East Timorese rise against Australia exploiting their maritime sovereignty

3RD LEAD

Role of The Netherlands abetting Colombo's cultural genocide questioned in Mannaar

The occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Sri Lanka has erected more than 20 Buddha statues in the Mannaar island to facilitate Sinhalicisation of the ancient urban port city of Eelam Tamils. As the SL military is engaged in consolidating its temporary structures with permanent walls in the recent days, the people were shocked to see the huge statues that have been erected inside the military fortifications across the district. At the same time, the SL military has already handed over a large area within the Dutch Fort to Colombo's Archaeology Department, which has been a key architect in conceiving and executing cultural genocide against Eezham Tamils. The Netherlands is about to launch renovation of the Fort through SL ‘Army and Archaeology’ paradigm. A huge Buddha statue raised by the SL Army is causing controversy in the predominantly Tamil-speaking city. Full story >>

UN Resident Coordinator lies to NPC Councillor: Inner City Press

Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan was the first one to react in the island after the journalist of Inner City Press (ICP), Matthew Russell Lee, who is renowned for reporting on the inner workings of the UN system was expelled on two-hour notice from the UN Headquarters on 19 February. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information had revoked Mr Lee's resident correspondent pass and his access to the press office. On Tuesday this week, Ms Ananthy, who came back to Jaffna after addressing the Human Rights Council session in Geneva, received a written reply from Una McCauley, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNICEF Resident Representative in Colombo that Mr Lee is now provided non-Resident Correspondent access. ICP Journalist Matthew Russell Lee, after seeing the letter received by Ananthy, commented it as an “untruthful and Kafka-esque response”. Full story >>

2ND LEAD (Adds audio from 4th March)

SL Police instructed to cover up investigations on Mannaar killing fields

Colombo has instructed the Sri Lankan police officers in Mannaar to do their maximum to cover up further exhumation of the alleged killing fields at Thirukkeatheesvaram in Mannaar, informed sources told TamilNet on Monday. The SL Police officials are working hard to twist the facts that the exhumed remains were from a burial site while the two burial sites used by the villagers are situated far away from the mass grave site. In the meantime, Sri Lankan Special Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Colombo is unnecessarily dragging the process of determining the institution outside the island to determine the characteristics of the victims who died, how they died and how long ago they died. Full story >>

Colombo proceeds unabatedly with military, STF deployment in Batticaloa

The ‘Defence Ministry’ of genocidal Sri Lanka has instructed the District Secretariat of Batticaloa through the SL Ministry of Public Administration and Management in Colombo to permanently transfer the ownership of the lands belonging to the Divisional Secretariat office of Eruvilpattu South at Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi. The STF units, formed during the times of late SL President J.R. Jayawardene and trained by the British, were further strengthened by his successor, the late SL President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The STF camped at the premises of DS office in 1990 is still stationed there despite the end of war in Batticaloa in 2007. A torture chamber is located inside this notorious camp where several Eezham Tamils abducted by the white-van squads in the past, have been subjected to ‘enforced disappearances’. Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi is located about 30 km south of Batticaloa on Kalmunai road. Full story >>

Sinhala military of US design consolidates along Palk Bay challenging Tamil Nadu

Hundreds of soldiers of genocidal Sri Lanka have been deployed between Iluppaik-kadavai in Maanthai-West of Mannaar and the strategic Poonakari in the north of Vanni mainland along the coastal belt facing the Palk Bay in recent days. The occupying Sinhala soldiers are transforming their temporary positions into permanent structures. Even the travellers along the A32 Highway from Mannaar through Poonakari to Jaffna could witness the systematic deployment of the SL soldiers being busily engaged in consolidating their positions and cantonments. The betrayal committed upon the Eezham Tamils by the Geneva-based ‘Human Rights’ discourse, which is primarily exploited by the world powers for their geopolitical manoeuvrings on the island, has ended up strengthening the military grip of genocidal Sri Lanka on Eezham Tamils. Full story >>

Occupying SL military behind bringing extremist BBS monks to Kokku'laay

Officers of the occupying SL Army and Navy were operating behind in arranging Sinhala Buddhist extremist Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) to visit Kokku'laay in Mullaiththeevu district, informed sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet on Wednesday. Ven Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the BBS was in Kokku'laay on Monday encouraging the extremist monk Sri Thissapura Gunarathna Thero for his occupation scheme, which is being projected through the construction of a Buddhist Vihara establishment in the lands illegally seized from Eezham Tamils at the strategic point linking North and East. In the meantime, the SL government in Colombo, through its Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, has issued hundreds of fishing permits to Sinhala fishermen occupying Kokku'laay. Full story >>

Attacked Tamil students in Trinco campus under pressure not to talk to media

The administration of Trincomalee Campus at the Eastern University has instructed the students not to talk to media. On Monday, the campus was temporarily shut down to avoid situation getting out of control. The administration has also appointed a three-member committee with the instruction not to bring out the racial motive behind the episode. The attacked students said they had complained for a long time about the hate crime tendency, but the university administration has ignored the early warnings. On Monday, the Sinhala students started to claim that the attack was in retaliation to ‘bullying behaviour’ from the Tamil students. The Tamil students from the Unit of Siddha Medicine have provided names of ten Sinhala students from the departments of Communication and Management to the Campus administration and the SL Police. No action has been taken against them, they said. Full story >>

Zeid replays Hashemites’ role as stooges after World Wars, says Boyle

Noting that the general sentiment within the Tamils in NorthEast and the diaspora is frustration and disappointment at the inability and unwillingness of the international community led by the US and the UN to enforce accountability for the past crimes of the Sri Lankan State, and irked by the recent statements by UN's Human Rights Chief Zeid bin Ra’ad , that Sri Lanka has made "powerful symbolic gestures of reconciliation" in an attempt to whitewash Sri Lanka's crimes, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law, said that Mr Zeid is simply acting as an artificial puppet to the United States, in the same way his Hashemite family from Arabian Peninsula served under the British after the world war-I, and later became the stooges for the CIA and the United States after world war-II. Full story >>