Police detains 3 Tamil youths in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 June 2009, 15:17 GMT]
Three Tamil youths arrested by the Western Province Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Police last week are now detained in the Borella Police Station under a detention order by the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry. Two of them were arrested on a tip off in a house located along Ayurvedic Junction in Borella on June 15 and June 16.
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Police collect details of Eastern province IDPs staying in Vavuniyaa camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 June 2009, 15:15 GMT]
Special police teams have been collecting names and other details of internally displaced persons who are permanent residents of three districts of the eastern province- Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai and currently being kept in internment camps located in Vavuniyaa. Hundreds of IDPs of eastern province have been held captives by the Sri Lankan forces in Vanni at the end of the war.
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Outbreak of chicken pox, hepatitis reported in internment camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 June 2009, 15:12 GMT]
Outbreak of chickenpox and hepatitis reported from internment camps located in Vavuniyaa where hundred of thousands of internally displaced people from Vanni have been sheltered. More than twelve thousand inmates are reported to have been still suffering from chickenpox. 40 to 50 fresh cases of chickenpox are reported daily.
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Journalists barred from covering government meeting in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 11:41 GMT]
North Ceylon Journalists’ Association (NCJA), in its media report Thursday, accused government authorities in Jaffna for barring journalists from attending a high level government meeting held Thursday by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse’s brother, Basil Rajapakse. Jaffna Government Agent (GA), when contacted by journalists seeking permission to cover the meeting, had said that journalists cannot be allowed to attend the meeting for security reasons, the report said.
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Opposition MPs denied access to Vanni internment camps

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 11:36 GMT]
“Sri Lanka government has not yet permitted the opposition parliamentarians to see the Tamil civilians held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps in Vavuniyaa in order to learn of their problems and help them,” Gayantha Karunathilaka, United National Party (UNP) media spokesman, said in a press meet held Wednesday at the office of the leader of the opposition in Colombo.
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Sinhalicisation insinuated in Musali

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 09:45 GMT]
Top Sri Lankan military officials appointed by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Competent Authority in charge of resettlement of Tamils displaced from Vanni have finalised a plan to settle 200 Sinhalese people in Musali where 2,000 displaced Tamils have been allowed to resettle, informed civil officials in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet Friday. More than 4,500 civilians were forced to flee Musali division in Mannnaar district in September 2007.
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Basil's Jaffna meet fails to discuss people in internment camps

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 09:02 GMT]
The meeting meant to explore possibilities of the resettlement and rehabilitation of more than 13,000 Vanni civilians held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Jaffna, held under tight security in Jaffna Public Library Thursday ended without any significant decisions regarding the issue concerned, Government officials who attended the meeting said. The venue of the meeting which was to be held in Jaffna Secretariat was changed at the last moment to Jaffna Public Library due to security reasons, the sources said. Even the pens carried by the officials were subjected to checking.
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Stolen van from Vanni recovered in Polonnaruwa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 June 2009, 10:53 GMT]
An officer of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the rank of Lieutenant, a police constable and another were taken into custody by the police in Polonnaruwa early morning on Sunday with a van allegedly stolen from Vanni. The police recovered a motor bike without a number plate, T-56 rife, live bullets, one laptop computers and a communication set from the van.
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Sri Lanka, unfulfilled challenge to peace mediators

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 June 2009, 17:43 GMT]
A group of well-known people in the peace making profession are gathering for an annual meet in recluse in Oslo between Tuesday and Thursday to reflect on current mediation processes, according to a news release from Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva. The participants include some of those from Norway whose peace process has led Eezham Tamils to face genocide and incarceration in internment camps. The highlights of this year’s meet for discussion are Islamic groups, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea, which means Washington is the peace vantage and war and peace are over for them in the island of Sri Lanka. What they should prioritize for discussion is ways of salvaging the very credibility of mediation itself that is lost in the island. Mediation without justice to people is only contribution to conflict.
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Breaking the deadlock through transnational governance

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 June 2009, 09:52 GMT]
The need of the time now is the metamorphosis of the existing infrastructure into a democratic and inclusive transnational government of Eezham Tamils to strengthen the diaspora socially, economically and culturally; to achieve the goal of independence and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in the home country and to meet the international challenges internationally. Many of our readers confuse between the concepts of transnational government and government in exile. While the government in exile is a conventional phenomenon that needs a host country, the transnational government is a novel experiment that has no precedence.
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21 Vanni Tamils sent to Boosa, 3 reported missing from Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 23:04 GMT]
Twenty one Tamil civilians from Vanni including eight women arrested by the Sri Lanka Army when they arrived in Pulmoaddai from Mullaiththeevu by boats two months ago are now detained in the Boosa detention centre which is located in Galle located down south of the country. Those now detained in Boosa detention camp were earlier detained in the police stations of Pulmoaddai, Pathaviyaa and Kepitigollewa, police sources said.
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FR petition in SL Supreme Court against detaining Vanni IDPs

