SLA re-confiscates land ‘declared’ resettled in Jaffna HSZ

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2012, 11:56 GMT]
The Sinhala state occupying the country of Eezham Tamils will never observe any of the ‘reconciliation’ hoodwink it simulates to the outside world. This becomes explicitly evident with the Sri Lanka military re-occupying villages ‘declared’ for resettlement in the Valikaamam High Security Zone, to create an extensive and fenced militarized region along the northern coast of Jaffna, news sources in Jaffna exposed. Several traditional villages of Jaffna in the fertile red-soil belt will be lost forever in the creation of an extensive Sinhala military region in the most strategic and economically important part of the country of Eezham Tamils, and civil officials in Jaffna are gagged to open their mouths on the blatant grab that takes place after showcasing resettlement to the world, news sources further said.
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Tamil Nadu activists caution diaspora of the US-resolution ploy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2012, 00:07 GMT]
Diaspora Tamils, who have witnessed several setbacks, are made to believe that they should welcome and promote anything that looks like a buoy to hold on. This is wrong and Diaspora groups should think before being carried away in an imposed trend to welcome such ploys, opined activists from Tamil Nadu belonging to various shades of polity in a flagship programme, Neethiyin Kural (Voice of Justice), in WinTV on Friday, anchored by CR Baskaran. Thoazhar Thiyagu called the resolution as an escape route being offered to Sri Lankan state by the USA. Professor Dheeran said Tamils should not be trapped once again by the joint ploy of the USA, India and Norway. Oaviyar Pukazheanthi said Tamil organisations had attributed much significance to the Geneva sessions without the knowledge of the outcome and now the draft resolution clearly exposes the agenda seeking bailout of the SL state.
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US-resolution inadequate, India should seize opportunity: New Delhi-based CHRI

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 March 2012, 19:28 GMT]
“The proposed resolution does not go far enough. It will not immediately call for direly needed international investigations — a bitter disappointment. In this context, the proposed resolution must not preclude future UNHRC efforts that demand justice, accountability and international investigations in Sri Lanka. The resolution should be voted on only as a first step in the right direction, and not as a final step to water down scrutiny or as a tactic to delay urgently needed justice in Sri Lanka,” said Maja Daruwala, Director of the New Delhi-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in a feature appeared in The Indian Express, Friday. She urged India to seize the opportunity and sway votes at UNHRC in favour of accountability in Sri Lanka.
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Protest sends away Sri Lanka’s law academic in Tamil Nadu conference

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 March 2012, 09:55 GMT]
Organizers of an international conference at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Thirunelvely, Tamil Nadu, decided to escort out Ms Jeeva Niriella of the Colombo University law faculty through the side door, when barging in protestors accusing Sri Lanka of genocide demanded Jeeva to leave India. The afternoon session of the 3-day conference on Thursday was disrupted to the disbelief and shock of the organisers, reported Times of India on Friday. During the morning session, Ms. Niriella was eulogising ‘women empowerment’ in Sri Lanka, citing Srimao Bandaranayake, world’s first woman prime minister and the current chief justice who is a woman. She was silent to a question about large-scale crimes committed on women in the island.
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SL soldiers clash, killing 3 among them inside camp in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 March 2012, 06:15 GMT]
A clash among the occupying soldiers at a major Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp in the Jaffna peninsula has taken the lives of at least 3 and has injured many on Friday morning, news sources in Jaffna said. The SLA camp is located along the A9 Highway, at Nu'naavil, 5 km south of Chaavakachcheari town. In a territory where the occupying soldiers in the camps often exceed the number of local people, such clashes within the SLA are common, sporadically ending with killings, the sources further said.
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Promote Dublin report, build solidarity, recognize Self-Determination: grassroots activists in UK

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2012, 21:22 GMT]
Grassroots activists of the British Tamil Forum (BTF) and journalists from the UK-based International Association of Tamil Journalists (IATJ), who came together with leftist activists of the Socialist Resistance (SR) and Denmark-based leftist activist Ron Ridenour, in a meeting held in London on Wednesday, resolved to promote the findings of the Dublin Tribunal on Sri Lanka and to give foremost priority to the work on building solidarity with trade unions and progressive groups in the UK on the campaign to recognize Tamils Right to Self-Determination. The meeting which was chaired by Fred Leplat of the SR, also had participants from the NSSP, Sri Lanka.
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World socialists reject both US-backed resolution and Sri Lanka’s opposition

