Break paradigm that regards Tamils as victims to achieve equitable solution: Balakumaran in 2004

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2020, 05:18 GMT]
From the colonial British Lord Soulbury to Norwegian Peace Envoy Solheim, all external interlocutors intended to render Tamils’ demand below the point of optimal compromise. Soulbury went to the extent of humiliating the then Tamil leader GG Ponnambalam in his attempt to negate the demands of Tamils. He later regretted. Now, Solheim wants to do the same, i.e., tell Tamils to drop their arms. But, he is unable to say it face-to-face because LTTE Leader has demonstrated the balance of power for the first time in the evolutional history of Tamil leaders. However, the world powers still want to weaken the Tamil side and strengthen the SL State, said KV Balakumaran, a senior leader in the armed struggle of Tamils, back in 2004. Tamils cannot achieve anything with a “victim” mindset, he said in a lengthy consultative session to TamilNet in September 2004.
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The Guardian succumbs to pressure from SL High Commission on indigenous term Eelam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2020, 16:54 GMT]
“Eelam is an indigenous name for which popular holiday island?,” was a question posed by a travel quiz published by the Guardian on 15 May. The quiz had rightfully stated the term, which is one of the ancient names for the island. However, in a political move, the High Commission of the unitary state of genocidal “Sri Lanka” reacted against the term “Eelam” sending a letter misinforming the paper that the term had “never been used as an indigenous name for Sri Lanka”. The paper has removed the question without defending the term “Eelam”.
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IC deceived Tamils on genocide investigation: Students of Faculty of Art at Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 May 2020, 21:28 GMT]
The student community of Jaffna University symbolically marked the second day of Mu'l'likvaaykkaal Remembrance week by lighting candles at the entrance to the university at 7 pm on Thursday. However, SL Police cordoned off the gate and threatened the students that it was a violation of measures against the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The students reminded the police that they were maintaining proper social distancing and the number of students involved in the symbolic event. The policemen were harassing the students with the claim that they were empowered to detain and hand over the students to the SL military for COVID-19 quarantining. In the meantime, the student leaders at the Faculty of Art issued a statement condemning the international community and the United Nations for failing to deliver international justice to the genocide committed against the Tamils by the SL State.
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Remembrance of Tamil Genocide and Resistance commences in occupied Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 22:55 GMT]
The eleventh annual Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance, commemorating tens of thousands of deaths and enforced disappearances in the genocidal war waged by the SL State against the nation of Eezham Tamils with the abetment by external powers, has commenced as the awakening week of Tamil nation against genocide. The remembrance week began with a commemoration at Nanthik-kadal near Mu'l'livaaykkaal in Mullaiththeevu and another event at Chemmani mass grave site in Jaffna on Wednesday. The occupying Sinhala Army was deployed in large number, and the SL Police was trying to block those who mobilised to launch the remembrance week. However, the participants braved the harassments in Jaffna and Vanni in commencing the memorial week.
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Gotabaya Rajapaksa is no more US-citizen, but SL military relationship with US continues

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2020, 23:50 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s name has finally appeared in the Federal Register of the US Government, which publishes a quarterly list of individuals, who have chosen to expatriate. Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s name appeared in the list issued on Friday. Mr Gotabaya was commanding the genocidal war against Eezham Tamils as a US citizen with a well-knit link with the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon in the run up to the genocidal onslaught in the island. Mr Gotabaya was also the signatory of a defence agreement with the US in 2007, which lasted till 2017.
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Pandemic underscores need for reviving Cooperative Societies in North-East

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2020, 21:36 GMT]
SL State-owned retail chain and private supermarket food cities have failed to provide critical supplies at subsidised prices to the people of North-East during the pandemic measures. However, the Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (MPCS’s), which were almost in stalemate for years, have again found their use invaluable during the pandemic curfew and lockdown in 2020. The cooperative societies played a crucial role in providing reasonably priced products for a long time, especially during the times of war. The MPCS’s were particularly active during the LTTE-run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam as they were effectively organised and managed without corruption.
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India-Pakistan rivalry deprives regional focus on fighting pandemic in South Asia

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2020, 15:32 GMT]
Pakistan broke the almost one month silence of the regional grouping, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as it initiated a virtual conference of health ministers on Thursday. The move comes a month after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the initiative for COVID-19 Emergency Fund through a video conference with his counterparts last month. The meeting on Thursday was attended by all member states and the SAARC Secretary-General, Esala Ruwan Weerakoon. However, most countries had reduced their representation to below ministerial rank, Indian media noted.
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GMOA deploys “genocidal society” attitude against Tamil specialist on epidemics

