Eezham Tamil politicians not issued with Indian visa until Thursday

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 August 2012, 04:38 GMT]
Just one working day left for the commencement of the TESO conference convened by the DMK chief Mr. M. Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu, the Eezham Tamil political leaders of the TNA and TNPF were yet to be given with visa by the Indian High Commission in Colombo, news sources in the island said. Mr. Sampanthan and Mr. Maavai Senadhiraja told news sources that the DMK chief had personally talked to them over the phone in extending invitation and they had agreed to go. However, sources close to them said that besides not getting the visa, the TNA leaders are heavily pressurized to stay away. TNPF leaders said that they would go if the visa is issued. Mr. Mano Ganeshan cancelled the visit after not getting the visa. Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne’s visa was rejected, but he was later told to resubmit the passport. Visa is yet to be decided for him.
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TNA should check Colombo using PCs to hoodwink Geneva: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, 07:00 GMT]
Retracting from statements following Shiv Shankar Menon’s recent visit, about holding Northern Provincial Council (PC) elections in September, Colombo plans to hold it in 2013 February to time an escape showcase at Geneva in March. The PC tactics of Colombo to hoodwink the world that Tamils are contented with the unitary model should have been countered by TNA actions on September this year’s Eastern PC elections itself. But they have decided to directly participate in it. They should at least now indicate in the manifesto the Tamil rejection of the unitary model, their aspirations for a combined North and East and solutions based on recognition of the nation of Tamils and its right to self-determination, for the people to vote with a cause and to tell the world of that cause, said civil activist Guruparan Kumaravadivel of Jaffna University’s Law Department, speaking to media on Monday.
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TNA should reject PC model, field independents in East elections: TNPF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 July 2012, 22:15 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should demonstrate to the world the Tamil rejection of the Provincial Council model of the 13th Amendment by not participating in the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) elections, but the TNA could field a front of independent candidates to meet the political challenge of the times. The candidate list already prepared could go as an independent list with a specific political message on the cause to the people, said Gajendrakumar Ponnampalam of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), presiding over a press conference in Jaffna on Saturday. The TNPF promised support to the TNA in any such move. In the meantime, former TNA parliamentarian and TELO leader M.K Sivajilingam urged the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the TNA to field candidates jointly. It is time for the East to have a Muslim chief minister, who is also elected by Tamils, he told TamilNet.
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Sushma casts false impression on 35 years of mandated Eezham Tamil aspiration

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2012, 17:13 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, addressing her party convention in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, and citing TNA leader R. Sampanthan, implied that Tamils in the island don’t ask for independence but only some political parties in Tamil Nadu want it. The same line of thinking came out from the representatives of the ruling Congress led by Sonia Gandhi and the CPI-M as well, who participated in a parliamentary delegation visit to the island that was boycotted by mainstream political parties in Tamil Nadu. Undertaking a six-day tour guided by Colombo and New Delhi’s plenipotentiary in the island, Sushma has no right to give a false impression to the Indian public on the mandated and re-mandated aspiration of Eezham Tamils in the last 35 years inside and outside of the island, responded a veteran Tamil politician in the island.
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Let Rajapaksa try waving Lion Flag along with KP: Ranil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 May 2012, 07:28 GMT]
UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, holding the Lion Flag of genocidal Sri Lankan state along with TNA leader R. Sampanthan in Jaffna on Tuesday, challenged SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he could try doing the same with Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP who is in captivity of the regime. While the need of the times is for Tamils to forge alliance with the Muslims in making an alternative State for the Tamil-speaking people in the North and East, Mr Wickramasinghe recollected Sir Ponnampalam Ramanathan bailing out the Sinhala leaders indicted by the British for a pogrom against the Muslims in 1915. Muslims to this day regard it as a treachery of Colombo-centric Tamils and Sinhalese against them.
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Sampanthan, Ranil, satisfy agenda of New Delhi, Washington

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 18:11 GMT]
A photograph in which TNA leader Sampathan and UNP leader Ranil Wikremasinghe hold the Lion Flag of the genocidal state of Sri Lanka together, during the May Day rally in Jaffna, Tuesday, has caused much sensation in the island and outside. While the programme was at its height and the show of solidarity was entering into photographic sessions, all of a sudden Ranil produced the Lion Flag and wanted Sampathan to hold it, observers to the programme said. While the UNP has brought down around 10,000 Sinhalese from the south, on the TNA’s side, only less than a hundred, that too only the members of the civic bodies participated the procession and meeting, news sources in Jaffna said.
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UNP-TNA May Day rally in Jaffna fails to draw in local support

