SLA restricts access to temples, churches in Jaffna HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 July 2012, 17:26 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Valikaamam North has recently started to block the people from accessing temples and churches within the High Security Zone. The SLA, which had in recent years allowed the uprooted people of Vasaavi'laan to visit their temple inside the occupied ‘HSZ’ with prior permission, has now blocked them from accessing the St. Joseph Church in the village, they said. People from other villagers also complain that access to temples and churches within the HSZ has now been restricted. The SLA is also busy setting up new bunds and barbed-wire fences in recent days.
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SL military grabs more lands in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2012, 17:48 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna has occupied new lands in Maathakal, leaving 279 more families without homes. The latest reports say that the Sri Lankan military is silently evicting people from their homes in areas that are situated outside the former ‘High Security Zone’, civil sources in Valikaamam North said.
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SL military extends HSZ in Jaffna, evicts resettled people from Kuppuzhaan North

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2012, 23:46 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna has re-confiscated more than 250 acres of land in Kuppuzhaan North in Valikaamam South division of Jaffna district in recent days, evicting resettled families from their land, complain the uprooted families. The Sinhala Army has been putting up permanent concrete fences and has instructed people not to cross the fence. The news of the latest land grab by the SL military and the news of people being evicted again from the resettled areas of the former ‘High Security Zone’, on top of the news that the SL military planting land mines in de-mined areas of Maathakal, have slashed hopes of resettlement among the 40,000 people, who still remain as uprooted people after their eviction from Valikaamam HSZ.
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SL Navy plants land mines again, steps up genocidal land grab of Maathakal

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 June 2012, 17:51 GMT]
Uprooted Eezham Tamils from Maathakal West in Valikaamam South-West, who went to check their lands this week, have been chased away from entering the coastal village by the occupying Sinhala Navy, which still regards the area as it's so-called High Security Zone. The uprooted people, who have been periodically inspecting their houses in the border areas of the HSZ, usually escaping the scrutiny of the SL Navy, have now witnessed the SL Navy planting land mines again inside the HSZ where de-mining had been completed earlier. While the uprooted have been continuously staging protests against the genocidal land grab, the entire coastal stretch has been snatched away from the people by the colonial SL military that has fenced the beach for the construction of military cantonment, erecting houses for SL Navy.
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Colombo deploys riot police, blocks protest against land grab in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2012, 11:47 GMT]
Riot control commandos of the Sri Lankan Police were deployed in large numbers Tuesday morning confronting hundreds of peaceful protesters, who objected the land grab being undertaken by the occupying SL military inside the so-called High Security Zone. The protesters were demanding immediate resettlement in Valikaamam North. Parking several vehicles across the road and deploying armed riot commandos, the officers of the SL police told the protesters that they would not be allowed to march on the KKS Road to hand over a petition at the Divisional Secretariat in Thellippazhai. The protestors have given one month for the SL authorities to respond and have warned to step up the protest campaign unless there was no favorable response by the SL government to their demands.
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1033 lands, houses to be permanently appropriated for SL military in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 June 2012, 23:41 GMT]
After appropriating thousands of acres of land in Mullaiththeevu, Ki'linochchi, Mannaar and Vavuniyaa districts of the Northern Province, the SL military establishment in the North has accelerated its drive of appropriating 1033 properties, most of them privately owned lands and buildings, for the three SL armed forces outside the already seized ‘High Security Zone’ in the peninsula, civil officials in Jaffna told TamilNet, giving statistical breakdown of figures from the internal records of the occupying military. Colombo has passed the responsibility of land appropriation in Jaffna to its colonial military governor Maj. Gen. (retd) GA Chandrasri, according to the informed officials. In the meantime, the commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, has defended the military move to maintain permanent camps in areas outside the so-called High Security Zones.
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Civic bodies in Jaffna resolve not to provide lands to SL military

