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845 matching reports found. Showing 121 - 140 [TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2015, 00:21 GMT] “In point of fact, if the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is to be preserved from claims to the right of secession, it is a sine quo non that the right to self-determination of the Tamils is recognized and the nature of the state is restructured to enable meaningful exercise of internal self-determination,” concludes the draft introduction prepared by TNA in November 2009 to accompany its proposals of constitutional reforms. 5 years have elapsed since. The TNA, now claiming a final solution in 2016, is yet to educate the masses on what efforts it has undertaken to establish the sine quo non (“cause-in-fact”) and on how long it is going to cling to the explanation of re-inventing the wheel, getting voluntarily locked to a genocidal situation which is beyond any rectification. TamilNet is releasing the documents from November 2009 for the awareness of Eezham Tamils. Full story >> [TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2015, 22:04 GMT] While Eezham Tamils are searching for international mechanisms to bring those who bear responsibility for the "Crime of the century" of killing more than 80,000 Tamil civilians in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, to justice, human rights activists are elated but reminded that the "march of justice can be slow" in the recent trial of Hissen Habre, a former dictator from Chad, in the courts of Senegal. The trial began on 20th July, for alleged crimes of mass killings, torture, disappearance as part of ethnic cleansing in the 1980s, crimes that have stark parallel to those committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka. US State Department, in their selective approach to dealing with International Crimes, saved former SL President Rajapakse in the US Courts of Law suggesting sovereign immunity, an archaic legal doctrine that allows the US Executive branch to protect even genocidaires from legal action. Full story >> [TamilNet, Monday, 13 July 2015, 11:56 GMT] “The Eezham Tamils occupying the strategic coasts in North-East Sri Lanka facing the Bay of Bengal, the Baloch occupying the coasts where the Persian Gulf meets the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, the Kachins occupying the strategic regions of Burma and the Rohinygas situated near the Isthmus of Kra have all been victims of the geopolitical dynamics involved in the collusion between competing world establishments and Asian nation-states. Such a future scenario warrants alternative measures to overcome the political injustice of imperialistic geopolitics,” writes Norway-based Eezham Tamil anthropology academic Athithan Jayapalan. Eezham Tamils, being the victims of an internationally orchestrated structural genocide, should take the lead in edifying the oppressed nations of the world in building an alternative global political network, writes the second-generation Diaspora academic. Full story >> [TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 June 2015, 19:33 GMT]The EPDP leader and a former SL Minister Douglas Devanada lost control of the affairs of the SL State-run industrial establishments such as the Palmyra Development Board and the Elephant Pass Saltern to the new collaborator of the SL regime in Colombo. The new collaborator, D.M. Swaminathan, who is a Colombo-based Tamil representing the UNP has virtually lost control of his own institutions. Five months have elapsed since the Elephant Pass Saltern was assigned to the SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs. But, his ministry is still not in control of the key institution. The UPFA-affiliated controversial SL Minister Rishad Bathiudeen is controlling the affairs of one of the major industrial entity in North through Maanthai Salt Ltd., which comes under his ministry, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet on Tuesday. Full story >> [TamilNet, Monday, 22 June 2015, 23:08 GMT] While the civil officials in Mannaar are struggling to locate lands to settle Eezham Tamil refugees, who are scheduled to be sent back from India with the facilitation by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the SL Ministry of Resettlement, the occupying SL military in Mannaar has put up noticeboards claiming ownership to more than 50 acres of public lands along the A32 highway between Tha'l'laadi and Thirukkeatheesvaram. The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) has recently seized these lands near the notorious Tha'l'laadi military base, civil sources in Mannaar told TamilNet on Monday. The SL military is scheming a military cantonment to facilitate long-term Sinhalicisation of the Mannaar mainland, the sources further said. Full story >> [TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 June 2015, 23:16 GMT] Earlier, the occupying Colombo under Mahinda Rajapaksa, declared 11,000 acres of lands in Vangkaalai, situated in the Mannaar mainland as Vankaalai Sanctuary, coming under the control of the SL ministries and departments in Colombo in 2008. The new regime, which came to power in January 2015, is now hurriedly engaged in claiming the remaining lands, where people have resettled with housing provided through the Indian Housing Scheme. The occupation of lands go beyond Vangkaalai in Naanaaddaan into Mannaar DS division intending to chase away the entire village of Chi'runaavatku'lam, located along the Mannaar - Mathavaachchi Road, some parts of Pa'l'li-munai and a residential area near the Thirukkeatheesvaram temple, activists in Mannaar told TamilNet on Tuesday. Colombo's ministry of ‘Tourism and Sports’ is deploying ‘cultural diplomacy’ as smokescreen to advance the occupation. Full story >> [TamilNet, Friday, 29 May 2015, 22:45 GMT]The Rural Development Society (RDS) of Kachchat-kodi Swami-malai GS division is a grassroots-level attempt by the villagers to sustain the livelihood of the people who face a systematic demographic genocide along the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai districts for a long time. In an in-depth interview to TamilNet, Secretary of the RDS, Mr Paramanatham, exposes