All States deceive Tamils at Geneva: Jaffna protest

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 June 2016, 22:11 GMT]
More than 400 Eezham Tamils, comprising rights activists, uprooted people from SL military-occupied lands and relatives of persons subjected to enforced disappearance, staged a protest march in Jaffna on Monday condemning the deceptive internal investigation discourse charted by the “USA-Sri Lanka consensus resolution”. Denouncing the smokescreen measures by the SL State, the protesters were calling for international criminal investigations as well as demanding the UN system to investigate the State responsibility for the root crime of genocide. Meanwhile, Intelligence operatives of the occupying SL military were tracing the origin of the organisers behind the protest and the participants were subjected to strict surveillance harassment.
Full story >>

Vavuniyaa protest echoes Tamil sentiments running against ICE-manipulated ‘Transitional Justice’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2016, 14:15 GMT]
The soft agents of external powers, posing themselves as ‘non-governmental’ organisations in Colombo receiving funds through the development agencies of US-aligned external powers in the so-called International Community of Establishments, have made mockery of the term ‘Transitional Justice’ by turning it into a buzzword for fund-oriented Colombo-based NGO operatives. “To NGOs Transitional Justice is like cash tree. For us, it is a drama of international deception,” said a banner of Vavuniyaa Citizens’ Committee, which organised a protest jointly with the Forum for Searching Handed, Kidnapped and Forcibly Disappeared persons Relatives (FSHFDR) opposing the creation of Colombo-based ‘Office for Missing Persons’ (OMP).
Full story >>

Colombo determined to maintain genocidal Military Intelligence structure in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 June 2016, 18:54 GMT]
Ranil Wickramasinghe, the prime minister of genocidal Sri Lanka, has instructed the SL Military Intelligence in Colombo to maintain the structure and operations of the intelligence agencies deployed in North and East completely intact from the changes taking place in South, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet on Friday. While enacting certain cosmetic changes in the Intelligence operations in the South, the structure conceived by former Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, will operate without changes in the North-East, the sources further said. The decision is based on external advice coming from the US Establishment.
Full story >>

Structural genocide targets Kudumpimalai despite Tamil protests, media focus

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 June 2016, 16:05 GMT]
Despite repeated protests coming from Village (GS) Officers in Batticaloa district against the recent assault on Tamil GS Officer Shanmugam Guru by a group of Sinhala soldiers, the occupying Sinhala military is continuing illegal logging of trees in the interior jungle hamlet of Kudumpimalai. The demograhic genocide is being spearheaded by Colombo’s Forest Department that comes under the direct supervision of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, Divisional Secretariat officials in Kiraan told TamilNet. The SL Forest Department is planning to create a Sinhala colony for agricultural farmers from the bordering Anuradhapura district and elsewhere in the South, they said.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka used cluster bombs against Tamils, says Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 June 2016, 22:42 GMT]
New photographic evidence leaked by an employee of a large demining organization, Halo Trust, and independently corroborated by Human Rights Watch that the material pictured as the "remnants of Russian-made cluster bombs and unexploded cluster submunitions, emerged as the 32nd sessions of the UN Human Rights Council opened last week, said UK Guardian in an exclusive story Monday. The photographs depict cluster bombs uncovered within Sri Lanka Government declared "no fire zones" where Tamil civilians were asked to gather for their safety during the final stages of the war, the paper said. Reports produced by the UN and several rights groups have found that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed by the Sri Lankan forces, but so far no senior member of the Government or the armed forces has been held accountable, the paper added.
Full story >>

Colombo's TID interrogates Tamil paramilitary operative

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 22:48 GMT]
Colombo's ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) officers are interrogating a 29-year-old Tamil paramilitary operative from Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, in connection with the discovery of explosives in March at the village of Ma'ravanpulavu, informed sources told TamilNet on Wednesday. Sivarasa Sivakulan alias Murali, who has been a close confidant of former SL Military Commander in Jaffna Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe and who was actively involved in SLFP election campaigns in Thenmaraadchi during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, is the one subjected to interrogations at the notorious 4th Floor in Colombo. Mr Sivakulan has also been a close friend of the present SL Governor of Northern Province Mr Reginald Cooray, informed sources in Jaffna said. He was detained on 11 June.
Full story >>

