Family man from Jaffna reported missing on way to Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 January 2011, 21:12 GMT]
A 25-year-old male from Katkoava'lam in Point Pedro, who was on his way to Colombo last Wednesday, has been reported missing, according to complaints registered with the Jaffna branch of Human Rights Commission and the Sri Lankan Police at Point Pedro.
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Fire destroys offices of website critical of Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 January 2011, 03:59 GMT]
The office of news website LankaeNews located in Rajagiriya, a suburb of Colombo, has reportedly been set on fire by a group of unknown persons who broke into the premises Monday at 2:00 a.m., according to reports from Colombo. The fire has caused extensive damages to the computer and communications equipment in the facililty. Talangama police are investigating into the incident.
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Flood victims express anger on public servants for lack of relief in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 January 2011, 20:07 GMT]
Civilians in Batticaloa district have started to show their anger on government servants for the failure to provide relief as promised by Colombo authority. The latest attack on a Village Officer of Makizhadith-theevu in Paddipazhai DS division in Batticaloa district took place Friday while he was in the act of distributing relief items donated by a non-governmental organization. Over five hundred thousand flood affected people in Poaratheevup-pattu, Paddippazhai, Vavu'na-theevu, Ea'raavoor-pattu, and Chengkaladi in Paduvaankarai DS division have not been provided with relief materials properly. Meanwhile, the district has started to experience another round heavy torrential rain since last week. Hence the spill gates of Unnichchai and U'rukaamam irrigation tanks have been opened to allow excess water.
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US legal effort to seek justice for son's killing - Dr Manoharan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 January 2011, 00:17 GMT]
In an interview with the BBC Tamil service, Dr Kasippillai Manoharan, father of Ragihar, one of the five students extra-judicially executed by Sri Lanka's military at the Trincomalee beach on January 2nd, 2006, said that Sri Lanka's judicial system is not capable and unwilling to provide justice and bring closure to his son's death, hence his initiating a civil suit in the U.S. He further told the BBC, five years have passed since his son's brutal killing, and he will use all judicial instruments now available to him outside Sri Lanka to bring his son's killers to justice. Dr Manoharan said he is convinced that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has information on the killers but the President is unwilling to allow prosecution of military officers. Both Mr and Mrs Manoharan are prominent physicians who earlier practiced in Trincomalee.
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EPDP area organizer recovered dead in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2011, 22:20 GMT]
36-year-old Rasarathninam Sathees, Maruthangkea'ni area organiser of EPDP paramilitary-cum-political party was found dead Saturday morning near Aanaivizhunthaan cemetery near Vallipuram temple. The last news about Mr. Sathees was that he was on his way in a motorbike to organise an event to which EPDP leader and SL Minister Douglas Devananda was scheduled to attend at Ampan-kudaththanai. Sathees has been critical of EPDP leadership on its Maheswari Foundation business of excavating sand from Vadamaraadchi East. The EPDP has said Sathees was killed in a motorbike accident. Police said it was awaiting a medical report.
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Ambassador, an honest man sent to lie for Sri Lanka, responds Fein

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2011, 16:49 GMT]
Noting Sri Lanka's Ambassador's response to the law suit filed in US by three Tamil plaintiffs as initiated by LTTE-front organizations involved in "publicity stunts like this baseless law suits," Bruce Fein, the attorney for the plaintiffs said that the Ambassador Wickramasuriya was an honest man but was apparently instructed that if both the facts and the law demonstrated President Rajapaksa’s criminal culpability, then he should bugle “Tamil Tigers” to confuse the issue. Further, the group that sponsored the law suit cautioned the Ambassador and Colombo's Presidential spokesperson that libel is a serious offense in U.S. law and that any malicious labeling of legitimate US organizations as terrorist may have serious legal consequences.
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Kokkaddichchoalai massacre of 65 Tamil civilians remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2011, 12:13 GMT]
The twenty fourth annual remembrance of Kokkaddichchoalai massacre was held Friday in Batticaloa. The Sri Lanka Army, which is almost all Sinhalese, killed 65 Tamil civilians in a prawn farm located about 10 km off west of Batticaloa city on 28 January 1987. The SLA burnt down the farm and huts where Tamil laborers were staying.
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Rajapaksa sued in US Courts over war-crimes, plaintiffs seek $30m in damages

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 January 2011, 20:05 GMT]
Three Tamil plaintiffs whose relatives were killed in three different incidents, all considered to be war-crimes, filed a civil case in the District Court of District of Columbia against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa Friday at around 4:00 p.m, the attorney for the plaintiffs and former Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the US, Mr Bruce Fein, said in a release sent to the media in the U.S. The legal action was sponsored by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group. The plaintiffs seek $30m as damages through six counts of violations of the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
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Resettlement worker injured in Vanni explosion dies at Jaffna hospital

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 January 2011, 18:46 GMT]
An unidentified device exploded Friday evening at Tharmapuram in Visuvamadu seriously injuring two young housing workers from Vavuniyaa. One of them, 20-year-old Selvarasa Rathan succumbed to his injuries at Jaffna Teaching Hospital around 8:30 p.m. The doctors at Jaffna Teaching Hospital are trying to save the life of the other victim, 19-year-old Nedungncheliyan Ramanan at the intensive care unit of the hospital, medical sources in Jaffna said.
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Military in Jaffna district to stay, says SLA Commander

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 January 2011, 01:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Maj. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya, while addressing a news conference at the army headquarters in Colombo, said that the Sri Lanka's defence ministry will not move out the security forces stationed in the Jaffna peninsula, the state-run Dinamina newspaper said in a front page article Friday.
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South African author joins boycotting Sri Lanka literary festival

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 January 2011, 12:15 GMT]
Award winning South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut, citing concerns over rights record of Sri Lanka, boycotted the literary festival in Galle, despite his arrival in the island this week, AFP reported Thursday. "It's an unfortunate situation for us that Damon heeded this ridiculous campaign," the festival curator Shyam Selvadurai told reporters. Nobel laureate Turkish-born Orhan Pamuk and his partner, fellow writer Kiran Desai, last week pulled out of the festival. Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, Reporters without Borders and a group of intellectuals led by Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy led a campaign to boycott the festival, saying that this was not the time to give legitimacy to Sri Lankan government. However, the US embassy in a press release Tuesday said that it welcomes the festival.
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UPFA nominations for local elections rejected in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 January 2011, 11:42 GMT]
In a sudden turn of development in the run up to the local elections in North, the election department officials in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi have rejected the nominations filed by the UPFA, disqualifying the ruling UPFA and EPDP alliance from participating in the elections in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi that come under the Jaffna electoral district. The nominations were filed under a wrong name in Tamil as Aiykkiya Makka'l Chuthanthira Kooddamaippu (AMCK) instead of Aiykkiya Makka'l Chunthanthira Munna'ni (AMCM). The date for the elections has been set to March 17.
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Republic Day of India observed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 23:26 GMT]
The Indian Consulate in Jaffna observed Republic Day of India with a march by the security division of Indian Police inside the premises of Indian Consulate in Jaffna on Wednesday. V. Mahalingam, the Indian Consul-General in Jaffna, hoisted the Indian national flag and read out text of the speech by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Consulate situated near Kantharmadam Junction.
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TNPF boycotts local elections protesting militarisation of electoral politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 23:09 GMT]
Abductions, killings, militarisation of civil affairs and the Sri Lankan state involving its military arm into the electoral politics, have rendered democratic participation in local elections in the Tamil homeland meaningless, said Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) in a statement issued Wednesday announcing that the front had decided to avoid participation in the local elections.
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EUSL becomes playground for Karuna politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 21:25 GMT]
Paramilitary leader and a Deputy Minister of Colombo, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, has been blamed by the students and the administration of the EUSL for intervening into the affairs of the EUSL by entering the premises escorted by Ea'raavoor Police and claiming to resolve a dispute between the students and the administration of the Arts Faculty for pursuing his politics, sources at the EUSL said. Mr. Muralitharan entered the premises on Tuesday when Art Faculty students were in discussions with the Vice Chancellor and the Faculty Dean following a protest by students over 6 months delay in announcing their examination results
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Father, son abducted in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 12:05 GMT]
A recently released man from SLA internment camp in Vavuniyaa in his early 30s and resettled with his father at Polika'ndi in Vadmaraadchi, Jaffna, has been abducted, according to human rights activists in the region. A few days after the abduction of the son, his father too was abducted by armed men who came in a white van. The family of the abducted remains silent as they had been threatened not to complain or talk to media, the sources further said.
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IFRC President to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 15:37 GMT]
The President of the International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Tadateru Konoé is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Colombo to support the much needed flood operations and to celebrate volunteerism in the island. Mr. Konoé is scheduled to travel to the north, the east and the south of the island to assess the aftermath of floods and also to witness the work of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and the IFRC, according to a statement by the IFRC.
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Court martial indicting Fonseka valid under constitution: SL Supreme Court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 14:00 GMT]
Sarath Fonseka, the former Sri Lanka Army commander, who unsuccessfully challenged SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and was later imprisoned and court-martialed, lost his appeal to retain his parliamentary seat Tuesday as Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled that the court-martial investigations were not in violation to the SL Constitution. Mr. Fonseka also lost his civic rights, including the right to vote, for six years in his country. The determination of the Supreme Court was disclosed Tuesday afternoon by the Court of Appeal headed by Justice Ranjith de Silva.
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Angry public burns cut-outs, banners of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 07:52 GMT]
Angered by the politics and by an extravagant ritual, ‘Yaakam,’ by a Tamil Nadu chaamiyaar (Hindu religious person) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, at a time when genocide and floods cause desperation, the Eezham Tamil public in Ka’luvaagnchikkudi in Batticaloa on Saturday burnt his cut-out images and banners. He went back to India the following day. Last Thursday, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar honoured the ‘social service’ of the SL president’s son Namal Rajapaksa at a function in Colombo, jointly organized by his outfit to observe the 2600-year of the birth of Buddha. On Saturday, at the ‘Mahaa Rudra Yaakam’ ritual, he honoured the paramilitary politicians S. Chandrakanthan, chief minister for the East and SL deputy minister V. Muralitharan by placing shawls on them.
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Tutorial colleges burnt down in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 07:43 GMT]
A leading tutorial college, Universal Tution Centre located near Hindu Ladies College in Jaffna was burnt down by unknown persons on Saturday, the day when the SL colonial commander in Jaffna Maj. Gen Hathurusinghe anticipated further escalation of crimes and announced that the military will start policing the district. The destruction of the two buildings of the institution causes millions of rupees loss to the owners. TNA politician P. Ainkaranesan who now actively campaigns in the local bodies elections owned the institution earlier. Meanwhile, another leading tutorial college, Science Hall in the city was also burnt down a month ago.
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HRW: Sri Lanka stonewalls on wartime abuses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 05:37 GMT]
In a press release issued today with the 649-page World Report for 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that “Sri Lanka’s aggressive rejection of accountability for war crimes is an affront to the victims’ of the country’s long civil war,” and Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director warns that “[t]here is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka will return to a rights-respecting government any time in the near future. Until wartime abuses are prosecuted, minority grievances are addressed, and repression against the press and civil society ends, only the president and his family members in power have reason to feel secure in Sri Lanka.”
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White House protest calls for arrest of visiting Sri Lanka President

