Rural societies in North-East will determine future leaders of Tamils: Kurunathan

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 May 2016, 23:25 GMT]
Tamils in the East, especially the people of Batticaloa, strongly wish for the merger of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces into a single province as before, says retired Land Commissioner of Eastern Province and the last Deputy Land Commissioner of the merged North-Eastern Province in the past Karthirgamathamby Kurunathan. In a recent interview to TamilNet, Mr Kurunathan said the rural societies in the Tamil homeland would determine the future leaders of Eezham Tamils. Even in the elections, the rural participation was more than 80% while the urban population stood just above 40%. Most of the Tamil parliamentarians have become urban-centered after getting elected by the rural population and they want to keep the rural population in dark. If 2016 doesn't bring a political solution as promised by Mr Sampanthan, the people, the ITAK and the TNA will risk its future, he said.
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Kurdistan National Congress expresses solidarity with Tamils on genocide remembrance

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 May 2016, 23:50 GMT]
The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) has expressed its solidarity with the Tamil people on the 7th anniversary of the massacres committed against the Tamils and all civilian victims and their families during the war in the island. “Even though the ethnically-motivated mass murder of the Tamils shows clear features of genocide, it is not recognized as such by international institutions. In fact, the massacre on the Tamil people was possible due to the tacit approval of global actors,” the Brussels-based umbrella group of exiled Kurds said in a statement dated 20 May 2016. Comparing the oppression of the Kurds and the Tamils, the KNK said the model behind the States of Turkey and Sri Lanka, based on the hegemony of one ethnic group over another, is doomed to fail. The KNK also drew parallels between the continued support extended to these States by the Western powers.
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Colombo's pompous ‘Vesak’ in North endorsed by India, while celebrations cancelled in South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 May 2016, 23:20 GMT]
Colombo's occupying Sinhala military has launched 7-day-long Buddhist Vesak celebrations from Saturday in the country of Eezham Tamils while Vesak festivities have been called off in the South where at least 73 people have been killed in landslides caused by torrential rains and more than 200,000 have fled their homes in recent days. The genocidal military and the State have transformed Vesak celebrations as ‘Sinhala Buddhist victory’ over Tamils after the 2009 onslaught. The added feature this time is the open and official endorsement given by New Delhi to the genocide gesture. In its over-enthusiasm to counter Tamils marking Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Day on 18 May, the SL military advertised ‘very pompous celebrations’ of Vesak in Tamil newspapers, inviting the Tamils in Jaffna to take part in their celebrations.
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Ecuadorian indigenous people universalise Tamil genocide remembrance

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 May 2016, 20:17 GMT]
Amidst two powerful earthquakes shaking the country on Wednesday, the Ecuadorian indigenous people were undeterred in showing determined solidarity with the cause of Eezham Tamils marking the Mu'l'livaaykkal Genocide Day for the first time in Latin America at Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The gesture shows the universal importance of the Tamil issue, the gravity of which was felt by a people, who have been experiencing global injustices for a long time. The remembrance, held in a charged and emotional atmosphere at the Fundacion Pueblo Indio Del Ecuador (indigenous center), also saw the participation of Latin American left activists, the followers of legendary Liberation Theologist Leonidas Eduardo Proaño Villalba and a visiting delegation of Tamil and non-Tamil activists from various continents. The main slogan of the event was: ‘Tamil Eelam lives; the struggle continues’.
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Sinhala, Muslim participation in Tamil genocide remembrance answers IC detractors

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2016, 20:22 GMT]
A section of Sinhala and Muslim students took part in the Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance organised by the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) on Wednesday and a group of Catholic Sinhalese from the South were also present at St. Paul's church at Mu'l'livaaykkaal. At Mannaar, Muslim representatives were present at the memorial event organised by ITAK Youth Wing leader V.S. Sivakaran. The Sinhala and Muslim participation sends message to International Community and UN actors refusing to accept genocide in the island. The very first monument to be erected in remembrance of those who perished in Mu'l'livaaykkaal was also sculpted by a non-Tamil in the island, although the identity of the artist could not be revealed. The statue, having artistic significance has been silently put up near the St. Paul's church by the Tamil villagers of Mu'l'livaaykkaal, news sources in Vanni said.
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Jayalalithaa victory sends significant messages

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2016, 18:02 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK retains government by winning 134 of 234 seats in the election results announced on Thursday. The DMK and its allies led by Kalaignar Karunanidhi have secured 98 seats. No other party or alliance has won any seat in the elections. Ms Jayalalithaa leading the Tamil Nadu Assembly, resolving repeatedly and unanimously demanding international investigation on Eezham Tamil genocide and referendum for Tamil Eelam, has made an international impact against the stand of New Delhi and Washington complicit in the genocide. Efforts were made to silence her. The endorsement she now gets from the people of Tamil Nadu is a fitting answer, commented Eezham Tamil political observers.
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Continued denial of justice and Colombo's ban on remembering Tamil fighters condemned

