Colombo brings back EPDP terror assassins from exile

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2020, 23:42 GMT]
The military intelligence of occupying Colombo has allowed SL Cabinet Minister Douglas Devananda to bring back exiled assassins of his war-time paramilitary outfit EPDP back to the island and into Jaffna in the recent days, informed sources in Colombo said. Some of the EPDP terror operatives deployed by the SL intelligence establishment to commit targeted assassinations and abductions to destabilise the 2002 ceasefire towards the run-up to the genocidal onslaught in 2009 exiled during the previous Rajapaksa regime. These are the ones, now returning to Jaffna, the sources said.
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SL ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division resumes abduction-style arrests in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2020, 21:07 GMT]
Leaked reports from SL’ Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) in Jaffna to local media earlier this week claimed that it had detained four Tamil youth from Poonakari (Pooneryn) with explosives at an uninhabited area in Vallipuram in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna on Tuesday night. There was no independent verification of the incident. So far, no one has lodged any complaint with the Jaffna office of the SL Human Rights Commission, according to Thangavel Kanagaraj, the coordinator of the commission. However, he was able to confirm that 40-year-old S. Uthayasivam, a resident of Maruthangkea’ni in Valikaamam East, was being detained by the TID.
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UN human rights system in Geneva lacks courage to make “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 February 2020, 20:04 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 30/1 adopted in 2015 was fundamentally flawed as it was based on the “Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Investigation on Sri Lanka” (OISL). The OISL was not mandated to investigate decades-long Tamil genocide as it was conceived as an “internationalised” extension of the Rajapaksa regime’s “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC), a blueprint for post-2009 genocide. Now, the LLRC-inventors are back, and they are at loggerheads with the inventors of the International-LLRC (OISL). The acid test for the High Commissioner, her office, the OHCHR and the 47-member UNHRC is the notion of SL “co-sponsorship”. If the human rights regime in Geneva wants to save its credibility, it has to make the human rights situation in “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item to the council. But, it lacks such courage.
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IC accountable for Gotabaya reneging on justice commitments: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 January 2020, 22:24 GMT]
Several countries in the International Community (IC) supported the Sri Lankan State that waged a genocidal war against the Tamils. The Tamil national liberation struggle and its taproot [the LTTE] were wiped out through a genocidal war by the SL State with the backing of other states in the IC. It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who commanded the genocidal war in 2008 and 2009. Now, what are these countries going to do to enforce international justice, especially after Mr Rajapaksa pronouncing all the missing as dead, asked Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian S Shritharan at the SL Parliament on Tuesday. Today, we are voicing for justice as a nation subjected to genocide. We are not merely speaking from a suppressed situation or a coated environment of so-called development, Mr Shritharan said adding that Tamils were no longer begging for justice, but demanding international justice.
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61 parents of missing persons have perished while continuing protest beyond 1,050 days

