Shame on Norway for being silent on Sri Lanka: Red party leader backing Jaffna students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2012, 07:31 GMT]
Addressing the youth demonstrators in front of the Norwegian parliament on Tuesday, protesting the SL military atrocities committed on the Jaffna University students, the leader of the Norwegian Red Party and an elected representative of the Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET), Bjørnar Moxnes, said: “Norway has had a special role as facilitator of the peace process till 2008. This gives us a special responsibility. Unfortunately, the Red-Green government of Norway has chosen to be very silent against Sri Lanka. This is a shame for Norway.” During this week, demonstrations showing solidarity with the Jaffna University students took place in 7 countries, Canada, Norway, UK, Australia, Switzerland, France and Germany.
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Sri Lanka intensifies terror campaign against Tamil students

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2012, 14:20 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department has officially informed the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jaffna to hand over 10 more students of the university, in addition to the three already in detention. The wanted list includes the leader of the student union, student leaders of the faculties and five students from the Medical Faculty. Meanwhile, following individual threats to the faculty Deans by the occupying SL military, the Dean of the Medical Faculty, along with some lecturers, attempt to take the five Medical Faculty students to the SL police. Colombo’s agents also pressurise the Medical Faculty to abandon the other faculties and to announce cancellation of the student protest through the Sinhala students admitted to the faculty.
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Suresh calls upon diaspora youth to respond to Jaffna University situation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2012, 20:12 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and Eelam People Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader Suresh Premachandran in a video interview to TamilNet this week, called upon the diaspora youth studying in the Western World to take up the matter of SL military oppression of Jaffna University students with the Western governments, in order to push them to prevail upon Colombo’s undemocratic activities. Meanwhile, diaspora circles especially in the UK and in Canada now realize how in the last three years Colombo’s agents have succeeded in hijacking, silencing and deviating the diaspora alumni associations of the leading schools of Eezham Tamils. They also cited at the strange silence of an alumni association started in the UK in the name of the Jaffna University.
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Tamil lands in Ampaa'rai appropriated for army housing schemes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2012, 17:28 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Ampaa'rai district in the Eastern province has been appropriating lands belonging to Eezham Tamils for the construction of so-called housing schemes for their troops while the uprooted Tamil families languish in tents and with their relatives without basic facilities. Such an occupation scheme is under construction by the occupying army under a programme for the families of dead soldiers in war in the lands that belong to Tamils, close to Malwatte and Ka'napathipuram villages in Chammaanthu'rai DS division.
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Dutch police arrest 55 Kurds on alleged PKK links

