SL Archaeology Dept steps up controversial construction work in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2019, 17:37 GMT]
The SL Archaeology Department, which had stopped the controversial construction of a building at the hill-top of Kanthasaami-malai in the strategically located ancient village of Thennai-maravadi at the provincial border between the North and East, has all of a sudden accelerated the building project hurriedly completing the building, violating the ban imposed by the Divisional Secretariat. Eezham Tamil residents, their Rural Development Society (RDS) and the trustee board of the 400-year-old Saiva Kanthasaami-temple, have complained on Monday and Wednesday this week. Thennai-maravadi was the seat of a Tamil Vanni chieftaincy until the Dutch times in the mid 17th century. The interior hamlet is situated in the narrow strategic corridor linking the Northern and Eastern provinces, 70 km north of Trincomalee city.
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Muslim prisoner alleged of LTTE gets back-to-back life sentence in genocidal Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2019, 09:09 GMT]
Anuradhapura’ Special High Court’ of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has served three jail terms, 20 years each, to be followed one after the other for the first three indictments and a life sentence for the remaining 29 charges to a Tamil-speaking Muslim political prisoner on Tuesday last week. The accused, 45-year-old Abdul Hameed Umar Hattaaph, was the second accused in the case regarding the assassination of a notorious Sinhala military commander, Major General (retd) Janaka Perera in October 2008. Umar Hattaaph had pleaded not guilty. He has been languishing in SL prisons for the past ten years. There was no lawyer prepared to defend him. Umar Hattaap is a father of three and hails from Neariya-ku’lam, Maangku’lam, Vavuniyaa.
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Tamil Genocide Remembrance marked in Melbourne opposing Australia's deportations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 May 2019, 17:25 GMT]
Australian Tamil diaspora marking the tenth Tamil Genocide Remembrance was supported by the Australian, Filipino and aboriginal progressive and internationalist solidarity activists, who took part in the vigil and delivered messages of support to the remembrance event. The protesters gathered in the city on 15 May, and the Tamils marked the commemoration event on 18 May. “What happened to Eelam Tamils was not just war crimes - it was genocide,” said one placard carried by the solidarity activists while a banner stated: “Keep away from bloodstained Sri Lankan military”. “Don’t deport to danger. Let them stay” was their message. The son of a war-dead LTTE commander addressed the participants of the commemoration event on 18 May, sharing his experiences of the genocidal onslaught as a 12-year-old boy at Mu’l’ li-vaaykkaal in 2009.
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Wigneswaran writes to Guterres: Urgent need for UN Monitoring Mission to North-East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 May 2019, 22:33 GMT]
Former Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council Justice CV Wigneswaran has written to UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres urging the latter to appoint a United Nations Monitoring Mission to record ongoing human rights violations in the North-East. The SL military has put up ten checkpoints between the Tamil-dominated areas of Vavuniyaa and Jaffna, and these checkpoints have become sites of countless human rights violations, mainly targeted harassment of Tamil women and arbitrary detentions, Justice Wigneswaran said in his letter sent to UN offices on Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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Remains of Tiger fighter exhumed at remembrance site in Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 May 2019, 12:32 GMT]
A group of volunteers who were engaged in clearing the coastal lands at Mu'l'livaaykkaal last Friday to mark the collective remembrance event the following day, came across the remains of an LTTE fighter. On Tuesday, SL Police and military went ahead with exhuming the remains at the presence of Mullaiththeevu District Judge S. Lenin Kumar and the Judicial Medical Officer attached to Mullaiththeevu hospital. An LTTE military dog tag inscribed as த வி பு (Tha Vi Pu) I2719 was located along with the skeletal remains, Tiger-striped military uniform and a cyanide capsule of an LTTE fighter.
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‘Eelam War V’ is knowledge-war against ‘political COIN’: Swiss youth group