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 04:49 GMT]
Nearly one hundred Tamils in unfriendly weather conditions called upon the US President to investigate and arrest the visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse widely accused of committing war-crimes against Tamils during the end of Sri Lanka's war in May 2009. Protesters pointed out that US Ambassador in Colombo, Ambassador Butenis, has herself acknowledged possible complicity by the Rajapakse brothers of the said crimes. The protest took place at the Washington D.C. Lafayette park in front of the White House along the closed Pennsylvania avenue between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday. Another group of protesters assembled in front of the US State Department located at the C Street NW in Washington D.C.
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USA opens American Corner in Jaffna, welcomes writers festival in Galle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 01:22 GMT]
The US ambassador in Colombo Patricia A Butenis on Monday opened American Corner, a US outfit in Jaffna city, to function at the premises of a local NGO, Jaffna Social Action Centre. The Deputy High Commissioner of the Indian High Commission in Jaffna, SL colonial commander in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, the Sri Lanka Government Agent in Jaffna and the mayor participated the diplomatic event that follows the opening of the Deputy High Commission of India in last November. Meanwhile, on the same day the US embassy in Colombo has also welcomed the controversial ‘Literary Festival’ in Galle and has donated money to bring students and teachers to the meet.
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Teachers Union condemns one-day pay cut in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 23:50 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) has cut one-day pay of teachers in the province from their wages for January. The chairman of Ceylon Teachers' Union, Joseph Stalin, has condemned the act as political bankruptcy of the EPC that has bypassed the regulations for such wage cut. While the people of the other provinces and the larger international community have come forward to help the flood victims, the EPC has been engaged in cutting the wages of the victims themselves in the name of flood relief, the union said.
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Forced recruitment of traders by Colombo to contest elections in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Colombo’s terror campaign and abductions in Jaffna and Vanni now aim at forced recruitment of traders to contest local bodies elections under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLFP ticket, sources in Jaffna said. In recent days, many leaders of traders associations in Jaffna were abducted by SL Army officers coming to their houses and were taken to Colombo. They were not told why were they abducted and where were they being taken. They were later released in Colombo after forcefully getting signatures from them to contest elections in Jaffna and Vanni, under the SLFP. The traders said they didn’t want to contest but were afraid of their lives. Meanwhile, R. Ankajan, SLFP coordinator in Jaffna, is ‘recruiting’ university students to campaign in the elections.
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Riot in Anuradhapura jail, several prisoners feared killed

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 15:41 GMT]
One woman prisoner had been killed and several injured in a clash between jail guards and prisoners inside the Anuradhapura prison Monday evening following a fast by a group of prisoners demanding better facilities. But unconfirmed reports reached Colombo media that several more prisoners were feared killed when jail guards opened fire against rioting prisoners to bring the tense situation under control. Tamil sources said that the fate of Tamil detainees in the prison was not known as no one was allowed to enter the prison till Monday night.
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SL Election Department rejects applications of 86 political parties for registration

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:31 GMT]
Applications of eighty six political parties seeking registration from the Department of Elections have been rejected, according to the officials of the department. The rejected political parties included the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) led by Sarath Fonseka and the Tamil National Liberation Alliance led by M.K. Sivajilingam.
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Colombo extends emergency without debate

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:25 GMT]
The SL parliament Friday evening adopted the motion to extend the state of emergency for another month by a majority of 118 votes without a debate. This was the first time in the history of Sri Lanka parliament the state of emergency was extended without a debate. The debate on the motion is to be held on February 8, according to a decision taken at the leaders of political parties represented in SL parliament.
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People turn against paramilitary groups in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:22 GMT]
Batticaloa residents have shown their anger against Karuna, Pillayan paramilitary groups by organizing demonstrations against the factions of the groups, one led by a deputy minister of Rajapaksa-government Muralitharan (Karuna) and the other by Colombo-installed chief minister S. Chandrakanthan (Pillayan). On Tuesday, an spontaneous street-demonstration condemned attacks by Pillayan group on divisional secretary and village officer attached to Ma'nmunaippattu DS office.
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War-crime past to scuttle Sri Lankan envoy's Australia post

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 17:05 GMT]
War-crime controversy over Thisara Samarasinghe, the new Sri Lanka high commissioner to Australia, is likely to derail his appointment, Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday. "Foreign Affairs - which must decide if it will accept the nomination - sees the appointment as ''problematic'' for Australia amid calls for a United Nations investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka, Herald said.
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TAG to file civil case against Rajapakse in Texas Federal Court

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 02:37 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group advocating criminal legal action worldwide against Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminals, said in a press release issued today, that TAG's attorney is filing civil action against visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for damages under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA/TVPA) on behalf of three plaintiffs for the killings of 40,000 civilians in Mullaiththeevu in 2009, killing of 5 Trincomalee students in January 2006, and for the killing of 17 Action contre la faim (ACF) workers in August 2006. As calls to apprehend, investigate and prosecute Mahinda Rajapakse by rights organizations, US Congresspersons and diaspora Tamils have escalated, European Tamil diaspora youth are mobilizing protests in front of US embassies against Rajapakse's visit to the U.S.
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Sri Lanka's commission to conclude "sittings"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 14:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the mandate of which was deliberately designed to whitewash Sri Lanka's war-crimes, and invitation to three leading premier human rights watchdogs Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and International Crisis Group (ICG) to attend LLRC's sittings was rejected due to LLRC "lacking the ability to advance accountability for war crimes," announced that the LLRC will "conclude its public sittings after the completion of sittings in the Ampara District in mid February" and would then would prepare its "final report that would be submitted to [Sri Lanka's] President Mahinda Rajapaksa in May," local media reported.
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Militarization of policing announced in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 13:33 GMT]
Mounted on bicycles, the SL military in Jaffna will be ‘patrolling’ the streets. They may not enter houses but will be engaged in street checks. They will act in the same way they were functioning during war times. The military cannot be confined to barracks, announced the colonial commander of the occupying SL military, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe in a meeting held in the district secretariat Saturday. The military has to be in alert as crimes may escalate in the wake of elections expected soon, he envisaged. Political observers in Jaffna said that the premeditated step aims to bring civil administration and civilians in Jaffna completely under the control of the occupying military. Colombo’s plan was mouthed through the Sri Lanka Government Agent (SLGA) Mrs Imelda Sugumar a few weeks ago, when she urged the Army to police Jaffna.
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Boy reported missing in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 09:34 GMT]
A 13-year-old boy from Oottuppu'lam, a hamlet situated south of Puthumu'rippu ku'lam, 5 km south-west of Ki'linochchi town, who went herding the cows of his family on Thursday has been reported missing. One of the cows was found killed, according to the villagers who went searching for the boy. The boy had lost his mother in Vanni war and was living with his uncle. At a time when young boys were being abducted by uniformed men occupying Vanni, the disappearance of the 13-year-old boy has created a fear-psychosis among the villagers of Oottuppu'lam.
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SLN blamed for murder of female teacher

