Cameron reneges on Sri Lanka war-crimes investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:30 GMT]
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, after returning from Colombo Commonwealth meeting, said in an article that appeared in the Arab News, that there should be a transparent, credible investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. But he reneged on the time frame pronounced for the completion of the inquiry. In Colombo, Cameron said, "Let me be very clear, if that investigation is not completed by March then I will use our position on the UN human rights council to work with the UN Human Rights commission and call for a full, credible and independent international inquiry." However, in the Arab News, likely issued to blunt expectations of March completion of investigations, Cameron said, "if those investigations were not begun properly by next March, we would call for an international inquiry through the United Nations."
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Australia's Lawyers blast Abbott, Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 November 2013, 14:29 GMT]
In hard-hitting articles appearing in the Lawyer's Weekly, the Law Council of Australia's (LCA's) president Michael Colbran QC, criticized Sri Lanka over the worsening rule of law in Sri Lanka and expressed concern over the "reports of threats and intimidation directed at members of the legal profession and judiciary." The Law Weekly also slammed Prime Minister Tony Abbott whose recent comments appeared to condone the allegations of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, as “deplorably simplistic," and that Abbott's assertion "is contrary to international law as well as Sri Lanka’s own Constitution which prohibits torture without exception," adding also that "[Abbott's] remark underscores a basic lack of understanding regarding the problem of impunity that Sri Lanka, now the chair of the Commonwealth, faces."
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Jaffna Tamil daily wins Press Freedom Award

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 November 2013, 14:05 GMT]
The 2013 Press Freedom award from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Le Monde and TVMonde was awarded to the Jaffna Tamil-language daily Uthayan and an Uzbek journalist, RSF announced Wednesday. Uthayan editor Vallipuram Kaanamylnaathan and owner Eswarapatham Saravanapavan, received the awards during a ceremony Wednesday evening in Strasbourg’s city hall, an RSF media release said. "Uthayan has never balked at covering stories that are controversial in a still fragmented society. As a result, it has been the target of repeated violence, leading to the departure of many of its employees over the years. Two were killed in May 2006 and its editor, Gnagnasundaram Kuhanathan, was beaten unconscious in Jaffna in 2011," the announcement said.
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Fr Johnpillai reveals details of death threat by alleged SL operatives

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 17:21 GMT]
Parish Priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Trincomalee, on Thursday, described, in an email released to media through the Catholic mission sources in the East how two armed men, claiming to be Sri Lankan intelligence operatives threatened him on 26 November. When the priest asked them to show proof, they refused. But, as the questioning was rapidly becoming a heated argument, one of the operatives suddenly told the priest that he would give him proof of his identity, caught Fr Johnpillai by his priestly garb, pushed him against the wall pointing a pistol at his head and threatening to shoot him.
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Tamils in East observe Heroes Day amidst heavy SL military presence

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 15:41 GMT]
More than 80% of the households in former LTTE controlled territory in Batticaloa-Ampaa'rai districts paid tribute to Tamil Heroes in their houses as the occupying Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives and soldiers were roaming around the streets in Vellaave'li, Vav'natheevu and Vaakarai. In Ampaa'rai, Sinhala soldiers were deployed in Tamil areas in bicycle patrol. However, temple bells were tolled exactly 6:05 p.m.
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SL military operatives issue death threat to Catholic priest in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 08:06 GMT]
Pointing their gun at the parish priest of Our Lady of Gaudalupe church, unidentified persons who came in motorbike that had no number plate, issued death threat to Fr. S.S. Johnpillai in Trincomalee city. The incident took place around 9:00 p.m. on 26 November. The gunmen blamed that the priest was praying on the birthday of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.
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Allow people to give way to their emotions, Wigneswaran warns Colombo on Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 16:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna on Tamil Heroes Day blocked the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) from planting trees at the public venue of Thanthai Chelva's memorial square. However, three provincial ministers, including the NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran and three councillors went ahead planting tree saplings in the premises of the secretariat of the provincial education ministry, which is located in a private land. “This is about our emotions and feelings. If the [SL] government didn't allow us to proceed with this, the outcome would be much more drastic,” the chief minister of NPC warned Colombo.
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Heroes Day observed in Tamil homeland under gagged conditions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 08:38 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives were monitoring the activities of the grassroots political activists and the elected councillors of the provincial council and the civic bodies in North and East. However, the Teachers Union of Jaffna University observed a memorial event Wednesday noon by lighting candles of sacrifice and paying a floral tribute braving the SL military harassments. Handwritten and printed posters in memory of those who sacrificed their lives in Tamil struggle have been put up at several places throughout the peninsula where the occupying Sri Lankan soldiers were seen removing them. This year, the student community in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils has been active in remembering the Tamil Heroes.
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EPDP chairman of Neduntheevu civic body shot and killed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 08:23 GMT]
Tension prevails in Nedun-theevu (Delft) where the president of civic council, Daniel Rexian alias Rajeev, was shot and killed on Tuesday. Although the exact motive behind his killing is not known, civil sources said Mr Rexian was at odds with the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on reconstructing a monument in memory of the brutal boat massacre by the SLN, news sources at the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula said on Wednesday. The killing also comes following reports of internal conflict within the EPDP in Neduntheevu.
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Sri Lankan TID involvement in attacks on Tamil councilors exposed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 01:16 GMT]
A vehicle registered in North Central Province was used in the attack on the houses of Tamil councillors in the early hours of Tuesday in Vadamaraadchi. The attackers’ vehicle number was noted down by one of the neighbours and passed to a rights activist. On Wednesday, the same vehicle was observed at the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division camp at Nelliyadi.
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University Teachers Union leader harassed by SL interrogators

