SL military arrests husbands, sexually harasses wives in Trinco

SL military appropriates lands of Tamils in Naayaa'ru, Mullaiththeevu

Lands that had been allocated to Eezham Tamil farmers for cashew cultivation in the village of Naayaa'ru in Mullaiththeevu have been appropriated by the Divisional Secretariat and handed over to the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) without the consent of legal owners, civil sources in the district said. Naayaa'ru village is located on the borders of Mullaiththeevu district and Trincomalee district, a demographically strategic location for the contiguity of Northern and Eastern Provinces. Full story >>

Uprooted Tamils ordered to leave their lands in Mannaar

Mannaar Divisional Secretary D.Dayananda has ordered all uprooted Tamil residents residing in the public lands at Ezhil Nakar to dismantle their temporary sheds and boundary fences and vacate from the land within one week's time. The eviction order has been issued by the Divisional Secretary to settle down about 600 Sinhalese from the South, civil sources said. Full story >>

DMK chief wants New Delhi to provide Indian citizenship to Eezham Tamil refugees

Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Friday that DMK Chief M Karunanidhi has requested New Delhi to provide citizenship to over 100,000 Eezham Tamils living in South Indian state of Tamil Nadu as refugees. Pointing out to the immigration reforms in the U.S., Mr Karunanidhi was quoted as saying, "[s]imilarly, it is also our wish and request to the Centre to come forward and provide citizenship to over one lakh Eezham Tamils living in the country ensuring their permanent safety," the PTI added. Full story >>

Gotabhaya statement reconfirms emptiness in PC model

While New Delhi and Washington harp on either the 13th Amendment or holding Northern Provincial Elections (NPC) as solutions to the national question in the island of Sri Lanka, a statement coming from SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa reconfirms the unworkable nature of the Provincial Council (PC) model in a unitary constitution of the Sinhala state, Tamil political observers in the island said. Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was warning the government of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa that giving police and land powers to the provinces meant that the Northern Province comprising the districts of Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa, Mannaar and Ki'linochchi could pose a ‘major security challenge’, reported the Island on Thursday. Full story >>

Genocidal military gets into white garb to observe Vesak in Jaffna

The commander of the occupying SL military in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, together with all of his senior officers and a section of soldiers, observed a ‘Sil’ campaign on Thursday, according to a news release by the SL military in Jaffna. At the event, the SL commander Hathurusinghe and his personnel were all clad in white. In contrast, the occupying SL commander and his officers have been wearing military uniform while entering Hindu temples, an act considered as showing disrespect to the deities and as desecrating the shrines, observers in Jaffna commented. One of the topics discussed by the Buddhist clergy and the academics at the Buddhist religious event on Thursday was ‘music therapy as a remedy to youth unrest’, the news release by the SL military further revealed. Full story >>

Occupying STF seizes 600 acres of farmland in Poththuvil

Sinhala Buddhist extremists, with the backing of the occupying Sri Lankan government in Colombo, have planned to appropriate about six hundred acres of paddy fields belonging to Muslims and Tamils in Pasarich-cheanai in Poththuvil electorate in Ampaa'rai district, claiming that the said lands belong to Sinhala Buddhists. The paddy fields are located east of Naavilaa'ru at Poovarasadith-thoaddam in Poththuvil DS division. The Tamil-speaking farmers have been doing cultivation in these lands for more than five decades, civil sources said. Full story >>

Colombo brings 1500 Sinhalese from South to Mannaar

Stepping up the process of colonisation of the country of Eezham Tamils, the occupying Sri Lanka has brought in 1,500 Sinhalese in buses to Musali DS division in Mannaar District, which is bordering the North Western and North Central provinces. The occupying Colombo government had already planned to settle down five thousand Sinhalese families from the South in Mannaar district in an attempt to change the demography of the district before holding the Northern Provincial Council election, according to a confidential document received by the Mannaar district secretariat. Full story >>

Chennai event challenges ICE complicity in Tamil Genocide

Articulating right demands and slogans in Genocide Remembrance events is crucial at a time when the Eezham Tamils in their homeland are barred from even silently mourning their heroes and civilians who sacrificed their lives in the culmination of the genocidal war at Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, said a Tamil political activist from Jaffna commenting on the slogans used by protestors at the May 19 event at Marina beach in Chennai. Civil society activists, artists, political leaders and ordinary people had participated a mass gathering near the Kannagi statue in the honour of those Eezham Tamils who perished in Sri Lanka’s genocidal war despite dissuasion by the police. Speaking to TamilNet from the gathering, Umar, an activist from the May 17 criticized the failure of UN in preventing the genocide, stating that Sri Lanka must be hauled in the UNSC. Full story >>

Jaffna University remembers Vanni genocide amidst SL military oppression

Sri Lankan military harassments continue at Jaffna University where a memorial event was silently observed by hundreds of students on Friday, news sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. The occupying SL military is on a continuous war with the university community of students and teachers in the last four years on the issue of remembering the slain. It took a serious turn on the Heroes Day last November. The arrests and the military ‘rehabilitation’ of the student leaders didn't deter the students from paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the genocidal war at Vanni. Despite refusal by the University administration to provide a hall to the event this year, hundreds of university students and teachers gathered at the Paramesvara temple premises in the university on Friday for a silent memorial without any speeches. Full story >>

‘Idea of the Tamil struggle cannot be killed’: Kashmiri Leader

“Using military operation, they can silence the voice for a time being, they cannot kill the ideology and idea. They cannot defeat ideology and ideas with military means,” Yasin Malik, Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Saturday. Speaking from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu where he had gone to address the public in solidarity with the Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day event organized by the Naam Tamizhar party, he further said that if the international community thinks that it can suppress people’s movement through military means, peace and security cannot be achieved in the world. “If they want peace and stability in the world, then they will have to resolve the people’s issues. Otherwise, the people across the globe, who are the voiceless people, they will get together and they will form their own strategy,” the Kashmiri leader said. Full story >>

Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal survivor speaks out

Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, who personally witnessed Sri Lanka military taking away her husband, Mr Elilan, a political leader of the LTTE, at the end the Vanni War in May 2009, speaks out her experience from a civilian point of view and as a mother caring for her children during the war and the genocidal onslaught. Still living in Vanni, at Ki'linochchi, the 46-year-old mother of three is also running an organization that seeks to establish what had happened to their beloved ones. The SL State is still refusing to reveal the fate of those who were filtered away from the civilians and taken into buses to undisclosed detention camps. The narration of the survivor of the genocidal massacre, told with courage from Ki'linochchi, brings out the spirit and courage of a people who stood with their liberation fighters until the last moment. TamilNet brings out a 40-minute recount by Mrs Sasitharan. Full story >>

German Kurdish federation demands justice for Tamil genocide, condemns powers

YEK-KOM, a Germany based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, demanding justice for the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, condemned the world powers who rejected “the just demands of the Tamil people, turned their backs and have instead supported a military solution” in a solidarity statement sent on the occasion of Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day. Emphasising the need for the state terror against the Tamils in the homeland to be halted, the federation further called on the German government and the European Union to “take diplomatic measures and exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government till the self-determination of the Tamils is recognized.” They also called for revoking the ban on the LTTE in the EU to ensure equality of parties and for a just peace. Full story >>