SL military presence beefed up in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 January 2013, 20:15 GMT]
The Sinhala unitary State of Sri Lanka, preparing to ‘celebrate’ its 65th Independence Day in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils on February 04, has put Trincomalee city and its suburbs on red alert under the direction of SL Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, news sources in Trincomalee said. Meanwhile nineteen schools in the Trincomalee education zone are to be closed down from January 28 till February 4 in order to give accommodation to additional military personnel brought down to Trincomalee from other parts of the island.
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Turkish ambassador to Colombo welcomes ‘Sri Lanka model’ to deal with ‘terrorism’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 January 2013, 07:47 GMT]
Despite the currently ongoing peace process between the PKK and the Turkey government, the Turkish ambassador to Sri Lanka, Iskender Okyay has welcomed the Sri Lanka model of counterinsurgency (COIN) to deal with ‘terrorism’, stating that “Sri Lanka's experience in fighting against terrorism could be a good example for Turkey” and adding that “the relationship between the countries could be deepened over the terrorism issue,” the Turkish nationalist news agency Today’s Zaman reported on Wednesday. Commenting on this, Kurdish activists in Europe told TamilNet that the Turkish diplomat’s endorsement of Sri Lanka’s genocidal model of COIN at a time when the Kurdish political movement was having faith in a peaceful settlement shows the insincerity of Turkey towards the peace process, besides being an tacit approval of the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation.
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Canadian Federal Court Overturns Refugee Status for MV Sun Sea Refugee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 10:16 GMT]
The Federal Court of Canada has revoked the refugee status of a 26-year-old male Eezham Tamil refugee who arrived aboard the MV Sun Sea, the National Post reported on Monday. Federal Court Chief Justice Paul Crampton’s recent ruling conflicts with decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board in two separate cases granting refugee status to Eezham Tamil refugees aboard both the MV Sun Sea and Ocean Lady. In response to the recent Federal Court ruling based on an appeal by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Eezham Tamil political observers in Canada highlight the complicity of the Canadian government in the ongoing persecution of Eezham Tamil refugees.
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Eighth Indo-Lanka Commission ends with no innovation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 06:36 GMT]
The Eighth meeting of the Indo-Sri Lanka Joint Commission held in New Delhi on Tuesday and was co-chaired by the External Affairs Ministers of the two Establishments, ended with nothing new either to the pressing issues of the genocide-facing island or to its bilateral issues with India, political analysts in the island commented. A Foreign Secretary level meeting on Monday preceded the ministerial meeting. Perhaps the only new programme found mentioned in the joint commission press statement was that both sides agreed to jointly celebrate the 150th birth anniversaries of Swami Vivekananda in 2013-14, and of Anagarika Dharmapala in 2014-15.
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Gotabhaya exonerates US-refused SL general

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2013, 16:48 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on Sunday tried to exonerate a Sinhala military general, Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who was refused admission into a US military training programme on grounds that he had served the war-crimes-accused 53 Division of the SL military. The said general, recently appointed as SL Military Secretary, had not commanded the 53 Division or any other fighting formations, but he was only ‘Commissioner General of Rehabilitation’ taking over a state-run project to ‘rehabilitate’ ex-LTTE cadres in Feb 2010, Gotabhaya said, accusing the US for its blunder in the denial of opportunity to a senior officer of a friendly country to enhance his knowledge, Colombo defence writers reported on Monday.
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Australian civil society should be outraged by Sri Lankan cricket: Trevor Grant

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2013, 23:58 GMT]
Civil society in Australia should be outraged once they are exposed to the on going persecution faced by Eezham Tamils was the opinion of Trevor Grant speaking to TamilNet following the latest protest on Sunday organized by BSLCC and TYO. The protest was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground and has been the latest in a string of demonstrations focused on exposing Sri Lanka for its protracted genocide against Eezham Tamils and demanding the Australian Government and Cricket Australia to boycott all matches with the Sri Lankan team. Mr. Grant, former chief sports writer at The Age with over 40 years of experience in journalism, further commented that the Australian civil society should be “spearheading the unrelenting demands to their government and sporting bodies to enforce such boycott.”
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DMK chief lists out multifaceted structural genocide beginning from toponyms

