SL government suspends WPF relief measures to resettled people in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 06:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has suspended the dry food relief supplied under World Food Programme to the recently resettled people in the outskirts of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Vazhalaay near Achchuveali, according to Divisional Secretariat officials who had suspended the supply of dry food rations on instructions from Sri Lanka government authorities.
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Tamil prisoners attacked in Colombo remand prison

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 July 2010, 16:20 GMT]
United National Party (UNP) Jaffna district parliamentarian Ms. Vijyakala Maheswaran Monday requested Sri Lanka government to launch an inquiry into the attack on Tamil prisoners in Colombo remand prison on Saturday. The Tamil prisoners were attacked when they complained to the prison authorities that they were being detained in overcrowded cells in the prison, sources in Colombo said.
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SLA reintroduces checking of vehicles in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 July 2010, 06:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has reintroduced checking of all vehicles passing through the main road in Batticaloa to Vaazhaichcheanai, Kalmunai and Verukal areas. This checking of civilians causes untold hardships during emergency travelling, residents express concern. Despite these checking by police and SLA, paramilitary gangs continue to rob and involve in other crimes, they added.
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SLA impedes INGOs work in Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 July 2010, 05:50 GMT]
International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO) sources say that their work is being hampered due to the interference by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). INGOs have been instructed by the SLA not to use stickers. INGOs use these stickers to identify their institutions to the SLA and other armed groups, sources in Batticaloa said.
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British Tamils seek boycott of defiant Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 July 2010, 12:21 GMT]
British Prime Minister David Cameron will Monday be handed a memorandum on behalf of UK’s Tamil community urging his government to support an international probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka, and to pressure the Colombo government to resettle in their homes tens of thousands of Tamils still languishing in refugee camps, and allow international access to thousands held in its prisoner-of-war camps. The UK is also being urged to boycott Sri Lanka till Colombo complies with international law. The handover follows a march and ‘midnight vigil’ outside 10 Downing Street staged Friday night by thousands of supporters of the campaign who marked the anniversary of the 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom.
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SLA personnel to be settled in uprooted civilians’ land in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 July 2010, 06:28 GMT]
Five thousand houses constructed in Mu’ruka’ndi area in Ki’linochchi district including Skanthapuram along A9 road are to be settled in August with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) senior and junior officials and their families permanently while the uprooted civilians brought to be resettled in Skanthapuram are left in a school building by Sri Lanka government officials, sources in Ki’linochchi said.
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Jaffna HRC to investigate cases of persons disappeared at the end of war on Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 17:46 GMT]
An official of Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office said that the first stage of preliminary investigation to find out the fate of persons who had disappeared after leaving Liberation Tigers controlled area in Vanni at the end of the war, is in the offing. Representatives of Associations related to finding persons disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) or surrender, however, said that they believe that the above announcement will also end up with no results just as their earlier complaints to HRC, ICRC and UNHCR on disappeared persons remain stored in files without any action taken on them so far.
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NGOs consider withdrawing from Vanni as Sri Lanka tightens restrictions

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 16:10 GMT]
Some International and Local Non-government organizations (NGOs) serving in Vanni consider leaving Vanni as Sri Lanka government’s restrictions to stay and serve in Vanni are tightened. Permission from President’s Task Force (PTF), headed by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and Sri Lanka Minister, Basil Rajapaksa for NGOs has been a prerequisite to assist the war affected people in Vanni. In addition to this now Sri Lanka government requires the NGOs serving in Vanni to obtain permission from Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence (MoD) and renew same monthly if they wish to be in Vanni and serve its people, a representative of a local NGO in Vanni said.
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Resettled family children in Vanni abandon school to earn a living

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 06:20 GMT]
Most of the resettled families having lost their earning male members either killed, disappeared or detained in prison after arrest or surrender, their children are forced to drop out from school in order to earn a living for the family, an education officer in Vanni said. The number of children above fifteen in the resettled families abandoning school has shot up drastically, though most of them would like to continue schooling if only they have the means, he further said. Politicians and others who had been shouting hard for the rights of children during the war have become silent on this grave issue, Sitsabesan, a local NGO representative in Vanni said.
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SLA soldiers continue to plunder abandoned houses in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 July 2010, 17:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers continue to plunder the valuable properties abandoned by the uprooted residents of the coastal area from Naakarkoayil to Chu’ndikku’lam in Vadmaraadchi East, a team of officials which had visited the area recently said. Only Naakarkoayil and its surroundings had been affected by war while the people and their properties in the rest of the vast area had not been greatly affected as the war did not take place in their area. These people, uprooted when SLA began to invade Naakarkoayil and Mukamaalai during the offensive on Vanni, had fled leaving all their belongings. It is this area that is now being plundered by SLA soldiers and Southern traders allowed into the area by SLA authorities, the officials further said.
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SLA soldier taking drugs to Kilinochchi arrested

