SLA refuses to permit TNA parliamentarians into Menik Farm camp in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 12:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials in Menik Farm Camp in Vavuniyaa did not permit Saturday a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to visit the said detention centre and see the Vanni civilians held, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The SLA officials insisted on prior permission from Ministry of Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapakse and stood firm in their decision though the MPP tried to argue their way into the centre, the sources added.
Full story >>

Peiris US bound amid war crime calls in US Congress

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 23:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris is to visit the United States next week for talks with the US government, and is expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his stay in US, Colombo electronic media reported quoting External Affairs Ministry sources. The hurriedly arranged visit occurs in the wake of a week of concerted calls by several human rights organizations for independent investigations into Sri Lanka war crimes. Congressmen David Price (D-4th District North Carolina) and Danny K Davis (D-7th District Illinois) added their voices for expeditious action by the international community to probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka. Three more Congresspersons made floor statements referring to traditional Tamil homeland and Tamils as a community under threat, and on the condition of Tamil refugees.
Full story >>

Jaffna SLA blocks efforts to reopen schools, government buildings closed due to war in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 17:05 GMT]
A conference is to be held Monday in Ki’linochchi to discuss the reopening of the schools in Vanni which remain closed due to war as the government of Sri Lanka shows that it is trying to restore normalcy in the North, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Meanwhile, the Ministries of Public Administration and Defence are to conduct a conference in Colombo soon to explore ways to reopen the schools and government buildings that are being occupied in the North for ten to twenty years. Jaffna SLA Commander, however, is said to be hindering this move as the opening of the schools and government buildings will call for the resettlement of the people uprooted from Valikaamam North, sources Jaffna said.
Full story >>

SLA demolishes Valvai Monument for victims massacred by IPKF in VVT

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 16:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has demolished the memorial monument erected by Valveddiththu’rai (Valavai/VVT) people near Theeruvil crematorium grounds for their kith and kin massacred by occupying Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in August 1989, followed by the recent demolishing of Thileepan memorial monument, erected in Nalloor also by the public, sources said. SLA which has systematically removed all traces of Liberation Tigers in the peninsula by demolishing the Heroes’ Resting Homes, Theeruvil memorial monuments for Col. Kiddu, Kumarappa, Pulendran and ten combatants has now begun to demolish memorial monuments erected by public, the sources said.
Full story >>

Death toll rises to 26 in flood fury

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 10:26 GMT]
The death toll in the ongoing flood fury in the island of Sri Lanka has risen to 26 by early Friday and the persons affected to nearly 550,000, as several rivers continued to swell to near busting point with officials warning of mass-scale flooding and urged the immediate evacuation of those living close to these water ways.
Full story >>

British MPs call for war crimes probes at Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 09:36 GMT]
Parliamentarians from all three main British political parties addressed a rally Tuesday at Westminster to commemorate the forty thousand Tamil civilians massacred last year by the Sri Lankan government forces during the closing months of the island’s civil war. Addressing 10,000 people who filled the permitted space in Parliament Square, MPs from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, which comprise Britain’s new ruling coalition, and the main opposition Labour party were united in their condemnation of the war crimes and the need for international action on Sri Lanka’s war crimes.
Full story >>

May remembrance observed in Jaffna amid SLA intimidation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 08:12 GMT]
Despite hindrances and intimidation including death threats to the organizing clergy of the Tuesday memorial events for the people killed in the war on Vanni last year, Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) and Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) observed the commemoration events Tuesday in a peaceful manner, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, commenting on the behaviour of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials, said that their activities have revealed their true face. It is alleged that SLA officers from Jaffna Fort had personally threatened the clergy with death who had organized memorial event in Trimer Hall which was cancelled due to the threats, the sources added.
Full story >>

Mass grave discovered in Naachchikkudaa, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 15:15 GMT]
De-mining workers of Danish De-mining Group (DDG) have discovered a mass grave in Naachchikkudaa area in Mannaar containing 75 to 100 skeletal remains while engaged in de-mining in the area, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet Wednesday. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had not permitted resettlement in Naachchikkudaa earlier claiming that the area was infested with landmines and a great quantity of explosives lying buried at the height of the war had taken place in Naachchikkudaa. It is suspected that the skeletal remains discovered may have belonged to young men and women, the sources added.
Full story >>

SLA to hold Vesak celebration in Jaffna next week

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 12:43 GMT]
Elaborate arrangements are being made by the Sri Lanka Army with its command in Jaffna district to celebrate Vesak celebrations in the peninsula on May 27, 28 and 29. Vesak festivities will be held in the Alfred Duraiappah Stadium, Jaffna Public Library and Jaffna Fort by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces stationed in the north. The SLA, which is promoting Sinhala businessmen from south to establish businesses along the A9, has appealed to those in the south who would like to visit Jaffna to make the Vesak festivities an opportunity this year.
Full story >>

SLA releases 495 Tamils detained in special detention centres in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 05:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) released 495 Tamil detainees held in Thellippazhai Special Rehabilitation Centre and Kaithadi SLA detention centre in an event held in Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Tuesday. 270 students, 198 boys and girls of school going age, 72 Jaffna University students, 125 men and women claimed to have been former Liberation Tiger cadres were officially handed over to their parents at the event.
Full story >>

SLA soldiers force Tamils to hoist Sri Lankan flag in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 05:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna celebrating its victory in the war on the Tamils in Vanni forced residents in Jaffna peninsula to hoist the Sri Lankan flag in their houses and vehicles Tuesday, sources in Jaffna said. SLA had issued strict instructions to all private and government institutions to hoist the Lion flag Tuesday as a mark of celebrating the SLA victory. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan soldiers had blocked all events that were arranged to commemorate the Tamils killed by SLA in the war on Vanni.
Full story >>

