NPC plunges into crisis as external agenda-backed forces challenge Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 June 2017, 23:35 GMT]
Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), which is the main constituent party of the TNA, engineered a move of no-confidence against NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V.Wigneswaran on Wednesday. A considerable number of councillors submitted the request, just a few hours after Justice Wigneswaran instructed two of his ministers, subjected to investigations to resign, and asked two other ministers to go on compulsory leave until the investigation on them is completed. Bringing the four ministries under Chief Minister's purview, the NPC CM said he was answerable to the people who had entrusted him with the task of leading the NPC. TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran has been involved in creating, managing and finally deploying the move as an opportunity to force Wignewaran and his genre to retire from politics. However, Wigneswaran remains calm and restraint, news sources in Jaffna said.
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SL Navy wants to evict Tamil sanitary workers from Manaiyaave'li, Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 June 2017, 18:35 GMT]
Around 300 families of sanitary workers, who are all Tamils and are employed by the Trincomalee Urban Council, are being repeatedly threatened by the SL Police to leave from their residential area in Manayaveli, which is situated near the main SL Navy base in Trincomalee, the families complain. SL Policemen have been repeatedly telling the families to find other places as their lands were to be seized for ‘national security’ reasons. The poverty-stricken people, coming from the lowest echelon of the society, are now facing yet another forceful eviction if Tamil politicians, especially TNA Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan fails to attend their needs, Tamil civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Remembrance Day echoes strengthened resolve against military occupation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 May 2017, 19:39 GMT]
There will come a day when the Tamil-speaking people who are now waging continuous protests for securing their lands from the occupying military and the people who have been seeking answers on the whereabouts of their kith and kin in the hands of the military to start waging a struggle demanding the SL Army, Navy and Air Force to go home, said Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the chief minister of Northern Provincial Council, in his memorial address on the occasion of 8th year remembrance held at Mu’l’livaaykkaal on Thursday. Hundreds of people, including the ones who had lost their loved ones in the genocidal onslaught, were paying tribute at the emotional event, side by side along with their politicians, who were standing among the crowd as everyone else.
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TNA under fire for dealing with SL military commanders at district-level

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 April 2017, 21:46 GMT]
EPRLF leader Suresh Premachandran has urged the elected Tamil parliamentarians to refrain from engaging directly with SL military on the issue of releasing private lands. The burning problem of military land grab of private lands should be addressed to the elected leaders in the South. It is the duty of the SL President, who is an elected leader to instruct the military to immediately hand over the lands seized from private land-owners, Mr Premachandran said at a press conference held in Jaffna on Tuesday. The SL President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the occupying Sinhala military.
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Keappaa-pulavu protesters denounce compromises, demand all their lands released

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 April 2017, 23:16 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and the so-called ‘Resettlement’ Ministry in Colombo are giving confusing, and often contradicting, information on the release of lands in Keappaa-pulavu, say uprooted Tamils, who have been waging a continuous protest outside the so-called ‘security force headquarters in Mullaiththeevu’ for more than 2 months now. Last week, there was yet another deceptive move by the SL Resettlement Ministry and the SL military. The role being played by the ITAK hierarchy has also come under fire from the uprooted people on the ground. The proposal of releasing only 30 acres of their 482 acres of original lands along with additional 90 acres of jungle lands, is not going to put an end to the protest, the protesting people say. The protesting families have vowed to intensify their campaign despite the harsh conditions prevailing at the site of protest.
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Keappaa-pulavu protesters question silence of foreign diplomats, challenge ‘TNA optics’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 February 2017, 11:38 GMT]
Tamil women-led protesters in Keappaa-pulavu on Saturday questioned the silence on the part of the diplomats from the international community who have been to Keappaa-pulavu on ‘field trips’ in the past. The Head of Keappaa-pulavu Women’s Development Organisation Ms S Chandraleela told TamilNet on Saturday that in addition to releasing their occupied lands, the SL military should be withdrawn from the roads used by their children from their village to school. The people on the struggle are concerned of retaliatory abductions from the SL military, which is engaged in surveillance against the protesting families. In the meantime, SL Air Force remove the paragraph of shoot-at-sight warning from the notice boards it had put inside the lands, a day after the threat was exposed by media with photographic evidence.
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Thousands mobilize in Ezhuka Thamizh in Batticaloa, denounce genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 February 2017, 20:50 GMT]
Thousands of Tamils mobilized in Batticaloa on Friday denouncing the unitary State model of genocidal Sri Lanka currently being envisaged in the constitutional proposals in the South. The SL regime in Colombo has discarded the proposals submitted in open and transparent manner by the Tamils in the North-East, the organizers of the event, Tamil People’s Council, said. The entire constitutional process has become a secretive discourse while the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act is used to muffle the freedom of expression of Eezham Tamils in the North and East, the speakers, including Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, said in their speeches. There should be full-scale de-militarization. The 6th Amendment to the SL Constitution and the draconian PTA should be scrapped for a free and fair constitutional process to take place in the North-East.
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NPC Councillor vows to take next-phase of protests to foreign missions in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 January 2017, 17:10 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor Mrs Ananthy Sasitharan has vowed to take the next step of struggle by the relatives of the enforced disappeared to the diplomatic missions of foreign powers that were responsible for urging Tamils to surrender and move towards Vavuniyaa during the final phase of the Tamil genocide in 2009. In the meantime, the kith and kin of enforced disappeared who were on a hunger strike temporarily ended their struggle on the 4th day on Thursday after SL Deputy Defence Secretary has brokered a meeting between the hunger strikers and the SL Prime Minister on 09th February. Two symbolic hunger-strikes were conducted in Jaffna on Thursday in support of the relatives of enforced disappeared in Vavuniyaa during the last phase of Tamil genocide.
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USA, Norway, UK, EU and Japan answerable for Vavuniyaa missing