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 January 2011, 12:51 GMT]
The dead body of a woman recovered earlier this week from a well at Munaippulam located near Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) base in Pungkudutheevu, an island off Jaffna, was identified Thursday as that of Uththamakumari Thurairajasingham, a teacher at Ariyaalai Anantha Viththiyaalayam, who was reported missing since 16 November 2010, more than 30 km away from the island. The body of 40-year-old teacher had cut injuries in neck, medical sources said. Her clothes, bound to a stone, were located at the bottom of the same well, where her naked body was found. The SLN base in Pungkudutheevu, the largest base for the occupying military in the islands, gained notoriety after villagers accused SLN soldiers for the gang-rape and brutal murder of 29-year-old Sarathambal, the wife of Saiva priest Saravanabavanatha Kurukkal, 10 years ago, in December 1999.
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Nobel winner pulls out of Sri Lanka book fair

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 January 2011, 12:44 GMT]
Nobel-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and fellow writer Kiran Desai have pulled out of Sri Lanka's main literary festival, Pamuk's publisher said on Friday, following appeals made by leading intellectuals that attending the festival gives "legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech," and does not in "any way push for greater freedom of expression inside" Sri Lanka, Emirates news reported. Internationally acclaimed political dissidents Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy were the leading signatories of the appeal.
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Amitabh Bachchan hurt by IIFA awards in Sri Lanka: Times of India

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 09:19 GMT]
Amitabh Bachchan’s recent exclusion from the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) was because he was hurt by the IIFA decision to hold awards last year in Sri Lanka, Times of India said Thursday. Amitabh was the founder-initiator of the IIFA. Without taking Bachchan's opinion, they not only held the event in Sri Lanka but also signed up Salman Khan to host it. These awards were Bachchan's baby, and hence he was terribly hurt, Times of India said. At the height of arrogance, establishments in strategic partnership abuse art and peoples media, but the boomerang will come when the creative world rises against those who were responsible for it, commented a Tamil writer in Colombo, who was also hurt not only by the Indian show but also by the so-called international writers meets in the island held to boost the image of the genocidal regime.
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SL military, southern traders, encourage child labour in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 07:57 GMT]
Children have become scavengers of scrap metal for their livelihood in the war ravaged Vanni and this ‘economic activity’ finds the blessings of occupying military and re-cycling metal traders coming from the south. Damaged and abandoned vehicles, fittings of un-resettled houses and other buildings, and other vestiges of war are targeted for this trade that actively deploys children to collect the metal. Such conditions of child abuse is a direct result of international community conceding a nation ‘conquered’ in a civil war to the genocidal conquerors and its military. None of those who were talking of ‘child soldiers’ earlier come forward to help the situation now, commented an NGO worker in Vanni. He made a particular note of UNICEF inaction.
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Dead body of young woman found near Pungkudutheevu military camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 07:52 GMT]
Dead body of a young woman was found in a well Tuesday in an abandoned area called Munaip-pulam, near the military camp in the island of Pungkudutheevu, off Jaffna. It was not identified until Wednesday. It is suspected that the victim was abducted from some other place and was killed. Sometimes back a local girl was raped, killed and dumped into a well near the same military camp and when people protested against suspected military personal, they were fired at by the military. This month, the occupying SL Army in Jaffna announced the take over of islands sector from the SL Navy and it is currently engaged in making Pungkudutheevu as the largest base for the occupying Army in the islands.
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Congressman renews call for international investigations into Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 04:01 GMT]
Democratic Congressman Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts during a floor speech at the House of Representatives Tuesday, called for an independent investigations into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka at the end of the 25-year old civil war. "I joined 57 of my fellow Members of Congress in urging Secretary Clinton to press for a UN investigations," the Congressman told the House, adding he is renewing his call now."
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Admitting Rajapakse into US criminally similar to allowing-in genocidaire Karadzic, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 02:30 GMT]
Comparing alleged war-criminal and Sri Lanka's current President Rajapakse's reported admission into the United States to the Clinton administration's providing entry visa to genocidaire Radovan Karadzic to enter the U.S in order to attend the Vance-Owen Peace Negotiations in New York City, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in international law at the College of Law, University of Illinois, told TamilNet that Obama administration is obligated to apprehend, investigate and prosecute alleged genocidares for violating Geneva Convention and Genocide convention. Obama administration giving Rajapakse visa to enter US and allowing him free movement is "Machiavellian Realpolitik at its worst," said Boyle.
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Chomsky, Arundhati, lead protest to writers meet in Galle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:37 GMT]
“This is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country,” said an appeal made by leading intellectuals, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka and Reporters without Borders, against writers participating the ‘Fifth Galle Literary Festival’ scheduled to take place in the southern city Galle in the island of Sri Lanka, 26 - 30 January 2011. Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy were the leading signatories of the appeal. In the great tradition of solidarity that binds writers together everywhere, the appeal urged them to send a clear message by their actions that until there is a real improvement in the climate for free expression in Sri Lanka, one cannot celebrate writing and the arts in Galle.
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Amnesty: US should investigate Rajapaksa during his visit

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:23 GMT]
The United States should investigate Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapksa, when he arrives on a surprise visit to the US this week, for his alleged role in perpetrating torture and war crimes, Amnesty International said Wednesday. President Rajapaksa left Sri Lanka for the US early Wednesday, taking a delegation of 20 on a supposedly private visit.
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Rajapaksa leaves to USA after meeting Armitage

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 15:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa Wednesday morning left Colombo to United States of America on a 'private' trip , according to Ada Derana, an electronic media that cited Bandula Jayasekara, the director general of the SL President Media. On Tuesday, Mr.Mahinda Rajapaksa held discussion with the former United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.
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Seminary student tortured in white-van, terror-campaign takes new form in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 12:35 GMT]
A 19-year-old student of Mannaar Seminary and an 18-year-old fellow student at Mannaar St. Xavier’s Boys College, were abducted by armed men who came in a white van Monday around 2:00 p.m. when the students were on their way back from the school. The students were blindfolded and severely beaten inside the vehicle. Except for a two-hour interrogation, they were kept inside the vehicle without any food or water for 30 hours. The squad tortured students were dropped off the white-van Tuesday 8:03 p.m. at Ka'l'li-kaddai-kaadu on Mannaar Medawachchiya Road. The guardian of the Mannaar Seminary, Rev. Fr. Xavier Croos and the Vicar General of Mannaar Rev. Fr. Victor Sosai, had to plead with the Sri Lanka police to get the tortured admitted to medical treatment before conducting their procedures. The entire Catholic community in Mannaar has been perturbed by the episode.
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Studies in Tamil-Japanese relationship continues

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 07:19 GMT]
Following decades-long work of the late Prof Susumu Ohno, another Japanese academic, Prof Tsutomo Kampe pursues the study on the relationship between Tamil and Japanese. “There are more than 500 Tamil words in Japanese,” he was cited saying by The Times of India Tuesday. Meanwhile, emeritus Professor of Tamil of the University of Jaffna, A. Sanmugadas and Mrs. Manonmani Sanmugadas who were working along with Ohno since 1983 have recently come out with a resource guide, Tamil-Japanese Relationship, brought out by Institute of Asian Studies in Chennai, commemorating its silver jubilee.
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Diplomats, defence chiefs hover around Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 07:05 GMT]
Former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had talks with SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa at the latter’s official residence Tuesday evening. The Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani will be in Colombo Wednesday, on a three-day visit, meeting Mr. Rajapaksa, SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the service chiefs. The Indian Air Chief Marshal, Pradeep Vasant Naik, arrived Colombo on Sunday was on a four-day visit. He also was scheduled to call on the SL president, Defence Secretary and the service chiefs.
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Batticaloa flood victims demand relief

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 02:16 GMT]
Flood affected people Tuesday morning held a demonstration blocking road traffic in Maanmunaipattu North division in Batticaloa district demanding immediate relief, sources in Batticaloa said. The refugees said they are suffering without even one meal a day due to the failure of the authorities to distribute assistance. The victims accuse Colombo for not making arrangement to supply cooked meals and dry rations through Divisional Secretariat offices in the districts that have been innundated with flood waters due to two week long torrential rains.
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Rajapaksa skips 're-reopening' of Vasaavi'laan Central College