Senior SLA officer: ‘Kill everybody!’ order came from the top

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 19:33 GMT]
A senior Sri Lankan Army commander and frontline soldier have told Britain’s Channel 4 News that point-blank executions of Tamils at the end of the civil war in May 2009 were carried out under orders ‘from the top’. In an extended segment on Sri Lanka Tuesday, Channel 4 broadcast translated video interviews with the two soldiers. Surrendering LTTE fighters and their families were detained, tortured and shot, the trooper said. Channel 4 also interviewed in the studio the former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, Louis Arbour, who slammed the impunity enjoyed by Sri Lankan forces throughout the armed conflict. Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United Nations, Palitha Kohana, failed to show up, despite agreeing beforehand to appear to defend his government’s record.
Full story >>

Accounting for 2009 will define Sri Lanka’s future - editorial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 11:10 GMT]
“2009’s single, protracted program of state-conducted slaughter in Sri Lanka has a sixty year-long antecedent, beginning well before the armed conflict erupted in 1983 … Since independence from Britain the Tamils have been a clear target for state-sanctioned and, later, state-conducted violence on a massive scale. … In that sense, the Tamils today embody the raison d’etre of the ‘responsibility to protect,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial.
Full story >>

Colombo, SLA 'poking spear into an unhealed wound' : JUSU

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 10:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka government and its army celebrating their Vanni war victory in the the North and East while the Tamils continue to suffer bearing the wounds inflicted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni is like ‘poking spear into an unhealed wound’, Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) said in a media message titled Monday in Jaffna. Meanwhile, SLA key officials took part in several ‘Victory Celebrations’ held in Vanni mainland while people travelling along A9 road were kept waiting on sides for nearly four hours Monday while SLA conducted its celebration event in Ki’linochchi, sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

Valikaamam HSZ resettlement issue remains unresolved

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 09:46 GMT]
The issue of resettling families uprooted from their properties by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) for the establishment of High Security Zone (HSZ) discussed in a meeting in Thellippazhai Divisional Secretariat Monday was not resolved due to the non-cooperation of the Tamil political leaders, the representatives of the Welfare Organizations for Uprooted Persons (WOUP) who arranged the meeting said. WOUP had requested all the parliamentarians of Jaffna district to raise their voices together to solve the issue, its representatives said.
Full story >>

TGTE inaugurated in transnational way, Ramsey Clark stresses importance of history

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 01:49 GMT]
87 of 115 representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) already declared elected from 11 countries are meeting in three spots of the world, in the US city of Philadelphia, in London and in Geneva, in a 3 day inaugural session from 17 to 19 May. The Tamil Eelam flag was hoisted and a representative from each country addressed the public stating that the goal of the TGTE should be the formation of independent and sovereign state of Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. William Ramsey Clark, a former US Attorney General, was one of the keynote speakers of the inaugural event. He characterized the move to form the transnational government a "brave initiative to find the wisdom and the courage to achieve - as it was for many centuries - a free and independent Tamil Eelam."
Full story >>

SLA blocks May remembrance events in Jaffna, journalists threatened

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 22:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has prevented the first commemoration events of Mu’l’livaaikkaal Massacre of May 2009 being observed in Jaffna Sunday in Nalloor and Jaffna town by chasing away the public from participating, threatening to death the reporters trying to cover the event and detaining Yarl Thinakural reporter who was present in the memorial event observed in Ilangkai Thamizh Arasu Kaddchi (ITAK) office on Martin Road, Jaffna.
Full story >>

SLA instructs public on celebrating its Mu’l’l’ivaaikkal victory in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 20:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high command in Palaali military head quarters released Monday a media directive to Jaffna dailies calling all government offices, schools, shops, public markets and people, in Jaffna peninsula to hoist the Sri Lanka National flag in their places Tuesday, celebrating the first anniversary of SLA Mu’l’livaaikkal victory, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA has also announced that more than 600 young women held in Thellippazhai SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp and Kaithadi SLA detention camp are to be released in an event to be held in Jaffna Veeraisngham Hall Tuesday, the sources added.
Full story >>

NESoHR: Except Dublin, world remains without action on Colombo's War Crimes

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 09:09 GMT]
"For the last one year, there has only been talk of war crime charges. Repeated attacks on hospitals; killing, torture, rape and sexual abuse of people escaping the war zone are some of the charges leveled against the Sri Lankan forces. But, except for the verdict passed by the Dublin Permanent People’s Tribunal there has been no other concrete action," said the exiled team members of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), the Humanitarian body which was earlier based in Vanni, in a statement issued Monday. "The 300,000 people who walked out of the war zone are witnesses to these war crimes. Each one of them would have narrowly escaped death at least once in those safe zones. Fear, extreme fear, prevents the 300,000 eye witnesses from speaking. Even those who escaped from the island to other countries are silenced by fear."
Full story >>

SLA soldiers deployed again in road checks, patrol in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 19:11 GMT]
Thousands of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are deployed along with the police in carrying out checks and patrol of the main roads in Jaffna peninsula again, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna SLA Commander Mahinda Kathrusinghe informed that SLA forces are being deployed to help the police in Jaffna peninsula to contain the escalating abductions for ransom, killings, robberies and sexual violence on women, deteriorating law and order in the peninsula, in a meeting with the Jaffna district lawyers and magistrates Saturday.
Full story >>