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 14:45 GMT]
If the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the United National Party (UNP) of the Sinhala state, and whatever the international forces behind them, have thought of probing the Tamil minds about a future partnership between the parties through a May Day show, then the Eezham Tamils in Jaffna have totally rejected the idea by not showing local participation to their joint May Day rally. The local people didn’t come out even to watch the fun of roughly 10,000 Sinhalese brought down from the South by the UNP marching through the streets of Jaffna. While more than 80 buses were engaged in plying between the South and Jaffna in bringing down UNP politicians and their supporters, the Tamils seen in the rally on the side of the TNA were numbering less than a hundred, confined to the TNA members of the civic bodies, news sources in Jaffna said.
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UK deportee killed while Tamil Nadu returnees arrested in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2012, 11:41 GMT]
A 28-year-old Tamil man, recently deported from UK was found killed in Trincomalee on 18 April, news sources in the district told TamilNet Saturday. In the meantime, in a systematic combing operation launched by the special units of Colombo's military and police establishments, up to 300 Tamil males and females have been ‘arrested’ and sent to military detention camps in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa since last Saturday. Among the victims are also people who have recently returned from Tamil Nadu and they too have now ended up in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa, the sources in Trincomalee further said.
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India’s CPI-M cites gagged Eezham Tamils in negating their independence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2012, 07:06 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday defended its parliamentarian TK Rangarajan saying that Eezham Tamils don’t ask for independence. Citing statements of politicians gagged in the island as authentic expression of the minds of Eezham Tamils and endorsing Rangarajan’s negation of Eezham Tamil independence, the CPI-M state secretary G. Ramakrishnan argued against the current stand of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his criticism for Rangarajan. If the CPI-M is truly a party of oppressed people, and a party valuing true democracy, it should first demand removal of the Sri Lankan constitutional ban on talking about secession to help people and their politicians to talk from their heart, and it should support a referendum, rather than imposing conclusions of genocidal Establishments, said an Eezham Tamil politician having no freedom to even reveal his name.
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India shows urgency in ‘ready-cash’ returns for ready abetment in genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 April 2012, 18:38 GMT]
The Indian parliamentary delegation’s statement in Colombo, differing nothing from what the Congress regime, its bureaucrats and intelligence officials say, but designed to come through the Opposition Leader, shows New Delhi’s urgency in getting ready-cash returns apart from showing how the multiparty parliament is manipulated by some forces to follow a particular line of thinking leading to the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils, commented a new generation Tamil politician in the island. The unity of the Congress, BJP and the CPI-M in this respect has to be carefully scrutinized by Tamil Nadu people and political parties in unity, in planning the composition of the next parliament and in extracting a genuine change in the thinking of the next government, he commented.
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SL colonial governor, EPDP, intrigue against Indian delegation

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 April 2012, 05:58 GMT]
While displaying a big show with welcoming posters particularly aimed at pleasing Sushma Swaraj, and with a dominated presence in receiving the Indian delegation, the SL colonial governor in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and SL minister Douglas Devananda, on the other hand played intrigues against the delegation, which were thwarted by the Deputy High Commission of India in Jaffna, news sources in Jaffna said. The delegation cancelled visiting Nalloor Kandasamy temple after being tipped on Devananda orchestrating a fishermen agitation in front of the temple during its planned visit. The SL governor ordered the secretariat officials not to attend a meeting convened by the delegation. On Thursday, the Sinhala colonial governor accused India for the delay in the construction of houses promised to the war victims.
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Indian delegation disappoints civil representatives in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 23:53 GMT]
Civil representatives in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday said that they were not provided any opportunity to meet and convey the plight of resettled Tamils in the district to the visiting delegation of Indian parliamentarians led by Mrs Sushma Swaraj. The Tamil representatives belonging to several civil organisations in the district had been invited and were waiting for a long time since 10:00 a.m. to meet the delegation. But, no meeting took place. The visiting delegation was taken on a ‘guided tour’ giving priority to inaugurations and distributing gifts. The Congress group of the delegation which came late to the opening ceremony of a housing scheme was seen quarrelling with the group of parliamentarians led by Mrs Sushma Swaraj of the BJP, who had declared the scheme open, news sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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Gandhi, Vipulananda, Poet Periyathampi, Baden-Powell desecrated in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 April 2012, 07:27 GMT]
The statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vipulananda, Pulavarma'ni Periyathampi-pi'l'lai and Baden-Powell revered by Eezham Tamils in the heart of Batticaloa city have been desecrated and destroyed in the early hours of Friday. The statues of Gandhi and the founder of Scout Movement Robert Baden-Powell are located near the clock tower in the city centre. Renowned Tamil scholar and Hindu reformer Swami Vipulananda and Tamil Poet Pulavarma'ni Periyathampi Pi'l'lai, both were born in the Eastern Province. All the four statues are located within the perimeters of the high security area manned by the SL Police and the SL Army in the city. The latest desecration of statues comes as a result of anti-Indian and anti-western sentiments shown by the occupying Sinhala forces in the East, political observers said.
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Conforming to mandate more important than getting offices of position: Suresh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2012, 23:54 GMT]
It was a last resort for the democratic political struggle of Thanthai Chelva to call for the independence of Tamil Eelam in 1976, after a series of political deceits and finally his 6-point demand following the 1972 constitution to resolve the Tamil question within a united Sri Lanka was also rejected, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, while speaking at the 114th birth anniversary of SJV Chelvanayakam in Jaffna on Saturday. But after Tamils paying a heavy price in the armed struggle only the world has now started looking at the issue, which has now become international. TNA has the mandate and responsibility at a crucial time and it should not make even a small slip. Petty offices of position are not the answer to the price paid by our people. We are conscious of the mandate given to us by our people, he further said.
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We always requested international investigation: TNA’s Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 March 2012, 18:40 GMT]
“We have been to various countries like United State of America, Great Britain, Canada and South Africa, and we requested those countries that there must be an international investigation on the accountability, because the LLRC report does not have anything about the accountability as such,” said TNA parliamentarian Mr Suresh Premachandran in conducting a press meet at the TNA office, which is also the EPRLF office, in Jaffna on Sunday. On TNA’s talks with the SL government, Premachandran said Colombo has not yet fulfilled an understanding between Sampanthan and Rajapaksa that a bilateral agreement on solutions should precede before the TNA naming participants to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC). Without third party mediation the talks are futile, as SL doesn’t want to settle the problem through power sharing, Premachandran said.
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Enragement over US-India stand results in Sumanthiran-effigy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 February 2012, 23:44 GMT]
The nominated parliamentarian of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) M.A. Sumanthiran faced the brunt of public enragement in Jaffna on Wednesday, for reflecting the stand of the USA and India, in handing over even the last of the trumps of Eezham Tamils to Sri Lankan state, by internalizing war-crimes accountability and political solution. Washington allegedly backs proposals at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva that will give international legitimacy to the LLRC hoodwink of Colombo and whatever the differences with New Delhi backing Colombo that could only be related to binding Colombo with a time frame for the implementation of the LLRC recommendations. Meanwhile, the stands of both the Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa and the DMK Chief Karunanidhi are also just confined to urging New Delhi to back the US proposal in Geneva that is ‘perceived’ to be against Sri Lanka.
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TNA tries to sell Indo-US pre-emption to Eezham Tamil civil society

