Ananthy urges Pope to see genocide, get answers from local, international players

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 2015, 13:59 GMT]
As Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the island from Tuesday to Thursday, NPC Councillor Ms Ananthy Sasitharan, urged him to grasp the underlying factor of the conflict in the island, i.e. genocide and sought his help in getting answers from the government in Colombo and the international players, including the UN, the Co-chairs and India. “I hope Your Holiness is aware that there is an ideology behind the genocidal process,” she wrote in a letter addressed to the Pope on Saturday. She was citing a key case of Fr Francis Joseph towards the end of the war in perceiving the dimensions and said: “The Catholic Church, having witnesses among the people, has a moral duty to safeguard the people from the protracted crime of genocide.”
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Mannaar Bishop rejects GoSL’s Presidential commission on missing persons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 August 2014, 18:21 GMT]
Rejecting an offer to make presentations before the GoSL’s Presidential commission on missing persons, Mannaar Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph said “Over the years many commissions such as yours have been set up and there is absolutely no shred of evidence that they have tackled impunity. Most, if not all of these commissions have provided only to be eye washers for the then Governments in power.” In a letter sent on Sunday addressed to the Chairman and Commissioners of this setup, he further expressed his concern that “the recent expansion of your mandate and the appointment of international experts to oversee the work of the commission without any clear terms of reference has been deliberately done to undermine the work of the UN OHCHR's inquiry into Sri Lanka which commenced recently.”
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Tamil civil society urges Pope to call for de-militarisation of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 July 2014, 15:33 GMT]
The Tamil Civil Society Forum has handed over an appeal to Pope Francis on Sunday through Vatican's diplomatic representative to the island, urging the Pope to openly call upon Colmbo Government to stop militarising and colonizing Tamil lands, to restore the troop presence in the North and East to pre-war levels, end violence against women, honestly address the problems of the disappeared and the abducted including Rev. Fathers T. N. Jim Brown and G. A. Frances Joseph, accelerate the process by which surrendered detainees and all those who are in in communicado detention are released and allow people to remember the dead. The TCSF has also forewarned His Holiness Pope of the possibility that the Government of Sri Lanka may utilize this visit to serve its political purposes and has urged the Pope to visit Mu'l'liavaaykkaal and Madu Church during his visit to the island.
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U'naa-kooruwa, Koora-gala, Koora-gammana

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 May 2014, 23:41 GMT]
The bamboo part or the elephant department in the bamboo locality

The pointed rock or rocky hill

The rice fields of the village
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Tamil civil society disappointed with UNHRC resolution, New Delhi's stand

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 March 2014, 12:10 GMT]
While expressing appreciation for those countries that voted for the resolution and expressing their disappointment on the conduct of India at the UNHRC, Mannaar Bishop Rt Rev Rayappu Joseph and Jaffna University law academic Kumaravadivel Guruparan, in a statement issued on behalf of the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) on Thursday, expressed their deep regret that the resolution does not provide for the establishment of a robust mechanism of international investigations in the form of an International Commission of Inquiry.
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PTI twists report on Mannaar killing field

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 February 2014, 23:37 GMT]
Projecting Sri Lankan Government's defensive cover-up statement on the exhumation of human skeletal remains from the killing field of Mannaar at Maanthai without any journalistic scrutiny, the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Wednesday published a news report titled ‘mass grave in former LTTE stronghold’. The report featured an open lie by the Sri Lankan state that the killing field was under LTTE control for 30 years. The mass grave site, situated near Maanthai junction, has been under the control of the occupying Sri Lankan military and was also used as a rear site of the SL military that uprooted the Tamil people from the area. So far, 81 human skeletons have been exhumed from the killing fields. The exhumation is scheduled to continue for the 32nd time on 03 March.
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Civil activists condemn Colombo for detaining Tamil youth under PTA