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 January 2020, 23:30 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military are passing away, one by one. Their deaths occur as the SL State, and the global forces behind the deceptive ‘transitional justice’ mechanism continue to remain deaf to their demand of establishing the truth of what had happened to their loved ones. While a section of families avoid protests succumbing to the so-called pragmatic view that the SL military had assassinated all the missing family members under its captivity, the protesting families want an official answer establishing what had happened to their loved ones. 72-year-old Rasendram Soosaippillai from Oalaith-thoduvaay in Mannaar was the 61st parent to die without a response from the SL authorities on the whereabouts of his son, who was abducted ten years ago in Mannaar.
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Families of missing Tamils in Vanni turn their protest against EPDP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 December 2019, 17:41 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military in the genocidal war up to 2009 have turned the focus of their protest against SL Minister Douglas Devananda, who has been a close ally of the Rajapaksa regime. Mr Devananda's EPDP was a former Tamil paramilitary group, operated by the occupying Sinhala military. The families have been irked by the attempts by Devananda to dilute their continues protests that have passed one thousand days this month.
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India strengthens defence ties with Japan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2019, 23:51 GMT]
The Japanese Minister of Defense Kono Taro and Minister of Foreign Affairs Motegi Toshimitsu met their Indian counterparts Rajnath Singh and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in the first India-Japan “2+2” defence and regional foreign policy meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. Apart from the move for the speedy conclusion of the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) defence pact between the countries, Japan has agreed to take part in the Information Fusion Center for the Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), according to a joint statement issued by the parties. The IFC-IOR set-up in Gurugram, Haryana in December 2018 is an Indian move to collate data on sea lanes in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) through which 75 per cent of the world’s maritime trade and 50 per cent of global oil pass.
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“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2019, 23:02 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile.
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EPDP resumes harassment against families of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 August 2019, 22:43 GMT]
Douglas Devananda, the leader of the paramilitary-cum-political party, Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), has again resorted to harassment against the mothers of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the military of genocidal Sri Lanka and his EPDP outfit. Mr Devananda was an SL minister during the regimes of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. The SL military deployed his group to abduct Tamil activists, journalists and those who were working with the LTTE. Recently, he told the press that he had lodged a complaint with the SL Police in Colombo against the open and public statements made by Mrs Mariasuresh Easwary, the wife of a person reported missing at the hands of the SL military. Mrs Easwary, who heads the district organisation of missing persons in Mullaith-theevu, was making the open allegation on behalf of the members of her organisation.
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‘Death certificates’ issued to 500 of 3,500 Tamils subjected to enforced disappearance in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 August 2019, 18:17 GMT]
The families of around 500 Tamil persons subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying SL military and the paramilitaries operated by it have been utilised with false ‘death certificates’ in Ampaa'rai district. The death certificates claim that the victims were abducted by ‘terrorists’ and that their dead bodies were not found. It was the SL military which abducted these victims. The SL authorities have deceptively issued these certificates promising financial assistance to the affected families. Everybody knows that the victims were Tamil youth abducted by the SL military, says Thambirasa Selvarany, the coordinator of kith and kin of Tamils subjected to enforced disappearance in Ampaa'rai district.
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Wigneswaran warns of bleak future for Tamils, urges planning for next step

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 August 2019, 20:23 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena appointing Shavendra Silva as the SLA commander is the logical outcome of the Sinhala thinking that remains unchanged. “Secondly, he may also be thinking that if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were to come in as the president next, Shavendra Silva would be an ideal lieutenant to him, because they have worked together in the past,” commented former Chief Minister of North Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. The Sinhala political leaders would not grant any political rights to the Tamils in the future because, in their position there had been no genocide, no war crimes and they maintaint that those killed were all ‘terrorists’. “We may expect a very difficult time ahead. Tamils, both internationally and locally, must start thinking as to what should be our next step in the event of such people becoming very violent against our people,” the former chief minister told TamilNet.
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Tamil Eelam war heroes emotionally commemorated, people defy SL Court orders

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2018, 17:40 GMT]
The oppressed Eezham Tamils gathered in large numbers on Tuesday as never before in post-2009 remembrance day events to mark the public commemoration of Tamil Eelam great heroes (Maaveerar) at more than thirty heroes’ cemeteries which the occupying SL military had razed to the ground in the eight districts of the North-East. The people also defied the verbal court order in Jaffna, and the written court order in Batticaloa, which prohibited playing LTTE produced songs. Eezham Tamils went ahead with playing the main maaveerar-song, which vows to stay the course of the liberation of Tamil state.
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SL Military Intelligence recommences recruitment of notorious ex-paramilitary operatives

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 21:53 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the occupying military, and SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe have given green signals to the respective intelligence services under their control to recommence recruitment of former Tamil paramilitary operatives in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in the North and East, informed ex-paramilitary sources in Jaffna said.
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Tamil fishers rise against Colombo's exploitation, activists threatened by SL Navy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 May 2018, 16:06 GMT]
Fisheries traders from South have deployed more than one thousand sea cucumber poachers along the coast of Vadamaraadchi East with the backing of the occupying Sinhala Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka and the SL Ministry of Fisheries during the last two weeks. The intruders have put up more than one hundred huts and brought in thousands of oxygen cylinders and lighting equipment to exploit the entire coast of Vadamaraadchi East from Chaalai in Mullaiththeevu to Thaa'laiyadi in Jaffna district for the catch of sea cucumbers. The native Tamil fishers have risen against the exploitation as it directly affects their livelihood and the fishing ecosystem. The Tamil fishermen staged a protest on Sunday. Now, the intelligence wing of the SL Navy has issued death threats against the organisers of the rally.
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Families of enforced disappeared want answers, no deceptive bills to genocidal system

