Demand Tokyo Co-chairs, India to bring international mediation between Tamils and GoSL

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 November 2019, 19:59 GMT]
Unlike during the genocidal onslaught in 2009, the US and India are now more tightly intertwined in their foreign policy approach on the maritime affairs of the states in the Indian Ocean. There is a joint Indo-Pacific outlook, especially after the 2013 launch of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). There would be no different approaches or nuances between the two powers, as it was the case in the previous decade. The US and India, along with two other key partners in the region, Japan and Australia, would be acting en bloc. The Rajapaksa establishment is very well aware of this reality. It is time that Tamils muster their historic courage and articulate a joint demand for international mediation. It is also the time that the foreign actors who were pulling the wrong strings during the 2009 genocide and its aftermath now take account of their earlier practices.
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Former IFS diplomat advises New Delhi to embrace Rajapaksas trading off rights with interests

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2019, 23:41 GMT]
“There is no way Rajapaksa will accept federalism in Sri Lanka. The Tamil community will have to come to terms with the grim implications of it and learn to live with what is on offer,” commented M K Bhadrakumar, a former Indian Foreign Service diplomat responding to a question from the Turkish Anadolu news agency on Thursday. Eezham Tamils were “dispossessed by Colombo and disowned by New Delhi,” he said advising New Delhi to trade-off Tamil rights-oriented concerns with the strategic interests of India. “The bottom line is that Gotabaya will be no less a strongman than Prime Minister Modi. It will be exceedingly foolish to adopt a prescriptive attitude toward Colombo. Any such attempt will meet with rebuff. Success lies in carrying the new president along,” the former envoy Bhadrakumar said.
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US ambassador-turned-consultant hints at capitalising on ‘shared interests’ with Gotabaya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2019, 23:04 GMT]
“The key question for the United States is now whether the two countries [Sri Lanka and the US] can reset their dialogue on the Indo-Pacific and regional peace and capitalize on the interests they share,” says Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, a retired career member of the U.S. Foreign Service and a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka (1992-1995). In an interview conducted for the blog of the Council on Foreign Relations, by Alyssa Ayres, one of her colleague at the Washington DC based consulting firm, McLarty Associates, Shaffer mentions one of the ‘interests’ shared by the US as “preventing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from resuming their campaign”.
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Indian FM visits Gotabaya to ensure Colombo’s conformity to US-India geopolitics in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 November 2019, 22:50 GMT]
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was quick to visit Colombo and meet the newly elected SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday evening. Jaishankar has been a key figure influencing the Indo-US geopolitical outlook in the recent times, and his unscheduled direct presence in Colombo inviting Mr Gotabaya to India at his earliest was nothing else than an indication that the USA is pulling strings. Informed diplomatic sources in Colombo said Gotabaya Rajapaksa was also well aware that India and the USA were tightly synchronised than ever before on defence and maritime affairs of the Indian Ocean.
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Reject engagement with genocidaire Gotabaya

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 November 2019, 23:10 GMT]
Newly sworn-in SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has denounced the existence of Eezham Tamils as a nation in the North and the East of the island. The wartime genocidaire Defense Secretary wants Tamils to become ‘Sri Lankans’ capitulating to the Sinhala Mahawansa doctrine, which possesses the requisite intent for Tamil genocide. The Tamils and their political leaders must unambiguously state now that there would be no engagement with genocidaire SL President and the SL State unless he openly and publicly declares Eezham Tamils as a nation entitled to the right of self-determination. The foreign state actors upholding the engagement paradigm are ultimately responsible for the continued crimes against Eezham Tamils in the island.
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Tamil message goes contrary to realpolitik of world powers: Premachandran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 November 2019, 13:29 GMT]
Tamil people have cast their votes indicating their sharp opposition to génocidaire Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is the SL president-elect. The voting pattern of Tamils must be interpreted as a message to the South as well as to the international community, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran in a comment to TamilNet on Sunday. However, the USA and India are preoccupied with the thought of how best they could engage with the new SL President, because they consider China as having established deeper inroads into the island through trade, infrastructure-development and the 99-year lease of Hambantota harbour in the South, he said. Suresh Premachandran was implying that the powers that embrace the new president must be regarded as accountable for continued injustices against the Eezham Tamils in the island.
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Shivaji manifesto demands IC make Colombo to provide autonomy to Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 November 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The Tamil people call upon the International Community (IC) to make the SL State grant autonomy to them in the merged North-East. If the SL State fails to offer Tamils their legitimate rights within the first one year of the new term of the incoming SL President, the IC and the UN should conduct a UN-monitored referendum to determine the political preference of the Tamil people. Furthermore, the IC and the UN should launch international investigations on the crimes committed in the island against the Tamil people, including the genocide, says M.K. Shivajilingam, the Tamil candidate contesting the presidential elections. The Tamil-speaking Muslim people and the Up-country Tamils are entitled to self-determination. They shall be given full autonomy to look after their affairs in their regions, the manifesto released in Trincomalee states.
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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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Next ploy of Rajapaksa Establishment: Sinhala-Buddhicisation of Tamil youth in North