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 November 2013, 23:13 GMT]
The ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division of the occupying Sri Lanka has questioned the president of Teachers Union of Jaffna University, Mr S. Rajkumar, over a news item that appeared in a local news paper in Jaffna where he defended the collective right of Tamil people in remembering their loved ones who have sacrificed their lives for their common cause. The TID operatives in Jaffna also grilled the reporter, who interviewed the president of the Teachers Union.
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Abbott in hot water over condoning torture in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 November 2013, 02:42 GMT]
Leading rights groups, Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Law Centre, Amnesty International Australia, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, and the Castan Centre for Human Rights, called for a retraction of remarks on torture in Sri Lanka made by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott November 15, 2013. Abbot had said that while his government "deplores the use of torture we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances difficult things happen."
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SL military operatives attack houses of Tamil councillors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2013, 22:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan military operatives who came in vehicles to the houses of Mr Sathees, the deputy head of Valveddith-thu'rai Urban Council and Mr Viyakes, the chairman of Karaveddi South-West Piratheasa Chapai attacked the houses threatening the family members, who were at sleep in the early hours of Tuesday. The squad smashed the windows of the houses and the vehicles at the houses threatening the families of the elected representatives. The councillors were targeted for their floral tributes in remembrance of the tens of thousands who have sacrificed their lives for the liberation of the nation of Eezham Tamils. The attacks come a few hours after the SL military spokesperson in Colombo stating that all remembrance activities were banned.
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Elected civic members in Jaffna pay tribute to Tamil Heroes, SL military retaliates

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2013, 21:46 GMT]
The elected civic members of Karaveddi South-West Piratheasa Chapai (PS) on Monday paid floral tribute to the fallen Tamil Heroes, who were remembering the fallen fighters in the independence struggle of Eezham Tamils. The courageous move comes on the same day as Colombo’s military establishment issued a ban on commemorating the fallen Tamil fighters on November 27. Within a few hours, alleged SL military squads smashed the windows of two Tamil councillors. This year, the moral responsibility to mark the Heroes Day has fallen on the shoulders of the members of the Tamil National Alliance as they had gone seeking votes from the public in the recent elections to the Northern Provincial Council promising the people to restore their democratic right of remembering those who sacrificed their lives in the war.
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NPC administration under iron fist of SL Governor Chandrasiri

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 November 2013, 23:46 GMT]
Demonstrating the consolidation of power in the Sri Lankan unitary and military system, the colonial governor in North, Major General (retd) GA Chandrasiri is continuing to demonstrate his executive powers including the cadre management of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) without giving room for the elected NPC to have any say in the affairs of the NPC.
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SL military threatens Tamil Catholic priests in Jaffna, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military have threatened Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar and Jaffna, who have been active in exposing the genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan State. The threats against the priests in escalated following the visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights and have topped after British PM visited North on 15 November. The Catholic priests were active in exposing the recent genocidal experiment of birth control carried out by the Sri Lankan authorities and the priests joined the peaceful march by the kith and kin of the missing persons when they wanted to berate their plight to the visiting British PM and the foreign journalists who accompanied him to Jaffna.
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Colombo arrests visiting Tamil poet, bans gatherings ahead of Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 13:53 GMT]
The operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military on Friday arrested VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, while the Norwegian passport holder was visiting the island on a tourist visa. The arrest took place in abduction-style. By arresting Jayapalan, Colombo was sending a message to Eezham Tamil diaspora that Tamils visiting the island should not address any meeting or gathering. Colombo's TID operatives could claim any meeting as a ‘gathering causing communal unrest,’ academic circles in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the SL Police in Ki'linochchi, on Friday told 40 people it detained that all gatherings and meetings have been banned until further notice in the district.
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Australian PM's conduct at CHOGM shameful: Bishop Pat Power