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 January 2017, 22:32 GMT]
The USA, the EU, the UK, Norway and Japan, demanded Eezham Tamils to move into SL military controlled Vavuniyaa towards the end of war without having any international mechanism on place for their protection. Apart from those who perished, the number of people who were unaccounted for during the genocidal onslaught, a staggering 146,679, is the potential figure of ‘missing persons’. The SL State has put the number of Tamil detainees and prisoners below 200. The genocidal State refuses to recognize them as political prisoners. In the meantime, trauma-stricken kith and kin who survived the Tamil genocide, have been made to carry the photos of their missing ones and expect justice from nowhere. In an attempt to get attention, they have launched a hunger strike at Vavuniyaa this week.
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No Pongkal celebrations for resettled Champoor Tamils in 2017

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2017, 21:54 GMT]
Tamil families who resettled in the lands released in Champoor after being uprooted from their native village for 10 years, complain that they have been abandoned without basic infrastructure or basic facilities. There have been no compensation for the destruction caused by the SL State on their property. Even the promise of providing dray rations for 6 months was not kept by the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena. The people were not able to celebrate Pongkal festival as they were among the hardest hit by the drought.
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ITAK leaders have violated Tamil people’s democratic mandate: Premachandran

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 January 2017, 22:39 GMT]
The very basic demands of Tamils have been totally denied, both by the constitutional assembly tasked with drafting the new constitution and by the political parties in the South. On what basis, the two ITAK politicians R. Sampanthan and M. Sumanthiran continue to be part of the constitutional assembly, asks EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran, who took up the matter in a recent coordinating committee meeting of the TNA. The Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), under the leadership of Thanthai S.J.V Chelvanayakam, boycotted the 1972 Constitution as the constitutional proposal didn’t respect the demands of Tamils. Similarly, the TULF boycotted the 1978 constitution brought by J.R. Jayawardene. There has been no democratic discussion or debate within the ranks of the ITAK. The two other parties, Sitharthan's PLOTE and TELO led by Selvam Adaikalanthan are also answerable, he said.
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Erection of Buddha statues in areas where no Buddhists live, has become despicable: MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 January 2017, 23:11 GMT]
The widespread erection of Buddha statues in the Northern and Eastern provinces, especially in places where no Buddhists live and Bo trees being regarded as the exclusive property of Sinhala Buddhists, have now become analogous to ‘despicable’ symbols in the minds of Tamil-speaking people as these have been used as tools of occupation disrespecting the prospects for harmony between the different religions, say senior Tamil-speaking politicians in the North and East. Tamil-speaking people are not opposed to peaceful co-existence of religions, but when these symbols reflect ethno religious aggression, these become despicable in their minds, says K. Thurairatnasingham, a senior Tamil National Alliance (TNA) national list parliamentarian from Trincomalee. In the meantime, several Hindu temples in the East have witnessed theft and desecration in recent days.
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Merged North-East, spelt-out federal solution should be TNA's ultimatums: Ariyanethiran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 January 2017, 23:43 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the East remains firm in the demand that the leadership of the TNA should reconsider its continued cooperation with Maithiripala and Wickramasinge regime if Colombo is not prepared to spell-out federal solution and merged North-East in the constitutional proposals, said TNA politician and former parliamentarian P. Ariyanethiran passing a clear message to Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and the incumbent hierarchy of the TNA alliance. The TNA politician from Batticaloa, has condemned Wijayadasa Rajapaksha, the ‘Justice’ and Buddha Sasana minister of Colombo for the remarks he made in Batticaloa during his latest visit to Batticaloa. While legal cases are lodged in the courts, the SL ‘Justice’ minister should not have gone on record calling the extremist Sinhala monk as representing the aspirations of Sinhala people in Batticaloa district, he said.
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TNA should quit constitutional steering committee: EPRLF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2016, 20:26 GMT]
The position of the TNA was that talks on political solution should precede the discourse on constitutional proposals. This has not taken place. The parties comprising the TNA are kept at dark by Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran. The duo has completely disregarded the exercise of participatory democracy of others in the TNA alliance, including the majority of other ITAK parliamentarians, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran on Wednesday this week. Except some ‘secret meetings’ organised by SL Foreign Ministry at Singapore and in London with some of their collaborators in the Tamil diaspora, the duo have kept the entire Tamil nation uninformed of their work, Mr Suresh Premachandran said.
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Ownership of released Champoor lands not transferred to people from SL State

