Ranil's ‘development’ of North-East is divide-and-rule imposed on Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 March 2019, 14:18 GMT]
Grassroots activists in Moothoor East in the Trincomalee district have blamed the SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe for imposing a so-called development agenda of his design, which deploys divide-and-rule tactics in the occupied North-East. The short-term aim of the programme is designed to gain electoral and political mileage to the UNP party by diminishing the role of the Tamil politicians including that of the collaborating TNA. The hidden, much more sophisticated and the long-term agenda of the hostile ‘development’ and ‘rehabilitation’ programme is Sinhala-Buddhicisation of the North-East, they said.
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SL Navy restricts humanitarian access to resettling people of Ira'nai-theevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 January 2019, 22:21 GMT]
Nine months have elapsed since the uprooted people embarked on a courageous sea landing to SL Navy occupied twin-islet of Ira'nai-theevu at the western coast of Vanni. Only a few toilets and temporary huts have been provided to them. While the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is set to assist the resettled people with necessary facilities such as access to potable water, the SL Navy stationed at Muzhangkaavil along the coast of the Vanni mainland has restricted the NGOs and community organisations from accessing the twin-islets, which it regards as a ‘high-security zone’. The local workers of the UNDP and other NGOs as well as the community-based organisations, trying to visit Ira'nai-theevu are facing strict procedures and are subjected to surveillance as if they were enemies entering the property of the SL Navy, humanitarian workers said.
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SL Navy transforms another hill-top into Sinhala Buddhist temple in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2019, 22:56 GMT]
A small hill with an abode for Tamil deity Murukan has been slowly converted into a full-fledged Sinhala Buddhist temple during the last two years in Champoor, Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The hill-top was absorbed into the so-called ‘high-security zone’ in 2016 for the expansion of the SL Navy's naval training base, SLNS Vidura. The transformation has taken place in all secret while Maththa'la-malai, which is facing Choodaik-kudaa (Shell Bay) of Trincomalee outside the military zone, gained focus last year. The SL Department of Archaeology seized the hill-top of Maththa'la-malai after creating controversy with the claim of finding artefacts associated with an ancient girth of a Cetiya which it claimed as existed in the ancient past at the locality.
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Ex-Land Commissioner observes systematic ethnic discrimination in issuing land documents in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2018, 22:42 GMT]
The SL Government in Colombo has been issuing circulars instructing the provincial land authorities to release land documents to displaced and uprooted war-affected people. Such circulars were attempting to document ‘adherence’ to the recommendations of the so-called ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’. These circulars were also intended to convince the UN Human Rights Council and the international community that the SL State was implementing reconciliatory measures without discrimination. However, the Tamil people in the Eastern Province have been systematically and ethnically discriminated in the delivery of land documents even after the issuance of specific circulars, former Land Commissioner of Eastern Province Kathirgamathamby Kurunathan told TamilNet this week.
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HR Day protests in North-East met with violence, SL Police displays hostility

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2018, 23:08 GMT]
Four Tamil protesters were admitted to Trincomalee hospital as unknown masked men assaulted the Tamils from Moothoor East, who rallied in front of the Trincomalee Bus stand Monday morning for a peaceful protest in connection with International Human Rights Day. The families of the enforced disappeared, and the villagers from Padu-kaadu and Muthalai-madu, whose lands have been seized by the occupying SL military, were staging the protest. In the meantime, the SL Police at Chunnaakam in Jaffna threatened the Tamil villagers of Uduvil who protested in front of the DS office on Monday urging it to not hand over a private property, which the police wants to seize for its use. Later, on Monday night, a petrol bomb was thrown at the property. The people suspect that the SL police was behind the attack, in an apparent threat to force the owners of a fitness centre to vacate the lands.
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Monks incite SL paramilitary to Sinhalicise Tamil heritage site in Trincomalee North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2018, 23:16 GMT]
An extremist section of the Sinhala-Buddhist Theravada monks establishment, which has been trying for more almost ten years to claim the ancient Tamil village of Thennai-maravadi as a heritage and archaeology site of Sinhala Buddhism, abandoned their attempt to erect a Buddhist temple at the lands of the Tamil village deity of Kanthasaami. However, the monks left behind noticeboards claiming the Saiva (Hindu) temple lands, where they conducted the excavations, as coming under the purview of the SL Department of Archaeology. Recently, on 30th November, Sinhala paramilitary personnel of the so-called ‘Civil Defence Force’ have put up foundations for a building inside the demarcated lands. If the seized properties of the Hindu temple come under the SL Archaeology department, how could the CDF personnel start constructing structures inside the grounds, the resettled Tamils questioned.
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SL Police blocks memorial monument for 1984 massacre victims in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2018, 11:04 GMT]
The police of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, stationed at Oddu-chuddaan has blocked the resettled Tamil families of Othiya-malai village from proceeding with erecting a memorial monument for civilians who were massacred by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. Only 50 of 110 families living in the village in 1984 managed to resettle after 27 years in 2012. Since then, they use to mark the massacred victims at the Rural Development Society building, where the massacre took place. This year, the families resolved to put up a small memorial monument in remembrance of their loved ones. However, the SL Police has warned the families against erecting the memorial.
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SL Navy harasses resettled Tamils in Musali by blocking access road with barbed-wire