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 November 2013, 16:45 GMT]
As Australian media on Friday reported that 79 Tamil asylum seekers were being sent back to Colombo amidst the controversial ties between the Sri Lankan Government and the Australian Government were further exposed in ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’ last week, Canberra-based retired Bishop Pat Power, long an outspoken critic of Rome, has criticised both the Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot and the Catholic Church on the controversial Sri Lanka policy.
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Family of Tamil activist threatened in Mannaar after ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 November 2013, 14:05 GMT]
Sri Lankan Military Intelligence operatives have threatened the wife of a Tamil activist in Mannaar, while she was at her house with her 2 months old baby and a 5-year-old child on Thursday. Her husband, Jude Bashil Sosai (Sunesh) was at forefront in the demonstration held in Jaffna on 15 November demanding the attention by the visiting British PM David Cameron. The threat by alleged SL military operatives was reported on Thursday when Mr Sunesh was on his way to attend a meeting in Colombo. The president of the Citizens' Committee of Mannaar District, Rev. Fr. E. Sebamalai, in a letter addressed to SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on behalf of the citizens' committee, on Friday said the Committee suspected Sri Lankan armed forces for the threat issued on Mannaar District Coordinator of National Fisheries Society Organization (NAFSO) Mr Sunesh and his family.
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Sinhala military colonization escalates further north in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2013, 21:35 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has seized 3,200 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in Odduchuddaan DS division situated in the heart of Mullaith-theevu district, civil sources in Vanni told TamilNet on Thursday. The latest military land grab aims to hurriedly Sinhalicise the ancient Tamil villages in Othiyamalai GS area situated in the south of Odduchuddaan division, where a genocidal massacre was carried out by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. The colonisation is being done while the recently elected Northern Provincial Council and its Chief Minister are yet to take up the burning issue of Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu. The Tamil people also blamed the global powers for providing funds to Sri Lankan State system, enabling it to channel the funds and resources, in continuing to commit a demographic genocide, permanently wedging the North and East.
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Cut-out of Rajapaksa burnt in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 23:35 GMT]
A large cut-out of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been burnt down in Jaffna city in the early hours of Wednesday. Coinciding with this incident, the SL military has beefed up the presence of armed soldiers in the streets of Jaffna. The cut-out was put up in connection with Mahinda Rajpaksa’s widespread campaign of the deceptive Vadakkin Vasantham ‘development’ campaign.
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Court in Jaffna dismisses SL military claim on Tamil memorial site at Theeruvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 22:18 GMT]
District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military. Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site, where three significant monuments stood in remembrance of key LTTE leaders and commanders who sacrificed their lives under the occupation of Indian and Sri Lankan militaries and civilians massacred by the Indian military at VVT in 1989.
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Reports of disappearances surface in wake of Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 November 2013, 19:54 GMT]
A 35-year-old Tamil activist, who was actively involved in mobilising support to the victory of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the Provincial Council elections, has been reported missing since Friday in Ki'linochchi. Meanwhile, in Jaffna, an alert public apprehended two culprits, allegedly operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military, when the squad attempted to abduct a 21-year-old Tamil girl in broad daylight on Hospital Road in Jaffna on Monday. When the public caught the two Sinhala-speaking operatives, tens of occupying Sri Lankan soldiers and policemen protected the squad and assaulted the civilians, who had caught the abductors. The fate of another woman recently abducted by a similar squad at Punnaalaik-kadduvan in Jaffna is not known.
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Indian Foreign Secretary thanks Sampanthan for Jaffna invitation to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2013, 23:37 GMT]
Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh who accompanied Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, when she met the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians last Wednesday repeatedly thanked R Sampanthan, MA Sumanthiran and Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for having extended an invitation to the Indian PM to visit the island appreciating the ‘usefulness’ of the invitation that had coincided with the controversial Indian delegation’s attendance to the CHOGM, informed sources within the TNA told TamilNet on Monday.
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Colombo forced Tamil doctors to lie: Dr. Varatharajah

