Indian police remedy against rape is ‘reconciliation’

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 08:12 GMT]
A 17-year-old Indian girl, gang-raped in November, committed suicide on Wednesday, after the Indian police pressured her to drop the case and accept a cash settlement or ‘marry’ one of her attackers, AFP reported on Thursday citing the victim’s sister, a senior police official and the Indian media NDTV. The girl had been “running from pillar to post to get her case registered,” but officers failed to open a formal inquiry and tried to convince her to withdraw the case, the Inspector General of Punjab Police, P.S. Gill, conceded. What the Indian police had applied in the individual case of the hapless girl is just analogous to the larger political policy of ‘reconciliation’ imposed by the Establishments in New Delhi and Washington on the genocide-affected nation of Eezham Tamils, said an activist in Jaffna standing for the human rights of nations.
Full story >>

Schalk tells Tamil politicians to claim territory of Tamil Buddhists

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 07:37 GMT]
“The real danger for the Tamil speaking community is the traditional bond between Sinhala Buddhism and its claims to the whole territory of the island. Now we understand why the historical existence of Tamil Buddhism is denied: it is apprehended as a dangerous counter-movement to the Sinhala Buddhists’ claims of territory. Tamil politicians are expected to reject the territorial claims of Sinhala Buddhists by referring to the historical existence of territories settled by Buddhists who were Tamil speakers with their own claims for territorial control,” writes Emeritus Professor Peter Schalk in sending a note, responding to TamilNet feature “Simulated Buddhists, Sinhala-Buddhist schools to accelerate colonization, genocide,” appeared on 19 December.
Full story >>

Takasu, Tamils' adversary in UN Security Council?

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 December 2012, 00:15 GMT]
Yukio Takasu, the 2009 President of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the critical month of February, was one of the key UN officials who allegedly prevented Sri Lanka from being dragged into the UNSC for the unfolding mass scale killings in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, public statements made by UN officials during media stakes reveal. While some UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members may have agreed with Takasu'a views, in a media stake out, Takasu lays out his "own" critical view of the "terrorist LTTE," and the primacy of political and security need to "defeat" the Tigers over imminent large scale civilian casualties. Political observers believe that Japanese cultural views on refugees, asylum seekers may provide clues to Takasu's approach and conduct in the UNSC that led to the disastrous outcome for the Tamil refugees trapped in Sri Lanka's civil war.
Full story >>

Gotabhaya appropriates whole village in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2012, 15:53 GMT]
An entire Eezham Tamil village, Mu’l’lik-ku’lam in the Musali division of Mannaar district, has been declared out of bounds for its uprooted residents by SL defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visiting the village on Wednesday. The entire village will be used for a military base of the occupying Sinhala forces and to serve as a hub for the Sinhalicisation and Colonisation process of the land and waters of the strategic locality in the Mannaar district. Nobody would be allowed to resettle within a perimeter of 750 meters of the Mu’l’likku’lam village, Gotabhaya said at a meeting held at the SL Naval Base established there on Wednesday between 10:30 am and 1:30 pm.
Full story >>

The Palestinian long road to statehood insufficient for Tamil Sovereignty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2012, 06:55 GMT]
Twenty-four long years after the Palestine Liberation Organization renounced violence and voted to create the State of Palestine, United Nations recognition of Palestine remains limited to “non-member, observer” status. Governing an international order premised on the military superiority and economic interests of powerful states, the United Nations has been proved structurally incapable of defending oppressed nations. That the developments in the Palestinian movement should elicit interest from Eezham Tamil activists is the opinion of Tamil political observers who have been following the Palestinian struggle, who further contend that the time the Palestinians had in reaching to the current position is not an asset in the case of the Eezham Tamils who face an internationally ignored structural, protracted genocide in their homeland.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka’s terror abductions, arrests, summons mark Christmas Eve in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 22:43 GMT]
28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar, wife of an LTTE member killed in the war, and presently working at SL government’s Uduvil divisional secretariat, was abducted at midnight at her house recently. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) now informally acknowledged to the SL Human Rights Commission office in Jaffna that the ‘arrest’ was their act. Complaints of such abductions and ‘arrests’ of around 45 people have been registered in recent days at the SL human rights office in Jaffna, officials acknowledged on Monday. Many more abductions and arrests in the north have gone unregistered as the family members have been sternly warned by the occupying SL forces, not to register complaints at the SL human rights office. Meanwhile, many girl students of the Jaffna University have been ‘summoned’ over telephone by the TID in Vavuniyaa.
Full story >>

Tamils in Paris, London protest France's inaction in Tamil activist's assassination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2012, 19:19 GMT]
Eezham Tamils in France and UK demonstrated at the capital cities of the two countries on Friday, condemning the French government’s lack of interest in bringing to justice the culprits behind the assassination of grassroots activist Nadarajah Mathinthiran alias Parithi. The demonstration in Paris being joined by hundreds of Eezham Tamils in France, also witnessed the participation of several solidarity activists, including members of the Kurdish diaspora. The protestors in the two countries were aghast at the absence of any action from the French government’s side, with many wondering whether the French authorities were colluding with the Sri Lankan intelligence, sources from London and Paris told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Tamil youth protest in London condemns repression of students in Jaffna, urges UK to act

