Ken Livingstone vows unwavering support for Tamils’ struggle

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 November 2010, 09:22 GMT]
Addressing the Tamil National Remembrance Day gathering in London Saturday, veteran British politician Ken Livingstone slammed the Sri Lankan state for “the terror [it] has waged against the Tamil community”, and vowed his unrelenting support for the Tamil people’s struggle. “The government of Sri Lanka is a disgrace to the international community,” Mr. Livingstone, a prominent figure of the Left in British politics said. “Behind the façade of voting there is no longer a democracy in Sri Lanka. I look forward to the day once again when Sri Lanka once again can become a real democracy, and get rid of the current war criminal who occupies the office of president,” he said of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
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300,000 mines cleared in north, east-SLA claims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 November 2010, 22:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army Sunday claimed that more than three hundred thousand mines have been cleared and destroyed in a land area of 1863 square kilometers so far in the North and East. More than 1300 soldiers have been deployed for demining activities using mechanical and manual methods, Military Spokesman Major General Ubaya Medawala said
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SLA in Vadamaraadchi East pilfer properties of uprooted people

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 08:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vadamaraadchi East continue to pilfer the roof and timber components of the houses from which the uprooted families fled during SLA offensives, the recently resettled families in Vadamaraadchi said. Though the families had fled, most of their houses in the areas from Naakarkoayil to Saalai had remained undamaged as there was no war fought in the said area. SLA soldiers since then had pilfered the components of the houses abandoned to construct their sentry posts and camps along the coast and roads. Now, SLA soldiers refuse to return the properties of the uprooted families who have been resettled in Vadamaraadchi East, the families said.
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SLA conducts searches in Mannaar to obstruct Heroes’ Day observations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 07:34 GMT]
Armed Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and police jointly launched search operations in important places in Manaar Friday from 6:00 p.m to midnight with the aim to prevent anyone from paying homage to the Heroes who laid down their lives in the struggle for liberation, sources in Mannaar said. The soldiers and the policemen stopped people going along the roads and checked their belongings to find any leaflets related to Heroes’ Day or things used to light lamps in memory of the heroes. There is no information available about anyone arrested during the searches.
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Poet Kasi Anandan speaks to Palaka'ni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 05:03 GMT]
Mu'l'livaaykkaal is only a turning point in the Tamil Eelam struggle, says veteran national poet of Eezham Tamils Kasi Anandan to the audience of Palaka'ni, the TamilNet window for cross-views that features its inaugural programme on Saturday. “The Tigers have silenced their guns. To what extent the chauvinism of the Sinhala state could go, the international community has yet another opportunity to understand now. But, has it ever accepted that what is being committed is a genocide," he questioned. Any struggle that is based on righteous principles will win. Eelam Tamils should understand this and proceed, said the 72-year-old Batticaloa-born poet, who has been associated with Periyar E.V.Ramasamy Nayakkar, S.J.V Chelvanayakam and Velupillai Pirapaharan.
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Heroes Day - 2010

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 00:01 GMT]
At the height of the Vanni war, a representative of the Biafra struggle sent a message to TamilNet. He wanted the Eezham Tamils to remember that they were fighting not merely for them, but for the cause of many peoples like them all over the world. If the Eezham Tamils fail they fail the world of liberation, he said. He wanted the message and his best wishes to be conveyed to Vanni. That is the international dimension of the heroes of Tamil Eelam. They fought for the liberation of their nation and at the same time fought for a missing point in contemporary human civilisation. Many thought that Biafra could never be repeated in contemporary times and that too in ‘civilized’ South Asia. But there were people who adamantly wanted to prove that it is possible. Remembering the heroes in 2010 should remind us of the duty ahead of us towards ourselves and towards human civilisation.
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SLA deploys soldiers in LTTE leader's village