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 01:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa skipped 're-reopening' Vasaavi'laan Central College Sunday. The plaque had his name, the invitation was in his name, but the renovated hall of Vasaavi'laan Central College was again re-opened by SL minister Douglas Devananda and SL colonial governor Chandrasiri. They were the people who re-opened it in September last year. Earlier, Mr. Rajapaksa reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction of their act of re-opening the school in a hurry as the conditions were not conducive. Only a part of the college uprooted to Urumpiraay in the last two decades has been shifted back to the locality.
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Tamil, Muslim parties cannot use UNP's symbol in local elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 02:00 GMT]
The United National Party, during a working committee meeting held on 17th January, decided to prohibit members from several Muslim and Tamil parties to contest the forthcoming local government elections under the "elephant symbol," political sources in Colombo said. "The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and several Tamil politicians contested the last general election under the UNP banner and a few months later they crossed over to the SLFP-led government,” the UNP said in a statement, explaining the reason for UNP's decision.
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UN Relief official to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 01:51 GMT]
The United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ms. Catherine Bragg, is expected to arrive in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 19 January 2011, on a 3-day mission, according to reports in Colombo. Ms Bragg will meet representatives from the Sri Lanka Government, donors, and aid agencies, and will visit flood-affected areas, as well as areas in the north, reports further said.
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Pillayan group attacks DS officer in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 01:33 GMT]
A group headed by councillor and Pillayan group paramilitary person P. Prasanth, Monday morning entered the Divisional Secretariat in Aaraiyampathi and attacked injuries to four workers of the secretariat. The same group attacked a village officer in the division on Sunday. The group was attempting to block independent local aid groups from engaging with the citizens in their 'electorate', civil sources said.
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News reports irk Rajapaksa in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 00:05 GMT]
SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa visiting Jaffna and ‘celebrating’ Pongkal on Monday reacted to media reports that pointed out his ‘conspicuous silence’ about an aid he was politically capitalising. Meanwhile, the SL president who is coupling a terror campaign with his campaign for a colonial polity, ‘celebrating’ a Tamil agrarian festival in military occupied Jaffna, spending millions of rupees and intimidating people to attend it, while the agricultural lands of the Tamil country are seriously deluged in the floods making hundreds of thousands homeless, was nauseating to the public, media sources in Jaffna said. But addressing along with Rajapaksa, the SL minister and the ‘host’ of the event, Douglas Devananda declared that “today the polity of collaboration is on its victorious march.”
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Paramilitary assaults Village Officer in Batticaloa over flood relief distribution

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 January 2011, 19:42 GMT]
The Village Officer of Aaraiyampathi S.Suresh was assaulted by a group of persons led by P. Prashanthan, a TMVP person and a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council Sunday morning in the presence of a police officer. The TMVP - Pillayan group has assaulted the Mr. Suresh while he was supervising the distribution of relief goods to flood-affected families sheltered in Ramakrishna Mission Mahaa Viththiyaalayam.
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Gunmen open fire at priest's house, wife seriously injured in Maanippaay, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 January 2011, 16:13 GMT]
Armed men who came in a motorbike opened fire on the family of a Saiva (Hindu) priest on Maanippaay Hospital Road causing serious injuries to 31-year-old Nimesha, the wife of the priest Sribalasundarakkurukka'l. Maanippaay is situated near Changkaanai, where a Chief Priest was shot and succumbed to his wounds two months ago. The shooting, which has taken place on the day when SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Jaffna to celebrate Pongkal has caused tension in the entire peninsula. Ms. Nimesha is struggling for her life at the intensive care unit of Jaffna Teaching Hospital, according to medical sources.
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Rajapaksa claims credit for British-aided causeway and bridge to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 20:00 GMT]
“The foundation for this causeway and bridge was laid down 7 times since 1940's, but it was only my government that managed to complete the project,” claimed Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in opening a causeway and bridge in the SL military-occupied Tamil country in the island, between Keara-theevu of the Jaffna peninsula and Changkup-piddi in Poonakari of the main island on Sunday. The causeway as used to be called Mahadeva Thaampoathi was first built in British times and the present bridge, doing away with the ferry route in between points of the causeway, has been built by British Steel Corporation, aiding the island. Mr. Rajapaksa made no mention of the British aid at the inauguration and the obscured British officials were found seated only among the audience.
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Colombo fails to provide resettlement assistance to N-E families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 14:59 GMT]
Majority of resettled families in the North and East have been waiting for the promised resettlement assistance from the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). According to reports compiled by the authorities concerned that not every family has received assistance as promised. Under the resettlement package each family is entitled to a cash grant Rs.5000, Bank of Ceylon grant of Rs.20,000 and agricultural implements, kitchen utensils, bags of cement roofing sheets and tarpaulin. Each family is also promised a set of non-food items.
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Moothoor hospital lacks staff, Colombo apathetic to fill vacancies

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 14:43 GMT]
Severe shortage of doctors and nurses prevail in the Moothoor Base Hospital when hundreds of thousands of people who need urgent medical attention languish in camps due to displacement following flood and rain. Colombo health ministry has ignored several requests repeatedly made by the provincial health administrators to send more doctors to provide better services flood affected families who are prone epidemic, local health authorities said.
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British Tamil businesses expand networking forum

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 01:14 GMT]
The Tamil Chamber of Commerce (TCC) in Britain held a key gathering Thursday in east London, attended by eighty local Tamil business owners, as well as local bank managers and politicians. The event, the first of a series planned by the TCC across the country, was to raise awareness of the practical benefits of Tamil enterprises working together, a spokesman said. The London Chairman of the Conservative Business Relations organisation, Paul Shea, told the gathering Prime Minister David Cameron had sent his wishes for the initiative’s success. There are five thousand Tamil-owned businesses in Britain, with a combined turnover of over £1 billion and 150,000 employees, the Chamber says.
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Floods: Batticaloa hardest hit, EU, India, US pledge aid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 January 2011, 14:45 GMT]
The European Union and the United States joined India in pledging emergency assistance following the massive flooding that has submerged large parts of Sri Lanka and displaced over a million people. The hardest hit region is the war-shattered Batticaloa district, officials said. The EU is providing $2.7m in assistance to be distributed through international aid agencies, AFP reported. India will provide $1m, including 34 tons of emergency supplies airlifted to Colombo Friday. The US is donating $300,000 for areas hardest-hit by the floods, including boats to local authorities in Batticaloa. The United Nations meanwhile, says it would make an emergency appeal in the coming days to seek millions of dollars to meet life-saving needs.
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UN ambivalent on Advisory Panel's agenda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 January 2011, 14:16 GMT]
United Nation's Secretary General (UNSG), Ban Ki Moon, told the Inner City Press that the members of the Advisory Panel on Sri Lanka "are now working very seriously on finalizing the dates of visiting Sri Lanka," and responding to a question that the panel cannot investigate anything [on Sri Lanka's war crimes], Ban replied, "[t]hey will be able to...They are now discussing that." ICP's Matthew Lee notes that "[t]his again in contradictory to what the Sri Lankan government has said, and even to what Ban's spokespeople have said. Ban's acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq, bypassing Inner City Press' outstanding questions, told BBC's Sinhala service that the Panel might only meet the LLRC outside Sri Lanka."
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10-year old drowns in flood waters in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 January 2011, 14:01 GMT]
Ten year old student Mohamed Jaufer Suhail was washed away by rising flood waters in a river in Ea'raavoor in Batticaloa district on Thursday evening, sources in Batticaloa said. Mohamed's body was found in a shrub along the bank of a river in Ea'raavoor Friday morning. Mohamed and his friends were playing close to a bridge in the area and got caught in the current of the flood water, sources said.
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SLA soldier on rape attempt attacked by Neerveali villagers

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 17:21 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army soldier who attempted to rape a young Tamil woman in Neerveali in Jaffna district in the early hours of Friday was caught and severely beaten by the villagers,who heard the woman shout. The soldier, from a camp belonging to Achchuvea'li section of the SLA, was handed over to Koappaay Police by the villagers. The police has not produced the soldier in the courts, but admitted that a soldier was heavily beaten by the villagers was taken for medical treatment.
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Five children orphaned as 'abducted' father found dead

