North decisively rejects Colombo rule

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 21:41 GMT]
More than 67% of the voters, who have cast their votes in the NPC elections on Saturday were overwhelmingly (78%) in favour of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and have categorically rejected Colombo’s political parties. Despite all manipulations, the TNA has secured 84% of polled votes in Jaffna, 81% of votes in Ki’linochchi, 78% in Mullaith-theevu, 66% in Vavuniyaa and 62% in Mannaar polling divisions, according to the official results released Sunday noon. The TNA has secured 30 seats, including 2 bonus seats, of the 38-seat NPC. Colombo's UPFA, mainly represented by Douglas Devananda's EPDP, secured 7 seats and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress received 1 seat. Despite demographic manipulations, threats, intimidations and the psy-ops war waged by the occupying SL military, the people have been firm in passing their message, political observers in Jaffna said.
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Voters’ attendance in Jaffna reached 50% at 2:00 p.m.

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 10:38 GMT]
Despite the psy-ops manipulations and various harassments by the occupying SL military in at several places of Jaffna peninsula, the participation of people in the provincial council election in Jaffna peninsula has reached almost 50% by 2:00 p.m., independent election monitors told media. A Tamil National Alliance politician and deputy chairman of Chaavakachcheari Pirathesa Chapai (PS), was almost abducted and tortured by the intelligence operatives of the SL military near a voting booth in Thenmaraadchi and when fellow TNA supporters came in a vehicle to his rescue, those who had abducted the TNA politician escaped into the SLA 52-4 Brigade command base at Vara’ni in Jaffna. Following this, a group of SL soldiers who came from the camp opened fire. The vehicle of TNA supporters has sustained heavy damage in the firing.
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Uthayan faked, SL forces focus on targeting Ananthi on election day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 September 2013, 07:18 GMT]
While the Indian media, The Hindu and The Times of India, highlight NPC chief minister candidate Mr CV Wigneswaran condemning the call for Tamil Eelam and the call for boycotting the CHOGM meet, the focus of genocidal Colombo seems to be on targeting Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, the Tamil homeland-based candidate, who has become popular among the people. On the morning of Saturday, which is election day, the popular daily in the North, Uthayan, was faked and in its name, a newspaper was circulated saying that Ms Ananthi has joined the Colombo government. The fake paper cited Mavai Senathirajah. Meanwhile, news reports from several parts of the North said that the occupying SL forces are intimidating and preventing Tamils from voting. In Mullaiththeevu, a voting booth captured by Sinhalese prevented local Tamils from voting. Despite the odds, people are seen actively engaged in voting.
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Rajapaksa-allied squad brutally attacks two independent candidates in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 September 2013, 19:17 GMT]
Two candidates of an independent group, contesting the provincial council elections in Jaffna district under Padlock symbol, were brutally attacked in the early hours of Thursday allegedly by EPDP operatives with the facilitation of the occupying Sri Lankan military at Ma'ndaitheevu junction while they were returning from the islets towards Jaffna city. The driver of the three-wheeler in which they were travelling, escaped by jumping into the sea, while the candidates were brutally attacked. The three-wheeler was set on fire by the attackers. The attack has taken place while Indian election monitors and international media personnel were present in the city. The two candidates were attacked as they were dividing the vote bank of the UPFA in Vadduk-koaddai and the vote bank of the EPDP in the islets.
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Senior Jesuit priest in East harassed after meeting Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 September 2013, 23:07 GMT]
60-year-old Jesuit Priest Fr Veeresan Yogeswaran, who is one of the leading human rights activists in the East, is at the receiving end of the SL government's ire after his meeting with UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanetham Pillay during her recent visit to the island. Pamphlets decrying Fr Yogeswaran, printed in Sinhala and in erroneous Tamil – evidently not written by a Tamil – have been published in Trincomalee, some of which have been left outside his residence. Abusing Fr Yogeswaran S.J., as anti-Sri Lankan and someone who ‘betrayed his country’, the pamphlets also claim that he is living in a palatial house from where he was indulging in ‘conspiracy activities’ against the SL government.
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TNA activist killed in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 September 2013, 19:25 GMT]
A 35-year-old Tamil National Alliance (TNA) activist, Mr Rasiah Kavithan, also known as Suresh, was beaten to death by a criminal squad associated with the ruling UPFA of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Mullaiththeevu on Monday around 6:00 p.m., initial reports from Vanni said. The killing has taken place while the sons of the SL President, Namal Rajapaksa MP and Yoshitha Rajapaksa (SL Navy), have been spearheading the election campaign in Mullaiththeevu district for the ruling UPFA. A UPFA supporter and an operative of the SL military intelligence, Mr Raja Karuna, is contesting the elections in Ma'nal-aa'ru. The election campaign undertaken by Rasiah Kavithan on behalf of the TNA was challenging the UPFA in Mullaiththeevu.
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Basil Rajapaksa deploys government employees for UPFA campaign in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 September 2013, 04:59 GMT]
While the Sri Lankan presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa is spearheading the election campaign for the occupying UPFA regime in Jaffna, all the government workers under his ministry, including ‘Samurdhi’ officials, who have access to the grassroots and unemployed graduates, who have been provided trainee appointments on a 10,000 rupee monthly salary, are instructed to work for Rajapaksa’s ruling UPFA, carrying out election campaign among the masses for the coming 7 days starting from Friday till 20th September in violation of the rules for a free and fair election. At least 40 Sinhala ‘Samurdhi’ officials from the South have been brought to Jaffna to supervise the poverty alleviation Tamil workers in Jaffna deployed in the election campaign, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet.
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TNA candidate Ananthi narrowly escapes attack in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 September 2013, 10:21 GMT]
The only woman candidate of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Jaffna district in the forthcoming provincial council elections, Ms Ananthi Sasitharan, narrowly escaped from an attack by alleged Sri Lankan military operatives, who followed her van in a motorbike and a military-like vehicle on KKS Road from Chunnaakam to Ainthu-chanthi, a five-road junction in the suburb of Jaffna on Tuesday. The alleged military operatives got off at the junction and threw a large stone targeting Ms Ananthi, but she ducked as her driver took a turn away from the attackers. The attack comes on the same day as Navi Pillay at Geneva expressed concern for the protection of human rights defenders, journalists and communities she met during her visit from any reprisal, intimidation or attack. Meanwhile, the TNA has demanded confinement of the occupying SL military before the elections.
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SL colonial governor chooses to ‘boycott’ Swiss ‘development’ function in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 September 2013, 21:06 GMT]
A move by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) inviting the occupying Sri Lanka's colonial Governor in North, Major General (retd) GA Chandrasiri, as chief guest to the opening ceremony of two reconstructed schools in the Jaffna Peninsula on Thursday has ended up in the SL governor ‘boycotting’ the event, news sources in Uduththu'rai said. The controversial move by the SDC had received media attention prior to the event. Tamil politicians also protested against Chandrasiri using the occasion to wage election propaganda in favour of the UPFA government. However, the occupying SL military deployed its soldiers at the venue to demonstrate their occupation of the country of Eezham Tamils and to distribute leaflets canvassing among the public to support SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA in the forthcoming PC elections in the North.
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Sarath Fonseka denies Elilan's surrender