Tamil prison guard trainees subjected to genocidal assault in Colombo, stripped naked

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2016, 19:25 GMT]
More than 100 Sinhala prison guards and their student-trainees stormed the hostel residence of Colombo prison Monday night in a raid-like brutal assault targeting 40 Tamil prison guard students, who have been recently selected for training for the jobs of prison guards. The genocidal attack has taken place inside the hostel situated in front of Colombo prison and all the Tamil students are all still being held stripped naked and are subjected to torture and abuse inside the premises, one of the victims managed to inform TamilNet Tuesday evening over the phone. Eight Tamil students have sustained serious injuries, he said. The fate of 23-year-old V. Vasantharajah from Ooraath-thu'rai (Kayts), Jaffna, is not known to the fellow prisoners. He has sustained skeletal injuries, the source further said describing the assault as a genocidal attack.
Full story >>

SL Military surveillance forces Mannaar Citizens‘ Committee to relocate office

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2016, 20:43 GMT]
The occupying military intelligence operatives of genocidal Sri Lanka have been monitoring those visiting and engaging with the Citizens’ Committee in Mannaar to an intolerable level during the past two years. The surveillance operatives were taking photographs and some times videos of those visiting the Citizens‘ Committee, which was situated within the Public Library premises, behind the main building. The Sinhala military operatives have been harassing the visitors and employees at the Public Library asking details of those visiting the Citizens’ Committee office, informed rights activists in Mannaar told TamilNet on Monday.
Full story >>

Learn from Kosgama blast, de-militarise civilian areas in North: Premachandran

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2016, 22:33 GMT]
Colombo must remove the military camps in the North, especially the camps situated in residential areas away from Tamil civilians. The representatives in South have called for relocation camps away from civilian areas after the blast in Kosgama, where people lost lives, sustained injuries and the blast completely destroyed all the surrounding civilian properties. Imagine the situation in North, where several hundreds of army camps have been installed in residential areas among the civilians, said Suresh Premachandran, the leader of EPRLF, which is one of the four parties comprising the Tamil National Alliance.
Full story >>

Attacked GS officer gets harassed while SL police pleads to drop protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 June 2016, 23:05 GMT]
‘Unknown’ callers, believed to be military intelligence operatives of genocidal Sri Lanka, have threatened Shanmugam Guru, the Tamil village (GS) officier who was brutally assaulted on 01 June for inquiring into illegal logging carried out by Sinhala military personnel at Kudumpi-malai, an interior Tamil village that has been subjected to demographic and structural genocide since the end of war in 2007 in Batticaloa. The calling operatives are threatening the GS officer stating that they would launch counter protests deploying some women against him with false accusations. In the meantime, the SL police officials visiting the injured GS officer to investigate the brutal assault have been politely urging the GS villager to ask his protesting colleagues to drop their protests. Kudumpimalai is situated 63 km northwest of Batticaloa city.
Full story >>

Maithiripala to stage another selfie session in Jaffna before next Geneva session

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 June 2016, 22:31 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the president of genocidal Sri Lanka, is scheduled to visit Jaffna on 18 June to take part in another publicity and ‘selfie’ stunt. Amidst the ‘lack’ of fresh venues to be released to the uprooted Tamils, the visiting SL President will be taking part in an event of ‘releasing’ Nadeswara College and Nadeswara Kansita Viththiyaalayam at militarized Kaangkeasan-thu'rai (KKS) for the second time this year. Mr Sirisena handed over the two schools at a PR move on 12 March. Since the initial PR move, which was also timed before a Geneva session earlier this year, the teachers and the labourers engaged in the reconstruction were being regularly harassed at the ‘Forward Defence Line’ of the SL military zone. Although education activities have been launched last Friday, the schools are still kept under military zone and civilians have not been allowed to resettle there.
Full story >>

Family receives death threat for alerting GS officer on SL military exploitation of natural resources