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 08:19 GMT]
The Dutch police have arrested 55 Kurds on the suspicion that they were linked to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) on Monday. The PKK has been banned in Netherlands since 2007. Similar large scale arrests of Kurdish activists on suspicion of PKK links happened in 2004, but the case could not sustain itself then. Ever since the ban, there has been considerable clamping down on Kurdish political activities in the Dutch state. Holland is also notorious for its intimidation of Eezham Tamil activists working for the Tamil national cause.
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Maldives cancels airport agreement with Indian corporate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 00:13 GMT]
The Republic of Maldives announced on Monday that it would take back the operations of the international airport at Male from the Indian corporate GMR Group with effect from Saturday, cancelling its agreement for a US $ 511 million project. According to media reports, New Delhi threatens that it would consider freezing aid to Maldives, especially a US $ 25 million loan immediately needed by the Maldives for the payment of salaries to its civil servants. But the general public and businessmen in the Maldives feel that it is a big victory for their efforts in freeing their airport from the clutches of the Indian corporate. The agreement with GMR Group was signed in the times of the earlier president, Mohamed Nasheed.
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SL military threatens senior faculty members of Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 09:42 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka individually approached the Deans and former Deans of all the faculties of the University of Jaffna to threaten them not to take up the issue of the students arrested following the Heroes Day observations, news sources in Jaffna said. Parallely, the military also went in search of a student leader at Thiruvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi last night. The University remains vacated as student leaders are forced into hiding. A protest demonstration by the Medical Faculty of the university scheduled for Monday was cancelled, as the Administration of the university advised against it, citing ‘secret negotiations’ taking place between the university and the occupying military at the Palaali base. However, the University of Jaffna Teachers Association is firm that all the arrested students have to be released without charges, the news sources further said.
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Tamil parties missed directing USA on LLRC: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 December 2012, 01:22 GMT]
Had the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) been firm on the stand of Eezham Tamils, the USA couldn’t have ended up with the LLRC solution at Geneva, but the TNA blindly backed the US resolution at Geneva. It is after the Geneva resolution the land grab and the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan state got accelerated, said former TNA parliamentarian and TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in his second part of interview to TamilNet's Palaka'ni, covering current political situation of Eezham Tamils. The US-backed resolution was passed in Geneva essentially to resolve the Tamil issue in the island, but it is not serving the Tamil issue, he further said.
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Sinhala paramilitary attacks Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2012, 18:10 GMT]
Sinhala ‘home guards’ operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military have been attacking Tamil cattle farmers in the border villages of the Batticaloa district. The SL police is ignoring the complaints made by Tamil farmers against such attacks. The Sinhala ‘home guards’, who have appropriated lands of Eezham Tamils are doing cultivation in the occupied lands and are given military training by the SL military to operate as an occupation paramilitary along the borders of Polonnarwa - Batticaloa and Batticaloa - Ampa'rai districts in the East.
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Uda-peruwa, Palle-peruwa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2012, 13:17 GMT]
The upper division
The lower division
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EPDP mobilizes protest against Indian trawlers while backing trawlers from South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2012, 16:54 GMT]
Timed to the visit of the representatives of fishermen societies in Tamil Nadu to Jaffna on Thursday, the SL minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda was allegedly engaged in triggering demonstrations in front of the Consulate General of India in Jaffna, protesting the intrusion of Indian trawlers. According to Jaffna fishermen, the SL minister backs trawlers from the South exploiting Tamil waters. On Thursday, when the EPDP-backed protesters were shouting “Mahalingam come out,” demanding the Indian Consul General to come out and address them, a group of fishermen in Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) rounded up the SL police station there demanding action against 30 southern trawlers that were operating in the seas off VVT. Another 107 trawlers, backed by Mr. Devandanda were exploiting the seas off Kurunakar, the fishermen complained.
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Canadian organizations condemn attack on students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2012, 09:41 GMT]
Condemning the brutal assaults on the students of University of Jaffna by the occupying Sri Lanka’s police and military apparatus that has been happening with intensity since Tuesday, the Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA), the York Federation of Students (YFS), the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU), and the Tamil Youth Organization-Canada (TYO-Canada) have issued statements supporting both the civil and political liberties of the Eezham Tamil students in the homeland as well as the democratic right of the Tamil nation to self-determination.
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Kurdish party conveys solidarity message on Tamil Eelam Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2012, 06:59 GMT]
“History of the world has been full of clashes between the occupiers and the occupied. As a result of struggles, resistances and sacrifices more of the occupied people have been liberated and the fascist and chauvinist occupiers are being destroyed successively,” writes Mr. Rehman Haci Ehmedi, the Secretary General of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), in a solidarity message sent to the Eezham Tamil nation on the occasion of Heroes Day. In a note sent to TamilNet via Rojhelat.info on Thursday, Mr. Ehmedi, who is the highest authority in the PJAK, drawing parallels between the struggle of the Kurds and the Tamils, urged the Eezham Tamil nation to continue the struggle, “In the hope of revitalization of the heroic nation of Tamil Eelam, in the hope of triumphant and freedom for the resolute and revolutionary nation of Tamil Eelam; never rest unless triumphing!”
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Thousands throng Sydney, London Heroes’ Day events

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 16:21 GMT]
Thousands of Eezham Tamils from across the UK gathered at London on Tuesday to pay obeisance to the Maaveerar (heroes) who laid down their lives in the struggle for a sovereign Tamil Eelam. Likewise, large crowds showed up at the Heroes Day event at Sydney, which was held in open space, and the people stayed on till the conclusion despite a heavy downpour. At the Heroes day event at Excel centre, London, security sources informed that the overall crowd was roughly around 20,000. Speaking to TamilNet, a community activist from Australia said that the strong presence of Tamil public at the Heroes Day events in different parts of the world showed that the diaspora will not be intimidated by any targeting or attacks on grassroots activists. Separately, Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon also spoke in the parliament on the occasion, referring to challenges faced by the Tamils.
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Pirapaharan’s LTTE had moves to make Heroes Day inclusive

