Tamil GS officers interdicted with instruction to undergo ‘military rehabilitation’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2015, 13:45 GMT]
Colombo's Ministry of Public Administration has interdicted six Eezham Tamil Village Officers (GS) in Karaichchi division of Ki'linochchi District a week ago. The reason given was that the SL Defence Ministry wanted the 4 female and 2 male GS officers to undergo ‘military rehabilitation’, meant for ex-LTTE members with immediate effect. The interdicted GS officers are not ex-LTTE members. But, the reason cited for the military rehabilitation was that there were ex-LTTE members, either living or dead, in their families or among their close relatives. The shocking harassment from the UNP-run Defence and Public Administration ministries of the SL State shows that nothing has changed with regards to the military rule in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, concerned civil sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Tuesday.
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Sirisena answerable for secret incarceration by SL Navy in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 June 2015, 23:06 GMT]
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena on Sunday visited the Sri Lanka Navy Eastern Naval Command, which was responsible for the secret incarceration camp known as ‘Gota’ camp, where more than 700 former LTTE members, including 35 families, have been illegally detained for more than 5 years. Mr Sirisena, who was acting Defence Minister under the Rajapaksa regime, is answerable for the genocidal incarceration by the Eastern Naval Command of the SLN, Eezham Tamil activists in Trincomalee said. The SL President is the Commander-in-Chief of the three armed forces.
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PCICMP resumes public sittings amidst protests against domestic commissions

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 June 2015, 19:21 GMT]
Rajapaksa-appointed and Maithiripala-extended ‘Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing Persons’ (PCICMP) resumed its public sittings on Saturday at Moothoor Divisional Secretariat in the Trincomalee district. Around 300 relatives of the missing people and civil activists protested outside the venue, while 159 people who had been invited by the PCICMP for hearings took part in the sittings. The protesters were demanding international investigations. Even those who attended the sittings had no trust in the commission, said Mannaar Citizens' Committee vice chairman A. Sagayam. His committee had urged the people to take part in the sittings.
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Champoor Tamils should demand 1 bn compensation, political-demographic guarantees

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 June 2015, 22:37 GMT]
The focus on Champoor so far by the new regime has been to get rid of the Chinese-affiliated Rajapaksa's ‘development’ family enterprises in Champoor. The India-oriented project of constructing Trincomalee Thermal Power Plant (TPP) was also part of the same ‘Industrial Zone’ game, conceived by Colombo involving all the powers locked in the geopolitical game of occupation. The geopolitical exploitation and the structural genocide will continue with a new model of conspiracy, which would be hatched by involving new actors unless the Tamils conceive a concerted struggle against the game without aligning themselves with any of the players, informed civil activists in Trincomalee told TamilNet on Friday. Meanwhile, a Tamil expert on the topic was of the opinion that Tamils should demand compensation for the destruction caused to the civil property, after the military seizure.
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Colombo reimposes military harassments against peaceful assembly in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 June 2015, 23:20 GMT]
Military intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military in Batticaloa district has recently stepped up surveillance and intimidation of those who take part in civil, economic, cultural and religious meetings in all the 14 divisions of the district, according to the instructions coming from Colombo, informed sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Wednesday. The new regime in Colombo, claiming ‘good governance’, continues the ‘military governance’ through its genocidal Sinhala military in an attempt to control the civil affairs in the district, said civil activists who have been subjected to intimidating calls from the SL military operatives in recent days.
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‘LLRC’ Palihakkara promotes pompous ceremony for genocidal ‘War Heroes’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 June 2015, 23:20 GMT]
The office of the SL Governor to North, HMGS Palihakkara, who was one of the eight panellists earlier appointed by former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), was an an official co-organiser to the pompous ceremony organised together with Ranaviru Seva Authority (RSA) of the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna on Wednesday. ‘LLRC’ Palihakkara himself was the chief guest of the ceremony organised in remembrance of the ‘fallen war heroes of three forces and the Police’. Mr Palihakkara has forced a section of Tamil public servants in the North to accompany him to the military ceremony. Tamil journalists in Jaffna have boycotted the event. The NPC councillors said they were not informed of public servants associated with the NPC being taken to the event.
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Sinhala occupation of pastureland causes existential threat to Batticaloa Tamil farmers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 June 2015, 23:19 GMT]
316 Tamil farmers belonging to two administrative divisions in Batticaloa district own around 85,000 cattle. The cattle-herders from this region have been officially demarcated 45,000 acres of lands in Maathava'nai, Periya-maathava'ani and Mayilaththa-madu. More than 5,000 Tamils are dependent on the cattle industry in the region. They supply 15,000 litres of milk to three collecting centres run by Milko and Nestlé in Kiraan and Chengkaladi. The Sinhala colonisers have seized 12,000 acres (one fourth) of the allocated pastureland. Operatives belonging to SL Wildlife Conservation Department and the occupying Sinhala soldiers have been chasing the Tamil cattle herders away as the intruding Sinhala farmers engage in Chena-cultivation. The Tamil farmers demand a permanent solution before the Sinhala intruders are set to commence Chena cultivation for next season in August 2015.
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Tamil diplomacy put to test

