Sampanthan, Sumanthiran attempt to quench Tamil uprising in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 August 2016, 20:12 GMT]
Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and pro-Establishment TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, have been staging a series of meetings in recent days in a die-hard attempt to quench the Tamil uprising, which has been scheduled to take place in Jaffna on 14 September. While the mobilisation which has been initiated by the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC), has drawn support from more than 54 grassroots and civil groups in the Northern Province, the deviatory leaders of the main Tamil polity, the TNA, have been instructed by the Establishments not to support the uprising. EPRLF and PLOTE leaders have been harassed by the Sampanthan polity not to be involved with the uprising. However, Dharmalingam Siddharthan and Suresh Premachandran have refused to yield to the pressure to change their stance, informed political sources in Jaffna told TamilNet.
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49 Tamil students boycott studies, demand security from racial assaults in Peradeniya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 August 2016, 20:09 GMT]
Protesting the assault on Tamil-speaking students in ‘surrender position’ by Sinhalese students at Peradeniya University on Monday this week, 49 Tamil-speaking students attending the first year courses at the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences (AHS) have left the University premises on Wednesday and informed the administration that they will not be prepared to return until there is a proper guarantee extended to them by the SL State and the University administration. The University Administration was trying to convince that they would provide guarantees for the security of Tamil and Muslim students within the premises. However, Tamil-speaking students who have come from other provinces have raised questions on their freedom of movement and security in Peradeniya and Kandy.
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Global Tamils urged to help fight legal case of Muslim political prisoner detained under PTA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 August 2016, 23:16 GMT]
The wife of a Muslim political prisoner, who has been detained under the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ of genocidal Sri Lanka since 2009, has urged global Tamils to financially assist her to cover the legal expenses in her continued fight to release her husband, Mr Abdul Hameed Umar Hattaaph, who has been alleged of involvement in the assassination of a former notorious commander of the genocidal military, Major General (retd) Janaka Perera in 2008 “No lawyer was prepared to take up the case on behalf of my husband when my Father-in-Law was searching for a lawyer before he passed away. Now, my husband is detained with 48 counts against him while all others have been released 6 years ago. Only one Sinhala lawyer was prepared to take up his case following the assistance provided by a legal organisation. But, now that assistance too has stopped,” the mother of three told TamilNet.
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US 'reconciliation' talk in Jaffna while China gives state upon state to genocidal Sri Lanka  

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 August 2016, 23:53 GMT]
While never recognising the genocide committed and being committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils, the US Ambassador Atul Keshap visiting Jaffna on Monday uttered the word 'reconciliation' 11 times in his few minutes’ speech. In the meantime, on the genocidal blood of Tamils spilt by the USA and India, China is rewarding 'Sri Lanka' with a state-within-state built in Colombo. The one left out in the game is India.
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Tamil Prisoners of War call for renewed struggle to free them from SL prisons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 August 2016, 23:06 GMT]
Tamil Prisoners of War, languishing in the prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka have urged Tamil political and civil activists, students and journalists to launch a renewed struggle for their liberation from the SL prisons. The Tamil POWs said their freedom should be based upon a political decision and a principled one. If SL President Maithiripala Sirisena was able to re-instate a former Chief Justice subjected to impeachment by Rajapaksa government and extend complete Presidential pardon acquitting former SL Commander Sarath Fonseka of all the charges, how could anyone defend the lack of political decision to free the Tamil political prisoners without subjecting them to prolonged imprisonment, a spokesperson of the Tamil POWs asked TamilNet over the phone. The Tamil prisoners have raised severe criticism against Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and TNA Parliamentarian M. Sumanthiran.
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Tamil polity should face on-going communal dispute in Mannaar with statesmanship

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 August 2016, 23:30 GMT]
A conflict raging between Tamil-speaking Catholics and Muslims in Peasalai in Mannaar in recent weeks has again exposed serious lack of statesmanship on the part of secular Eezham Tamil political and civil activists, including Wigneswaran-led Northern Provincial Council, Sampanthan-led ITAK and the civil groups engaged in advancing the cause of Eezham Tamils in the North-East, particularly in the strategically-located Mannaar island, say independent and secular Tamil activists in Mannaar. Muslim leaders from Periya-karisal and Catholic leaders involved in TNA politics and civil activism on behalf of Eezham Tamils have been dragged into the communal dispute at Peasaalai, situated in the north-west of the Mannaar island.
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Colombo maintains ethnic chauvinism, majoritarianism in North-East: Bishop Ponniah

