Armed robberies escalate in SLA-deployed areas of North

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Night robberies are on the increase in Sri Lanka Army deployed areas of the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni after the ‘grease devil’ episodes, civil sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Thursday. On Tuesday night, a group of armed men entered the house of 60-year-old Ponnaiah Balasingam and attacked him and his 24-year-old son Dinesh Balasingam, at Thirvaiyaa'ru in Ki'linochchi district. The attackers later robbed the house. The occupying Sri Lanka Army was heavily deployed in the area while the attack and the robbery were taking place. Meanwhile, medical staff at Jaffna hospital staged a one-hour token strike Wednesday against the recent attack on two doctors of the hospital at their residence in Kokkuvil. Normalcy remains disturbed in Jaffna as armed robberies were escalating in areas with heavy SLA presence.
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UK Appeal Court stays deportation order of Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2011, 03:54 GMT]
An unknown number of Tamils, rumoured to be close to 50, who were to have been on today’s flight and who had appealed for judicial review of their cases have had their High Court removal orders overturned in the Court of Appeal Wednesday, Channel-4 reported. An appeal court judge had overturned one Tamil woman’s removal orders on the grounds that the UK Border Agency had breached British and European law by disclosing potentially sensitive information on the individual to the Sri Lankan authorities, thus placing her at greater risk upon her return, the report added. However, Friday's edition of a Sri Lanka daily said that 50 deported asylum seekers arrived from UK. The true facts behind the conflicting stories is expected to emerge during the day.
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Canada responsible for Tamils becoming refugees: NDP parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 20:38 GMT]
“The Government of Canada refused to act, refused to speak out, refused to demand an end to the atrocities. Canadians of Tamil descent came by the thousands to Ottawa to beg their country, to beg their Prime Minister to do something, to say something in the desperate hope that the slaughter of their families would end. The Prime Minister did nothing. Therefore, in fact, the government helped to create the refugees it denied in 2009 and 2010,” said New Democratic Party MP Irene Mathyssen, speaking on new refugee laws in the Canadian Parliament on last Friday. While the Conservative government of Canada was enacting a draconian law that would affect Eezham Tamils, the decision of the Conservative government in the UK for bulk deportation of Tamil asylum seekers shows orchestrated move of the Establishments across the world without solutions to a situation designed by them.
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Maldives President thinks Sunanda Deshapriya a Tamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 16:22 GMT]
Responding to SL government-backing media allegations against exiled, Sinhala media rights activist Mr Sunanda Deshapriya at Geneva, involving the name of the President of Maldives, the President’s Office of the Republic of Maldives came out with a press release on Tuesday that sounded as though the President of Maldives had thought Mr Deshapriya a Tamil.
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HRW to screen Channel 4 documentary at Parliament Hill, Canada

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 00:43 GMT]
Human Rights Watch in Toronto, Canada, is screening “Sri Lanka's Killing Fields”, the Channel 4 documentary in Ottawa on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, the HRW said in an invitation to the press. The event will be hosted by Patrick Brown, Member of Parliament for Barrie and will include a discussion with Elaine Pearson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. The film was recently screened to wide acclaim at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and has fuelled renewed calls for an international response to these crimes, according to the HRW.
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UK plans bulk deportation of Eezham Tamil asylum seekers

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2011, 11:44 GMT]
UK has taken a decision to deport more than 100 Eezham Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on 28 of this month. The Home Ministry of UK has taken this decision as a test case to declare Sri Lanka a country free from human rights violations, said Eezham Tamil diaspora activists protesting the deportation in a meeting convened by Tamil Lawyers Association at Ealing Amman Temple in London on Sunday. Meanwhile, just last Tuesday, delivering a judgement and stopping the deportation of an Eezham Tamil refugee in India, judge Arul Varma said in New Delhi, “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors.” The Indian judge was worrying about the lack of proper refugee laws in India, but UK has striped the rights of its courts to intervene in such matters, the UK lawyers commented.
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Resettled people struggle for survival in Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2011, 06:51 GMT]
Resettled uprooted people in villages in Paduvaankarai region in Batticaloa district have started moving out to urban areas as they are not provided with basic and livelihood facilities, according to civil sources in Paduvaankarai. The people of Paduvaankarai were driven out from their houses following the military offensive by the Sri Lanka Army in 2006-2007. After the resettlement they once again lost everything they possessed in two floods, one in December in 2010 and the second in 2011 January-February.
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Tamils protest outside Rajapakse's UN address

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 07:13 GMT]
Nearly one thousand Tamils protested outside the United Nations Friday between 10 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. while Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse was addressing the UN's General Assembly. Protesters held placards criticizing UN's inaction on Sri Lanka, and took the 'Pongku Thamizh' oath promising to continue to non-violent struggle until Tamils' inalienable rights are recognized in a political settlement based on Tamils right to self-determination, attendees to the event said. Several protesters crossed the Canadian border to be present at the rally held amid tight security on the 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue.
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Torture case filed against Sri Lanka's ex-General Shavendra Silva

