Australia reluctant to call for closure of camps, release of IDPs

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 August 2009, 11:48 GMT]
While expressing serious concern about the civilian toll of the conflict, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) officials conveyed to a delegation of the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA) that Australia’s trade relations with Sri Lanka has been very strong from time immemorial and Australia wants to maintain this relationship, and further to nurture that, Australia is keen on seeing a united Sri Lanka. While continuing to insist that the IDP camps be administered in line with international standards, Australia is reluctant to call for a closure of these camps and release of the innocent IDPs as soon as possible, DFAT officials told the Tamil delegation last week.
Full story >>

731 IDP students in Vavuniyaa sit Year 5 scholarship examination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 August 2009, 17:38 GMT]
Save the Children, a non-governmental organization (NGO), provided cardboards to internally displaced Year Five students in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa who sat for the Year 5 scholarship examination Sunday due to the non-availability of desk and tables in the centres located in the camps, educational sources said.
Full story >>

Mullaiththeevu medical student refused permission to enter Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 August 2009, 17:27 GMT]
Sivapatham Prasath, a Tamil youth from Mullaitheivu district who gained admission to the medical faculty of the Jaffna University for the academic year 2008 but was unable to enter as he had lost his legs in an artillery shell attack in Mullaitheivu on 08.08.2008, has been detained in an internment camp in Vavuniyaa. He has been refused permission by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to leave the camp to enter the Jaffna University to join the medical faculty for the academic year 2009 which commenced last week, sources said.
Full story >>

Government plans to hold Vanni IDPs in camps for longer period

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 August 2009, 17:20 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) has instructed government authorities to set up offices in Vavuniyaa and its surrounding area to carry out the administration of Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni which had ceased to function due to the war on Vanni, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Though it is said that the above decision has been taken due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) refusal to resettle Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in their own villages in the near future, the real intention of the government is to hold the Vanni IDPs in the detention camps permanently, the sources added.
Full story >>

Global vigilance needed amid Sri Lanka’s post war rhetoric: Australian Senator

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2009, 23:57 GMT]
The ethnic issue in Sri Lanka must remain at the forefront of the global conscience amid the “very serious prospect of continued breeches of human rights” faced by over 300,000 Tamil IDP’s at the hands of the Sri Lankan Government, said Liberal party Senator Gary Humphries in address at Canberra on Tuesday. Citing allegations of abuse and continued censorship imposed by the Sri Lankan Government throughout military controlled refugee camps to dismiss claims of post war stability, senator Humphries urged the international community "to be vigilant, to watch carefully what is going on, to ask questions about how the Sri Lankan government is treating people” in order to force the Rajapakse regime to address the plight of thousands of Tamil civilians.
Full story >>

Relocating Moothoor east IDPs continues

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2009, 11:54 GMT]
The sixth group of internally displaced families from Moothoor east Tamil villages who had sought refuge in Batticaloa district since the military operation launched by the Sri Lanka in April 2006 were sent back Thursday morning by seven buses via Verukal to Ki’liveddi. They are again given temporary shelter in a welfare centre in Ki’liveddi as they are not allowed to resettle in their traditional villages in Moothoor east which are located in the SLA declared high security zone after its military operation, sources in Batticaloa said.
Full story >>

US: Tamils ‘confined against their will’ in Sri Lanka camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2009, 01:49 GMT]
The United States’ top official dealing with humanitarian crisis reiterated Wednesday the Obama administration’s demand that Tamil civilians held in Sri Lanka’s militarised camps be allowed to leave freely. “Our position is that people who are displaced should be agents of their own destiny,” Eric P. Schwartz, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, said. Responding to reporters’ asking about his comments during a visit to Sri Lanka, Mr. Schwartz clarified: “I don’t think there’s anything ambiguous about “confinement against their will.”
Full story >>

General Fonseka says more troops needed to ensure peace in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 August 2009, 05:44 GMT]
General Sarath Fonseka, Chief of Defence Staff, said that resettlement of internally displaced people from Vanni now housed in temporary camps in Vavuniyaa will not be carried out haphazardly as dictated by some interested parties. He said so when he called on the prelate of Malwatte Most Venerable Tibbotuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thera and on the prelate of Asgiriya Most Ven. Udugama Sri Buddharakkitha Thera Monday to mark the third month of ‘liberating’ the country from LTTE.
Full story >>

Creeping Talibanization in Sri Lanka - Prof. David

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 August 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Noting several trends in Sri Lanka point to "early steps in [reaching for] totality of power," Prof Kumar David in a column in the weekend edition of "The Island" asserts that the cultural control exercised by the current Rajapakse regime are no different to those of "the Mullahs of Teheran and the iconoclastic Taliban fundamentalists." Prof. David summarizes the views of six lawyers expressed at a Lawyers’ Press Conference organised by the Platform for Freedom (PfF) early August where one notes that the scene is set for ever expanding authoritarianism as Sri Lanka's President flagrantly violates the "supreme law, the public [is] apathetic and the judiciary [is] powerless," and another points to the holding of 300,000 people "against their will, in defiance of local and international law" as "obscene infringement of the constitution."
Full story >>