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 June 2012, 12:21 GMT]
The civic bodies in Jaffna have resolved that they would not allow the lands that come under the authority of the civic bodies to be appropriated for military purposes. “As the elected members of the public, we are not going to allow the lands to be deployed for the construction of military cantonments against the will of our people, whom we represent,” was the decision taken by all the civic bodies, a TNA politician in Jaffna told media Sunday. “The decision was unanimous,” the sources further said.
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Sinhala militarisation expanded in Jaffna contrary to claims: Jaffna Paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 June 2012, 23:30 GMT]
Contrary to news reports released by Colombo that it has drastically reduced the number of troops in the North, the occupying Sinhala military in Jaffna peninsula has been stepping up land grab for military purposes in recent days even outside of the so-called High Security Zone and former Forward Defence Lines in the Jaffna peninsula. Uthayan Tamil daily, published in Jaffna, on Thursday broke a front-page story that SL military has begun to appropriate 61 acres of land in the peninsula from the civic bodies and private owners in three divisions. After already grabbing thousands of acres of land, the genocidal SL military has now set afoot to appropriate 35 acres in Thellippazhai division, 24 acres in Jaffna division and 2 acres in Nalloor division of the peninsula.
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Unique temple of Tamil folk heritage found destroyed, desecrated in HSZ in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 May 2012, 05:25 GMT]
A unique temple of Eezham Tamil folk heritage, dedicated to Kooddaththaar, a deity historically worshipped by a soldier guild that got absorbed into the toddy-tapping community, was found destroyed in bombing and its rare bronze idol sawed off and stolen at the Vasanthapuram locality of I’lavaalai in Jaffna. For the last two decades the locality was under the ‘High Security Zone’ (HSZ) of the occupying Sinhala military. Recently, when some fringes of the HSZ were allowed for resettlement, the people of Vasanthapuram returned. Finding their temple destroyed and the deity missing they now worship only the pedestal remaining. Vasanthapuram is where the occupying military has built lines of a few monotype houses for the resettled people and often shows them off to visiting foreign dignitaries as an example of its ‘reconciliation’ efforts.
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Military-managed de-mining endangers security of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 18:27 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which dominates de-mining activities in the former Forward Defence Line areas and in the so-called High Security Zone under its occupation, was not doing the de-mining work according to established norms and procedures, complain humanitarian workers in Jaffna, formerly attached to independent de-mining operations of international NGOs. On Monday, two teenage boys sustained severe injuries, one of them losing his leg, caught in landmine explosion in Ketpali in Thenmaraadchi while they were plucking co-conuts at a palm grove that had been cleared by the SL military. A few days ago, school children at Ki'laali School found unexploded shells from the sand brought inside the school for construction work. The children were saved by the timely intervention of the teachers, the NGO workers further said.
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SLA re-confiscates land ‘declared’ resettled in Jaffna HSZ