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2011, 00:50 GMT]
American University Washington College of Law's Human Rights Clinic in a press release issued today said that it has filed civil action at the District Court of New York Southern District (SDNY), on behalf of two Tamil plaintiffs against Sri Lanka's ex-Army General and currently Sri Lanka's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Shavendra Silva, on charges of torture and wrongful death. The civil action under the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) called for declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages for torts in violation of international and domestic law.
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Tamil name boards removed along Batticaloa - Kalmunai Road

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 September 2011, 18:47 GMT]
Tamil name boards put up by the Batticaloa Municipal Council along the border of Kaaththaakudi have been removed allegedly by the Sri Lankan police, which is engineering dissension between Tamils and Muslims, informed sources in Kaaththaakudi said. The welcome board “Va'nakkam, Batticaloa welcomes you” in Tamil has been removed and the Sri Lankan police was spreading a ‘rumour’ that certain Muslim leaders, including the Batticaloa Urban Council chairman considered “Va'nakkam” in Tamil as harem.
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British diplomat visits Mannaar, meets Bishop

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 September 2011, 18:42 GMT]
Fishing ban is still in force in Mannaar district while the uprooted people are still waiting for resettlement, according to representations made by residents to the visiting Deputy High Commissioner of United Kingdom Robbie Bulloch. The British diplomat paid a visit to Mannaar on Wednesday and held discussion with the Bishop of Mannaar Diocese Rt.Rev.Rayappu Joseph and Rev.Fr.Victor Soosai. The discussion was held at Mannaar Bishop’s House.
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Jagath Dias faces arrest in Europe

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 13:20 GMT]
Swiss Federal Prosecutor has announced the initiation of a formal criminal investigation against Jagath Dias, in case of his return to the country, according to European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) Thursday. The ECCHR also said that the allegations of crimes under international law during the war in the island of Sri Lanka are already under preliminary investigation in Germany.
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Indian court stops deportation of an Eezham Tamil

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 10:48 GMT]
A magistrate court in Delhi on Tuesday rejected the plea of the Indian government to deport an Eezham Tamil to Sri Lanka as a part of punishment. “Handing over a refugee to Sri Lanka where he fears persecution will make us nothing short of abettors,” observed Arul Varma, the judge of the Metropolitan Magistrate Court, in a case filed against Chandra Kumar, who has been living in a refugee camp at Thiruva’l’loor for 20 years but got caught recently by immigration while attempting to leave for Italy seeking better life. He was charged with cheating, forgery, impersonation and other offences. The public prosecutor on instructions from the government sought deportation as part of the order on sentence. Besides rejecting deportation, the judge released Chandra Kumar saying that the six months he had already spent in prison was enough punishment.
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US Ambassador endorsed archbishop's plea for Rajapaksa impunity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 05:20 GMT]
A WikiLeaks file dated 2 Oct 2009, classified confidential by the US Ambassador in Colombo Patricia Butenis, shows that the Sinhala Catholic Archbishop in Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith certified Rajapaksa as personally a ‘good man’ and argued in favour of not pressing him on war crimes accountability for it would make him lose grounds to much more extreme elements. The US Ambassador in her cable endorsed the view of the Archbishop on war crimes accountability. Recently the US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake came out with the same view while briefing Tamil groups in the US. It is a long-felt aspiration among the Eezham Tamil Catholics that Vatican should provide them with a separate Archdiocese, as Sinhala Archbishops sitting in Colombo never addressed their sufferings from their point of view. States in India have their own Archdioceses.
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Colombo accused of "buying" influence in UN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 03:15 GMT]
Screening of Sri Lanka's rebuttal to widely circulated Channel-4 video that raised accusations of war-crimes by Sri Lanka, was allowed inside the United Nations auditorium by an official who was an ex-landlord of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona, Inner City Press, an independent news agency that covers United Nations, reported. ICP disclosed that Giampaolo Pioli, President of the UN Correspondents' Association, had "collected money as rent from Kohona for years," the ICP report said.
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Australian Senator calls for suspension of Sri Lanka from CHOGM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 01:38 GMT]
In a roundtable discussion led by Australia's Green Party Senator from New South Wales, Lee Rhiannon, the party passed a resolution calling upon the Australian government to suspend Sri Lanka from the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Perth next month and to Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth because it is resisting setting up a tribunal to investigate war crimes.. The Green Party accused Sri Lanka for refusing to hold an independent international investigation into the alleged war crimes committed during the final stages of the civil war in 2009 and for breaching the commitment to the Commonwealth's values and principles.
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Colombo schemes Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa with foreign funding: Ariyanethran MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 September 2011, 20:10 GMT]
“Traditional Tamil villages in the North and East are being renamed in Sinhala and streets are named ‘Mawathas’ in Sinhala. When we were students, we learnt that Kantha'laay Tank was built by Tamil King Ku'lak-koaddan. But, today, our children have Tamil text books supplied by the Colombo government saying that Kantha'laay had been built by King Agbo, P.Ariyanethran, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian said while addressing the annual festival of Kokkaddich-choalai thaan-thoan'ri Easvarar koayil in Paduvaankarai on Saturday.
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Rajapakse has no immunity against war crimes prosecution, says Attorney

