Tamils in UK condemn Sri Lankan presence at Olympics opening ceremony

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 23:51 GMT]
Protesting against the participation of Sri Lankan sportspersons and the presence of the Sri Lankan delegation for the 2012 London Olympics, Eezham Tamils in the UK gathered in hundreds at Aspen Way, London on Friday, expressing their opposition to the legitimacy given to the Sri Lankan state that is accused of committing genocide. Sources in London, citing the British police, said that the Sri Lankan delegation did not attend the opening ceremony out of choice. However, the delegation invited by the IOC, were not compelled by the UK authorities not to attend. Speaking to TamilNet, Sasithar Maheswaran from the TCC-UK said “The British government ought to take note of the sentiments expressed repeatedly by the Tamils on the streets. An EU wide travel ban against current and previous leaders who have committed the crime of genocide against the Eezham Tamils is long overdue.”
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SL military removes Kuddimani remembrance posters, harasses former MP in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2012, 09:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) together with the SL Police on Thursday arrested former Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian and the political coordinator of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, a registered political party in the TNA alliance, for having put up posters remembering 54 Tamil political prisoners, including pioneer TELO leaders Kuddimani and Thangathurai, who were massacred inside the Welikade prison in Colombo in the SL state-sponsored pogrom against Eezham Tamils in July 1983. Mr. Sivajilingam was later released by the SL police at Nelliyadi, with the warning that he should not ‘antagonize’ the military officers of the SL military.
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TESO, AIADMK could create history with tacit action on fundamentals

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 23:54 GMT]
The island transformed from colonial Ceylon into genocidal Sri Lanka has in the process witnessed two wars of brutal conquest in the last two hundred years, both of which were ultimately imperialist. The conquest of Kandy in 1815 by British imperialism bringing in the unitary state and the conquest of Vanni in 2009 by a strategic partnership of the US and Indian imperialism are not two different phenomena, if the aftermaths of the wars are compared and comprehended. The larger question arises for the peoples of the region, elsewhere, and especially for the people of Tamil Nadu in this context is whether they are going to succumb one after the other as in the past, or are going to create history for humanity by learning from history. The TESO meet will only turn into a crafty device if its convenors and participants don’t direct it to answer the fundamentals.
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SL Supreme Court to inquire into FR application against Champoor lands acquisition

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 23:37 GMT]
A three-member bench of the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Monday decided to take up the Fundamental Rights Application filed by four Tamil-speaking farmers, a Muslim and three Tamils, against the appropriation of their traditional paddy lands in Champoor in Moothoor East in Trincomalee district, for inquiry on October 11.
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Tamil politicians urge global action in releasing POWs, political prisoners

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 13:52 GMT]
Addressing a press conference in Vavuniyaa on Tuesday, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) called for immediate release of all political prisoners who are held without any charges in the Sri Lankan prisons. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, representing the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) said that the International Community, especially the countries that backed the internal LLRC mechanism of Colombo in the resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Council's Sessions in Geneva earlier this year, are primarily responsible for the fate of the Tamil Prisoners of War and political prisoners. Those who attended the funeral of Nimalarooban, braving the threats posed by the Sri Lankan military and intelligence operatives, told TamilNet that the victim had sustained fatal injuries on his head.
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London demonstrators urge UK, India to act through Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2012, 23:49 GMT]
Gathering at 10 Downing Street in front of the residence of the British Prime Minister on Monday, Eezham Tamils in the UK remembered the 29th anniversary of the Black July massacre, urging for the expulsion of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth and for Britain to boycott the CHOGM meeting scheduled to take place in the island next year. “During the 1983 pogrom, the Eezham Tamils could flee to the North as a sanctuary. Now, the extensive land grabs and militarization of the Tamil homeland has made it unsafe for them even in their home. The International Community and especially India should take responsibility for their calculated silence that has allowed this to happen,” Ravi Kumar from the British Tamils Forum (BTF) told TamilNet.
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Fasting in London against genocidal Sri Lanka timed for Black July, Olympics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2012, 22:52 GMT]
The Black July remembrance event held at London on Sunday addressed the systematic injustice that Sri Lanka had been meting out to the Tamils, with activists placing emphasis on the protracted nature of genocide Eezham Tamils face in unitary Sri Lanka. Gobi Sivanthan, a Tamil youth activist, began his hunger-strike vigil which will end on the Olympics closing ceremony on August 12 demanding, among others, the immediate halting of land grabs in the Tamil homeland. Conveying solidarity with the demands of the demonstrators, Kurdish and British activists who spoke at the event urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to immediately suspend Sri Lanka from the 2012 London Olympics. “States committing genocide should not be part of Olympic games,” Akif Wan, a representative from the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) said, speaking at the event.
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SL minister Badurdeen competes with SLA on appropriating lands in Vanni amid protests

