Concentrate on nation-building beyond choiceless electoral politics of South: TCSF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 November 2019, 22:09 GMT]
The post-war electoral politics in the South of the island has narrowed down the options available to the Tamils in the presidential elections to the survivalist choice between the lesser of two evils, as witnessed in 2010, 2015 and also this time, says Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) in a statement issued on Tuesday. It is outright stupidity to believe that one should choose the long-term danger than the immediate one or vice versa. The Tamil people should have this in mind while voting, the TCSF statement said.
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Canada should move ICJ on Tamil genocide, US position disappointing: Ananthy

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2019, 16:33 GMT]
Canada is home to the largest number of Eezham Tamils in the diaspora. Recently, a resolution has been passed in the Canadian parliament calling for international investigations on the allegation of Tamil genocide. Therefore, Canada could consider suing the SL State in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, also known as the Genocide Convention. Canada could reasonably justify the move as a significant group of its population, being Canadian Eezham Tamils directly and indirectly affected by the genocide that has taken place in the island, said former Northern Provincial Council Minister Ananthy Sasitharan. She had accompanied Tamil presidential candidate M.K. Shivajilingam in his meeting with the US Embassy officials in Jaffna after they jointly filed his nomination, Ms Ananthy said.
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Student leaders fail to pinpoint ITAK, blame all five Tamil parties for ‘approach failure’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 November 2019, 22:39 GMT]
The leaders of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) have passed the blame of the failure to stipulate the choices to be made if and when the actors in the South fail to meet the thirteen-point terms in the document articulated by the mainstream Tamil political parties last month. The document articulated by six parties and agreed in full by five of them in the signature was about vetting the mainstream candidates in the forthcoming SL presidential elections. The SLPP candidate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has stated unitary state as the solution and wants to consolidate it further. The NDF candidate Sajith Premadasa has rejected Tamils Right of Self-Determination and their distinct sovereignty in principle through stating ‘undivided and indivisible Sri Lanka’ in his manifesto.
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SL military warns Tamils against protesting land-grab along Pooneryn sandbar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 November 2019, 18:02 GMT]
The commander of the occupying Sinhala military stationed in Ki'linochchi, Major General GV Ravipriya, has threatened the people of Kauthaari-munai and the nearby villages along Ma'n'nith-thalai sandbar of Poonakari (Pooneryn) not to object SL Governor's plan of alienating lands to a planned hotel by an Australia-based Tamil trader collaborating with the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. The SL military is fully backing the land grab, which is promoted by the SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan.
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Eezham Tamil fishers detained by Indian Coast Guard return home

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2019, 22:42 GMT]
Eighteen Tamil fishermen from Jaffna who were detained by the Indian coastguard that trespassed into the waters off Jaffna on 03 October 2019 reached Colombo airport on Wednesday morning after 27 days of detention in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Coastguard entered the territorial waters off Jaffna, near Ezhuvai-theevu, and towed their vessel for five nautical miles inside the Indian border before getting onboard, the fishermen who reached Jaffna on Thursday said. The investigators from the SL Defence Ministry were harassing the fishers for almost six hours at Colombo airport, Annalingam Annarasa, the secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Federation who had gone to Colombo to receive the returning fishers said.
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Shivaji wants UN Referendum if next SL President fails to address Tamil question within 3 months

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 October 2019, 21:22 GMT]
The SLPP led by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as a presidential candidate has issued its election manifesto. There is no recognition of the existence of the Tamil national question in that document. It talks about consolidating the unitary state and ensuring a foremost place to Buddhism. It is also about disciplining the society, the meaning of which is evident to every Eezham Tamil, said M.K. Shivajilingam, who is contesting in the SL presidential race to denounce the Sinhala-centric outlook of resolving the conflict in the island. Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front is yet to release its manifesto. If that too fails to meet the key terms jointly articulated by the five Tamil parties, Tamils should be prepared to demand UN Referendum giving three months ultimatum to the newly elected president, he said in Jaffna on Wednesday.
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Mobilisation stops surveying of lands for militarisation by SL Navy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 October 2019, 22:37 GMT]
The people of Maathakal and Chuzhipuram put up stiff resistance against surveying of 40 perches of lands that belong to a private Eezham Tamil owner near Thiruvadi-nilai on Monday. Elected Divisional Council representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, as well as SL Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran of the UNP, visited the site of protest. The protesters handed over a written appeal to stop all surveying activities. Following the mobilisation of people on Maathakal - Punnaalai Road on Monday, the SL Survey Department officials were forced to cancel also the other planned surveying activities involving more significant extent of lands at Neduntheevu (Delft) on Tuesday.
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“Gota, go home,” mothers in Jaffna protest against the architect of white-van abductions

