Environment endangering life in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2011, 00:31 GMT]
News reports from the south of the island, Saturday, said that Colombo government had yielded to the protests of fishermen and Church in the south, and had dropped a project to have sea planes in the Negombo lagoon. The fishermen in and around Negombo feared affliction to fish catch by the sea plane project. But on the same day, a budding young environmentalist having concern for the sand dunes and the drinking water of his people was shot dead in Jaffna. SL military intelligence occupying Jaffna and paramilitary are suspected. An academic in Jaffna brings out the environmental background of the issue.
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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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Escalating killings, abductions: ‘Diplomatic civilities will not work with Colombo’

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 00:06 GMT]
Fatal attacks and abductions against educationalists, environmentalists, priests and youth activists in recent days in the Jaffna peninsula seriously question the wisdom of some sections of diplomats and politicians in the international community who sometimes back advocated unassuming participation of Tamils in ‘development’ and ‘reconciliation’ without resolving political and military questions. Diplomatic civilities as shown by the US ambassador Patricia A. Butenis in taking pride of what Rajapaksa government is achieving in resettlement, while making it a beneficiary of USAID, will not work with the kind of people at the helm of affairs in Colombo. The IC is once again demonstrating its impotency in handling the national question of Eezham Tamils without political solution and without removal of occupying military, a Jaffna based human rights activist told TamilNet Sunday.
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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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2011 Legal Imperatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 17:54 GMT]
Vigorous advocacy of Tamils rights inside the halls of political power and in the streets of the West by the increasingly active expatriate Tamil youths portends a hopeful and optimistic future to Tamils battered by inaction of the international community and subjected to continued acts of cultural, physical genocide carried out with impunity by Colombo. As humanity steps into the dawn of the next decade, the emergence of organized youth groups trained in international law and sharing knowledge across State borders to advance the prospects of prosecuting alleged Sri Lanka's war-criminals and to bring justice to Tamils, stands as an important example of the political progress, grounded in the moral code of community responsibility, diaspora youths have made since the Mullaiththeevu massacre of May 2009.
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US emergency food aid amid WFP fears for 2011

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2010, 19:07 GMT]
The United States this week provided the UN’s World Food Program operation in Sri Lanka with $5.5 million of emergency food aid, shortly after the organisation warned of serious shortages and halved the wheat flour and sugar in rations it distributes to displaced people. The food situation remained ‘fragile’, despite improving since march 2010, and the next four months are critical , the WFP was quoted by IRIN as warning. The WFP estimates that it needs some $27 million next year to continue to provide assistance to an estimated 371,000 Tamils displaced by the armed conflict from 2008 and has warned of a “pipeline break” looming in 2011.
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Colombo fails to provide relief to Batticaloa flood victims