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 September 2017, 23:49 GMT]
The genocidal State of Sri Lanka would simply ‘privatize’ white van abductions in future to circumvent any restrictions be its own Acts or international conventions such as the “International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance” (ICPPED). Therefore, the SL ratification of the ICPPED and the discourse of enacting bills are not of immediate concern to the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances, commented Mr Velayutham Vijayakumar, who represents the families of persons reported missing. The Jaffa-based activist said Tamil people were more concerned about SL State's official answer on what happened to those subjected to enforced disappearances, particularly the fate of hundreds of persons who were handed over to the SL military in front of their families inside the SL military controlled area after the genocial onslaught in May 2009.
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SL Police irked by sword assaults targeting Tamil ‘soldiers’ of Sinhala Army

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 August 2017, 15:29 GMT]
Two Tamil criminal recruits of the occupying Sinhala army have been subjected to sword assaults by unknown attackers on Thursday in Ki’linochchi. The SL Police has reacted with wanton arrests of at least 6 family people and has vowed to subject the victims to identification parade. The latest assault on the few remaining Tamil recruits in the occupying army of genocidal Sri Lanka is said to be a third one within the last 30 days. Majority of the recruits to the SLA during the times of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, have been subjected to substandard assignments or as thugs engaged in ‘katta panchayat’ (Cangaroo courts) activities on behalf of the occupying SL military and have earned the ire of the public. The exact motive or the nature of the attackers are not known. But, the SL Police, citing the latest criminal confrontations, is on a ‘counter-insurgency’ drive against the Tamils.
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SL police, HR commission decline to register complaints on ‘white van’ activity in KKS

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 June 2017, 23:05 GMT]
Two motorbikes and a number-plate belonging to another motorcycle have been recovered from abandoned wells in recently released former ‘High Security Zone’ in Kaangkeasanthu’rai (KKS) in Jaffna. A torture chamber operated by the occupying Sinhala military was earlier discovered in the same area, which comes under KKS South, J-235, village area (GS). The rotten motorbikes were recovered while the owner of the land, Mr Niranjan from Kuru Veethi, was clearing his recently released land to reconstruct the well. As soon as the nearby SL Police station was notified on the discovery, a white-van emerged from the military zone and two men in civil clothes forcefully removed the number plates from the two motorbikes, eyewitnesses said.
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SL military deploys sophisticated surveillance against peaceful protesters

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 April 2017, 23:35 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military, which has established its so-called ‘security forces headquarters’ for Mulllaiththeevu district at Keappaa-pulavu has transforming the area into a Sinhala Buddhist establishment with exclusive military-resort for Sinhala visitors. The Sinhala military has been deploying military photographers and documenting those visiting the protesting families for a long time. Now, it has further put up sophisticated CCTV surveillance equipment to record everything continuously. Along with veiled threats of future targeting of those visiting the protesters, the SL military has been trying to contain the protest through deceptive offers from the SL ‘Resettlement’ Ministry.
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Sophisticated white-van abductions continue unabated in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 April 2017, 16:21 GMT]
A Tamil man, 35-year-old Thiraviyam Naguleswaran from Vaddukkoaddai in Jaffna, was missing for the last 10 days. Three days ago, his wife received a phone call from him. He was being detained at Anuradhapura, the frightened husband told his wife from the custody of his abductors. Mr Thiraviyam asked his wife not to file any complaint with the SL Police and to avoid alerting any human rights watchdog or media. His abductors were investigating him and he would not be released if there was any complaint made to human rights groups, he had told. His wife refrained from complaining or alerting media. But, on Wednesday, the circumstance of a pending court case at Mallaakam courts has exposed the abduction. 
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Collaborate with Colombo or get lost in Geneva: SL President tells Tamils in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 March 2017, 23:22 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena who visited Jaffna on Saturday was reiterating the same words of former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa at both the military and civil event in Jaffna. His visit was fully packed with military events except a single event, which was a PR stunt of launching the “Tell the President” office in Jaffna. Mr Maithiripala Sirisena, who has been claiming earlier that he was also in command of the final phase of Vanni war in his capacity as a deputy defence minister in 2009, was addressing the SL military in Jaffna on Saturday vowing not to allow anyone to subject the troopers of the three armed forces to stand for criminal trials in connection with alleged war crimes. During his trip, Sirisena was not prepared to meet the demonstrating women who were searching for their kith and kin or the graduates demanding jobs.
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