Frederica Jansz sacked

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 12:50 GMT]
Frederica Jansz, the editor of one of the last remaining "outspokenly anti-government" English newspaper published in Colombo, was sacked by the new businessman owner when Jansz refused to "curb her style of writing and compromise her credibility," as demanded by the owner, BBC reported. Asanga Seneviratne who is an associate of Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse, had bought a 72% stake in the paper, and had asked Jansz to stop carrying articles critical of the Rajapaksas - several of whom occupy senior government positions, BBC reported.
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Economic Times insinuates Tamils to follow Colombo in ditching India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 09:38 GMT]
The editorial of Mumbai-based The Economic Times on Friday insinuates that Tamils will never get justice from India unless they too compete with Colombo in playing the card of China and Pakistan, commented a political analyst in Jaffna. The Economic Times editorial, criticising the opposition to Rajapaksa’s visit as chauvinism wrecking New Delhi’s strategy said: “India has many bones to pick with Sri Lanka, including thwarting Colombo's game of playing Pakistan and China off against India. This calls for a combination of unrelenting pressure on some subjects, such as political rights of the Tamil minority, and generous accommodation on some others.” Responding, the Jaffna analyst told TamilNet that ‘unrelenting’ here implies indefinite hoodwink and ‘generous accommodation’ accommodates annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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Tamils in UK salute Vijayaraj, condemn India's welcome of Mahinda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2012, 00:03 GMT]
Saluting the sacrifice of Salem based Tamil Nadu activist Vijayaraj, who had self-immolated protesting Mahinda Rajapaksa's visit to India and who succumbed to his burns on Tuesday, Eezham Tamils in the UK conveyed their solidarity to the protesting Tamils of Tamil Nadu, condemning India's welcome of the genocide-accused SL President. Demonstrating outside the Indian High Commission in London on Friday, the protesters further urged the Indian government to recognize the genocide of the Eezham Tamils.
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Protests intensify against Rajapaksa’s presence in India, Congress-BJP condemned

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2012, 09:08 GMT]
Criticizing both the BJP led Madhya Pradesh state government and Congress Party for inviting SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a Buddhist event in Sanchi, MDMK leader Vaiko told reporters “Despite knowing that Rajapaksa is solely responsible for the genocide of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh has invited him and the Centre endorsed his visit,” a PTI report on Thursday said. As Mr. Vaiko and the MDMK cadres attempted to march to Sanchi today, all were arrested and have been temporarily detained at a location nearby, sources told TamilNet. Separately, a correspondent for The Hindu reported today that “It was an ironical scenario in Bhopal as a President accused of genocide arrived here on Thursday to inaugurate a ceremony on world peace.”
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Vaiko stopped at Madhya Pradesh border

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 September 2012, 06:18 GMT]
Even as the genocide-accused SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa landed in New Delhi on Wednesday to a warm welcome, MDMK leader Vaiko and over a thousand of his cadres, who had planned a peaceful black flag demonstration against Rajapaska’s inauguration of a Buddhist university at Sanchi, were stopped at the Madhya Pradesh border by that state’s police. Mr. Vaiko along with the other protestors staged a sit-in at the spot where they were stopped, near Pandhurna on the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border, raising banners, placards and slogans against Rajapaksa’s visit to India.
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Self-immolation protestor dies, anti-Rajapaksa agitations intensify in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 01:38 GMT]
26-year old auto driver Vijayaraj from Salem in Tamil Nadu, who immolated himself on Monday early morning protesting Mahinda Rajapaksa’s visit to India, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday noon. A follower of Periyaar, member of CITU, and a supporter of the Tamil Eelam cause, Vijayaraj, despite being in his death bed, insisted on talking to media at the hospital that Rajapaksa should not be allowed into India. I did it, because Tamils in unison should rise up against the Indian government that welcomes Rajapaksa even after seeing the heroic sacrifices, he was cited by Tamil media Nakkeeran. Agitations intensify in Tamil Nadu, while the BJP Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivaraj Singh Chauhan, claims that Rajapaksa’s visit to Sanchi to inaugurate a Buddhist University is ‘apolitical’.
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TNA’s PSC participation will be pursued when Rajapaksa returns from India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 13:12 GMT]
TNA leader Sampanthan was invited at a short notice on Monday night to meet Mahinda Rajapaksa at his house on Tuesday morning. According to a press release by Mr. R. Sampanthan on Tuesday, at the end of many topics that were discussed, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa “responded by inviting Mr.Sampanthan to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and stated these matters could be addressed when the process commenced. Mr.Sampanthan responded by stating that the TNA has never taken up the position that it will not attend the PSC, but has only insisted that commitments made must be implemented before attending the PSC sessions. It was agreed that this matter would be further pursued on the return of the President from his visit to India.”
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China strengthens its grip on Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 11:17 GMT]
China has signed 16 agreements with Colombo on Monday. The agreemets range from visa exemption and marine development to economic and technology cooperation. The agreements also promised to expand investment and increase imports from the island, reported China Daily on Tuesday. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa signed the agreements with China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, who is the highest ranking official of the Chinese legislature to visit Colombo since the end of genocidal Vanni war in May 2009.
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Tamil Nadu activist attempts self-immolation to protest Rajapaksa visit to India