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 November 2019, 23:13 GMT]
Namal Rajapaksa, the son of former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has managed to deceptively invite 600 Tamil girls promising government employment opportunities through a business operative, SL Ramachandran, a Tamil from Vara'ni in Jaffna. Sinhala-Buddhist extremist monk cum politician of Jathika Hela Urumaya, Athuraliye Rathana thero, was accompanying Mr Rajapaksa to the “introductory show of Sinhala education” where Tamil boys were made to dance wearing Sinhala costumes. The girls, who took part in the event said they were promised government jobs if they showed up at the event held on Monday at Ilangkai Veanthan Art's College at Neeraaviyadi, a suburb of Jaffna.
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ITAK betrays Tamils once again: Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 November 2019, 21:25 GMT]
The leading Sinhala presidential candidates have categorically rejected the thirteen-point joint demands, which were articulated by the main six Tamil parties and unanimously accepted in whole by five of them, including the ITAK. Furthermore, it is evident to anyone that the UNP is not going to deliver the constitutional changes. What happened to the constitutional discourse of the same regime during the past four and a half years? The proposals were dumped into the dustbin. How could then the ITAK, which is also a signatory to the joint declaration make a unilateral decision of extending support to Sajith Premadasa, asked EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran.
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SL Police detains Tamil trustees of Saiva temple in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2019, 21:03 GMT]
The Archaeological Department of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka has moved the SL Police to act against the chairman and the secretary of the board of trustees of Kaaddu-vinayakar temple at Maa'likai in Oamanthai, Vavuniyaa after they started to clear the bushes of their village deity. Recently, the resettled Tamils of the village got together in a Shramadana campaign at the war-destroyed ancient temple in the former no-man zone.
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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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“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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Gotabhaya's presidency would dash Musali people's hopes on incremental resettlement

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 October 2019, 22:27 GMT]
The uprooted Tamils in Musali division of Mannaar district fear permanently losing the militarised villages at the hands of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa if he becomes the next SL President. The Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam have been waiting for the SL Navy to honour its pledges on returning some of the occupied properties since 2017. It was Mr Rajapaksa who declared their village as a high-security naval area in December 2012. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Cardinal of Vatican, personally accompanied his friend, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to silence the then Bishop of Mannaar Rayappu Joseph and the Tamil Catholics of Mu'l'lik-ku'lam in 2012.
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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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Monks from South visit disputed Neeraaviyadi temple at Naayaa'ru

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 October 2019, 23:27 GMT]
A group of Sinhala Buddhist monks from the South visited the disputed ‘heritage site’ Neeraaviyadi at Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu on Thursday. The group was inspecting the Pi'l'laiyaar Hindu temple and the recently erected Buddha statue at the locality. Then, the group proceeded to the hut, where the late monk, Kolamba Thero, was preserving his collection of ‘artefacts’ claiming them as the remains of an ancient Sinhala Buddhist Chaitya. The collection of stones have been stored inside a small hut inside the SL military base located across the road, just opposite the disputed temple. The latest visit by the monks comes as the court is set to investigate the controversial cremation of the late Kolamba Thero, which took place near the Hindu temple in September.
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Tamils in Musali fear intensified demographic genocide by SL ‘national security’ state

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 October 2019, 20:47 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy has continuously refused to vacate from Kondaichchik-kudaa, a Tamil village along the coast between Mu'l'lik-ku'lam and Chilaavath-thu'rai in Musali division of Mannaar district, since 2009. Apart from retaining 19 acres of residential lands that belong to thirty-six families for ten years, the Sinhala Navy has also seized two acres of land, which the Divisional Secretary allocated recently as the cremation ground for the use of the uprooted community. The people of the village fear that they would permanently lose their properties at the hands of the ‘national security’ state apparatus of the South, regardless of the future president being Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or Sajith Premadasa.
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