Naval partnerships off Tamil Eelam coast need perusal at backdrop of structural genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 September 2018, 22:59 GMT]
Japan’s Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera visited Colombo from 20th to 22nd August and met high officials of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, discussing maritime security and development of port facilities. His visits focused on the ports in Colombo, Hambantota and in particular Trincomalee, the capital of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The following Week, Japan’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kazuyuki Nakane visited Colombo, amongst others to inaugurate the commissioning ceremony of two state-of-the-art patrol-ships worth around 11 million dollars donated by Japan to the SL Coast Guard. The Japanese collaboration with genocidal Sri Lanka comes as part of a joint U.S., India and Japanese geopolitical move, Tamil political observers in Trincomalee said.
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Eezham Tamils confront SL military-surveying of lands aimed at expanding Buddhist vihara

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2018, 22:55 GMT]
Occupying Sinhala Army's 593 Brigade, which is having its headquarters at Naayaa'aru in Mullaith-theevu, silently brought in SL Archaeology Department workers on Friday morning in a move to put up border-stones to permanently grab lands for expanding a controversial, military-established Buddhist temple into a stupa establishment. The project also absorbs a traditional Hindu temple worshipped by Eezham Tamils at the heritage locality of Neeraavi-eattam, which lies sandwiched between Naayaa'ru lagoon and the sea. SL Military-hired land-surveyors also accompanied the group. They were carrying a letter that had been issued by one Kekulawala, a high ranking Survey Department official, three months ago. However, the move was vehemently opposed by the Tamil villagers, who confronted the group, chased it away and uprooted the GPS-fitted stones that were put by the group.
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Antiquities Ordinance used to justify Sinhalicisation of 48 locations in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2018, 22:30 GMT]
The intruding Sinhala-Buddhist establishment and the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka are rushing ahead with the expansion of an already reconstructed Buddhist temple, the so-called Gurukanda Raja Maha Vihara (Gurukanda RMV), which is located at Chemmalai, Naayaa'ru in the coastal Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district. As the protesting Tamil land-owners successfully blocked the surveying of the lands earlier this month, the intruders are now citing an Extraordinary Gazette notification, issued in 2013 (1823/73) during the times of Rajapaksa rule, to proceed with their plans of expanding the Vihara, the civil sources at the District Secretariat said.
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Organised rings backed by occupying Colombo exploit natural resources in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 January 2018, 18:04 GMT]
The Sinhala police and the military of occupying Colombo, collaborating with businessmen from South, are exploiting the natural resources of Paduvaan-karai region, where the major cultivable lands of Eezham Tamils in the Batticaloa district are situated. Paduvaan-karai, also known for dairy and cattle farming for decades, is being systematically targeted for Sinhalicisaton and colonisation by the Sinhalese from Polonnaruwa district under the rule of Maithiriapala Sirisena as the president and the minister of Mahaweli ‘development’. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are also backing Sirisena's discriminative ‘development’ programmes under the System B of Mahaweli irrigation scheme. It is under these circumstances, the occupying forces of genocidal Sri Lanka are engaged in plundering the sand and logging trees by harbouring the exploitative rings from the South.
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Sinhalicisation targets interior hill-top northwest of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 December 2017, 21:23 GMT]
The 232 Brigade of the occupying Sinhala Army having its main base at Kudumpi-malai (which is also known as Thoppik-kal and Baron’s Cap) area in the interior of the northwestern hinterland of Batticaloa, is Sinhalicising the area by bringing in Sinhala fishermen to engage in fresh-water fishing at Meeraa'nda-ku'lam and by promoting ‘tourists’ from South to engage in leisure activities in the area, Kudumpi-malai villagers complain. Tamil villagers are barred from accessing their reservoir. The SLA has put up tents and created a camping area where the Sinhala fishermen are staying. When asked about those residing in the camping site, Sinhala soldiers use to refer to the visitors as their relatives or as tourists from South. But, some of the intruders seem to be fishermen who are having a business relationship with the occupying military, the people say.
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SL military intelligence, Sinhala Police step up surveillance on Heroes Remembrance Committees

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 November 2017, 23:35 GMT]
The intelligence wing of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna has been warning the people, particularly those taking part in the self-mobilised Heroes Day Facilitation Committees not to display Tiger emblem or LTTE uniformed photos of Tamil fighters who have sacrificed their lives. Although the pressure has shifted away from not marking the day during the Rajapaksa regime to not using the symbols associated with the LTTE, the SL military intelligence is more active in logging the details of those being active in the self-mobilised facilitation committees attached to each Thuyilum Illams (Heroes Cemeteries) in Jaffna peninsula and in Vanni. Armed Sinhala policemen have been posted around police posts. Posters that appeared in Vadamaraadchi in connection with marking Heroes Day have been removed by the SL police.
