Land acquisition by occupying military challenged in Sri Lanka Courts

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 May 2013, 23:34 GMT]
Following a writ-application filed at the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal by 1,474 Eezham Tamils owning lands in Valikaamam North on 14 May, which was an initiative taken by Colombo-based lawyers, including those belonging to the Tamil National Alliance, a group of lawyers based in Jaffna have filed legal action in Sri Lankan Supreme Court on 22 May, challenging the publication of the Section 2 notice to acquire lands from the owners in Valikaamam North. In the meantime, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, who recently faced questions from the visiting United Nations representatives on the acquisition of lands in the former High Security Zone (HSZ), was attempting to play down the scale of the Sinhala militarization by hiding the extent of land acquisition outside the Valikaamam North area.
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Leaked US draft on Maldives should open eyes of Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 April 2013, 21:12 GMT]
A draft of US defence pact proposed to the Maldives, but leaked to media a few days ago, should open the eyes of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora, on the game played by the USA along with the Establishments in the region, either by exploiting or by treading on the struggles of peoples in the region, commented alternative political activists in the Sinhala military occupied country of Eezham Tamils. Maldivians had made a mistake in not checking their governments supporting the genocide of Eezham Tamils abetted by the USA, India and China. It reflects on them now. Meanwhile, Global Tamils should know where the struggle of Eezham Tamils should ultimately be addressed to in unison, and what ideological stand they should independently take with people’s strength, the activists said.
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Protest against SL military seizure of lands gains momentum in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 April 2013, 16:16 GMT]
More than 800 uprooted people gathered Monday morning in front of the Divisional Secretariat at Thellippazhai, situated near the entrance to the former High Security Zone (HSZ), which is now being permanently seized by the occupying Colombo aiming a permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Jaffna. Despite the refusal by the SL Police to stage any protest march on the KKS Road, the people who rallied peacefully from 8:30 to 11:30 in front of the DS office, started to block the entrance of the DS office and embarked upon a spontaneous march towards the entrance of the HSZ. The riot control police commandos and the SL military men blocked them in front of the SL Police Station located on KKS Road.
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SL Military turns back Ranil visiting Valikaamam

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 April 2013, 11:34 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army, which is busily transforming the former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North in Jaffna into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), turned away a delegation led by SL opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe on Thursday evening, denying them access to visit the area and witness the scale of the land acquisition. In the meantime, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told the visiting UNP leader to voice for the rights of the uprooted people of Valikaamam North.
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Geneva resolution responsible for genocidal militarisation of Tamil country

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 07:19 GMT]
The March resolution at UNHRC in Geneva, designed by the USA and watered down by India, is directly responsible for all the current ‘legalisation’ of the genocidal militarisation carried out by the occupying Sinhala State in the country of Eezham Tamils in the island, said alternative Tamil political activists in Jaffna, citing the ‘legal’ appropriation of 6400 acres of Tamil civilian lands at Jaffna HSZ and another 6000 acres in Vavuniyaa, openly for Sinhala military cantonment purposes, within one month of passing the resolution. The genocidal State was internationally allowed to do so by the LLRC-based resolution. Its basic concept ‘reconciliation’ a camouflage for structural genocide is a brainchild of the US State Department, the activists said.
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6,400 acres of civilian land to be seized for military purposes in Jaffna HSZ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 06:40 GMT]
The occupying Colombo, through its Land Acquisition Officer attached to the District Secretariat in Jaffna, has issued a notice dated 27 April 2013, claiming that the owners of lands for 6,381 acres and 38.91 perches in 11 GS divisions in two DS divisions, Valikaamam North (Thellippazhai) and Valikaamam East (Koappaay), have not been identified and that the officials who come under the Sri Lankan Ministry of Land and Land Development are being given necessary rights to enter the lands, survey them and to define how to take over these lands for ‘public purpose’ and for ‘planned activity’. The purpose for the land acquisition is also stated as ‘to orderly hand over the lands where Defence Battalion Head Quarters (Jaffna) High Security Zone (Palaali and Kaangkeasanthu’rai) is situated’.
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Colombo begins legal appropriation of former HSZ lands in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 April 2013, 22:59 GMT]
The occupying Colombo, which is converting the lands of the former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North in Jaffna into permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), has now instructed Village level Officials of 24 GS divisions, under SL military occupation, to visit and place legal notices announcing the ‘State takeover’ of the lands in the already SL military-occupied zone on Monday. Placing such takeover-notices inside the lands of the owners without allowing them to view the announcement, is a calculated move to deny them the legal opportunity of filing suits against the appropriation move, say legal activists representing the uprooted people in Jaffna. In the meantime, informed sources said some of the land owners are scheduled to be taken to their lands on Tuesday to give consent to the move or else suffer some negative consequences.
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Veteran Eezham Tamil journalist, poet, Parvathinathasivam passes away

