Fan club in Jaffna struggles to erect birth centenary statue for MGR

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 December 2016, 22:10 GMT]
The birth centenary of the late M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), the actor-turned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, falls on 17 January 2017. To mark the contribution of both MGR and the late Jayalalithaa to the Tamil cause in the island, All Ceylon MGR Fan Club, based in Jaffna has been trying to erect memorial statues within the city limits of Jaffna in remembrance of both the late chief ministers of Tamil Nadu. However, the Colombo Establishment, which is controlling the affairs of Jaffna Municipal Council through an appointed Commissioner, is sabotaging the attempt, complained Pon Mathimukarajah Vijayakanth, the chairman of MGR Club at a press conference held at the Jaffna Press Club on Friday.
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Sinhala colonists issue death threat to Tamil, Muslim villagers in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 December 2016, 23:07 GMT]
Tamil villagers from Aa'rumukaththaan-ku'lam and Tha'n'ni-mu'rippuk-ku'lam in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district have come under death threats from Sinhala colonists from Weli-Oya and Padawiya after the Tamil-speaking fishermen complained against large-scale intrusion by Sinhala colonists into Tha'n'ni-mu'rippu reservoir for fresh-water fishing. Sinhala colonists, have been burning down the boats and nets belonging to Tamil and Muslim villagers for some time have now threatened them with SL military backing stating if they opposed their intrusion, they would be slain, the Tamil-speaking fishermen said. The threats have come from several corners after the dispute became a hot topic at the recent District Coordinating Committee meeting held in Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat on 19 December.
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SL Navy transforms disputed Kachchatheevu islet into military zone

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 December 2016, 22:28 GMT]
The occupying navy of genocidal Sri Lanka has put up a naval detachment with helipad at Kachchatheevu island, which is situated on the trans-oceanic sea-routes of the Palk Strait and has long been an island of contention between Tamil Nadu State in India and the unitary Sinhala State occupying the country of Eezham Tamils. Using the hostile atmosphere prevailing between Tamil Nadu fishermen and Eezham Tamil fishermen due to much disputed illegal and destructive means of fishing by the trawler operators from Tamil Nadu and appeasing the Catholic Establishment in Jaffna by volunteering to reconstruct the church of Saint Antony at Kachchatheevu, the occupying navy has transformed the islet into a military ‘security zone’. The late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms Jayalalithaa was at odds with New Delhi opposing Colombo’s territorial rights to the island.
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Eezham Tamils face isolation after Jayalalithaa’s demise: ITAK Youth Leader

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 December 2016, 23:20 GMT]
The late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms Jayalalithaa, came forward with statesmanship to articulate the aspirations of Eezham Tamils to the Indian Government in New Delhi and to the powers elsewhere. Her untimely death has created a deep fear among the Eezham Tamils. They feel that they are about to face increased isolation without a strong leader in Tamil Nadu, said V.S. Sivaharan, the youth wing leader of Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK).
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Jayalalithaa's demise: NPC flag flown at half-mast for three days

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 December 2016, 22:08 GMT]
The Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, Justice C.V Wigneswaran in his condolence message to Tamil Nadu people said that the Council was sharing the sorrow and agony on behalf of the entire Tamil society [based in the island and elsewhere]. Justice Wigneswaran said that the life of Ms Jayalaithaa was like a comet that shined in the political universe [of Tamils]. After observing two-minutes of silence, the chairman of the NPC said that the NPC flag would be flown at half-mast for three days as Eezham Tamils were expressing national mourning for the demise of Ms Jayalalithaa.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa passes away