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Veteran journalist of Tamil Eelam passes away at 87

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 November 2017, 16:07 GMT]
S.M. Gopalaratnam (SMG), the most senior journalist to serve the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle with a prolific journalistic career in the Tamil-language press with more than 50 years of continuous service, passed away at the age of 87 at his residence in Batticaloa on Wednesday. Born in Jaffna and based in Batticaloa, Mr Gopalaratnam joined Virakesari in Colombo as a proof-reader in 1953 and rose to the level of sub-editor in the same year. SMG joined Jaffna-based Eezha Naadu daily in 1961 as one of the founding editorial board members and served the paper for 20 years covering the non-violent struggle of Eezham Tamils. He narrowly escaped from an arson attack by the occupying Sinhala police who burnt down the office and machinery of Eezha Naadu the very night the Jaffna Public Library was put to ashes in 1981.
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SL ‘Manipulative Justice’ exposed once again in Tamil political prisoners’ case: Sivapalan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 October 2017, 22:05 GMT]
The SL Judiciary controlled by the unitary State of ‘Sri Lanka’ has a track record of transferring cases away from being heard in front of Tamil Judges in the North-East, especially in the cases of politically motivated assassinations, murders and ethnic massacres against Eezham Tamils, says exiled Attorney-at-Law K. Sivapalan, who was the deputy chairperson of North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR). “The SL Judiciary has been transferring the cases away from the High Courts in the North-East, either to acquit the accused Sinhala soldiers or to punish the detained Tamil political prisoners. This is ‘Manipulative Justice’, Mr Sivapalan commented expressing solidarity with the Tamil political prisoners, who are waging a hunger-strike at Anuradhapura prison.
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Colombo deploys extremist Sinhala monk to escalate Tamil-Muslim divide in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2017, 20:22 GMT]
Batticaloa district organizer of Sarath Foneseka's ‘Democratic Party’, which is aligned with Ranil Wickramasinghe's UNP, is responsible for involving the Sinhala Buddhist extremist monk in Batticaloa Ampitiye Sumanarathna Thero to confront Muslims who are at loggerheads with Tamils in a land dispute at Mu’raavoadai village in Batticaloa, informed sources in Vaazhaichcheanai said. On Tuesday, the controversial monk, known for abusive language and violent behaviour against Eezham Tamils, was taking the side of Tamils in a showdown against Muslims. Setting Tamil-speaking Muslims against Eezham Tamils has again become a tactic being adopted by the Colombo regime in recent months to sabotage Tamil-Muslim unity towards the demand for merged North-East. In the meantime, Sinhala colonisation has been stepped up in all directions surrounding Kokku’laay lagoon to wedging North and East.
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Wickramasinghe protects unpunished war criminals of SL Military Intelligence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 March 2017, 20:35 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has secretly launched a plan to erase the records of military intelligence officers and operatives of the Military Intelligence who have been named with command responsibility by the affected victims and their families, particularly the kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of occupying Sri Lankan military after MI operatives carried out arrests, detentions and abductions during the presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. In an effort to get rid of the details of those named by the victims, the military intelligence officers and operatives are being transferred to separate divisions or offered early retirement, informed EPDP paramilitary sources told TamilNet on Saturday.
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Uprooted Tamils in Ki'linochchi suburb go on fast in front of SL military cantonment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2016, 20:17 GMT]
Tamil families who went on a continuous protest last month in front of occupying SL military's cantonment at Paravip-paagnchaan, a fertile suburb of Ki'linochchi town, initially called of their struggle after 5 days after Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who engaged in the process of containing Eezham Tamils from confronting the SL military on behalf of SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, met them and talked to SL Defence Secretary over the phone conveying the demands of those engaged in the struggle. The SL Defence Secretary had asked 2 weeks time and the time had elapsed on 31st August. The families demanding their lands to be released restarted their continuous struggle on 01st September. As a week has gone, they decided to transform their struggle into a continuous fast starting from Wednesday.
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Uprooted Tamils in Ki’linochchi step up protest against SL military occupation of lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 August 2016, 21:55 GMT]
Uprooted Tamil families from Paravip-paagnchchaan, a fertile suburb situated in the heart of Ki’linochchi town, have been protesting in front of the cantonment of occupying SL military’s 58 Division since Saturday. The protest comes a week after SL Defence Secretary visiting the site and the SL military is scheming permanent seizure of the lands. The families said they decided to launch round-the-clock protest as their earlier protests were completely ignored by the SL regime in Colombo. In the meantime, Sinhala Army soldiers have been harassing the news reporters who went to cover the peaceful protest Sunday night. 62 families are demanding resettlement in the 23 acres of lands seized by the SL military at Paravip-paagnchaan.
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2006 Sencholai massacre victims commemorated in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 August 2016, 22:00 GMT]
The relatives of the victims slain in the targeted air-raid on school girls attending a self-protection workshop at Vallipunam in Mullaiththeevu commemorated their kith and kin together with education sector officials and Tamil politicians in a memorial event held near Jaffna Public Library on Sunday. No investigations have so far covered the underlying patterns of the planning, preparation and execution of the massacre, which was carried out with high-level decision-making involving the SL commanders of the three armed forces, SL Defence Secretary and the Commander-in-Chief (SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa) at that time. The targeted massacre was carried out two years before the Government of Sri Lanka withdrew from the Ceasefire Agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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Veteran Basque activist optimistic on Tamil Eelam struggle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 June 2016, 21:26 GMT]
The struggle for Tamil Eelam spearheaded by Tamil Tigers was an alternative project for a lot of progressive people around the world. “Many people looked upon it as a hope against the capitalist scheme we have everywhere,” said Gontzal Martinez de la Hidalga, a veteran Basque activist. The Basque, subjected to State oppression in Spain, demonstrated in a regional poll this week that they want to be citizens of a sovereign and independent Basque Country. Mr Gontzal, who has worked alongside the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) held in Bremen, which concluded that the Sri Lankan State was guilty of genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils and that the USA and UK were complicit in the genocidal process, was optimistic about the Tamil Eelam struggle and was promoting Eezham Tamils to interact more with the Latin American people and with other stateless nations in the world.