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 July 2012, 21:59 GMT]
While more than 2,000 war-affected families are struggling without lands in Karaithu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, Sri Lankan minister of Trade, Rishard Badurdeen, has planned to appropriate 1,500 acres of forest land along Mu'l'liyava'lai - Nedungkea'ni Road promising the lands to his supporters from elsewhere in the island, sources at Karaithu'raippattu divisional secretariat told TamilNet. Even the occupying SLA had opposed the move, but the SL minister has exerted pressure from the top to implement his plan, the sources further said. In the meantime, protests against the SL minister, who is blamed for violent attack on the court complex in Mannaar is being stepped up by the lawyers, who have also protested against the attack on the residence of Point Pedro District Judge on Wednesday.
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Acute malnutrition prevails among uprooted Champoor families

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2012, 23:22 GMT]
Acute malnutrition and hunger prevail among uprooted Champoor families now staying in ‘welfare centres’ that are located at Kaddai-pa'richchaan, Ma'nat-cheanai, Ki'liveddi and Paddiththidal in the Moothoor East. About 4,036 uprooted members of 263 families from Champoor six years ago due to SL military operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army in 2006 are staying in these camps as the government had refused to allow them to resettle in their own villages in Champoor area. According to reports by civil groups that the stoppage of distribution of dry ration relief under the World Food Programme for the last six months has led to the tragic situation in welfare camps.
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Australian socialist calls for support to Tamils’ right to self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 July 2012, 07:47 GMT]
“Tamils should have the right to choose whether they wish to be part of a united Sri Lanka, to break away and form an independent Tamil state in their traditional homelands in the north and east of the island, or to have some intermediate form such as federalism or autonomy,” writes Chris Slee, a member of the Melbourne branch of the Socialist Alliance, in an article published on Green Left Weekly, Sunday. Noting that the support given to Sri Lanka by world powers, especially the US, in allowing the May 2009 massacre to happen and criticizing the misunderstanding of the “progressive” Latin American countries of the Tamils’ struggle, the author calls on Australians to “demand that the Australian government support the proposal for a UN-supervised referendum. We should also demand that it end all ties with the Sri Lankan army and the other repressive forces of the Sri Lankan state.”
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Nelliyadi protesters overcome sabotage by SL Military Intelligence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 12:30 GMT]
Around 300 protesters gathered at Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna, on Wednesday, braving threats from the occupying Sri Lanka Army that warned participants about ‘firing orders’ issued to SL soldiers and Policemen. However, the demonstrators, that included solidarity groups from Upcountry and South, protesting the killing of Tamil prisoner Nimalarooban, successfully beat the sabotage attempt by the SL Military Intelligence. The SL military had dispatched four masked operatives in two motorbikes with Tamil Eelam national flags in their attempt to incite trouble at the site of the protest organised by the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF). The intelligence operatives had to escape from being caught by the protesters.
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Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolve to uphold Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2012, 11:21 GMT]
Condemning the attempts by establishments to compel Eezham Tamils to accept the genocidal development model of Colombo in the Tamil homeland, second generation Eezham Tamil youth in Germany resolved “to raise awareness and educate Tamils and non-Tamils about the ongoing-internationally abetted-genocide of the Tamil nation” and to educate the IC about the legitimacy of the Tamil struggle for sovereignty at the ‘Tamil Eelam Sovereignty conference’ organized by TYO-Germany at Landau, on Sunday. Speaking to TamilNet, Vibisanan Rajasingam of the TYO said that it was important for the second generation youth in the diaspora to understand the need for a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam as the only solution to check the genocide of the Eelam Tamils, referring to the three types of sovereignty of the Eelam Tamils as mentioned in the Tamil sovereignty cognition declaration.
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SL military grabs more lands in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 17:48 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna has occupied new lands in Maathakal, leaving 279 more families without homes. The latest reports say that the Sri Lankan military is silently evicting people from their homes in areas that are situated outside the former ‘High Security Zone’, civil sources in Valikaamam North said.
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Indian media seeing SL military misses pronouncing genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2012, 07:22 GMT]
A correspondent of the Mumbai-based Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), visiting the country of Eezham Tamils occupied by Sinhala military, sees there the Palu tree identified in Sinhala, but not the Paalai tree of Tamil literary fame. The example may be trifle but illustrative in showing how the lenses through which the Indian media sees or try to project the question of Eezham Tamils misses genocide in reducing the issue into mere militarisation, commented Eezham Tamil activists in the island responding to a feature in July 14 issue of EPW. Criticising the SL militarisation but at the same time artfully avoiding the heart of the matter, the genocide, the article said, “The message for the moment at least is clear: reconcile, by keeping your head down, give way to the army, be patient and hope for the best. In other words - do pretty much what you did to survive the reign of the LTTE."
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Colombo destroys education of Tamil youth in North, teachers complain

