Colombo’s colonial rule, TNA and diaspora frustrate people in the Tamil country

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 December 2011, 00:07 GMT]
From allowing blatant burglary and fleecing businesses to harassing people and making money from fabricated petty offences, the Sinhala military, police and officials of occupying Sri Lanka aim to frustrate Tamils to make them leave their country, said a feature by S.M. Thiyagarajah appeared in Tamil media on Saturday. There are deeper political reasons in depriving Tamils of their self-respect and imbibing a feeling of insecurity in them, the article further said. Meanwhile, citing Prof. SK Sitrampalam speaking on Thursday, The Virakesari’s weekly editor V. Thevaraj wrote that Colombo-centric elements in the TNA and collaborative sections in the diaspora disappoint Tamils in the island. Tamils should be united against once again falling into traps by succumbing to collaboration and dearth of leadership, he further said.
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Maathakal protests Sri Lanka’s Naval base

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2011, 23:22 GMT]
A major coastal village Maathakal in Jaffna staged a protest on Monday against occupying Sri Lanka building an extensive naval base there by confiscating private lands of Eezham Tamils. Maathakal is the closest point of Jaffna to Point Calimere (Koadikkarai) in the Tamil Nadu coast across the Palk Strait. The base is a security threat not only to Eezham Tamils but also to Tamil Nadu as well as to India, but New Delhi and Colombo seem to think Tamils on either side of the Palk Strait as ‘common enemies’, commented a geopolitical analyst in Jaffna. In recent times, occupying SL is silently expanding its naval bases in other points of the Palk Bay too, at Kaarainakar, Kayts, Ma’ndaitheevu, Delft and Oora’ni by confiscating private lands. Meanwhile Sri Lanka that has no claim over Bay of Bengal without the country of Eezham Tamils it occupies, is entertained in Indian dominated BIMSTEC.
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Law to take over private lands in Tamil Homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Whilst the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has been in the past taking over lands in the Tamil Homeland under the guise of High security Zones (HSZ) they have now surreptitiously introduced a Bill in the Parliament to amend the ‘Town and Country Planning Ordinance’ in an effort to take over even private lands belonging to Tamils in Tamil dominated areas under various religious and historical pretexts, writes a legal practitioner and human rights activist in the Eastern Province.
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War crime litigations reach crucial phase in US courts

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 December 2011, 20:19 GMT]
Civil cases against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse and Shavendra Silva, an ex-army commander and currently Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) are waiting next round of decisions from the District Court of District of Columbia and District Court of Southern District of New York respectively, legal sources monitoring the progress of the cases said. The Rajapakse case awaits decision if the court can "force" Rajapakse to answer and engage with the Court. Shavendra case awaits decision from the SDNY judge on Silva's Motion to dismiss.
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Norway funds Sri Lanka ministry

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 December 2011, 10:52 GMT]
The Norwegian embassy in Colombo has contributed 18.5 million Rupees to Sri Lanka’s Child Development and Women’s Affairs ministry to improve mobility of Women Development Officers and to display billboards in prominent places, a press release from the Norwegian embassy in Colombo said on Friday. Norway at times had to “buy peace” through aid, observed Norway’s assessment report of the failed peace process released last month, cautioning “Aid may play a supportive role in peace process, but cannot short-circuit complex political processes.” Aid cannot be a substitute for politics, the report further said. But the Norwegian government is now interested in buying inroads into ‘Victor’s Sri Lanka’, forgetting its responsibilities to the victims of its peace process, diaspora political observers said.
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NZ assures support for IC justice and accountability to war victims