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 10:15 GMT]
Attorney for the three Tamil plaintiffs, who filed a civil case in the District Court of District of Columbia against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse as responsible for extra-judicial killings of plaintiffs' relatives, said Monday that he will be filing a motion in the Court that will (a) seek authority from the court to serve complaint by publication, (b) argue that sitting head of state has no immunity against war-crimes, and (c) the court has personal jurisdiction over Rajapakse. The case (Civil Action No. 11-235(CKK)) where the plaintiffs seek civil damages of $30m, was filed in January of this year. Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's diplomatic mission in the U.S., and Sri Lanka Department of Justice refused to accept the service.
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Sri Lanka cancels landing visa for 78 countries

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 12:25 GMT]
Based on ‘security considerations’ Sri Lanka cancels landing visa facility to 78 countries. Visitors form these countries could make online applications from September 28 onwards for Colombo to process visas, Daily Mirror reported Monday, citing a SL Immigration Department official. The 78 countries are yet to be named and getting online visa prior to arrival will be mandatory from 01 January 2012. Through the process genocidal Colombo aims to differentiate, screen and deny visa to diaspora Eezham Tamils having foreign passports, said diaspora political circles adding that this is another intimidation tactic. As property rights and even visiting rights of Eezham Tamils are targeted in subtle ways, only jokers can deny that there is no structural genocide in the island, diaspora circles further said.
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EPC acts as agent of Colombo in harassing Champoor Tamils: Thurairatnam

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 05:54 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) led by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan in the capacity of its chief minister has been assisting the Colombo government in harassing uprooted Eezham Tamils of Champoor now being held in so-called temporary welfare centres in Ki'liveddi, Ma'natcheanai, Mallikaith-theevu and Kaddai-pa'richchaan, alleged Mr.R.Thurairatnam, an opposition EPC councillor. He appealed to EPC administration to allocate a day to debate Champoor resettlement issue, as uprooted people are not in favour to be resettled in alternate lands other than in their original traditional Tamil villages.
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Jaffna Fort getting Dutch aid to build ’Rajapaksa’ mansion

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 September 2011, 23:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s president occupying the country of Eezham Tamils has issued orders to build a mansion of military and symbolic importance inside the Jaffna fort for the use of Sri Lanka’s president, exploiting the opportunity of the renovation of the colonial fort by the assistance of the government of The Netherlands, news sources in Jaffna said. The 100 million Rupees renovation programme of the Dutch fort, in the name of ‘tourism development’, is shared 60:40 between The Netherlands and Sri Lanka. The Dutch initiative in renovating the symbol of colonial and post-colonial oppression immediately after the genocidal war, without recognizing the territorial and heritage ownership of Eezham Tamils but facilitating the agenda of colonising Colombo, has already evoked righteous indignation among Eezham Tamils against the ‘culture and outlook’ of the contemporary Dutch.
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SL Police creates tension between Tamils, Muslims in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 September 2011, 00:36 GMT]
Civil society sources in Batticaloa allege that the Sinhala policemen of the SL police have been interfering in the civil administration creating dissension between Tamils and Muslims in Batticaloa district. The civil sources cite an incident where the SL Police has allowed the garbage collected in the Muslim dominated Kaaththaankudi Urban Council area to be dumped in a Tamil village Poonochchimunai located in Ma'nmunai North DS division. Local community leaders blame Colombo for using Sinhala policemen to resolve disputes that should be dissolved by the Government Agent and Divisional Secretaries in the district.
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STF presence prevented students attending Batticaloa Technical College

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2011, 23:53 GMT]
The attendance of students to the Technical College located in Manchaththoduvaay in Batticaloa has dropped drastically due the presence of Sri Lankan Special Task Force according to college administration. More than one hundred STF personnel have been occupying the college premises in the name of to control the tension created following the ‘grease devil’ episode till Monday this week. In the meantime, the Sri Lanka Army soldiers, who visited the college recently without any advance notice have started collecting names and other details of students and also of employees of the college.
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Disappearances again on increase in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2011, 23:50 GMT]
26-year-old Puvanedra Shakthithara Sharma, an assistant priest at Nalloor temple has been reported missing since September 09. Puvenendra Sharma, who went to Jaffna city from his village Kalviyangkaadu failed to return, the family has complained at SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna and with the SL Police in the city. In the meantime, the number of complaints on missing children is on the increase, officials of the SL Human Rights Commission in Jaffna said.
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Weiss's "The Cage" adds to Colombo's war-crime woes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2011, 20:17 GMT]
Canada's National Post, and Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, two major dailies, carried articles on Gordon Weiss's book on Sri Lanka war, exposing further the world-wide interest in alleged war-crimes in Sri Lanka following the submission of the war-crimes report by Ban Ki Moon to the UN's Human Rights Council for debate last week. "The book's version of what happened is hardly far-fetched. Mr. Weiss argues that a lot of civilians needlessly lost their lives during the final months of fighting and that the government bears its share of responsibility," National Post said in the article titled "Sri Lanka's Dirty Secret."
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“We deployed DPU teams inside safe zone”: Rajapaksa confided to US envoy in May 2009

