Dead bodies located inside a toilet pit in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 May 2010, 15:45 GMT]
Members of a family recently resettled in Ka'neasapuram in Ki'iinochchi after being displaced from their house, located Saturday dead bodies of massacred victims, buried inside their toilet pit, sources in Ki'linochchi said. The house was located 1 km west of A9.
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Sinhalese Buddhists celebrate Vesak grandly in the North

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 18:46 GMT]
Sinhalese Buddhists from South and the government armed forces in the North celebrated Thursday and Friday the annual Buddhist Vesak festival in Jaffna, Ki’linochchi and Vanni in a grand scale in comparison with last year, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka government provided full support for the celebrations while security measures were strengthened in Jaffna with 700 additional policemen deployed along with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, the sources added. Vehicles were not allowed near Duraippah Stadium where grand Vesak lanterns had been hoisted.
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SLA issues death threat to press owner in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 17:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Division men issued death threat in person to the owner of a leading printing press in Jaffna as he had printed copies of a Weekly newspaper which was claimed by them to contain articles criticizing the actions of President Mahinda Rajapakse and Deputy Minister Karuna, sources in Jaffna said. The Weekly has been launched with Vanni as its centre of operation. The SLA men had strongly warned the owner saying that this was an attempt to create disturbances among the people again, the sources added.
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STF again under SL Defence Ministry

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 13:16 GMT]
The notorious Special Task Force (STF), a military-styled elite counter insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan Police, which has been responsible for a number of war-crimes and genocidal onslaughts against Tamil speaking people in the East, has been brought under the control of the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with effect from May 12 following a decision by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa with the approval of his cabinet of ministers. The STF was responsible for the execution-styled massacre of five Tamil students in January 2006.
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4 SLA soldiers killed by lightning during preparation for 'War Victory Day' in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 09:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka government failed to reveal the deaths of four Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and others injured by lightning at Galle Face Green in Colombo while decorating the area for the War Victory Day celebrations, on 17, 18 April, two days prior to the event, sources in Colombo said. Though the government had concealed this incident from the public so as not to spoil the sprit of the first annual victory celebrations over Liberation Tigers, news of it had leaked through the employees of government and private offices and other establishments in Galle Face, the sources added. Tamil National Alliance and the other opposition parties had requested the government to cancell the celebration while the people was suffering but the government did celebrate the event.
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Journalists, NGOs unsettle Peiris's US visit

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 00:30 GMT]
While Tamil demonstrators plan to protest in front of the State Department during Sri Lanka's Minister of External Affairs Gamini Lakshman Peiris's meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton Friday, reports covering Peiris's US visit indicate an uncomfortable minister facing hostile press and questioners, and the resulting damage to the Minister's mission to block UN and US acting on the war-crimes call by several NGOs. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, International Crisis Group and Elders this week, had called for an independent international war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka. Minister Peiris has been taking pre-emptive steps, unprecedented for a visiting Minister, to avoid facing serious journalists who have been covering Sri Lanka's war and the conduct of the protagonists during the last months of the war.
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Limestone in Valikaamam HSZ sent to Galle in South

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 16:58 GMT]
Thousands of Southern Sinhalese labourers are engaged in excavating lime stone in the Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North where its residents had been evicted by SLA, Jaffna MP, Appathurai Vinayagamoorthy accused in a press meet held in Jaffna Thursday. The excavated limestone is taken to the cement factories in Galle in ships and via A9 road, he further said. Government which does not permit the evicted residents of Valikaamam North to resettle in their own places has freely allowed thousands of Sinhalese labourers to work within the HSZ.
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IIFA showbiz event blamed for promoting ‘paradise of genocide’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 16:24 GMT]
As Tamils world over mark one-year of Indian abetted genocidal war against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, the Hindi film industry known as Bollywood and the major Indian conglomerate of trade unions, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) are joining hands with Rajapaksa regime in Colombo in staging 11th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards weekend during the first week of June in Colombo. The FICCI, the largest and oldest business conglomerate of India is the flagship organiser of the business event named FICCI-IIFA Global Business Forum, where hundreds of CEOs and business heads from India would be signing various investment contracts and tie-ups in the island on the second day of the celebrity and corporate event.
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SLA occupies 80% of agricultural land in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 2010, 19:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupies around eighty percentage of agricultural land in Vanni and Jaffna peninsula in the name of High Security Zones (HSZs) and releasing this land back to the owners is the prerequisite to any attempt to explore possibilities of agricultural development in the North, representatives of agricultural organizations in Jaffna peninsula told the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Jegath Pushpakumara, Wednesday in Jaffna Secretariat where he participated in a meeting related to the development activities in the peninsula, sources in Jaffna said.
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Indian push to finalise trade agreement sparks protests in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 2010, 14:42 GMT]
Domestic service industries in the island would be affected by the Indian push to upgrade the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which exists between India and Sri Lanka to a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), say protesters in Colombo belonging to various service sectors. The Indian Establishment, locked in a corporate race with China, has been pushing Colombo to finalise the CEPA agreement, which New Delhi wants signed when Mahinda Rajapaksa visits India on June 8. Rajapaksa's visit to India is scheduled to take place after the celebration of Indian cinema and corporate weekend, known as Indian International Film Awards (IIFA) Weekend Festival, which is to be held in Colombo in the first weekend of June.
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Sri Lankan CID to record statement from UN representative over Fonseka interview