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 May 2019, 13:46 GMT]
Switzerland-based Eezham Tamil youth group, ‘Phoenix the Next Generation’ and its media front ‘Puradsi Media’ (meaning revolutionary media) has announced a three-point programme to confront the ongoing political counter-insurgency (political COIN) that has been deployed against the Tamil diaspora by the powers and the SL State who want the diaspora to either abandon or compromise the doctrine of Tamil Eelam. The Phoenix group came up with the initiative at the book launch of “Structures of Tamil Eelam: A Handbook”. The book launch took place at the Archives Centre, known as “Thmaizh-ka'la'ri”, which is attached to Chaiva-ne'rik-koodam Archives Centre in Bern, Switzerland.
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May 18 declared as Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 May 2019, 10:27 GMT]
The grassroots groups which came together from the North and East to organise the 10th Remembrance Day commemorating the deaths of tens of thousands of lives in the Tamil genocide declared the day as the Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide at Mu'l'livaaykkaal. The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka had put up several, and a particular military unit that had from Colombo was visiting door-to-door in Mullaiththeevu warning the people against taking part in the event. However, the remembrance event proceeded with people who had come from other towns. The event was peaceful and emotional. The statement issued by the organisers called for the international investigations and to recognise the distinct sovereignty and inalienable right of self-determination of Tamils in the merged North-East.
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Emergency used to target peaceful Tamil activists at Keappaa-pulavu in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 May 2019, 09:49 GMT]
The SL Military and the Police were allowing the Sinhala colonists to lay siege to the District Secretariat in Mullaiththeevu on Monday. However, they were harassing four Tamil protesters, who met a small group of foreign journalists at Keappaa-pulavu in Vanni on the same day. “The checkpoint was not there when we started the meeting. However, after 25 minutes, the checkpoint was hurriedly put up near the protest site and the four of us, as well as the journalists talking to us, were thoroughly checked at the post. The SL military knows us very well as we have been staging the protest along the street near the military camp for 807 days,” Chandraleela Simidkasan, a leader of protesting Tamil women at Keappaa-pulavu said on Tuesday.
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Mullai GA gives in to pressure from top, allocates lands to Sinhala colonists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 May 2019, 21:35 GMT]
Mullaiththeevu District Secretary (Government Agent) Ms Rupavathy Ketheeswaran appears to have bowed to pressure from the Colombo establishment to allocate a housing scheme for the Sinhala colonists in Mukaththuvaaram in Kokku'laay, says civil activist and a former UN Field Officer V. Navaneethan. While defending the rights of the private Tamil land-owners, the GA seems to have promised to allocate three acres of public lands to the encroaching colonists. The GA who visited the area after the Sinhala protesters laid siege to her office on 13 May, was under pressure to promise the public land plot of three acres to be transferred to the colonists to set up a housing scheme. She was accompanied by SL military officers and the police as well as Survey Department officials, news sources in Mullaiththeevu said.
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SL State-run sea cucumber farming becomes major threat to Tamil fishers of North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 May 2019, 20:58 GMT]
The occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is scheming to shrink the coastal fishing access to Eezham Tamil fishers in the islets and along the west coast of Vanni, where the resettled Tamils are already struggling with limited access to their coastal belt due to militarization and other activities from the South. Several new locations have been identified by the SL state-run National Aquaculture Development Authority (NAQDA) and the SL National Aquatic Resources Research And Development Agency (NARA), informed sources at Jaffna District Secretariat told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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Sinhala colonists protest against Tamil officials in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 May 2019, 18:57 GMT]
More than one hundred Sinhala colonist families staged a protest laying siege to the Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat on Monday opposing the Tamil officials, including the District Secretary (GA) Ms Rupavathy Ketheeswaran, for objecting their illegal occupation of the lands. Even after the district secretary had met them, the protesters were blockading the entrance. The SL Police was not acting against the protesters. The SL military and police, who blocking Tamils from gathering to commemorate the 10th year of 2009 genocide that took place in the district citing Emergency Regulations, were not acting against the Sinhala protesters, the officials at the District Secretariat told TamilNet.
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Ex NPC councillor vows to mark genocide remembrance at 21 places before 18 May

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 May 2019, 22:26 GMT]
Former Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member and ex-TNA parliamentarian M.K. Shivajilingam has vowed to mark Tamil Genocide Week from 12th to 17 May at 21 places across the eight districts in the North and East before taking part in the tenth year marking of 2009 Tamil Genocide Day on 18 May at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal. “We have chosen 21 places where the SL military was committing genocidal acts. It is like the 21-gun salute, the highest respect paid to those who sacrificed their lives,” Mr Shivajlingam, a political leader of TELO said. After inaugurating the first event at Kappaladi along the coast near Mu'l'livaaykkal on Sunday, he blamed the SL State for detaining the student leaders in Jaffna and for harassing himself describing the moves as aiming to suppress the 10th Tamil genocide remembrance on 18 May.
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Colombo attempts to Sinhalicise Tamil village using sympathy following Easter attack

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 May 2019, 20:15 GMT]
Occupying Colombo’s ‘National Housing Development Authority’ (NHDA) was silently scheming to launch a housing scheme for Sinhala colonists in Mukaththuvaaram in Kokku’laay West village (GS/GN) area of Karai-thu’raip-pattu administrative division of Mullaiththeevu district on Saturday. However, the move was temporarily postponed following strong objections from the Tamil land-owners. The violent colonists, backed by the occupying SL Navy are Sinhala Catholics. They have been occupying the place during the times of war and after. Mukaththuvaaram is a strategically located village at the northern tip of the lagoon-mouth of Kokku’laay. The provincial border between the North and East runs through the lagoon.
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Western diplomats must act to free Jaffna University student leaders: Political Analyst