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 20:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army on Friday deployed hundreds of soldiers in Valveddiththu'rai (VVT), the birth place of LTTE leader Mr. Velupillai Pirapaharan, to stop anyone publicly celebrating his birthday. Road patrols and searches too were conducted in Valveddiththu’rai forcing people to stay indoors.
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SLA warns temples in Jaffna not to toll bells on Heroes Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 18:49 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna has instructed the temple authorities in Valikaamam not to toll the temple bells Saturday. The army thinks that it will be a way of people paying their homage to the Heroes who laid down their lives in the struggle for liberation, sources in Jaffna said. The temple authorities were instructed to drape the bells with cloth if the bells cannot be removed from their positions. Last year, on Heroes’ Day, people who were oppressed from observing the Day remembering their fallen kith and kin tolled bells in the temples in the evening defying the restrictions of the SLA.
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Sri Lanka will reject any political settlement with Tamils - editorial

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 12:27 GMT]
“If [India's External Affairs Minister S M] Krishna is intending to take up the issue of a political settlement during his visit to Sri Lanka, he will get short shrift in Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapakse has already made his response clear in an interview with The Hindu newspaper this week: there will be no such thing,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said in its editorial this week. “It is in this way that a long-standing contradiction between the Sinhala establishment and the international community, which had been masked by Indian and Western hostility to the Tamil armed struggle, is now coming clearly to the fore.”
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'Rajapakse not needed in Nepal'

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 12:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is increasingly styling himself at home as latter-day manifestation of ancient Sinhala rulers, also considers himself a ‘regional’ leader, as his foreign minister, Prof. G. L. Peiris puts it. However, the Nepali government doesn’t seem to think so - this week it rubbished Prof. Peiris’ claim the Himalayan state had sought President Rajapakse’s help in resolving the political imbroglio there.
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UN post confers no absolute immunity from war crimes prosecution

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 00:04 GMT]
Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, UN Officials only have “functional” immunity, immunity ratione materiae which confers immunities on those performing acts of state (duties). War crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are not incidental to the duties of a UN accredited diplomat, and therefore, Shavendra Silva, Sri Lanka's official at the UN in New York, can be prosecuted under the 18 USC 2441 of US criminal code for allegedly committing war crimes outside the US. Legal sources also said that the UN Headquarters Agreement on UN officials' Privileges and Immunities concluded with respect to the UN Charter arguably confers functional immunity only as well.
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New Secretaries appointed to ‘Mahinda Chintana’ government