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 September 2012, 07:51 GMT]
Protesting the scheduled visit of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to India, Vijayaraj, a 26-year-old CITU activist attempted to self-immolate in Salem on Monday, a PTI report said. This attempt comes in the wake of protests of numerous political parties in Tamil Nadu against the genocide-accused Rajapaksa visiting Sanchi in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to lay the foundation stone for a Buddhist University on 19 September.
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International civil society urged to act on CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 21:38 GMT]
After seeing the behaviour of today’s establishments in the Commonwealth that was once known for its effective action against South Africa’s apartheid, and after seeing the Indian diplomat turned Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma stretching his position to uphold the genocidal state and regime in Sri Lanka, the gagged Eezham Tamil civil society activists in the island urged the International Human Rights Organizations to come out with an international civil society boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in November 2013. They also urged understanding governments in Canada, Tamil Nadu state and elsewhere to lead the international civil society paradigm, and the international media to help such a paradigm. The diaspora should be awakened to new struggle strategies, they further urged.
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SLMC gets chance of showing political statesmanship

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 September 2012, 01:14 GMT]
With all irregularities exercised by the Rajapaksa regime of Colombo in the Eastern PC Elections, the emerging reality is that the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress gets its chance of showing political statesmanship in responding to ground realities in the Eastern Province, comment political observers watching the developments in the island. “It is a providence-given chance to the Tamil-speaking Muslims in the island to decide their political cause, whether they want to remain just a ‘minority’ or they want to be stakeholders in making a nation. At the same time, the question of conceding the status to the Muslims has also been extended to the TNA,” commented an observer in the East. However, by being carried away by the ‘simulated course of events’ the TNA is burdened with the responsibility of proving that in what way the PC system justifies the aspirations of Eezham Tamils and Muslims.
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Outlook attacks The Hindu’s Sri Lanka deception

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2012, 00:31 GMT]
The Hindu’s Sri Lanka policy came under severe attack in an article written by S. Anand that appeared both in print and online editions of a mainstream Indian media, Outlook, on Saturday. Viewing what unfolded in Tamil Nadu in the past week as a “vulgar charade of competitive righteousness on the part of all players, including the media,” the role played by The Hindu’s orientation was brought out in the article in the following words: The Hindu’s former editor N. Ram had said within two weeks of the end of the war: “Justice has not been done to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government for its astonishing feat of rescuing by military means close to 275,000 civilians.” And later, a Sri Lankan minister picked up on the perverse cue and described the war as “one of the greatest humanitarian operations in modern times.”
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Congress, BJP, religiously sanctify genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2012, 05:16 GMT]
By inviting Mahinda Rajapaksa to inaugurate a Buddhist institution at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh in India, both New Delhi’s Congress regime and the BJP-run Madhya Pradesh state government endorse religious sanction to the kind of genocide committed and being committed by the Rajapaksa regime of Colombo. In the process they undermine the prospects of Buddhism re-emerging as an expression of the downtrodden masses, accused Dalit Buddhist circles in Tamil Nadu. Sinhala Buddhism is an Orientalist rediscovery in the libraries of the colonial West. India’s Hinduism is no exception. Both have agreed upon the deployment of genocide in the annihilation of nations in the region and it is tested on Eezham Tamils. It is a warning to peoples all over South Asia and elsewhere, commented an academic in Jaffna.
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Rajapaksa's UPFA-men destroy Hindu temple in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2012, 17:50 GMT]
Abiraami Amman Koayil in Meankaamam village, situated in Moothoor DS division of Trincomalee district, was destroyed on Wednesday. Residents in the area told TamilNet that a gang led by former Provincial Minister of Agriculture and Inland Fisheries T. Navaratnarajah, who is contesting the forthcoming election to the Eastern Provincial Council on the ticket of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), was behind the destruction.
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Sampanthan writes to Rajapaksa on election violations in East by UPFA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2012, 13:42 GMT]
Certain events have occurred in the past several days which have raised grave misgivings in regard to whether the elections to Eastern Provincial Council to be hold on Saturday would be free and fair, tells R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on Thursday in a formal letter sent to SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is also the leader of the ruling UPFA alliance. Vehicles belonging to candidates and supporters of political parties opposed to the UPFA have been attacked, Sri Lankan military intelligence personnel have warned those opposed to the UPFA of ‘unpleasant consequences’ after the elections and a so-called Blue Brigade that has arrived in the East has been asking for the polling cards of voters, the letter by Mr Sampanthan said.
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Apply BDS campaign against Sri Lanka: Tamil Nadu writer