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 22:48 GMT]
The Centre for Police Alternatives (CPA) Friday filed a Fundamental Rights Petition in the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court challenging the detention of hundreds of thousands of Vanni displaced Tamil families in the camps located in Cheddiku'lam and Vavuniyaa under the Emergency Regulations thus violating the fundamental rights of them such as freedom of movement and depriving employment opportunities without restriction, enshrined in the constitution, legal sources said.
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WHO, IRD provide assistance to Jaffna hospitals

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 16:16 GMT]
World Health Organization (WHO) and International Relief and Development (IRD) representatives handed over nearly 54 packages of Emergency Health Kit to the Director of Public Health Service in Jaffna in an event held in Chaavakachchea’ri recently, sources in Jaffna said. Chaavakachchea’ri government hospital which lacks basic facilities and medicine is the only hospital that the Vanni civilians held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centres in Jaffna are allowed to seek medical help and the assistance from these international organizations is a timely help, the sources added.
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British, Norwegian ambassadors’ visit to Jaffna postponed again

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 15:09 GMT]
The British and Norwegian ambassadors who were to visit Jaffna 10 Wednesday had to cancel it as the Defence Ministry had not issued permission for the visit in due time, sources in Jaffna said. Earlier scheduled visits by these ambassadors too had been cancelled more than twice in the past since the closure of A9 land route to Jaffna, due to delays caused by the Defence Ministry officials, the sources added.
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New TNA MP for Ampaa'rai district sworn in

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 13:15 GMT]
Dr.Thomas Thangathurai William Friday was sworn in as new Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Ampaa'rai district parliamentarian in parliament before the Speaker Mr.W.M.J.Lokkubandara. He fills the vacancy created with the demise of Mr.Kanagasabai Pathmanathan who passed away in Mathurai in South India after a brief illness. The new parliamentarian hails from Paa'ndiruppu in Ampaa'rai district and came second in the list of TNA in the 2004 general election held under proportionate preferential system.
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Camp conditions ‘not satisfactory’, ‘dust must settle’ for aid - Akashi

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 01:11 GMT]
Japan’s Special Envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, said Thursday that Colombo "has lots to do" to improve the conditions of those living in the overcrowded camps in the north, where there are shortages of food, water, sanitation and medicines, AFP reported. Saying that Sri Lanka needs to wait until "the dust of the war" settles before donors would take a closer look at the massive development aid needed to rebuild, Akashi urged Colombo to engage with the international community, Reuters reported.
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Neelson accuses NGO of supporting "dictatorship masquerading as democracy"

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 June 2009, 11:35 GMT]
"When even the then supporters of the GoSL [Government of Sri Lanka] in Berlin, Paris or London have demanded an enquiry into war crimes and violations of human and humanitarian law in view of the estimated 20,000 mostly dead civilians during the last few weeks, when even the established media question the internment of 300,000 Tamil IDP, there is no way for any self-respecting intellectual or the critical public in general in the country concerned to pretend that the only problem left to be tackled is "humanitarian," said Prof. John Neelsen of Institute of Sociology in Tuebingen Germany in response to appeal for relief funds by the head of the NGO Foundation for Co-Existense's Dr Kumar Rupesinghe, accusing the NGO of supporting a "dictatorship masquerading as democracy."
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SLA refuses to release 6 Catholic priests detained in Vavuniyaa SLA camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 19:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Command rejected a request made by Jaffna Bishop, Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, to release the six Catholic priests from Vanni held in one of the SLA detention centres in Vavuniyaa as they are suffering from illness, Jaffna Bishop House sources said. The Bishop had made the request to Defence Secretary to allow the six priests to get back to their parishes, the sources added.
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57,293 children held in Vavuniyaa SLA internment camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 17:46 GMT]
57,293 children from Vanni are presently detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, U. L. M. Haldeen, Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Relief said to the media.
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22 elderly IDPs die in Cheddikul’am internment camp

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Twenty-two elderly internally displaced persons from Vanni detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa and Cheddikul'am died in two days. Fourteen died on Sunday and eight on Monday and all those dead were above seventy years of age, medical sources said.
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