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 12:24 GMT]
55 Secretaries, the highest civil servants of the ministries appointed Tuesday by the President of the Colombo government Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, were advised by him to discharge their duties properly according to the ‘Mahinda Chintana’, reports Daily Mirror. Structuring the ministries in his second term of office, Mr. Rajapasksa handed over new appointment letters to the secretaries of the various ministries. The Mahinda Chintana list of Secretaries has one Tamil and one Muslim among the 55. The lone Tamil secretary is appointed to the Ministry of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development for which Mr. Douglas Devananda is the minister.
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Leaflets calling people to observe Heroes’ Day distributed in Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 11:52 GMT]
Unidentified men arriving on motorcycles Thursday morning entered Jaffna University premises and distributed leaflets calling the people of Jaffna peninsula to observe the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Maaveerar (Great Heroes) Day on Saturday. The men had quickly left the campus to the chagrin of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna who assume that Jaffna University and its surroundings are under their tight control, sources in Jaffna said. Wall posters calling people to observe the Heroes’ Day are found pasted on the walls in the environments of Jaffna University. The leaflets and the posters had a photograph of the LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan which shows him paying his respects to the Great Heroes who had sacrificed their lives to the cause of Tamil Eelam, the sources added.
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SLA holds leader of protestors under house arrest in Karaichchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 10:33 GMT]
More than ten Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers arriving Thursday around 11:00 a.m at the house of the President of Oottuppulam Rural Development Society (RDS), who led the protest demonstration Wednesday demanding the cancellation of the sudden transfer of Karaichchi Divisional Secretary on the instructions of SLA authorities, continue to hold him under house arrest surrounding his house, sources in Ki’linochchi said. The president who is held under house arrest was to lead a hunger strike in front of Ki’linochchi Government Agent’s office Thursday along with nine other RDS presidents and a large number of civilians until the transfer order issued to the Divisional Secretary was cancelled.
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SDC hands over completed building to Education Department in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 16:20 GMT]
Officials from the Switzerland Embassy in Colombo rushed to Jaffna Tuesday to open a school building built by Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) in Ma’ravanpulavu in Thenmaraadchi avoiding the standing instruction by Sri Lanka government to all Government and Non-government Organizations to invite its ministers and military officials to any public or ceremonial event held by them, sources in Jaffna said. The building was handed over to the Jaffna Education Department by the visiting Swiss Embassy officials. Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, SL minister Douglas Devananda and his party parliamentarian Athavan are alleged of compelling the NGOs and voluntary organizations to invite them as chief guests to the opening of the development projects completed by them.
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Public protest against SLA interference in civil administration in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 11:44 GMT]
Welfare associations and public organizations in Karaichchi in Ki’linochchi district gathered in protest Wednesday morning in front of Ki’linochchi Government Agent’s office demanding immediate cancellation of the sudden transfer of Karaichchi Divisional Secretary, Ms. Sivakumar, issued on the request of local Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Ms. Sivakumar had not cooperated with the SLA officials in their efforts to evacuate the resettled families in lands in Karaichchi which the SLA authorities want to claim for SLA and Sinhala colonization, the sources said. She had been transferred within two hours of her refusal to comply with the evacuation plans of the SLA officials, the sources added.
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SLA active in grabbing strategic lands in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 14:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Ki’linochchi have threatened 18 Tamil families in Irathinapuram where they were each given 5 acres of land to live in 1994 by Sri Lanka government for which they have the documents proving ownership. SLA now claims that a Sinhala school had been located in the said area and therefore the land belongs to the government. SLA further says that it wants the land to be used as cattle grazing ground, the families said. Similarly, SLA officials in the Achchuveali camp have claimed areas in Puththoor and Vaatharavaththai in Valikaamam East saying that a Sinhala school called Panjaseeva and a Buddhist temple had been functioning in the said area. A military establishment and Sinhala colony at strategic Vaatharavaththai will check free movement of Tamils among the sectors of Valikaamam, Vadamaraadchi and Thenmaraadchi regions of the Jaffna peninsula.
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Ex-Liberation Tiger combatant student in Jaffna University attempts suicide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 07:25 GMT]
A first year Arts Faculty student in Jaffna University, a released ex-Liberation Tiger combatant from Vanni, tried to commit suicide Monday by taking overdose of tablets, sources in Jaffna. Meanwhile, the parents of a former Liberation Tiger combatant who had been rehabilitated after arrest and later released to join his family complained 18 November to Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office that their son is continually threatened by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit officers and men when he appears to sign at the SLA Intelligence Unit camp as instructed. The 23-year-old student who attempted suicide is admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital where the Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University, Professor. N. Shanmuagalingan visited him.
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CHR urges LLRC to ensure free, secure environment in Trincomalee, Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:54 GMT]
The Centre for Human Rights (CHR) – Sri Lanka in a statement has requested the LLRC to ensure a free and secure environment where people can give evidence without fearing future persecution in its up-coming sessions in Trincomalee and Mannaar. Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) is to conduct its sittings in Trincomalee on December 17, 18 and 19. The LLRC would record the evidence from relatives of affected persons in the Trincomalee district due to abduction, disappeared in round up by military and killing by security forces between the year 2001 and 2009, LLRC sources said. CHR has issued the statement as a press release Sunday.
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Kadugannawa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:54 GMT]
The fierce mountain pass
The mountain pass at the frontier
The mountain pass to traverse

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