Tamils ignored in Administrative Service examinations

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 12:22 GMT]
Tamils are ignored in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) competitive examination conducted by the Sri Lanka’s Department of Education. Not a single Tamil public servant has been selected from the SLAS competitive examination conducted in 2010, sources in the Department of Education said. Applications were called in for the said examination in 2009. More than thousand Tamils sat for the examination held in Colombo and Jaffna.
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Sinhalese continue to encroach paddy fields of Tamils, Muslims in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2011, 23:53 GMT]
Sinhala villagers backed by Sri Lankan military operated ‘home guards’ have forcibly encroached one thousand acres of paddy fields that belong to Tamils and Muslims in Puthukkaadu, Oottu and Muthu-kaayamadu in Moothoor DS division in Trincomalee district.
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Blake’s visit follows Maldives ditching UN panel report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 16:30 GMT]
The Maldivian foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem told journalists in Colombo that the UN report into human rights abuses in the closing days of Sri Lanka’s civil war is “singularly counterproductive,” reports Minivan News, an independent news service from Maldives, Saturday. Maldives is currently a member of the UN Human Rights Council. This week, the US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake, after closeting with Sri Lanka’s defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa made a three-day visit to the Maldives. Eezham Tamils in UK, who support the Conservative Party that has considerable influence in deciding the foreign policy of Maldives should take a special note of what the Maldivian foreign minister has said, commented a diaspora political observer.
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Sivajilingam interrogated for calling military to vacate Valveddiththu’rai town

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 09:09 GMT]
Former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian MK Sivajilingam was summoned on Thursday by the occupying Sri Lanka military in Valveddiththu’rai and was interrogated for about half an hour. The reason for the interrogation was his manifesto for the forthcoming local body elections in which he has called for the shifting of the SL military camps from the Valveddiththu’rai town area, as they cause much inconvenience to the free movement of the public, alleges Mr. Sivajilingam, who contests for the Town Council of Valveddiththu’rai under TNA ticket.
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India, SLA, have occupation blueprint for northern coast of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 08:57 GMT]
By maintaining silence, and covertly working against war crimes investigation on Sri Lanka, India bargained Colombo’s cabinet approval for its hold on the KKS harbour of Eezham Tamils, political observers in Jaffna said. The SL cabinet has approved a proposal by Rajapaksa to develop KKS harbour with Indian aid and a MoU is to be signed soon with Indian government, Deccan Herald reported Thursday. Meanwhile, SL Army physically being inducted in building blocks for a reputed school in the area sets dangerous precedence for prolonged military rule over Eezham Tamils by the occupying Sinhala Army, and shows long-term occupation interests of the military in that particular region, political observers in Jaffna further said.
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Puzzle grows over piracy in Indian Ocean

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 08:49 GMT]
A cargo ship of 24 Chinese sailors, registered in Panama, was seized by pirates in the Arabian Sea, 800 km off Mumbai, and was rescued after several hours by US and Turkish teams, said Chinese news reports Friday. According to Indian media, the Indian Navy was involved in the rescue. There was no information on whether a ransom was paid. Last November, another cargo ship with 19 Chinese sailors, registered in Singapore was hijacked and was released after a payment of several million dollars. According to the Chinese quoted by the AFP, the pirates have been extending the coverage area and the next ones of their reach are Sri Lanka and Malacca Straits.
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ANC supports UN experts’ recommendations on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2011, 01:19 GMT]
Endorsing the recommendations of the UN expert panel’s report on war crimes in Sri Lanka, the African National Congress (ANC) criticised Colombo’s use of “a military solution of resolving problems [between conflicting parties]” and called on the government “to take immediate steps to address the core grievances of the Tamil population and engage in a genuine reconciliation process.” The ANC noted that one of the UN experts was a prominent South African jurist, Yasmin Sooka, and said it “has consistently condemned any act of violation of human rights in all conflict areas.
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Powers, corporate interests behind personal wars in The Hindu