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2012, 17:04 GMT]
“The Obama administration is pushing the resolution as a means of pressuring the Rajapakse government to accommodate US interests and those of India […] At the same time, the Sri Lankan government has mounted a hysterical campaign at home against the supposed “international conspiracy” to tarnish the country’s name […] The bourgeois Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is likewise manoeuvring. It previously condemned the LLRC report, but now calls for the implementation of its recommendations—in line with Washington and New Delhi. The TNA is desperately seeking US and Indian backing for a “political solution”, from which it hopes to benefit […] The Socialist Equality Party rejects both the phony US-backed resolution and the Rajapakse government’s chauvinist campaign against it, said World Socialist Web Site on Wednesday.
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Tamil Nadu Catholic Church reminds umbilical cord relations at Kachchatheevu fete

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2012, 08:42 GMT]
Amidst intense presence of the occupying Sinhala military at Kachcha-theevu during the annual fete of St. Antony on Sunday, the Ramnad diocese of Tamil Nadu Catholic Church that jointly conducts the prayers along with the Jaffna diocese, reminded the umbilical cord relations of the people on either side of the Palk Bay. The theme of this year’s joint prayer by Tamil Nadu and Jaffna Catholic Church was war-torn Eezham Tamils reuniting with their relatives. The commanders of the occupying military were shocked when Fr. Michael of Ramnad, delivering the sermon, deeply felt for the mass killings of Eezham Tamils and death of humanism in the island, and said that the sons of the soil should be released, they should be honoured and they should lead their lives as heroes (Maaveerar).
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Thousands gather in Geneva denouncing deceptive deliberations

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 March 2012, 17:25 GMT]
While the USA and Sri Lanka and their respective blocs at UNHRC squabble whether the LLRC machination against the nation of Eezham Tamils has to be left to Sri Lanka or internationally monitored in implementation, thousands of Eezham Tamils gathered in Geneva on Monday, denounced the deceptive deliberations and demanded international investigation on the genocide, recognition of the sovereignty of the nation of Eezham Tamils and called for a UN-sponsored referendum among Tamils in the island and in the diaspora. The demonstration organized by Walk for Justice and backed by the Tamil Coordination Committees (TCC) of various countries in the Europe also demanded the immediate release of detainees in the island and removal of occupying Sinhala military from the Tamil homeland.
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Sumanthiran, Sritharan contradict reasoning Geneva absentia

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 March 2012, 00:22 GMT]
In a meeting held by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Jaffna on Monday, explaining to the public why the TNA opted out canvassing in Geneva, TNA’s Vanni parliamentarian Sritharan and nominated parliamentarian Sumanthiran came out with contrasting reasons. As the TNA has publicly rejected the LLRC recommendations, is there any point in going to Geneva where the resolution is harping on implementation of the recommendations; won’t it be strengthening the resolution, asked Sritharan. But, Sumanthiran implied that the resolution comes after TNA conferring with the US State Department four months back and that it won’t be diplomatically beneficial to the sponsors of the move if the TNA is present in Geneva.
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West has to concede to Tamils its failure of ‘war crimes–reconciliation’ paradigm

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 March 2012, 07:16 GMT]
The West, especially the USA has to concede to Eezham Tamils that its post-war paradigms of war crimes accountability and reconciliation have failed to bring in solutions from Sri Lanka, commented a new generation Tamil politician in the island, citing the repeated state of affairs at the UNHRC in Geneva. Attitudinal change and fresh thinking in the West should at least now accept the reality of genocide in the island and approach the question from the angle of right to self-determination of the affected nation. Polity of Tamils in the island, diaspora and in Tamil Nadu also should stop playing second fiddle to futile paradigms of others and should stage their own paradigm for their own problem to make it inevitable for the powers, especially India and the USA to listen to, the politician added.
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African Art found in Kayts Island off Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 March 2012, 15:42 GMT]
Head part of a metal sculpture showing features of African Art, discovered while digging a well at Allaippiddi in the Kayts Island off Jaffna, has been brought to the notice of professionals in archaeology by the efforts of a local teacher Nadarajah Vakeesan of Bharathi Vidyalayam. The artefact, found in the Palk Bay side of Kayts, an ancient as well as colonial harbour island, where pottery dating from pre-Christian centuries, a hoard of Chola artefacts and a cargo of Chinese ware dated to 12th century CE have been found earlier, and where some early Islamic and European colonial monuments are also located, now shows its Black African connections too, academics said.
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Land grabbed for Buddhist stupa, local people blocked at Kudumpimalai, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 March 2012, 07:33 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Sinhala military occupying the scenic sacred hillock Kudumpimalai (Baron's Cap) in the Koa'ra'lappattu South Division of the Batticaloa district has not only appropriated five acres of land there to build a Buddhist stupa, but also blocks the local people from entering that area. The occupying military plans to convert the local sacred place of Eezham Tamils and a former jungle stronghold of the LTTE into a tourist place for the Sinhala-Buddhists from the south, informed civil officials of the division told TamilNet. The land has been appropriated at Alli-Oadai junction, 2km south of the hillock and the local people are blocked from going to that junction and beyond it, besides being prevented from entering their grazing lands in the nearby village Tharavai. The name of the junction also has been Sinhalicised similar to the Sinhalicisation of Kudumpimalai into Thoppigala.
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US demand on Sri Lanka is not enough: UNSG Panel of Experts