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 January 2013, 16:14 GMT]
The DMK chief Mr. M. Karunanidhi, in a letter dated 19 January sent to the Indian Prime Minister, has drawn his attention to Sri Lanka “carrying out an intensive and systematic programme of erasing the Tamil language, culture, religion and diluting the concentration of Tamils in areas where they had historically been predominant.” Beginning from the renaming of Tamil villages, the letter listed out the various facets of the structural genocide committed on Eezham Tamils by the Sinhala State. Citing India’s moral obligation to stop this atrocity immediately, Mr. Karunanidhi requested suitable action.
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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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China card becomes ‘license’ for genocidal order

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 January 2013, 10:27 GMT]
With the seemingly blackmailing speech of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, reported in Colombo media on Friday that if the USA withdraws its military training programmes to Sri Lanka, China would replace them, it becomes very explicit that the China card is now openly used for justifying a genocidal State order in the world, Tamil political analysts in the island said. Gotabhaya’s stand reported in Colombo media as “We don’t need you, we got China, Gotabhaya tells US,” is not taken seriously by Tamil political analysts, since Gotabhaya would have thrown away his US pass port if he was that ‘Sri Lankan’ and the US policy analysts and groups would not have been engaged in ‘reaching out’ Sri Lanka and engineering the integrity of the genocidal State, if Gota’s speech really means anything, the analysts said.
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Indian students federation stands with Jaffna students, urges withdrawal of SL military

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 January 2013, 18:13 GMT]
The All India Students Federation (AISF), a wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI), in its national conference held in Mumbai on Saturday, unanimously resolved in condemning the Sri Lankan military detention of the Jaffna university student activists and in demanding their immediate release. The AISF urged the Indian government to intervene and facilitate the immediate release of the Jaffna students. The AISF also called upon the SL government to withdraw its armed forces from educational institutions and urged the Government of India to prevail upon the Sri Lankan government against stationing its armed forces in schools and educational institutions.
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India’s blunder on Eezham Tamils brings in domino effect in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 January 2013, 02:24 GMT]
The historic blunder committed by New Delhi in not boldly checking the genocidal State and regime in Colombo, and New Delhi’s continued complicity in the genocide of Eezham Tamils –all said to be due to a competition with China in wooing the criminal State– have seriously eroded all credibility of India in the neighbourhood, and one by one all the small Indian Ocean countries have started playing the game of Colombo, political analysts in Jaffna said, citing the recent developments in the Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius. Indian analysts and sections of India’s so-called national media that see only the money of China playing the culprit, fail to see India’s loss of credibility being the fundamental reason. Only a bold Indian action on genocidal Sri Lanka could course-correct all the others in the region, the Jaffna analysts said.
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UK should exert pressure on Sri Lanka: BTF

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 January 2013, 21:28 GMT]
Referring to the systematic repression and attacks on Eezham Tamil political activists, civil society and students by the Sri Lankan state, the BTF called on the British government to “to exert serious diplomatic pressure on Sri Lanka.” Speaking to TamilNet, BTF Coordinator Ravi Kumar said that since the so-called ‘independence’, concentration of powers in the Sinhalese rulers has systematically increased and that after a successful genocidal war on the Tamil nation in 2009, now all powers in the Sri Lankan state, executive, legislative and judicial powers are concentrated under the President. “Under such circumstances, UK and the International community should not focus on internal mechanism to provide justice to the Tamil Nation. This is the time for the UK government to call for an external mechanism towards an international independent investigation,” he added.
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TMVP faction wants Batticaloa Tamils to observe shutdown against Muslim politicians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 January 2013, 21:31 GMT]
A faction of TMVP paramilitary in Batticaloa has instructed Tamil business owners and public servants to observe shutdown on Friday against the recent proposal from ‘Muslim politicians’ to annex Tamil villages from the Tamil dominated Koa'ra'laippattu North (Vaakarai) and Koa'ra'laippattu South (Kiraan) divisions with Muslim dominated divisions of Koa'ra'laippattu Centre and Koa'ra'laippattu West.
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Indian diplomat hints at Colombo sitting on development crucial to Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 January 2013, 01:43 GMT]
Certain key development programmes that would really benefit Tamils are manoeuvred by Colombo for its own agenda, implied India’s Consul General in Jaffna V. Mahalingam, speaking to media in Jaffna on Wednesday. He was citing the example of Colombo sitting on the runway project making Palaali as an international airport. Mahalingam’s citation is an indirect acknowledgement of the structural genocide that is being carried out by occupying Colombo over the Tamils, political observers in Jaffna said, adding that Sri Lanka’s occupying Sinhala military only wants to permanently militarize and Sinhalicise the Palaali airport and its surroundings including the KKS harbour, sealing off direct communication of Tamils with India and the outside world.
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Section of Canadian ‘human smuggling’ law struck down by British Columbian Court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 January 2013, 22:24 GMT]
In a January 11 ruling, a Canadian judge in the provincial British Columbia Supreme Court struck down a section of the Canadian government’s ‘human smuggling’ law for being “unnecessarily broad”. The immediate effect is the adjournment of the trials of four Eezham Tamil refugees who arrived aboard the Ocean Lady in 2009. All four had been charged with ‘human smuggling’ under Section 117 of the Canadian ‘Immigration and Refugee Protection Act’ (IRPA). Section 117 of the IRPA defines ‘human smuggling’ and imposes mandatory minimum sentences for convicted ‘human smugglers.’ However Justice Silverman’s ruling in the R. v. Appulonappa case found Section 117 of the IRPA “overbroad” and a violation of the principles of fundamental justice guaranteed by Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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Grabbing pastureland in Ampaa’rai district goes unabated

