, according to the residents of the area. The temple is situated on KKS Road, just 1 km from the city of Jaffna. The residents of the area staged a protest against the killing on Friday. In the meantime, another woman has been reported missing in Jaffna according to woman rights activists.
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Colombo CHOGM means condoning Sri Lanka: HR expert

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 October 2013, 23:44 GMT]
“Sri Lanka has got a lot to answer internationally in actually accepting an investigation into the atrocities. We don’t think that the CHOGM should be happening in Colombo, because it is like an almost condonation [of Sri Lanka],” said Margaret Owen, the director of Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD), 3 months ago at a conference held in London by the Centre for Community Development (CDC). “Could we talk [on Sri Lanka] to the Foreign Office, whom we are in discussions with the whole time on revising the UK national action plan,” Ms Owen said she had asked her group. The response from the members of her own group was that even attempting to mention Sri Lanka to the FCO may blow everything else the group was working with the British FCO. “That is the attitude, I am afraid at the moment. The UK doesn't feel it can get involved.”
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Spanish court to hear genocide case against China's ex-President

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 October 2013, 13:04 GMT]
Spain's top criminal court has decided to hear a case brought by Tibetan rights activists who allege that China's former President Hu Jintao committed genocide in Tibet. Judges ruled that they were competent to handle the case because one of the activists, Tibetan monk Thubten Wangchen, is a Spanish citizen, BBC reported.
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NZ Green MP urges Foreign Minister to change CHOGM chair

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2013, 06:24 GMT]
New Zealand’s Green Party parliamentarian Ms Jan Logie on Friday wrote to New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Murray McCully, urging him to support Canada’s political lead and publicly condemn Sri Lanka’s persistent failure to ensure justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also urged the Foreign Minister to take a strong stand on CHOGM and to call for another Chair to replace Rajapaksa when it comes time to appoint the Commonwealth Chairperson-in-office for the next two years.
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Occupying Sri Lanka rushes to legalize Sinhalicisation of strategic entrance to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 October 2013, 17:34 GMT]
Colombo's ‘National Housing Development Authority’ (NHDA) and the Cvil Military Coordination Office (CIMIC) of the occupying SL military in Jaffna have been jointly engaged in legalising the Sinhala occupation of the strategic entrance to Jaffna city at Naavat-kuzhi this week. The NHDA and CIMIC have been distributing lands to 126 Sinhala families that have been occupying the public lands at Naavatkuzhi under the security of SL military despite the protest by the Tamil residents and refugees still struggling to resettle at the locality. Naavatkuzhi is a place just 5 km east of Jaffna city where the two highways A9 and A32, the only existing land arteries that lead into Jaffna from the south and the western coast meet.
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Media training centre opened in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 October 2013, 13:07 GMT]
Aiming to improve the abilities of Eezham Tamil journalists in Jaffna, a new Media Training Centre, named after former Senior Editor of TamilNet, Maamanithar D Sivaram (Taraki), has been declared opened in Jaffna on Wednesday. The new training centre is situated close to Jaffna Press Club at Raasaavin Thoaddam. Two senior journalists, S. Ratheyan, the former editor of Eezha-murasu, Eezha-Naatham and Namathu Eezhanaadu, and Iya Sachithananthan, who narrowly escaped when the office of the Eezhanaadu newspaper was set to fire by the SL forces in 1982 and who later became its editor, jointly opened the training centre. Journalists and civil society activists from all walks of life were present at the event.
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EPC opposes affiliation of Trinco campus with universities in South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2013, 10:22 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) has unanimously adopted a motion against the proposed affiliation of the Trincomalee campus of the Eastern University with the Rajarata University of Anuradhapura or with the Jayewardanapura University in Colombo. The motion was moved at EPC's September session by the Leader of the Opposition Mr C.Thandayuthapani, the group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the council. Mr R.Thurairatnam, TNA’s Batticaloa district councillor seconded the motion.
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Colombo plans District ‘Development’ Ministers to undermine NPC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 23:33 GMT]
In a move to sideline the Northern Provincial Council, the occupying Colombo is to appoint new ‘district-level development ministers’ under its central command by SL presidential sibling and ‘Economic Development’ Minister Basil Rajapaksa, informed circles in Colombo said. Colombo plans to offer the portfolio to a Tamil parliamentarian of UNP who has recently joined the UPFA, although the SL minister Douglas Devananda was promised the ministry earlier, the sources further said. A paramilitary operative, Uthayarasa, of the so-called Sri-TELO is seeking the portfolio in Vavuniyaa where the paramilitary served Colombo earlier. A Sinhala person would be appointed to Mullaiththeevu and a Muslim minister in UPFA is vying for the portfolio in Mannaar, the sources said.
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UK deployed 2 top police officials to assist SL Police in 2009: Corporate Watch

