Victims of Moothoor massacre must see justice prevail: mother of Kokilavarthani

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2015, 23:40 GMT]
60-year-old Vairamuththu Pushparany, the mother of one of the victims who was assassinated on 04 August 2006 at Moothoor, in Trincomalee, along with 16 of her co-workers at the office of France-based NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF, Action Against Hunger), is sharing her grief with Tamils on the occasion of 9th year anniversary of one of the brutal massacres in the war. Those who committed the crime are yet to be subjected to proper investigations. All the investigations that took place happened in “their courts with their judges and police,” the mother of 27-year-old Vairamuththu Kokilavarthani, who was a Hygine promotion moderator with the ACF, told TamilNet. Kokilavarthani was the eldest and the only breadwinner of the family at the time of the massacre. The crime should be subjected for an international investigation of genocide, Tamil activists in Trincomalee said.
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War-affected Tamils in North resolve to boycott SL Parliamentary Election

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2015, 23:47 GMT]
The representatives of uprooted Eezham Tamils from the former ‘High Security Zone’ in Valikaamam have stated that they are going to boycott the elections. In the meantime, the main organisation representing the kith and kin of the missing persons in North has condemned the North-based political parties and alliances as well as the South-based parties, for subjecting the plight of the war-affected victims to the ‘use and throw’ politics. SL President Maithiripala Sirisena who visited Jaffna a week ago and SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe who visited Jaffna on Friday have failed to deliver anything concrete, the representatives of both the missing persons associations and the uprooted people from Valikaamam told TamilNet on Saturday.
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Turkey resumes war against Kurds with US approval

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2015, 12:57 GMT]
The Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has authorized the state armed forces to carry out air strikes against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) positions in Southern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), North Iraq (Southern Kurdistan) and Northern Syria (West Kurdistan). On 23 July and 26 July, Turkish war planes pounded PKK bases in North Iraq and South-Eastern Turkey. Whereas Turkey claims to have launched attacks on the IS (Islamic State) in Syria, reports indicate that it is the PKK and YPG/YPJ who are the prime targets of the Turkish aggression. On 21st July a NATO Security Council meeting was called for by Turkey, and the Washington centred defence alliance granted its approval to its allies in Ankara, promising political support for Turkish military efforts. Consequently, on 29th July, the Turkish government annulled the ceasefire with the PKK.
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TNA's draft on constitutional reforms exposes dilution of fundamental principles

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2015, 00:21 GMT]
“In point of fact, if the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is to be preserved from claims to the right of secession, it is a sine quo non that the right to self-determination of the Tamils is recognized and the nature of the state is restructured to enable meaningful exercise of internal self-determination,” concludes the draft introduction prepared by TNA in November 2009 to accompany its proposals of constitutional reforms. 5 years have elapsed since. The TNA, now claiming a final solution in 2016, is yet to educate the masses on what efforts it has undertaken to establish the sine quo non (“cause-in-fact”) and on how long it is going to cling to the explanation of re-inventing the wheel, getting voluntarily locked to a genocidal situation which is beyond any rectification. TamilNet is releasing the documents from November 2009 for the awareness of Eezham Tamils.
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Sinhala policemen harass Tamil families in Kokkuththoduvaay, Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2015, 15:12 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Sinhala policemen, operating from Karunadduk-kea'ni police station in the strategic coastal strip, from Kokkuththoduvaay to Kokku'laay, which links the Northern and Eastern provinces, have been terrorising the resettled Eezham Tamil families in recent days, news sources in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district told TamilNet on Thursday. Under the pretext of searching for illegal brewers, Sinhala policemen without uniforms enter the houses of Tamil fishermen during the nights when the men have left their houses for fishing. The SL policemen have framed a young Tamil fisherman with false charges on Tuesday.
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Chadian parallel: dictator faces trial for war-crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2015, 22:04 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils are searching for international mechanisms to bring those who bear responsibility for the "Crime of the century" of killing more than 80,000 Tamil civilians in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, to justice, human rights activists are elated but reminded that the "march of justice can be slow" in the recent trial of Hissen Habre, a former dictator from Chad, in the courts of Senegal. The trial began on 20th July, for alleged crimes of mass killings, torture, disappearance as part of ethnic cleansing in the 1980s, crimes that have stark parallel to those committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka. US State Department, in their selective approach to dealing with International Crimes, saved former SL President Rajapakse in the US Courts of Law suggesting sovereign immunity, an archaic legal doctrine that allows the US Executive branch to protect even genocidaires from legal action.
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Saiva shrines subjected to Sinhala Buddhicization in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2015, 23:09 GMT]
A shrine of Saiva-Vedda tradition, located 12 km southwest of Paa'nama in Lahugala division of Ampaa'rai district at the hilltop of Channiyaasi-malai, has been subjected to Sinhalicisation and Buddhisization after the area has been seized by Colombo's military from the Tigers eight years ago. Tamil devotees from Ampaa'rai who retured home after a pilgrimage on foot from Thirukkoayil to Kathirkaamam Murukan temple, which is situated in Moneragala district, told TamilNet that the occupying Sinhalese have relocated the ‘divine javelin’ (veal) and built a Buddhist temple at the hilltop in Channiyaasi-malai, which is situated between Paa'nama and Ukanthai.
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SL Navy controls access to potable water in Champoor, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2015, 22:17 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils who are beginning to resettle in the recently released 818 acres of lands in Champoor complain that there is still no assurance that they would not be chased away once again from their lands and properties. This is the fourth time they are told that they could commence their resettlement. Despite the prevailing uncertainty, they have started to clear the lands and put up temporary huts. Still the occupying Sri Lanka Navy controls the lands with access to potable water, resettling civilians told TamilNet on Thursday. “The SL Navy intends to sustain the militarisation while we expect the global community to exert pressure to sustain our livelihoods,” a resettling Tamil civilian said.
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New act of structural genocide seeks to uproot 3,500 Tamils from Mannaar islet