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 12:41 GMT]
The identity of the dead body, recovered from an abandoned well at Yoakapuram in Koappaay in a highly decomposed state, was concluded as that of Mahalingam Amirtharajah, a father of five children, reported missing since January 01. Mr. Amirtharajah who was earlier living in Vanni resettled at Yoakapuram, after having lost his wife in Sri Lanka Army shelling the war, and after going through the internment camp in Cheddiku'lam. He resettled with his children at his sister's house at Yoakapuram.
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Spill water from reservoirs deluge villages in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 09:40 GMT]
With the opening of the floodgates of hundreds of reservoirs, the second largest river in the island, Aruviyaa’ru in spate has deluged many villages in the Mannaar district. Three villages in Madu division, Kugnchukku’lam, Maathaa-kiraamam and Periya-mu’rippu are completely cut off, marooning nearly 1230 villagers of 300 families. A cable-bridge, the only link of the villages with outside is completely inundated in the floodwaters. This never happened before in the last 50 years, people in Mannaar said. The new Government Agent for Mannaar arranged supplies to reach the village through a jungle track, but the crew was yet to reach the villages at the time of this report Thursday night.
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Legality of Fonseka expulsion hinges on interpretation of Article 89

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal is to announce on January 25th the constitutional interpretation from the Supreme Court whether the phrase “any court” in Article 89/d of the Constitution emcompasses within its meaning the "court marshall." The thirty months rigorous imprisonment imposed by Court Martial on former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka resulted in his expulsion from the parliament.
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SL military stops resettlement by Douglas Devananda in Ariyaalai East

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 00:23 GMT]
The much publicised resettlement effort by SL minister Douglas Devananda in the Poompukaar locality of Ariyaalai East was stopped by SL military Thursday. Hundreds of families that accompanied Mr. Douglas Devananda with much anticipation to resettle in their houses and lands from where they were uprooted 15 years ago were disappointed. Meanwhile, on resettlement in the ‘High Security Zone’ (HSZ) of Valikaamam, the SL minister told people who were uprooted for the last 20 years to observe more patience. The Sri Lanka government agent in Jaffna, Mrs. Imelda Sugumar also recently said that it could take more than ten years for the removal of land mines and re-settlement of people in the HSZ.
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Gotabhaya to 'witness' in white-flag case

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 22:06 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is to give evidence before the Trial-at-Bar of the Colombo High Court on January 25 in the white flag case. Mr. Rajapaksa is the fourth witness in this case against former commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka who has been charged for causing 'disrepute' to the Colombo government by making a statement in an interview to the English weekly, the Sunday leader.
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Further oppression expected as SL Army takes over islands off Jaffna from SL Navy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 21:23 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army occupying Jaffna will take over the islands off Jaffna from the occupying SL Navy, an Army spokesman announced in Jaffna Thursday. Since 1990s the control of the islands off the Jaffna Peninsula was vested with the occupying Navy of colonial Sri Lanka. Extensive new bases are now being built for the army next to the establishments of the SL Navy in the islands. Fear engulfs the people of the islands as the Army is insisting on fresh registration of people in addition to earlier registration of them with the SL Navy. Pungkudutheevu Island has become the new centre for the Army’s extensive establishment.
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SLN firing on fishermen: Delhi protests, Colombo denies

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 18:31 GMT]
India registered a ‘strong protest’ Thursday over the Sri Lanka Navy’s firing on Tamil Nadu fishermen, killing one, but Colombo flatly denied the accusation. Three fishermen, who put out to sea from Puthukkoaddai, came under indiscriminate fire from Sri Lankan Navy about 14 miles off the hamlet, Indian fisheries officials said. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi sent a telegraph to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reports said.
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Floods claim 14 lives in Batticaloa, 4 missing in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 12:10 GMT]
14 people have died so far in the floods in Batticaloa district according to Batticaloa District Secretariat. At least 10 persons have been reported missing in the district and 4 fishermen are missing in Ampaa'rai district. On Tuesday, a 17-year-old boy was electrocuted and a 19-year-old boy was seriously injured along Koayil Road in Onthaachchi-madam in Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi division in Batticaloa district when they touched a live electric wire lying on the ground after strong winds.
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UN: Poor accessibility restricts assistance to victims affected by floods

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 12:05 GMT]
Relief missions continue to experience constraints due to poor accessibility in flood‐affected areas, said United Nations Colombo office Thursday citing initial findings as indicating the need for non-food items and drinking water. The UN's Humanitarian Coordinator Neil Buhne in a statement issued Thursday said: “We share the strong concern over the immediate requirements of over one million affected, especially the most vulnerable including children. He added that UN will also look at the longer term effects from damage to agriculture, infrastructure and housing. Batticaloa has reported the highest number of displaced persons, 165,494 (42,295 families) housed in 275 temporary relocation centers.
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Gotabhaya-led team responsible for killings, abductions in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 00:15 GMT]
An esoteric team of military intelligence led by Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is directly involved in the killings and abductions in the North, informed circles in Colombo said, citing a high-ranking military officer. The SL military in Jaffna is informed of any such operations of this team only when it is being carried out and it is instructed to provide only logistical support to those operations whenever required, the sources further said, adding that people who are targeted by this killer squad could hardly come back alive. The said squad reportedly maintains an operational unit in Vavuniyaa near the Oamanthai check post.
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Decomposed body recovered from abandon well in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 00:13 GMT]
A dead body of a man in his early 50s was recovered Wednesday in Urumpiraay, at Yoakapuram, an agricultural village situated between Palaali Road and Raasa Veethi, behind Heroes Cemetery in Koappaay, which has now been bulldozed and transformed into a camp by the occupying Sri Lankan forces. The face has been destroyed beyond identification. Three persons have been reported missing in the recent days in the area.
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32-year-old male seeks asylum with HRC in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 11:24 GMT]
A 32-year-old man from Changkaanai, where a chief priest was killed a few weeks ago, has sought asylumn with the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Jaffna Monday and was produced in the courts through Sri Lankan Police Tuesday. The judge, witnessing the traumatic condition of the victim ordered the police to take him to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for a medical inspection and place him in the protective custody till 18th January, legal sources in Jaffna said.
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Fishermen in Ezhuvai-theevu protest against Indian poaching

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 09:49 GMT]
Fishermen in Ezhuvai-theevu island off Jaffna on Tuesday protested against poaching by Indian trawlers in their waters, heavily destroying the sea-resources and the livelihood of local fishermen. All traffic to and from the island was disturbed and the whole island was at standstill as all the residents joined the protest expressing support to the fishermen. Sri Lanka Navy officers from Kayts, who arrived at the site of protest told protestors that the SLN had no instructions to interfere in the matter as it was an issue of diplomatic relations between the Sri Lankan and the Indian states.
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Ottawa faulted for alleged political interference in Tamil asylum cases

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 03:36 GMT]
A "persuasive decision" memorandum issued by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) claiming that Tamils, particularly young males, will not be prosecuted in Sri Lanka because of their political opinions, was condemned as biased, and was questioned whether political interference from Ottawa prompted the IRB to highlight a ruling that rejected the claim of a young Tamil immigrant. The case cited in the new IRB policy involved a 25-year-old Tamil male from Sri Lanka who arrived in Canada in 2009 and not on either of the high-profile boats.
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Kuwaiti harassment forces return of Sri Lanka domestic workers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 03:07 GMT]
A total of 130 domestic workers who went to Kuwait for employment will be brought back to Sri Lanka after they complained of harassment from their employers and their situation was determined as unsafe, according to State run Sinhala daily Dinamina. The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau is facilitating the housemaids' safe return to Sri Lanka by Friday.
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146,679 Vanni people missing within a year of war: Bishop of Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 00:09 GMT]
According to records of the SL Government Agent offices of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts, the population of Vanni was 429,059 in October 2008. The total number of people who got into SL government control after the war was 282,380, according to UN update as of 10 July 2009. “Due clarification should be made regarding what happened to 146,679 people, which is the discrepancy between the number of people who came to government controlled areas between October 2008 – May 2009 and the population reported to be in Vanni in early October 2008,” said the Catholic Bishop of Mannaar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph in his submission to the LLRC Saturday. The Bishop has also raised the issues of militarization, colonisation, land grab, Sihalicization, Buddhicisation and civil as well as human rights abuses that take place in the Tamil land following the war.
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Gang disguised as policemen assault Champoor civil officer

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 13:53 GMT]
Kumaraswamy Nageswaran, President of the Association of Champoor Uprooted Tamil Families, was assaulted by a group of unidentified gang posing as police personnel on Sunday night around 11.30 p.m. at Kaddaiparichchan, a resettled village in Moothoor East, according to a complaint by his relatives at Champoor Police Station. Nageswaran sustained severe injuries in his legs, was first taken to the Moothoor base hospital and later transferred to Trincomalee general hospital Monday morning.
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Batticaloa flood relief diverted to Kudumpimalai SLA camps

