Ban on water supply threatens agriculture of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2013, 22:34 GMT]
By banning water supply to agriculture and paper mills and supplying water to tourist houses, the Colombo government is putting lives of many Eezham Tamils in stake in Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan Finance Ministry, which comes directly under SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the finance minister in Colombo, has imposed on ban on supply of water from Vaakaneari lake to the agricultural farms, agriculturalists from the area complain.
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Hypocrisy at best: US policy towards Syria and Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2013, 13:44 GMT]
US media reported on Wednesday that the CIA has begun shipping of arms to Syrian rebels to counter Bashar al-Assad’s forces. This move comes in spite of strong opposition from UNSC member Russia and warnings by a UN expert that increase in flow of weapons into Syria would only escalate the conflict. Likewise, American diplomat Susan Rice termed UNSC’s inaction on Syria a “stain” on the body. The hypocrisy of assisting Sri Lanka in its genocidal war on the Tamil nation while crying foul over al-Assad’s operations apart, the US through its actions on Syria makes it clear once again that the UNHRC, UNSC are of least concern should the US decide to intervene in a conflict. Given this nature of US foreign policy, till how long then will the Tamil Geneva pundits continue to believe in the impotent resolutions on Sri Lanka in the UNHRC, questions a political analyst in Colombo.
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AI compromising with UK’s CHOGM participation condemned

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 June 2013, 16:25 GMT]
The Amnesty International opts out outright denouncement of the UK for its decision to participate the CHOGM meet hosted by genocidal Sri Lanka, by suggesting that the UK should make use of the meet to put pressure on Sri Lanka on international investigation of war crimes and on rectifying general ‘human rights’ situation in the island, commented a Tamil activist for alternative politics in Jaffna. The Amnesty International that doesn’t recognize the genocide and the on-going structural genocide committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils, and that doesn’t demand action or investigation on the crux of the matter, but tucks everything into a general human rights situation to imply endorsement to the integrity of the genocidal State, is just a partner in the game, the activist said.
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Indian outfits, Sinhala military, hijack Tamil religious struggle in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 June 2013, 08:57 GMT]
An RSS-linked outfit ‘Hindu Sevaa Sangkam,’ (HSS) in collaboration with the genocidal Sinhala military, attempts to hijack and deviate the religious part of the struggle of the genocide-facing Eezham Tamils in the East. Backed by SL military intelligence, and run by members of the Pillaiyaan group, the HSS uses the name of Vishva Hindu Parishad in infiltrating and breaking the national struggle of Eezham Tamils, in order to serve the unholy alliance of Indian corporatism and genocidal Sinhala State, news sources in Batticaloa said. Under the occupying Sinhala military, while Saiva temples face destruction, desecration and plunder everyday, but new Buddhist stupas mushroom, a protest of the grassroot YMHA was banned but an HSS hoodwink was permitted this month in Batticaloa.
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Tamil Nadu protests condemn Indo-Sri Lanka military co-operation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 June 2013, 05:18 GMT]
Protests in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu came down sharply on the Indian government for its continued military co-operation with the Sri Lankan military, which is accused not just of the genocide of the Eezham Tamils but also of murdering hundreds of Tamil Nadu fishermen. The protests erupted in the wake of the news that two SL military officers were to be given training at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, Nilgiris. While this opposition led to the transfer of the officers to another facility in Andhra Pradesh followed quickly by the GoSL’s recall of the officers, Congress minister E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan defended India’s military relationship with Sri Lanka, playing the China card.
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Tamil youth in UK demand referendum for Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 June 2013, 11:53 GMT]
Second generation Eezham Tamil youth in the UK demonstrated at 10 Downing Street on Sunday demanding a referendum towards the creation of the state of Tamil Eelam. The Tamil youth and student activists from different universities who assembled for the protest called for an independent international investigation into the genocidal war crimes of Sri Lanka, also urging Prince Charles and the British Prime Minister David Cameron to boycott the CHOGM summit in Sri Lanka. The activists affirmed that British authorities' endorsing the CHOGM was tantamount to an approval of the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation. The protest was held under the banner of 'Student's Uprising Day', to commemorate the sacrifice of the late Pon. Sivakumaran, a pioneer of the Tamil resistance movement in the early 70s.
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Snowden, Thulasi force US into legal extradition quagmire

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2013, 00:04 GMT]
In 2008, the United States Government requested the extradition of Eezham Tamil defendant, Thulasitharan Santhirarajah, from Australia for an alleged offense in providing material support to a "terrorist" organization, and now the US is requesting, or will request, the extradition of Edward J Snowden from Hong Kong, and other likely destinations of Snowden, for alleged offenses of “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person." In the Thulasitharan case, the Melbourne Court determined that the charged offenses are "either pure or relative political offenses," and in the high-profile Snowden case, legal experts acknowledge that U.S. will likely meet with the same fate for similar reasons.
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Ibsen’s Doll’s House translated into Eezham Tamil in Norway