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 21:43 GMT]
During the final days of the genocidal war in Vanni when the international community was repeatedly urging Colombo to cease attacks on the ‘safe zone’, the SL President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa admitted to a top US envoy that his military had deployed Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) missions, also known as Deep Penetration Units (DPU) inside the so-called safe-zone to “organize people to breach the LTTE earth bunds.” Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa has ‘confidentially’ shared this military secret to Charge d'Affaires of the US embassy James R. Moore, while holding a meeting with Co-Chair Ambassadors in Colombo, barely two week before Colombo massacred thousands of civilians and claimed military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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SLA harasses uprooted Tamils from Champoor in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 September 2011, 17:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army soldiers have been harassing uprooted people from Champoor villages in Trincomalee, who are sheltered in temporary camps of the Moothoor East division of the district. In recent days, groups of occupying SLA soldiers who visit the so-called welfare centres of the Champoor uprooted living in Mallikaith-theevu, Ma'natcheanai, Kaddaipa'richchaan and Ki'liveddi, have been questioning the ‘background’ and the ‘past’ of the civilians under LTTE-administration before 2006. Recently, the SL governor of the East, Rear Admiral (retd) Mohan Wijewickrema, had warned the uprooted Champoor people sheltered in the camps that they risk losing their ‘refugee’ status if they continue to refuse moving into alternate lands provided by Colombo. Champoor has been seized from the people for Indian assisted coal power plant, which is a scheme of Colombo's structural genocide on Eezham Tamils.
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Mu'l'likku'lam villagers left to languish, resettlement denied

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 16:47 GMT]
Amid claims by the Sri Lankan government that all displaced persons in Mannaar district have been resettled in their own villages, uprooted residents of Mu'l'likku'lam in Musali DS division of the district, who were evicted from their homes in 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. The uprooted Tamils of Mu'l'likku'lam agitated on Tuesday demanding resettlement. More than 300 families of uprooted villagers, most of whom are fishermen and daily wage earners, have been living without proper housing and their children have been deprived of schooling, said Rev. Fr. Rasanayagam, the parish priest of the area.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has say in appealing to Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 04:59 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has a say in appealing to New Delhi and other Commonwealth countries, especially where Tamils live, to decide not to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Sri Lanka in 2013, Eezham Tamil political circles told TamilNet. The decision will be taken in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Perth in Australia in October. The Canadian Prime Minister has already announced that he would not take part in the meet in Colombo, if Sri Lanka doesn't make progress on the question of human rights in the island. The Indian Prime Minister may not attend the meet in Australia this year, but Tami Nadu should register its opinion with the head of Indian delegation against deciding on holding the next meet in Colombo, Eezham Tamil politicians requested.
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Sinhala prisoners attack Tamil political prisoners in Welikade

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 12:10 GMT]
18 Tamil political detainees were wounded Tuesday night when Sinhala extremist inmates attacked them, sources at the Welikade prison told TamilNet Wednesday. The attack has taken place when 250 Tamil political prisoners were suddenly transferred to a Ward I cell where convicted criminals from South have been imprisoned.
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Colombo recalls Dias over war crimes prosecution fear

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 00:49 GMT]
Maj. Gen. (retd.) Jegath Dias, deputy Counsel in Sri Lanka’s embassy in Germany, and commander of Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 57th division during the last phase of the Sri Lanka war, was recalled by Colombo "in response to accusations he was involved in war crimes," Swiss media reported today. Spotlight on Dias's alleged war-crimes began when Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET) and Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, first filed a case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Germany for accepting Dias to the diplomatic post. Two other legal efforts by Swiss-based advocacy groups, Society for Threatened People and TRIAL, and by Germany-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights further hindered Dias's ability to function as a diplomat, sources said.
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TNA slams Samarasinghe’s UN statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 00:02 GMT]
Leader of the Tamil National Alliance, R Sampanthan, in a press release issued to the media today, took exception to Head of Sri Lanka delegation to the UN and Minister in Rajapakse government, Mahinda Samarasinghe’s statement which said that his “government’s approach to reconciliation has been predicated on building trust and amity between communities." TNA retorted that the experience of the Tamil people does not support this claim and that “Tamil people of the North and East continue to be subjected to violence even after the end of the war.”
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US comments on LLRC assist Sri Lanka deflect international pressure over mass atrocities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 23:10 GMT]
The United States and other governments must move without further delay towards an independent international investigation into mass atrocities committed during the Sri Lankan civil war, and desist from lending credibility to Sri Lanka’s sham domestic investigation, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said in a statement Tuesday. Pointing out that leading international human rights organisations have comprehensively discredited Sri Lanka’s government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC), TAG said comments by US officials on expectations of the LLRC’s report merely contributed to Colombo’s “duplicitous effort to deflect international scrutiny [of mass atrocities].”
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EPDP protest blocks Blake meet with Jaffna civil society, students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 11:00 GMT]
The visiting US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert O Blake, had to cancel his appointment with civil society representatives, including student representatives of the University of Jaffna on Tuesday afternoon as EPDP paramilitary cum political party, aligned with Rajapaksa regime in Colombo, organized a protest outside the American Corner, situated on 4th cross street in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. Hundreds of people were brought from EPDP-controlled islets off Jaffna with placards supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa and staged the protest outside the American Corner.
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Sri Lanka's war crimes, discussion in UN rights session imminent