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2016, 18:51 GMT]
Tamil Nadu CM Ms Jayalalithaa passed away at 11:30 p.m. on Monday. The nation of Eezham Tamils would ever remember her with thanks for rising up to the occasion at a crucial time, in declaring to the world the genocide committed on Eezham Tamils, in demanding international justice and in calling for self-determination. She did that, responding to the need to mobilise all shades of polity in Tamil Nadu, when all the powerful Establishments of the world including New Delhi and the UN were trying to cover up the crime and were working against in unison. In the millennia-old Tamil civilisation, Ms Jayalalthaa, along with MGR, C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, represent a unique era in which artists, adopting advancements in media, took up the cause of society and for more than half a century politically led the ancient nation that is spread across the world but kept stateless and voiceless.
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Extremist monks march towards Batticaloa, Tamil and Sinhala youth mobilise for confrontation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 December 2016, 18:19 GMT]
SMS message were being sent across Batticaloa calling Tamil and Muslim youth to confront the violent Sinhala-Buddhist Power Force (Bodu Bala Sena), which is marching towards Batticaloa with a vow to erect 10 Buddha statutes in the Tamil-speaking Batticaloa district. The BBS monks have managed to reach Punaanai, outmanoeuvring SL policemen at Ridhi-thenna, a locality between Welikanda and Punaanai. Sinhala youth have also been mobilised from Polonnaruwa and Ampaa’rai to accompany the marching monks. In the meantime, informed sources said Ampitiye Sumanarathna Thero was recently spotted being in possession of a pistol beneath his saffron. The sources has also revealed that the monk was initially a recruit of the so-called ‘National Intelligence Bureau’, especially in the early 1990s and he was posted to Batticaloa with a particular mission.
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Secular Tamil nationalist aspirations weakened by global and regional religious paradigms

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 November 2016, 23:49 GMT]
Failure of secular forces and Marxists in India and Dravidian movements in Tamil Nadu in delivering justice to the genocide-affected nation of Eezham Tamils, who have based their national question on secular foundations coming through millennia of Tamil language heritage, results in further meddling through globally and regionally simulated religious conflicts. The forces that work behind the fundamentalism of different religions in the island are one and the same. There is a master plan for the conquest of Tamil Nadu that is now ruled by the Dravidian movements for more than half a century. The coastlines between Tamil Nadu and the country of Eezham Tamils in the island share similar religious demography and there is a sinister move to create conflicts among these groups to weaken the language-based nationalism of all Tamils, commented Eezham Tamil and Tamil Nadu political observers.
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Human skeletons discovered near SL military camp north of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 October 2016, 18:56 GMT]
Tamil workers engaged in digging a latrine at Mu'rak-koddaagn-cheanai, is situated 18 km north of Batticaloa city, have discovered human skeletons along with remains of burnt tires and railway sleepers on Saturday. The site is believed to be a mass grave as the land was under the SL military for 24 years since 1990 and released back to the people only in 2014. The 11th Regiment of notorious 23 Division of the occupying ‘Sri Lanka’ Army is now stationed a few meters close to the locality. The SLA soldiers, who were stationed at this camp in 1990 were behind the brutal massacre of more than 60 Tamils from Chiththaa’ndi village. Several Tamil civilians reported missing during that time from the nearby villages were also allegedly taken to the torture chambers at Mu'rak-kodddaagn-cheanai.
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North shuts down in protest to killings of students, killer-policemen transferred to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 October 2016, 17:58 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in the Northern province on Tuesday observed a full-day shutdown in protest against the deployment of armed Sinhala policemen in the streets of occupied Tamil homeland. Heeding to the call coming from the Tamil political parties following the brutal killings of two Tamil students of Jaffna University by Sinhala policemen on Thursday last week, all the businesses, academic institutions, public offices and even pharmacies and petrol sheds were shut down. No one, except those, who engaged in marking their protests by blocking the roads, were seen on the streets. Although the shut-down was largely peaceful, there were some clashes between Tamil youth and Sinhala policemen at Ki’linochchi, where an Indian-operated and US-funded garments company, which is alleged of exploiting Tamil labourers, refused to heel the call for the protest until the Citizens’ Committee intervened.
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Criticism emerges in Jaffna over USA training SL military, IC soft-pedalling Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2016, 23:18 GMT]
In spite of all the accusations against the Sri Lankan government of war-crimes and other atrocities committed during the war, USA and other governments continue to have naval and military exercises with the Sri Lankan forces, as they also had these trainings with the SL military during the regime of the Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Rev Fr S.V.B. Mangalarajah, the chairman of the Commission for Justice & Peace of the Catholic Diocese in Jaffna in a follow-up video interview to TamilNet after the Ezhuka Thamizh uprising held in Jaffna. The implied message coming from the veteran human rights activist based in Jaffna was that the international community and its approach towards the national question of Tamils in the island was lopsided and unless that problem is seriously addressed by Tamils, the SL Government and the South would not deliver anything substantial for Tamils.
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Sinhala colonists advance 3 km further into Batticaloa, erect 2nd Buddhist temple in 1 year