Internment camps in Vavuniyaa under flood water

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 August 2009, 08:25 GMT]
Additional troops have been called into the Manik Farm area in Vavuniyaa to prevent inmates in the IDP camps creating unrest or move from the camps following heavy rains which have inundated parts of the camps on Friday. Heavy rains have been continuing for the last two days in the area where the internment camps of Vanni civilians are situated, causing severe hardships to the inmates of the camps. The worst affected camps are the Zone II camps where the water has entered the tents forcing people to remain standing, a local NGO official in Colombo said.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka fleeces kith and kin of IDPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 August 2009, 06:52 GMT]
Family members and kinsfolk of IDPs in the internment camps had remitted 100 million rupees in the past two months, according to I.D. Weerasena, Deputy General Manager of Bank of Ceylon, reported Sri Lankan state owned Daily News, Saturday. In the past four to five months, 500 million rupees had been deposited by the IDPs, said Mr. Weerasena, whose state-controlled bank had opened banking units with online and ATM facilities in the internment camps and deals with 21,000 new account holders.
Full story >>

US stresses ‘political reconciliation’ with Tamils for peace in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 August 2009, 17:38 GMT]
The US State Department met Tuesday with US-based Tamil Diaspora groups to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the prospects for “political reconciliation” in Sri Lanka, a government press release said. US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake and Chargé d'Affaires in the US embassy in Colombo, James Moore (participating by video link) held discussions with representatives of sixteen Tamil groups. The US officials had welcomed the opportunity to discuss the Tamils' concerns and perspectives and had "underscored the importance of political reconciliation," the US statement said. The US government has meanwhile stressed to the Sri Lanka government that "to achieve a lasting peace, it must promote justice and political reconciliation for all parties" the statement also said.
Full story >>

Kuala Lumpur congratulates Colombo, donates US $ 100,000

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 August 2009, 17:17 GMT]
Malaysian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, Rosli Ismail congratulated Colombo for defeating ‘LTTE terrorism’ and described it as a “big achievement” while handing over his government’s donation of US $ 100,000 for the welfare of internally displaced ‘Sri Lankans’ affected by the conflict, according to a press release of Colombo’s foreign ministry, Thursday. Eezham Tamil IDPs in the internment camps alone number 300,000. Speaking on the occasion, Colombo’s foreign minister, Rohitha Bogollagama noted that Malaysia is one of the largest investors in Sri Lanka and has been consistently supportive of Sri Lanka’s efforts, “especially in the fight against terrorism.”
Full story >>

Another batch of Vanni IDPs in Jaffna to be released

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 August 2009, 15:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has announced that it will release the second batch of Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detainment camps in Jaffna district soon, sources in Jaffna said. The first batch of Vanni IDPs released with much publicity by Basil Rajapakse and Minister Douglas Devananda recently in Duraiappa Stadium are left without any help from the government or any other organization, local NGOs said.
Full story >>

SLA travel ‘pass’ system to continue in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 August 2009, 16:34 GMT]
The system of obtaining ‘pass’ to travel out of Jaffna peninsula from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administrative office will not be lifted, Northern Province Governor, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, said in a discussion held with key SLA officers in Jaffna Secretariat Wednesday, sources in Jaffna said. There was high expectation of the pass system being lifted among peninsula residents following the promises made by government ministers during Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election campaign.
Full story >>

SLA blocks IDPs permanent resettlement citing Moothoor HSZ security

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 August 2009, 16:23 GMT]
A group of 63 Tamil families consisting of 244 members, internally displaced from their traditional villages in Moothoor east in Trincomalee district and sheltered in temporary camps located in Paalameenmeadu in Batticaloa for the last three years, were transported Tuesday in eleven buses via Verugal River to temporary shelters in Ki'liveddi welfare centre. They will remain here until an alternative site is found for them to be resettled permanently as their own traditional Tamil villages have been brought under high security zone (HSZ) following the military operation by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).
Full story >>

Amnesty wants Sri Lanka camps unlocked, war crimes probes

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 August 2009, 17:02 GMT]
Amnesty International Monday called for “the immediate release of 285,000 innocent Tamil civilians - including an estimated 50,000 children - being held in cramped and squalid camps” by Sri Lanka’s hard-line government. Amnesty called on the United Nations, Sri Lanka’s donors and rest of the international community to monitor the camps, push for unimpeded access for aid agencies, rights monitors and journalists and to take initial steps towards on international inquiry into war crimes. Amnesty noted that in Menik Farm – the most presentable of the camps - the equivalent of the population of the town of Bournemouth live, eat and sleep in an area size of Wembley Stadium.
Full story >>

Outbreak of skin disease reported in Vavuniyaa IDP camps

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 August 2009, 09:23 GMT]
The outbreak of skin diseases among hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people from Vanni detained in several camps in Vavuniyaa has been reported. “They mostly complain of continuous itchy skin. They say the itching only starts when they wash. This may be due to the different levels of minerals found in the water that could cause irritation,” a medical officer who spoke on conditions of anonymity told Colombo media.
Full story >>

Supreme Court to inquire FR petition by IDP family against illegal detention

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 August 2009, 04:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court Thursday granted leave to proceed with the fundamental rights violation petition filed on behalf of members of one family who are detained in an Internally Displaced Persons’ Camp (IDP Camp) in Vavuniya against their wishes, and listed the case for hearing on November 12, legal sources in Colombo said. The bench comprised Justices Nihal Gamini Amaratunge and Chandra Ekanayake. The petition alleged infringement of plaintiffs' fundamental rights to equality, equal protection of the law, as well as their right to the freedom of movement and of choosing their residence within Sri Lanka.
Full story >>

40% of eligible voters live out of Jaffna Municipal Council

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 August 2009, 05:17 GMT]
Postal department sources in Jaffna said that 40,390 polling cards of the 100,417 eligible voters in the Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election to be held Saturday are kept in Jaffna Post Office not delivered to the rightful recipients. A total of 51,182 polling cards have been delivered directly to persons in the last nine days by postal employees going house to house, the sources further said.
Full story >>