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 01:49 GMT]
While Colombo appeared to be spending major diplomatic effort to prevent UN expert panel war crimes report on Sri Lanka reaching the 18th session of the UN's Human Rights Council for discussions, reports from Geneva indicate imminent submission of the Report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to the Human Rights Council, "a move that could lead to an international investigation of the conflict," VoA report said Monday.
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Blake's bona fides to deliver Tamil justice questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 September 2011, 09:12 GMT]
Robert Blake, U.S. assistant secretary of State for South Asia, and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka and India, is widely known to be the architect of the U.S. policy on Sri Lanka which has resulted in Sri Lanka's massacre at Mu'l'livaaykkaal where more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed. Key activists in the Tamil diaspora are increasingly convinced that Tamils are unlikely to obtain justice and accountability under Blake's tenure where Blake is forced to face challenges to provide sustenance to his Sri Lanka policy - a policy which requires accommodating Rajapakse rule amid soaring rights violations, continuing structural genocide of Tamils and an authoritarian governance where war victims are further subjected to State sanctioned military violence.
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Harper to boycott Sri Lanka CHOGM over rights concerns

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 September 2011, 01:07 GMT]
In a meeting with journalists Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, remarked that he will likely not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), biennial summit meeting of the heads of government from all Commonwealth nations, currently being discussed to be held in Sri Lanka, if he does not "see progress in Sri Lanka in terms of human rights and some of the issues [that were raised]." Harper added that Sri Lanka needs to make progress in terms of political reconciliation, democratic values and accountability, and that Canada supports "the calls of United Nations Secretary General’s representative for an independent investigation."
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‘Grease devil’ episode develops into standoff at Tholpuram in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 September 2011, 13:06 GMT]
An standoff that erupted between the residents of Paa'naaveddi village and the occupying Sri Lanka Army soldiers of 51-3 brigade Saturday night was contained in the last minute from deteriorating into a blood bath by the intervention of community leaders and politicians, after the residents caught two armed SLA soldiers. While the residents of the village situated in Tholpuram in Valikaamam West were chasing two alleged ‘grease devils’, two armed SLA soldiers emerged from the place where the ‘grease devils’ vanished. The two SLA soldiers were captured by the villagers and kept inside a house bound to ropes.
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SL embassy in US canvasses Congress staff

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 September 2011, 11:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador and embassy staff held a ‘reception’ for top US Congressional staff members in Washington on Friday to brief them on ‘post-conflict development’ in the island and to discuss US policy towards Sri Lanka, a press release of the embassy said. Showing a brief film on Sri Lanka’s reconciliation, redevelopment and economic development efforts, amidst Sri Lankan dance and food, ambassador and SL president Rajapaks’s close pal, Jaliya Wikramasuriya told the chiefs of staffs of the key departments including the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “we want you to have the information to tell others the correct story of Sri Lanka, and not necessarily the one you read in the media.”
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HSZ people less likely to get their lands back

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 September 2011, 11:08 GMT]
With the so-called lifting of emergency, a rosy picture was painted by some Colombo-based ‘peace’ groups and lawyers that the SL government cannot keep the High Security Zones anymore. But the SL government now plans to permanently ‘acquire’ private lands where the HSZs are now located. According to SL Justice minister Rauff Hakeem, if there is any need to retain HSZs in some areas, then the government would acquire the land ‘legally’ and the affected people will be relocated, Sunday Times reported.
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Haiti lawyers question impunity of SL Army rapists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 September 2011, 11:03 GMT]
The rape mania of Sri Lanka’s almost exclusive Sinhala military is allowed to go with impunity in the island and totally denied by a genocidal government. But the exposure comes from Haiti where the genocidal SL military went for UN ‘peace keeping’. According to officials in Haiti, the SL soldiers accused of sex crimes had systematically raped women and children, some as young as 7-years-old, Sunday Leader reported citing Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. Recently, while reporting on the rape of a 10-year-old girl in the south of the island by a former SL Air Force officer, Colombo media said that the mania in the SL military is a result of the free licence given to them over the years to commit sex crimes against Tamils.
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21st anniversary of Chaththurukko'ndaan massacre remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 16:29 GMT]
Local residents of Chaththurukko'ndaan village in the Batticaloa district held the 21st anniversary remembrance of the 184 Tamil civilians massacred by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army at the village on 9th September 1990, civil sources said. 184 Tamil civilians including infants, children, women and men were pulled out of their homes and were bludgeoned to death or extra-judicially executed by SLA soldiers from the Chaththurukko'ndaan 'Boys Town' army camp. Five of the dead were infants under year one, 42 children under years 10, 09 pregnant mothers and 28 adults over 68 years of age. 38 were from Chaththurukko'ndaan village, 37 from Panichchaiyadi, 62 from Pi'l'laiyaaradi and 47 from Kokkuvil.
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Batticaloa civil authority pressures relatives to declare missing persons dead