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2013, 00:02 GMT]
Modernism’s world famous playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Et Dukkehjem (A Doll’s House) has found earlier translations in Tamil. But what is special about the present translation by Kasinather Sivapalan is that it is in spoken Eezham Tamil, making the reading and staging of the play homely to Eezham Tamils in their country and in the diaspora across the world. A Doll’s House, written in 1879 and said to be the world’s most performed play by the early 20th century, is not new to Eezham Tamils. Even 50 years ago it was staged in Jaffna, scripted in Tamil and directed by veteran writer, the late Mr E. Mahadeva (Thevan-Yaazhppaa’nam), who was Mr Sivapalan’s teacher at Jaffna Hindu College. The current translation by Mr Sivapalan, produced in Norway where he is in exile now, comes as a publication of Mithra Arts and Creations in Chennai.
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Gotabhaya names TamilNet a ‘security threat’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 June 2013, 00:04 GMT]
While listing ‘national’ security threats faced by genocidal Sri Lanka, its Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa included the name of TamilNet and said that it is controlled by the Tamil Coordinating Committee, led by Nediyavan, which in turn has control over most of the assets of the LTTE’s international organisation. Gotabhaya who said it on 13 June, while addressing the Kotelawela Defence University, also said that now all the various intelligence services of his State are brought under one Chief of National Intelligence, who reports directly to him (as Defence Secretary). What Gotabhaya said on TamilNet either shows the ignorance of his intelligence or his intention to distort TamilNet’s image. TamilNet challenges him on the truth of his statement.
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Sinhalicisation of Chu’ndik-ku’lam to permanently choke Jaffna Peninsula

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 June 2013, 08:55 GMT]
The Eezham Tamil fishermen’s efforts to reconstruct their war-torn lives face fresh threats from the occupying Sri Lanka’s rampant Sinhalicisation of the North. During the last two weeks, hundreds of Sinhala fishermen are being settled at Chu’ndikku’lam, a coastal village situated in Vadamaraadchi East of the Jaffna district. By employing banned methods of fishing, the invading Sinhala fishermen have been posing a grave threat not only to the resettlement of the uprooted Tamils in the village, but also to the livelihood of the Tamil fishermen of Vadamaraadchi East. However, the worst threat is Sinhala military and fishermen permanently choking the one and only natural entry point into the Jaffna Peninsula, as Chu’ndik-ku’lam is the sandbar that links the peninsula with the main island. 1000 houses are planned for colonizing Sinhala fishermen at this location, says TNA-MP Sritharan.
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India’s housing in un-freed land facilitates Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2013, 09:32 GMT]
Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr P Selvarasa has warned that the occupying Colombo government has planned to grab several houses allocated under the Indian aid for war-affected Tamil families in the Eastern Province especially in Batticaloa district to be handed over to Sinhalese who are being brought down to the Batticaloa district from the South. The ultimate culprit that makes the housing meaningless is the Indian policy of not recognising or freeing the land of Eezham Tamils for them. If the policy is tacit support to demographic genocide, the result will be a Palestinian crisis for Eezham Tamils in the island. What has to be primarily addressed is the policy of New Delhi, commented activists of alternative politics in the East.
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UK Tamils gather at Cardiff protesting Sri Lankan cricket

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2013, 16:12 GMT]
Hundreds of Eezham Tamils from the UK gathered near the cricket stadium in Cardiff on Thursday to protest the presence of the Sri Lankan cricket team on British soil, urging the UK for a complete boycott of sporting and cultural ties with the genocide-accused Sri Lankan state. This mass protest follows on the heels of a violent incident near the Oval stadium on Monday, where dozens of Tamil activists protesting on the occasion of the Sri Lanka-Australia cricket match were brutally attacked by Sinhala mobs.
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Jaffna University teachers boycott SL-UGC ‘academic reconciliation’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 June 2013, 06:05 GMT]
Jaffna University Teachers’ Association boycotted a ‘national’ level conference on the “Role of Higher Education in Reconciliation” hosted in Jaffna last week by genocidal Sri Lanka’s University Grants Commission. Even though Colombo media reports said that the conference was a joint venture of the SL-UGC and the University of Jaffna, it neither took place in the Jaffna University premises nor was it participated by the academics of the university. Fearing the prevailing mood at the university, the conference was held almost as a closed-door affair at a hotel in Jaffna. Only the VC and the administration that were obliged to go represented the Jaffna University. Among the 25 speakers brought by the SL-UGC, the star speakers to “set the tone and tempo of the conference,” were ‘Terrorism Professor’ Rohan Gunaratna and Law Professor C.G. Weeramantry.
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BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena answerable to Dasgupta policy-line