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2012, 14:38 GMT]
In a protest march in London from Temple Station to 10 Downing Street on Saturday, Eezham Tamil youth in the UK condemned the harassment of the Jaffna University students and faculty by the occupying military and demanded the immediate release of the students arrested by Sri Lanka’s TID. Raising slogans urging the British government to take action, the protestors also called for an end to the occupation of the Tamil homeland. "The UK government and the co-chairs have a moral and political responsibility in what has been happening to the Eelam Tamils after 2009. It is clear from the brutal repression of the students of Jaffna University, that reconciliation in unitary Sri Lanka means denial of basic civil liberties of the Tamil Nation. This is an aspect of genocide and the UK government should immediately respond to this," Bairavi Ratnabal from TYO-UK told TamilNet.
Full story >>

SL military begins war on Jaffna University teachers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 December 2012, 09:37 GMT]
The telephone summoning of the Jaffna University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) president and head of English language teaching at the university, A Rajakumaran, to the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) of occupying Sri Lanka on Friday is widely seen in the university circles as the beginning of a direct war on the Tamil university teachers by the occupying State. Rajakumaran is summoned in connection with his media statement, especially to the BBC, on the student protest in the university and in connection with his reported comments on the views that in future the teachers’ union and the students’ union should jointly observe the Heroes Day as a measure against situations such as the one unfolded this year.
Full story >>

Simulated Buddhists, Sinhala-Buddhist schools to accelerate colonisation, genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 05:19 GMT]
Following the construction of Buddhist stupas with the deployment of ‘Army and Archaeology’ where there were no practising Buddhists at all, the genocidal Sri Lankan state occupying the country of Eezham Tamils is now bent upon creating a Buddhist population in the North by the conversions and simulations of a ‘Tamil Buddhist’ community and by the construction of Sinhala-Buddhist schools to attract and facilitate a colonising community from the South. Already achieving the demographic genocide in the East and in the Northwest over the last several decades, the idea of the Sinhala-Buddhist state now is to fully use the ‘once in a millennium opportunity’ provided by militarisation and ICE-abetment, to irrevocably complete the annihilation of the territoriality of the nation of Eezham Tamils, as envisaged by the LLRC blueprint.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu protest calls for investigation on 3 UN officials for complicity in Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2012, 01:47 GMT]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former UN Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar and former UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian affairs Sir John Holmes were in complicity in the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils by Sri Lanka in 2009, declared a protest held by political activists and grassroot movements in Tamil Nadu on Sunday. May 17 Movement, the organisers of the protest, citing the recent report of the Internal Review Panel on UN Action in Sri Lanka led by Charles Petrie, accused the ‘axis of the UN trio’ for shielding the Sri Lankan government during the peak of its genocidal onslaught on the Eezham Tamil nation. The demonstrators, who blamed the UN for denying justice to the victims after the genocidal war, also accused the UN for having failed to provide a just political solution to the national question of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Kurdish grassroot federation in Germany shows solidarity with Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 December 2012, 12:18 GMT]
YEK-KOM, a German based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, condemned the genocidal policies of the Sri Lankan government and the repression of the Eezham Tamil students in Jaffna, conveying its solidarity with the protesting students in the Tamil homeland. In a statement in German released on Friday, it said “The oppressed Tamil people for over 60 years have been facing the extinction of their culture, language, religion and homeland. Overlooking this oppression means active support to the decades of genocide of the Tamils.” The statement further urged “the international humanitarian and democratic forces to collectively voice and demonstrate their support with the demands of the Tamil people in solidarity.”
Full story >>

Chain of protests in London against repression of students in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 December 2012, 11:07 GMT]
A series of protests have been organized outside the British Prime Minister’s Office in 10 Downing Street, London since Monday to condemn the repression of the Jaffna University students by the occupying Sinhala military. Condemning the arrests and detentions of the students and the Sinhala military’s systematic assaults on the civil rights of the Eezham Tamils as a part of the genocide of the Tamil nation, the protestors urged UK and the International Community to ensure the immediate release of the arrested students and to safeguard the democratic rights of the Eezham Tamil nation in the island.
Full story >>

HR Day event in Toronto brings Tamils closer to global progressive networks

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2012, 00:03 GMT]
More than twenty social, economic, and environmental justice groups in Canada that joined together in Toronto on the eve of International Human Rights Day to forge a common forum against military occupation, apartheid, genocide and political imprisonment, have voiced against the SL military detention of the students of the University of Jaffna. The event gains significance as the recently formed Coalition for Tamil Rights was invited to represent the perspectives of Eezham Tamils along with other progressive forces. On the occasion of the event, activists of socio-political organizations in Canada condemned the arrests and detentions of Tamil students of the University of Jaffna in the SL military occupied country of Eezham Tamils. The activists demanded immediate release of the students and called for an end to the Sri Lankan military occupation of the Tamil homeland.
Full story >>