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 June 2015, 23:51 GMT]
A democratically elected government in the State of Tamil Nadu in India has unanimously resolved for international investigation of the crime of genocide committed against Eezham Tamils. The democratically elected Northern Provincial Council of Eezham Tamils has called for the same. These are democratic demands manifesting from people’s struggle and uprising. The Permanent People’s Tribunal also has come out with its verdict finding genocide and on-going genocide. Justice Wigneswaran’s diplomacy is people-oriented. But the nominated parliamentarian Sumanthiran’s argument for ‘domestic mechanism’ to implement anything, while downplaying the fundamental question, subtly sabotages logical solution to the genocidal context, tilting the diplomatic balance as the military balance had been tilted in the war, to keep the accused State intact for the agenda of the ultimate culprits.
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Uprooted Tamils in Vaakarai demand back lands confiscated by SL military

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 June 2015, 23:09 GMT]
The uprooted Tamil villagers from Murukkaiyadi-munai in former LTTE-administered Vaakarai division situated north of Batticaloa staged a protest on Wednesday demanding immediate release of lands that have been seized from them by the occupying Sri Lankan military during the genocidal onslaught on Vaakarai between May 2006 and March 2007. When the uprooted Tamils wanted to resettle in their village, the SL military deceived them to put their signatures on documents written in Sinhala and English promising them resettlement. The uprooted people later realised that the papers they were tricked into signing were in fact documents that confiscated their village from them.
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Mathisayan's killing evokes fear among social activists in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 June 2015, 23:06 GMT]
The killing of 43-year-old Mathisayan Sachchithanantham last Tuesday at Ma'ndoor situated 40 km south of the city of Batticaloa, has caused fear among the Eezham Tamil social activists in East. The slain victim was a leading social activist, who had confronted the previous administration of the Murukan temple, where corruption prevailed with the backing of civil administrative officers appointed by the occupying Sri Lankan State. The slain activist has also been vocal in opposing the construction of a playground at a river delta in his native village, close friends of the slain activist told TamilNet on Monday adding that paramilitary operative Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, has been backing the construction of the controversial playground. The activists say social activism among Eezham Tamils has been seriously threatened by the anti-people elements promoted by the occupying SL State.
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SL military continues to arrest Tamils from East returning from Middle-East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 May 2015, 17:51 GMT]
A 39-year-old father of a child, who returned to Ampaa'rai after being employed in Dubai, has been detained at Katunayaka International Airport on Saturday, news sources in Ampaa'rai said. The detained person, who hails from 12 Division in Kaarai-theevu, had left the LTTE in 2004 and undergone investigations earlier. But, he has been continuously harassed by the military intelligence of the occupying Sri Lanka Army while he was in Ampaa'rai, news sources in Ampaa'rai told TamilNet. More than 16 Tamils from East have been ‘arrested’ at Colombo airport within the last five months after the new regime has come to power in Colombo.
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SL military collects details of family members of ex-LTTE activists in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 May 2015, 15:06 GMT]
The soldiers of the occupying Sri Lanka Army have been collecting details including the names of family members, their occupation at Chelvaa-nakar East in Aaraiyampathi, Batticaloa during the last five days. The SL soldiers are visiting the houses and huts of the families in the villages in bicycles with a printed list of names of ex-LTTE members in their hands. Why the SL military is harassing the families by registering all the details of family members and their places of employment, Tamil families in Aaraiyampathi question.
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Oppressed nations shouldn’t take mere existence of geopolitics for granted: Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 May 2015, 23:31 GMT]
“Despite the emergence of a multipolar world, in which international and regional powers will battle each other and intervene in various conflicts in order to enhance their respective geopolitical dominance, oppressed people and Eezham Tamils should be wary,” writes Norway-based Anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. The patronage given by rivalling geopolitical powers to the genocidal policies of Sri Lanka and Pakistan in South Asia imply that a multipolar world does not by itself serve the interest of oppressed nations, the academic from the second generation diaspora, concludes that the national political mobilization within the oppressed nations themselves and a global solidarity transcending the State borders, would create the necessary de-facto situations to empower the nations without States to achieve their freedom.
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Address ‘domestic’ deceptions of geopolitical powers: Disapora Tamil activist