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 22:08 GMT]
A Director of Operations at Ineqe Group Ltd., a Belfast-based Security Agency and a Non Executive Director of the same security outfit, which has project links to British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British International Development Ministry, were seconded from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and deployed to Sri Lanka by the FCO to act as “critical friends” to the Sri Lankan Police and to provide “hands-on assistance” during the final phase of the war, Corporate Watch has discovered through a Freedom of Information request to the PSNI, news reports in UK said on Tuesday.
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Prime responsibility to course correct TNA rests with people: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 15:52 GMT]
The people who overwhelmingly voted for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had cast their votes with a different perception and anticipation than what the TNA has officially articulated in writing in its election manifesto, said Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in Jaffna on Monday. “The people have a major responsibility now and they can't simply take the risk of allowing the TNA leadership to take a completely different path contrary to their intention and wait for the next elections,” he said adding that the people should involve them directly at political level course correcting, if the Tamil polity to be in sync with their political aspirations.
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Sinhala colonization to wedge North and East stepped up after NPC elections

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2013, 20:53 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military is being hurriedly deployed in clearing 2,000 acres of agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Karaithu'raippattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, after the conclusion of the Northern Provincial Council elections. Even though the uprooted people were allowed to resettle in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in 2011, their paddy fields had not been returned to them and they continue to suffer for their survival without livelihood assistance. Now, the Tamil villagers are shocked to learn that their paddy fields are being taken away to carve out a Sinhala colony in the middle of their village where they have been struggling to start their livelihood after 30 years of displacement.
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CHOGM to draw attention to Briton's murder, girl-friend's rape

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2013, 02:26 GMT]
The high-profile case of Khuram Shaikh, a 32-year-old Red Cross worker from Rochdale, UK, who was killed in 2011, and the sexual harassment followed by gang-rape of Shaikh's Russian-girlfriend, have cast a shadow over the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo in November, the Guardian reported. CHOGM is due to be chaired by Prince Charles and attended by the British Prime Minister David Cameron. Earlier, Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's office announced that Harper will be boycotting the meeting protesting the "intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings," and Canada accused Indian Diplomat Sharma as acting as a stooge to Colombo.
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9 NPC members of EPRLF, TELO, PLOTE to take oath in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:57 GMT]
“We are not going to let a [Colombo-centric] group in the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) to take a different political course than what had been promised to the people during the elections, especially with regards to our demand of international investigations and the delivery of a political solution in a unified North-East as a single unit ensuring Tamils sovereignty,” said former TNA parliamentarian from TELO, MK Sivajilingam on Saturday. EPRLF's Suresh Premachandran, a TNA MP and PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Sitharthan, a former MP were also addressing the journalists in Jaffna. Meanwhile, Suresh Premachandran said that the NPC members who didn’t take oath on Friday will take their oath on Monday in Mullaiththeevu. “We have been part of the TNA for a long time and we will not be weakening the unity because of the newcomers,” he further said.
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Kidding a genocide affected nation

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 20:58 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, who claims that he has been installed in the position by the grace of India, and the TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan, were ‘crowned’ at the end of the oath-taking ceremony for the NPC members, held in Jaffna on Friday. Wigneswaran, in addition, was handed over with a spear of God Murukan. In the beginning of the ceremony, the NPC members declined to wear even traditional garlands. Tamil public in Jaffna viewed the new ‘culture’ surfacing with Wigneswaran polity as obnoxious when the solution-path he is showing is hollow, non-descript and simulated by the very forces that were in complicity with the genocide, media circles in Jaffna said.
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NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fallen Tamil Heroes

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 06:57 GMT]
Twenty members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) elected to the Northern Provincial Council took oaths in Jaffna after visiting the memorial site of SJV Chelvanayakam and after observing honour to fallen Tamil Heroes (Maaveerar) and the people perished in the war, at Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Friday 9:00 a.m. EPRLF-leader Suresh Premachandran and five of the six EPRLF's elected members, TELO's M.K.Sivajilingam and an elected TELO member, PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Siththarthan and one elected PLOTE member were absent at the event. Ms Ananthi Sasitharan was present marking her independency between the ITAK and the portfolio-seekers. The ceremonial event took place without any celebrations and the members declined to wear traditional garlands at the function.
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ITAK announces NPC ministers, EPRLF challenges