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2016, 23:42 GMT]
Sinhala colonists from Polonna'ruwa, the home district of SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, have advanced 3 km further into the pasturelands in Koara'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils within the last 12 months, Tamil cattle farmers from Chiththaa'ndi told TamilNet on Wednesday. A second Buddhist temple is being hurriedly put up by the Sinhala colonists at Maathava'nai , the Tamil cattle herders said. A Sinhala squad, led by a Buddhist monk, assaulted the Tamil farmers who went close to the Buddhist temple searching for missing cattle a few days ago. The Sinhala monk seized their mobile phone SIM cards. The cattle herders said the second Buddhist temple is located 3 km east of the Buddhist temple constructed almost a year ago. The area was part of the de-facto Tamil State defended by the Tamil Tigers until 2007.
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Ethnic discrimination in student enrollment exposes reconciliation farce: Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2016, 23:09 GMT]
Reconciliation is about change of attitude in the minds of people. The authorities should have set precedence for such transformation through egalitarian practices. But, what has taken place on the ground was in sharp contradiction, especially in the practice of student selection to the universities in the island, said Senior Lecturer Dr J. Kennedy from the Faculty of Arts & Culture at the Eastern University in an interview to TamilNet on Saturday. Stating that proper investigations should reveal the patterns, the academic from the Department of Languages at the main Vanthaa'ru-moolai campus of the Eastern University said he personally believed external sources were influencing certain sections of Sinhala students to behave in a supremacist manner. Colombo's Ministry of Higher Education and the University Grants Commission (UGC) should prove their bona fides, he said.
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Eastern University instructs assaulted Tamil student to attend investigations in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 July 2016, 23:46 GMT]
The Welfare branch of the Eastern University has instructed a Tamil student from Batticaloa, L. Sumeskanth, who was brutally assaulted by Sinhalese students on 24 May 2016 to appear for disciplinary investigations in Colombo to be held next week, informed student union sources at the main campus of the Eastern University in Vanthaa'rum-moolai in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Sunday. Sumeskanth was given very short notice to prepare his witnesses to attend for Colombo-based investigations and he has registered his objection to the Welfare branch, student leaders said questioning the motive behind conducting investigations in Colombo. The Sinhala students had attacked Mr Sumeskanth for posting and sharing a photo on Facebook from Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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Gaining more ‘time and space’ at Geneva, Colombo steps up genocidal grip on Eezham Tamils in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2016, 22:40 GMT]
The so-called Civil Security Department (CSD), which comes under the purview of the Ministry of Defence of genocidal Sri Lanka, is trying to seize 500 acres of additional farmlands at several locations of Mullaiththeevu district through ‘legal’ means, civil sources in Vanni said. While the genocidal-paradigm is upheld by the powers through a passive discourse at Geneva, the CSD under Maithiripala Sirisena is absorbing more farmlands through Sinhala military corporatism. The enslaved Eezham Tamils are to be deployed as slaves and more Tamil children are going to be subjected to brainwashing by the SL military. In the meantime, the income generated from the military-run farms is being channelled to employ a Sinhala-only armed paramilitary, known as Civil Defence Force (CDF) to colonize strategic Tamil lands along the coast and the interior borders of the occupied country of Eezham Tamils.
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Veteran Eezham Tamil archivist passes away at 81