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 06:33 GMT]
Whatever is the journalistic halo behind Swapan Dasgupta, his recent writings and utterances on the struggle of the genocide-facing nation of Eezham Tamils could have been ignored as coming from just another of the dubious ilk that writes for agendas, had he not been a member of the Rajapaksa-sponsored BJP-RSS-Shiv Sena delegation that went to Colombo and Jaffna. Now as he openly bares the line of thinking in the camp, the BJP-RSS-Shiv Sena lot aspiring for power in India, may have to answer to the world of Tamils and to the humanity in general whether it is aspiring to become worse than that of the present Establishments in New Delhi, Washington and Beijing, commented an activist of alternative politics in Jaffna, urging mainstream polity and public in Tamil Nadu to be prepared with the needed.
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SL State backs Christian persecution, 30 churches attacked this year: World Evangelical Alliance

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2013, 23:32 GMT]
World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), which is a network of churches in 129 countries, in a ‘Research and Analysis’ report issued on Monday observed that Sri Lanka “appears to be seeking to establish social and political supremacy of the Sinhala Buddhist majority within a unitary state,” in the ‘post-war resurgence’ of Sihala Buddhist nationalism that no longer threatens only the Tamils, but also religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims. “The resurgence of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism can be attributed to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, which by some was seen as a victory of Buddhism over Tamil nationalism,” the report said. This year thus far, at least 30 churches have reported being attacked. Last year, Sri Lanka witnessed 52 incidents of Christian persecution.
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Sri Lanka provides harbour, state endorsement, to Chinese fishing

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2013, 15:22 GMT]
In a move delicately endangering local fishing of the peoples of entire southern South Asia, the Rajapaksa Establishment in Colombo has provided facilities of a state-of-the-art fishing harbour near Colombo and State endorsement to Chinese vessels fishing beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Island’s waters. A Company in China has been graced with the rights to ply its fishing vessels with the flag of the genocidal State in Sri Lanka and to use the facilities of the Dikovita fishing harbour. While the Establishment in Colombo would get paltry benefits, shoals of fishes coming from the Antarctica would be exploited in the no-country water itself, before they come to South Asia, affecting the livelihood of not only Tamils, Malayalis and Maldivians but also the Sinhalese, fisheries sources in the island said.
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Colombo schemes permanent occupation of two Tamil villages in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2013, 20:26 GMT]
Sinhala officials attached to Sri Lanka's Department of Forest Conservation, which comes under the SL Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy, have surveyed this weekend two traditional Tamil villages in the Thirukkoayil DS division of Ampaa'rai district, in a move to plant trees in the lands that belong to uprooted Eezham Tamils, who have not been allowed to resettle in the villages of Thangkavealaayuthapuram and Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru, news sources in Thirukkoayil told TamilNet Sunday. The Sinhala officials of the Eastern Provincial Council also back the move, the sources further said.
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Tamil activist film director Manivannan passes away in Chennai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2013, 08:53 GMT]
Tamil activist, film director and actor P Manivannan has passed away due to cardiac arrest at his residence on Saturday. He was 59. Mr Manivannan has directed nearly 50 films. He has also made a mark in acting Tamil cinema by playing sharp character roles having shades of comedy and political sarcasm in more than 400 films. Director Manivannan took an active role of an artist in expressing solidarity with the Tamil struggle and was instrumental in maintaining the link between the Tamil Nadu cinema artists and the nation of Eezham Tamils.
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NESoHR revives reporting, highlights collective rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2013, 20:30 GMT]
“Tamil Eelam today is a crucible of ‘excess of power’ - Lankan President with unchecked executive power, the very heavy presence of his military in Tamil Eelam and the Prevention of Terrorism Act still in place almost four years after the defeat of the LTTE,” says the latest Human Rights report issued by the North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR). “The leading human rights groups are hoping to deal with this situation of ‘excess of power’ only through appeals to individual rights. Indeed their mandates restrict them from dealing with it in any other way,” the NESoHR, which was formed during the internationally mediated peace process as the Human Rights body of the Tamil Nation, said on Friday, reviving its reporting on human rights in the country of Eezham Tamils and launching an international wing for dissemination of its reports.
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Vanni, Vanniyan-madu, Vanniyanaar-madu

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 June 2013, 06:33 GMT]
The territory of the commander-chieftains
The tank of the commander-chieftain
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