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 May 2011, 10:53 GMT]
“In a shocking display of bad faith,” N. Ram, who has become the Editor in Chief of The Hindu in 2003, “by stealth,” postpones his retirement agreed upon last year, and “seems bent on taking all the editorial directors—most are in their 50s--into retirement with him with a scorched earth policy to ensure that no one in the family succeeds him,” accuses N. Ravi, who is the Editor of The Hindu since 1991, writing an open letter to media brethren in April in The Hoot, the website of the New Delhi-based Media Foundation. However, Ravi’s long list of accusations that include the projection of Ram as pro-left/ pro-China, has no reference to the role he played against Eezham Tamils, suggesting, Ravi and Ram as well as the forces behind them are the same on the question of the liberation of Eezham Tamils, commented diaspora media circles.
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‘Colombo holds onto its sinking ship’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2011, 05:23 GMT]
The visiting US Asst. Secretary of State Robert Blake accepted the congratulations of Colombo for the death of Osama Bin Laden. At the same time, in the context of the UN panel report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes he has said, “International mechanisms can become appropriate in cases where states are either unable or unwilling to meet their obligations.” But Colombo’s diplomatic community, as seen from what Dayan Jayatilake has written on Tuesday, pins its last hope on making a comparison between its genocide and the imperialism of the USA, thinking that such conflations could save its sinking ship. What the Sinhala polity that is neither prepared to concede nor share sovereignty with Eezham Tamils fails to see is that a precedence has been set in South Asia where powers could supersede sovereignty to implement what they think is right, writes a political analyst in Jaffna.
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UN war crimes report to be produced in White Flag case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2011, 12:21 GMT]
The Colombo High Court Wednesday issued notices on two more witnesses cited by the defense to be present at the next date of trial in the controversial white flag case in which the former army commander Sarath Fonseka has been indicted by the Attorney General, legal sources in Colombo said. Fonseka was charged for causing disrepute to the government by giving an interview to a English weekly alleging that the Defense Secretary Gotabahaya Rajapakse had ordered the army to shoot all LTTE cadres, who come to surrender holding white flags at the last leg of the Vanni war, dead.
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Moragoda appointed special foreign policy advisor to Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 May 2011, 12:19 GMT]
Former Sri Lanka Minister Milinda Moragoda has been appointed special advisor on foreign policy matters to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse. Moragoda is to assume duties with immediate effect, according to Presidential Secretariat sources.
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Robert Blake visits Ki'linochchi, learns the plight of Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 18:08 GMT]
Robert O. Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for the South and Central Asian affairs visited Vanni for the first time on Tuesday and learned the plight of Tamil civilians, affected by the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in 2009 and continue to suffer in the hands of the SL military. The occupying SL military didn't allow journalists to witness the event, which was scheduled as monitoring the ‘development’ activities supported by the USAID, the lead development agency of the US government. However, civilians who had the opportunity to raise their plight with Mr. Blake, who came to witness the programmes for unemployed youth and the farmers, said they got an opportunity to raise their concerns and got a chance to respond to the questions from the visiting US diplomat.
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Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts), Pa'n'naiththu'rai, Matara

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 06:45 GMT]
The port of ships or small ships
The port of large boats or cargo boats
The big port
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NorthEast Tamils still under military rule, says TNA MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 03:16 GMT]
Two years after the end of the war, Tamils in the North and East are still living under the yoke of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), said Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.P.Ariyanenthran. "Colombo government and its supporters are saying that the peace has returned with the end of the three decade old war.
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CTTU wants equal status in education to Vanni students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 02:35 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) in its May Day message said that Colombo should take immediate steps to provide equal status in education to affected students in Vanni region, and also to provide relief and other assistance to teachers who were reported killed and disappeared in the conflict.
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ITAK urges internationally supervised negotiations with GoSL

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 09:20 GMT]
Two veteran Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) politicians, C.V.K Sivagnanam and Mavai Senthirajah, on Sunday urged international supervision of a process that guarantees both a proper negotiation process and the implementation of results in the talks between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). The two officials of ITAK, a key party of the TNA, in their address urged that both the governments of India and Tamil Nadu to play a sincere and constructive role to bring about an international supervision that should include China, USA and other world players. In the meantime, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) condemned the agents of the Sri Lankan state for forcing Tamils from all the districts in the North and East to take part in May Day demonstrations in Colombo, organized by Sinhala extremist elements against the UN Expert panel report.
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Sinhala extremist federation wants Rajapaksa to terminate talks with TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 May 2011, 05:42 GMT]
The Federation of National Organizations, a coalition formed by ten Sinhala extremist groups in the south, has requested the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to terminate its talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in a statement issued on May Day, coinciding with the protest show of Mahinda Rajapaksa against the UN Expert Panel report. Meanwhile, Tamils from several parts of the island were forcefully taken to Colombo by Sri Lankan military, paramilitary and other agents to showcase as people from all ethnicities were united in the protest against the UN. However, a dead silence prevailed in the SL occupied country of Eezham Tamils throughout the whole day on May Day.
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Colombo propagates UN report as against Muslims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2011, 08:51 GMT]
Amid vicious propaganda by the Colombo government that UN Experts Panel is against the interests of the Muslim Community, Mr. Basheer Sego Dawood, deputy minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksea government said that the report should be considered as a foundation to find a lasting political solution for the ethnic conflict in the country.
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4 JVP members arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2011, 08:48 GMT]
Moratuwa police Sunday morning arrested four cadres of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) while they were preparing for the May Day rally that is scheduled to be held in the afternoon. They were taken to the police station while they were decorating a vehicle for a display against the privatization of the free education system, JVP sources told media in Colombo.
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Salary not paid to Health volunteers in east

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 03:12 GMT]
Twenty six health volunteers working in the Kalmunai base hospital for more than two years say that they have made complaints to the Regional Office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) that they have not been paid salaries since their appointment as authorized by the Department of Health, even after the assurance by the Deputy Minister of Resettlement. When the Health Volunteers were recruited to the post, they were promised a pay of Rs: 175 per day. The Colombo Health Ministry has also authorized the payment and sent necessary funds to the hospital but the volunteers said they have not received a single pay check.
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