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 July 2010, 11:14 GMT]
Amid several allegations that members of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and other state security forces have been engaged in smuggling ganja, a locally made drug, opium and other prohibited narcotics items to the Northern Province for sale, the Sri Lanka Police Wednesday arrested a soldier of the SLA at Anuradhapura while seated in a bus that destined for Kilinochchi with about one hundred packets of powdered ganja, sources said.
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SLA soldiers sexually abuse resettled women in Mannar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 22:38 GMT]
Young women recently released from Vavuniyaa internment camps and resettled in Mannar district are living in fear of their life, and are living are being sexually abused by members of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying the Mannar area, sources in Mannar said.. Parents of the women undergoing harassment are unable to make official complaints because of fear of retribution, and are relocating, in increasing numbers, their daughters to relatives' houses located elsewhere for safety, civil sources from resettled areas say.
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Armed men rob fuel station flanked by police, SLA, EPDP office in Point Pedro

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 18:23 GMT]
Armed men entered Monday night the fuel station in Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi, located in front of Nelliayadi Sri Lanka police station, near Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administration office and the office of Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a constituent of the ruling UPFA government, and robbed cash around half a million rupees breaking open the iron safe of the fuel station in Kaddaiveali Muti-purpose Cooperative Society building, sources in Point Pedro.
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SLA forces resettled civilians in Ki’linochchi to vacate dwellings

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 06:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Ki’linochchi are forcing the resettled civilians in Selvaanakar Eight Houses Scheme to vacate their houses claiming that their houses are built on private land, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Vanni parliamentarian Sritharan said. He added that SLA soldiers entering the Scheme during nights in the last few days have been attacking the men, women and children in the housing scheme indiscriminately. The above families, whose heads are disabled, are so scared and frustrated that they consider suicide to escape SLA intimidation and harassment, Sritharan said.
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SLA to construct permanent base in demolished Koappaay Tiger Heroes’ Resting Home site

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 July 2010, 16:27 GMT]
Jaffna Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high command has requested Sri Lanka Electricity Board Jaffna to supply electricity to the site where Tiger Heroes’ Resting Home had stood in Koappaay before being obliterated by SLA recently as it intends to construct a big permanent base for its 512 Division, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA, constructing several bases in Jaffna in haste, forces the uprooted civilians living in the area around the above site to evacuate their dwellings, the affected civilians complain.
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UN war-crimes advisory panel on Sri Lanka meets in New York

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 July 2010, 05:42 GMT]
The United Nations Panel on Sri Lanka met for the first time in New York Monday at the UN's North Lawn building, Inner City Press (ICP) reported. The meeting of Panel members Marzuki Darusman, a former Attorney General from Indonesia, Yasmin Sooka, Member of South Africa's Truth Commisssion, and Steven Ratner, Law professor at Michigan University, US, officially marked the start of the 4-month period UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has given the Panel to complete the first report. While the Government of Sri Lanka has announced that it will not issue visas to the Panel members to visit Sri Lanka, the UN spokesperson has indicated that visit is not a critical part of the Panel's initial mission.
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Jaffna Prison officer alleged of assaulting Sinhala doctor suspect, attacked

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 July 2010, 18:47 GMT]
A gang of more than eight persons arriving on motorcycles Saturday night at the residence of the Jaffna Prison officer, Nanthakumar alleged of assaulting the Sinhala doctor suspect in Jaffna prison, attacked him and damaged his household goods and furniture, according to a complaint made to Maanippaay police by Nanthakumar. Many persons including high Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officers and powerful political persons have been intimidating him and the attack Saturday night followed the intimidations, Nanthakumar said in his complaint.
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SLA soldier recovered dead in Pazhai

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 July 2010, 15:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) from Pazhai in Thenmaraadchi handed over the body of a young soldier to Jaffna Teaching Hospital Monday claiming that he was killed in an accident, hospital sources said. Chaavakachcheari magistrate held the inquest into the death in Pazhai and ordered the victim’s body to be sent to his home in Colombo. He further instructed the police to arrange for medical examination of the remains by Colombo Judicial Medical Officer and submit his report to Chaavakachcheari court.
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SL minister includes spouses of Balakumaran, Yogi, among widows

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 July 2010, 13:04 GMT]
According to Rajapaksa regime’s Rehabilitation and Prisons Reforms minister and Communist Party leader, Dew Gunasekera, the wives of the senior members of the LTTE, K.V. Balakumaran and Yogaratnam Yogi are among the widows needing rehabilitation, The Island reported Monday. Both the LTTE leaders were reportedly seen reaching internment camps run by the Sri Lankan military, by many who went into those camps. The international community was repeatedly telling the LTTE to surrender to Colombo and civilians to get into barbed-wire camps of the Sri Lankan Army. The Army killed Balakumaran on the Vanni east front early last year, The Island says. There were earlier media reports that the leaders were taken to Colombo.
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