Occupying Sinhala military reminds Eezham Tamils of whose elections they partake

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 August 2020, 20:57 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka has been harassing the Tamil candidates contesting in the general elections, particularly Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) led by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and Tamil Makkal Thesiya Koottani (TMTK) led by CV Wigneswaran in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The SL Army has been deploying surveillance teams and field-bike units during their campaign meetings. The TNPF has publicly alleged that SL military intelligence operatives were behaving in a threatening manner in their election meetings. The SL military intelligence had also threatened its candidates in Batticaloa to withdraw from the elections, the TNPF blamed. TMTK Leader and former Chief Minister of Northern Province, Justice Wigneswaran, was harassed by the field-bike group of the SL Army recently, when he went for an election meeting to Kurunakar, a suburb of Jaffna.
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Gotabaya Rajapaksa is no more US-citizen, but SL military relationship with US continues

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2020, 23:50 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s name has finally appeared in the Federal Register of the US Government, which publishes a quarterly list of individuals, who have chosen to expatriate. Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s name appeared in the list issued on Friday. Mr Gotabaya was commanding the genocidal war against Eezham Tamils as a US citizen with a well-knit link with the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon in the run up to the genocidal onslaught in the island. Mr Gotabaya was also the signatory of a defence agreement with the US in 2007, which lasted till 2017.
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Uncertainty grips war-uprooted coastal village of mainland Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 April 2020, 23:45 GMT]
The occupying SL Navy, which is stationed at Mu'l'lik-ku'lam, a coastal village located 45 km south of Mannaar city, continues to keep more than one thousand acres of lands out of bound to the uprooted Tamils. SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa transformed the ancient Tamil village as the command headquarters of North West Naval Area of SL Navy when he was the SL Defence Secretary in 2013. The SLN is using only 35 acres of lands. Private title-lands, LDO permit lands and lands that belong to Catholic Diocese of Mannaar remain out of bounds for the uprooted Tamils. After 2015 regime change, Colombo handed back barely 77 acres of church lands deceiving the protesting people with a promise of freeing their properties in a “step-by-step” manner. The changes taking place within the SL Navy and the pandemic lockdown have further eroded the outlook for resettlement, the uprooted people complain.
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Politics of statements failing to call a spade a spade

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2020, 21:51 GMT]
The latest presidential pardoning of a massacre-convicted SL Army soldier is an outcome of the Mahawansa mindset, which is the ideology triggering the specific intent (Dolus Specialis) for Tamil genocide. In the chosen island of “Sri Lanka,” it is the genocidal Mahawansa doctrine that ultimately determines the delivery of justice as well as sustaining the unitary character of the state. Any roadmap, which seeks to improve the Colombo-centric system through gradual reforms without reconfiguring the underlying state structure in the first place, only paves the way for reversing even the cosmetic outcomes of the concerned deceptive progress. Those who contribute to such an experiment, directly or indirectly — even if they intend to disprove the approach through partaking in it — are complicit in sophisticated genocide denial as long as they are not prepared to call a spade a spade.
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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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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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High voter turn-out in North-East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 November 2019, 23:48 GMT]
The people in the North-East have voted in large numbers in the SL presidential elections held on Saturday. The Tamil voters have ignored the calls for boycott as they didn’t want to see the return of the war-time SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the next president and opted to back Sajith Premadasa, the lesser evil of the two main candidates. The Chairman of the SL Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya, has described the polls as the most peaceful presidential election in the history of the island. However, war-displaced Tamil-speaking Muslims transported from Puththa’lam to cast their votes in Mannaar were attacked by the supporters of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
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Gotabhaya's campaigners supply money and alcohol to young voters in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 November 2019, 18:16 GMT]
The campaigners of SL Presidential candidate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were locking the uprooted Tamil youth from Keappaa-pulavu in Mullaiththeevu supplying 3,000 to 5,000 rupees per person and five Ceylon Arrack (alcoholic drink) bottles per person if they were prepared to attend the propaganda meeting on Sunday. Sinhala youth were also brought from Ma'nal-aa'ru (Weli-Oya) to Mullaith-theevu town with the same offer.
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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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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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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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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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US trick of coercion: Carrot to entice Gotabhaya, stick to strike Shavendra