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2013, 13:14 GMT]
Former Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) for Mullaiththeevu, Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah, currently in exile in the U.S, says in video documentary aired in India's NewsX TV station that Colombo, after keeping him and four other doctors in prison at the end of the war, forced the doctors to lie to foreign media and to the Organizations accusing Sri Lanka of allegations of committing war-crimes to neutralize the allegations. Dr Varatharajah said that living under such conditions had become unbearable that he had to seek ways to get out of Sri Lanka with his family. The doctors were accused by Colombo of giving false accounts of civilian deaths during the war, and were forced to recant the figures in a well publicized news conference. Dr Varatharajah, said he is talking voluntarily to set the record straight now that he does not have to fear for his life.
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Mass struggle, joint action with Tamil Nadu and Diaspora to advance Tamil cause: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 November 2013, 12:34 GMT]
Citing the recent elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and projecting it as a signal of Colombo beginning to deliver something, there was an effort to make many countries attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). To convince the heads of governments not to hesitate attending CHOGM, a message was also passed to the effect that the NPC Chief Minister would be invited to the meet. Had the Indian Prime Minister attended the CHOGM, coupled with this propaganda, the Tamil question would have been endorsed as an internal affair of Sri Lanka. But, this didn't happen, thanks to the non-attendance by the Indian PM, said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) in Jaffna on Saturday.
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Murali steps in where angels fear to tread

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 17:50 GMT]
Muthaiyaa Muralidharan, Sri Lanka's star cricketer, stepped into the Commonwealth political fray, as he commented on the conditions in the North that there is "1000% improvement in facilities," as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was in progress in Colombo. Muralidharan was responding to British Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain would call for an international independent inquiry through the U.N. if the Rajapakse regime fails to conduct an impartial inquiry before March into the war-crimes committed by its troops. Muralidharan, who was reported to have played cricket with Cameron said that the British Prime Minister had been "misled about the situation in the north of Sri Lanka," according to UK's Guardian. Muralidharan is routinely used by Colombo as a propaganda symbol of a "race-blind Sri Lanka."
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Uprooted Tamils in Trincomalee demand justice for genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 14:37 GMT]
A section of uprooted Tamil families from Champoor, now staying at one of four so-called welfare centres in Trincomalee, staged a protest on Saturday carrying slogans that demanded justice for genocide and urged global attention on the continued refusal by the Colombo government in allowing them to resettle in their own lands in Moorthoor East. On Friday, a day before the protest, the occupying Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives, went on a house-to-house and camp-to-camp round instructing the Tamils not to take part in any protest during the ‘Sri Lanka CHOGM’. Subsequently, the protest was held in the premises of Ki’liveddi camp. The SL police who came to the Ki’liveddi camp on Saturday confronted the protestors and said they should not carry any placards with slogans. However, the uprooted people were firm in staging their protest with the presence of Tamil politicians.
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Sri Lanka's war-crimes culpability raised in Australian Parliament

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2013, 14:21 GMT]
Lee Rhiannon, a Greens Party Senator from New South Wales, during a debate in the Australian parliament following her return from Sri Lanka on the eve of the Commonwealth meeting [CHOGM], said that the situation in the NorthEast under Mahinda Rajapakse regime is dire, that the Sri Lanka army's involvement in civilian life is pervasive and Australia is turning a blind eye to credible allegations of continuing torture, rape and crimes against humanity reported by respected Rights groups and by several video documentaries from Channel-4. Rhiannon pointed out the increasingly voiced broad consensus from several countries for an international investigations into the war-crimes by the Rajapakse regime, and praised the CHOGM boycott of several Prime Ministers in spotlighting the Sri Lanka's continuing dismal rights record and lack of accountabililty for war-crimes.
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British PM disappoints families of missing persons in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 November 2013, 12:27 GMT]
Demanding to witness their plight in person, hundreds of kith and kin of missing persons took to the venue in Jaffna on Friday when the visiting British Prime Minister David Camaron was scheduled to meet with Northern Provincial Council (NPC) Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran and R. Sampanthan of the TNA at Jaffna Public Library. British PM David Cameron was taken to the meeting without the possibility of even witnessing the mothers and the family members who were carrying the photographs of their loved ones.
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Sri Lanka's Chairmanship makes mockery of Commonwealth values: NYT

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 November 2013, 03:56 GMT]
The New York Times, in an editorial appearing in the Thursday edition, accused Sri Lanka of committing "serious human rights violations" and of failing "to provide accountability for wartime abuses." Under the Rajapaksa government, the paper said, journalists have been systematically threatened, harassed, killed or forced into exile in what amounts to a war on the press, adding, that Colombo did everything it could to sabotage a free and fair outcome [in the Northern elections], including publishing a fake edition of the local newspaper Uthayan. The editorial urged the leaders attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to insist that Colombo show meaningful progress in addressing human rights abuses abiding by international standards and to restore constitutional protection for freedom of expression.
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Britain epitomizes genocide in ‘British Commonwealth’: QSM recipient