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 December 2016, 21:41 GMT]
Maithiripala Sirisena, the president and the commander-in-chief of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka, has not legally released the lands back to the resettled people in Champoor. In May 2015, Mr Sirisena issued a Gazette notification revoking and setting aside the previous alienation of the lands to the Board of Investment, which was carried out by Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2012. However, Mr Sirisena has avoided to revoke the original acquisition of the lands from people, which was carried out according to a previous order under the clause of the proviso to S.38A of the constitution of the unitary State in Colombo. The lands where people have resettled are still ‘State property’ according to the law of genocidal Sri Lanka.
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Muslim, Tamil politicians not bold enough to confront Buddhist cultural intrusions in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2016, 21:51 GMT]
A Sinhala minister of genocidal Sri Lanka, Daya Gamage, who hails from Ampaa’rai district, has gone on record threatening his own regime stating that he would resign his ministerial portfolio in protest if the statue of Buddha, erected by intruding monks at the village hilltop of Maayak-kalli-malai in I’rakkaamam division of Ampaa’rai district, was to be removed from the locality. Observing a systematic acceleration of cultural intrusions by Buddhist monks into Muslim and Tamil dominated areas in East, veteran Muslim journalist Kalapooshanam A.L.M. Saleem, who is based in Kalmunai of Ampaa’rai district, asks why none of the politicians among the Muslims and Tamils are firm in opposing the controversial erection of Buddha statue with a similar resolve to the extent of risking their ministerial or parliamentary portfolios.
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Demographic genocide escalates in Vanni, plans afoot to expand Sinhalicised Weli-Oya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 November 2016, 23:01 GMT]
The Weli-oya division in the Mullaith-theevu district of the Northern Province, created for the exclusive purpose of Sinhalicisation of a strategic piece of Tamil Land in order to wedge the North from the East, is silently being further extended into Vavuniyaa North division by Maithiripala Sirisena's regime, informed civil officials in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet on Tuesday. Sampanthan-led Tamil National Alliance and Wigneswaran-led Northern Provincial Council have completely failed to address the major demographic change taking place at border between the Northern, Eastern and North-Western provinces, the Tamil officials in Vavuniyaa commented. UNP and SLFP politicians are jointly working in colonising the Tamil land, they further said.
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Mobilisation towards ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ uprising in Jaffna gains momentum

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2016, 22:26 GMT]
Grassroots organisations, academics and students of University of Jaffna, business community, religious leaders involved in civil activism and various political parties voicing for the rights of Eezham Tamils are extending their support to the public rally named ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ (Let Tamil rise up) to take place in Jaffna on Saturday. Despite the deviatory sections of the TNA hierarchy, led by M.A. Sumanthiran and Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, have been fully busy with causing obstacles to the move taken forward by the Tamil People’s Council (TPC), the mobilisation has gained support from the people on the ground, activists close to the organisers said.
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Uprooted Tamils in Ki'linochchi suburb go on fast in front of SL military cantonment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2016, 20:17 GMT]
Tamil families who went on a continuous protest last month in front of occupying SL military's cantonment at Paravip-paagnchaan, a fertile suburb of Ki'linochchi town, initially called of their struggle after 5 days after Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who engaged in the process of containing Eezham Tamils from confronting the SL military on behalf of SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, met them and talked to SL Defence Secretary over the phone conveying the demands of those engaged in the struggle. The SL Defence Secretary had asked 2 weeks time and the time had elapsed on 31st August. The families demanding their lands to be released restarted their continuous struggle on 01st September. As a week has gone, they decided to transform their struggle into a continuous fast starting from Wednesday.
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Ban in Jaffna on his tenure’s last-ditch deception

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 September 2016, 15:24 GMT]
The outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was visiting Jaffna on Friday, was avoiding even watching the protesting victims, who had gathered in large numbers outside the District Secretariat. Mr Ban took a different route to meet Reginald Cooray, the controversial colonial governor of genocidal Sri Lanka, whose office is also situated close to the District Secretariat. After meeting the SL Governor, Mr Ban proceeded to Jaffna Public Library, again taking a back-route without showing an iota of interest in consoling the victims who had gathered there to express their despair on the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. Ban Ki-moon’s eyewash visit to Jaffna foretells a plot for another round of deception at Geneva this month, political observers commented.
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