IC sheds crocodile tears over Shavendra appointment, US engages with his war-time chief

SLA Jaffna commander refuses to release Palaali lands at meeting presided by Wickramasinghe

The commander of the SL Army in Jaffna Major General Ruwan Wanigasooriya, has openly refused to release the SL military-occupied lands in Palaali and Vasaavi'laan citing the expansion of Palaali airport. The revelation was made at the District Coordinating Committee meeting which was presided by the visiting SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at the District Secretariat of Jaffna on Saturday. The scheme is projected as ‘development’ by New Delhi and Colombo while the uprooted people of the villages demand their lands released back to them. The TNA is observing silence. However, the uprooted land-owners are not going to tolerate the military grabbing these lands anymore permanently, said Chairman of Valikaamam North Resettlement Committee Mr Shageevan Shanmugalingam, who is also an elected member of the Divisional Council of Valikaamam North. Full story >>

Wickramasinghe lacks courage to meet protesting Tamil mothers in North

SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has started an election campaign trip to North using the funds and loans provided by the Western countries which uphold occupying Colombo's ‘development’ paradigm. The same powers are negotiating and backing both the camps in the election campaign as they are preoccupied with securing geopolitical access to the island regardless of those gaining control of the executive presidency. On Wednesday, Mr Wickramasinghe chose to take a different route to Vavuniyaa hospital when the protesting mothers of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying SL military attempted to lay siege to the entrance demanding a direct meeting with him. The SL Police confronted the mothers. SL military intelligence operatives without uniform were also present along with the police commandos. Full story >>

Tamil awareness urged on geopolitics-driven genocidal ‘development’ in Mannaar

The occupying Colombo has met stiff resistance from the people of Mannaar against its ‘development’ plan, which paves the way for industrialisation with a looming danger of Sinhala colonisation changing the demographic pattern of the Mannaar Island. The ‘transformation’ has been schemed to take place within 12 years before 2030. Colombo’s Urban Development Authority (UDA), an almost all-Sinhala ‘regulatory body’ had conceived the overarching plan in 2016. The SL Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development had been tasked to accomplish the construction of a controversial project of Fishery Harbour at Peasaalai as part of Northern Province Sustainable Fisheries Development Project (NPSFDP) with project funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2020. The Tamil Catholic residents in Peasaalai have been opposing the controversial harbour project. Full story >>

PTA-threats against constructing memorial arch for student victims of 2006 aerial massacre

The occupying SL Army and its Intelligence have warned the workers, who were engaged in setting up a memorial road arch in Mullaith-theevu on Sunday. The arch was being constructed in memory of 51 school-girls and four staff members, whom the SL Air Force had brutally killed in a targeted aerial massacre at Chengchoalai compound on 14 August 2006 at Va'l'li-punam in Mullaiththeevu. The SL military personnel who came to the site on Sunday and instructed the workers to cease all the work threatened to detain them under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In the meantime, the SL Police, which took the workers to the station told them that there should be no photographs of the school children, who were slain in the aerial massacre carried out by the SL Air Force. The workers were engaged in completing the construction before the 13th Commemoration on Wednesday. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (Adds voice interviews)

SL Forest Department retains 8,034 hectares of pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai, Batticaloa

Eight thousand and thirty-four hectares of grass plain in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa district was tentatively traced in a map to demarcate the area as pastureland in 1976 by the SL Survey Department. However, the process didn't complete into accurate demarcation, said Rajbabu Suntharamoorthy, the divisional secretary of Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan). The SL Forest Department retains the area as belonging to Thopik-kal (Thoppigala) thick forest. The incumbent Government Agent has taken necessary steps to get the pastureland secured as demanded by the farmers, the Divisional Secretary maintained. TamilNet contacted the DS on Friday following the report on Thursday that more than one thousand cows had died since January as the SL authorities were dragging their feet concerning the allocation of the pasturelands and access to the drinking water reservoir to the cattle. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (Correction)

Book on Santhiya becomes narration of Tamil struggle incorporating Marxist ideas in early 80s

Ben Hillier, the editor of Australia’s leading socialist publication, Red Flag, wanted to recount the life of Santhiya, a former LTTE cadre who had perished in an Indonesian detention centre in late 2017. Her tragic death occurred as a result of the anti-refugee and anti-Tamil struggle policies practised by Australia. In his efforts to trace her life the editor of the Red Flag travelled to Jakarta, Indonesia and then to the occupied country of Eezham Tamils with the support of the Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) a grassroots diaspora group in Australia. Ben Hillier, who travelled to the occupied country and learned more about the sacrifices made by the Eezham Tamils, particularly the Tamil women, authored his book “Losing Santhiya: On Life and Loss in the Struggle for Tamil Eelam” in July. Full story >>