the details behind the demographic genocide and the role played by the Buddhist monks, Sri Lankan Police and the ‘Sinhala home guards,’ which is an armed paramilitary operated by the occupying SL military. Mr Paramantham also details the institutionalised non-responsive governance of the Sri Lankan system, including Colombo's departments, provincial, district and divisional offices, all operating with one single aim of driving Tamils away and Sinhalicising the native villages of Eezham Tamils. Full story >> [TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 May 2015, 15:37 GMT]The Sri Lankan police will not be investigating to the fullest degree possible to assert what kind of narcotics were used by the gang rapists, who committed the brutal crime earlier this month, informed Tamil paramilitary operatives in Jaffna claim. The occupying Sri Lankan military has systematically deployed a number of Sinhala and Muslim narcotic sellers from South into Jaffna and Vanni over a long period of time. The Sri Lanka Navy sustains the flow of narcotics from India. Even the narcotic traffickers who earlier operated from Mannaar have shifted their activities to the islets off Jaffna in recent years. So-called rape drugs have been introduced in recent times, the Tamil paramilitary sources further say. The Chief Minister of Northern Province, Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, was also expressing the same message last week. Full story >> [TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2015, 19:51 GMT]Resettled Tamils in Paddith-thidal village in Moothoor divion in Trincomalee, recently made a fresh attempt to engage in agriculture in their lands after the ‘new’ regime came to power in Colombo. However, the latest effort, made with the assistance of the ‘Legal Aid Commission’ has also proved futile, says Velayutham Velmaran, the chairman of Paddith-thidal Sri Vinayaga Agricultural Society in an interview to TamilNet on Monday. A Sinhala-Buddhist extremist monk from Samagipura, which is situated in the bordering Seruwila DS division, has been blocking the resettled Eezham Tamil landowners for several years from engaging in agriculture in their land. The Sinhala colonisers from Seruwila have seized around 1,500 acres of the agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in the villages of Kangku-veali, Padukaadu and Muthalai-madu , Mr Velmaran said. Full story >> [TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2015, 23:12 GMT]Two decades have elapsed since Eezham Tamils resettled in Va'laththaap-piddi GS division of Ampaa'rai district. After the war ended in the East in 2008, Sinhala settlers from the border villages have accelerated the occupation of fertile agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils at Kanangkaa-veddai near Pazha-ve'li village. A recently established camp of the Sri Lankan military is prohibiting the resettling Tamil landowners from accessing their agricultural lands at Kanangkaa-veddai. In the meantime, the Archaeology department of the genocidal Sri Lankan State has put up border stones surrounding the old Sivan temple of Va'laththaap-piddi. Sinhala settlers who have encroached from border villages have taken over the agricultural lands that belong to Veera-munai Hindu temple. Without political and economic empowerment, the Tamils, already marginalised in Ampaa'rai, risk losing their villages. Full story >> [TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2015, 20:18 GMT] Two departments of the occupying Sri Lankan State, the Wildlife Department and the Forest Department, have been blocking the uprooted Eezham Tamils from resettling and owning lands in the four villages that come under Poomalarnthaan GS division, which is one of the 17 GS areas of Madu division in the Mannaar District, the uprooted Tamil villagers complain. The policy of social engineering targeting Sinhalicisation of Madu division has not changed under the ‘new’ regime, as these departments seem to compete with each other in the occupation of the lands. The threatening presence of Sinhala soldiers in the villages and the jungles facilitates the occupation. The programme of Sinhalicisation is accelerated following the commencing of railway line to Mannaar, the civil sources said. Full story >> [TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2015, 21:27 GMT]Around 100 uprooted Tamil families from Thaangkiyadi in Mannaar have been denied resettlement in the lands where they were living before they were uprooted in 1990. The relatives of SL Minister Rishad Bathiudeen at Thaaraa-puram have occupied the 48-acre land. There is no one to voice for the resettlement of the poverty-stricken families from the lower echelon of the society, rights activists in Mannaar said. “No-one dares to fight with Rishad Bathiudeen who hails from Thaaraa-puram, the nearby village,” a displaced Tamil villager, who visits the temple once a week, told TamilNet on Wednesday. The small temple is the only trace of the Tamil settlement at Thaangkiyadi situated 7 km north of the city on Mannaar - Thalaimannaar A14 Road. Full story >> [TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2015, 11:02 GMT]Champoor region in Trincomalee district has seen displacement since 1990. But, Colombo’s officials have been instructed to use the voter’s registry of 2005 in deciding those ‘eligible’ for resettlement in Champoor. Several families were uprooted within the 15 years. Further, the people demanding resettlement are asked to hand over ownership documents. Many families have lost their documents during the times of the war due to displacements. The uprooted people who are able to document their ownership to lands within the occupied ‘Economic’ zone will receive alternative lands elsewhere is the position of the SL Governor in the East. Through such manipulations, the figures of lands belonging to people within the occupied ‘Special Economic Zone’ have been manipulated down to 138 acres, the people complain. Full story >> [TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2015, 23:35 GMT]Catholic priests who inspected the 90 acres of released lands in Vasaavi'laan East (GS Division of J/244) in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, say that