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 October 2018, 17:07 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka has blocked the access route to the pockets of released lands in the coastal village of Mu'l'li-ku'lam in Mannaar mainland on Saturday. Barbed-wire was put up blocking access along the main road, which is also the main supply route to the military base. The SL Navy base is located in 35 acres. However, it retains hundreds of acres of lands in Musali division. The coastal village of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam lies 45 km south of Mannaar city bordering with Puththa'lam district. The resettled people started to protest in front of the SL Navy base on Sunday. The SL Navy lifted the barbed-wire only after Parish Priest Fr Lawrence negotiated between the protesters and the Navy. The people said the SL Navy has started to behave in a more hostile than before.
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SL military launches ATMs, postal office in occupied Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2018, 16:01 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka wants to control the civil administration and all aspects of the civilian life in the former ‘High-Security Zone’ in Valikaamam North, Jaffna. The commander of the occupying Sinhala forces in the peninsula has instructed the military to install ATMs and to operate postal offices in Palaali. The SL military, which is running the ATM stations has also started to run a post office in Palaali. The latest move comes amidst increased criticism of SL military intervening in the civil affairs.
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SL State refuses to renew land permits to resettled Champoor Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2018, 16:54 GMT]
The resettled Eezham Tamils from Champoor and the connecting section of Kadatkaraich-cheanai were refused of renewal of their land permits at a mobile land kachcheri held on Sunday at Moothoor. The Eastern Provincial Land Commissioner organised the land meeting at Moothoor to look into the land issues of the resettled people in the Moothoor East. However, the residents of Champoor were told the renewals of their land permits were on hold as the SL State has not revoked the earlier state acquisition of their lands from the times of Rajapaksa rule. The people who are in possession of old documents are refused of housing assistance as well as loans that could be obtained through Samurdhi scheme as they are unable to document current ownership to their lands where they reside.
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Drastic reduction of funds hampers resettlement of uprooted Tamils in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2018, 22:25 GMT]
The uprooted people from SL military occupied Valikaamam North in Jaffna are still languishing in 34 camps. However, the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has allocated barely 250 million rupees (USD 1.5 million) for resettlement of the internally displaced people in Jaffna district in 2018, Tamil civil sources in Jaffna said. For comparison, 5,500 million rupees (USD 32.7 million) was allocated in 2016 - 2017, the sources said. Mr S. Muralitharan, the additional District Secretary who deals with land affairs, has admitted the figures on the expenditure on resettlement.
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Sajith Premadasa's ministry revives Sinhala colonisation of Kevu'liyaa-madu in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2018, 12:49 GMT]
SL Minister for Housing and Construction Sajith Premadasa is creating ethnic disharmony in the district of Batticaloa by launching ‘model villages’ with housing and infrastructure, allege grassroots Tamil activists in Batticaloa. Similar to the controversial projects in Trincomalee district, the SL Minister, the son of the late SL President R. Premadasa, is creating conflicts by scheming one of the four ‘model villages’ in Batticaloa district at Kevu'liyaa-madu. The ‘model village’ projects have become places of ethnic tensions as Tamil-speaking Muslim beneficiaries were brought into traditional Tamil villages and Sinhala settlers into predominant Muslim and Tamil areas, civil sources in Batticaloa said.
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Drought-stricken Tamil farmers in Vanni abandoned by authorities, politicians, NGOs

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 August 2018, 23:06 GMT]
The resettled Eezham Tamil families in Madu division of Mannaar district complain that the SL authorities have wholly abandoned them. None of the Tamil politicians has helped them to address their grievances caused by the drought that had rendered 4,300 families who are struggling without the proper livelihood in the absence of agricultural income. The families say they have been complaining since the monsoon rains failed towards the end of 2017. Now, the people are struggling even without potable water.
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Colombo wants to seize lands of Muslims near Mannaar Fort

