Government yet to decide on 13 plus political solution – Minister Alagaperuma

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2009, 16:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Transport Minister, Dallas Alagaperuma, said Monday in a press meet in Jaffna that no final decision has been made by the government on the proposed 13 plus political solution to the ethnic issue, correcting Minister Douglas Devananda, who told the reporters that President Mahinda Rajapakse and the cabinet have accepted the 13 plus political solution. The press meet took place in the newly opened Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) office in Chu’ndukkuzhi in Jaffna to which more than a hundred media persons were brought from the South. Ministers Dallas Algaperuma, Douglas Devananda and Srisena Cooray were some of the political leaders present in the meeting.
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Delay in resettling Vanni IDPs lamentable – PCPG

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 July 2009, 04:41 GMT]
“No one is showing any interest at all in resettling the Vanni Internally Displaced Persons or consider their miserable lives, being detained in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps,” representatives of the Peoples’ Committee for Peace and Goodwill (PCPG) Jaffna, led by Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, told Dr. Packiyasothy Saravanamuthu, the head of Colombo based Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Sunday at Jaffna Bishop’s house. A team led by the head of CPA arrived in Jaffna to attend to matters related to the monitoring of the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, sources in Jaffna said.
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Awakening North, an election gimmick? - Sunday Leader

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 11:37 GMT]
Noting that the loan scheme announced by the Sri Lanka Government to Northern small scale enterprises while soliciting donations for the diaspora for refugee relief, exposed the scarcity of funds to support Jaffna loans, an article in Sunday Leader, said that the loan announcement is likely an election ploy to woo Jaffna voters towards the ruling UPFA. Questioning the motives for recent actions by the Central Bank in not revealing the details of IMF Article IV consultation report, and suspending publication of weekly economic indicators, the article said the reluctance of the Government to set free the screened IDPs in the internment camps is likely driven by the need to mobilize "humanitarian aid from the donors and donations from the diaspora to bolster the foreign currency reserves of the government."
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Disease outbreak keeps UN staff away from Vavuniyaa hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 02:14 GMT]
Vavuniya-based United Nations staff providing relief services to the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) has been advised to keep away from the Vavuniya General Hospital due to an outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, health officials in Vavuniyaa said. The UN warning to staff came amidst reports that hospital employees at Vavuniya had failed to inform authorities of the outbreak, the Sunday Times reported. Dr. Hemantha Herath, Health Coordinator of the IDP camps, told the newspaper, “It is only now that we are getting a regular feedback from the hospital. They have not done in-depth investigations into these cases.”
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United Sri Lanka is the steadfast aim of UNP – Tissa Athanayake, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 10:32 GMT]
General Secretary of United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, Tissa Athanayake, said that the UNP believes in one country with equal rights to all its people, in a press meet held Thursday in Jaffna City Hotel. Tissa Athanayake, accompanied by Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, UNP parliamentarian and UNP principal candidate in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, A. S. Sathiyendra, explained the policy of his party to the media. “One of the main functions of the ICRC is family reunion of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Rajapakse’s government’s decision to stop ICRC’s functions and to expel it from the country needs to be vehemently condemned,” Dr. Jayalath Jayawardne said.
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10 IDPs die daily inside barbed wire camps in Vavuniyaa - JVP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 03:53 GMT]
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) said Wednesday it has been receiving reports that due to scarcity of essential needs such as food, water and medicine, on the average, ten internally displaced people die every day inside the camps located in Vavuniyaa. "These people too are citizens of Sri Lanka. Those who are languishing inside the barbed wire camps are our fellow citizens. We call upon the Government not to forget the fact that they tjere arrived on the invitation of the government. It is disgusting to hear of the way the government treats them now,” said JVP leader Mr.Somawanse Amarasinghe addressing a press briefing Wednesday at the JVP head office in Battaramulla.
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Thenmaraadchi IDP families seek resettlement in their villages

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 05:10 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) welfare organizations in Jaffna peninsula sent an appeal Monday to Sri Lanka Government authorities and to several International Humanitarian Organizations requesting the immediate resettlement of the IDP families displaced from Thenmaraadchi due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives in 1999, in their own villages, sources in Jaffna said. SLA continues to deny permission for the resettlement though the villages have been cleared of landmines, claiming that the villages are within its High Security Zone (HSZ), the appeal said.
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Colombo doctors to investigate outbreak of meningitis, encephalitis in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Six medical officers from Colombo are scheduled to visit IDP camps which are described as internment camps by human rights agencies in Vavuniya tomorrow to investigate a suspected outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, reported from the Vavuniyaa General Hospital. Meanwhile the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) has charged that a severe shortage of nurses and pharmacists in the Vavuniyaa camps is compounding health problems there.
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AG to file response to FR petition on “internment “camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 22:01 GMT]
Three member Bench of the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court Friday directed the Attorney General (AG) to file objections within two weeks in respect of granting leave to proceed, and interim relief to the Petitioners, in a Fundament Rights (FR) Violation petition against the detention of nearly three hundred thousand Vanni IDPs in State controlled "welfare centres" which have been described by human rights activists and organizations as "internment camps," legal sources in Colombo said.
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Muslim IDP abducted in Puththa’lam welfare centre

