Break paradigm that regards Tamils as victims to achieve equitable solution: Balakumaran in 2004

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 May 2020, 05:18 GMT]
From the colonial British Lord Soulbury to Norwegian Peace Envoy Solheim, all external interlocutors intended to render Tamils’ demand below the point of optimal compromise. Soulbury went to the extent of humiliating the then Tamil leader GG Ponnambalam in his attempt to negate the demands of Tamils. He later regretted. Now, Solheim wants to do the same, i.e., tell Tamils to drop their arms. But, he is unable to say it face-to-face because LTTE Leader has demonstrated the balance of power for the first time in the evolutional history of Tamil leaders. However, the world powers still want to weaken the Tamil side and strengthen the SL State, said KV Balakumaran, a senior leader in the armed struggle of Tamils, back in 2004. Tamils cannot achieve anything with a “victim” mindset, he said in a lengthy consultative session to TamilNet in September 2004.
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People mobilise in resolute to mark Tamil Eelam Heroes Day amidst Rajapaksas return

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 November 2019, 23:32 GMT]
The people of occupied Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island, who face an uncertain future due to the return of Rajapaksa siblings as the rulers from the South, have mobilised to mark Tamil Eelam Heroes Day with unwavering resolute also this year. There were reports of occupying SL military and the police at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal in Mullaith-theevu in North and at Champoor in Trincomalee in the East, issuing threats to the volunteers. However, various grassroots organisations along with Tamil national political leaders and parties have engaged in Sramadanam work clearing and decorating the grounds and vicinities of the Heroes cemeteries, which the occupying Sinhala military had razed to the grounds during the previous regime of Rajapaksas.
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Protests on International Day of Disappeared signal emboldened resolve for justice

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 August 2019, 23:39 GMT]
The families of Eezham Tamils subjected to enforced disappearances at the hands of the occupying Sinhala military and its paramilitaries in the past staged two coordinated demonstrations in the North and East on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared on Friday. More than 500 people, including the grassroots activists and supporting politicians, marched for two hours from Pa'nrik-keytha-ku'lam to Oamanthai, the former entry point to the erstwhile de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. Those handed over to the occupying Sinhala military at the entry point in Vavuniyaa, and at Vadduvaakal in Mullaiththeevu were taken to undisclosed detention camps, and their whereabouts are since not known. The wives and the mothers of the missing persons denounced the reparations mechanisms of the so-called Office of Missing Persons (OMP) and demanded international justice.
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Military minds of New Delhi, Colombo stage ‘book fair’ in Jaffna though quisling Governor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019, 23:36 GMT]
The SL Governor to North Suren Raghavan, who is the Tamil agent of Maithiripala Sirisena, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, has organised a book fair in Jaffna this week. The military intelligence outfits of New Delhi and Colombo were collaborating behind the scene to sophisticatedly mix selected books from Tamil Nadu with publications depicting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as ‘terrorists’. The target audience of the book fair is the younger generation of Eezham Tamils. The officers of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka were invited as the special guests to the event along with the Mayor of Jaffna and the Tamil children wearing Sinhala costumes were garlanding the guests at the event held under the patronage of the SL Governor at the Veerasingam Hall.
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Pirapaharan’s statements between 1984 and 1993 reproduced in book form in Europe

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 August 2019, 23:55 GMT]
A Switzerland-based Eezham Tamil youth group, ‘Phoenix - the Next Generation’, has photostatically reproduced the rare 314-page compilation officially published by the Headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in September 1993 in Jaffna. The book contains selected letters, interviews and statements of LTTE Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan starting from his first media interview in March 1984. The compilation consists, amongst others, of a letter that declines LTTE representation at a meeting held in New York in May 1985, appeals to the leaders of India and Tamil Nadu during the LTTE-IPKF war in 1987, and a letter of solidarity addressed to South African (ANC) leader, the late Oliver Tambo, in July 1988. The reproduction has been made from a book obtained at the public library of Jaffna in the past. The book, with ID 9907, is no longer accessible at the library.
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Mother dies after searching for missing son for 11 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 July 2019, 22:54 GMT]
A 74-year-old mother of a Tamil male subjected to enforced disappearance eleven years ago in Mannaar has passed away after suffering a heart attack in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. The representatives of the district organisation of the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances said that the mother, Thresamma Sebamalai, was an active member in their continuous protest during the past 869 days. She was trying to trace the whereabouts of her son for the past 11 years. Mrs Sebamalai was living at Ira'naip-paalai in Puthuk-kudiyiruppu.
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Ex NPC councillor vows to mark genocide remembrance at 21 places before 18 May