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2010, 01:31 GMT]
Flood victims in Batticaloa have complained that they have not received proper relief assistance for the last four days, Batticaloa District Parliamentarian P.Selvarasa told media Thursday. All the fourteen DS divisions in the Batticaloa district are under flood water and the number of affected persons has risen to 335,000.
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Why Sri Lanka keeps Tamil areas insecure and unstable - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 15:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka is actively using paramilitary groups in a campaign of terror in Tamil areas, alongside the military’s own harassment of business and civil society activity, to “actively deny the conditions – physical security and societal stability - necessary for a fully fledged post-conflict revival,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in an online comment Thursday. Sri Lanka is opposed to societal revival in the Tamil areas [because] with economic progress and the restoration of normalcy will undoubtedly come renewed Tamil demands for political rights, including greater freedom from Colombo's rule and stronger links with the "globalised" economy and community, the Tamil Guardian argues.
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Pigs of HSZ harm crops, youth electrocuted in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 15:45 GMT]
Pigs, never heard of in the densely populated Jaffna peninsula before, now breed in the thickets of Sri Lanka military occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam and they infiltrate into neighbouring villages seriously damaging crops and causing severe economic hardship to farmers. On Thursday, a family man, 25-year-old Chandrasekaran Packiyaraja of Kadduvan West, died of electrocution on the spot when he came into contact with live wires placed by a farmer to prevent HSZ pigs.
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UN panel can only testify before LLRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 12:47 GMT]
The UN panel set to advice the Secretary General Ban ki Moon on war crimes in Sri Lanka, can only testify before the LLRC set by the war crimes accused Rajapaksa government. "The U.N. panel will be given visas only to testify before the LLRC if they request, and not for any investigations [...] This is the government stance and there is no change in that. The U.N. has so far not requested visa in this regard," said the spokesman of Colombo, Keheliya Rambukwella, speaking to media in Colombo Thursday. However, informed circles said that the UN establishment, sharing mutual interests with Colombo, may make behind the scene arrangements for the UN panel to meet the LLRC outside the island to exchange notes and decide strategies.
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Floods ruin 60,000 acre paddy crops in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 12:43 GMT]
Sixty thousand acres of crops have been affected in the Batticaloa district due to flood following incessant rain since last week, according to District Deputy Commissioner of Agrarian Services (DDCAS) Dr.R.Rushanthan. More than one hundred fifty thousand acres were planted with paddy crop Maha season, and the crops damaged were nearing releasing grains.
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Abductions escalate in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 02:44 GMT]
Six civilians have been reported missing in Jaffna peninsula in the last four weeks, civil society sources in Jaffna said. The latest victim, Thanarathnasabapathy Nirojan, 23, a resident of Oorkavaththu'rai (Kayts) in Jaffna failed to return after leaving home on November 29 to Vavuniyaa for business activities, according to a complaint lodged with the Jaffna Secretariat of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL).
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Tamil, Sinhala detainees clash in Vavuniyaa remand prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 02:15 GMT]
Two were injured in a clash that erupted between detainees in the Vavuniyaa remand prison Tuesday around 5:30 p.m. when Tamil detainees assaulted a Mannaar-based Christian priest and a long-time humanitarian worker, who was recently held in remand over alleged charges that he had sexually abused Tamil girls displaced due to the Vanni war. Altercation ensued as a group of Sinhala detainees rushed in defense of the priest and started assaulting their Tamil detainees with pointed weapons and blades. The alleged sexual abuse of under-aged girls are said to have taken in a Home for Destitutes run by the priest at Murungkan in Mannaar district, legal sources in Mannaar said.
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'Only China and Pakistan could prod New Delhi'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 00:58 GMT]
Paying tribute at the memorial for the IPKF that killed more than 6000 Eezham Tamils in the late 1980s, the visiting Defence Secretary of the New Delhi establishment offered training programme for 1400 personnel of the genocidal military of Sri Lanka in the Indian defence academies. Indian Express on Sunday reported that a key outcome of Russian president recently meeting New Delhi’s prime minister was India helping Colombo’s nuclear power generation, to counter Chinese power hold in South Asia. Meanwhile, the thrust of a recent article by India’s former envoy in UK, Kuldip Nayar implies that rather than the merit of the national question of Eezham Tamils attracting Indian attention, only the involvement of China and Pakistan may prod it to do something.
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Opposition mounts against India’s treatment of human rights activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 01:54 GMT]
Life imprisonment sentenced on human rights activist and medical practitioner Binayak Sen by Chhattishgarh court, on flimsy grounds of sedition that he was carrying messages for the Maoists, finds growing opposition from Indian media and intellectuals. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Tuesday boldly condemned the Indian court decision that the conviction on sedition charges was a "ridiculous" use of laws. Outraged and upset, Amartya Sen wanted his opinion that there was a deep miscarriage of justice, be known to the people as well as the court, PTI reported Tuesday. The Chhattisgarh court judgement was a "huge perversion of our system of justice, and particularly of the laws concerning sedition [...] the whole thing seems a ridiculous use of the laws of democratic India," Amartya Sen said. Meanwhile eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani came forward to argue the case in the Supreme Court.
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Tsunami remembrance day held in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 01:12 GMT]
The sixth year anniversary of the tsunami remembrance event was held in different parts of Jaffna district, including Vadamaraadchi and Vadamaraadchi east independent of the Colombo-centric organized celebrations, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Uduththu'rai burial grounds in Vadamaraadchi east contained majority of tsunami burials, and grieving relatives held an emotional ceremony organized by the Uduththu'rai Fisheries Union at that site.
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Wickremesinghe on two-day visit to India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 23:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe left for India on the 27th of December, and has planned to stay there for two days, the Sinhala daily Lankadeepa said. Wickremesinghe met with members of trade unions and the business community in Sri Lanka before he left for India, according to the paper.
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Jumbo cabinet expands with eight additional deputy ministers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 22:10 GMT]
Eight more parliamentarians from the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) are expected to be sworn in as deputy ministers on January 6th by the Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse, according to political sources in Colombo. Six of the new appointees have crossed over from the main opposition United National Party (UNP) and two are from the ruling party.
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NLF leader complains to HRCSL on attack at airport

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 14:15 GMT]
Dr.Wickremabahu Karunaratne, Leader of the New Left Front (NLF), Tuesday registered a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (SLRCL) regarding the attack on him and his party supporters at the Katunayake International Airport (KIA) during the first week of December on his arrival of London, human rights sources in Colombo said.
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