A'lawwa, A'lavakkai-chi'ru-ku'lam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 December 2013, 19:37 GMT]
The canal

The small tank of the canal (fed by the canal)
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Villages gone, buildings razed to ground in SL military appropriated Valikamaam North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 December 2013, 07:53 GMT]
Almost all the buildings that were situated in the 6,400 acres of lands seized by the occupying Sri Lankan military in Valikaamam North in Jaffna have been completely bulldozed by the SL military, according to those who have witnessed the destruction in recent days. The entire area of fertile cultivation and residential lands now looks like single piece of desert land, they said. Except the buildings used by the genocidal military at the ‘forward line’ and the building at the rear, close to the Palaali military base, everything else has been razed to the ground. The SL military is transforming the former High Security Zone into a Sinhala Military Zone to encapsulate the Palaali military complex in Jaffna with a Sinhala military colony of the occupying soldiers from South.
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Take bearing from PPT verdict in delivering justice to Eezham Tamils: May 17

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 07:14 GMT]
The recent verdict by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Sri Lanka, which found the Sri Lankan State guilty of genocide, was a landmark decision in the path of justice to Eezham Tamils, say the activists of May 17 Movement from Tamil Nadu, who were present at the session in Bremen as expert witnesses on the genocide against Eezham Tamils. In an interview to TamilNet on Tuesday, Mr Thirumurgan Gandhi and Mr Umar of May 17 stated that the next step in the path of justice to the victims should be legally binding international investigation on genocide – not something that only deals with war crimes – and the parallel delivery of political justice to the victims of genocide. Any intervention or monitoring in the process to ensure this must avoid the forces of the countries that were complicit in the genocide, they said.
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Colombo schemes another demographic change to permanently wedge North and East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 December 2013, 23:12 GMT]
Colombo has schemed a sinister move to demographically annex Thennai-maravadi, a strategic ancient Tamil village in Kuchchave’li division on the border of Northern and Eastern Provinces with the Sinhala dominated Padavi Sripura division of Trincomalee district, civil sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet. By annexing Thennai-maravadi to Padavi-Sripura, all the administrative affairs of the village would be taken over by the Sinhala officials. This will make it easier for Colombo to carry out the Sinhalicisation of the entire area, Tamil officials in Kuchchave’li Divisional Secretariat said. The lands belonging to Tamils will be seized and handed over to Sinhalese settlers with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces.
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Facebook lifts spirits of Kosavars on State recognition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 December 2013, 17:55 GMT]
Facebook provided a much needed moral boost to Kosovars as it granted legitimacy last month in the digital world by approving a number of changes, including giving users registering from the diamond-shaped area on the Balkan Peninsula the option to identify themselves as citizens of Kosovo, rather than the decidedly less attractive option for many there, Serbia. Kosavars call the changes important while they seek recognition from the United Nations, which confers legitimacy, and the European Union, whose members are divided on the question, ever since Kosovo proclaimed a separate state five years ago. Jubilant Kosavars say the Facebook's recognition is important as a matter of identity and economics. Kosovar businesses have been included on Facebook’s powerful advertising engine, helping companies target Kosovo’s small but growing consumer market.
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Sri Lanka guilty of genocide: PPT verdict

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 11:08 GMT]
After an assessment of evidences presented by eyewitnesses and experts, judges of the Permanent People’s Tribunal reached unanimous consensus that the Sri Lankan state was guilty of crimes of genocide against the Eezham Tamils and that the genocide is continuing even after the end of the military operations against the LTTE. Concluding the four day session with a press conference at Bremen on Tuesday, the judges also noted that the Sri Lankan military did not have capacity to commit genocide on its own and that it was supported by the UK-USA-India axis. While the judges held the USA and the UK to be complicit in the genocidal process, they were of the opinion that more evidence was needed as regards India’s role.
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PPT to announce findings at live press conference 10:00 AM CET

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 December 2013, 07:41 GMT]
The panel of judges who heard the charges of genocide against the Eezham Tamil people would be announcing their findings of the Bremen Tribunal in a live streaming press conference which starts at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Journalists can email in questions which will be answered by the panel then and there, the organisors said. The e-mail address, to which the questions should be sent, will appear on the live streaming screen online. Eleven direct eyewitnesses and experts testified in support of the Prosecution’s case, providing evidence on various alleged crimes that could be determined to constitute the crime of Genocide, as well as on the legal and historical background. Press here for streaming video of the press conference
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Mandela and the other Prisoners of War