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 September 2013, 23:07 GMT]
“Elilan was never handed over to the army,” claimed Sarath Fonseka, the former military commander of the occupying SL military, at a press conference held in Jaffna on Saturday. “Elilan was an important man and if he was handed over to the army, as the commander of the army, I will know. He was never handed over to the army,” Mr Fonseksa said, once again whitewashing the genocidal SL military from serious war crimes committed under his command during the final days of the war in Vanni. Fonseka, who visited Jaffna on election campaign for his ‘Democratic Party’ went further with a humiliating comment that some families of war-dead LTTE cadres were claiming them as ‘missing’ in order to claim compensation. Sarath Fonseka also went on record blaming the current SL military commander in Jaffna as a very corrupt officer at the press conference held in Jaffna.
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Rajapaksa party brings in gangster politics to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 06:45 GMT]
A clash between two factions of the SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA alliance in Jaffna ended up in gunfire on Tuesday in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna. SLFP Jaffna organiser Mr Ankajan Ramanathan’s group and Mr Saravananthan’s group in Thenmaraadchi were chasing each other in vehicles, from Kodikaamam to Chaavakach-cheari. At the end, Saravananthan’s squad smashed vehicles belonging to Ankajan’s squad. Ankajan's father Ramanathan, who was armed with a handgun, opened fire on Sarvananthan’s group, seriously wounding a Saravananthan supporter, the sources further said. Ankajan’s’s gang was also behind the death threat to a TNA candidate in Jaffna, Mr Thambirasa.
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Vanni teachers ‘ordered’ to back Rajapaksa candidate

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Pre-school teachers who come under the so-called Civil Defence Force have been instructed by three UPFA operatives named Ilangko, Sutharsan and Inthiran, who were ex-LTTE members, now operated by the SL military, to woo voters for UPFA candidate Geethanjali Nakulesvaran, news sources in Ki'linochchi told TamilNet on Saturday.
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Tamil contiguity to be wedged at district level in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 August 2013, 01:04 GMT]
The Eastern Provincial Council headed by Chief Minister Najeeb Abdul Majeed of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is keeping mum while covert plan is being designed to carve out a separate Sinhala district called Seruvila district out of Trincomalee district, by selling lands in coastal areas to Sinhalese businessmen of the South. Valuable lands along the coastal areas in Trincomalee district are being appropriated to be given on lease and to be sold for outsiders by the Colombo government. While on one side the contiguity of the Tamil speaking people are wedged between the North and East provinces by the creation of the Weli-Oya division, on the other side, the contiguity is wedged even within the Eastern Province itself, between the Tamil-speaking people of Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Seruvila comes between Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
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Wigneswaran seeks mandate for ‘IC-facilitated’ Northern Provincial Council