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 June 2016, 01:24 GMT]
Mr R. Kanagaratnam (Kurumpasiddi Eraa Kanagaratnam), who tirelessly collected Tamil and English newspaper clippings and manuscripts related to political and cultural affairs of Eezham Tamils for almost 6 decades, has passed away at the age of 81 in Kandy on Wednesday. The leaders of Tamil Eelam and Tamil Nadu respected Mr Kanagaratnam for his contributions to the modern archival history of Eezham Tamils as well as his continued focus on the historiography of Tamils living across the larger region, from Fiji Islands to South Africa. His unique contribution to the nation of Eezham Tamils was collecting, archiving, microfilming and at the same time ensuring secure storage of the Tamil and English documents outside the island – all achieved through his focused and relentless efforts. He was an institution by himself.
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Colombo's ‘Mahaweli Authority’ chases away resettled Eezham Tamils in Kokkuth-thoduvaay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2016, 21:18 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka's Ministry of ‘Mahaweli Development & Environment’, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has started to deploy violence to chase away the resettled Eezham Tamils at 15th Mile Post in Kokkuth-thoduvaay, a strategically situated coastal village in Karai-thu'raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, the affected families complained. On 02 June, SL Forest Department personnel, accompanied by ‘Mahaweli Development’ officials forcibly removed the temporary huts of some of the resettled Tamil families at 15th Mile Post. After the end of genocidal onslaught on Vanni in May 2009, the project of Sinhalicisation has been intensified through the Sinhala colony of Padaviya in Anuradhapura and Vavuniyaa districts and the entire Ma'nalaa'ru (Weli-oya) area has been fully Sinhalicised and emerged as the ‘Sinhala Only’ administrative division in Mullaiththeevu.
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Sinhala police twists investigation cases on ethnic violence at Eastern University

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 June 2016, 23:36 GMT]
One of the Sinhala students, engaged in ethnic-violence against Tamil student L. Sumeskanth on 24 May 2016 was trying to secure a medical attestation from a Sinhala doctor at a rural hospital at Chanthive'li, situated 3 km away from the Eastern University in Vanthaa'ru-moolai, informed medical sources in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Saturday. With the backing of Sinhala policemen from Ea'raavoor, the Sinhala student was admitted on the following day to the hospital where a Sinhala doctor is employed. The Sinhala student was blaming that Sumeskanth had attacked him. Ea'raavoor police filed a case against the Tamil student, who was initially attacked by the Sinhala student for posting and sharing a photo on Facebook from Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
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SL military brutally assaults Tamil Village Officer in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 June 2016, 06:34 GMT]
A group of five Sinhala soldiers, who were engaged in illegal tree cutting, abducted Village Officer (GS) Shanmugam Guru and brutally assaulted him at a military camp causing serious injuries to him. The incident took place at Kudumpi-malai, 63 km northwest of Batticaloa city on Wednesday. The Sinhala soldiers were in civil clothes. Two of them were having automatic rifles. When the Tamil GS officer questioned them whether they were having permit to cut trees, the group responded that they belonged to SL military and that they were having permission to cut trees. The GS officer then asked the group to document that they were in possession of such permit along with their identity. The soldiers took Mr Shanmugam Guru to the nearby military camp, where he was subjected to life-threatening assault.
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Eastern University staff protest against impunity for ethnic violence by Sinhala students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 May 2016, 22:07 GMT]
The administration of the Eastern University has failed to implement disciplinary decisions taken against certain Sinhala students, who have assaulted Tamil lecturers and students in the recent months, a spokesperson on behalf of the union non-academic staff at the Eastern University at Vanthaa'ru-moolai in Batticaloa told TamilNet on Tuesday as the union staged a one-day boycott against the continued failure by the administration to enforce discipline. The administration is under heavy pressure from Colombo's ministers and the intelligence officers of the occupying Sinhala military in the East, the protesters said. A one-day boycott was successfully staged at Vanthaa'ru-moolai, Trincomalee campus and at Swami Vipulananda Institute of Aesthetic Studies on Tuesday.
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