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 04:15 GMT]
Unidentified armed persons arriving on three motor bicycles abducted an internally displaced Muslim person from a refugee camp located in Mohideen Nakar at Fourth Mile Post along Puththa’lam-Mannaar road Tuesday around 2.30 a.m, according to complaints lodged with Puththa’lam Police by his relatives.
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US concerned about IDPs, peace process: ambassador-designate to India

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 00:28 GMT]
The Ambassador-designate of Obama administration to India, Tim Roemer, appearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wednesday, said the US is very concerned about the internally displaced people, resettlement, reconciliation and a peace process to go forward. “I think that’s something that would be important for the next ambassador, to continue to work with the Indian government on, to see that the Sri Lankan situation moves in a peaceful process, with reconciliation as a high goal”, he said in his testimony. While appreciating India’s role to US in Afghanistan, about Sri Lanka, the nominee was appreciative of India’s humanitarian aid.
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Abetting genocide for ‘conflict termination’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 15:36 GMT]
“Rwanda, Sudan and now Sri Lanka, it is another wake up call to the World”, says a blog-writer Richard Dixon, questioning why no world leader is declaring “War on Genocide”. The article in Independent Minds blog, Wednesday, said “An internal conflict in Sri Lanka has now been made worse by its greedy neighbours. They are now lining up with spanners and hammers to fix the problems in Sri Lanka. The ones that are now trying to fix Sri Lanka are helping the strong party to the conflict to destroy the weaker one completely. Arrogant voice from Sri Lanka in the recent times is to do with its close bonding with India and China. These two countries have both been involved in high level PR-campaigns to hide the war crimes committed by Sri Lanka. […] Such method can’t be called as conflict resolution but it is an unfair conflict termination by eliminating one party to the conflict.
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More Moothoor IDPs transferred to Ki’liveddi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 09:37 GMT]
Aaraiyampathi Vayiravar Koayil welfare centre in Batticaloa district was closed down Tuesday following the transfer of the final batch of 51 members of eighteen Tamil families displaced from Tamil villages located in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Moothoor east in Trincomalee district during 2006 April military operation. They were transported in three State sector buses via Vaakarai and Verukal to Ki’liveddi Tuesday morning. They would be sheltered in welfare centres located in Ki’liveddi, Paddiththidal and Thillaangkear’ni till alternative lands are found for them, civil authority sources said.
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SL parliament extends Emergency for another month

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 04:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s parliament Tuesday adopted a motion to extend the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of ninety two votes. One hundred and three parliamentarians voted for the motion. Only eleven members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) voted against. The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and National Freedom Front (NFF), a splinter group of the JVP voted with ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA).
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Unclaimed 14 Vanni IDPs corpses to be buried at state cost

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 03:12 GMT]
Corpses of fourteen displaced Vanni Tamil civilians including three children brought from Puthumaathth’alan in Mullaiththeevu district two months ago to Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital are to be given a common burial at State costs as none had come forward to identify or to claim them, according to a decision taken by the hospital authority Sunday.
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34 Vanni IDPs die in 3 months due to brain fever

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 11:48 GMT]
Brain fever has been on the increase among Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) held in internment centres located in Vavuniyaa, according to medical sources in the district hospital. Thirty-four Vanni IDPs of the sixty-four afflicted by brain fever have died in three months. Majority of them who succumbed to brain fever were less than 24 years of age, medical sources said.
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Mullaiththeevu town declared HSZ: GA

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 10:31 GMT]
The Government Agent of Mullaiththeevu, Imelda Sukumar, on Sunday reportedly told a section of the uprooted Tamils of Vanni sheltered at the internment camp situated at "Sahanagama" in Pulmoaddai that the town of Mullaiththeevu has been declared High Security Zone by the Sri Lankan military, dashing any hope of resettlement in the coastal township of Vanni.
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Armed men rob elderly IDP in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 05:41 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving on a motor bicycle robbed several thousand rupees worth gold jewellery from an elderly Internally Displaced Person (IDP) who was released from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Vavuniyaa and staying with his relatives at Veappangku’lam in Vavuniyaa on the pretext of searching his house. The robbery took place Saturday evening when the elderly IDP came to stay with his relative, media reports said.
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Maavadiveampu IDP welfare centre closed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 05:29 GMT]
About 27 families displaced due to conflict from Eeralakulam village and staying in the Maavadiveampu welfare centre in Batticaloa district have refused to go to Pazhachchoalai welfare centre as instructed by social department officials. However they have gone voluntarily to reside with their friends and relatives. Hence the authorities closed down Maavadivembu welfare centre immediately after dispatching the final batch of Moothoor IDPs to Ki’liveddi centre, civil sources said.
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5000 Vanni IDPs from internment camps moved to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 13:23 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military has relocated nearly 5000 Tamil civilians from Vavuniyaa and Cheddiku'lam internment camps and resetteld them in pre dominant Sinhala village Tharmapuram in Anuradhapu on Tuesday and Wednesday, civil sources said. The SL military officials had told the Tamil civilians that they would be re-settled in their native villages in Ki'linochchi or Mullaiththeevu within 14 days, but the Rajapaksa government, at an all party meeting in Colombo on Thursday, said that it needed time to clear the mines before any resettlement.
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