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2012, 11:56 GMT]
The Sinhala state occupying the country of Eezham Tamils will never observe any of the ‘reconciliation’ hoodwink it simulates to the outside world. This becomes explicitly evident with the Sri Lanka military re-occupying villages ‘declared’ for resettlement in the Valikaamam High Security Zone, to create an extensive and fenced militarized region along the northern coast of Jaffna, news sources in Jaffna exposed. Several traditional villages of Jaffna in the fertile red-soil belt will be lost forever in the creation of an extensive Sinhala military region in the most strategic and economically important part of the country of Eezham Tamils, and civil officials in Jaffna are gagged to open their mouths on the blatant grab that takes place after showcasing resettlement to the world, news sources further said.
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Protestors force SL military to open cremation ground in HSZ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 December 2011, 18:51 GMT]
Resettled Tamils in the eastern part of Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) on Tuesday staged a spontaneous protest against the Sri Lanka military demanding the right of the dead to be cremated in their own cremation ground. The protestors threatening to carry the casket of one of their relatives to the cremation ground blocked the main access route of the SL military, demanding the occupying army to open the route to the cemetery. Although the SL military blocked more than a hundred villagers, who attempted to take forward the casket to the cremation ground, the military hierarchy was forced to allow the villagers to reach the cremation ground through an alternative route as the protest lasted for more than 3 hours. The elected TNA members of the civic body in KKS joined the protest, which is described as first of its kind agitation in the SL occupied Jaffna.
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‘ICG report fails to cover genocide-intended sexual violence’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 December 2011, 05:42 GMT]
The International Crisis Group report titled ‘Sri Lanka: Women’s Insecurity in the North and East’ that was released on Tuesday touched upon problems faced by the Eezham Tamil women in their homelands at the hands of the occupying Sri Lankan military apparatus. While the report has been welcomed by some for its revelations, Eezham Tamil civil society activists in the homeland, academics and feminists came down heavily on the report for studying the gender problem in isolation without addressing either the national question of the Eezham Tamils or the process of structural genocide, which necessarily includes use of sexual violence, which is being carried out by the Sinhala majoritarian state to crush the Eezham Tamil nation. They also questioned the motives and practical effectiveness of such reports that seek to push the principal contradictions under the carpet.
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JVP dissidents protest against Jaffna abductions of HR activists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 December 2011, 20:45 GMT]
Around 200 people, who were brought from South by the JVP dissident group, “Movement for People’s Struggle” staged a protest in Jaffna Saturday in front of Jaffna Bus Stand, demanding the release of Lalith Veeraraj, the Jaffna district organisor of the group and his friend Kugan Murugananthan. Sri Lanka soldiers and policemen equaling the number of the protestors were deployed at the site of the protest between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. Meanwhile, the motorbike of the abductees has been recovered two days earlier, along the borders of SL military High Security Zone in Achchuveali surrounding the Palaali military base.
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‘SL military appropriated 30% of land in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 December 2011, 01:40 GMT]
Sri Lankan military occupying the Tamil country had appropriated 30 per cent of the land in Jaffna district alone, under the so-called High Security Zones. What has been given back is only 3 per cent, contrary to what the SL Army wants outsiders to believe. The percentage of SL military appropriated lands still remain 30 per cent or even more with the new lands acquired in the islets off Jaffna, Maathakal and at Ki'laali, says a former senior academic of the University of Jaffna. Speaking to journalists in Jaffna on Friday, the former professor has also warned that the destructive and indiscriminate quarrying of limestone at Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS), which is under the High Security Zone, is going to make the groundwater in the peninsula to become saline.
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SLGA in Jaffna blamed for manipulating statistics of uprooted people from HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 December 2011, 21:51 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government Agent in Jaffna, Imelda Sugumar, has gone on record last week drastically reducing the number of uprooted persons from the SL military-occupied High Security Zone in the district, from 66,905 persons of 14,004 families as reported by her secretariat last year, to 36,442 persons of 10,170 families this year. Ms. Sugumar was citing ‘latest figures’ from December 06, 2011. In reality, the resettlement has gone at a snail's pace and there are still around 60,000 people waiting to resettle in their lands still occupied in the name of High Security Zones. The GA and Jaffna SL military commander Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe, in December 2010, went on record arguing that mine-clearance in HSZ area would take another 10 years. One month ago, Mahinda Hathurusinghe was giving the figure of people remaining to be resettled as numbering only around 18,000.
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SLA grabs 3,500 acres of land in Batticaloa for Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 December 2011, 17:28 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa declared on Wednesday that it has taken over around 3500 acres of graze land located in Koa'ralaipttu South DS division in Batticaloa district for military purposes proclaiming the area as High Security Zone (HSZ). The SL Army has ordered the dairy farmers to remove their cattle immediately away from the lands. The said land was declared graze land by gazette notification in the year 1978. While the Batticaloa SLA Brigadier has said that the graze land area declared HSZ had been taken over by the SLA for military training purpose, Tamil farmers in the area complain say that the SLA move in declaring the area as HSZ was aimed at agricultural colonization by the Sinhalese with military protection.
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Law to take over private lands in Tamil Homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Whilst the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has been in the past taking over lands in the Tamil Homeland under the guise of High security Zones (HSZ) they have now surreptitiously introduced a Bill in the Parliament to amend the ‘Town and Country Planning Ordinance’ in an effort to take over even private lands belonging to Tamils in Tamil dominated areas under various religious and historical pretexts, writes a legal practitioner and human rights activist in the Eastern Province.
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SLA encroaches 100 acres of farmland in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2011, 17:20 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni has forcibly taken over about one hundred acres of farmland situated between the villages Shanthapuram and Kanakaampikaik-ku'lam 5 km southeast of Ki'linochchi town. Earlier, the farmland was the livelihood of hundreds of people under a poverty alleviation scheme under the civil administration of the LTTE. A church and a well used by the residents of Shaanthapuram and Ira'naimaduk-ku'lam are also located in the land militarised by the occupying SL military. The SL military says it wants to exhibit military hardware seized from the Tigers in the farmland, which is situated near Ira'naimadu.
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HSZ people less likely to get their lands back

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 September 2011, 11:08 GMT]
With the so-called lifting of emergency, a rosy picture was painted by some Colombo-based ‘peace’ groups and lawyers that the SL government cannot keep the High Security Zones anymore. But the SL government now plans to permanently ‘acquire’ private lands where the HSZs are now located. According to SL Justice minister Rauff Hakeem, if there is any need to retain HSZs in some areas, then the government would acquire the land ‘legally’ and the affected people will be relocated, Sunday Times reported.
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