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 March 2013, 17:16 GMT]
Pulavar Parvathinathasivam, poet, journalist, author and Tamil scholar passed away in Jaffna on Tuesday morning at the age of 77. Coming from an illustrious family of Tamil scholars in Jaffna, Parvathi-natha-sivam was further inspired in his outlook and writings by his association with the renowned Tamil poet Bharathidasan in the late 1950s. Starting his journalistic career with Suthanthiran, he served as editor of the weekly edition of Eezhanaadu daily in Jaffna for a long time in the 1970s and 80s. Later, he worked for Uthayan in the 90s and also contributed to Murasoli, Sanjeevi and Thinakkural. The funeral ceremonies will take place at his family’s present residence at Nanthaavil Lane in Kokkuvil on Wednesday. His ancestral house at Maaviddapuram, coming under the SL military-occupied HSZ for two decades, was released recently, but in a completely razed-down condition.
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New Delhi, Colombo, jointly ‘cherish’ IPKF memory at Palaali SMZ

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 February 2013, 22:13 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s envoy in Colombo, Ashok K. Kantha, accompanied by his wife Mrs. Sharmila Kantha paid tribute at the newly ‘rediscovered’ IPKF memorial at Palaali in the Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) on Saturday. Joining the couple in cherishing the legacy of the IPKF was Colombo’s occupying Sinhala military commander in Jaffna, Maj. Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe, senior officers of the SL military, New Delhi’s Defence Advisor at the Colombo High Commission and the Establishment’s Consul General in Jaffna. New Delhi already has a memorial built for the war-crimes-accused IPKF at Colombo. New Delhi’s current gesture of rediscovering another memorial at Palaali along with the occupying genocidal Sinhala military signals negatively when there is demand for international investigation of war crimes in the island.
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SL military operatives attack peaceful protest against Jaffna SMZ

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 February 2013, 12:20 GMT]
More than ten Sri Lankan military operatives, co-mingling with and camouflaging as protestors in front of Thurkkai Amman temple in Thellippazhai, where a token fast against Colombo converting the former SL Miltiary High Security Zone (HSZ) into Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Jaffna, attacked the peaceful protestors on Friday. The attack came after the SL Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe had left the site taking part and addressing the protestors. The SL military men went amok on Tamil parliamentarians and journalists at the site of the protest. However, the attackers who were causing panic among the participants were confronted by the protestors. More than one hundred SL policemen silently watched the unfolding episode without restraining or arresting the civil clad military operatives.
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SL commander admits converting HSZ into permanent Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ)

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 07:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s military commander occupying Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe, on Monday openly admitted to media in Jaffna that the so-called High Security Zone of Valikaamam on the Northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula, occupied and displaced of its Tamil inhabitants in the guise of High Security Zone (HSZ) two decades ago, will now be converted into a permanent Sri Lanka/ Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ). Meanwhile, genocidal Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, visiting Jaffna on Monday, has opened a ‘tourist resort’ of the SL Navy at Mayiliddi in the said SMZ. The major fishing port of Eezham Tamils at Mayiliddi will cease to exist hereafter and the occupying Sinhala military has undertaken cultivation of onions using spring irrigation in the traditional horticultural lands of Eezham Tamils in the SMZ that has been created.
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SL military demolishes Hundreds of Tamil houses in Jaffna ‘HSZ’

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 February 2013, 23:08 GMT]
In a sudden and swift move, Sri Lanka military occupying Jaffna has started demolishing hundreds of houses of Eezham Tamils in the stretch of land at Valikaamam that was occupied by the Sinhala military in the guise of ‘High Security Zone (HSZ)’ two decades back. The war is over, proclaims everyone, including the USA and India. The Tamil public righteously expected the return of their houses and ancestral properties if the war was over. There was propaganda that resettlement takes place stage by stage in the HSZ, which was also endorsed by all the Establishments in complicity. Then how, why, and with what authority vested with whom, the decision has been now taken to raze down the ancestral houses of Eezham Tamils in the so-called HSZ, ask the concerned people up-rooted for more than two decades and finally lost everything to the designs of the genocidal partners.
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Poonakari becomes another major hub of Sinhala militarisation, colonisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 February 2013, 07:50 GMT]
Similar to the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) on the northern coast of Jaffna Peninsula, including KKS harbour and Palaali airport that has now become a permanent enclave for Sinhala military cantonment, colonisation and corporatism, another enclave in the Poonakari division is in the making, news sources in Vanni said. Around 31,000 Sinhala military personnel are stationed in the Poonakari division where currently only 6216 families live, which means that for every Tamil family there are 5 personnel from the genocidal military. While the SL military alone occupies 800 acres of land, the Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s siblings Basil and Gotabhaya, and progeny Namal have appropriated many more acres of land. Building a Chinese assisted international airport at Poonakari is in the centre of the plans.
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Colombo converts Jaffna ‘HSZ’ into zone of Sinhala Military Corporatism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2013, 18:11 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which had completed the construction of a huge bund three months ago, from Chelva-channithi shrine in Tho’ndamanaa’ru to Vasaavi’laan near the Palaali military base through Oddakappulam across the former ‘High Security Zone’, has now started to construct another major bund from Kurumpasiddi to Kaangkeasanthu’rai (KKS) through Kadduvan and Thellippazhai, according to S. Sugirthan, the head of the divisional civic body (Piratheasa Chapai / PS) of Valikaamam North. Informed civil officials said that these bunds are being hurriedly put up to carve out a vast area consisting 26 GS divisions for Sinhala Military Corporatism.
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‘Slap on the face reception’ to UK Under Secretary visiting Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 February 2013, 16:53 GMT]
People of Vanni closed themselves inside their huts and refused to come out when the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Alistair Burt MP, accompanied by the occupying Sinhala military, wanted to ‘speak’ to the uprooted Eezham Tamils at Keappa-pulavu on Thursday. The reason was two-fold: loss of faith in the modus operandi of foreign dignitaries visiting them with the occupying military and then coming out with statements not recognizing the on-going genocide but buttressing the genocidal State; and the other reason was suffocating intimidation by the occupying Sinhala military that no one should tell anything controversial to visiting foreigners. The same military officials bringing visitors to them in the daytime would turn into torture-interrogators in the night time, Eezham Tamils of Vanni commented.
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Sinhala military opens ‘holiday resorts’ in occupied Jaffna with ‘Kiribath Pongkal’