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 01:12 GMT]
People's participation in the polls to Northern Provincial Council will be significant to the implementation of the 13th Amendment. Since Colombo has agreed to conduct the election merely because of international pressure, people have to be prepared to resist any sabotage. The elected PC will help to end the governor’s rule and interferences in civil administration, said Tamil National Alliance's Chief Minister candidate for Northern Province and retired Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Monday in Jaffna, after fielding TNA's list of candidates for Northern PC elections. Meanwhile, Colombo President Mahinda Rajapaksa implied ‘understanding’ with the candidature of Wigneswaran, when he said on Tuesday that he would be willing to meet Wigneswaran to discuss land and police powers to provinces.
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Attacks on Muslims continue unabated

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2013, 00:11 GMT]
The Muslims in Ki’n’niyaa have questioned the credibility of the ruling UPFA’s action in awarding chief minister portfolio to a Muslim politician in Ki’n’niyaa, Mr Najeeb Abdul Majeed, even while unleashing the notorious Special Task Force (STF) elite commandos on Muslim villagers from Kuddik-Karaichchi on Tuesday evening after a dispute between the SL police and Muslim villagers involved in transporting wood from a nearby forest. The STF personnel deployed had fired tear gas and opened fire threatening the villagers who protested and a tense situation prevails still in the area following the violent episode. The chief minister of the Eastern Province hails from Ki'n'niyaa. The STF was particular in isolating and targeting the Muslim youth during the clash, Muslim leaders in Ki'n'niyaa complain. Colombo has beefed up SL military presence following the episode.
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Geneva basing on LLRC unfortunate, 13A never a starting point: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2013, 19:25 GMT]
“The Geneva resolutions premising their programme of action or their indicated programme of action on the basis of the LLRC is very unfortunate in that they fail to understand that the LLRC is merely a time buying process,” said Jaffna University law academic and civil society activist Guruparan Kumaravadivel in an exclusive interview to TamilNet this week. Answering a question on the 13th Amendment, he said, “it is not a starting point; it is not a reference point; it is not a basis.” The views coming from a prominent activist based in the island gains much significance against the backdrop of orchestrations in the diaspora defending the US-tabled, India-fine-tuned Geneva resolution, and renewed efforts of New Delhi in invoking the zombie of the 13th Amendment.
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‘Sri Lanka’ poetry: Rajapaksa man edits, India publishes, SL-Canada mission launches

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 May 2013, 03:15 GMT]
National Book Trust of India (NBT), a publications outfit of the New Delhi Establishment had entrusted the editorship of an anthology of ‘Sri Lanka’ poetry to the well-known defender of the genocidal State, Prof Rajiva Wijesinha. New Delhi’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid ceremoniously received the book presented by the editor recently. The book “Mirrored Images” will be launched in Toronto, Canada, on Friday at a function jointly organised by Colombo’s High Commission in Ottawa and Consulate General in Toronto. Prof Chelva Kanaganayakam of the University of Toronto will deliver the keynote address at the event, the Sri Lanka High Commission invitation to select audience said.
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SL Military turns back Ranil visiting Valikaamam

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 April 2013, 11:34 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army, which is busily transforming the former High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North in Jaffna into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), turned away a delegation led by SL opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe on Thursday evening, denying them access to visit the area and witness the scale of the land acquisition. In the meantime, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told the visiting UNP leader to voice for the rights of the uprooted people of Valikaamam North.
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Colombo’s UPFA allies further accelerate divide in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2013, 23:37 GMT]
While Muslim politicians of Batticaloa, aligned with Rajapaksa regime in Colombo seek to annex Tamil villages with Muslim-dominated divisions of Batticaloa, Tamil paramilitary elements operated by Colombo attempt to woo Tamil voters by staging shutdown protests against Muslims, capitalizing from the lack of a broader political mobilization from the part of the TNA. The line of collaboration politics with Colombo, adopted by the SLMC, has made it easier for Colombo to deploy the divide and rule tactic, setting Tamils and Muslims against each other, providing necessary time and space to the occupying Sinhala military to scheme Sinhalicisation of resourceful interior villages of Batticaloa.
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Administrative divisions manipulated to wedge Tamils, Muslims in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2013, 23:49 GMT]
A former minister of ruling UPFA government and a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) Amir Ali Shihabdeen and SL Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan of SLFP and Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan of TMVP in the UPFA who is also a councilor at the EPC have given their consent to changes in the administrative divisions of Vaakarai DS division, Koa’ralaip-pattu Centre DS division and Koa’ralaippattu West DS division, news sources in Batticaloa said. The latest move of annexing villages from Tamil dominated Vaakarai division with Muslim dominated Koa’ra’laip-pattu Centre and Ko’a’ralaippattu West, aims at reducing Tamil representation and contributes to uneven development by seeking to upgrade Muslim dominated divisions in civic governance, say Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians from Batticaloa.
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