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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Nimalarajan murder-suspect rapes and kills 13-year-old girl, villagers enraged

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 March 2012, 23:06 GMT]
An EPDP paramilitary operative on Saturday raped and killed a 13-year-old student of Neduntheevu Maha Viththiyaalayam, Jesudasan Lakshini, triggering anger among the villagers of Neduntheevu (Delf), an islet off Jaffna. The villages encircled the camps of the Sri Lanka Navy and the SL Police on Sunday and demanded that the civilian representatives of the islet should be present to monitor that investigations were being carried out. The suspect was earlier arrested in connection with Nimalarajan killing, but escaped legal processing with the backing of SL Police, the residents alleged.
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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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Colombo demarcates new Batticaloa villages for Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 February 2012, 22:27 GMT]
The Colombo government has been engaged in creating new villages for Sinhalese who are being brought down from the south to the Eastern Province. The SL government authorities have set aside around 25,000 acres of land in Vavu'natheevu in Batticaloa district under the pretext of allowing members of the so-called Sri Lanka Civil Defence Force, who are Sinhala home guards trained to colonise Tamil land by the Sri Lankan military, to do cultivation. Hundred percent of the paramilitary home guards in the unit receiving the lands in Batticaloa are Sinhalese.
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Buddhist monk on Sinhalicisation project in Batticaloa causes ethnic disharmony

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 23:55 GMT]
Venerable Ambitiya Sumanarathna Thera, the head of the Buddhist temple in Batticaloa, who conducted a fast-unto-death campaign in the year 2010 demanding Colombo to post Sinhala officers to all government departments in the predominantly Tamil-speaking district, has been waging a new fast-unto-death campaign from Tuesday this week. The new campaign is targeted against Tamils, who have been demanding resettlement in their occupied lands by documenting their land deeds. The monk, putting forward a false claim that officials in Batticaloa were issuing false land deeds to Tamils, claimed that the lands belonged to Sinhalese. He ended the fast-unto-death campaign after Colombo's paramilitary operative and a deputy minister in Rajpaksa's cabinet, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, met the prelate and promised to forward his appeal to SL President on Wednesday.
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SL Minister Devananda threatens to attack journalists of Jaffna daily

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 February 2012, 16:45 GMT]
“I told my [paramilitary] boys to beat up these journalists. But, the boys are not paying attention. It seems I have to go in person and do it to make these journalists behave,” was the newest controversial comment by SL Minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda on Thursday evening at a meeting held at Jaffna District Secretariat, where he was talking to unemployed graduates who were demanding employment. The spontaneous comment by Mr. Devananda came when SL military governor's secretary informed him of a news item that appeared in the Jaffna edition of Thinakkural exposing the diversion of funds allocated to development of schools in Vanni to the highly showcased construction of swimming pool which was declared opened by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Illegal sand mining continues in East with Colombo backing

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 February 2012, 23:48 GMT]
Sri Lankan presidential sibling and ‘development’ minister Basil Rajapaksa, through an officer working in the Geological Unit of the District Secretariat of Batticaloa, has given permit to a Sinhala businessman N.T.I.Tilakaretna, a Sinhalese. The move was also backed by the Sri Lankan Government Agent in Batticaloa, according to civil sources at the Batticaloa District Secretariat. Tilakaretna has been allowing tractors to remove sand from the river after obtaining 2,000 rupees per tractor. Ten percent of the money goes to Basil Rajapakse and 5 percent is being given to the Officer-in-Charge of the SLA army camp at Mu'rakkoddaagn-cheanai, the sources further said.
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Krishna visit patterns Indo-Sri Lanka deceit on Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 January 2012, 21:23 GMT]
There was no enthusiasm or expectation in Jaffna on the recent visit by India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna, media circles said. Civil groups in Jaffna also reflected the same opinion. Just as the visits of MK Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon patterned the course of the genocidal war, the visits of the Indian dignitaries in the subsequent phase show a pattern in consolidating the structural genocide of the nation of Eezham Tamils in order to facilitate overlapping interests of India's imperialism and the militarized Sinhala state in the island. Rather than pointlessly expecting India's 'development' help or 'mediation' role, all shades of Tamil polity should firmly demand India to get out, if India's imperialism is incapable of finding any overlapping interest in conceding the right to self determination of the genocide-affected nation of Eezham Tamils, civil circles in Jaffna said.
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JVP student faction seeks Tamil youth for military inspiration: SL Minister

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 January 2012, 02:31 GMT]
Calling themselves as a student group, a group of the factionalised JVP is seeking to exploit former LTTE cadres in its search for military inspiration and the group is targeting to exploit the Tamil students for a military cause, claimed S.B. Dissanayake, the SL minister of Education, who has been visiting the islets of Jaffna and the University of Jaffna with the backing of EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, who is also a minister in the cabinet of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Commenting on the statement by the SL minister, who met some students at the University of Jaffna, student circles in Jaffna said the comment has exposed the level of paranoia prevailing in the Colombo establishment that has used its military to abduct two JVPers who are still missing.
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SL paramilitary in Jaffna monopolises cable TV market at gunpoint