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 November 2013, 16:33 GMT]
British Prime Minister David Cameron being edged to deal directly with the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and that too in a periodical session of the Commonwealth, hints at the dismal failure of Britain's normal diplomatic channels, said veteran Tamil activist and Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) recipient A. Theva Rajan in a statement issued by New Zealand Tamil Action Front (TAF) on Thursday. “130 years on, your crowning of a war criminal as Commonwealth head will only help epitomize Tamil genocide. Please do not damage the Tamil cause,” the veteran Tamil activist urged the British PM in his letter.
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PPT to investigate British, US, Indian role in Sri Lanka's genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 November 2013, 12:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan state as well as Britain, India and the USA will be accused of orchestrating a genocide on the Tamil people by the International Human Rights Association Bremen (IMRV) and the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL). The charge will be heard by a Tribunal held under the aegis of the Rome based 'Permanent Peoples Tribunal' (PPT). The 'People's Tribunal' relies on a high profile panel of judges that has been selected by the PPT to invoke a robust moral opinion. The PPT in Rome has sent the letters to the 4 States concerned informing them of the investigation to be held in Germany in December 2013, informed sources told TamilNet.
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Protests across Tamil Nadu condemn Indian participation in 'Sri Lanka CHOGM'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 09:51 GMT]
Apart from a state-wide shutdown in Tamil Nadu called by the leading trader’s association, several political parties and grassroots movements on Tuesday staged protests across the state condemning the hosting of CHOGM in Sri Lanka and Indian participation in the same. Protests were reportedly intense in Chealam, Thiruppoor, Mathurai, Kadaloor and Naakarkoayil.
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CHOGM presence shows Australia is blind to Sri Lanka's rights abuses - SMH

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 01:59 GMT]
Scoffing at Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's comment that Canadian Premier Stephen Harper's decision to boycott CHOGM was regrettable, Australia's popular daily, Sydney Morning Herald said, "[w]hat is more regrettable is Australia's blindness to Sri Lanka's human rights concerns," adding, "Australia seems to be reluctant to admit human rights violations as a means of deflecting asylum claims of Sri Lankan Tamils coming to Australia by boat." Bishop after a visit to Sri Lanka earlier this year said there were no rights abuses in Sri Lanka, while UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, in contrast, was damagingly critical of Colombo's rights record and of Sri Lanka's movement towards an authoritarian state.
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Mauritius conference calls for referendum, transitional administration

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 17:19 GMT]
International Conference for Tamil Diaspora Solidarity (ICTDS) held in Mauritius, and was officially opened by the President of Mauritius, resolved on Sunday urging the international community, to conduct independent international investigation into genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan state; to set up a transitional administration in the Tamil homeland to stop on-going structural genocide and to conduct a referendum within the Tamil homeland and the diaspora for the Tamil nation to exercise its right to self-determination.
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Tamil Nadu assembly reiterates call for total Indian boycott of Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 16:06 GMT]
At a special session convened on Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu assembly unanimously passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister Ms Jayalalitha calling on India to completely boycott CHOGM in genocide-accused Sri Lanka. “By participating in the Commonwealth meeting, India will be sending a message that it stands by the dishonourable and inhumane actions of the Sri Lankan state,” the resolution read, also expressing regret over the Indian government’s decision to send a delegation to Sri Lanka disrespecting sentiments in Tamil Nadu.
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Uprooted Tamils in Jaffna brave harassment to protest militarisation land grab

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 16:04 GMT]
Amid prevailing intimidation, threats and blockade by the occupying Sri Lankan military and its intelligence operatives, the uprooted people of Valikaamam North in Jaffna on Tuesday launched a protest at Thellippazhai, demanding resettlement in their own lands. The organisers have vowed to continue the protest till 18 November to get their demands across the foreign media through visiting journalists to the peninsula. The protest is being held in front of Maaviddapuram Kanthaswamy temple in Thellippazhai, just 200 meters from the barbed wire fence of the former 'High Security Zone'. The fenced area is being transformed into a permanent 'Sinhala Military Zone'.
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Prime Minister of Mauritius to boycott Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 12:18 GMT]
Navin Ramgoolam, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, the country slated to host the next CHOGM at the conclusion of Sri Lanka's two year tenure, has reportedly decided to boycott the CHOGM meet in Colombo. Prime Minister Ramgoolam said that he made ​​the decision because "he is a man of principle,” and added that he had received information that the situation in the north of the island of Sri Lanka has not improved in the four years after the war ended, Le Défi Media Group, a news media based in Port Louis reported Tuesday.
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Colombo suspends flights to Jaffna ahead of CHOGM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 10:47 GMT]
In an apparent move to make foreign diplomats and journalists attending Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting [CHOGM] in Colombo steer away from Jaffna and block them from witnessing the protest of uprooted people of Valikaamam North as well as meeting their representatives, Colombo government has instructed the only private passenger flight operator, FITS Aviation (Pvt) limited, to suspend all flights from Ratmalana in Colombo to Palaali in Jaffna till 18 November. On Tuesday, the Canadian officials visiting North had to travel by road to Jaffna.
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3 NPC members stage walkout during SL Governor’s keynote address