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 10:22 GMT]
Conceding the fact that many members of the other militant organisations too had laid down their lives for the cause of Tamil Eelam, Pirapaharan’s LTTE took initiative in taking an account of them for honouring them as Maaveerar (heroes). Forms had been distributed for this purpose to get written consent from the next of kin of the slain heroes of the other militant organisations. The outbreak of war in 2006 stalled the process started in 2002, revealed a former senior member of the LTTE to TamilNet on Tuesday. If needed, he would openly come out and testify the fact in his own voice, the former senior member said.
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Resistance overpowers oppression in observing Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 04:13 GMT]
A new vigour and enthusiasm is noticed in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils this year in paying homage to the fallen heroes on the Heroes Day, despite full-scale efforts of intimidation by the occupying Sinhala military and its intelligence operatives, news sources in the island said. Contrary to the pretentions of genocidal Colombo that it is not obstructing the Kaarthikai festival of lights falling on the same day this time, the occupying SL military and its intelligence operatives were geared to top to engage in an open campaign of intimidation in the North and East, instructing temples and public not to light lamps, and not to toll bells. Public was told not to come out at all.
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Tamil youth in Canada experiment with virtual cemeteries for Tamil heroes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 03:22 GMT]
"Exactly one year ago, we as youth adopted the Tamil Sovereignty Cognition as a basis for our initiatives in the Diaspora. We should continue to move forward and never compromise on the fundamental principles to which we pledged our allegiance,” Pamela Katheswaran, the president of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Tamil Students Association in Canada told TamilNet on Sunday, attending the Heroes Day remembrance event organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) in Toronto. The organisers had also launched an experimental web-based virtual replication of Eezham Tamils’ Heroes cemeteries (maaveerar thuyilum illam), razed down by the Sri Lankan military following the occupation of the country of Eezham Tamils.
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New Zealand Tamils plant trees to perpetuate memory of heroes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 02:13 GMT]
In a novel way of remembering the Eezham Tamil heroes, the New Zealand Tamils planted trees in their country of domicile during the Heroes Day week. Almost all the Tamil community organisations in New Zealand participated the programme that took place on Sunday. “By planting trees we have conveyed a message to the people of New Zealand that what has happened in our home country was not merely war crimes or crimes against humanity but a full-fledged genocide,” said veteran civil society activist and QSM awardee, Mr. A. Theva Rajan, who presided over the programme.
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Canada’s position on Sri Lanka significant, but not enough: Neethan Shan

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2012, 17:49 GMT]
Within days of the release of the UN internal review report on Sri Lanka, it became the subject of debate in Canada’s House of Commons. The House exchange belies an apparent discrepancy in present government policy, Tamil activists opine, citing the ruling Conservatives strongly denouncing the Sri Lankan government’s lack of respect for human rights, while simultaneously deporting Tamil refugee claimants from Canada to Sri Lanka. “I am happy that the Prime Minister who was generally silent with the mass murder of tens of thousands of Tamils during early 2009, is now beginning to stand up for the human rights of Tamils,” Neethan Shan, Eezham Tamil politician in Canada told TamilNet.
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British envoy in Colombo speaks on diaspora engagement with Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2012, 01:54 GMT]
The British High Commissioner in Colombo was answering a question on “the ways in which the Sri Lankan diaspora in the UK could support development in Sri Lanka,” said a note of the High Commission’s website last Tuesday, introducing the 13th edition of a PR exercise video series, “Ask the High Commissioner,” initiated by the mission in Colombo. The High Commissioner was in fact answering a question, “What is the Sri Lankan diaspora in the UK doing to assist Sri Lanka,” and he was citing the example of a multi-ethnic group of young doctors from the diaspora visiting the island recently.
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