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 May 2019, 18:04 GMT]
The West needs to be reminded that the Tamil Christians were at the receiving end of the Easter Sunday most probably because the hierarchy of the Tamil National Alliance and the Tamil leaders, in general, had been explicitly leaning towards it after the end of the genocidal war in 2009. The unitary state in Colombo has now clamped down on the Tamil student leaders of the Jaffna University by deploying the Emergency Regulations totally out of proportions in a heavily politicised and chauvinistic manner using the situation after the Easter Sunday attacks, said Jaffna-based Senior Lawyer and Political Analyst S.A. Jothilingam on Thursday. His comments to TamilNet come a day after the Magistrates’ Court in Jaffna was unable to act on the release of the students as their release required explicit action by the SL Attorney General under the Emergency provisions.
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Arts Faculty student leader urges principled action from Jaffna lawyers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 May 2019, 13:45 GMT]
The president of the Student Union of the Art Faculty at the University of Jaffna, Mr Rajaratnam Krishanth, has urged the lawyers, particularly the head of the bar association in Jaffna Ms Shantha Abimannasingham P.C., who is also the notary public Council Member of the Council of the University, to take up the wrong PTA detention of Jaffna University Student Union. The matter should also be taken up with the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Colombo, he said. The action for releasing the JUSU leaders must be a broader one, he said. The students were awaiting the legal outcome on May 08 before initiating a struggle, he said. In the meantime, all other avenues must be pursued in parallel, he said. TNA's Sumanthiran and Civil Society activist Guruparan are already done their part, the fellow students told TamilNet.
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PTA-arguments of SL Police detaining Tamil student leaders baseless: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 May 2019, 19:42 GMT]
The SL Police, pursuing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) based investigations against the president and the secretary of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU), was arguing that the student leaders were provoking racial and communal disharmony through the banners and other visual representations, which were apprehended by the SL Army at the JUSU office on Friday. The SL Government itself had admitted, through the act of co-sponsoring Resolution 30/1 at the UN Human Rights Council in 2015, that allegations of war crimes need to be investigated. How could the banners calling for justice for crimes committed during the war incite disharmony, questioned Attorney Guruparan Kumaravadivel who was representing the student leaders at the Magistrate’s Court in Jaffna on Monday.
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Religious community condemns SL Police detention of Tamil student leaders in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 May 2019, 21:34 GMT]
The arrest of the two Tamil student leaders of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) on Friday was a classic example which confirmed the fear of ordinary Tamil and Muslim people that the SL Intelligence Establishment would be misusing the recently re-introduced Emergency Regulations to target the innocent people and to curb their democratic activists. The SL military intelligence has deployed the ER in an inappropriate, unacceptable and irrelevant manner, which was totally out of proportions, said human rights activist Rev Fr SVB Mangalarajah on Sunday. The veteran activist, representing a section of Tamil Catholic and Hindu priests who condemned the arrest of JUSU leaders. They urged the SL Government to release the student leaders if it was serious about not repeating the ER abuses as it was doing during the 30 years of the war in the North-East.
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Muslim activists in Jaffna caution Tamils about sinister designs of southern chauvinism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 May 2019, 21:16 GMT]
Jaffna-based Muslim grassroots activists have urged Tamils to be cautious on what they read on certain Tamil-language media outlets, which show signs of succumbing to the hidden agenda of the forces in South seeking to set the Tamils against the Muslims. Senior trader and grassroots activist Mohammed Uzinar Tahir and Jaffna Municipal Council member Muththu Muhammathu Nibahir were reacting to false and twisted news reports. They were also responding to the propaganda that the SL military was wooing some ex-LTTE members to collaborate with it as informants. The SL military's latest move is seen as Colombo Intelligence establishment's political counter-insurgency seeking to create communal disharmony among the Tamil-speaking people in Jaffna and elsewhere in the island. The activists were talking to media on Friday.
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SL Police detains Tamil student leaders of Jaffna University after SLA cordon

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 May 2019, 12:13 GMT]
The occupying SL Army has detained the main Tamil student leaders of Jaffna University after deploying a large-scale cordon and search operation along with the SL Police under the pretext of securing the premises from Islamist attackers on Friday. The SLA, using the Emergency Regulations, wants to stop the student mobilisation towards the 10th year remembrance of Tamil genocide on 18 May, fellow student leaders told TamilNet. Jaffna University Student Union President 25-year-old T. Thivakar, who hails from Mullaiththeevu and JUSU Secretary 24-year-old S. Babilraj are the two leaders detained. It is the first time that the SLA has been deployed in a big cordon and search operation inside the University of Jaffna, JUSU members said.
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Swiss youth group brings out publication on de-facto state of Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 May 2019, 23:35 GMT]
A Swiss-based Tamil youth group has come up with a print compilation, titled “Structures of Tamil Eelam: A Handbook”, based on online and textual research on the LTTE-run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. The compilation, made by a 20-year-old author, is structured into eight parts and twenty-six chapters with articles and photographs. “Almost ten years since the destruction of Tamil sovereignty through the global conspiracy conducted at Mullivaikkal, the ongoing nature of Tamil genocide reiterates the need for Eelam Tamils to understand the fundamentals of our struggle in formulating a legitimate path for a permanent political solution for the Tamil struggle,” says the preface of the book. Prominent Tamil and Sinhala diaspora activists and writers of first generation N Malathy (New Zealand), Ana Pararajasingham (Australia) and Viraj Mendis (Germany) have praised the work.
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