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 01:16 GMT]
Three key members of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on Monday staged a walkout, when Sri Lanka’s colonial governor in the North, Maj Gen (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri was about to deliver his keynote address at the NPC. The SL governor was formally invited by the NPC Chief Minister to address the council. Former parliamentarian and NPC member Mr MK Sivajilingam, Ms Ananthi Sasitharan and Mr S. Sugirthan walked out stating that they were obliged protest when a war criminal was addressing the elected council. More than 2,000 people disappeared in the peninsula under the military command of Chandrasiri and as the Governor of North he has done nothing for the real rehabilitation or reconciliation, the NPC members who walked out told media.
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TYO-UK condemns Cameron for ‘engagement’ with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 22:45 GMT]
Condemning British Prime Minister David Cameron for his decision to participate in CHOGM in Sri Lanka, TYO-UK, in a press statement released on Monday accused Mr. Cameron of engaging with a genocide-accused state and for “pushing for a solution to be chosen by the Sri Lankan government, one which the Tamil nation is threatened by.” The release further conveyed its dismay over the willingness of Britain and other countries to give approval to the Sri Lankan ‘reconciliation’ model, which in practice amounts to genocide of the Tamil nation. Speaking to TamilNet Shanyuga Ganesan, TYO activist and law student at the University of Leicester expressed her regret at Mr. Cameron’s decision. “For a Tamil youth whose vote now counts in this country, I can't seem to digest the decision made by the Prime Minister to attend the CHOGM. We just feel like we are not being heard,” she said.
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SL military issues death threats to elected members amidst presence of foreign journalists

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 12:26 GMT]
Amidst the presence of foreign journalists who have come to Jaffna in connection with the CHOGM meet, alleged operatives of the occupying SL military have been issuing death threats to the organisers of the protest scheduled to take place on Tuesday. In the early hours of Monday, heads of dead cows were dumped in front of the houses of chairman and deputy chairman of the elected civic body of Valikaamam North. The act, which is not only considered as deeply insulting, but also as reminding the days of beheading, comes as both the elected Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members were engaged in organising a protest against the transformation of former ‘High Security Zone’ lands into ‘Sinhala Military Zone’ and the demolition of houses by the SL military in Valikaamam North.
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Colombo spends funds from military budget for wedging North from East

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 November 2013, 01:24 GMT]
Aiming to increase the number of Sinhala settlers in the newly created division of Ma’nalaa’ru in Mulliath-theevu, which has been Sinhalicised into ‘Weli-oya’, the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has made hurried arrangements for bringing in 2,000 new Sinhala families, informed sources in Mullaith-theevu told TamilNet. Colombo government has allocated funds for the Sinhalicisation scheme under the Sri Lankan ‘defence expenditure’, the sources further said adding that large tracts of forest reserves have also been cleared for the colonization scheme.
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Colombo in CHOGM panic interrogates, gags NZ, Aussie MPs

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 November 2013, 17:25 GMT]
Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon of the Greens party and New Zealand MP Jan Logie were detained, and interrogated separately in Colombo and were"sent back to their countries," for, according to Colombo, allegedly breaking the island's visa laws, a Sydney popular daily reported Sunday. Sri Lanka authorities appeared to have been perturbed by the damaging independent observations on rights issues made by the two MPs in their visit to the North, political observers said. In a joint statement that was to be released by the two MPs, before Immigration officials took the two MPs into custody, the MPs called for the cancellation of Commonwealth Meet in Colombo saying, "[i]f CHOGM goes ahead and if Sri Lanka is given the Chair of this organisation the Commonwealth will have failed the people of Sri Lanka and damaged its own high standing with the international community."
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Former associate of Jaffna Mayoress alleges widespread corruption in JMC