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 May 2019, 22:26 GMT]
Former Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member and ex-TNA parliamentarian M.K. Shivajilingam has vowed to mark Tamil Genocide Week from 12th to 17 May at 21 places across the eight districts in the North and East before taking part in the tenth year marking of 2009 Tamil Genocide Day on 18 May at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal. “We have chosen 21 places where the SL military was committing genocidal acts. It is like the 21-gun salute, the highest respect paid to those who sacrificed their lives,” Mr Shivajlingam, a political leader of TELO said. After inaugurating the first event at Kappaladi along the coast near Mu'l'livaaykkal on Sunday, he blamed the SL State for detaining the student leaders in Jaffna and for harassing himself describing the moves as aiming to suppress the 10th Tamil genocide remembrance on 18 May.
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Western diplomats must act to free Jaffna University student leaders: Political Analyst

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 May 2019, 18:04 GMT]
The West needs to be reminded that the Tamil Christians were at the receiving end of the Easter Sunday most probably because the hierarchy of the Tamil National Alliance and the Tamil leaders, in general, had been explicitly leaning towards it after the end of the genocidal war in 2009. The unitary state in Colombo has now clamped down on the Tamil student leaders of the Jaffna University by deploying the Emergency Regulations totally out of proportions in a heavily politicised and chauvinistic manner using the situation after the Easter Sunday attacks, said Jaffna-based Senior Lawyer and Political Analyst S.A. Jothilingam on Thursday. His comments to TamilNet come a day after the Magistrates’ Court in Jaffna was unable to act on the release of the students as their release required explicit action by the SL Attorney General under the Emergency provisions.
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PTA-arguments of SL Police detaining Tamil student leaders baseless: Guruparan

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 May 2019, 19:42 GMT]
The SL Police, pursuing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) based investigations against the president and the secretary of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU), was arguing that the student leaders were provoking racial and communal disharmony through the banners and other visual representations, which were apprehended by the SL Army at the JUSU office on Friday. The SL Government itself had admitted, through the act of co-sponsoring Resolution 30/1 at the UN Human Rights Council in 2015, that allegations of war crimes need to be investigated. How could the banners calling for justice for crimes committed during the war incite disharmony, questioned Attorney Guruparan Kumaravadivel who was representing the student leaders at the Magistrate’s Court in Jaffna on Monday.
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Veteran drama artist Maamanithar S.T. Arasu passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2016, 23:18 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil drama artist Kalaapooshanam S.T. Arasu, who was betowed with the highest civilian Maamanithar title by LTTE Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan in 1990, passed away after a brief illness at the age of 89 in Nalloor, Jaffna on Friday. Sivakkolunthu Thirunavukkarasu (S.T. Arasu) received an emotional funeral service, attended by Tamil artists, academics and politicians on Sunday. As a multi-talented creative artist, S.T. Arasu has worked with prominent drama directors of his times and has contributed at various fronts including make-up and music. S.T.Arasu had a keen interest in sculpture and was also a professional photographer.
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Veteran Tamil scholar Professor Veluppillai passes away

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 November 2015, 20:49 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil scholar, Professor Alvappillai Veluppillai, who has internationally contributed over several decades to serious academic work in Tamil language, epigraphy, Dravidian linguistics and religion, passed away on Sunday night in San Francisco in the USA. He was 79. Born in Puloali South of Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna, in 1936, he was Professor of Tamil at the University of Jaffna as well as the University of Peradeniya. He also served at the Institute of Dravidian Linguistics in Trivandrum, Kerala University, the International Tamil Research Centre at Chennai, Uppsala University of Sweden and at the Virginia and Arizona Universities of the USA.
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TNA's draft on constitutional reforms exposes dilution of fundamental principles

