Tamil nation-oriented parties challenged in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 August 2020, 17:22 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is set to win six of thirteen seats of the Northern province in the SL Parliament. The competing Tamil national rights-oriented parties, the TNPF (Tamil Congress) and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) would be securing one seat each, electing a federalism-oriented majority of eight Tamil parliamentarians from the province. However, in the most populous Eastern province with a significant mix of Sinhala and Muslim voters, the TNA is gaining only three of sixteen seats, two in Batticaloa and one in Trincomalee, entirely losing Ampaa'rai. Former paramilitary operative Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna waged an anti-Muslim campaign in Ampaa'rai to woo the voters, making his opportunistic politics out of the collective failure by the TNA, TNPF and the TMTK in the East.
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TMVP-linked operatives collaborate with SL Navy, suppress Tamil fishers in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 August 2020, 21:05 GMT]
Violating the condition of operating purse-seine boats beyond 10 miles from the coast, the SL Navy is allowing former Tamil paramilitary operatives to poach in the seas along with intruding poachers from outside the district, fisher society representatives complain. The SLNS Kashyapa, the SL Navy detachment in Vaakarai of Batticaloa district, is demanding 20 rupees per kilo of the catch as an unofficial “tax” from the poachers, they said on condition on anonymity. The ex-paramilitary operatives of the TMVP group were exerting political pressure on local Tamil fisher societies the same way as by the EPDP in the North, they said.
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Fishing by intruding colonists hampers livelihood of Tamils in Batticaloa North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 July 2019, 21:17 GMT]
Sinhala colonists from the Trincomalee district are intruding into the territorial waters of Eezham Tamils in Vaakarai located to the north of Batticaloa (Koara'laip-pattu North division). The occupying Sinhala navy and the SL fisheries authorities are backing the illegal deployment of purse seines by the Sinhala fishermen. In the meantime, the SL military is harassing the Tamil fishers who engage in fishing using legally allowed methods, the Head of Vaakarai Fishers Society T. Baskaran told TamilNet. The SL military is also backing the former TMVP paramilitary (Pi'l'laiyaan faction) personnel to engage in the exploitative fishing activities, he further said.
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Colombo finds new ways to extend detention of Tamil political prisoners

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 December 2015, 20:39 GMT]
The Tamil prisoners, who are being indefinitely detained for several years in the prisons of occupying Colombo, are going to be subjected for prolonged proceedings once more under a new Colombo-based ‘special court’, legal sources in Jaffna said. There are cases where false confessions obtained under torture by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) have been already rejected by the district courts in the North and East. These prisoners were awaiting their cases to be dismissed. But, the judiciary of occupying Sri Lanka wants their cases to be addressed again in Colombo.
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TMVP faction wants Batticaloa Tamils to observe shutdown against Muslim politicians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 January 2013, 21:31 GMT]
A faction of TMVP paramilitary in Batticaloa has instructed Tamil business owners and public servants to observe shutdown on Friday against the recent proposal from ‘Muslim politicians’ to annex Tamil villages from the Tamil dominated Koa'ra'laippattu North (Vaakarai) and Koa'ra'laippattu South (Kiraan) divisions with Muslim dominated divisions of Koa'ra'laippattu Centre and Koa'ra'laippattu West.
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Administrative divisions manipulated to wedge Tamils, Muslims in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2013, 23:49 GMT]
A former minister of ruling UPFA government and a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) Amir Ali Shihabdeen and SL Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan of SLFP and Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan of TMVP in the UPFA who is also a councilor at the EPC have given their consent to changes in the administrative divisions of Vaakarai DS division, Koa’ralaip-pattu Centre DS division and Koa’ralaippattu West DS division, news sources in Batticaloa said. The latest move of annexing villages from Tamil dominated Vaakarai division with Muslim dominated Koa’ra’laip-pattu Centre and Ko’a’ralaippattu West, aims at reducing Tamil representation and contributes to uneven development by seeking to upgrade Muslim dominated divisions in civic governance, say Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians from Batticaloa.
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Colombo posters wage war against all shades of Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 December 2012, 09:20 GMT]
Citing the posters that appeared in Colombo and in southern parts of the island last week, a notice in Sinhala addressing ‘intelligent students’ of the Jaffna University, invariably accused all shades of Tamil polity in the island and in the diaspora that are not collaborating with the genocidal regime, as working for the division of the ‘country’. The notice also accused Sinhala students and shades of Sinhala Left in the south showing solidarity with the students of the Jaffna University, as unconsciously becoming a “prey to the interests of the LTTE to divide the country.” An English translation of the notice is produced herewith.
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100,000 remain internally displaced, says UNHCR