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 12:16 GMT]
Civil authority in Batticaloa district has been forcing kith and kin of persons missing after arrest or abduction to obtain death certificates stating that the missing victims are dead, according to the relatives. With the end of the war intelligence wing of the Sri Lanka Army, paramilitary groups of Karuna and Pilliayan had abducted and disappeared several Tamil civilians in Batticaloa district. Batticaloa District Secretariat has been now begun issuing death certificates to the abducted persons with the declaration by the aggrieved parties that the missing were dead.
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Tamil student abducted near SLA camp in Batticaloa, escapes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 12:07 GMT]
Ajanthan, a 11-year old Tamil student was abducted by an unidentified group of six persons came in bicycles while he was riding a bicycle to attend evening class in Kallady Vivekananda Girls Maha Vidiyalayam in Batticaloa town Thursday around 5.30 p.m., sources in Batticaloa said. The abduction took place near the camps of Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Army are located and where civilian movement has been prohibited. But the student escaped from the abductors the following day while being held in a casuarinas jungle along sea coast.
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Jaffna Governor interferes, disrupts administrative authority of local councils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 02:13 GMT]
Civil society sources in Jaffna accused colonial governor of Northern Province, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri, of interfering in the administrative affairs of the recently democratically elected local councils and placing barriers to smooth governance in Jaffna. During a meeting held few weeks, the Governor has allegedly ordered Government officers to follow orders given only by the Governor, and to ignore directives from the elected officials of local councils, civil sources said.
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UN inaction responsible for ‘grease devil’ phenomenon, NZ Tamils tell Ban

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:16 GMT]
In a letter routed through the Mayor of Auckland to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visiting New Zealand, the Tamil Action Front in New Zealand on Monday urged the UNSG to stop the post-war disaster the Eezham Tamils have been going through. “[The UN panel] report was released in April 2011. It is September now. There is no indication that you have done justice to the report – not even sent a copy to the UN Human Rights Council for discussion and action. Your inaction has emboldened Sri Lanka to order the Security Forces to menacingly intrude into homes of the peace loving Tamil and Muslim peoples of the traditional Tamil speaking areas – the North and East of Sri Lanka, the Front said in its letter.
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Chengkodi remembered in New Zealand

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 September 2011, 00:14 GMT]
Thoazhar (comrade) Chengkodi of Kaangncheepuram, Tamil Nadu, a dedicated social worker and fighter of the rights of the weaker sections of the society immolated herself, to save the three Perarivalan, Murugan and Shanthan from being hanged. It is really sad that the 21-year-old lass should have taken a hasty decision. At the climax of the Vanni war, fourteen Tamil Nadu brethren including Muththukkumar immolated themselves urging the people and Government of India to safeguard the Eezham Tamils. These sacrifices should not end in vain, said Mr. A. Thevarajan, while addressing the gathering last Sunday at the function organised by the New Zealand Tamil Society to mark the sacrifice made by Thoazhar Chengkodi.
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Champoor power plant, an ominous threat to public health

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2011, 11:20 GMT]
The signing of the agreement in Colombo Tuesday to build a 500MW coal power plant in the pristine surroundings of Koddiyaar Bay in Trincomalee District, by India and Sri Lanka marks the development of an environmentally destructive project in the east, civil society sources in the east said. A coal power plant of the magnitude planned for Champoor could produce 3,700,0000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, which is a main cause of global warming, will present great danger to the future generations of the Eezham Tamils of the Koddiyaarpuram region, civil sources in the east said.
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SL 'grease devils’ in Jaffna target uprooted Vanni families

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2011, 06:52 GMT]
While news reports from the East earlier this week said that the Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa has been harassing the families of former LTTE members, including those who had left the movement 20 years ago, reports from different areas in the Jaffna peninsula indicate that the SL military operated ‘grease devils’ and ‘abduction units’ in the peninsula have been increasingly targeting uprooted families from Vanni, who have settled themselves in the Jaffna peninsula after the Vanni war. Amidst the tension and chaos created by ‘grease devils’, reports of children being abducted are on the increase, civil activists in the peninsula said.
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Using ‘grease devils’ Colombo sets next stage of militarisation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 September 2011, 06:36 GMT]
Citing ‘grease devils,’ Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils sets the next stage of its militarisation by creating a ‘civil’ paramilitary that will be formally led by SL minister Mr Douglas Devananda, but actually ‘steered’ by the commander of the occupying forces, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe and the colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. Openly accusing SL government and SL military for staging ‘grease devil’ attacks on Tamils and Muslims, the demonstrating Jaffna University students on Tuesday called upon the attention of the International Community. But the kind of International Community we see sitting on the world today will only be happy to receive more military lessons from Gotabhaya and ‘Asian Nobel’ laureate Hathurusinghe on how to use devil strategy for militarisation, commented a civil rights activist in Jaffna.
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Jaffna University students agitate against ‘grease devils’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 September 2011, 05:45 GMT]
Openly accusing Sri Lanka government and its military for staging the ‘grease devil’ attacks on Tamils and Muslims of the North and East, and especially their women, the agitating students of the University of Jaffna called upon the International Community to take note of what is happening. More than a thousand students of the university with full support of the Teachers Union and Employees Union of the university staged the demonstration on Wednesday. Even animals resist when they are attacked, but we don’t have even that freedom against the cowardice ‘grease devils’ set by SL government with ultimate intentions of continued genocide, the demonstrators raised voices. It was a major demonstration in Jaffna in the last couple of years, news sources said.
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Sri Lanka Grease Devils scapegoat mental patients