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 December 2013, 16:12 GMT]
More than 100 civil activists from all walks of life, including religious dignitaries, human rights activists, journalists, writers and academics, both from within and outside the island, have strongly condemned the Government of Sri Lanka for the continuous detention of 7 Tamil youth under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) since their arrest during the last week of November following the Tamil Heroes Day observations in Jaffna and Mannaar. The aactivists said that they were concerned as the arrests were unfounded and only served to perpetuate the climate of fear and insecurity of the people of the North.
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Fr Johnpillai reveals details of death threat by alleged SL operatives

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 November 2013, 17:21 GMT]
Parish Priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Trincomalee, on Thursday, described, in an email released to media through the Catholic mission sources in the East how two armed men, claiming to be Sri Lankan intelligence operatives threatened him on 26 November. When the priest asked them to show proof, they refused. But, as the questioning was rapidly becoming a heated argument, one of the operatives suddenly told the priest that he would give him proof of his identity, caught Fr Johnpillai by his priestly garb, pushed him against the wall pointing a pistol at his head and threatening to shoot him.
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Catholic peace group in Jaffna details structural genocide to Apostolic Nuncio

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 October 2013, 15:28 GMT]
The Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah, has written a detailed letter on Friday to the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Colombo, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Spiteri, elucidating the structural genocide being carried out by occupying Sri Lanka on the country of Eezham Tamils. The letter comes following the move by the Colombo's colonial regime handing over a report to the Apostolic Nuncio, detailing the so-called development activities carried out in North and East. The JPC Chairman was categoric in his letter that external ‘development’ cannot substitute the settling of the political solution and urged the Vatican to exert political pressure on Sri Lanka to put forward a political solution framework. The detailed letter summarises the genocidal programme of the Sri Lankan State under 10 topics.
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TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumaran

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should learn from history, and from the experience of their predecessors, on what should NOT be done, writes Tamil Nadu political activist Poonkuzhali Nedumaran in a feature sent to TamilNet this week. She cited the history of TNA’s predecessor TULF failing in upholding the responsibility it was vested with by the people in 1977, compromising with District Councils and how that triggered the Tamil youth to lose confidence in parliamentary methods. The NPC election results mean communication of a will than participation in governance. With the Eezham Tamils rejecting the polity and rule of the State in Colombo, the TNA must understand the responsibility vested with them by the people, she further said.
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Mannaar villagers protest against SL Navy occupying church lands

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 September 2013, 15:35 GMT]
Tamil villagers of Chi’ruth-thoappu on Thursday staged a peaceful protest against the Sri Lanka Navy occupation of 17 acres of land belonging to their church. The villagers demanded the Sri Lanka Navy base Gajaba to vacate the land. The protest comes as the SL State has recently taken a move to legally appropriate the lands after having it occupied for 10 years. The SL military occupying the land has also exploited the natural resources of the church the villagers complained. The church is situated along Mannaar – Thalaimannaar Road.
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Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 August 2013, 00:52 GMT]
The raised place (of sand)
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SLA interferes, sabotages civil group's public awareness event

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2013, 02:15 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had interfered and had stopped Mannaar Government officials from attending an event organized by the Mannaar Citizen's Committee (MCC) to bring awareness of the laws and regulations governing ownership and transfer of lands, the President of MCC, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Sebamalei, said in a media release issued during the second week of June. The agenda for the first two days of the event held for the NGOs was carried out without any difficulty, the organizers said, but that they had protested to the attendance of an SLA Intelligence officer during the first day of the seminar. Consequently, the organizers believe, the SLA took action to disrupt the event aimed at the Government officials, the memorandum said.
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"US action on Sri Lanka necessary to protect Tamils"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 June 2013, 00:22 GMT]
Dr. Karunyan Arulanantham, the executive director of the Tamil American Peace Initiative, an organization of American Tamils, in a article in the CNN World website says, "[j]udging by recent history, one thing seems clear: Sri Lanka won’t solve its problems on its own," and advocating that "U.S. pressure is necessary," suggests that "[a] U.N. mechanism that would allow the international community to act decisively and initiate independent investigations and conduct a U.N. supervised referendum on options for peaceful coexistence is long overdue. This is by far the best way to achieve real reconciliation."
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Uprooted Tamils ordered to leave their lands in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 May 2013, 23:02 GMT]
Mannaar Divisional Secretary D.Dayananda has ordered all uprooted Tamil residents residing in the public lands at Ezhil Nakar to dismantle their temporary sheds and boundary fences and vacate from the land within one week's time. The eviction order has been issued by the Divisional Secretary to settle down about 600 Sinhalese from the South, civil sources said.
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Indian news magazine highlights accelerated Sinhalization of Tamil north