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 October 2013, 12:43 GMT]
A press note coming from the ITAK, the main party in the TNA, on Thursday, has announced the list of chairperson and deputy chairperson of the council and the provincial ministers to function under Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran. But EPRLF, the party next in line in terms of number of seats in the council, challenged the list, saying that it was highhandedly decided by a few in the ITAK. In a hastily convened press conference in Jaffna on Thursday, Mr. Suresh Premachandran of the EPRLF, denouncing the list, blamed Mr R. Sampanthan for creating internal dissension within TNA. He also condemned the act of C.V. Wigneswaran taking his oath before Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Occupying SLAF demands money from people to access their beach in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 23:35 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Air Force, which had appropriated the popular Marble Beach in 2001 at the southern tip of Trincomalee under the pretext of providing ‘high security’ to the SL Air Force base at China Bay, has transformed it into a military run corporate outfit after the war, naming it ‘Marble Beach Air Force Resort’. The occupying SL Air Force has now started to charge money from the public to even access that limited area, civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Canada says Indian diplomat acting as Sri Lanka's stooge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 01:39 GMT]
Following Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's public announcement of his boycotting Commonwealth meeting in Sri Lanka after accusing Colombo of "intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings," Hugh Segal, Canada's special envoy to the Commonwealth, launched a direct assault on the authority of Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma accusing him of "acting as a shill [a stooge] for the Sri Lankan leadership, defending their every mistake," the British broadsheet the Guardian reported Tuesday.
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New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:44 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid, visiting Jaffna on Tuesday, cancelled the ‘press conference’ he had scheduled at a hotel room in Jaffna exclusively for the Indian media accompanying him, after protest by local media about its exclusion. Eight journalists from Indian mainstream media, including The Hindu, accompanied the minister to set opinion orchestration in India. New Delhi official in Jaffna, Suresh Menon, had earlier announced that the press conference was for Indian journalists. The minister responded to the local media protest by cancelling media meet with all, and thus he also escaped answering questions from the local media, news circles in Jaffna said.
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Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united, sovereign, devolved and connected’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:12 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who visited Jaffna on Tuesday, ceremonially opened two houses of the controversial ‘50,000 House Project’, by visiting Thanthai Chelvapuram village at Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, after landing in Palaali, meeting SL military officials and paying tribute to slain Indian soldiers in the war 23 years ago. Mr Khurshid then proceeded to lunch with the war-crimes accused Sri Lankan colonial governor in North and thereafter met the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council. Salman Khurshid, addressing the beneficiaries of financial asssistance and the journalists at Tilko hotel was talking of devolved Sri Lanka under the 13 Amendment, for a happy, prosperous and tri-lingual Sri Lanka which is sovereign and united and connected with India.
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TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-trio effigy burnt in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 11:44 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) supporters in Mullaiththeevu on Tuesday have burnt the effigy of NPC Chief Minister Mr CV Wigneswaran who took his oath before genocidal Colombo’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday. New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Mr. Salman Kurshid had already arrived in Colombo when Wigneswaran was taking oath to function under the 13th Amendment. Immediately after the ceremony, the visiting New Delhi minister received leading TNA personalities in Colombo itself on Monday evening and congratulated them. The effigies of TNA leaders Mr R. Sampanthan and Mr M.A Sumanthiran were also burnt along with that of Wigneswaran on Tuesday. Except four, all the elected TNA representatives in the NPC as well as in the SL parliament, had boycotted the oath-taking ceremony.
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"Rajapaksa, a serial abuser of human rights"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 00:35 GMT]
Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has concluded that Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a serial abuser of human rights and is refusing to be photographed getting out of a car and shaking hands with him, Canada's CBC News said Monday. The Prime Minister, while citing "intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings," in accusing Rajapakse of gross rights violations, also took a swipe at the Commonwealth accusing the organization as "the great, lumbering remnant of the British empire [that] has betrayed its values by letting Sri Lanka off the hook, and by allowing it to host the summit at all," CBC reported.
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Tamil Nadu Police detains fast-unto-death activist Thiyagu