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, 06:55 GMT]
More than 11% of the schools in the Northern Province remain closed due to Sri Lanka military occupation, say teachers in Jaffna citing statistics from the Northern provincial ministry of education. Colombo has been systematically depriving the Eezham Tamil educational institutions in North and East from receiving external aid, both from foreign NGOs and the Tamil diaspora. In addition, the SL military-run civil administration has been diverting the funds already allocated in the provincial budget for the education sector. As a result, the Northern Province has ranked last in the latest GCE A/L examinations, the teachers said adding that such decline was not reported before, even during the height of the war.
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People of Navaali remember massacre amidst SLA harassment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 08:56 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils on Monday gathered at Navaali St. Peters's Church in Jaffna in memory of 147 civilians, who were brutally slain in a genocidal massacre 17 years ago by the Sri Lankan military that had instructed the fleeing people from a military operation to seek security at the Church and the nearby Saiva temple. The Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) on 09 July 1995 dropped leaflets from its helicopters instructing the civilians who were fleeing from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operation, to seek security at the Church.
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Indian civil groups condemn killing of adivasis in Chattisgarh

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 17:35 GMT]
The killing of 19 adivasis in an ‘anti-Maoist operation’ by CRPF commandos on June 28 in the Bijapur district of the Indian state of Chattisgarh has evoked condemnation from civil society groups, student unions and political activists in India. While many of the locals of that district and politicians of Chaatisgarh, including from the Congress party, have alleged that many or all of those killed are not Maoists, the CRPF which was leading this operation has ‘defended’ itself claiming that Maoists have been using villagers as human shields. India, which had abetted Colombo's genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils, is now lifting the ‘human shields’ argument that Sri Lanka and the powers that supported it used against the LTTE and applying it to quell armed struggles in its heartland, observers in Chennai told TamilNet.
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New Delhi grooming Sinhala military needs careful perusal in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 02:11 GMT]
In the wake of reports on New Delhi continuing its training to Sinhala military personnel at a base in Bangalore after transferring them from Chennai following opposition from Tamil Nadu government, the Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalithaa on Saturday said "Tamils want action for war crimes against Sri Lanka. We will not accept the training of Sri Lankan airmen anywhere in India." New Delhi’s obsession with grooming the Sinhala military after being in complicity with it in the genocide of Eezham Tamils needs careful perusal in Tamil Nadu, in the background of mushrooming Sinhala military bases trained against Tamil Nadu, New Delhi pressing for subjugation of Eezham Tamils within a united Sri Lanka model when one party has a genocidal military and the other has none, and in addition, New Delhi currently sitting in the UNHRC monitor group on Sri Lanka, observers said.
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SL Navy steps up harassment on Tamil fishermen in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2012, 01:04 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy have been refusing fishermen in Vadamaraadchi to search for their missing fishermen for 72 hours since their two fishermen had sent SOS signals after their boat damaged in the seas and lost its direction. The missing fishermen were finally brought home after fellow fishermen, who went to search for them hiding from the prying eyes of the SL Navy managed to reach them in their boats. The SL navy had refused to allow the fishermen cross the border and had refused to offer any help to rescue the fishermen. Finally, Tamil Nadu fishermen had rescued them till the fishermen from Jaffna managed to reach them, fisheries society representatives in Vadamaraadchi said complaining increased harassments by the SL Navy in the seas off Jaffna and Vanni.
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New refugee vessels head for Australia from Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2012, 20:05 GMT]
Agents involved in human trafficking, backed by influential ministers and personalities of the Rajapaksa government in Colombo, are exploiting the plight of already victimized Tamil youth in the North and East, to brave the Indian Ocean, making a 15-day journey towards Australia in search of a safe life than the genocide designed for them in the island, informed sources in Vadamaraadchi told TamilNet Sunday. A deep-sea fishing vessel has left Inparuddi of Vadamaraadchi, four days ago, carrying at least 15 Tamil youth. Another 20 members have been recruited and the next group is expected to leave the coast of Jaffna or Mullaiththeevu in a couple of days, the sources further said.
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