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 13:46 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is reported to have appropriated the flood relief materials intended for flood affected villagers in the Batticaloa district, and has distributed the materials to soldiers in SLA camps located in Kudumpimalai, civil sources in Batticaloa said. The Deputy Resettlement Minister in the Mahinda Rajapakse government, Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan alias Karuna, claimed that he had allocated two tonnes of relief materials for the distribution among affected families in the Batticaloa. Now it has come to light that the assistance had been handed over to the Batticaloa Headquarters of the Sri Lanka Army and not to the civil authority in the district.
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Canada greets Tamils for Thaippongkal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 12:17 GMT]
On behalf of the Prime Minister of Canada, the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Mr. Jason Kenney extended warmest greetings to all those celebrating Thaip-pongkal. It is a festival that unites Tamils from all over the world. It is also an opportunity for all Canadians to recognize the tremendous contributions of the Tamil community and share in the joyous spirit of this great festival, the Canadian minister said in his message. Tamils in Canada are predominantly Eezham Tamils who continue experiencing a collective trauma of the ongoing genocide of their nation in their home country.
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‘Boycott Sri Lanka’ campaign continues in UK

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 11:21 GMT]
A public awareness campaign asking shoppers in Britain to boycott products made in Sri Lanka and sold in popular stores like Marks & Spencer continued last week with several members of the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) handing out leaflets and talking to shoppers on Oxford Street Saturday. Similar TYO events took place over the Christmas period in shopping centres in London’s suburbs, mirroring Tamil activists’ campaigns in other parts of the world, and those of other UK-based organisations like ‘Act Now’. In the midst of the January sales, central London retailers are in their busiest times of the year.
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Second ‘re-opening’ of Vasaavi’laan Central by Mahinda Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 07:35 GMT]
The extensively ruined Vasaavi’laan Central College in the SL military occupied High Security Zone of Valikaamam, Jaffna is going to be ‘re-opened’ for the second time by SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa who will be visiting Jaffna soon. The ruined buildings were already ‘re-opened’ in last September, by SL colonial governor for the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri, SL commander Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe and by SL minister Douglas Devananda. Mr. Rajapaksa, reportedly criticized the act at that time for the poor image it created, is now keen in high profile re-opening of the school for the second time to hoodwink the outside world, sources in Jaffna said.
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Tamil villages of Katpiddi Peninsula are for sales by Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 06:05 GMT]
Many traditional Tamil villages in the Katpiddi Peninsula and islets off that in the Puththa'lam district of the North West Province are for sales by Colombo establishment, ostensibly for tourism purposes under Kalpitiya Integrated Tourism Resort Project (KITRP). “There are about 11 investors who applied to invest around US$ 500 million to put up tourist resorts, golf courses, marinas, etc in this zone which was defined as a tourist zone by the Sri Lanka Tourism Authority, but the government is not happy with the bids which have mainly come from Indian parties,” Sunday Times reported. The presence of Chinese is overwhelming in the Katpiddi Peninsula along with construction of Nuraichchoalai power plant, local residents said.
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1,232,000 acre crops destroyed in Batticaloa flood

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 05:22 GMT]
In Batticaloa district alone 1,32,000 acres of paddy and subsidiary crops have been completely destroyed due to the torrential rain now being experienced in the eastern province, according to the latest figures issued by the Regional Disaster Management Centre . Meanwhile Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) member R.Thurairatnam, in a memorandum sent to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has requested that farmers in the district who have incurred heavy loss including their capital due to the flood should be paid full compensation by the government.
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TNA to contest local elections, TPPF politically divided

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 05:14 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has decided to contest all the local government institutions in the North and Eastern provinces in the forthcoming election. Some of the political parties affiliated to the recently formed Tamil Political Parties Forum (TPPF) have reportedly expressed their willingness to contest the forthcoming local election under the TNA banner, informed sources said. The official TNA stand is to contest alone. Meanwhile, the TNA is increasingly under pressure to put forward a document on political solution as absolute ‘minimum’ from both New Delhi and Colombo establishments, informed sources said.
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TNA parliamentarian rescued from being drowned in Batticaloa flood

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 13:16 GMT]
Pakkiaselvam Ariyanethran, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian of Batticaloa district narrowly escaped from being washed away by flood water Sunday evening when he was returning via Ka'luvaagnchikkudi- Paddiruppu Bridge after inspecting the flood situation in Paduvaankarai area.
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Five of six Mannaar abductees released, Colombo involvement exposed

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 08:40 GMT]
Five of six civilians abducted from Mannaar on Thursday, including Jazeel Jaharil whose abduction created confrontation between the abductors and his relatives exposing the squads link with Sri Lankan military, returned Friday evening from Colombo and were handed over to their relatives Saturday early morning by the Sri Lankan Police. Earlier reports said 4 persons were abducted on Thursday. But, according to latest information 6 persons were abducted that day. No information is available about the other person, Mr. Sasi, who is also reported missing on Thursday.
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Colombo hurriedly appoints Sinhala civil officials to North

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 06:45 GMT]
Colombo establishment is hurriedly attempting to appoint Sinhala officials in higher posts of the civil administration in the North in recent days, civil sources in Jaffna said. Sinhala officials are being appointed to top level civil services posts of local civil administration, the civil sources further said. Meanwhile, among 135 new recruits to Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) recently, there is not even one Tamil and there was only one Muslim. SL Secretary to Public Administration gave an explanation that none of the Tamil medium candidates could score enough marks in the examination evaluated by Tamil academics, implying that standard of education among war-torn Tamils became poor. But Colombo has no explanation why it was poor even among Up-Country Tamils, Colombo Tamils and Muslims, in not being able to bring out administrators.
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LTTE former commander Yaan's wife witnesses on SLA war crime

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 06:39 GMT]
Bearing witness in front of Mahinda Rajapaksa's Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Maanthai West in Mannaar on Sunday, Mrs R. Mironio, the wife of LTTE's former Mannaar commander Antony Rayappu alias Yaan, said she has not heared from her husband or not told of the whereabouts of him after he surrendered in front of her in SLA controlled territory in Mullaiththeevu on 18 May 2009. The surrender was facilitated by facilitated by Catholic Priest Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph, she said. The priest was also taken with her husband, but noone have heared about them, she said.
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SLA commanders target women in North for garments industry in South

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 04:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army commanders in North have been campaigning among the rural populations in the North that they were offering employment to Tamil women in the garments industry in the South. Women's Development Centre, Jaffna, and gender equality groups such as Paalnilai Chamaththuva Amaippu have urged residents in the North to be aware that such offers targeting women are being made without any guarantees of transparency or contracts, sources in Jaffna said.
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Trincomalee, Batticaloa flooded

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 03:39 GMT]
Heavy rain fall since Saturday night has brought the normal life in the three districts of East, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampaarai, to standstill and almost all the villages including DS offices are under water. According to latest figures, in Batticaloa district alone 421,851 persons from 112,039 families have been affected. The two districts, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, were experiencing heavy rain with strong winds till Sunday evening amid fears that it might develop as a cyclone. Several thousand villagers including uprooted and sheltered in transit camps in Trincomalee district awaiting resettlement in Champoor in Moothoor East are again displaced and sought refuge at various places and desperation prevails in many divisions of the Eastern Province.
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Orphaned elephants to be sent to Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 03:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Wild Life Department has proposed to release several orphaned elephants now kept in the Uda Walawe Elephant Transit Camp to the new wild life sanctuary located in Mullaiththeevu jungle, according to a news report by the Daily News, a state-run English daily newspaper.
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Heavy rains in East, 600,000 affected

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 03:28 GMT]
The three districts of Eastern Province, Batticaloa, Ampaa'rai and Trincomalee, have been experiencing heavy rains beginning from the second week of December last year and about six hundred thousand members of 160,000 families have been affected, according to officials attached to the Disaster Management Ministry (DMM). In Batticaloa district alone 360,000 persons have been affected. Batticaloa District Secretary has appealed to the DMM hierarchy to take immediate steps to provide dry rations to all affected people whether they are displaced or not as their livelihood had been affected due to inclement weather.
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Family man reported missing in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 01:46 GMT]
A 52-year-old man from Urumpiraay in Valikaamam, Jaffna, has been reported missing since Friday. Meanwhile, human rights activists in Jaffna express fear that there were similar abductions have not been registered by the media as the Sri Lankan police authorities systematically suppress information reaching media on complaints of abductions and disappearances. The ‘effective’ subjugation of Tamils by the militarised Sri Lankan civil administration has silenced the community, from reporting information that could reach human rights activists or journalists as the public fears repercussions from the ‘white-van’ squad.
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South Sudanese vote on independence

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2011, 13:17 GMT]
Huge numbers of South Sudanese have begun voting Sunday in a week-long referendum on independence from the northern Arab-dominated state. They are widely expected to back independence. Just under million voters have been registered for the election, which is part of the 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war. 60,000 expatriate South Sudanese are also able to vote, including the Diaspora in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For the UN Security Council-backed referendum to pass, 60% of those registered need to vote plus majority of ballots. Notably agreements on the demarcation of a north-south border and the distribution of oil revenue are to be decided after the election.
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Eyewash LLRC makes even the commission members to doze off