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 December 2011, 20:01 GMT]
“New Zealand remains willing to co-operate with the international community in considering appropriate investigative mechanisms to bring justice and accountability to the victims of the Sri Lankan war,” said New Zealand’s foreign minister Murray McCully, on Thursday, in a letter addressed to Tamil Forum in New Zealand. The UNSG panel report is likely to be discussed at the March Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, he further said in the letter.
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Wider public participation marks Heroes Day in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 December 2011, 11:34 GMT]
It became clear on the eve of Heroes Day, Sunday, that ruling circles in India join hands with genocidal Colombo in denying Tamils the right to remember their fallen freedom fighters. Yet the day was observed with a marked positive difference in Tamil Nadu this time. Public and grassroot initiatives replaced political party organized mass gatherings, and there was wider and spontaneous participation of a social cross-section: from workers and farmers to communities in business, education and professions. “If Tamils have contributed anything memorable to human civilization in their contemporary history that was the paradigm-setting stand taken by the Eezham Tamil heroes, defying injustice of all the world Establishments,” commented an 85-year-old Marxist who spent a life time for the communist movement in the diaspora and in the home country, ever since he was 16.
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US-UK axis drags EU into endorsing militarisation of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 December 2011, 21:12 GMT]
USA and the UK are primarily responsible for endorsing Sri Lanka’s military rule and military solution to the national question of Tamils. Europe is unwillingly manipulated by the US-British axis, says a feedback from a Sinhala reader to the feature “West endorses ethno-military rule, military solution: Tamil civil groups,” appeared in TamilNet, Thursday. The feedback cites the instance that the ‘Friend of Sri Lanka’ EU parliamentarian, Geoferey Van Orden, who went on ‘fact-finding’ to Jaffna and came up with appreciation to Hathurusinghe’s military reconciliation, is actually a Eurosceptic British Conservative Party member who was earlier serving in the British military intelligence corps.
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‘Rehabilitation’ means mental torture in open prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 December 2011, 19:18 GMT]
For former liberation fighters and their active supporters who were ‘released’ after the war, the so-called rehabilitation means servitude under SL military and mental torture in open prison, news reports from the SL-occupied country of Eezham Tamils said. The latest sanction against them is that they were warned by the SL military not to try going abroad for any reason. If caught at the airport their lives are not guaranteed, they were told. Instructed to report often to SL military intelligence units, they have been repeatedly told not to talk to media, not to discuss anything with the public and not to attend to any public gatherings. Most of the former liberation fighters are already under mental stress from the ‘brain washing’ sessions before the so-called release. Now they are forced to live a completely isolated life.
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West endorses ethno-military rule, military solution: Tamil civil groups

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 December 2011, 11:39 GMT]
Civil society organisations in the country of Eezham Tamils are enraged at foreign diplomats visiting their country confining the purposes of the visits primarily to meeting the commanders of the occupying Sinhala military but not the civil society. While genocidal Sri Lanka conjures ’normalcy’ has come to Tamils, the gesture of these diplomats is a tacit endorsement to the ethnic-shaded military rule and military solution. Those who delay international justice, sit on international responsibilities, and talk about ‘domestic’ solutions are not honest. They only mean ‘remote controlled’ military solution, and that is what in the minds of the core sections of the Establishments that deploy cosmetic talk of human rights as a cover, the civil groups accused. They are particularly enraged at the conduct of the US, UK and EU diplomats.
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Whether history is different to Tamils and Sinhalese, asks Jaffna academic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 06:38 GMT]
A single event that took place in the University of Jaffna on the Heroes Day, Sunday, has captivated the minds of Tamils all over the world, more than the diaspora functions marked by ever increasing participation of people but in some instances showing hijack aimed at dividing, capturing and ‘softening’ the struggle by the very forces against whom the spirit of the Day was meant for. Amidst all the oppression against the Day, by genocidal Sri Lanka backed by imperialism especially the Indian one, unidentified people lit the Heroes Day flame atop a tall building in the Jaffna University to shine like a star of hope. The Sinhala brethren should understand the event in the same vein of they take pride in Sri Sumangala hoisting the lion flag in Dalada Maligawa even after the British conquest of Kandy, an academic in Jaffna said.
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Malaysian Tamils remember Eezham Tamil heroes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 06:23 GMT]
In an emotionally charged gathering organized by Chem-paruththi (Hibiscus flower) Movement and World Tamil Relief Fund in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday evening, Malaysian Tamils observed the Heroes Day, paying tribute to the Eezham Tamil heroes laid down their lives in the struggle for independence as well as remembering more than a hundreds thousand Tamil civilians deliberately killed in the war.
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Colombo plans to annex Tamil border villages in Batticaloa with Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 20:21 GMT]
Colombo government has been planning to Sinhalicise about fifteen to twenty thousand acres of lands located along the border Tamil villages in the Batticaloa district from the administration of Batticaloa district to Ampaa'rai district secretariat, according to local district officials in Batticaloa. As a first step in the plan, six villages with vast natural resources in the Kachchai-kodith-theevu GN division in Paddippazhai DS division of Batticaloa district are to be annexed with the Ampaa'rai district. During the last two years, 108 Sinhalese families have encroached lands that belong to 114 Tamil families in Kevu'liyamadu, one of the villages to be transferred to Ampaa'rai, in the latest move of demographic genocide on the country of Eezham Tamils.
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Record turnout as Canada Heroes Day event asserts sovereignty

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 12:07 GMT]
More than 70,000 Canadian Tamils paid homage to heroes at the Toronto Heroes Day event organized by the Canadian Tamil Remembrance Organization (CTRO) Sunday. Conducted in four sessions in a make-shift venue, emotions were high and messages were clear. Despite threats of manufactured divisions towards the event, organizers came under the banner of CTRO for the importance of a strong display of unity. The event was marked with heart-touching cultural programmes reflecting on national unity amongst Eezham Tamils, highlighting successes and rejecting strategies of division in moving forward.
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‘Tamil Sovereignty Cognition Declaration a conceptual reference point’

