Seychelles strengthens ties with genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2014, 06:50 GMT]
A delegation led by genocide-accused President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa met Seychelles President James Michel on Saturday at the Seychhellian capital Victoria and the two have vowed to strengthen diplomatic and political ties. While the Rajapaksa has opened up a Sri Lankan High Commission at Victoria, Seychelles also plans to open up its diplomatic office in Colombo in this year. “Seychelles will become the gateway for Sri Lanka into Africa and Sri Lanka will be a gateway for Seychelles into Asia,” Seychelles News Agency quoted the Designated Minister of that country Vincent Meriton in a report on Sunday.
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Colombo should allow UN's independent investigations: NYT editorial

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2014, 01:58 GMT]
Condemning Sri Lanka's violence against the Muslim community, the New York Times editorial Friday, while noting that "[h]ate-mongering Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka have set off the country’s worst wave of anti-Muslim violence in years," admonished Colombo that "He [Rajapakse] should move immediately to allow the independent investigation called for by the United Nations; accept the technical assistance offered by the council to address human rights concerns; and put in place the recommendations of Sri Lanka’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission for dealing with the aftermath of the civil war."
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Kurds make strategic gains in Iraq crisis

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 June 2014, 23:32 GMT]
While the recent crisis in Iraq created by activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has placed the US-trained Iraqi Army in a critical situation, the Kurds have achieved some significant militarily and politically strategic gains. While the Kurdish 'Peshmerga', the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government of the northern part of Iraq, have beaten back heavily armed Islamist militants of the ISIS, they have simultaneously captured regions that the Iraqi government was unwilling to concede earlier. Recognizing the potential of the Kurdish advancements, Israel had advised the US on Thursday that Kurdistan was a "foregone conclusion".
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Isaippiriyaa remembered in Tamil Nadu as icon of Tamil resistance

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 June 2014, 23:19 GMT]
Activists across Tamil Nadu gathered at the city of Mathurai on the occasion of 'International Day in Support of Victims of Torture' on Thursday, paying tribute to slain LTTE media specialist Shoba alias Isaippiriyaa and thousands like her, who faced torture, abuse and death at the hands of Colombo’s genocidal military. Condemning the section of personalities within the UN and the international Establishments for their complicity in Tamil genocide, the Tamil Nadu activists further asserted that a sovereign Tamil Eelam alone was the remedy for the injustice and crimes committed against Eezham Tamils.
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Jayalalithaa demands nullification of Indo-Lanka IMBL agreement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 17:30 GMT]
A permanent solution to resolve the Tamil Nadu fishermen's issue lies only in the retrieval of Katchatheevu islet, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms Jayalalithaa reiterated in a letter to Indian Prime Minister on Thursday. “The unconstitutional Indo-Sri Lankan Agreements of 1974 and 1976 should be nullified and the traditional rights of our fishermen to fish in the Palk Bay restored,” she told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her letter. “Hence, the Government of India should not treat the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) with Sri Lanka as a settled question as the constitutionality of the 1974 and 1976 agreements have been challenged on extremely valid and legal grounds by me in my personal capacity and also by the Government of Tamil Nadu in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.”
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Eezham Tamils foster mutual understanding with Tamil-speaking Muslims

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 June 2014, 23:30 GMT]
Eezham Tamils, who are confronting a protracted structural genocide against their nation after facing the massive genocidal onslaught in 2009, have called for stronger ties with Tamil-speaking Muslims. The Ezham Tamils, who have been facing the anti-Tamil pogroms, massacres, bombardments for several decades and finally the genocidal onslaught on Vanni in 2009, have a deep understanding on the situation of the Tamil-speaking Muslims, who are now being targeted by the exclusivist Sinhala Buddhists and their unitary State of genocidal Sri Lanka, the Tamil political leaders and academics who have taken part in the demonstrations against the anti-Muslim pogroms said.
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Rajaratnam Snr, an icon in Tamil philanthropy, passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2014, 16:24 GMT]
Jesuthasan Rajaratnam (JMR), born in Alvai, Point Pedro, and an old boy of Hartley College, later of Jaffna Central College, passed away at the age of 86, in Tenafly, New Jersey 17th June, Tuesday. His funeral was held on the 21st Saturday with a large gathering of his relatives, friends and leaders of various Tamil diaspora organizations in which he was a prominent member. A long-term friend who had known JMR for more than 60 years, while Rajaratnam was a student in accounting in U.K. in the 50s and later while holding executive positions in several Colombo-based corporations, described JMR as the most noteworthy person in his life "who has shown singular commitment to the rights and welfare of Tamil people in the NorthEast of Sri Lanka, and who took action to alleviate the debilitating conditions of his people."
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Another Eezham Tamil refugee attempts self-immolation in Australia