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2020, 15:54 GMT]
The secretary of SL Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) Dr Haritha Aluthge, a Sinhalese, has baselessly attacked Consultant Community Physician (CCP) Dr Murali Vallipuranathan, an outspoken Tamil from North. Without providing any credible evidence, Aluthge was blaming Murali Vallipuranathan for “unacceptable & controversial conduct during the present COVID-19 pandemic situation” and was accusing the UK-trained Tamil specialist on epidemics of “expressing views detrimental to the Health Department & Sri Lanka Army”. The GMOA Secretary was also claiming that Dr Vallipuranathan had a “controversial & racist previous history”. The GMOA letter, dated 17 April, comes after Vallipuranthan’s case studies called into question the “dormitory” type of COVID-19 isolation centres on 06 April and on 15 April.
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COVID curfews hurt livelihood of resettled people of Ira'nai-theevu twin-islet

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2020, 14:06 GMT]
The SL fisheries authorities have neglected marketing arrangements for the fish caught by the recently resettled Tamil fishers of Ira'nai-theevu twin-islets that lie 12 nautical miles from the western coast of Ki'linochchi district. The prices have dropped from 1,000 rupees to 300 rupees for one-kilo crabs and from 800 rupees to 200 rupees for cuttlefish catch. More than sixty families are residing in Ira'nai-theevu without permanent housing. The people of the islets facing the Palk Bay are also deprived of community assistance during the curfew. In the meantime, there were reports of COVID-19 infections at the SL military-operated Quarantine Center at Muzhangkaavil, a coastal hamlet located near their temporary settlement, Ira'nai-maathaa-nakar in the mainland. Those infected were medical personnel brought for quarantine from the South.
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Colombo uses COVID-19 situation to militarise civil administration in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2020, 20:19 GMT]
The Community Based Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations involved in assisting the people, who have lost their livelihood due to the long-lasting curfew imposed to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, are complaining about military restrictions hampering their work in Jaffna. The occupying SL military has beefed up its checkpoints on the main highways that connect peninsular Jaffna with the Vanni mainland and the rest of the island. The SL soldiers operating the Elephant Pass (EPS) and Poonakari (Pooneryn) checkpoints are refusing to accept the documents provided to the organisations even though the SL Police has sanctioned such permits at the request of Village (GS) and Divisional Secretaries in the public sector.
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Shavendra-ban, COVID-19 no hindrance to SL Navy “Balanced Style” training with US Green Berets

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2020, 22:23 GMT]
Members of a US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) Operational Detachment Alpha (SFOD-A) team, attached to the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) have conducted a four-week-long training with two notorious wartime formations of the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka in Trincomalee in March. The Green Berets providing specialised training to SL Navy has a long history. The “Operation Balanced Style” sessions went on at secret locations in the South in 1996 and 2001. After 2009, the USINDOPACOM started to conduct naval port visits, various training programmes including the latest Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET). The US military has also experimented with “temporary air logistics hub concept” as well as grooming a marine force for the unitary state in the Sinhalicised and militarised district of the capital city of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils.
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US Marine Corps shifts focus to expeditionary littoral warfare in Indo-Pacific

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2020, 21:37 GMT]
Since 2017, the US Marine Corps has been training and grooming a marine force of the genocidal SL Navy at Trincomalee in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils. In the meantime, the US Marine Corps is undergoing significant transformation in the context of the great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, as revealed by a recently released unclassified report, “Force Design 2030,” which describes the modernization progress. The transformation means a sharp shift from the current ability to conduct amphibious landing operations. Commandant of the US Marine Corps (CMC) General David Berger describes the new focus as the ability to be a “force-in-readiness” or what he articulates as the concept of “Stand-In Forces”. The term Stand-In Force implies a force, which is deployed in peacetime within the potential weapons engagement zones (WEZ) of China in the context of the Indo-Pacific.
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New Delhi's prolonged Kashmir-lockdown causes concerns amidst Corona pandemic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2020, 20:07 GMT]
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has demanded the regional grouping SAARC place the COVID-19 Emergency Fund under the disposal of the Secretary-General of SAARC. New Delhi offered an initial contribution of US $10 million, which was followed by Colombo offering $5 million, Malé $2 million, Dhaka $1.5 million, Kathmandu $1 million and Thimphu $100,000. While the heads of states of seven countries took part in a video conference, Pakistan deployed Dr Zafar Mirza, a ministerial rank special assistant to its prime minister to represent the country. Dr Mirza was urging India to relax the lockdown in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the meantime, news reports from Srinagar said anxiety and fear were high in the Indian-administered Kashmir as the speed restriction imposed by New Delhi on internet services continues under the pandemic outbreak.
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Monk praises Gota for releasing SLA soldier from death row, celebrates genocidaire soldier as “hero”

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2020, 23:38 GMT]
While all attention remains focused on the lethal Corona pandemic, SL President Gotabaya has chosen to silently release a Sinhala soldier, Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for one of the brutal massacres committed on Eezham Tamils. In a genocidal act, eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers, were massacred by Ratnayake and five other soldiers at Mirusuvil in Jaffna on 19 December 2000. Ratnayake, a non-commissioned officer of the SL Army, was the only soldier to be punished by the court. The case was put off several times to facilitate escape routes to commissioned rank officers, except Ratnayake, whom the system intended to release at a later opportunity, as it has happened now, Tamil rights activists in Jaffna commented. In the meantime an extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk celebrated the release posting a video comment on Facebook.
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Trump Administration politicises MCC assistance: US policy analyst