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 November 2011, 18:59 GMT]
The Tamil Sovereignty Cognition declaration released this year on Heroes Day would serve as a ‘conceptual reference point’ in ensuring that Tamil sovereignty is never compromised, writes RM Karthick, research scholar at a British university, in an article published in Countercurrents, an Indian on-line journal. “It is naivety to expect anything democratic from a unitary state of Sri Lanka,” he argues drawing parallels between the observations by the military analyst and senior editor late Mr. Sivaram Dharmeratnam with the Declaration and the video messages released by the second generation activists on Sunday. “The declaration conceptually challenges the ‘monopoly of truth’ that Lanka and its friends claim to wield in defending their unitary state, through its concise elucidation of the three types of sovereignties that the Tamils can lay claim to namely historical, earned and remedial.”
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Questions for Sri Lankan Ambassador of Australia: Dr. Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 November 2011, 11:21 GMT]
If the war is over and the Tamil people have been ‘liberated’ from the ‘terrorists’ and ‘rehabilitated’, then why does the Sri Lankan government still not allow access to international groups in Tamil areas, asks Brian Senewiratne in a hard-hitting series of questions to Sri Lankan High Comissioner to Australia. Dr. Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, produced posers to ex-Admiral Thissara Samarasinghe using evidence from the UN report, Channel 4 video and other sources. The ex-Admiral, incidentally, is also alleged of war crimes and there have been calls in Australia to investigate his role in the genocide of the Eelam Tamils.
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Heroes Day Torch was lit in University of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 November 2011, 14:44 GMT]
Amidst partnership suppression of Sri Lanka and India against Tamils remembering the heroes who laid down their lives for the cause of Tamil Eelam, the customary Heroes Day Torch was lit in the University of Jaffna this time, exactly at 6:05 PM on Sunday. Unidentified people went to the top terrace of the five-storeyed students hostel of the university and lit the torch, the beams of which were seen in a wide area in the Jaffna city. Most people in Jaffna were seen serenely observing the day in their houses. The scenario very much resembled the ways how the day was observed by the people during the oppressive and terrorising times of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the late 1980s, remembered the older generation.
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Tamil activists assert sovereignty, declare for plebiscite

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 November 2011, 11:09 GMT]
Leading Tamil activists of the younger generation in Tamil Nadu, Canada, USA and Switzerland, came out with a declaration on Sunday for an international decision to conduct and monitor a plebiscite among the people of North and East descent in the island, in the diaspora and among the refugees in India and elsewhere, in order to decide on the creation of an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam. The activists asserted sovereignty of Eezham Tamils on three counts: historical, earned and remedial. They also declared that international players should stop insisting on united Sri Lanka and drop pretensions of ‘domestic solutions’. Further declarations upheld symbols and expressions of the struggle, urged recognition of all those who laid down their lives for the liberation cause and called upon coordinated global action by democratic forces.
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Exposing SLA temple sanctions to BBC brings in attack on house in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 November 2011, 11:02 GMT]
Attackers believed to be from the Sri Lanka Army opened fire and lobbed grenade and petrol bomb on the house of the head of the civic council (Piratheasa Chapai) of Kaarainakar, Mr Anaimukan Velayutham, a TNA member and a leading trader in Jaffna in the early hours of Saturday, causing minor injuries to his aged mother. The attack comes hours after an interview by Mr. Anaimukan to BBC Tamil, Friday evening, in which he exposed that the occupying SLA had instructed temples in his civic division not to toll bells, not to light torches and to cease any use of loudspeakers during the Heroes Day observation week. His house situated in Thirunelveali in Jaffna was attacked by 1:30 a.m., Saturday. Mr. Anaimukan when contacted by journalists in Jaffna on Saturday condemned the attack and said whoever the attackers were, he was not going to allow himself to get threatened by such acts.
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Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil heroes continues for the third year

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2011, 08:58 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils continued for the third year in militarily preventing people observing the Heroes Day week ending on Sunday. SL military’s paranoia or arrogance of oppression has gone to the extent of ordering temples not to toll bells or light lamps during the week. Military is also placed near some temples to watch for any breaches. With the cemeteries of the heroes erased down, temples became the solace for parents and relatives paying annual homage to the fallen heroes. Sanctions on temples too started in 2009, coinciding with Indian foreign minister choosing the day to visit Jaffna. In a latest development on Friday, hundreds of SL police personnel have entered into the University of Jaffna to prevent any observation of the week by students. On Thursday some masked men entered the university and destroyed students union noticeboards.
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