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2015, 00:21 GMT]
“In point of fact, if the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is to be preserved from claims to the right of secession, it is a sine quo non that the right to self-determination of the Tamils is recognized and the nature of the state is restructured to enable meaningful exercise of internal self-determination,” concludes the draft introduction prepared by TNA in November 2009 to accompany its proposals of constitutional reforms. 5 years have elapsed since. The TNA, now claiming a final solution in 2016, is yet to educate the masses on what efforts it has undertaken to establish the sine quo non (“cause-in-fact”) and on how long it is going to cling to the explanation of re-inventing the wheel, getting voluntarily locked to a genocidal situation which is beyond any rectification. TamilNet is releasing the documents from November 2009 for the awareness of Eezham Tamils.
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Constitutionally recognise Tamil homeland to prove bona fides, exiled poet tells Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 17:40 GMT]
“We [Eezham Tamils] are not [people of two] provinces. We are [the people of] a homeland. This reality is constitutionally not recognised in the Constitution. Would the Sinhala rulers of Sri Lanka ever be prepared to constitutionally recognise the joint North-East as the homeland of Tamils,” questioned exiled Eezham Tamil poet Kasi Anandan on Wednesday, speaking from Chennai, in an Internet-based video address on the occasion of a memorial event held in Batticaloa on the 10th anniversary of the assassinated TamilNet Senior Editor and popular columnist Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki). The current Sinhala rulers [in the island of Sri Lanka] are only talking about ‘Tamils in the North’ whenever they refer to Tamils, Kasi Anandan observed.
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Sivanesan Memorial Hall declared open in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 February 2015, 18:40 GMT]
A memorial hall has been declared open in Jaffna on Saturday in commemoration of Maamanithar K. Sivanesan, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian who was assassinated in a targeted claymore explosion by the Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 06 March 2006 inside LTTE-controlled Vanni. Sivanesan worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of the deprived sections of population among the Eezham Tamils for a long time. He played also a key role in the democratic mobilization of the Tamil masses at the grassroots level.
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Tamils mark Pirapaharan's 60th birthday

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 November 2014, 06:17 GMT]
While Tamil poets, students and activists belonging to all Tamil nationalist movements in Tamil Nadu marked LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan's 60th birth anniversary, political activists marked the day with planting trees at the birthplace of Mr Pirapaharan at Valveddithu'rai in Jaffna. The birth anniversary was also observed in several cities in the West.
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Majority Tamil Councillors from North, East request OHCHR to investigate genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 August 2014, 07:36 GMT]
“Tamil people strongly believe that they have been, and continue to be subjected to Genocide by Sri Lanka […] Systematic Sinhalese settlements and demographic changes with the intent to destroy the Tamil Nation are taking place. We request the OHCHR investigative team to look into the pattern of all the atrocities against the Tamil people, and to determine if Genocide has taken place,” states a joint letter by the majority of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and Tamil opposition councillors form the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC). 28 elected Eezham Tamil councillors from the 38-member Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and 5 of 11 opposition Tamil National Alliance members from the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) have sent the letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navaneetham Pillay on Monday.
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Media groups protest against SL military’s shadow war on Eezham Tamil journalists

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 July 2014, 14:14 GMT]
Following the SL military sabotage against Tamil journalists, who were on their way to attend a workshop held in Colombo on Friday, 25 July, and against the continued threat and harassment of the involved Eezham Tamil journalists, Tamil journalists in the five districts of Northern Province came together at a protest organised by the Jaffna Press Club in Jaffna city on Thursday. Media organisations based in South also took part in the protest in Jaffna expressing their solidarity with the Eezham Tamil journalists, who are being threatened and harassed by the occupying military of the genocidal Sri Lankan State.
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Tamil village in Trinco survived pogroms and war, now faces structural genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 April 2014, 23:52 GMT]
A group of Sinhalese led by a Buddhist monk have been blocking Eezham Tamils of Kangkuveali village in Moothoor division of the Trincomalee district to access their ancient temple of Akaththiyar Thaapanam. The temple, which is mentioned in a local mythological literature called Karaisaip-puraa’nam, was destroyed by an external group of Sinhalese on Tamil Heroes Day in November 2009. Since then, more than 120 Tamil families have been robbed of their livelihood as the Sinhala intruders backed by the genocidal SL military have appropriated 293 acres of lands surrounding the temple at Oddu and Padu-kaadu areas. The attack on the temple and the sustained threat against its reconstruction aim at the annihilation of their existence as Tamils of Kanguveali, complain the villagers, who have owned the lands for centuries and possess land deeds from 1970 and 1985 to document their legal ownership.
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Colombo ‘reveals’ US connections in cluster bomb use

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 January 2014, 15:55 GMT]
United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) advised the Sri Lankan Defence Establishment to purchase Cluster Bomb Units (CBUs) during the peace talks mediated by Norway in 2002. The Island paper, which gives media space for PSYOP and information war waged by the SL military Establishment, on Monday released portions of an alleged FOUO-classified document of the US Defence Establishment. The ‘leak’ was made to remind the US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen J. Rapp, that Colombo was having proofs of ‘US complicity’ in the genocidal onslaught it waged on Eezham Tamils, an informed journalist from South told TamilNet. Colombo’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa himself timed the ‘leak’, the journalist further said.
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Court in Jaffna dismisses SL military claim on Tamil memorial site at Theeruvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 22:18 GMT]
District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military. Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site, where three significant monuments stood in remembrance of key LTTE leaders and commanders who sacrificed their lives under the occupation of Indian and Sri Lankan militaries and civilians massacred by the Indian military at VVT in 1989.
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