proper resettlement is not feasible without getting the remaining residential and agricultural lands released. The access road, cut off by the SL military should be restored, they said. The Roman Catholic school and the main church of the village are still occupied by the SL military. The first indigenous contemplative congregation (Ashram) of the Catholic Church in Asia, has been released. But, it is fully ruined. The entire building has been robbed of everything, except the walls, Catholics priests in Jaffna said. TamilNet publishes a short video of the first visit by a section of Catholic priests to the convent of the Rosarian Sisters (nuns) in Vasaavi'laan East. Full story >> [TamilNet, Sunday, 22 March 2015, 23:19 GMT]The SL military has suddenly fenced off a crucial link road in the area supposed to be handed over back to the people of Vasaavi'laan East, just one day ahead of the much-orchestrated visit to the area by the Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena together with SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and former SL President Chandrika Kumaratunga. On Sunday, Northern Provincial Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran visited the area and was shocked to see the link road been fenced off by the SL military. The Chief Minister said the lands have not been released as promised by the Colombo government. Only a small area has been released, he said questioning whether there was a conflict between the Colombo government and its military or whether there was anything else. The people are disappointed to see that the lands have not been handed over as promised by the government. Full story >> [TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2015, 13:19 GMT]Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to North ended up as a ceremonial tour on Saturday. The uprooted people, who were promised resettlement, just one day ahead of his visit to Jaffna, complained that the occupying Sri Lankan military was robbing even the remaining roofs of their houses till the last minute. The families of the victims of enforced disappearances, who marched from Jaffna Bus Stand to the office of the Consulate General of India at Nalloor, were disappointed to learn that Mr Modi was visiting the North-East after advising the TNA Parliamentary Group in Colombo to ‘re-strategize’ its approach and maintain ‘patience’ with regards to what it expects from the new regime in Colombo. They urged the Indian PM to exert pressure on Colombo to act without further delay. Full story >> [TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 March 2015, 23:45 GMT] Around 800 Tamil youth were forcefully disappeared in Jaffna peninsula by the occupying Sri Lankan military under Chandrika Kumaratunga's rule between 1996 and 1998 when Tamils returned to Jaffna peninsula, which was seized by the SL military in 1995 through Operation Riviressa. The family members, who have been struggling to know the whereabouts of their kith and kin for years and were looking for answers through international investigations, have revived their protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat on Wednesday after learning that the United Nations, under the influence of Washington and New Delhi, is now trying to promote domestic investigation mechanism of Colombo by diluting the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) process from evolving into international investigations. Full story >> [TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2015, 15:06 GMT] Condemning the recently announced deferral of the OISL investigative report by the OHCHR in Geneva, voicing against the talk of UN converting the international investigation into a domestic one, and demanding immediate response on the fate of the thousands of missing persons, Women’s Organisation of Missing Persons' Families in Jaffna staged a protest on Saturday in front of the Bus Stand in the city. The protestors, numbering more than 250, blamed New Delhi and Washington for buying time and space for the Sri Lankan State, with the intention of shielding the crime of genocide. At the end of the protest, an effigy of nominated TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran was burnt by a section of youth from the ITAK, who blamed the Colombo-centric elements within the TNA for collaborating with the global actors discarding the fundamental principles of the Tamil cause. Full story >> [TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2015, 11:02 GMT] The families of forcefully disappeared Tamil victims in Ampaa'rai district have demanded immediate arrest and action against Karuna Group paramilitary operative, K. Pushpakumar alias Iniyabarathy, who was the Ampaa'rai district coordinator of Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA and a member of the Eastern Provincial Council. After the entire Ampaa'rai district was brought under the control of the occupying Sri Lankan military in 2007, more than 200 Tamil youth have been reported missing in the district after arrest or abduction by Sri Lanka military operated squads. Iniyabarathy has been the key paramilitary operative operating a squad for the genocidal SL military in the district. Iniyabarathy is blamed for the assassination of veteran Tamil journalist Aiyathurai Nadesan in May 2004. Incumbent SL president Maithiripala Sirisena was also having a hand in the paramilitary operations in the East. Full story >> [TamilNet, Monday, 09 February 2015, 18:39 GMT] Sivaram Dharmeratnam alias Taraki, the late senior editor of TamilNet, wrote an article in January 2003, explaining the deadlock of the Sri Lankan unitary constitution which cannot provide for a solution within its framework. The international backers were also aware that a federal solution to the ethnic conflict was practically, legally and politically impossible with the Sri Lankan Constitution, he wrote. “Demystifying the realm of Tamil politics and ridding it of the host of canards, half-truths and obfuscations that have plagued for long the national will to struggle for our inalienable rights,” was the key task of the real Tamil political leadership, he wrote in the article. Full story >>
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