SLA summons 4 girl students, house-by-house intimidation to resume university

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 December 2012, 20:31 GMT]
The occupying genocidal military of Sri Lanka now engages in entering each and every house of the Jaffna University students to individually intimidate them to drop the protest and to return to the university or face dire consequences. The Vice Chancellor Prof Vasanthi Arasaratnam installed by colonial Colombo, most of the council members appointed by the regime or planted by collaborating paramilitary and some external intelligence agencies, and the threatened Deans are forced to connive with the new paradigm of occupying military running the university, news sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in addition to the key student leaders of the university detained for ‘rehabilitation,’ the SL military has freshly demanded the submission of four girl students by their parents.
Full story >>

TNPF condemns Sampanthan’s statement on SL military, LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2012, 00:58 GMT]
The Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) on Tuesday strongly condemned the SL parliamentary speech made by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan last Friday. Mr. Sampanthan had said that the TNA was not demanding the complete withdrawal of the SL military from the Tamil territory and that the LTTE had had earned its destruction by being a ‘terrorist’ organization not observing human rights and democracy and by engaging in the killing of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala leaders. The statement coming from the leader of the TNA should be taken as the policy stand of the TNA. Neither the constituent parties of the TNA nor its parliamentary members have so far contradicted the statement, said the TNPF press release, signed by its president Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and secretary, Selvarasa Kajendran.
Full story >>

Top misled EU to err on Tamils: Srinivasan tells Oslo Club session on Nobel peace award

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 18:31 GMT]
The European Union listening to wrong advice from the top and proscribing the Tamil movement was a serious mistake that disrupted peace, said Srinivasa Rao Thangavelu, a grassroot peace ambassador touring world, speaking at a brief session held at Café Nobel in Hotel Opera, by Oslo International Club together with Brussels Alumni, right before the torchlight march honouring Nobel Peace Prize award on Monday. The session was on “Creating lasting peace: top-down and bottom-up.” This time’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to European Union. According to EU Commission President, the EU brings lasting peace among former enemies who fought, among others, two world wars. Usually Norwegians conduct a torchlight parade to honour the Peace Prize winners. But this time there were two: one on Sunday opposing the award going to the EU and the other on Monday honouring the EU.
Full story >>

Colombo hatches new strategies in genocidal war, sidelines EPDP

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2012, 11:10 GMT]
One of the new strategies of Colombo in waging its on-going genocidal war against Eezham Tamils is tagging spontaneous uprisings resulting from its genocide in the island as linked to ‘diaspora terrorism’. Colombo’s strategy is nothing but a manifestation of the attitude of the guilt-filled International Community of Establishments (ICE) and its groups, outfits etc., that see the diaspora as their enemy and attempt to silence the diaspora opinion by projecting it as ‘linked’ to ‘terrorism,’ political observers in the island said. Meanwhile, Colombo now sidelines the EPDP and cultivates its own collaborators in the North, the observers further said, citing many recent developments. ‘Use and dump’ will not stop with Karuna, Pillaiyaan and Douglas, but would proceed even to those who were long recruited for the agenda of the ICE, the observers further commented.
Full story >>

Britain locally failing in nation building advises others: The Guardian

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2012, 01:37 GMT]
“Communal rioting in two cities. Bricks and bottles thrown and civic buildings wrecked. Flags torn down and 15 police injured. Local politicians forced to go into hiding. It happens all over the world, but this week it happened in the United Kingdom, evidence of continuing lack of community concord in Northern Ireland,” says an article appeared in The Guardian on Thursday. “The Troubles in Northern Ireland are not on a par with those afflicting states in the Middle East. But they remain unresolved and reflect a real British failure at local "nation-building". Belfast is still the only city outside Israel that must erect walls to keep warring communities apart. The lack of communal accord should evoke modesty from London towards the similar troubles of others. How dare we lecture them on reconciliation,” the article questioned.
Full story >>

Release arrested Tamil students immediately: Paul Murphy, MEP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2012, 09:26 GMT]
Conveying his solidarity with students’ protests in Jaffna, Paul Murphy, MEP, in a statement demanded the immediate release of the arrested Tamil students and political prisoners. In a solidarity message sent to an emergency demonstration organized outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in London on Friday, Mr. Murphy said "I express my solidarity with the protest taking place against the arrest of Tamil students in Sri Lanka. I demand that the Sri Lankan government release all those arrested immediately. The arrest of these students under the Prevention of Terrorism Act just for participating in a peaceful protest shows the extent of how much the democratic rights are under attack in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government must end this immediately and release all political prisoners.”
Full story >>