Political complacency will hasten plunge into autocracy: Australian media

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 February 2010, 01:58 GMT]
Australia’s nonchalant approach to Sri Lanka’s rapid decline into a full-blown autocracy would be a betrayal of the inhabitants of the land “should Australia be seen to abandon support for democracy in order to preserve relations with an increasingly authoritarian ruler” warned The Age in an editorial on Friday. Citing the alleged slaughter of thousands of Tamil civilians, the abduction of journalists and the recent arrest of presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, all under the gaze of the current administration, the paper urged the Rudd Government to take a pro-active stance as it has done to sanction other pacific nations that have defied the frameworks of democracy or risk failing its vested responsibilities as a regional power.
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IGP orders withdrawal of security to MPs in dissolved parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 February 2010, 01:54 GMT]
The security provided to all Members of Parliament (MP) who served in the dissolved parliament has been withdrawn with immediate effect on the instructions of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mahinda Balasuriya. He said the withdrawal follows the recent dissolution of Parliament after which all MPs become ordinary citizens. Leaders of the political parties are to lose their police security due to the IGP’s order, sources in Colombo said. Meanwhile, opposition MPs said government parliamentarians continue to enjoy the police security even after the IGP’s instruction.
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Police security to SLMC leader Rauf Hakim withdrawn

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 01:50 GMT]
The government has withdrawn the police security provided to Mr. Rauff Hakim, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) with immediate effect from Monday, Deputy General Secretary of the SLMC Nizam Kariappar told media in Colombo.
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Three-pronged Sinhala colonization in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 February 2010, 04:52 GMT]
Ko’ndachchi-Chilaavaththu’rai, Thalaimannaar Pier and Madu in Mannaar district are being particularly targeted for Sinhala-Buddhist colonies by the colonial government in Colombo, news reports from Mannaar said Sunday. Everyday, colonizers with shelter-making facilities and boats are brought through Vilpattu from Puththa’lam district and from Medawachchiya of Anuradhapura district, news sources said adding that even this Sinhalicisation is carefully planned for Buddhicisation of the Tamil Muslim and Christian dominated district. The long-term impact of the process is sure to be felt in coastal Tamil Nadu and in Tamil relationship across the seas, whatever equation imperial India may have with Colombo, Tamil circles said. Meanwhile, diplomats and agencies of Establishments who try to con Tamils need serious education on what is genocide – the Sri Lankan model, diaspora circles commented.
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World bank grant to help Sri Lanka block websites?

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 February 2010, 19:55 GMT]
Experts from China Military Intelligence Division is expected to be in Sri Lanka in the next two weeks to map out the modalities required for blocking what Colombo has termed "offensive" websites, media in Colombo reported. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) which is tasked to introduce new regulations on the functioning of websites received a grant from the Institutional Development Fund (IDF) under the World Bank to implement the "second generation" regulatory reforms, according to a weekly paper.
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Lies, responds Colombo, to accusations of "lying, misleading"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 February 2010, 13:38 GMT]
Responding to accusations by a former United Nations spokesperson, Gordon Weiss, that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the last battle, and that Sri Lanka was making statements that were "intentionally misleading or were lies," Sri Lanka's Director for the Media Centre for National Security, General Laxman Hulugalle, told a Colombo daily “[t]hat [Weiss's statement] is absolutely wrong information; Gordon Weiss was spreading false information, about the last stages of the war.”
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SL Supreme Court decides to hold inquiry into Fonseka FR petition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 February 2010, 04:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court Friday has granted leave to proceed in a controversial Fundamental Rights (FR) petition filed by Anoma Fonseka on behalf of her husband General Sarath Fonseka who has been detained by the Military police. The FR petition has been listed for inquiry on February 23 and on that date the Supreme Court will consider granting interim relief in the Sarath Fonseka FR case, legal sources said.
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Magistrate takes tough stand on police