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 13:12 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil Nadu Police personnel were deployed at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai Monday around 2:00 p.m. where Thoazhar Thiyagu was conducting fast-unto-death campaign with 9 demands addressed to the Central Government of India. After carrying out a medical check-up, the Police has relocated the fast-unto-death activist from the venue of Va'l'lvuvar-koaddam and admitted him at Royapettah General Hospital around 2:30 p.m. However, Mr Thiyagu has vowed to continue his fast-unto-death under police detention and urged the Tamil activists and students to step up the struggle against India's participation in the CHOGM meet scheduled to take place in Colombo. Following the relocation of the activist, Nandanam Arts College students launched a sit-in protest with the 9-points demand put forward by Thoazhar Thiyagu, the latest reports from Chennai said.
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Fast-unto-death activist demands New Delhi to respect TN Assembly, boycott CHOGM

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2013, 05:03 GMT]
Putting forward 9 concrete demands, Thoazhar (Comrade) Thiyagu, a veteran Tamil activist from Tamil Nadu, has been on a fast-unto-death campaign since October 01st at Va'l'luvar-koaddam in Chennai in Tamil Nadu. As his campaign entered 6th day on Monday, Thoazhar Thiyagu is determined to take forward the struggle, despite doctors warn him about deteriorating health. The genocidal Sri Lankan State should be suspended from the Commonwealth, the venue for the upcoming CHOGM meet should be shifted away from Sri Lanka and the Indian leaders should not take part if Colombo is to host the meet, are among the top demands of the 9-point list. Prominent activists and leaders of movements and parties have been expressing solidarity with Thoazhar Thiyagu and are accompanying him in observing the fasting campaign.
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Diaspora teenager records the Vanni she witnessed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 23:37 GMT]
“Was I a Stranger in My Homeland? Has One Two Lives?” is the title of a book by a young Norwegian Eezham Tamil girl, Malavi Sivakanesan. The book tells the story of how she, as an 8-year-old girl visiting Vanni, enjoyed playing in the sands of her homeland to how she, 6 years later at the age of 14, powerlessly witnessed from Norway the unfolding genocidal onslaught on the coastal strip of the same Vanni in 2009. With a lot of questions on why the global Establishments didn’t do anything to stop the genocidal onslaught despite hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including the children of her age, took to the streets staging demonstrations in an unprecedented way in the West, to why the Tamil youth are still struggling with questions on what is going on and what they should do, she publishes the book at the age of 17.
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Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet CM designate in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 14:30 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister, Mr Salman Kurshid will be on an official visit to Jaffna on Tuesday. He will have a lunch meeting with the SL Governor in Jaffna and a ‘bilateral’ meeting with the Chief Minister of North, said a press note by Suresh K Menon of the Consulate General of India in Jaffna. New Delhi’s High Commissioner in Colombo, Mr Yashwardhan Sinha and senior officials of the MEA will accompany the minister. The programme is scheduled to end with the New Delhi minister meeting Indian journalists in a hotel room in Jaffna.
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SL govt service in East means officialising genocidal land grab

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2013, 23:53 GMT]
The occupying Colombo government has forced the Tamil divisional secretaries in Trincomalee district to comply with its genocidal land grab and Sinhalicisation schemes if they are to retain their jobs, informed civil sources in Trincomalee said. The latest victim to such pressure is the divisional secretary of Trincomalee Town and Gravets division, the sources said alleging that the divisional secretary Ms Sasithevi Jalatheepan has been instructed to identify lands without deeds and to allocate those lands to the occupying Sri Lankan military to set up new camps.
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Legendary Vietnamese General passes away at 102

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2013, 15:58 GMT]
General Vo Nguyen Giap, whose legendary military victories against the occupying armies of France and the USA facilitated the independence and integrity of Vietnam, passed away on Friday evening at the age of 102. Born on 25 August 1911, the former history teacher, who taught a lesson to world imperialism in the second half of 20th century, was a self-taught soldier. General Giap’s book was translated into Tamil by the LTTE in the early 1980s.
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Sri Lanka fails to stop screening of Channel-4's Killing Fields in Nepal