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 October 2019, 23:02 GMT]
The kith and kin of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa staged a protest in Jaffna on Monday, when his sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming SL Presidential elections came to woo the Tamil voters in the North on Monday. The mothers gathered in front of Col Kiddu Park at Nalloor staging their symbolic protest against the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The world community must call for international criminal investigations against the crimes committed by Mr Gotabhaya, the mothers said. They were also denouncing internal and hybrid forms of the inquiry approved by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as futile.
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Sajith Premadasa intensified heritage genocide against Tamils through departments in his ministry

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 October 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The successive governments of the occupying unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka have gazetted 167 ancient heritage monuments, which they want to convert as ‘Sinhala only’ Theravada Buddhist monuments in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East after 2010. Rajapaksa government gazetted 123 sites in two notifications in May and August 2013. The regime led by Maithiripala and Wickramasinghe has gazetted forty-four monuments in May 2015 and March 2016. The heritage genocide accelerated under Sajith Premadasa as minister of cultural, housing and construction affairs. A range of departments from the SL Department of Archaeology to Central Cultural Fund, which sophisticatedly undermines Tamil heritage involving Tamil and foreign academics function under him, Tamil civil officials and activists in Jaffna and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.
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US trick of coercion: Carrot to entice Gotabhaya, stick to strike Shavendra

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2019, 23:51 GMT]
US Acting Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asia of the US State Department, Alice G. Wells, was turning a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East during her testimony on human rights in South Asia to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The US was “encouraged by the SL government’s progress on the operationalization of an Office of Missing Persons and the establishment of an Office of Reparations,” she said. Alice G Wells was accompanied by Robert Destro, the assistant secretary at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who was also citing “Sri Lanka” as the country in the South Asian region where the US have had some “notable successes”. The only strong complaint they had was the recent promotion of pro-Chinese SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva.
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Chennai Connect and Eezham Tamils reminding Tamil Nadu to assert Tamil geopolitics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 October 2019, 23:19 GMT]
After wrapping up his informal Summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu, Chinese President Xi Jinping this week paid a two-day State visit to Nepal, where he announced a strategic partnership with the landlocked country situated between India and China. While the Nepalese President and Prime Minister extended their commitment to China’s Belt & Road Initiative, Xi Jinping announced the plan for the transformation of the landlocked country into a “land-linked” country in South Asia. He was effectively pitching for a ‘Trans-Himalayan Corridor’. China launching yet another land-based economic corridor in South Asia, in addition to that of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is the latest manoeuvre of geopolitics.
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Colombo destroys dairy-farming economy of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 23:50 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary men have shot and killed around 1,500 of cows in the interior pasturelands of Paduvaan-karai region in Batticaloa district within the last ten months, complains Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division. In the meantime, the SL State-owned Milk Industries of Lanka Company, also known as Milco Private Limited, is buying the produce at low rates from the Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa. The payments also get severely delayed, he says.
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Tamil parties in North-East stipulate ‘acid test’ terms to SL presidential candidates

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The main political parties of Eezham Tamils, which claim to uphold the principles of the concept of Tamil nationhood through the Right of Self-Determination and distinct sovereignty of Tamils to their traditional homeland, have come to an understanding of the terms to be placed as the acid-test conditions to the candidates running for the executive presidency of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. While the parties have unitedly formed the main demands towards the presidential candidates, they have failed in two crucial aspects. Firstly, the failure to course-correct the ‘Quisling politics’ of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Secondly, the inability to stipulate the conditions and choices of Eezham Tamils if and when the actors in the South fail to meet the acid-test terms, especially before the SL Presidential elections.
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SL Governor's latest land grab poses danger to archaeological traces of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 October 2019, 22:15 GMT]
SL Governor to North Mr Suren Raghavan is attempting to alienate 115 acres of lands at Kauthaari-munai in Ma'na'niththa'lai sandbar of Poo-nakari (Pooneryn) division to a private Tamil diaspora business person from Australia before his Governor term expires. Mr Raghavan is deceptively suppressing objections from the Tamil civil sources and the grassroots activists in Ki'linochchi district, informed grassroots activists in Poonakari told TamilNet. The 25 km long sandbar, which extends towards the Jaffna Peninsula from Poonakari in the main island, is of immense natural beauty and archaeological value to the Eezham Tamils. The area is dotted with archaeological remains ranging from microlithic/megalithic times to the times of the Dutch, covered by massive sand dunes.
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Vote for Self-Determination, reject major candidates for more effective boycott