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 June 2016, 19:19 GMT]
“I can categorically state that a lot of promises made by the [new] government [towards the Tamil people] have not been fulfilled,” said Bishop of Batticaloa Rt. Rev. Dr. Joesph Ponniah in a recent interview to TamilNet. Some of the root causes to the escalation of ethnic conflict were SL State-backed Sinhala colonization of lands in the North and East and the discrimination in providing equal opportunities. These have a 60-year old history. The reality remains the same even today. What prevails in the North and East is not peace. There is an enforced silence coupled with threat, oppression and militarization by the ethnic majority. There is no change in the attitude of ethnic chauvinism, the Bishop said questioning the hidden motives of Washington and New Delhi collaborating with Colombo and how the situation of the people in North-East getting affected by the motives of these powers.
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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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Genocide Remembrance at Mu'l'livaaykkaal passes strong messages to IC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 17:22 GMT]
It would tantamount to betrayal of the victims of war if Tamils were to engage in ‘swap trade’ (pa'nda-maattu) exchanging accountability for the heinous war-crimes that were intentionally committed against them in the past with future reconciliation efforts, said the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on Genocide Remembrance, which was collectively marked at Mu'l'livaaykkaal on Wednesday. In a carefully worded statement read out among the crying survivors of Tamil genocide, Mr Wigneswaran also delivered a sharp message to the member states of the ‘International Community’, the UN Human Rights Establishment, particularly its chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, not to ask Tamils to forget war crimes in return for the promises of federal solution.
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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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‘Regime change’ didn't bring any change for Tamils: NPC Councillors, TNPF and ITAK MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 April 2016, 15:18 GMT]
While R. Sampanthan, M.A.Sumanthiran and Mavai Senathiraja belonging to Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) were on a collaborating course with the Sri Lankan regime on the advice from Washington and New Delhi, ITAK Parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan, who has also been alleged of playing into the hands of the US Embassy, which got him to collaborate with M.A. Sumanthiran, went on record on Friday at a protest in Jaffna stating that he had no faith in the ruling regime and said the current regime has failed in building confidence and building peace with Tamils. Sritharan was protesting along with NPC Councillors and TNPF politicians in laying siege to the Divisional Survey Office at Thirunelveali in Jaffna.
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‘Home-made’ solution not possible, NPC councillor calls for protest on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 January 2016, 23:05 GMT]
Northern Provincial Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam on Monday urged the public to attend a protest in Jaffna on Wednesday expressing their opposition to the deceptive politics being staged by the Colombo regime, particularly its leaders Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who are scheduled to visit Jaffna in just another PR stunt on Friday, when Tamils across the globe mark the secular festival of Thaip-Pongkal. Mr Shivajingam said there has been no progress at all on five important fronts: release of 200 political prisoners, establishing the whereabouts of 20,000 missing persons, de-militarisation and releasing lands seized by the occupying military in the North and East, internationally mediated negotiations to resolve the national question and investigations on crimes against international law including the genocide.
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UN failing Eezham Tamils recognises rape, genocide by IS

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 December 2015, 23:02 GMT]
The United Nations has said that Islamic State may have committed genocide in trying to wipe out the Yazdi minority and has urged the UN Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court for prosecution, reported Reuters on Thursday, after the UNSC listening to a Yazdi rape victim at its meeting on Wednesday. In 2009, the UNSC deliberations took a line that the Tamil struggle was long blighting the SL State, and thus allowed Colombo’s rape and genocide of Eezham Tamils and further institutionalisation of structural genocide in the island. Meanwhile, any attempt by Tamil polity to tell the truth is intimidated by certain media writers that such a polity is earning the wrath of the USA and India.
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Tamil mother complains of neglect in tracing missing daughter, featured in photo with Sirisena

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 December 2015, 23:12 GMT]
A 15-year-old Eezham Tamil girl, Thanoja Viveganathan from Mu'l'liyava'lai in Mullaiththeevu was reported missing since the final hours of genocidal onslaught on Vanni on 17 May, 2009. Thanoja's mother, Vathanalogini Viveganathan has been claiming for almost a year now that she discovered her missing daughter in a photo taken with the incumbent SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, when he was visiting a school in the South during his election campaign 12 months ago. The trauma-stricken mother has been approaching the political leaders and the investigating commissions to trace the girl in the photo. But, no one has done anything so far to verify the claim of the Tamil mother or to disprove it by acting on her complaint. Born on 23 June 1993, Thanoja, if alive, would be at the age of 22 this year.
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Samantha Power rehabilitates genocidal Sri Lanka: Boyle