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 September 2011, 05:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s occupying military in Jaffna that has now become Sri Lanka Grease Devils commits a despicably inhuman crime by forcibly bringing in mental patients warded in Thellippazhai mental hospital to take part in its ‘grease devil’ attacks, residents in Vasaavi’laan said. In one such ‘mission,’ the ‘grease devil’ attackers who went to the nearby Kuddiyappulam locality of Vasaavi’laan village created a situation of getting caught by the public, but ran away after purposefully leaving behind a 24-year-old Tamil mental patient, Mr. Jeyakanthan in the hands of the public. Enquiries by the residents revealed that Mr. Jeyakumar who had been warded in the mental hospital was brought in by the occupying military. The two grease devils that came with him ran away.
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Batticaloa residents urge international action on already admitted crimes against humanity

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 September 2011, 18:22 GMT]
The kith and kin of 174 Tamil youths, who were arrested and dragged away by the occupying Sri Lanka Army 21 years ago in two separate incidents at Vanthaa'rumoolai and later massacred en masse, observed Monday memorial prayers at the Saiva temple at the Eastern University premises and at the Vishnu temple of Vanthaa'rumoolai. According to the findings of the SL Presidential Commission appointed by the then government to conduct inquiry into several massacres of Tamils that had taken place in East, Sri Lanka Army was responsible for the abduction of 174 Tamil youths.
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Batticaloa residents perturbed over new interrogations - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 September 2011, 16:56 GMT]
Batticaloa district parliamentarian of Tamil National Alliance, P. Ariyanenthiran told media Tuesday that he had received complaints from many families across the district that the occupying Sri Lanka Army had begun harassing the families of ex-LTTE members. The civilians are highly perturbed due to the ongoing interrogation of former LTTE members, the MP told media.
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SL military prepares for next phase of militarisation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 September 2011, 03:01 GMT]
While the Sri Lankan military operated ‘grease devil’ phenomenon has disturbed normalcy in the North and East sustaining a state of emergency, around 4,000 Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Air Force personnel have been engaged in a joint military exercise named ‘Cormorant Strike 2011’ for the last three weeks in Trincomalee. The SL Army commander Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya, who participated in the concluding event of the joint exercise on ‘counter terrorist actions’ and ‘amphibious landings’ on Monday claimed that the SL military personnel were being trained on how to act under normal laws since the state of emergency has been withdrawn.
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Body washed ashore on Mannaar coast

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 September 2011, 18:32 GMT]
Fishermen in Vangkaalai in Mannaar on Saturday spotted a highly decomposed body washed ashore. Sri Lankan Police recovered the body and handed it over to the mortuary at Mannaar Hospital. A similar incident was also reported in Keerik-kadal area in Mannaar three weeks ago and the dead body was identified as that of an Indian fisherman, sources in Mannaar said.
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Colombo continues to ignore initial relief assistance to Paduvaankarai families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Amidst claim by the Sri Lankan government that it has been implementing ‘development’ projects in war and flood affected areas in the Batticaloa district, civil society sources complain that even after representations were made by elected representatives in SL parliament, initial relief assistances meant for families affected by war and floods are yet to come. 29,827 families displaced by the war and resettled four years ago have not been paid their first relief financial assistance and other basic facilities, according to representations made by the Batticaloa district parliamentarians.
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CPI(M) ‘keen’ in solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 22:22 GMT]
While Eezham Tamils experiencing genocide have long resolved on their right to self-determination and independence, the Tamil Nadu State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday has announced that it will stage an agitation in New Delhi on Wednesday ‘demanding’ the Indian government to find a political solution based on equal rights and regional autonomy within ‘united Sri Lanka.’ The party has also called for immediate measures of rehabilitation and a ‘high level’ (not international) investigation on war crimes. While grassroot public opinion in Tamil Nadu is mounting on leaving the political future of Eezham Tamils to be decided by the right to self-determination of Eezham Tamils, the imperialist outlook behind the CPI(M) agenda tries to deviate it, Tamil Nadu political circles said.
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SL military uses ‘media persons’ to film protesters in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 21:34 GMT]
Two Tamil-speaking Muslim media persons in Batticaloa, one in the position of district media coordinator and the other a ‘freelance journalist’, have been busy during the past weeks in Batticaloa taking video and photos of civilians protesting against SL military operated ‘grease-devils’. Based on their video recordings, the SL intelligence personnel operating from the SLA camps in Batticaloa, identify the protesters from different villages and hand them over to the so-called Terrorist Investigation Department officers who had come from Colombo to Batticaloa.
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Sri Lankan CID interrogates former LTTE members in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 21:13 GMT]
A team of Criminal Investigation Unit of the SL Police Terrorist Division arrived in Batticaloa from Colombo Friday and interrogated several former cadres of the LTTE who worked for the movement ten to fifteen years ago. The Sri Lankan CID officers collected information about the former Tiger members taking their fingerprints and photographing them. The investigators in SL Police uniform took the former LTTE members to the Sri Lanka Army camp in Ka'luvaangchikkudi in CTB buses for interrogation, fingerprinting and photographing. At the army camp, one officer was in police uniform and others were in civil but all claimed that they were from the CID in Colombo. In the meantime, the Officer-in-Charge of the Ka'luvaagnchik-kudi Police told media that he was not aware of such interrogation of former LTTE members.
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SL Army in Batticaloa singles out women for collection of information