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 December 2013, 11:56 GMT]
As South Africa prepares for the funeral of iconic anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, who passed away at the age of 95 on Thursday, leaders of the world have paid their tributes to the man who was incarcerated as a political prisoner under the apartheid regime for 27 years. Powerful countries in the West, including the USA and UK, which had once denounced Mandela as a ‘terrorist’, are now in the forefront paying homage. However, these establishments still continue to support countries that practice illegal detention and brutal treatment of prisoners-of-war (PoW). Noting this hypocrisy, a British-Kurdish activist, drawing a comparison between Mandela and PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan who has been kept in solitary confinement in a Turkish prison for 13 years, questions how one political leader is considered a “freedom fighter” and the other a “terrorist”.
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Reminding Britain of its geostrategic injustice against Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 December 2013, 23:35 GMT]
The British Prime Minister David Cameron seeking ‘engagement’ with Tamils needs to be reminded of the root injustice the imperial Britain had committed against Eezham Tamils by making them prone to more than 60 years of genocide in the hands of the unitary Sri Lankan State. The British cabinet in 1947 decided to short-circuit the discourse of an evolutionary constitutional approach with an accelerated process of handing over of power to Sinhalese, an exercise it carried out on the basis of its own geostrategic considerations amidst the pressure exerted by DS Senanayake, a shrewd politician on the Sinhala side. In their geostrategic concerns to secure defence, trade and external-affairs control of the independent Ceylon within the British Commonwealth, the British ignored the Tamil ‘50-50’ balanced representation demand as well as the Kandyan claim of three federal units.
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PPT names panel of judges to hear genocide case against Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2013, 23:51 GMT]
The Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) in Rome has announced the names of 11 judges, who would be hearing the long-awaited case on the accusation of genocide against Eezham Tamils to be heard by an independent panel. “Like in the first session, a respected panel of judges consisting of experts in Genocide studies, former UN-officials, experts in international law and renowned peace and human rights activists will hear the evidence that is presented and make a determination,” a press statement signed by Mr Gianni Tognoni, the secretary general of the PPT, stated. The first session held in January 2010, known as the Dublin Tribunal, was the first independent international undertaking that recognised the need to look into the case of genocide in the island of Sri Lanka. The second session is to take place between December 07 -10, 2013 in Bremen, Germany.
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Heroes Day in homeland, Diaspora, Tamil Nadu gains more significance than previous years

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 November 2013, 16:22 GMT]
The Indian prejudice and the global injustice, committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils by the various powers, enabled the Sri Lankan State to wage its genocidal war on Eezham Tamils to its end. But, the Tamil Heroes together with their steadfast people, who had no support from any State party in the world, achieved a superior moral victory. This is a unique case in modern human civilisation. This year, the remembrance of Tamil Heroes gained far more significance than the previous years after 2009, as Eezham Tamils in their homeland defied the ‘gag order’ by the occupying SL military, Diaspora Tamils marked the day without giving room for divisions engineered by the intelligence outfits of the Establishments and in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil national grassroots and political movements marked both LTTE leader Pirapaharan's birthday on 26 November and Maaveerar Day on 27 November.
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Heroes Day remembrance by public gains significance in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 18:31 GMT]
Almost all sections of Eezham Tamils in North on Wednesday remembered the Tamil Heroes Day in North amidst heavy deployment of the armed soldiers of the occupying Sri Lankan military. This year, the public observing remembrance in Jaffna, Vanni, Mannaar and Mullaiththeevu gains importance above all the events in the country of Eezham Tamils. University lectures, students across all the schools and grassroots political activists observed the Day paying tribute inside their houses amidst the gagged condition and attacks launched by the SL military operatives. While the Sri Lankan soldiers, anticipating a lightning event in the University premises were deployed in large numbers there, the students and the public lit the main flame of remembrance at the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the Jaffna Teaching Hospital at 6:00 p.m.
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Heroes Day observed in Tamil homeland under gagged conditions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 08:38 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives were monitoring the activities of the grassroots political activists and the elected councillors of the provincial council and the civic bodies in North and East. However, the Teachers Union of Jaffna University observed a memorial event Wednesday noon by lighting candles of sacrifice and paying a floral tribute braving the SL military harassments. Handwritten and printed posters in memory of those who sacrificed their lives in Tamil struggle have been put up at several places throughout the peninsula where the occupying Sri Lankan soldiers were seen removing them. This year, the student community in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils has been active in remembering the Tamil Heroes.
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SL military operatives attack houses of Tamil councillors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2013, 22:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan military operatives who came in vehicles to the houses of Mr Sathees, the deputy head of Valveddith-thu'rai Urban Council and Mr Viyakes, the chairman of Karaveddi South-West Piratheasa Chapai attacked the houses threatening the family members, who were at sleep in the early hours of Tuesday. The squad smashed the windows of the houses and the vehicles at the houses threatening the families of the elected representatives. The councillors were targeted for their floral tributes in remembrance of the tens of thousands who have sacrificed their lives for the liberation of the nation of Eezham Tamils. The attacks come a few hours after the SL military spokesperson in Colombo stating that all remembrance activities were banned.
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Elected civic members in Jaffna pay tribute to Tamil Heroes, SL military retaliates