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 June 2014, 00:06 GMT]
A 40-year old Eezham Tamil, who was seeking asylum in Australia, has attempted self-immolation in Melbourne on Friday evening. The Tamil man, who hails from the Eastern part of the Eezham Tamil homeland, was rescued by his friends and escaped with minor burns, sources from Melbourne said. This follows the tragic incident of Leo Seemanpillai, another refugee, who had self-immolated on 31 May and succumbed to his burns on 01 June. Tamil activists in Australia who are working with refugees are gravely concerned that this trend is likely to be repeated in the future, mainly because the nexus between the Australian government and the genocidal Sri Lankan State facilitates a brutal policy towards Eezham Tamil refugees in Australia.
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Pogrom spreads to Colombo district while ‘Sri Lanka’ claims normalcy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2014, 22:55 GMT]
While genocidal Sri Lanka was telling the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that it had restored ‘normalcy’ after what it described as ‘communal tension’ in Aluthgama and in Beruwala, an unidentified squad set fire to a Muslim-owned cloth store in Panadura (Paa’nan-thu’rai), a town in Colombo district, in the early hours of Saturday. In the meantime, the Sri Lankan Minister of Justice, a Muslim leader collaborating with the ruling Rajapaksa regime, who is under the pressure from his community, termed it as an attack on Muslims while the SL police was trying to project it as an accident.
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Anti-Muslim violence is systematic pogrom, not communal riot

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2014, 21:09 GMT]
After waging war against the nation of Eezham Tamils, there is a clear, systematic pattern of violence against the Muslims in the island of Sri Lanka during the last two years, said the State president of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Mr KKSM Tehlan Baqavi, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. The Tamil Nadu politician of the pan-Indian Muslim political party urged the world to pay particular attention that the Buddhist extremist Bodu Bala Sena is a creation of the SL military system led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. There is a clear nexus between the military and the extremist force, he said. There is also a serious question why the pogrom is getting instigated at this juncture, despite the global focus on the records of the SL State, he said.
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Tamil Nadu Muslims protest against genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 June 2014, 23:39 GMT]
On the 17th of June two Tamil Muslim organizations, the Tamil Nadu Thowheedh Jamaath (TNTJ) and Tamil Nadu Muslim Munneatta Kazhakam (TMMK) staged protests outside the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission office at Nungambakkam protesting the recent anti Muslim riots in the Altuhagama and Beruwela in the island of Sri Lanka. While a section of the Muslim leaders in the Colombo parliament were avoiding any overt condemnation of the Sri Lankan state, the Muslims in Tamil Nadu vehemently condemned the SL State and the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. Such a move was also reflected in what Asad Sally, the leader of the Muslim solidarity front told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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Muslims in East protest against Sinhala Buddhist violence in South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2014, 23:04 GMT]
Tamil-speaking Muslims in Kaaththaankudi observed hartal in protest against the anti-Muslim violence incited by the extremist Sinhala Buddhist Power Force (Bodu Bala Sena) in Beruwala in South. The SL State, which has high level relations with the BBS, has failed even the sections of Muslims who subscribe themselves as a ‘minority’ in ‘Sri Lanka’, the Muslim leaders in Kaaththaankudi in Batticaloa complained. After the war against Tamils, now the SL State is in full preparation for another war against the Tamil-speaking Muslims, they said. Among the thousands of Muslim protesters in Kaaththaankudi, only one person carried the Lion flag of genocidal Sri Lanka, while the organisers, the Federation of Mosques and the Kaaththaankudi Jamiyyathul Ulama, were pleading with the SL President to protect the properties of Muslims with the banner: ‘We are the citizens of Sri Lanka’.
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Bolivia, Cuba endorse Rajapaksa while anti-Muslim violence rocks ‘Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 June 2014, 23:51 GMT]
While Bolivia honoured Rajapaksa as the chief guest of the Group of 77 (G77) meeting and Cuban President Raul Castro expressed his willingness to work with leaders like Rajapaksa, anti-Muslim violence has shaken the island of Sri Lanka. Sinhala mobs led by the Bodu Bala Sena attacked the Muslim community in Aluthgama in the South this week. The shops of Muslims, houses and mosques were targeted while the SL police allegedly remained mute spectators. The attacks resulted in at least three Muslims dead and over 50 injured. The moral endorsement of Sri Lanka by not just the Western establishments, but also the establishments of the Left and the Third World allows the genocidal state to commit whatever crime it wants with impunity knowing that it has the blessings of all sides, comment activists from the island.
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Sinhala Buddhist monk attacks Muslims for use of Arabic

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 June 2014, 01:08 GMT]
“There was information the Arabian language too, was being used in Muslim-majority areas in the eastern province, […] roads and lanes are being displayed only in the Tamil and Arabian languages there. Extremist forces are trying to promote the use of the Arabian language among the Muslims,” Colombo media reports cited Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) central committee member, Ven. Passaramulla Dayawansa Thera saying earlier this month. The very Sinhala language itself evolved in a similar process of Buddhism introducing a religious language, Pali, to overlap with the proto-Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tongues prevailing in the island. Later, a myth was created that the Sinhalese came with their language from North India to get ‘polluted’ by ‘South Indian invaders’, responded an academic in the island.
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Nigeria to ape ‘Sri Lanka model’ in handling Boko Haram insurgency