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 November 2013, 23:53 GMT]
S. Vijayakanth, an elected member of the EPDP in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) and a former close associate of Ms Yogeswari Patkunam, the mayoress of Jaffna, has blamed the JMC for not having democratic sittings according to the procedures. The general assembly has not been convened for the last three months, he said on Thursday. The lifetime of the current administration was extended by one year from August 2013 by SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Following disputes, the EPDP has sacked Mr Viajayakanth from the party blaming him on corruption charges. Now, the former EPDP member has vowed of revealing details of widespread corruption in the JMC administration.
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Colombo simulates ‘clustered camp’ for uprooted people of Valikaamam East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 November 2013, 23:27 GMT]
Colombo deployed its officials on Friday to showcase a ‘clustered camp’ project in Valikaamam East in Jaffna, promising ‘settlement’ to a few hundred uprooted Tamils in a deceptive move of moving a few hundred uprooted people from their camps outside the former ‘High Security Zone’ into the clustered camp environment in former grazing lands at Idaik-kaadu and Antony-puram near Palaali in Valikaamam East. Around 150 uprooted people from different camps were taken with journalists from South to showcase the ‘settlement’, a smokescreen move by SL military just ahead of Sri Lanka CHOGM to be held this month. More than 51,000 uprooted people from Valikaamam, which was occupied and declared as HSZ by the SL military, are continuously languishing in more than 10 so-called welfare camps and elsewhere in Jaffna peninsula since 1990.
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JPC urges immediate assistance to victims subjected to coercive population control

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2013, 16:56 GMT]
Widespread complaints have been registered from the Tamil women in three villages of Ki'linochchi district that they are suffering from side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress, two months after they have been subjected to coercive population control by the occupying Colombo using Progestogen-only subdermal implants inserted into their body, said the Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah in a fresh report issued on Friday. Terming the population control experimented on Tamil women in Vanni as “Mu'l'livaaykkaal-2”, the JPC has urged the provincial health ministry under the newly elected Northern Provincial Council to do the needful to remove the implants and assist the victims to return to normal lives.
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Detention of Kolathur Mani under India's NSA act condemned

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 November 2013, 22:43 GMT]
The recent arrest and continued detention of Kolathur S. Mani, a veteran Tamil activist in Tamil Nadu and the founder-president of Dravidar Viduthalaik Kazhakam (DVK), has evoked strong reactions from Tamil national activists across the State. The Tamil Nadu Police took Mr Mani into custody following allegations that some DVK party members were behind violent incidents against Central Government installations in Tamil Nadu as a form reaction against Indian External Affairs Minister's announcement that he would participate in the controversial CHOGM meet to be held in Colombo. The General Secretary of DVK, Viduthalai Rajendran, categorically denied Kolathur Mani's involvement. Stating that Mr Mani had publicly distanced from violent acts as a form of protest, Mr Rajendran urged the authorities to relase the leader of the DVK movement.
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Puththoor villagers blame SL police for shielding culprits of rape, murder

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 November 2013, 12:23 GMT]
Sinhala police officials of the occupying Sri Lankan State are protecting the culprits committing rape and murder of Tamil women, accuse the residents of Puththoor in Valikkaamam East in Jaffna at a protest held on Wednesday following the recent rape and murder of 27-year-old woman, Maithili Amirthalingam, who was recovered dead from a well near her house on 29 October. The SL Police officials was attempting to protect the culprits by stating that the death was caused by drowning and ignoring the medical report of the Judicial Medical Officer at Jaffna Hospital, the family of the victim told TamilNet on Wednesday. Maithili is the second victim subjected to brutal rape and murder within the last one month in Jaffna.
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India refuses visa to Macrae

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2013, 12:40 GMT]
India has refused visa to Callum Macrae, the Channel-4 documentary maker, who produced a series of video documentaries exposing the war-crimes committed by the Sri Lankan military during the war on the Tamil people in Vanni where, according to UN estimates, the Petrie Report, more than 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in 2009 alone. Macrae was planning to fly out on November 6 for a screening of the latest documentary in Delhi. The video contained footage showing LTTE TV anchor-actor Isaippiriya's capture during the last phase of the Lankan war. Still images released earlier showed Isaippiriya was bound, tortured and shot naked, and experts alleged that she was severely raped in custody before being shot by the Sri Lankan soldiers.
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"Perfidious Albion cannot change its spots"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2013, 03:12 GMT]
Asserting that the Commonwealth is simply a reincarnation of the British Empire and the British Imperial system, Professor Boyle, an expert in international law, remarked that placing the alleged genocidaire Mahinda Rajapakse as the Commonwealth Chairperson-in-office for the next two years, "will expose the Commonwealth as a Sick Joke." Professor Boyle found Prince of Wales and British Prime Minister David Cameron's attendance to CHOGM despicable and drew similarity to the American Founding Father Thomas Paine's charaterization of the British as "Perfidious Albion cannot change its spots," after the massacres of American soldiers at Lexington by the British Hessian mercenaries.
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Pressure mounts on Indian PM to boycott Sri Lanka CHOGM