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 2010, 12:01 GMT]
The Colombo Chief Magistrate Champa Janaki Seneviratne Wednesday allowed an application by the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to record a statement from Keshunaka Seneviratne, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in United Nations in Geneva regarding the comment by United Nations Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston on an alleged interview made by former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army General (retd.) Sarath Fonseka in a letter to her. Sarath Fonseka in an interview with the Sunday Leader, English weekly on the eve of presidential election alleging that the SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse in the final leg of war with the LTTE had ordered Brigadier Shavendra Silva to shoot the LTTE officials carrying white flags.
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Fonseka files writ application challenging the composition of second Court Martial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 16:58 GMT]
Retired General Sarath Fonseka Monday filed a Writ Application in the Court of Appeal challenging the composition of the second Court Martial. He has leveled serious allegations against the three Major Generals of the Sri Lanka Army appointed to the Court Martial. He sought the Court of Appeal to quash the hearings of the Court Martial stating that one of the Major Generals was in the pay of the LTTE and the other tried by the SLA for giving false evidence at an inquiry.
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Boston Globe: Probe War Crimes in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:35 GMT]
Noting that "outside world has received credible accounts of war crimes perpetrated on a large scale by Sri Lanka security forces as well as by the Tigers," during the military offensives by Colombo in the early months of 2009, Boston Globe, in Monday's editorial said that "President Obama, who has drawn criticism for soft-pedaling human rights concerns in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, should insist that Sri Lanka’s government be held accountable for shelling civilians and hospitals and murdering fighters who surrendered on the battlefield."
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SLA plundered vehicle spare parts in Vanni sold in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:57 GMT]
Anuradhapura has turned into the main ‘spare parts sales town’ in Sri Lanka as the spare parts of vehicles abandoned in Mu’l’livaaikkaal in Vanni, plundered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), are being taken to Anuradahapura along A9 road in trucks and vehicles which bring goods to North, according to Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian. He further alleged that the spare parts of the vehicles of Vanni civilians systematically plundered by SLA soldiers immediately after the war are kept hidden in bunkers with the collaboration of their officers and that the parts are gradually passed on to Southern Sinhalese and Muslim traders to be sold in Anuradhapura.
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Wife of victim in Channel-4 photo identifies husband

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 16:28 GMT]
The 7-year-old daughter of a 40-year-old victim of Vanni War identified her father from the photos released by Channel-4 last week and published in local papers in Jaffna. She and her mother, who lost her husband and a 2-year-old son, are now sheltered in an orphanage in Jaffna. A humanitarian activist who met the mother told TamilNet that the victim in the photo, kept naked inside a bunker by the Sri Lanka Army, was Harikrishanan Thuraichamy. He was reported missing since April 2009, when he went to Ananthapuram area promising his family to recover their belongings. He was a former LTTE member, but had left the movement and living with his family, according to his wife. Although some friends of Mr. Harikrishnan had told her that his body was seen among LTTE fighters killed, she has not seen any evidence and she still believes her husband is alive in SLA custody.
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Uprooted civilians from Vadamaraadchi East refused permission to resettle

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 05:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Jaffna Commander and Jaffna Government Agent (GA) who met the uprooted civilians from Vadamaraadchi East still held in Thenmaraadchi interim refugee camps told them Sunday that they cannot be resettled in their own places immediately, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) which controls Vadamaraadchi is reluctant to allow resettlement of the original residents, mainly fishermen, as they do not want to hinder the Sinhalese fishermen who now monopolize the deep seas with their trawlers from Naakarkoayil to Mullaiththeevu where most of the fish are caught in Jaffna peninsula, fisheries society representatives in Vadamaraadchi said.
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SLA permits annual Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 05:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities have permitted the annual Pongal festival in the historically famous Amman Koayil located in Vattaappazhai in Mullaiththeevu district to be held Monday but thousands of uprooted civilians from Mullaiththeevu still held in the camps are disinterested in taking part in the Pongal festival as they have been refused permission to resettle in their own places, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The government, however, is making a great show of the festival providing free transport to Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival from Vavuniyaa, the sources added.
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NP Governor orders priority to Southern contractors in Northern development tenders

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 20:20 GMT]
Northern Province Governor and former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, has directed Government Secretaries in the North to prioritize contactors from South in allocating tenders to all development work in the North, sources in Jaffna said. In the context of North being invaded by Southern Sinhalese businessmen and traders Governor’s directive effectively further denies all opportunities to local contractors in the development works in North, the sources added.
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Government planning to bring Sinhalese colonists again to Ma’nalaa’ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is accelerating its plans to colonize Ma’nalaa’ru area in Vanni with Sinhalese people and also to bring back the Sinhalese people who had been earlier brought to this area as colonists, some government officers who had visited Ma’nalaa’ru area said. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and other de-mining organizations are now at work in the above Ma’nalaa’ru area which includes Janakapura, Parakrampura and the traditional Tamil village Othiyamalai. The government has no plans to resettle the ancient Tamil inhabitants of Othiyamalai, the officers said.
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Taking stock on the first anniversary of Internationally abetted genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 14:07 GMT]
The Tamil struggle for independence, one of the longest running struggles of Asia, which has progressed through the Colonial phase and the World Wars, through Cold-War era and through the period of War on Terrorism and the times of economic conquest, now stands at the juncture of a paradigm shift, one-year after the end of asymmetric, but largely conventional Eezham War IV. If Eezham Tamil Nation is to advance successfully forward from where it stands, it needs to adopt its own set of paradigms, capable of not only defeating opposing maneuvers of the Sri Lankan state and the abettors from outside, but also powerful in addressing the future from a broad perspective, rising above the classical dialectic approach.
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