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2013, 21:46 GMT]
The elected civic members of Karaveddi South-West Piratheasa Chapai (PS) on Monday paid floral tribute to the fallen Tamil Heroes, who were remembering the fallen fighters in the independence struggle of Eezham Tamils. The courageous move comes on the same day as Colombo’s military establishment issued a ban on commemorating the fallen Tamil fighters on November 27. Within a few hours, alleged SL military squads smashed the windows of two Tamil councillors. This year, the moral responsibility to mark the Heroes Day has fallen on the shoulders of the members of the Tamil National Alliance as they had gone seeking votes from the public in the recent elections to the Northern Provincial Council promising the people to restore their democratic right of remembering those who sacrificed their lives in the war.
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SL military threatens Tamil Catholic priests in Jaffna, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 19:38 GMT]
The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military have threatened Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar and Jaffna, who have been active in exposing the genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan State. The threats against the priests in escalated following the visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights and have topped after British PM visited North on 15 November. The Catholic priests were active in exposing the recent genocidal experiment of birth control carried out by the Sri Lankan authorities and the priests joined the peaceful march by the kith and kin of the missing persons when they wanted to berate their plight to the visiting British PM and the foreign journalists who accompanied him to Jaffna.
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Colombo arrests visiting Tamil poet, bans gatherings ahead of Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 November 2013, 13:53 GMT]
The operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military on Friday arrested VIS Jayapalan, a well-known Eezham Tamil poet and an award-winning actor in Indian Tamil cinema, while the Norwegian passport holder was visiting the island on a tourist visa. The arrest took place in abduction-style. By arresting Jayapalan, Colombo was sending a message to Eezham Tamil diaspora that Tamils visiting the island should not address any meeting or gathering. Colombo's TID operatives could claim any meeting as a ‘gathering causing communal unrest,’ academic circles in Jaffna said. In the meantime, the SL Police in Ki'linochchi, on Friday told 40 people it detained that all gatherings and meetings have been banned until further notice in the district.
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Sinhala military colonization escalates further north in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2013, 21:35 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has seized 3,200 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils in Odduchuddaan DS division situated in the heart of Mullaith-theevu district, civil sources in Vanni told TamilNet on Thursday. The latest military land grab aims to hurriedly Sinhalicise the ancient Tamil villages in Othiyamalai GS area situated in the south of Odduchuddaan division, where a genocidal massacre was carried out by the occupying Sinhala military in 1984. The colonisation is being done while the recently elected Northern Provincial Council and its Chief Minister are yet to take up the burning issue of Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu. The Tamil people also blamed the global powers for providing funds to Sri Lankan State system, enabling it to channel the funds and resources, in continuing to commit a demographic genocide, permanently wedging the North and East.
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Cut-out of Rajapaksa burnt in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 23:35 GMT]
A large cut-out of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been burnt down in Jaffna city in the early hours of Wednesday. Coinciding with this incident, the SL military has beefed up the presence of armed soldiers in the streets of Jaffna. The cut-out was put up in connection with Mahinda Rajpaksa’s widespread campaign of the deceptive Vadakkin Vasantham ‘development’ campaign.
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Court in Jaffna dismisses SL military claim on Tamil memorial site at Theeruvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 22:18 GMT]
District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military. Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site, where three significant monuments stood in remembrance of key LTTE leaders and commanders who sacrificed their lives under the occupation of Indian and Sri Lankan militaries and civilians massacred by the Indian military at VVT in 1989.
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