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2012, 18:46 GMT]
In a report on the international protection needs of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, UNHCR identifies several risk profiles including persons suspected of links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), journalists, human rights activists, witnesses to rights violations, and vulnerable children and women, and notes while "there is an ethnic dimension to their vulnerability," in each of these risk groups, "members of the minority Tamil and, to a lesser extent, Muslim communities are reportedly more often subjected to arbitrary detention, abductions or enforced disappearances." Tamil activists including the New Zealand Tamil Action Front was consistently canvassing for this and there was a response in this regard from the Australian representative of the UNHCR in a regional meeting held at Auckland on 19 November.
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Paramilitary terrorizes Vaakarai, instructs people to vote for UPFA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 July 2012, 20:22 GMT]
Paramilitary operatives led by former chief minister of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) are threatening the voters in Vaakarai area of Batticaloa district that they would be driven out from the region if they vote for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the forthcoming election to the EPC. The paramilitary men have instructed the people to vote for Rajapaksa's ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in which Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan would be participating as the lead candidate.
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Tamil civil society warned US officials on LLRC danger prior to Geneva

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 March 2012, 05:45 GMT]
“The [Sri Lankan] Government’s current activities in the North and East are challenging the very existence of the Tamil people and more time to the GOSL to implement the LLRC’s recommendations will only mean further time for the Government to play havoc in the North and East and subjugate the interests and aspirations of the Tamil people,” said leading Eezham Tamil civil society members in the island, in a letter addressed to the visiting US Under Secretary of State Maria Oetro and the Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake last month on 10 February 2012. TamilNet has received a copy of this confidential letter and releases it to the public after blacking out the names and other identity of the members for security reasons. The letter clearly outlines the grave danger of initiating the accountability process with the so-called ‘positive recommendations’ of the LLRC report.
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SLA assaults, threatens activists who protest against sand mining in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2011, 10:55 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers at Mu'rakkoddaagn-cheanai camp in Batticaloa district have summoned civil activists from Chantha'na-madu river basin to their camp, intimidating them and issuing death threats to some of the activists for having protested against illegal sand mining carried out by TMVP paramilitary operated by the SLA. The villagers, intimidated by the soldiers not to protest against the sand mining, revealed that two activists, 30-year-old Muthupillai Nadesan, the second ‘vanniyanaar’ (temple administrator) of Chiththaa'ndi Murukan temple and 28-year-old Velautham Ruban, were severely assaulted by the SLA soldiers and were issued death threats on December 18.
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New Delhi meet of Tamil parties ends without consensus