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2018, 21:41 GMT]
The occupying Colombo has now started to claim ownership to the lands of Tamil-speaking Muslim residents, who have been resettled in Koanthaip-piddi area, where the Dutch Fort of Manaar is situated. SL Archaeology Department and SL Wildlife Department have started to harass the Muslims after seizing the lands of Eezham Tamils under the so-called claims of protecting heritage and conservation. SL Cabinet Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and SL Deputy Minister for Rehabilitation & Resettlement K. Kader Masthan are equally powerless as the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran in safeguarding the land rights of the people against the occupation from the conservation agencies of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, Tamil-speaking political observers in Mannaar said.
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Intruding engine boats destroy ecosystem of Kokku'laay lagoon

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 July 2018, 20:21 GMT]
Native Eezham Tamil fishermen in Kokku'laay complain that their fishing ecosystem will be destroyed within the next two years if the fisheries authorities of the occupying unitary state of Sri Lanka continue to allow the intruding fishermen from other districts to deploy boats fitted with engines. The intruders use diesel,l petrol and kerosene and have no concerns of the ecosystem as it is not their environment, says Tamil fisherman representative M. Mariyathas, who is a survivor of genocidal onslaught on Vanni in 2009.
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SL Forest Department seizes agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in Paduvaan-karai

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2018, 22:48 GMT]
The so-called Forest Conservation Department of occupying Colombo has seized a small pond, known as Ka'lik-ku'lam, and almost 500 acres of lands in the vicinity of Unnichchai 6th Mile Post. The Eezham Tamil villagers have been using the area for Cheanai (slash-and-burn) cultivation for decades. The villagers, who have resettled after the end of war and who also received housing through the ‘National Housing Development Authority’, complain that they are unable to continue with their livelihoods of agriculture, fresh-water fishing and animal farming as a direct consequence of the latest occupation, which has been carried out by the SL Forest Department.
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Tamils need native movements to confront Colombo-centric environmental exploitations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 July 2018, 23:49 GMT]
Many recent reports from the eastern coast of the North-East indicate a widespread pattern of various corporate and state-centric exploitations targeting the natural resources of the territorial sea and the coast of the North-East. Colombo-based corporates and traders are exploiting export-related businesses, be it sea cucumber export to China, fake mangroves and minerals to the USA and Japan, or mining sand for shipping to the neighbouring state of Maldives. On top of this, Colombo-centric State-to-State relationships originating from geopolitics-driven ‘development’ narrative, as well as military to military ‘exchanges’, are challenging the sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in a big-scale along the territorial sea and the strategic cost.
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Champoor Tamils experience trauma as Colombo trains marine forces in occupied Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 July 2018, 10:20 GMT]
The occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka deployed its marine commandos in a convoy of 45 vehicles, including 15 armoured cars, in one of the biggest training exercises to be traumatically experienced by the resettled Eezham Tamils in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district on Friday. The war-affected families, especially the elder-generation among them, were caught in trauma due to the roaming vehicles and the live firing, which reminded them of the times of genocidal onslaught in 2007. The political observers in the East ask the question for whom the marine force is getting prepared at the physical and psychological expense of war-affected Eezham Tamils of Moothoor East.
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Colombo schemes Sinhala military-led industrialisation of KKS exploiting geopolitics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 June 2018, 22:37 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka was re-constructing the KKS Harbour with the assistance from New Delhi after 2009. The Indian Central Government has been claiming that assistance was meant for the development of the war-affected North. But, the native people or their Provincial Council, which was introduced following the Indo-Lanka Accord, have no say or access to KKS Harbour, Cement Factory and the people are not resettled. The entire area is still a Sinhala Military Zone. Now, plans are afoot to set up an IT industry through deploying occupying Sinhala military personnel with foreign assistance. In the meantime, SL military commander in Jaffna is also aiming to put up an export-oriented garments industry in KKS and is consulting with major garments industrial owners in the South.
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Sirisena yet to revoke Gazette notification of Colombo's seizure of Champoor lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 June 2018, 14:38 GMT]
The occupying State of genocidal Sri Lanka, particularly SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has so far avoided revoking the initial Gazette notification through which the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa seized the lands of the uprooted people of Champoor. Three years would have elapsed by August 2018 since the people of Champoor started to resettle in their areas in 2015.
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