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
Tamil activists belonging to various groups sparked off protests in parts of Tamil Nadu and Puthuchcheari (Pudcherry) on Monday. At the same time, two senior Indian Central Government Ministers representing the ruling Congress Party from Tamil Nadu, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan and Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan, have urged the Indian Prime Minister to boycott the Commonwealth summit in Colombo. Meanwhile, D. Raja, the national secretary and a Rajya Sabha member from the Communist Party of India (CPI), demanding a concrete reply from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said that Central government cannot ignore the unanimous resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu state assembly demanding India to boycott Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Colombo later this month.
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British rights group documents 85 new cases of torture by Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 November 2013, 18:18 GMT]
“If the British government wants to be taken seriously in its stated commitment to using the Commonwealth meeting to highlight human rights issues, it must first come clean about how it has facilitated this abuse through the Home Office's forced removals programme,” said Freedom from Torture, the Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture, a UK based medical foundation, which provides therapeutic care for survivors of torture, in a statement issued on 01 November. The charity also stated that it had documented a further 85 cases of ‘post-conflict’ torture since the publication of ‘Out of the Silence’ in 2011.
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SL military steps up demolition of houses in Valikaamam North, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 November 2013, 23:41 GMT]
Despite the ‘assurance’ to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan by Sri Lankan president’s secretary Mr Lalith Weerthunga that the demolition of houses inside the former ‘High Security Zone’ would be postponed, the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Palaali continues to bulldoze the houses of Tamil civilians in Va’ruththalai-vi’laan and Kurumpachiddi now being transformed into a permanent Sinhala Military Zone in 6,000 acres land in Valikaamam North in Jaffna. The Civil Military Coordination Office of the SL military in Jaffna told the civilians of Valikaamam that the SL military was free to demolish the houses and clear the area as it has officially been taken over by the military Establishment. Journalists were not allowed to witness the destruction.
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More evidences surface on antiquity of Jaffna fort site

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2013, 18:15 GMT]
More and more evidences surfacing at Jaffna fort indisputably prove that the colonial fort was built on an earlier archaeological site going back to the early centuries of the Common Era. The latest findings are a terracotta tablet of folk religious affinities and brick structural remains found 4.5 feet below the rampart walls at the western side of the fort. Earlier, Rouletted Ware pottery and a Lakhsmi coin datable to the early centuries of the Common Era, pottery of c. 5th century CE, and Arab-Chola-Chinese pottery of 7 – 13 centuries CE were found at three locations in the fort site, since Netherlands funding Colombo has embarked on renovating the Dutch fort in the last couple of years.
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Colombo on “witch hunt” against local journalists, says deported IFJ Director

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2013, 09:03 GMT]
The Asia-Pacific Director of the reputed global media watchdog, International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Ms Jacqui Park, who was arrested, detained for two days in house arrest at Hotel Galadari together with her colleague Ms Jean Worthington and kicked out of the island by the Sri Lankan regime on Friday, described Colombo’s officials of conducting a systematic “witch hunt” against local journalists as she reached Sydney on Saturday. While the Free Media Movement (FMM) in Colombo was coordinating an island-wide event in bringing together journalist associations that have been working under the prevailing media suppression and harassments by the Colombo regime, Ms Park and her colleague were visiting the island on tourist visa and were invited to attend the FMM event on Wednesday, where they were arrested.
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SL military, Buddhist monks demolish Saiva temple in Dambulla

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2013, 23:16 GMT]
Buddhist monks assisted by SL military in civil, claiming that a Saiva temple in Dambulla is situated on the ‘sacred grounds’ of Buddha Boomi (Buddhist soil) demolished the Paththirakaa’li Amman Koayil Tuesday night, without allowing the temple management to even conduct the rituals for the closure of the temple and relocate the idols of deities inside the temple. The controversial demolition has taken place at the place where Buddhist extremists targeted a 50-year-old mosque for destruction last year, provoking the Muslims in the entire island. Dambulla, situated in the Matale District of Central Province, is a junction of major highways that link Jaffna, Trincomalee, Colombo and Kandy. Colombo – Trincomalee and Jaffna – Kandy highways cut at Dumbulla.
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SLA held Isaippiriyaa in custody before she was killed - Channel 4

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2013, 11:45 GMT]
Channel-4 has uncovered new evidence in the form of a video where the 27-year-old LTTE journalist Shoba (Isaippiriyaa) was seen under the custody of the Sri Lanka Army soldiers before she was killed. Previously, Channel-4 has released images of the journalist and TV commentator stripped naked, hands tied behind back, and shot dead. Channel-4 adds in its news report that this new evidence of war-crime will add to pressure to British Prime Minister David Cameron to not attend the Commonwealth leaders' meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo scheduled to take place this month.
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