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2016, 23:43 GMT]
All the norms of war were broken to target a distinct race. The people in Vanni were targeted in a mass-slaughter, from children in womb to elders, by merciless ethnic chauvinism because they were all Tamil-speakers, said Jaffna University Student Union. Seven years have elapsed with continued denial of justice. Those who committed the crimes are walking scot free under the so-called good-governance, the JUSU said calling for Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance within the premises of Jaffna University at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. In the meantime, NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who lit the flame of sacrifice at the memorial site in Trincomalee for those subjected to genocidal slaughter in the Welikade prison in 1983, condemned the Sri Lankan State for denying Eezham Tamils the right to honour their fallen fighters.
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Neduntheevu marks Genocide Remembrance on 31st anniversary of Kumuthini massacre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 May 2016, 23:32 GMT]
Coinciding with the 31st anniversary of the massacre of 36 Tamil civilians on Kumuthini boat in 1985, the people of Nedun-theevu (Delft) island, the farthest inhabited island off the Jaffna Peninsula, marked the fourth day of Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance Week on Sunday by paying tribute to all those who perished in the decades long genocide against Eezham Tamils. On 15 May 1985, 36 Tamil passengers, including four children and one of them being a two-year-old, were hacked to death by Sinhala Navy personnel, who came in two boats. The SL Navy later refused the people of Neduntheevu to commemorate their dead by destroying the memorial site, which was constructed at the jetty. This year, the remembrance took place at the newly constructed memorial site.
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Mu'l'livaaykkaal remembrance gains momentum amidst renewed harassments

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 May 2016, 17:18 GMT]
Elected councillors of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), former members of civic bodies, militant-turned political parties in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) are engaged in organising memorial events in the country of Eezham Tamils amidst recently renewed threats and harassments against former Tamil fighters in the North and East. The SL military intelligence circles have been telling former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that there will be consequences if they were seen paying tribute to fallen LTTE members. Not only the LTTE fighters, all the Tamils who wanted to be free and stood with the LTTE in Vanni while all the global Establishments were directly or indirectly assisting Colombo were all real Tamil Heroes, said NPC Councillors who are organising a series of memorial events and meetings in the North.
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Colombo's attempt to survey church lands for permanent militarisation foiled at Poonakari

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2016, 08:29 GMT]
Three days after the last attempt to survey the lands belonging to 6 families and a Saiva temple at Paraman-kirray in the strategically situated Poonakari, the occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka attempted on Thursday to survey lands belonging to St. Jude's Church at Pa'l'lik-kudaa in Poonakari without prior notice. However, the Parish Priest of the church and more than 100 villagers blocked the survey department officials, who were brought to the spot with SL Navy escort, news sources in Poonakari said. In addition to the protest, the public spontaneously mobilised making a written signature campaign against the militarisation. The SL military intelligence operatives and SL Navy sailors were taking photos of the journalists who were covering the protest and recording video of the protestors in a threatening manner, news sources further said.
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SL Police refuses to vacate from lands belonging to uprooted Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 May 2016, 18:03 GMT]
Colombo's police continue to be stationed in lands belonging to 42 families in Paala-munai village and a large section of Ma'ndoor-1 and 2 South GS area in Poaratheevup-pattu (Vellaa-ve'li) administrative division of Batticaloa district. The uprooted people are unable to resettle in 90% of Paalamunai village, civil sources in Batticaloa said. The area is located 40 km south of Batticaloa city near the border of Ampaa'rai district. Ma'ndoor is known for its popular Murukan temple.
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Sinahalicisation of Musali division in Mannaar resembles colonisation of Kokku'laay, Ma'nalaa'ru

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 May 2016, 20:22 GMT]
SL Government Agent of Mannaar district, Mr M.Y.S. Deshapriya, a Sinhalese and the occupying navy of Colombo are allegedly engaged in creating a Sinhala colony at Kaayaa-kuzhi, situated near Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in the Musali division of Mannaar, say Tamil and Muslim fishermen from the district. While hundreds of Eezham Tamil families from Mu'l'lik-ku'lam are not allowed to resettle in their own village, which has been transformed into a SL Navy cantonment named “North-Western Naval Area HQ of SL Navy”, Colombo is attempting to colonize the nearby Kaayaa-kuzhi area by permanently settling 70 - 80 Sinhala fishing families from Chilaapam (Chilaw) and Negombo, said Mr Noor Mohamed Aalam, the chairman of the Federation of Mannaar District Fisheries Associations. Tamil and Muslim fishermen societies have announced a protest against the move on Friday.
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Eezham Tamils protest against continued military land grab at strategic Poonakari

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 May 2016, 18:35 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka has planned to grab further 3,087 acres of private and permit lands in the strategically situated Poonakari, which is situated to the northwest of Ki'linochchi at the entrance to Jaffna Peninsula, Jaffna Lagoon and its location facing the Palk Bay and the opposite coast. The landowners of 6 families and an Amman temple blocked SL Survey Department officials for the 4th time at Paraman-kiraay on Monday. Around 6,000 Tamil families, dependent on agriculture and fishing, live in the heavily garrisoned Poonakari division where more than 30,000 Sinhala soldiers are stationed.
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War-affected, poverty-stricken Tamil villagers complain of neglect in housing assistance