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 October 2019, 23:51 GMT]
US Acting Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asia of the US State Department, Alice G. Wells, was turning a blind eye to the ongoing structural and heritage genocide in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East during her testimony on human rights in South Asia to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The US was “encouraged by the SL government’s progress on the operationalization of an Office of Missing Persons and the establishment of an Office of Reparations,” she said. Alice G Wells was accompanied by Robert Destro, the assistant secretary at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, who was also citing “Sri Lanka” as the country in the South Asian region where the US have had some “notable successes”. The only strong complaint they had was the recent promotion of pro-Chinese SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva.
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Sinhala supporters of Gotabhaya encroach into pasturelands in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 October 2019, 23:58 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary affiliated colonists (also known as home-guards), who encroached into the pasturelands in Paduvaan-karai region of Batticaloa during the Rajapaksa regime, have again started cultivation activities in the area, Tamil dairy farmers complain. When contacted by TamilNet, Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division, confirmed the intrusion. At least fifteen encroachers have sown seeds clearing the pasturelands in Mayilaththa-madu within the last ten days, he said. The activity comes in the wake of killing around 1,500 cattle that belonged to Tamil dairy farmers in the area during the past ten months, he said.
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Monk backing Gotabhaya wants Tamil owners to stay away from their lands in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2019, 23:43 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk engaged in hostile colonisation activities in Batticaloa district along the border to Ampaa'rai district has threatened Tamil farmers who were levelling lands at Maalaiyar-kaddu village to stay away from the ‘reservation’ lands on Friday. The Tamil landowners were stopped by the SL Police who accompanied the monk while they were cleaning the property using a bulldozer. The SL Police has instructed the Tamil farmers to come to Vellaa-ve'li police station on Monday. The Tamil families have been doing agriculture in three acres of lands beside the plot which they were levelling. They had purchased six acres of lands from another Tamil landowner 15 years ago, the families said. However, the monk from Chinna-vaththai was claiming that the SL State had reserved the three acres of lands.
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Vote for Self-Determination, reject major candidates for more effective boycott

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2019, 22:07 GMT]
A section of civil activists in the North-East jointly promoted the idea of fielding a common Tamil candidate in the SL Presidential Election this time. The idea looked genuine and the process went on until the last minute deadline to find a contestant. The hidden hands of India and West were trying to influence the choice of the candidate through remote control manipulations. The process didn't succeed to the disappointment of the genuinely involved as well as the indirect actors. At the same time, some Tamil sections also argued the case for a boycott of the presidential elections. However, none of them expected the manoeuvre of two former provincial councillors with independent intuition to propose a better solution to the Eezham Tamils. M.K. Shivajilingam of TELO legacy and Ananthy Sasitharan of former LTTE affiliation have nailed it this time. Now the Establishments are after them.
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Families inheriting lands from parents refused of land registration in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2019, 22:06 GMT]
The authorities coming under the unitary system of occupying Colombo refuse to register title deeds for lands that are being inherited by newly married couples from their families in Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The denial causes several other problems as the new families are unable to obtain bank loans or housing schemes without the proof of land ownership. Several appeals were made to resolve this issue since 2008 without any outcome, says I Raveendran, the deputy chairman of Vinaayakar Community Centre in Champoor. Now, the families fear that they would be permanently losing the lands if Gotabhaya Rajapaksa becomes the next SL President.
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Buddhist monks whip up anti-Muslim hate twisting facts on coastal lands in Poththuvil: Civic Chairman

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 September 2019, 18:16 GMT]
Poththuvil Divisional Council (PS) Chairman MS Abdul Wazeeth has blamed the extremist Sinhala Buddhist monks for waging hate-campaign against Poththuvil Muslims. An extremist monk based at the newly constructed vihara has claimed that the Muslim villagers were attempting to assault him and he keeps alleging that the ancient Buddhist monuments found close to the beach were being destroyed as the SL Government in Colombo, particularly the UNP led by Ranil Wickramasinghe, had allowed the Muslims to encroach the lands of the so-called Muhudu Maha Viharaya. The archaeological monuments and the monks are protected by armed Sinhala soldiers and the police round the clock. How could the villagers assault them, he asked. It was the monks who had encroached into the areas that come under the purview of the SL Archaeology Department, MSA Wazeeth said.
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