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2019, 22:07 GMT]
A section of civil activists in the North-East jointly promoted the idea of fielding a common Tamil candidate in the SL Presidential Election this time. The idea looked genuine and the process went on until the last minute deadline to find a contestant. The hidden hands of India and West were trying to influence the choice of the candidate through remote control manipulations. The process didn't succeed to the disappointment of the genuinely involved as well as the indirect actors. At the same time, some Tamil sections also argued the case for a boycott of the presidential elections. However, none of them expected the manoeuvre of two former provincial councillors with independent intuition to propose a better solution to the Eezham Tamils. M.K. Shivajilingam of TELO legacy and Ananthy Sasitharan of former LTTE affiliation have nailed it this time. Now the Establishments are after them.
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Indian Coast Guard trespassed into waters off Jaffna, 18 fishers detained since 03 October

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2019, 20:17 GMT]
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to host an informal summit, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has stepped up patrol activities in the Palk Straits and the Bay of Bengal. On 03 October, the ICG has trespassed into the waters off Jaffna peninsula and detained eighteen poor Eezham Tamil fishers, who were engaged in crab fishing off Ezhuvai-theevu island in an offshore vessel with 18 feet fishing bay. The families are yet to hear from the detained fishermen who are believed to be in the custody of Tamil Nadu Police in Puzhal prison, Annalingam Annarasa, the deputy chairman of Jaffna Islets Fisheries Federation said on Tuesday. Ezhuvai-theevu is the island that is seen first when coming from the Indian coast to Kayts Harbour.
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Heinous act by HRCSL: former orphans of Chegnchoalai on the brink of losing lands

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 October 2019, 23:12 GMT]
The so-called Human Rights Commission of genocidal Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has proposed to the Divisional Secretariat office in Karaichchi in Ki'linochchi to evict the resettled former orphans of Chengchoalai who are living at the lands which were bought by the orphanage from the original landowners during the times of war. Cheng-choalai was one of the civilian orphanages operated by the LTTE run de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. It was well known for bringing up children in an exemplary way producing artists and experts within various fields. The lands were allocated to the former orphans through proper purchases during the de-facto civil administration of the LTTE. However, the grounds are now being claimed by greedy elements with vested interests and the SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna has proposed to do away the arrangement.
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EPDP joins Jaffna protest against desecration of Neeraaviyadi temple

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2019, 12:21 GMT]
Representatives of the EPDP, a paramilitary which was collaborating with the Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka against the Eezham Tamils without course-correcting itself even during the height of genocidal onslaught in 2009, joined a common protest staged in Jaffna against the recent desecration of Neeraaviyadi Pi'l'laiyaar temple in Mullaiththeevu. Ex-militant Tamil parliamentarians in the TNA, which politically collaborates with the failed regime in Colombo also attended the protest. The demonstration demanded action against extremist Buddhist monks and condemned the Sinhala actors, including the SL Police extending tacit support to the ‘Buddhism foremost’ approach of the occupying SL State.
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Raghavan plans to distribute uncultivatable lands to Tamils to compensate for loss of fertile lands

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2019, 19:16 GMT]
SL Governor to Northern Province Suren Raghavan has come up with another deceptive offer to the uprooted Eezham Tamil land-owners in Mullaiththeevu. Raghavan is planning to release some plots of saline and brackish soil along the coast as compensation for their fertile lands, which the SL State had seized from the Tamil land-owners under the so-called ‘Mahaweli’ L system, civil sources at Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat said. Suren Raghavan met the District Secretary and TNA Parliamentarian Mrs Shanthy Sriskandarajah at the District Secretariat in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. Mr Raghavan has proposed to de-gazette some plots that are retained under the System L. However, the plots coming under the planned release were only ‘tharavai’ lands, the officials said.
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No place for human rights in China’s white paper for future world

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 October 2019, 22:28 GMT]
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), with its ambition as a rising global power, showcased this week its 70th anniversary of the founding of the republic staging big celebrations and a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Along with the fanfare, the RPC also spelt out its worldview for future China and the world combined in a white paper titled “China and the World in the New Era.” Although the Xi Jinping doctrine was upholding the principles of the UN Charter, the term ‘human rights’ was totally missing in the document, which perceives state-to-state relations as the bedrock of international relations. Even the term civilisation was used to defend the states-centric narrative. There were no specific concerns about stateless nations and peoples that don’t fit into the states-centric status quo of the so-called world order.
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