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2013, 11:53 GMT]
"The producers of the feature documentary No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka have condemned an unsuccessful attempt by the Sri Lankan government to prevent the screening of the film as part of the Film Southasia film festival in Nepal. The film’s director Callum Macrae accused the government of attempting to suppress the truth about their complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity," a press release posted in a website affiliated with Channel-4 said.
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Sinhala - Muslim student clash hospitalises 20 in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2013, 06:01 GMT]
20 students, including 6 girls, were admitted for medical treatment at Chammaan-thu’rai hospital and SL police in Chammaan-thu’rai detained 41 students, following a clash between Sinhala and Muslim students at the Faculty of Applied Sciences in the South Eastern University in Ampaa’rai district on Thursday. Sinhala students opposing the election of a Muslim as leader in the student union elections held last month, resulted in the clash, informed sources said. The University administration phrased the incident as a clash between two groups of 2nd and 3rd year students and that the faculty would remain closed until further notice. The University is situated at Oluvil in Ampaa’rai district.
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Sri Lankan passport one of the worst in world

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 October 2013, 02:54 GMT]
Courtesy to the genocidal State in the island and the powerful world Establishments that continue to pat on its back, the peoples in the island get one of the worst passports of the world. Sri Lankan passport is ranked as the 6th worst in the world, after Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan and Nepal, according to a survey conducted by Henley & Partners in collaboration with IATA. Four of the worst six being South Asian countries should be carefully perused by the peoples of the region, who lack any dignified ideological or Establishment leadership for the region, commented Tamil diaspora political observers.
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SL police on rampage at Maanippaay, Aanaikkoaddai in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2013, 07:09 GMT]
Following an accidental explosion inside the Sri Lankan police station at Maanippaay on Wednesday, Sinhala policemen assaulted the Tamil civilians in the vicinity of the police station blaming that Tamils had attacked them. Amidst the violence let loose by the Sinhala police at Maanippaay, unidentified men who came in a motorbike assaulted two Sinhala policemen who were on patrol at Aaanaikkoaddai situated 5 km off Jaffna city on the road to Maanippaay. One of the SL police constables, 37-year-old Vasantha Abeyaratne, has been admitted at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Tamil civilians were brutally attacked by the SL Police also at Aanaikkoaddai Wednesday night.
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Historic statue of Our Lady of Refuge stolen in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 October 2013, 17:52 GMT]
A divine statue of St Adaikkala Maatha (Our Lady of Refuge) said to be over 178 years old has been reported missing from the shrine in Mannaar Naanaaddaan creating panic among the general public. According to a complaint filed by the authorities of the Shrine at Murungkan Police station, the statue was stolen by ‘unidentified persons’ last Sunday. The complaint says some unidentified persons had gone into the shrine on September 29 and had removed the statue which was kept in a glass cabinet. The intruders removed the clothes on the statue and placed them inside the cabinet from where the statue was removed.
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Question raised on truth of Navi Pillay statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 October 2013, 00:59 GMT]
UN Human Rights chief Ms Navanetham Pillay, in a press interview in Colombo towards the end of her recent visit to the island, has said that no one she had met in the island used the word genocide. TamilNet comes to know that there were specific instances in which responsible civil society members meeting her had told her about genocide in the island, using the very word genocide in English. Ms Navi Pillay held her civil society meetings under ‘Chatham House’ rules. In Vanni she told people that they could whisper in her ear. Has she misused such conditions to suppress what had actually been told to her, in order to shield an imperial design that accommodates genocide by the Agent State? Why should she hide the fact that the island Tamils in deed spoke to her on genocide, asks the civil society in the island.
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SL military expands military cantonment in VVT, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 October 2013, 23:49 GMT]
Colombo’s ruling UPFA alliance, during the recent election campaign promised the people of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) in Jaffna that the SL military would be vacating from more than 50 houses at VVT junction, which have been occupied since 1996. But, on Sunday, the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has expanded the occupation, seizing more lands to the north of VVT junction and up to the sea, says former parliamentarian and TELO politician K. Sivajilingam. The SL military even attacked the fishermen, who had entered the 1 km long coastal stretch, Mr Sivajilingam further said.
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TID operatives harass Thinakkural journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 October 2013, 10:22 GMT]
The Chief Editor of Yarl Thinakkural, Mr Atputhananthan, has complained to the regional commissioner of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission in Jaffna on Monday that individuals claiming to be from the ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ were intimidating two of the journalists in the paper, Mr Punitharuban Vinslow and Mr Tharmabalan Vinojith of the paper. “During the last two weeks the individuals claiming to be from the TID have been visiting this office and trying to collect personal data relating to above named two journalists. In the absence of of any official request and hence the inability to obtain any data, they are now engaged in collecting such information from the localities where they live,” the chief editor of Yarl Thinakkural has stated in his letter to the SL HRC.
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