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2012, 14:45 GMT]
Accepting the implementation of the 13th Amendment that is already in Sri Lanka’s constitution and failed to meet Tamil aspirations, was the subject matter the TNA was trying to impress upon the representatives of the Eezham Tamil civil society, in a meeting that took place in Vavuniyaa for five hours on Saturday. Eezham Tamils should not ‘hang on’ to their right to self-determination was the argument of a Colombo-based lawyer backing the stand of TNA leader R. Sampanthan, while this right was the very basis of the struggle of Eezham Tamils in the last sixty years, democratically as well as militarily, civil society circles told TamilNet. Many of the civil society representatives, especially from the East and Mannaar requested the TNA to conceive better ideas to bring in an interim administration for the North and East to face the current situation.
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Sumanthiran comes forward to save Rajapaksa from international investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 01:47 GMT]
A few days left to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the Colombo-based nominated parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran, has come out with a statement to BBC Sinhala Service on Tuesday, bailing out the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. “TNA backs a domestic process to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of that,” Sumanthiran said. “It is a step-by-step process. It will take time. They took 30 years in Cambodia,” the BBC further cited the MP, who welcomed the ‘US pressure’ on the SL government. Meanwhile, the visiting US Under Secretary General of State, Maria Otero, told reporters in Colombo on Monday that the US will support a resolution at the UNHRC providing an opportunity for Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations.
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Tamils must remind Britain of its obligations on February 04: Brian Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2012, 12:05 GMT]
February 4th, the day Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) got so-called “Independence” from Britain in 1948, is a day for action, not regret or mourning. “The betrayal of the Tamils by the British cannot be ignored. If it is, then Britain must be reminded of its moral, legal and ethical obligations, to ‘do the right thing’, by the Tamils even belatedly,” says Dr. Brian Senewiratne in an article he has authored on the so-called independence of Ceylon on 04 February 1948. “It is no exaggeration to say that on 4 February, 1948, ‘Independence’ was granted to the Sinhalese to do what they wanted to the Tamils. Britain could not care less, as long as the military bases were secure and the (British) tea estates remained under Sinhalese capitalist control, to supply tea at absurdly low prices to fill the British cup.”
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Indian FM exerts pressure on TNA, wants Sampanthan in Rajapaksa's PSC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 January 2012, 18:11 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance has been pressurised by the visiting Indian Foreign Minister S. Krishna to take part in the SL Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), sources close to TNA told TamilNet Wednesday. At the same time, demanding the TNA to come through the PSC farse, the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's delegation that has been engaging with the TNA in fruitless talks, boycotted scheduled talks this time for the second day. Reacting to the behaviour of the Sri Lankan government, which has failed to meet the TNA as scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr. M.K. Sivajilingam, the political leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), which is a constituent party of the TNA, said Wednesday that the Tamil alliance should at least now realise that there is no point in talking about the 13 amendment, or something plus or minus to it.
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