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2013, 21:12 GMT]
Amidst the beat of Sinhala drums and blessings of Sinhala-Buddhist monks, the SL military occupying Jaffna opened two new ‘holiday resorts’ on Sunday at Mayiliddi, and at Kaankeasan-thu’rai (KKS), which are under High Security Zone, along the northern coast of Jaffna. To mark the opening, an SL Military ‘Kiribath Pongkal’ was also conducted at the new buildings. While the housing and even shelters of the hundreds of thousands of Eezham Tamils affected by the genocidal onslaught of the Sinhala military is still a pressing question, the military opening and running ‘holiday resorts’ for its use shows that Sri Lanka is not making any pretensions of its colonial conquest and rule over Eezham Tamils in the model of European colonialists, civil society sources in Jaffna commented.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka forbids Kaarthikai festival as it falls on Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2012, 22:41 GMT]
The Heroes Day observed by Eezham Tamils on 27 November to remember their fallen fighters, falls on a full moon day this year, coinciding with the Kaarthikai festival of lights observed by Tamils since ancient times. Sri Lanka that has made a practice of banning even routine religious observations in the temples of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils on the Heroes Day, dares this year to forbid the Kaarthikai festival observations too. Occupying Sri Lanka’s practice of banning temple rituals, including toll of bells on the Heroes Day, started first in Nov 2009, while New Delhi’s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna was visiting Jaffna. New Zealand Tamils appeal to the UN on the continued cultural genocide of their kith and kin in the island.
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Akashi comes to ‘listen’ to people in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2012, 21:37 GMT]
Former Special Envoy of the Tokyo Co-chair to the Peace Process between the SL government and the LTTE, Yasushi Akashi, visited Jaffna and Ki'linochchi on Friday to listen to the views of the religious leaders in Jaffna and to review the humanitarian assistance Japan has provided to the welfare of the resettling civilians and former combatants in Vanni. “Architects of the genocidal war cannot be mere listeners. They are answerable to the affected people and to the world. There is no foreign establishment involved in the island that doesn't really know what is happening. Therefore, the boldness with which the grassroot aspirations of the nation of Eezham Tamils has to be politically translated in a befitting way should never be compromised in the island and in the diaspora,” said a social activist in Jaffna observing Mr Akashi's visit.
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SL military blocks resettlement in suburb of PTK

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2012, 22:16 GMT]
Landmine clearing unit of the occupying Sri Lankan military has instructed forty Tamil families who resettled recently at 9th ward of Mallikaith-theevu village in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) division in Mullaiththeevu district, to vacate from their lands after the SL authorities had allowed the families to resettle earlier this month. The families were among 96 families that were hurriedly brought down to Mullaiththeevu from Menik Farm camp in Cheddi-ku'lam in Vavuniyaa, promising resettlement in Mallikaith-theevu, Puthukkudiyiruppu West and Puthukkudiyiruppu East. On the one hand Colombo is rushing to showcase that it is closing down the Menik Farm camp. But, on the other hand the occupying military of Colombo is blocking resettlement in the land of Vanni genocide. The SL military still considers the area as its High Security Zone (HSZ), relocated civilians said.
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Village, jungle adjacent to Mu’l’livaaykkaal grabbed for Sinhala militarisation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 August 2012, 01:27 GMT]
2,500 acres of land by the side of the Nanthik-kadal lagoon, comprising of the village Keappaa-pulavu and nearby jungle, where the last stages of the Vanni war was fought and prohibited weapons were allegedly used against the LTTE by the genocidal Sinhala military, is now permanently grabbed for use of the occupying military, news sources in Vanni said. The grabbed land in Mullaiththeevu district is divided between Sri Lanka’s Army and Air Force and the original villagers of 700 families detained from resettling are forced to accept lands away from their village. After the TESO conference last week, The Hindu, using an interview of Dr. Wikremabahu Karunaratne, tried to soft-pedal the issue of the annihilation of territorial sovereignty of the nation of Eezham Tamils as a mere “Move to gift Tamil resources to MNCs.”
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