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 August 2011, 18:55 GMT]
The two-days meet of Eezham Tamil political parties held in New Delhi on Tuesday and Wednesday on the initiative of Congress Party parliamentarian Sudharshana Natchiappan ended without consensus, participants told TamilNet. The main issue was that those who didn’t want to disappoint the Congress agenda didn’t want to resolve on the status of Eezham Tamils as a nation and that the nation has the right to self determination in the island. Instead, some of them wanted to concentrate on measures of protection and on accepting whatever that is given. The TNA wanted to avoid specific wordings and demands on issues of fundamental nature in order to stage-manage a New Delhi sponsored consensus of Tamil political parties.
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Colombo alleged of engineering paramilitary clash in East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2011, 15:21 GMT]
A special team of Sri Lanka Army personnel Tuesday afternoon conducted a search at the Batticaloa residence of Eastern Province Chief Minister S. Chandrakanthan alias Pilliayan. Mr. Chandrakanthan was not at his residence at the time of search operation. TMVP sources said the reason for the operation was not revealed by the army personnel. The search of Chandrakanthan's residence, located along Lake View, is being viewed as the climax of the internecine fighting between the two paramilitary groups, which are operated by the Rajapaksa regime in Colombo. Informed sources in Colombo said that the Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit has been actively engaged in causing deep division between the two paramilitary groups.
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Paramilitary confrontations trigger SLA operations in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 May 2011, 05:59 GMT]
The occupying SL Military has stepped up cordon and search operations and check points in Batticaloa district following the slaying two persons associated with Karuna and Pillaiyan paramilitary groups in the district. All the travellers are stopped at newly set up check point at 5th Mile Post along Kalmunai-Batticaloa Road and are being interrogated by SL intelligence personnel.
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Pillaiyan group robs houses in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 April 2011, 03:44 GMT]
Personnel of the paramilitary group led by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pilliayan, chief minister of the Eastern provincial Council (EPC), have been involved in several robberies in the province, sources in the east said. On April 13, members of this group had robbed jewelry worth 1.5 million rupees from a house at Aaraiyampathi West Kaaddumaavadi area in Kaaththaankudi police division in Batticaloa district after brandishing knives and threatening residents .
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Pillaiyan, Karuna paramilitary groups clash in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 April 2011, 03:33 GMT]
Cadres of the para military group led by Pilliayan, who is the chief minister of the Eastern Provincial Council, assaulted a former cadre, Seenithamby Pakkiyarajah, 38, severely injuring him Sunday, sources in the east said. Pakkiyarajah was admitted to the Ka'luvaagnchikkudi Government Hospital. Pakkiyarajah had recently joined the para-military group led by Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan alias Karuna, who is now a Deputy Minister in the Mahinda Rajapakse government. The Ka'luvaagnchikkudi police have so far arrested two suspects in this regard.
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Sinhalese demanding ransom captured by villages in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2011, 16:34 GMT]
The three men, who came in a white colored van, searching for the trader, had earlier claimed that they were from Pillayan's TMVP and issued a letter to the trader for a fee of 30,000 rupees while he was visiting Trincomalee. After issuing the letter, they also informed their contacts in Vavuniyaa military check-post while the trader was travelling back to Jaffna.
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Trinco under heavy security for Rajapakse election visit

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 March 2011, 14:45 GMT]
Trincomalee town has been put on red alert from Friday for the forthcoming visit of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse who is scheduled to address an election rally on Sunday morning in the Trincomalee McHeyzer Stadium in support of the ruling United peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) contesting the Trincomalee urban Council. Roads leading to the McHeyzer Stadium are under heavy checking by army and police personnel. Vehicles and other mode of transports are stopped and checked by security personnel, sources in Trincomalee said.
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Karuna alleges Pillaiyan TMVP corrupt

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 March 2011, 14:38 GMT]
"The Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) party led by the Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan is a political party full of corruption and deceit. Pilliayan has no support from the government," said Resettlement Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan alias Karuna. "Pilliayan became the Chief Minister due to votes of Tamils. He is now hanging on the government to show Tamils that he has the support of the government. He cannot act alone," said Karuna who has been spreading Mahinda Chinthanaya in Ampaarai district. Both are leaders of two Para military groups in the east.
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TNA challenges Pilliayan to resign, hold election to EPC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 February 2011, 12:47 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa District TNA Parliamentarian, Mr.C.Yogeswaran, addressing an election meeting in Kaaraitheivu, challenged the Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, to dissolve the EPC and to stand for re-election to prove his popularity instead of criticizing the TNA, sources in Batticaloa said.
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