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2012, 09:02 GMT]
Arguing that “massive international pressure alone can halt the ongoing cultural and structural genocide against the Tamils”, Tamil Nadu based poet and writer Meena Kandasamy contends in an article on Tehelka.com that an effective Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which was used against the apartheid South African state must be also applied to Sri Lanka.
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450 SL military personnel undergo training in India

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2012, 01:08 GMT]
In a written reply to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, Indian Defence Minister A K Antony on Wednesday admittedly confirmed the training provided to Sri Lankan military personnel in different states of India, including Tamil Nadu where there has been strong opposition from political parties of different hues against the same. “More than 450 personnel from Sri Lankan armed forces are undergoing training at the defence establishments in India including in Bangalore, Kannur and Belgaum,” a PTI report said, citing Defence Ministry sources. In the meantime, representatives from Tamil Nadu political parties in both the houses of the Indian parliament demanded the Indian government to scrap all training given to Sri Lankan military personnel, accusing the latter of war crimes and genocide.
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BJP denies inviting Rajapaksa as Tamil leaders announce protest in India

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 September 2012, 19:14 GMT]
Tamils across Tamil Nadu on Wednesday launched protests against Rajapaksa’s scheduled visit to India on 21 September to inaugurate a centre for Buddhist study at Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh. VCK activists in Coimbatore burnt photographs of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the BJP who had reportedly invited the genocide-accused SL president. Meanwhile, MDMK leader Vaiko urged the BJP to cancel the invitation to Rajapaksa, stating that otherwise he would lead a black flag demonstration to Madhya Pradesh when the SL president arrives. In the meantime, Sushma Swaraj and other BJP leaders have denied inviting Rajapaksa, alleging that the Indian Prime Minister and the Ministry of External Affairs were responsible for inviting the SL president.
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Genocide partners talk about people to people relationship

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 September 2012, 00:02 GMT]
The action taken by Tamil Nadu chief minister to send back Colombo footballers and an incident of mob harassment against Sri Lankan tourists in Tamil Nadu have made New Delhi and Colombo, the partners in the genocide of Eezham Tamils, to remember the importance of people to people relationship all of a sudden. Following close on their heels were The Hindu and the Marxist Communist Party of India (CPI-M). The BJP parliamentary leader Sushma Swaraj chose the time to invite Mahinda Rajapaksa to open a Buddhist institution in her constituency. Even though sections of media in India try to reduce the stand of Jayalalithaa as mere impulsive response to the open insistence of the Centre on training Sri Lankan military personnel in India, and project it as a dangerous game, powerful but short-sighted etc., the matter is much deeper than that, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Jayalalithaa orders exit of Colombo footballers, suspension of stadium official

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2012, 18:13 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa on Sunday gave orders to send back a football team of Sri Lanka’s Royal College in Colombo that had come to play ‘friendly’ matches in Chennai. The matches had been organised through an arrangement between the College and an official of the Reserve Bank of India, and the team had already played a match on Friday with the Customs Department of the Central Government, at the Nehru Stadium in Chennai. Slamming the Government of India for allowing the Sri Lankan team to play matches in Tamil Nadu, the Chief Minister directed the Chief Secretary of the State to suspend an officer in-charge of the Nehru Stadium of the state government who had given oral permission for the venue. Department level inquiries are initiated against the official.
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