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
The civil officers working under the SL Government Agent in Mannaar have been exerting pressure on 500 Eezham Tamil families living in three GS divisions within Mannaar DS division to vacate from their coastal villages in the islet and settle in alternative lands 15 km away in the mainland. The war-affected poor families, comprising 3,500 to 4,000 people, are dependent on fishing as their livelihood. They were given land deeds in the three GS divisions in 2008 and 2009. Utilized with land deeds, the families have constructed permanent houses and huts in their villages. The move would severely affect their access to the coast and their livelihood. But, the officials receiving instructions from Colombo's administrative system, are bent upon uprooting the fishing families without any promising alternative arrangements, concerned civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Wednesday.
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Mannaar fishermen face prolonged existential crisis due to Indian poaching

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2015, 23:24 GMT]
The States of India and Sri Lanka are reluctant to resolve the conflict caused by poaching by Indian fishermen in the territorial waters of the Northern province for political reasons, says the Chairman of Federation of Mannaar District Fisheries Associations Mr Noor Mohamed Aalam. The intruding poaching trawlers, numbering from 1,500 to 3,000, have completely disabled 10,000 native fishermen from engaging fishing three nights a week. New Delhi and Colombo are not resolving the issue by locking the fishermen societies into a prolonged process of negotiations with hidden political motives, he said.
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Geopolitics of the Hegemons and Genocide of the oppressed

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 July 2015, 11:56 GMT]
“The Eezham Tamils occupying the strategic coasts in North-East Sri Lanka facing the Bay of Bengal, the Baloch occupying the coasts where the Persian Gulf meets the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, the Kachins occupying the strategic regions of Burma and the Rohinygas situated near the Isthmus of Kra have all been victims of the geopolitical dynamics involved in the collusion between competing world establishments and Asian nation-states. Such a future scenario warrants alternative measures to overcome the political injustice of imperialistic geopolitics,” writes Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. Eezham Tamils, being the victims of an internationally orchestrated structural genocide, should take the lead in edifying the oppressed nations of the world in building an alternative global political network, writes the second-generation Diaspora academic.
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Srebrenica, Mu'l'livaaykkaal: genocide's political dimension

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2015, 00:04 GMT]
In Srebrenica, two decades ago, Serbian forces massacred 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and young adults, widely recognized as the worst genocide in Europe after World War II. While UN never formally recognized the genocide, UN statements and member states [read US, UK] have done so, and had recognized their failure to protect Srebrenica Muslims. In contrast, the nearly 80,000 civilan Tamils massacred in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, in plain eye-view of advanced satellites, UN openly suppressed evidence, and the US, despite State Department's reports to the contrary, remained stoically silent, likely to avoid complicity in failing to prevent the beastial massacres. Wednesday's veto of Russia on UN security council resolution on Srebrenica drew condemnation from the US, in another demonstration of US's selective approach to geopolitical game of genocide.
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OISL should not absolve Colombo from genocidal crimes: survivor of Mirusuvil massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2015, 13:52 GMT]
The United Nations should not commit – once more – a crime against humanity in the case of Eezham Tamils by absolving the Sri Lankan State from the ultimate crime of genocide through facilitating escape routes to Colombo through the OHCHR at Geneva and the Office of the General-Secretary of the United Nations at New York, Ponnuthurai Maheswaran, who is the sole survivor and prime witness of Mirusuvil massacre case, told TamilNet this week in Jaffna. Mr Maheswaran had narrowly escaped from his killers on 19 December 2000 at the age of 21 at Mirusuvil where he witnessed 8 of his close relatives being tortured and killed by a killer squad of the occupying Sri Lanka Army. Although he had identified several soldiers directly involved in the massacre in the identification parades, all of them, except one, have been absolved of the crime by Colombo's justice system.
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SL State sustains genocidal grip on Eezham Tamils citing ‘LTTE affiliation’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2015, 21:43 GMT]
The Sinhala police system of occupying Colombo has once again demonstrated that it could subject any Eezham Tamil civilian to detention under ‘terrorism’ charges under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the Emergency Regulations. The latest case is a Tamil civilian from A'laveddi in Jaffna who lived for some time at Mallaavi in Vanni after the mass exodus of Eezham Tamils from Jaffna peninsula in 1995. Anyone having a family member or close relative with LTTE connection in the past is a potential threat in the eyes of the Sri Lankan military and police. The ‘LTTE affiliation’ has become a ‘valid military objective’, which is necessary to pursue the genocidal project.
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Colombo intent on subjecting more Tamil GS officers to ‘military rehabilitation’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2015, 23:39 GMT]
While 6 Eezham Tamil Village Officers (GS) from Ki'linochchi, recently interdicted from their jobs by Colombo's Ministry of Public Administration, are now forced to undergo ‘military rehabilitation’, the occupying Sri Lankan military, which seeks to retain its control on the civil affairs has instructed Karu Jayasuriya's ministry to subject 12 more Tamil GS officers to the genocidal military rehabilitation, civil sources in Jaffna said. Mr T. Kanagarasa, the coordinator of SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna said he had sent a letter to the SL ministry of Public Administration seeking clarification after receiving a complaint from a young mother, who has been interdicted from her work. In the meantime, Mr S. Varathan, the president of the interest organisation of the GS officers in Jaffna accused that the SL Government Agents have failed to protect the interests of the GS officers.
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Ex-militant Tamil mother attempts suicide due to poverty, discrimination