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 May 2015, 05:24 GMT]
“We should remember that it was primarily the geo-political injustice committed by regional and global powers that enabled the SL State to wage the unrelenting genocidal onslaught towards Mu'l'ivaaykkaal in 2009. The powers, pre-occupied with ‘unified’ Sri Lanka, were seeking to force through our throats, the concept of ‘internal self-determination’ to reject our only remedy of asserting our own sovereignty,” Lathan Suntharalingam, a Diaspora activist, who has championed the legal efforts in Europe after 2009, said in his address on Monday at Bern, Switzerland. “The next milestone in the post-2009 struggle is to mark the Mu'l'livaaykkaal Day as a universal day of remembrance of genocides and injustices committed against the nations without states by the regional and global geopolitical powers. This is key to safeguard them from continued ‘domestic’ and global crimes,” he said.
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New mantra of ‘hybrid courts’ in the game of geo-politics

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2015, 10:57 GMT]
The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) was condemning the new regime of Sri Lanka for appointing Major General Jagath Dias, the war-time commander of the abusive 57 division of the SL Military as the new Army Chief of Staff. At the same time, the HRW was urging the new regime in Colombo to “put into place an effective accountability mechanism with a significant international component.” The Tamil people should note the terminology being adopted in the global orchestration in narrowing down the ‘pressure’ on Sri Lanka into a domestic process, Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna cautioned on Sunday. Tamils should pay particular attention to how the HRW and other rights outfits are trying to justify a ‘domestic‘ process while the USA and China are competing with each other in building strategic partnerships in the Indian Ocean Region, the activists further said.
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SL military steps up surveillance during Genocide Memorial Week

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 May 2015, 23:38 GMT]
Following SL Minister Karu Jayasuriya's ‘warning’ against those trying to commemorate fallen LTTE Heroes, the intelligence wing of the occupying Sri Lankan military has stepped up monitoring Tamil activists and politicians who mark commemoration events during the genocide memorial week this year. The intelligence operatives of the SL military have been photographing and videoing those who organise remembrance meetings and gatherings organised by Tamil activists and politicians, said NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, a key force in the NPC behind the process of passing the Genocide Resolution. In the meantime, Sri Lankan Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) responsible for the Northern Province police permissions was yet to respond to an application to mark commemoration for the slain civilians at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on 18 May.
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16 Batticaloa Tamils arrested within last 100 days at Colombo airport

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 May 2015, 17:36 GMT]
The Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ investigation division has arrested at least 16 Tamil men from Batticaloa district at Katunayake International Airport within the past 100 days of the so-called good governance of the new SL regime in Colombo, Tamil rights activists in Batticaloa said. The arrests have been made under the notorious Emergency Regulations. But, the visiting foreign diplomats like the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, have been blindly appreciating the Sri Lankan government for ‘good governance’ in the island, the activists said. The detentions were isolated events without any relationship to each other, they said.
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New generation of organic intellectuals needed to continue Sivaram’s work

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2015, 12:08 GMT]
“Only a new generation of organic Tamil intellectuals, who have a clear understanding of changing global paradigms and who are able to create paradigm shifts in Tamil political discourse, can preserve and take forward Sivaram’s legacy” writes research scholar RM Karthick. In an article written on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the assassination of ‘Taraki’ Sivaram Dharmeratnam, Mr. Karthick argues that the current Tamil intelligentsia needs to live up to its historical responsibility in exposing the designs of the powers, be it in Oslo, Geneva or Singapore. Criticizing mainstream Tamil intellectuals for their apathy and for failing to keep up with important changes in South Asian geo-politics, he further says that “a nation’s ability to spring back to its feet politically depends on how soon it is able to organize itself intellectually.”
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OISL in acid test over witness submissions on ‘Gota camp’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2015, 21:30 GMT]
The revelations on the so-called Gota camp, a secret incarceration camp run by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Trincomalee, where at least 700 former LTTE members were illegally detained for more than five years, will be an acid test to conclude whether the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) has taken the eyewitness submissions seriously, one of the survivors who got out from the notorious detention just a few days before the regime change told TamilNet on Saturday. The whereabouts of those detained at the undisclosed ‘Gota’ camp also constitute a serious question on the conduct of the ‘new’ regime in South. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo told TamilNet that the SL military has given a figure of less than 400 former LTTE members as being alive in its custody throughout the island.
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SL Minister's men occupy lands of uprooted Tamils in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2015, 21:27 GMT]
Around 100 uprooted Tamil families from Thaangkiyadi in Mannaar have been denied resettlement in the lands where they were living before they were uprooted in 1990. The relatives of SL Minister Rishad Bathiudeen at Thaaraa-puram have occupied the 48-acre land. There is no one to voice for the resettlement of the poverty-stricken families from the lower echelon of the society, rights activists in Mannaar said. “No-one dares to fight with Rishad Bathiudeen who hails from Thaaraa-puram, the nearby village,” a displaced Tamil villager, who visits the temple once a week, told TamilNet on Wednesday. The small temple is the only trace of the Tamil settlement at Thaangkiyadi situated 7 km north of the city on Mannaar - Thalaimannaar A14 Road.
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