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2011, 03:55 GMT]
LLRC commission members, tired and perhaps sleepless over their own pretentious exercises, were seen dozing off during the session in Mannaar Saturday, when more than 500 gathered to give evidence and many more could not attend due to lack of space in the hall. People were waiting from 8.30 in the morning, the announced time for the session, but the commission members came only at 10.30. The hearing was over by 2.00 PM for the three AGA divisions of Musali, Naanaaddaan and Mannaar Town. 8 witnesses gave evidence and 250 remaining were asked to give their submissions in writing. Meanwhile, representative of Mannaar Tamil Association, V. S. Sivakaran, while giving evidence said that people have lost faith and are suspicious of exercises like LLRC that do not go hand in hand with political initiatives, but on the contrary coupled with more oppression.
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Kosovo Ex-Army commanders charged of War Crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 21:46 GMT]
European Union (EU) prosecutors have charged former Kosovo Army Commanders, Sabit Geci, 52, and Riza Alija, 50, of "war crimes against civilian population" committed in two camps in Albania towards the end of Kosovo war, according to the indictment. The two were charged with committing war crimes on Kosavars fleeing the war and who were suspected of collaborating with Serbia or having political views different from the Kosavar Army. The prosecuters belong to the 3000-member EU Rule of Law (EULEX) mission which was launched in December 2008 to enforce the rule of law in the newly declared Kosovo and to supervise Kosovo's police, customs, and judiciary.
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Colombo attempts to divert attention from increasing lawlessness in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 18:00 GMT]
Colombo is campaigning to portray the continually escalating incidents of civilian murders, disappearance and robberies as being the result of individual enmities and family squabbles among the local population, civil sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Neville Padmadeva, speaking at a conference to explore the reasons for the increasing crimes, held in Jaffna’s Veerasingham Hall Friday, in the presence of NGOs, journalists and civil society members, advanced this view, according to attendees. Colombo is keen to divert the attention of the media and the international community from focusing on Sri Lanka Security forces saturating Jaffna district, and Colombo’s tacit sanction to Jaffna-deployed Sri Lanka soldiers and collaborating paramilitaries to create fear among the public to suppress dissent, civil sources in Jaffna said.
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NorthEast Local Election circulars printed in Sinhala only

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 13:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Government has issued circulars and directives for the forthcoming local council elections printed in Sinhala only, sources in Jaffna said. Election officials in the NorthEast are undergoing enormous difficulties in interpreting the directions and procedures to conduct the elections. Civil society sources said that Colombo appears to be imposing Sinhala only policy especially following the recent controversy after forcing the Jaffna Tamil school students to sing the Sri Lankan national anthem in Sinhala.
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Tamil student reported missing in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 13:30 GMT]
Jeyaseelan Jegan, 15, a student at the Thampiluvil Maththiya Maha Viththiyaalayam and residing in Kaayaththiri village in Vinaayakapuram division with his parents, has been reported missing since January 2, according to complaints lodged with the Thirukkoayil Police in Ampaa'rai district by his relatives.
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JDS condemns silence of Colombo media over terror campaign in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2011, 08:27 GMT]
Detailing the recent killings, abductions and other atrocities in the SL military occupied North, the Journalists For Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an exiled organisation of journalists, on Friday condemned the silence of Sinhala and English media in Colombo over the terror campaign. Instead, these media highlight only the explanations from the side of the SL government, the report said. The JDS statement exposed the latest twist of portrayal of the situation by SL media minister and government spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella, who wanted to pass the blame on "elements seeking tarnish the image of Colombo government internationally". The JDS statement, with details of earlier unreported crimes, noted that human rights violations not being exposed is high in Vanni as journalists and aid workers were barred from entering Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts.
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JVP abandons Fonseka?

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2011, 13:43 GMT]
SriLanka's election department today announced that the nominations for the dissolved 308 local government bodies will be called from January 20th to 27th, 2011. Meanwhile, local newspapers said that the Democratic National Alliance party led by jailed former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, will not contest the forthcoming local government elections.
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Sudden transfer of Vanni GAs, political motivation of SL minister alleged

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2011, 03:59 GMT]
Mannaar Government Agent A. Nicholas Pillai has been suddenly released of his duties and has been transferred to ministry work in Colombo. The Mullaiththeevu Government Agent Nagalingam Vethanayagam is expected to take over Mannaar. A project director in Mannaar District Secretariat, A. Pathinathar will be taking over as government agent of Mullaiththeevu district, informed sources in Mannaar DS said.
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EPDP, SLA, confuse public, lottery-fraud arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2011, 03:31 GMT]
An alleged EPDP member from Vavuniyaa faced the brunt of public anger in Jaffna as he was said to be moving in suspicious ways and was selling fake lottery tickets in Martin Road, Jaffna on Thursday. SL Police, on information from public, arrested him. He is said to have confessed his membership with the EPDP. There was no response from the side of the EPDP. Meanwhile, EPDP leader and SL minister Douglas Devananda in the SL parliament on Tuesday said that he didn’t want to embarrass the SL government internationally by raising the plight of the fear-engulfed people in Jaffna. In the meantime, the public in Jaffna senses EPDP and SLA indirectly passing blame on each other over the systematic infliction of terror by manipulative forces controlling the both.
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Abductions shock Mannaar, relatives of victim confront white van

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 19:22 GMT]
Sinhala-speaking armed men in white-van rushed through Mannaar abducting four males, one of them a Muslim youth, Jaharil Jazeel. The episode resulted in a confrontation between the relatives of Mr. Jazeel and the abductors, exposing the level of top-hierarchy involvement of Sri Lankan defense authorities in the chain of abductions. Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Army and Police guarding the Mannaar Bridge withdrew their security, allowing the abductors to proceed southwards after seeing a piece of paper produced by the men right in front of the victim’s relatives, who were chasing the white van in four three-wheelers. The armed men, confronted by Jazeel’s relatives opted to take away the mother of Jazeel in their vehicle only to force her off their vehicle at gunpoint at Vangkaalai Junction after crossing the Mannaar bridge on their way to South along Mannaar – Medawachiya Road.
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Indian coast guard says deterring Sri Lankan attacks

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 17:05 GMT]
The Indian Coast Guard is taking steps to protect Indian fishermen from the attacks by the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN), outgoing Inspector General of the Eastern Region A. Rajasekhar told IANS last week. Speaking on Dec 29, the day after twenty Tamil Nadu fishermen were assaulted mid-sea by the SLN, he claimed the number of attacks on Indian fishermen were declining due to the Coast Guard’s vigilance. The Coast Guard has ordered twelve hovercraft to expand its capacity, he told IANS. The twenty fishermen were attacked in mid-sea off Dhanushkodi village, PTI quoted fisheries officials as saying in Rameswaram last Tuesday.
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Assault on Tamil media personnel continues in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 16:55 GMT]
Attacks on media persons in Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai districts by armed groups and politicians associated with Colombo is on the increase. On Wednesday, P.M.M.A.Cader, a media person working for several years in the Ampaa'rai district, was severely assaulted on Wednesday by a councillor of the Kalmunai Municipal Council when the journalist was on his way to Maruthamunai to collect information about displaced persons due to the recent floods. Mr. Cader has been warded in Maruthamunai base hospital.
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Colombo extends Emergency for another month

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 16:52 GMT]
The Sri Lanka’s parliament Wednesday evening adopted, as usual, a motion to extend the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of one hundred and eleven votes. One hundred and thirty four members of the ruling United Peoples National Alliance (UPFA) and its constituents voted for the motion.
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Muthaliph Farook sworn in as new MP of Vanni district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 11:45 GMT]
Attorney-at-Law Muthaliph Farook from Mannaar Wednesday afternoon took oaths as the new parliamentarian of the Vanni electoral district filling the vacancy created with the sudden demise of Noordeen Mashoor. The Speaker Chamal Rajapakse in parliament administered oaths and allegiance to the new MP who is from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), sources said.
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330 local authorities dissolved, local elections under PR system

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 11:44 GMT]
330 local authorities- Municipal Councils (MC), Urban Councils (UC) and Predesiya Saba (PS) in the twenty five districts in the island are to be dissolved with effect from Thursday midnight by a special gazette notification and the election is to be held on one day in mid March under the current Proportional Representation (PR) system, Sri Lankan election department sources said.
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Tamil jewellery shop in Colombo burgled