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2015, 19:37 GMT]
An ex-LTTE female member and a mother of three children, Premalatha, was admitted to Batticaloa hospital on Saturday after a suicide attempt, news sources in Vaazhaich-cheanai told TamilNet. The discrimination and targeted isolation of former LTTE members from Batticaloa, especially those who survived the genocidal onslaught at Mu'l'livaaykkaal and resettled in Batticaloa after so-called military rehabilitation and prolonged incarceration, has not improved even after 6 years have elapsed and the regime in Colombo got a ‘facelift’ enacted by Washington and New Delhi.
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Sinhala fishermen behind assault on Indian trawlers: Fishermen's Federation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2015, 10:53 GMT]
While the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) was watching on, a group of Sinhala fishermen who operate trawlers in the seas off Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna attacked a group of Indian poaching trawlers that had entered into the seas off Chakkoadai in Vadamaraadchi in Jaffna on Wedensday night. The assault was a calculated act to pass the blame on Eezham Tamil fishermen, S. Arulathas, the president of the Federation of Vadamaraadchi Fishermen Associations, told TamilNet on Saturday. The denial from Jaffna fishermen comes following the reports in Tamil Nadu media that Tamil fishermen in Jaffna were behind the attack on Tamil Nadu fishermen on Wednesday.
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Colombo enacts farcical show in Mirusuvil massacre case

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2015, 17:21 GMT]
As part of a concerted showdown in its campaign to transform the Geneva-based OISL investigation discourse into a domestic investigation, the Sri Lankan legal system was recently deployed to ‘demonstrate’ its ‘capacity‘ to 'investigate' what would be described by the human rights defenders as a ‘mass atrocity’ crime. The case, in which one non-commissioned officer of the Sri Lankan Army, Staff Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake, was sentenced to capital punishment, was in fact a genocidal crime in which several Sinhala soldiers, including a captain rank officer having command responsibility, took part. The main surviving witness in the case, who narrowly escaped the brutal massacre, had identified in 2001 the culprits, who belonged to the notorious ‘Deep Penetration Unit’, which was trained by Colombo to commit genocidal acts.
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Tamil activists in North-East question UN's hidden move on ‘domestic mechanism’

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2015, 20:19 GMT]
“[W]e take note with serious concern the recent announcement by the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka that the UN has already decided to fund a domestic mechanism,” said 15 Tamil organisations from North-East in a letter forwarded through the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday. The organizations have put forward two pertinent questions to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: A) How could the UN system decide on supporting a domestic mechanism in abstraction when there has been no proposal or consultation about one? B) Does this announcement not pre-empt the recommendations of the OISL report and any possible follow up action by the UN Human Rights Council and other UN bodies?
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Swaminthan continues ‘facilitation meetings’ between SL military, Tamil actors in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2015, 10:07 GMT]
After the Sri Lankan regime led by Maithripala Sirisena had publicly stated that the continued occupation of civilian properties and any release of them are matters decided by its occupying SL military, D.M. Swaminathan, the SL Minister of Resettlement, has been visiting Jaffna and Ki’inochchi, conducting meetings involving the commanding officers of the SL military and Tamil politicians as well as the civil groups representing the interests of uprooted Eezham Tamils. At a ‘facilitation’ meeting chaired by Mr Swaminthan at Ki’linochchi District Secretariat on Wednesday, the representatives of uprooted people refused to accept the explanations given by the Sinhala military commanders for the delay in the resettlement.
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