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 January 2013, 11:03 GMT]
Over four thousand acres of pastureland allocated for grazing in Chaakaamam area in Ampaa’rai district is being grabbed day by day for illegal settlement by Sinhalese, civil sources in the district said. Next to agriculture and fishing, one of the major livelihood activities in Ampaa’rai and Batticaloa districts for resettling Tamils is livestock farming. Colombo’s Sinhala establishment, backed by its occupation military, is occupying these pasturelands with the intention of accomplishing structural genocide on Eezham Tamils and Sinhalicisation of traditional Tamil villages in the East.
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Sinhala military opens ‘holiday resorts’ in occupied Jaffna with ‘Kiribath Pongkal’

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2013, 21:12 GMT]
Amidst the beat of Sinhala drums and blessings of Sinhala-Buddhist monks, the SL military occupying Jaffna opened two new ‘holiday resorts’ on Sunday at Mayiliddi, and at Kaankeasan-thu’rai (KKS), which are under High Security Zone, along the northern coast of Jaffna. To mark the opening, an SL Military ‘Kiribath Pongkal’ was also conducted at the new buildings. While the housing and even shelters of the hundreds of thousands of Eezham Tamils affected by the genocidal onslaught of the Sinhala military is still a pressing question, the military opening and running ‘holiday resorts’ for its use shows that Sri Lanka is not making any pretensions of its colonial conquest and rule over Eezham Tamils in the model of European colonialists, civil society sources in Jaffna commented.
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Mass protests in London condemning assassination of Kurdish activists in Paris

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2013, 02:01 GMT]
Thousands of Kurds from across the UK took to the streets in London on Sunday condemning the recent assassination of three Kurdish women activists in Paris. Demanding a proper inquiry and immediate justice for the brutal murders of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK, and activists Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez, the protestors raised slogans of ‘”Turkey is a terrorist state” and “We want freedom”. Kurdish sources told TamilNet that the assassination was an attempt to sabotage the Kurds desire for peaceful negotiations and France should act soon, lest it portrays itself complicit by inaction. Large protests were also held in France and Germany on Saturday. These protests saw the participation of solidarity groups and Eezham Tamil activists, who had joined to convey their solidarity with the Kurds.
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SLFP threatens Tamils filing cases against Sinhala land grab in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 January 2013, 23:12 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) men in Ki'linochchi have been threatening the Tamil land owners who have been filing cases against the Sinhalese from South who have occupied their lands. The SLFP men are behind ‘providing’ lands to the family members of the Sri Lanka Army soldiers and other Sinhalese from South. At least 15 cases are pending the Ki'linochchi courts against illegal land grab of priviate lands by the Sinhala settlers from South, legal sources in Ki'lnochchi told TamilNet.
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Nambiar, India's proxy in UN, complicit in white flag killings?

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2013, 23:55 GMT]
While the International Community which, blinded by the 9/11 terror, architected the annihilation of Tamils' primary safeguard, the LTTE, is left to savor the resulting horror state and the autocratic dystopia in Sri Lanka, Rights groups have accused the U.N. of being derelict in its duty to protect civilian lives. Vijay Nambiar, the Chef de Cabinet, who was a key official in shaping UN's Sri Lanka policy, is also accused of complicity in the "Whiteflag" incident where several surrendees were executed by the Sri Lanka military after being given assurances of safety by International actors. Nepotism and family connections between Ban Ki Moon and Nambiar, with personal links to India and Colombo, may also have contributed to the U.N.'s unwillingness to stop the Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre, observers say.
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