Pirapaharan’s statements between 1984 and 1993 reproduced in book form in Europe

A Switzerland-based Eezham Tamil youth group, ‘Phoenix - the Next Generation’, has photostatically reproduced the rare 314-page compilation officially published by the Headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in September 1993 in Jaffna. The book contains selected letters, interviews and statements of LTTE Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan starting from his first media interview in March 1984. The compilation consists, amongst others, of a letter that declines LTTE representation at a meeting held in New York in May 1985, appeals to the leaders of India and Tamil Nadu during the LTTE-IPKF war in 1987, and a letter of solidarity addressed to South African (ANC) leader, the late Oliver Tambo, in July 1988. The reproduction has been made from a book obtained at the public library of Jaffna in the past. The book, with ID 9907, is no longer accessible at the library. Full story >>

SL Army puts up military post, Buddhist chanting dominates Kanniyaa

The Sinhala Buddhist monks are playing the sound of Pirith through loudspeakers at the disputed heritage site of Kanniyaa Hot Wells round the clock. At the same time, occupying Sinhala Army soldiers of 221 Brigade have started to put up new military posts between the road arch and the Hot Wells. The Tamil visitors feel that the loud Pirith chanting was highly disturbing their visit to the place of geological heritage with Saivaist religious significance. SL Army and Sinhala officials attempted to block the Tamil journalists from taking photos and video. The SL Army and the officials who claimed to be the representatives of the Archaeology department tried to prevent the visiting Tamil journalists from taking pictures or videos of the locality. However, the ‘Archaeology’ officials withdrew from the site after the journalists demanded them to document their identity papers on Saturday. Full story >>

38 parents of missing Tamils have perished during prolonged protest, mothers blame IC

Thirty-eight parents, most of them mothers, have died since the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances launched their protest, which is nearing 900 days. Many of them suffered heart-attacks, says Leelathevi Ananthanadarajah, the mother of a Tamil went missing at the hands of the occupying SL military. By failing to specify a time-bound action plan to the SL State, the IC has failed the victims, she said. The mother was talking to media during the monthly marking at Ki'linochchi on Tuesday. In the meantime, the ‘Office on Missing Persons’, which is the SL State-agency tasked to determine the status of the missing, has stepped up its psychological war against the women taking part in the continuous protests across the districts of North-East. The latest OMP manoeuvre is to offer 250,000 rupees of loans to the active protesters selectively, Mrs Ananthanadarajah said. Full story >>

SL Police evades filing case against extremist monk in Neeraaviyadi

Ven Kolamba Medhalankara Thero, the Sinhala Buddhist extremist monk, who had encroached into the premises of Pi'l'laiyaar temple at Neeraaviyadi in Mullaith-theevu, was directly involved, along with a group of people, in removing the Saivaist Nandhi flags on 16th July. The Nandhi flags were flown in parity with the Buddhist flags at the locality since 6th July. The controversial monk and his supporters had selectively removed the Nandhi flags leaving behind the Buddhist flags. They have also stolen the robes. The trustee board of the temple went to file a complaint with the SL Police on 17th July, the following day. However, the police was refusing to entertain their complaint. Now, the police has informed the trustees through politicians that the monk was ‘mentally disturbed’ and admitted to a hospital in Colombo to avoid cases against him. Full story >>

SL Police goes door-to-door collecting details of residents in Batticaloa

Occupying Colombo’s police has started to collect details of persons residing in each house in the police division of Kaaththaan-kudi in Batticaloa district. Tamil residents in Chelvaa-nakar, which comes under the administrative division of Ma’n-munaip-pattu, complained that the police personnel were visiting each household since 27 July. The SL Police demands there must be a household leader for every house, and that person should put a signature in a document where details of every resident are registered. Full story >>

SL Wildlife Department converts farmlands of Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay into sanctuary

The Tamil farmers who had been uprooted for 35-years from Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Mullaith-theevu district and managed to return to their village in 2012, lost their low-lying irrigable lands along with reservoirs to Sinhala colonists. Now, the SL Wildlife Conservation Department has seized their upper-lying “Maanaavaari” agricultural lands and converted these into a bird sanctuary. The aim is to wedge the contiguity of the occupied Tamil country’s northern and eastern territories up to the very coastline. Kokkuth-thoduvaay is an agricultural and fisheries village, sandwiched between the lagoon of Kokku'laay and the sea in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of the Mullaiththeevu district. Full story >>

Mother dies after searching for missing son for 11 years

A 74-year-old mother of a Tamil male subjected to enforced disappearance eleven years ago in Mannaar has passed away after suffering a heart attack in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. The representatives of the district organisation of the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances said that the mother, Thresamma Sebamalai, was an active member in their continuous protest during the past 869 days. She was trying to trace the whereabouts of her son for the past 11 years. Mrs Sebamalai was living at Ira'naip-paalai in Puthuk-kudiyiruppu. Full story >>