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 January 2012, 06:10 GMT]
Hundreds of private cable operators, who have been supplying cable Television covering the villages of Jaffna for years have been harassed and coerced into working under a paramilitary operated cable operator, MBL Cable Network, in Jaffna. Independent operators who were operating their own dishes and distributing television channels to private consumers were told that their business was illegal and they have to buy the channels and lease the network being established by the paramilitary company that had exclusive ‘government permission’. However, those who were in the competing business and argued that there was no such ‘exclusive permission’ obtained by the MBL continued to operate on their own. But, now they are being threatened. Alexkumar Balasundaram, a cable provider who operates from Kokkuvil with 10-year-experience, says he was threatened Saturday at gunpoint.
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EPDP accused of post-2006 killings as SLFP-EPDP feud escalates in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 January 2012, 23:58 GMT]
Pandemonium prevailed and Police was called to manage the altercation during a Jaffna Municipal Council meeting Friday when Nishanthan, an ex-member of the Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP), and currently functioning under ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) label, accused EPDP of carrying out abductions, extortions, and gruesome killings that occurred in Jaffna after the breakdown of the peace process in 2006 under Sri Lanka military occupation, sources in Jaffna said. Nishanthan was a key activist within EPDP when EPDP was functioning as an armed-paramilitary unit under the command of Sri Lanka military intelligence. The exposé of EPDP complicity in killings was a manifestation of brewing infighting between the members of the EPDP and SLFP within the Jaffna Municipal Council, political observers in Jaffna said.
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TamilNet releases LTTE documents of 2006 talks

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 December 2011, 16:34 GMT]
A set of documents prepared by the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat during Geneva peace talks held in February 2006, in June 2006 in Oslo and in October 2006 in Geneva, some of which have not yet reached public domain, are being released by TamilNet to facilitate a deeper understanding of the peace process and its eventual collapse. While 2011 has been a "year of reports," the UN panel report, Norway’s ‘Pawns of Peace’, the genocide model LLRC report etc., the LTTE documents provide valuable insight into the Tigers' efforts undertaken to fulfill LTTE's commitment to the International Community. Though groups such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) reject the application of the concept of "earned sovereignty" to Eezham Tamils, the documents prepared by the Peace Secretariat show how the concept was validated in practice by the LTTE.
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UPFA goons attack on Mullaiththeevu district accountant draws protest

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 December 2011, 08:17 GMT]
The employees at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat on Thursday staged a token strike protesting against the attack by UPFA goons on the accountant of the District Secretariat of Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. A five-member group of Colombo's ruling UPFA Wednesday around 7:30 p.m. entered the office of the accountant, S. Jeyakumar and attacked him. Mr. Jeyakumar has been voicing against the political interference and against the misappropriation of the funds taking place in the district, informed sources told media. The sources alleged involvement of various personalities associated with Rajapaksa establishment with vested interests, ranging from SL minister Rishad Bathiutheen to the Mullaiththeevu coordinator of North East Housing Rehabilitation Project (NEHRP) and the Puthukkudiyiruppu SLFP organiser for intervening in the affairs of the District Secretariat.
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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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Protestors force SL military to open cremation ground in HSZ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 December 2011, 18:51 GMT]
Resettled Tamils in the eastern part of Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) on Tuesday staged a spontaneous protest against the Sri Lanka military demanding the right of the dead to be cremated in their own cremation ground. The protestors threatening to carry the casket of one of their relatives to the cremation ground blocked the main access route of the SL military, demanding the occupying army to open the route to the cemetery. Although the SL military blocked more than a hundred villagers, who attempted to take forward the casket to the cremation ground, the military hierarchy was forced to allow the villagers to reach the cremation ground through an alternative route as the protest lasted for more than 3 hours. The elected TNA members of the civic body in KKS joined the protest, which is described as first of its kind agitation in the SL occupied Jaffna.
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Tragedy of US policy on Sri Lanka's war crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 December 2011, 00:02 GMT]
The Obama Administration has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to human rights and dignity and rule of law and has largely delivered on its promise -- most notably in the context of the Arab Spring, commented Tamil legal activists in the United States. Tragically, they observed, the US administration has failed dismally in the case of Sri Lanka, with catastrophic consequences (a) to the many tens of thousands of Tamil civilians killed whom the US knowingly failed to protect, under Blake architected policy on Sri Lanka, during and after the war; (b) to the credibility of US commitment to universal human rights, democracy and rule of law, and to justice and national reconciliation in Sri Lanka; and (c) to the integrity of international human rights and humanitarian law.
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SLA steps up harassment on University students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 December 2011, 12:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army deployed hundreds of soldiers around the University of Jaffna Thursday evening harassing the students by checking everyone at the two main entries to the University throughout the evening and night. The latest move comes following the death threats issued to 8 named student activists and three lecturers of the Jaffna University. The students who were at the office of the Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) were questioned by the SLA forcing them to leave the site. Checking was carried out at the entry to Balasingham male hostel, situated 300 meters away from the University and the SL military personnel were deployed on all the four sides of the University premises.
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UK to return refused Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 December 2011, 17:44 GMT]
Despite ongoing concerns over risks of torture in Sri Lanka, including to Tamils returning to Sri Lanka, the UK government continues to remove refused Sri Lankan asylum seekers, with a charter flight planned for 15 December, a UK-based activist group, Freedom from Torture (FfT) said. The group has recently launched a public action calling on the UK government to take urgent steps to ensure that they are not returning anyone to a serious risk of torture in Sri Lanka following its publication of forensically-documented evidence of ongoing torture in Sri Lanka.
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SLA grabs 3,500 acres of land in Batticaloa for Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 December 2011, 17:28 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa declared on Wednesday that it has taken over around 3500 acres of graze land located in Koa'ralaipttu South DS division in Batticaloa district for military purposes proclaiming the area as High Security Zone (HSZ). The SL Army has ordered the dairy farmers to remove their cattle immediately away from the lands. The said land was declared graze land by gazette notification in the year 1978. While the Batticaloa SLA Brigadier has said that the graze land area declared HSZ had been taken over by the SLA for military training purpose, Tamil farmers in the area complain say that the SLA move in declaring the area as HSZ was aimed at agricultural colonization by the Sinhalese with military protection.
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