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2016, 23:35 GMT]
104 Eezham Tamil families, who have resettled in Isaimalaith-thaazhvu village, which is located 3 km southeast of Murungkan town along Mannaar - Mathavaachchi Road in Naanaaddaan division, complain that they are being systematically neglected in all the housing schemes reaching Mannaar district. The families, mostly dependent on animal farming or agriculture close to their temporary huts, live below the poverty line, and are among the poorest in Mannaar district. Their houses were either demolished or taken over by the occupying SL military and the notorious Special Task Force (STF) in February 1997 during the brutal military operation code named ‘Edibala’.
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SL Governor condemned for justifying military-run preschools in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2016, 22:55 GMT]
NGO sources in Vanni recently released photos exposing the SL military-run preschools where Tamil children were being made to wear ‘Civil Security Division’ uniforms with CSD and Lion symbols of the occupying Sri Lankan military. More than 8,000 Tamil children are attending the military-run preschools in Vanni at 270 locations. While the SL military is refusing to hand over the administration of these preschools to the provincial council, the SL Governor to North, Reginald Cooray, has rushed to Vanni last week to justify continued military administration of these preschools. Former LTTE members at three different locations were forced to sing ‘Sri Lanka’ anthem in Sinhala and the CSD women had to garland him after dancing in Kandyan Perhara style, news sources in Vanni said. NPC Minister P. Aingaranesan has condemned SL Governor's description of SL military as a ‘development’ agency.
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Key Tamil organisations boycott Colombo's dialogue meet in Norway

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2016, 11:35 GMT]
The mainstream political and development related diaspora organisations of Eezham Tamils in Norway boycotted a so-called “high level” dialogue meeting organised by two NGOs funded by Norway on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry of Norway has been advocating behind the scene to lock the Tamil organisations into the ‘dialogue’ meeting with the Netherland-based NGO operative Ram Manikkalingam, who is a close associate of former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK) and is an official member of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena's “Office for National Unity and Reconciliation”. At least 8 of the 12 invited organisations either boycotted or abstained from attending the meeting on Wednesday. Five of the boycotting organisations came out with a joint communiqué clarifying their position.
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UN ‘rewards’ Erik Solheim

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2016, 21:13 GMT]
Mr. Erik Solheim’s name in history is inseparably intertwined with the genocide of Eezham Tamils that followed a peace facilitation decidedly failed by international criminal outlook in world establishments. Mr. Solheim was placed to play a key role in the facilitation and he is a key witness to the tilt of balance carried out in deception to the world. By forwarding his name to the UN General Assembly to become Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with the rank of Assistant Secretary General, the UN system and its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon make a pointed mockery at Tamils and peoples of similar plight all over the world, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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Maithiripala’s structural genocide targets Tamil cattle farmers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2016, 23:21 GMT]
Colombo’s Forest Department, which comes under SL President Maithiripala Sirisena’s Ministry of Mahaweli ‘Development’ and Environment, has been blocking Tamil farmers from taking their cattle to graze in the northern and eastern parts of Thivulaanaik-ku’lam, which is situated across the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai districts in the East. Wealthy Sinhalese businessmen from Kurunegala and Gampaha districts have seized thousands of acres of public and forest lands to grow cowpea crop in large scale in the area, says T. Sivapatham, the president of Poaratheevup-pattu Cattle Farmers Association. Meanwhile, the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa is prioritizing the interests of Colombo’s business elite and the projects by foreign NGOs involving the employees in the public sector. Tamil farmers are being completely ignored in Batticaloa district, according to divisional civil sources.
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SL TID cites Facebook ‘private messages’ as evidence to restrict Tamil political activism

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2016, 23:42 GMT]
The notorious ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID), currently engaged in containing the voices against the abduction and hostage taking styled arrests in the North and East, has claimed in communication to Chaavakachcheari Magistrate's Court that they have accessed Facebook private messages and chats that have taken place between individuals in the Diaspora and the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, legal sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Monday. In a recent case where the secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) Youth Wing V.S. Sivakaran was detained and later released on surety bail, the TID had submitted the above argument as ‘evidence’ to the courts, the sources said adding that the TID was silencing critical voices in the island by deploying surveillance agencies outside the island.
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May Day events illustrate divisions in Jaffna, Colombo and Oslo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2016, 23:44 GMT]
While R. Sampanthan of the ITAK and Gajendrakumar Ponnamabalam of the TNPF organized May Day events in Jaffna that reflected the political divide as well as funded manipulations within the ITAK, Sinhala leftists in Colombo who were calling for the release of political prisoners and political equality were disturbed as Maithiripala Sirisena’s Police intentionally allowed Mahinda Rajapaksa supporters to use the same route to travel in buses despite repeated requests in advance against the move. In Norway’s capital Oslo, Eezham Tamils marched denouncing the genocidal concept of ‘Sri Lanka’. In the meantime, two Norwegian NGOs that claim to be independent were attempting to broker ‘development assistance’ manipulated ‘diaspora engagement’ between a member of the so-called ‘Special Presidential Task Force on Reconciliation in Sri Lanka’ and invited Tamil individuals and groups in Oslo.
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