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 21:35 GMT]
In a commentary on the ‘post-war’ scenario in the northern part of the Tamil homeland in the island of Sri Lanka, a correspondent for The Weekend Leader, a Chennai based online news magazine, highlights the accelerated Sinhalization of the Tamil north through political, social, cultural, economic and military means, giving cases for each. In the article titled ‘Erasing the cultural leftover of Tamils to convert Sri Lanka into Sinhala country’ published on Tuesday, the correspondent writes that the Tamil north “is in the grip of Sinhala hegemony”, adding that Sinhala and Sinhalization are the watchwords in the region. The writer also underscores the vital role that the occupying Sinhala military plays in facilitating this process and how development projects are used as a ruse by the GoSL to further colonize Tamil areas.
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SL military launches intelligence operations to monitor Muslim youth of Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 March 2013, 13:43 GMT]
While the Sinhala Buddhist organizations, with alleged backing from certain sections of Colombo government, have stepped up attacks on places of worships of the Muslims in the South and a hate campaign against Halal meet is being whipped up, the Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives in Mannaar district have started to ‘observe’ Muslim youth under a military operation termed as ‘preventive measures’. The SL police sources in Mannaar said Muslim youth who might contemplate on armed resistance against the Sinhala extremist elements in South are being monitored in recent days, both day and night.
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Tamil Nadu students burn US draft resolution

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 March 2013, 00:28 GMT]
Protest started by the Loyola College students in Chennai against an empty US resolution on Sri Lanka at Geneva and the Tamil Nadu State Government action against the protest, have triggered spontaneous statewide student uprising that is not depending on any political party, news sources in Tamil Nadu said. Students of instituions such as the Annamalai University in Chithamparam and St. Xavier’s College, an autonomous university institution at Paa’laiyang-koaddai in Thirunelveali, have burnt the copies of the US draft resolution tabled at Geneva for discussion on Friday, saying that the draft only bails out the genocide-accused Sri Lankan State. Meanwhile, student protests took place in every part of Tamil Nadu and All Colleges Students Federation for the Liberation of Tamil Eelam has come out with a 9-point demand.
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French ambassador concerned about fishermen encroachment, Tamil - Muslim relations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 January 2013, 12:28 GMT]
The French ambassador in Colombo, Christine Robichon, visiting Jaffna and Mannaar between 07 and 12 of this month, was able to “assess the damages of the trespassing of Indian trawlers on the livelihoods of local fishermen, and the consequences of the use of banned methods of fishing on the environment and natural resources,” said a press release of the French embassy in Colombo on Sunday. In her meetings with resettled people, she paid particular attention to the relations between Tamil and Muslim communities. “It is encouraging to see that Tamil and Muslim work together to provide support to all the war affected people in some organizations but it is worrying to perceive signs of communal tensions particularly in Mannar,” the press release said citing the ambassador.
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SL Archbishop collaborates with Gotabhaya in militarization land grab

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2013, 14:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Archbishop and a Cardinal of Vatican, His Eminence Malcolm Ranjith had personally come along with genocidal Colombo’s Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in grabbing Mu’l’lik-ku’lam village in Mannaar district for a naval base of the occupying Sinhala military and declaring the village out of bounds for its resettling inhabitants, news sources in Mannaar said. The Sinhala Archbishop had come and the Tamil Bishop of Mannaar, Rayappu Joseph, was made to silently sit along with him at the conference called by Gotabhaya at Mu’l’likku’lam on 26 December, in coercing the largely Tamil Catholic villagers to the sulking reconciliation of accepting alternative offers of land, the news sources further said.
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