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 June 2016, 22:07 GMT]
A family has been forced to seek security with its relatives and friends in Koara'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) DS division of Batticaloa this week after a two-member squad of ‘unknown’ persons, who came in a motorbike on Sunday (05 June) issued death threats to the family alleging it for passing information to the Village (GS) Officer about illegal logging and related military trade taking place at the interior jungle outlet of Kudumpimalai, 63 km northwest of Batticaloa city. On 01 June, Shanmugam Guru, the GS officer who was trying to investigate the exploitation was told by the armed persons in civil clothes that they belonged to SL military. When the GS officer asked to document their permit and identity, he was taken to nearby camp and brutally assaulted. The GS officer was told not to interfere in ‘military matters’. Now, a family has received death threat from ‘unknown’ persons.
Full story >>

Colombo attempts to indefinitely postpone investigations on Mannaar killing fields

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 June 2016, 23:46 GMT]
Around 10 institutions of Colombo seem to have intentionally avoided their attendance in the proceedings of two cases on Thirukkeatheesvaram mass graves on Monday despite an earlier warning by Mannaar Magistrate A G Alex Raja that the representatives of these involved institutions should cooperate without failing to attend the hearings. At the same time, the special branch of the SL Police CID investigators again proposed to the Court that samples of already exhumed 87 skeletal remains could be dispatched to a Miami-based laboratory in the USA for radiocarbon dating. The findings of this laboratory have been already disputed on the Matale mass graves investigations in the South. The lawyers representing the missing persons in Mannaar have already denounced the involvement of the particular institution and suggested three Latin America based institutions.
Full story >>

SL military ammunition dump explodes in Colombo suburb

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 June 2016, 20:26 GMT]
At least one Sri Lanka Army soldier was killed and three civilians sustained injuries as an explosions ripple ammunition dump of the SL military camp at Salalwa situated at Kosgama in Awissawela, 36 km east of Colombo Sunday evening. An SL military spokesperson said a fire had started off the explosions, adding that the cause was yet to be established. Chaos prevailed as thousands of people were fleeing the area to escape from the shrapnel from the continuous explosions.
Full story >>

Sinhala police twists investigation cases on ethnic violence at Eastern University

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 June 2016, 23:36 GMT]
One of the Sinhala students, engaged in ethnic-violence against Tamil student L. Sumeskanth on 24 May 2016 was trying to secure a medical attestation from a Sinhala doctor at a rural hospital at Chanthive'li, situated 3 km away from the Eastern University in Vanthaa'ru-moolai, informed medical sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Saturday. With the backing of Sinhala policemen from Ea'raavoor, the Sinhala student was admitted on the following day to the hospital where a Sinhala doctor is employed. The Sinhala student was blaming that Sumeskanth had attacked him. Ea'raavoor police filed a case against the Tamil student, who was initially attacked by the Sinhala student for posting and sharing a photo on Facebook from Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
Full story >>

SL military brutally assaults Tamil Village Officer in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 June 2016, 06:34 GMT]
A group of five Sinhala soldiers, who were engaged in illegal tree cutting, abducted Village Officer (GS) Shanmugam Guru and brutally assaulted him at a military camp causing serious injuries to him. The incident took place at Kudumpi-malai, 63 km northwest of Batticaloa city on Wednesday. The Sinhala soldiers were in civil clothes. Two of them were having automatic rifles. When the Tamil GS officer questioned them whether they were having permit to cut trees, the group responded that they belonged to SL military and that they were having permission to cut trees. The GS officer then asked the group to document that they were in possession of such permit along with their identity. The soldiers took Mr Shanmugam Guru to the nearby military camp, where he was subjected to life-threatening assault.
Full story >>

Trade union demands University administration to discipline students engaged in ethnic violence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 June 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The main responsibility to discipline the Sinhala students engaged in violence against Tamil students, academics and the workers at the Eastern University, lies with the University administration, said Mr Ramanathan Rajasekaram, the president of the Union of Non-Academic Staff in an interview to TamilNet on Wednesday. Those involved in instigating confrontations seemed to be the same personalities. Even when the administration took certain disciplinary actions, the involved Sinhala students were behaving in a manner that they had certain power above the University administration, he said.
Full story >>