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 16:49 GMT]
The SL Army occupying Ka’luvaagnchikkudi in Batticaloa collects information of only women in the village and this has evoked fear in the village against the backdrop of SL Army-staged ‘grease devil’ attacks on women. Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian for Batticaloa district, Mr P Selvarasa, called upon the Colombo government to immediately stop the deployment of SL military in the collection of information on women in the divisions of the Batticaloa district. Ironically, the occupying military’s information drive started after the withdrawal of the emergency regulations.
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The Hindu misquotes TamilNet

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 03:20 GMT]
A feature by J. Balaji in The Hindu on Thursday misquoted TamilNet reporting a statement of the Sikh political party Dal Khalsa as that of TamilNet’s argument. “When India asks Pakistan to commute the death sentence of Sarabjit Singh, a convict in the Lahore jail, to life sentence on “humanitarian grounds,” why should it be keen on hanging the three Tamils convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, asks Tamilnet, a website known for its pro-LTTE views,” the feature appeared in The Hindu said. TamilNet on 12 August reported the argument as stated by Dal Khalsa’s general secretary Dr. Manjinder Singh and spokesperson Kanwar Pal singh. The feature was titled ”Sikhs condemn New Delhi’s stand against nations in India.”
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World Bank aid diverted to Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 00:06 GMT]
The assistance given by the World Bank to North East Services Improvement Project (NELSIP) to improve road development in recently resettled areas in the Puthukudiyiruppu and Karaithu’raippattu divisions of the Mullaiththeevu district is diverted to a recently initiated Sinhala colony called Sampath Nuwara in the district at the instructions of presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa and SL colonial governor of the north Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. SL minister Rishad Baddiudeen is also involved in the racket. The World Bank has allotted the funds to help the war-torn people and while the local administration has almost finalised the programme of road development, all of a sudden the fund amounting to 15 million has been diverted to an intrusive Sinhala colony Sampath Nuwara initiated in the Ma’nal Aa’ru area now Sinhalicised as Weli-oya in the district.
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Indian railway aid helps Colombo to wedge North and East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 00:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils proposes to lay a railway link between Mannaar and Trincomelee through Medawaachchiya in the Sinhala territory of North Central Province, while the shortest link between the two cities is through Vavuniyaa in the north. As the railway line between Thalai Mannaar and Medawaachchiya has been restored with Indian assistance, Colombo now plans to extend it to Trincomalee through the North Central Province. The link of Thalai Mannaar in the Palk Bay and Trincomalee in the Indian Ocean is strategically important to Indian interests as Trincomalee could be directly linked through land and a short ferry with the Indian railway network coming up to Raameaswaram. But the link planned through Sinhala territory aims to structurally wedge the Tamil country and Sinhalicise the Tamil port cities.
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SL Army uses public buildings to ‘transform’ into ‘grease devils’

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 September 2011, 23:32 GMT]
The genocidal military of Sri Lanka occupying Jaffna uses some particular public buildings to ‘transform’ themselves into ‘grease devils’ in the nights, eyewitnesses told TamilNet. Scores of SL military men in uniform, who come to these buildings in the nights change into a different costume, apply grease on their face and disperse in different directions to terrorise residents of the locality. They also wear gloves and carry a small kris-knife with them. When one group disperses like this, another group with military vehicles wait in the building to provide ‘security’ for the ‘grease devils’ if any need arises.
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Hi-tech Chinese ship spied on India using Colombo harbour: NDTV

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 September 2011, 10:26 GMT]
A hi-tech Chinese ship with 22 in-built laboratories, but disguised as a fishing trawler, has spied on India using Colombo harbour facilities and Sri Lankan territorial waters a few months ago, an Indian media has reported on Wednesday. The Delhi-based NDTV in its exclusive report said that by the time ship figured in the Indian radars, “it had operated already for about 22 days and was positioned off-the cost of Little Anadaman - an area which is considered sensitive and crucial in the ongoing battle for supremacy over the Indian Ocean region between India and China”. According to the report, although an Indian naval ship was deployed immediately to deal with the target, no punitive action could be taken against the Chinese ship as it was in international waters.
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Grease devils – a new military phenomenon unleashing State terror in NE: JDS

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 September 2011, 06:42 GMT]
The Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a media organisation of exiled group of Journalists from the island, Thursday said that the introduction of so-called grease devils was nothing but “a new military phenomenon to instil a chilling fear psychosis among the Tamil and Muslim communities living in and around their traditional homelands of North and East” and to unleash “a full-scale State-terror to curtail their collective rights”.
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