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 June 2014, 06:10 GMT]
“Nigeria is studying the military tactics used by Sri Lanka to crush the rebel Tamil Tigers for its own battle against Islamist group Boko Haram,” Reuters reported on Friday, citing Nigerian Defence Ministry sources. The Nigerians are having discussions pertaining to strategy and tactics with a military delegation from Sri Lanka led by Chief of Defence Staff Jagath Jayasuriya, a genocide-accused who was the overall command overseeing the offensives on the Eezham Tamils in Vanni from 2008-2009. The US led West and several other African countries are also supporting Nigeria in its offensives against the Boko Haram insurgency.
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India to build ‘cultural centre’ at Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 June 2014, 23:12 GMT]
The Government of India, after taking permission from the Sri Lankan state, is planning to construct a cultural centre at Jaffna. A Memorandum of Understanding for implementation of the project was signed by the High Commissioner of India Mr. Y.K. Sinha and the Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Development, Dr. Nihal Jayathilaka in the presence of Basil Rajapaksa, the website of the Indian High Commission for Sri Lanka reported on Monday. The aim of the project was “to rejuvenate and nurture the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna”, the report further said. Jaffna civil society activists however are sceptical and wonder whether this project is a “cultural imperialist” collaboration between New Delhi and Colombo to distort, fetishize and commercialize the culture of the Eezham Tamils.
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Ensure safety of TN fishermen, find permanent solution: Jayalalithaa to Modi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 June 2014, 23:07 GMT]
Condemning the Saturday arrest of 82 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa impressed upon Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the safety of Tamil Nadu fishermen. In a release dated Sunday, she urged the PM “to put an end to the unabated, brutal, unprovoked attacks on and abduction of our fishermen by the marauding Sri Lankan Navy” and to arrive at a permanent solution to this problem along with “a strong and robust diplomatic response”. Referring to consistent attacks on the Tamil Nadu fishermen in the past three years, she also lamented that despite a change of regime in the centre, these brutal assaults by the Sri Lanka Navy continued unabated. As an immediate measure, she called on India to register “the strongest disapproval of the belligerent actions of the Sri Lankan Navy.”
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SL military blocks people from attending protest in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 June 2014, 23:05 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) politicians joined a protest held in front of the Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat on Thursday demanding legal hearings into habeas corpus petitions from the families and relatives of persons, who are reported missing after the families had handed them over to the occupying Sri Lankan military during the final days of the genocidal onslaught on Vanni in May 2009. On Thursday, the Sri Lankan military in Mullaiththeevu was blocking the kith and kin of the missing persons from attending the protest, which was led by Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, an elected councillor of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) who represents the voice of the kith and kin of the missing persons.
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India should call for genocide investigation, referendum: Jayalalithaa tells Modi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 June 2014, 07:01 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Selvi Jayalalithaa, in a memorandum submitted to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has firmly reiterated the stand expressed in four Tamil Nadu State Asssembly resolutions, demanding the Indian government to move a UN resolution demanding investigations on Tamil genocide and a UN referendum on Tamil Eelam among the Tamils in the island as well as among those living outside the island. Selvi Jayalalithaa, who didn’t attend the swearing-in ceremony due to the controversial invitation extended to SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, met Mr Narendra Modi at New Delhi presenting him the demands of Tamil Nadu in the 25 point memorandum where the genocide investigation and UN referendum on Tamil Eelam was the second point of the agenda.
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Hold Gotabhaya accountable for war-crimes, writes NYU Professor of Law

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 June 2014, 03:14 GMT]
"Even if Gota[bhaya Rajapakse] never sees the inside walls of a US prison, the White House could send a powerful signal of its commitment to accountability by formally investigating and, if the evidence is there, indicting Gota[bhaya]," writes Ryan Goodman, Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in the on line forum called Justice and Security which provides rigorous analysis of U.S. foreign policy, national security and law. "Because of Gota’s citizenship the US would also be less vulnerable to accusations of meddling. And, indeed, the US administration could also suspend its own criminal inquiry, in a very public way, on the ground that it will give Sri Lanka’s political establishment an opportunity to do the right thing. Congressional members can very publicly support the initiation of a full-blown criminal inquiry by the Justice Department," Goodman said.
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SL Minister accompanied by Pakistani officials threatens Tamil villagers in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 June 2014, 21:06 GMT]
Sri Lankan Minister of Industry and Commerce, Rishard Badurdeen, who has been inciting conflicts among the Tamil-speaking people in Mannaar and Mullaiththeevu districts, has now threatened more than 40 Tamil families living in Paarathi-puram village in Vavuniyaa to vacate from their village, news sources in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet. Accompanied with five Pakistani officials and British trained Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF), the SL minister has gone to the village last week claiming that a factory is going to be built at Paarathipuram and that the Indian origin Tamils living there since 1977 should vacate from their settlement.
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