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 November 2015, 20:41 GMT]
"Power’s visit is just a public relations exercise designed to rehabilitate the genocidal GOSL government. In other words, Power has become an Accessory After The Fact to the GOSL genocide against the Eelam Tamils. Power has now become part of the GOSL’s “Problem from Hell,” said Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law and who teaches at the College of Law, University of Illinois, after following the events of Ms Samantha Power's visit to Sri Lanka this weekend. Criticizing Ms Power for avoiding questions on genocide, Boyle said, Power was guilty of unwittingly exhibiting racial bias in asking Tamil journalists whether they trusted Colombo, while she never would have asked the white-skinned Bosnian Muslims if they trusted the genocidal maniacs running the Government of Republika Srpska.
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Hunger strikers: ‘USA, co-sponsors of consensus-resolution responsible for our fate’

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2015, 14:10 GMT]
The political prisoners and prisoners of war, waging hunger strike inside the Sri Lankan prisons for the 10th day told TamilNet Monday morning that the United States, which authored the consensus resolution with the genocidal State of Sri Lanka and the sponsor-States that passed the resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last month, should now ensure the release of the political prisoners languishing in the jails of occupying Sri Lanka through making the SL President declare them as political prisoners entitled to general amnesty. The prisoners of war and political prisoners demanded the officials at the diplomatic missions in Colombo to visit and witness their plight in person.
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Condition of hunger-striking POWs, political prisoners worsens

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 November 2015, 16:28 GMT]
At least 31 Prisoners of War and political prisoners are either forcefully admitted to prison hospitals or their health has seriously declined as their fast-unto-death campaign reached the 5th day on Thursday at New Magazine prison in Welikade, Bogambara prision in Kandy and in Anuradhapura prison, former parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told journalists in Jaffna today. There are Tamils from all the districts, up-country, Muslims and even Sinhalese who are alleged or accused for their involvement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) among the prisoners who are on hunger-strike, informed legal sources in Colombo told TamilNet. A wide-scale shut-down is to take place in the country of Eezham Tamils on Friday demanding release of the POWs and the political prisoners currently jailed in the prisons of genocidal Sri Lanka.
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ITAK leaders stand exposed as powers deceive Tamils with hypocritical investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2015, 21:48 GMT]
Refusing to look at the affairs of the nation of Eezham Tamils through their homeland in the North-East and being bent on approaching the Eezham Tamils through Colombo-centric geopolitical designs, the West and the UN mechanisms have nakedly exposed themselves even before the ink went dry on the OISL report and the ‘US-Sri Lanka’ co-sponsored resolution in the UN Human Rights Council. In the meantime, the leaders of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) stand exposed for their lack of statesmanship and for the failure of not clarifying TNA's position regarding the deceptive path of ‘domestic’ investigations. The ITAK leaders have also failed the nation of Eezham Tamils by not demanding the release the Tamil political prisoners, who have been rotting in the jails of genocidal Sri Lanka for years.
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US designs target Trincomalee, Champoor Tamils remain deprived of compensation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 October 2015, 23:27 GMT]
The occupying navy of genocidal ‘Sri Lanka’ is buying time to vacate its naval school ‘SLNS Vidura’, which is situated in 40 acres of 237 acres of SL navy seized lands in Champoor. The resettling Tamils are unable to access their lands within the remaining areas of 237 acres as the main routes to these lands run through the 40 acres of lands of the naval training base. Although the SL Navy has moved the activities from the training base, a few officers are instructed to stay behind to delay the process. Now, the occupying navy is buying time citing monsoon rains. The uprooted people have been explicitly demanding the SL authorities to relocate the military before the monsoon rains. In the meantime, SL Governor to East, Austin Fernando, a former SL defence secretary, is busy in scheming US entry into Trincomalee, informed sources in Trincomalee said.
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Tamil prisoners in North demand Colombo to respond through NPC Chief Minister

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 October 2015, 10:11 GMT]
The deviating section of ITAK parliamentarians within the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), led by R. Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran, have deployed divide and conquer tactics to deceive a section of Tamil political prisoners in the Magazine prison in Colombo to drop their hunger-strike until November 07, Tamil political prisoners in Anuradhapura prison told TamilNet Saturday morning. The political prisoners have severely criticized the move by Mr Sumanthiran and demanded all the parliamentarians of the TNA to collectively address the Sri Lankan President and Prime Minister on securing their release without being treated as criminal offenders. The deceptive move by ITAK politicians comes after a meeting they had with Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the justice minister of genocidal Sri Lanka, who has been insulting the prisoners by saying there were no Tamil political prisoners in the SL prisons.
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