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2020, 19:34 GMT]
The Millennium Challenge Corporation “issued a blow to its own model by using its programs in Kosovo as a political bargaining chip,” writes Sarah Rose, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development, a think-tank based in Washington DC. Describing the last week development as an unprecedented move, the CGD analyst writes that the US foreign policy goal of exerting pressure on Kosovo to remove its tariffs on Serbian goods was “decidedly out of sync with the agency’s model.” The MCC, a US government agency intended to independently work to reduce global poverty through economic growth since its inception in 2004, has come under fire as being a strategic tool to advance foreign policy interests also in the Indo-Pacific and a hot topic in Kathmandu and Colombo.
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Bay of Bengal study notes development disparity between North-East and South

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2020, 21:34 GMT]
All the successive regimes in Colombo have focused on improving the economy of the Sinhala South after the onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009. The SL State, which deploys ‘development’ coupled with geopolitics to sustain the protracted genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils, has a particular focus on shipping when compared to other maritime industry sectors such as fisheries, tourism and energy, reveals a study conducted by One Earth Future (OEF), a non-profit foundation based in the USA. “Sri Lanka” stands out as an emerging global hub and a “regional leader” in shipping, the OEF’s Stable Seas program observes in the study published on Monday. Although the report fails to identify SL State’s structural discrimination against the stateless Eezham Tamils, it doesn’t miss to note the disparity on Human Development Index (HDI) between the coastal districts of North-East and the South.
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Gotabaya appoints Silva as head of SL operation centre to prevent corona outbreak

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2020, 22:51 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who commanded the genocidal war on Eezham Tamils in 2009, has appointed his war-crimes alleged genocidal commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva to “spearhead the National Operation Center for Prevention of COVID- 19 Outbreak,” in the island on Tuesday. In his address to the people on the current status regarding measures against the Coronavirus outbreak, Mr Gotabaya said: “We have faced and won over challenges before. We are ready to face the challenges.” He was making an indirect reference to the 2009 genocidal onslaught against Eezham Tamils as a previous challenge. During the 2004 Tsunami catastrophe, it was the LTTE that received widespread recognition as the force that effectively and quickly responded in helping the people on the ground while the SL military was preoccupied with assessing the possible losses occurred to the LTTE.
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UN Rights Chief must act to refer “Sri Lanka” crimes to ICC

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2020, 22:26 GMT]
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet should act, using powers vested with her, to prompt the UN Security Council to pass a referral to the ICC to investigate the crimes committed against the Tamils between 2002 and 2009 and post-2009, Tamil legal activists based in Jaffna said. The legal activists, who didn’t wish to be named due to the fear of persecution, said the Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute and Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, were the only available means towards an ICC-led criminal process. The Statute’s Article 15, Article 13(a) and (c) were not helpful in the case of Eezham Tamils, they said referring to the recent ICC Pre-Trial Chamber decisions on Myanmar (Rohingya) and Afghanistan situations.
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Phil Miller’s work reveals British role in dividing Tamils and Muslims in East: Dr Malathy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 March 2020, 18:46 GMT]
The British mercenary outfit Keenie Meenie Services (KMS), made up mostly of ex-SAS personnel, and serving the ‘anglophile’ SL President, the late Richard Junius Jayewardene by secretly training the Sinhala Special Task Force (STF) commandos against the armed struggle of Eezham Tamils back in the 1980s. The STF advised by the KMS on divide-and-rule and use of religion, recruited Tamil-speaking Muslims to commit massacres. All of this was done with full awareness of the British government, which too was worried about the solidarity between the Tamils and the Muslims, writes New Zealand based Dr N.Malathy in her book review on the recent book by UK-based Phil Miller. “Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes,” is making this vital revelation, writes the Tamil diaspora survivor of SL State’s 2009 genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in Vanni.
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Moragoda’s “think tank” justifies Sinhala apprehension to MCC, proposes renegotiations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2020, 23:47 GMT]
The so-called Colombo-Trincomalee Economic Corridor (CTEC) was only a new name given to decades-old agenda of demographic genocide wedging territorial contiguity of the Tamil homeland. Previous Rajapaksa government named it “North Central Metro Region (NCMR)” as envisaged by its “National Physical Planning Department” in April 2010. The selection of districts for the implementation of one of the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project on land administration has “ironically led to the perception that MCC was to build an economic corridor between Colombo and Trincomalee and facilitate a land grab by foreigners,” claims a recent writeup originating from Milinda Moragoda’s Pathfinder Foundation. The outfit claims its reading of the MCC proposal justified some of the public concerns [of the Sinhalese].
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