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SL ‘TID’ operatives threaten Tamil family in Mannaar at gunpoint

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 March 2016, 23:10 GMT]
Five Sinhala-speaking operatives of the notorious ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ who entered the house of 66-year-old Manikam Ilaiyathamby, situated near Mannaar Hospital Road Junction, have threatened his family on 26 February 2016 around 10:30 p.m. demanding the family to hand over their 36-year-old son who is residing in UK. The SL military intelligence and the TID division operatives have been harassing the family since the breakdown of the Norway-brokered Ceasefire Agreement between the Sinhala State and the Tamil Tigers. The Sinhala operatives under the direct command of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry in Colombo have been harassing the family for some time stating that they were having photos of Ilaiyathamby Kalaivanar, the son of Mr Ialaiyathamby garlanding LTTE Political Division members who arrived at Mannaar following the CFA.
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Colombo silently consolidates military positions facing Gulf of Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 February 2016, 23:43 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka has been silently consolidating its temporary positions and camps into permanent structures inside the limits of Mannaar Urban Council area within the last 30 days. There are more than 6,000 Sinhala military personnel within the UC area where 25,000 civilians reside. The SL Army, Navy and the STF troopers are stationed at more than 15 positions within the 27 square km. The systematic consolidation of the naval and army cantonments, camps, and positions has taken place despite clear demands from the civil sources to de-militarize the densely populated UC area. The strategic part of the district, commanding both the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannaar as well as commanding the closest communication line with the Tamil Nadu coast, has become a hive of intense Sinhala militarisation and demographic changes in recent times.
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Tamils should conceive alternative investigations: rights activists in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 February 2016, 23:45 GMT]
Not a single person has been arrested by the Colombo government despite 450 persons giving testimony in the district of Batticaloa at the three sittings held so far by the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing Persons (PCICMP), one under Rajapaksa regime and two sittings under the present Sirisena - Wickrasinghe regime, Tamil rights activists in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Friday. The modus operandi of the SL commissions of the past and present, including the new ones that are being launched by the current regime incorporating Tamil ‘collaborators’ from Batticaloa and Jaffna, is nothing new to Eezham Tamils. Global Tamils should conceive universal models of justice without getting locked into the so-called Transnational Justice advocates coming through Colombo, the activists further said.
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De-militarize Mu’l’likku’lam in 2016: Uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 January 2016, 00:31 GMT]
Rt Rev Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders, Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and the civil organisations in Mannaar district should demand the Sri Lankan State to fully de-militarize Mu’l’lik-ku’lam GS division of Musali division in the district in 2016 and enable more than 1,200 Eezham Tamils, who were uprooted from their village in September 2007 to resettle in their village, said the representatives of the uprooted Tamils, who have not received any response for their repeated appeals in 2015. The villagers talking to TamilNet in December 2015 urged the concerned stakeholders to come forward in demanding full de-militarization of Mu'l'likku'lam in 2016. The villagers managed to mark the dawn of 2016 at their own church in Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on January 01.
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Two more human skeletons exhumed from Kumaratunga's killings fields in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 October 2015, 20:29 GMT]
The organization representing the families of forced disappeared in Jaffna has demanded on Friday credible and independent forensic analysis to be conducted without further delay on recently exhumed skeletons from Mu'l'li at Ariyaalai East, located near the genocidal killing fields of Chemma'ni. Skeletons of two females, one of them believed to be a schoolgirl allegedly raped and killed by the occupying SL military, have been recently exhumed after sand scoopers discovered the remains. The SL military had vacated from Mu'l'li two years ago after keeping the area as a ‘High Security Zone’ since 1996. Around 800 Tamil youth were forcefully disappeared between 1996 and 1999 in Jaffna peninsula under Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's (CBK) rule.
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‘Tamils in Norway should take hint from question posed by former peace monitor’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 October 2015, 23:56 GMT]
The judicial model being advocated by the Sri Lankan State following the UNHRC Resolution in Geneva is set to cause headache for Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as soon as Colombo summons the former Norwegian peace envoys as witnesses in what is being interpreted largely as a domestic mechanism with international ‘assistance’, writes Christian Ranheim, a Norwegian Human Rights and Law Consultant, who was a former member of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that monitored the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement between Colombo government and the LTTE. In a blog article on Thursday Mr Ranheim has hinted that Oslo's participation in a ‘Sri Lankan’ domestic court would be a matter of debate, if the judicial process in Colombo is not seen as a legitimate one.
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