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 10:47 GMT]
A jewellery shop located close to a police station along busy Galle Road in Wellawatte was burgled by a gang of unidentified persons Tuesday morning. The owner of the jewelry shop is a Tamil person. Initial investigations revealed that the value of the jewellery robbed could be estimated to the tune of several hundred thousands of rupees, Police said. The Tamil business community in the Wellawatte area is highly perturbed over the day time robbery carried out by a gang in a busy area watched by recently installed detective cameras by the Sri Lankan defense ministry.
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Father of five reported missing in Koappaay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 03:31 GMT]
Mahalingam Amirtharajah, a father of five, has been reported missing since January 1, according to a complaint lodged by his sister with the Jaffna regional secretariat of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) and the Koappaay Police. Amalaraj left for home after meeting his friends in a public place around 10:00 p.m. on January 1st, but failed to reach home. Amirtharajah's relatives fear that he was abducted while he was returning, according to the complaint.
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Sri Lanka's attempt at illegal arms deal with Iran, N.Korea exposed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 02:08 GMT]
A classified State Department cable dated May 1st, 2009, released by WikiLeaks and posted in Norwegian daily Aftenposten, revealed that Sri Lanka's alleged attempts to negotiate arms deal with Iranian Government and North Korean Government violated U.S's Iran Non-proliferation Act of 2000 (INKSNA), and the United Nation's Security Council Resolution 1718 (UNSCR 1718). Lanka Logistics, a Sri Lanka Government owned firm was named in the classified document as the Sri Lanka party involved in the illegal arms deal. Gotabaya Rajapakse, brother of Sri Lanka's President, held the post of chairman of the firm and exercised complete control over arms purchases, according to Colombo media reports.
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SL judiciary, Police in Jaffna respond to stand of GA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 01:26 GMT]
The High Court Judge and judicial district judges of Jaffna convened a meeting of police officials in the Jaffna district Tuesday at the High Court premises to discuss the escalating killings, abductions, robberies and threats by armed squads. The details of the discussions would be revealed to the media in due course, officials said. The judiciary tightening its control over law and order situation is widely expected. On Monday, the SL government agent in Jaffna, Mrs Imelda Sugumar, accused the police for inaction and corruption and preferred further induction of occupying SL military in policing. However, the judges decided to discuss matters with the police. The police will convene a public meeting at Veerasingham Hall in Jaffna, Friday, seeking public opinion.
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Send all party delegation to Jaffna to assess situation, says UNP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2011, 13:54 GMT]
Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Tuesday made an appeal to the Speaker of the Sri Lanka Parliament to take immediate steps to send an all party delegation to the Northern Province to assess the ground situation amid complaints by that people in Jaffna live in fear psychosis due to the rise in abduction, killing extortion by armed gangs. EPDP, one of the Para military groups supporting the government state security machinery, has been accused of encouraging abduction, killing and extortion in Jaffna by civic groups. A recent disclosure of confidential note by a US ambassador revealed that the paramilitaries operate with impunity for criminal acts sanctioned by highest level officials in Colombo.
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Anti-genocide eye in Sudan’s sky

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2011, 13:52 GMT]
An organization founded by leading Hollywood figures is teaming up with Google, the United Nations and other anti-genocide organizations to launch satellite surveillance of the border between north and south Sudan. Not On Our Watch will fund the start-up phase of the ‘Satellite Sentinel Project’, which will collect real-time satellite imagery and combine it with field analysis from the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, publishing reports online. “We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching,” George Clooney, co-founder of Not On Our Watch, said in a statement.
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46 local council members to be chosen in Mannar elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2011, 03:02 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is to contest all the five local authorities in the Mannaar electoral district in the forthcoming election, according to Vanni district TNA parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan. Elections to local authorities are to be held after a lapse of thirty five years in the district to elect 46 members to an Urban Council and the four Pradeshya Sabas in the district.
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Imelda accuses police, prefers military

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 18:49 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police has failed in its duty to arrest killings, abductions and anti-social activities in Jaffna, Imelda Sugumar, the Sri Lankan government agent in Jaffna accused on Monday. In a press meeting at her office, she briefed the journalists about her preference to induct the occupying SL military to police the situation further in Jaffna. The police are corrupt and no ‘development’ work is possible in the district under the current circumstances, she claimed. Two weeks ago, while meeting a section of Tamil politicians, the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa was also vocal about his preference to the military than the police in running the affairs of the Tamil land. He said this in reply to the visiting politicians when they expressed concern about SL military cantonments in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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CaFFE against holding local elections under PR system

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 13:17 GMT]
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) has requested all political parties, including the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) to pass the Local Authorities Elections Amendment Bill and hold the coming elections using First Past the Post system. The Local Authorities Elections Amendment Bill is to be presented in parliament when it is scheduled to meet on Tuesday (January 4). However the Sri Lanka government is reported to have decided not to pass the amendment bill till the forthcoming local authorities’ elections that is scheduled to be held in March, is over.
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SL Chief Justice offers resignation, Colombo media largely silent

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 12:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s chief justice Ashoka de Silva handed in his resignation after an altercation with SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa over endorsing a court martial decision about the former SL military commander Sarath Fonseka. When the chief justice declined such endorsement from the judiciary, saying that the case was biased, the president reportedly shouted at him, came out with threatening words and walked out. The SL chief justice sent in his resignation a few hours later. A shocked Rajapaksa didn’t accept the resignation but wanted the CJ to reconsider his decision. Oppressed media in Colombo was reluctant to give wide coverage to the happening.
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Auto driver reported missing in Urumpiraay, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 17:12 GMT]
A 27-year-old auto driver, Sobinathan Gopinath, has been reported missing since 7:30 p.m. on New Year Day in Urumpiraay area, where Deputy Director of Education was killed and a teacher abducted in recent days.
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Flood affected in Moothoor East deprived of relief: Former MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 11:50 GMT]
All affected families whether they are displaced or not in Moothoor East resettled villages due to the torrential rain now being experienced in the Trincomalee district should be provided with relief and compensation, according to a request by K.Thurairatnasingham, former member of parliament, to the Government Agent and the Divisional Secretariat concerned.
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Palestinians begin building international support for UDI

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 10:40 GMT]
Frustrated by impasse in talks with Israel on a two-state solution, Palestinians have begun canvassing international support for a unilateral declaration of independence of the Gaza and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the BBC reports. In recent weeks Brazil and its neighbours, Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador, have all officially recognised Palestine as an independent state within these 1967 borders. Uruguay says it will do the same in 2011 and Palestinian officials suggest at least another two countries are lined up to follow suit. The United States is opposing the Palestinians approach, saying it is premature, but their efforts have been more successful with the EU.
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Fifth Anniversary of Trincomalee Students execution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 01:18 GMT]
As relatives of the five Trincomalee students, who were shot dead execution style by Sri Lanka soldiers on January 2nd 2006, prepare to remember the fifth anniversary and mourn the death of their children, Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan, the father of Ragihar, one of the students killed, appealed to international rights groups including the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate the crime and to provide justice to his lost son and his friends who were killed. Information, recently made public, from the US embassy in Colombo, which has highlighted that ruling Rajapakse family sanctioned extra-judicial killings in the NorthEast, adds further obligation to international human rights watchdogs to take steps to advocate independent international investigations into war crimes.
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Mobile phone saves 30 abductees in Vanni from being taken to South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 22:34 GMT]
A 20-year-old student, Gajeevan Puvanendran, who was being abducted by men in green uniform in a vehicle Saturday morning around 5:30 in Ki'linochchi, alerted his parents and relatives through SMS and phone conversation that he was being taken away on A9 highway towards South. Later, Mr. Gajeevan was saved with around 4 others in Vavuniyaa. The Sri Lankan Police has not revealed the details of the abductors or other abductees. Informed sources close to the police in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet that a squad operated by Sri Lankan military was taking away the abductees to South. However, latest information from Vavuniyaa from reliable sources said there were around 30 young boys and at least one of them was taken by an intelligence squad.
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New Vanni parliamentarian to be sworn

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 16:03 GMT]
Attorney-at-Law Muthaliph Farook of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) is to be sworn in as the new parliamentarian for the Vanni electoral district in the Northern Province on January 5. He polled second highest preferential votes in the last general election held on April 8, 2010.
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Killed Tamil youth of postal department was an environmentalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 00:30 GMT]
Ketheeswaran Thevarajah, who was working in a post office in Vadamaraadchi and was killed Friday night was an environmentalist, who was protesting to scooping of sand in Vadamaraadchi that was causing environmental damages. Sometimes back, he was dispatching photographs through Facebook, showing environmental damage caused by sand-scooping in his locality. A feedback on his contribution to environmental protection has been sent to TamilNet by a reader who is a relative of him and who has seen the news of his assassination. Media sources in Jaffna confirmed that Mr. Ketheeswaran has been actively engaged in the protests against sand excavation and was instrumental in the protests held in Kudaththanai. He has also provided in-depth reports to local media on the environmental damage inflicted on his village.
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