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2012, 19:08 GMT]
Recalling the 2009 blunder by UN Human Rights Council of praising Sri Lanka for its bloody finish to the civil war and stating that the war in its final days had cost as many as 40,000 deaths, the three UN Secretary General's Expert Panel Members, Marzuki Darusman, Steven Ratner and Yasmin Sooka, on Friday said “it is time for the council to correct its embarrassing decision from 2009.” While crediting US for its efforts, the experts of UN panel said: “Yet such a demand is not enough.” Given Sri Lanka's unwillingness to take concrete steps, the best way to get to the truth is for the council to “create an independent investigative body to determine the facts and identify those responsible, as we recommended in our report,” the trio said in an Op-Ed article published in the New York Times.
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US, Sri Lanka squabble whether hang or slaughter Eezham Tamil Nation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 March 2012, 23:32 GMT]
The LLRC recommendation of the majoritarian and genocidal state of Sri Lanka is clear on the point that ethnic territories cannot exist in the island, and ‘trilingual’ society (ostensibly paving way for total Sinhalcisation) should be achieved by 2020. While Sri Lanka in Geneva sessions wants implementation of its agenda left completely to itself, the US-backed resolution seeks international endorsement to the LLRC recommendations and international commitment from Sri Lanka in the implementation and phases. In an exclusive interview to Ceylon Today on Thursday, the US ambassador in Colombo, Patricia Butanis praising the LLRC for coming out with “some excellent recommendations,” argued why then the qualms in publicly committing to implementation. The squabble is just on whether publicly hang or secretly slaughter the Tamil nation, commented an Eezham Tamil politician.
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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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Marie Colvin remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 21:06 GMT]
Tamil journalists from various media organizations came together on Monday in Jaffna with civil society members and student representatives of various faculties of the Jaffna University, to pay tribute to the slain war correspondent in Syria, Marie Colvin, who had been in the island covering the conflict earlier. Paying floral tribute, the event, organized by Nimalarajan Memorial Foundation, remembered the late Marie Colvin as a Journalist Friend of Tamils. Meanwhile, remembering Marie Colvin in the diaspora, the London-based International Association of Tamil Journalists came out with a tribute last Thursday, saluting her courage, discipline and commitment to her work and to humanity.
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DDoS attack disrupts TamilNet web traffic

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 23:14 GMT]
Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack (DDoS), identified by the service provider of TamilNet as originating in an orchestrated way from certain affluent parts of the world, has been disrupting web traffic of TamilNet.com since Saturday. The attack on the independent media reporting to the world on Tamil affairs coincides with the opening of the 19th sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in Geneva on Monday, where the USA and Sri Lanka have already pitched positions in hijacking the focus of issues concerning the cause of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils. TamilNet has been forced to seek expert services in regularising the web traffic. As a media arguing for Eezham Tamil public to take up the issues into their hands, TamilNet depends on the support of nobody other than the Tamil masses and the alternative world.
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SLA, paramilitary, force Tamils in Batticaloa to take part in anti-UN protests

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 22:26 GMT]
SLA operated paramilitary operatives, dispatched by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa, visited the Village Development Council (VDC) leaders in various villages in the district on Monday instructing the heads of the VDCs to have at least 150 people to get on board the buses they would be bringing to transport civilians against their will to march from Batticaloa Hindu College to the Clock Tower in Batticaloa city. The heads of VDCs were told that they would have to resign their posts if they failed to meet the demand. The people, gathered against their will were then taken to Batticaloa city and were forced to burn the effigy of US President Barack Obama and to chant slogans against the UNHRC session taking place in Geneva.
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SL colonial governor coordinates anti-UN demonstration of SLFP, EPDP in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2012, 16:41 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s colonial governor, Maj. Gen. G. A. Chandrasri was seen coordinating the two factions collaborating with the Rajapaksa regime, the Angkayan-led SLFP and Douglas Devananda-led EPDP, in staging a simulated demonstration in Jaffna and Vanni against UNHRC discussing Sri Lanka in Geneva on Monday. The simulation forced in sections and individuals waiting for benefits from the Colombo regime. An attendance register was maintained for the participants. However, a media clip that captured comments of a passing-by youth street vendor, universally encapsulated the game on the island. The youth told the unemployed graduates in the ‘demonstration’: “I am not educated like you to perform this act.” The youth has not said that to the ‘demonstrators’ alone, commented media circles witnessing the scene in Jaffna.
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