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 February 2010, 11:42 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate, Ms Champa Janaki Rajaratne, Thursday reprimanded the Police for the failure to arrest armed men who are believed to be supporters of the ruling party when they attacked civilian protestors during their peaceful march condemning the arrest and detention of General Fonseka held on Wednesday in Colombo, legal sources said.
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Army Major arrested for extorting money from Tamil businessman

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 February 2010, 11:39 GMT]
The Criminal Investigation Department of the Colombo Police Wednesday arrested an army officer in the rank of a Major in the Sinha Regiment of the Sri Lanka Army and another civilian in connection with an alleged extortion of money in the amount of seven million rupees from a leading businessman in Wellawatte, media in Colombo reported.
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Police use tear gas, water cannons to break up protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 February 2010, 02:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police Thursday used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protests launched by opposition parties demanding the unconditional release of General (retd) Sarath Fonseka, in Maharagama, Kandy and other parts of the south, according to media reports.
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Sri Lanka massacred up to 40,000 Tamil civilians – former UN official

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 February 2010, 00:29 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s military massacred as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final onslaught against the Liberation Tigers in 2009, according to a former United Nations official with detailed knowledge of events, press reports said. The former United Nations’ spokesperson in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, has resigned from the UN after 14 years and returned home to Australia, where he was interviewed by ABC News. “He’s now free to speak openly about the situation in Sri Lanka, for the first time and does so candidly and unflinchingly,” the media agency said.
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Proving geopolitical strength, antidote to international injustice to Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 21:20 GMT]
In whatever ways Eezham Tamils may express aspiration for their national liberation, India and Rajapaksa government will quietly go ahead with their agenda of what they understand by ‘reconciliation,’ is the response that comes from the circles of the Indian Establishment. Informed Tamil political circles say there is a ‘high level’ understanding among all powers of geopolitical competition to negate Tamil independence. How to achieve the goal when all are against and what is the point in claiming freedom outside when people are subjugated inside are questions of those who are disillusioned by the psychological war. If crimes against Tamil nation are committed due to geopolitics the antidote is nothing but Tamil uprising to prove geopolitical superiority and the responsibility lies with Tamil Nadu.
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Violence erupts in protest against Fonseka arrest, police fire tear gas

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 13:11 GMT]
Opposition protest held Wednesday at Hultsdorf in Colombo against the arrest and detention of General (retd) Sarath Fonseka turned violent when a pro-government group attacked the protestors. Both groups thereafter started attacking each other. Protestors were also seen attacking the police personnel. Both groups used iron rods and clubs. Stones were pelted. Journalists at the scene said they saw clubs being unloaded from a car to attack the protestors.
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Sri Lanka parliament dissolved

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 18:14 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has dissolved Parliament and the gazette notification to this effect has been sent to the government printer, according to initial report from presidential secretariat sources.
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Fonseka beaten, dragged during arrest – report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 10:47 GMT]
General Sarath Fonseka, the former Sri Lankan military chief and defeated presidential candidate, was punched and dragged along the ground by troops led by a Major General who arrested him as he met political allies last night, the Daily Telegraph said Tuesday. “There was no decorum. To call it an arrest gives dignity and legality to what was a brutal abduction. He was beaten, dragged along the floor and bundled into a van," said opposition politician and Fonseka’s campaign spokesperson Mangala Samaraweera.
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Academic exposes habitual collaboration of Chennai in bungling geopolitics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 02:12 GMT]
Writing on the negotiations of 1964 Srimao-Shastri Pact that caused adverse impact on the demography of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Professor V. Suryanarayan says, “The most pathetic member of the Indian team was Ramiah, a Cabinet Minister from Tamil Nadu. According to informed sources, throughout the discussions, Ramiah did not utter a single word on behalf of the Tamil plantation workers, who wanted to remain in Sri Lanka and become Sri Lankan citizens.” Mr. Karunanidhi, for his personal consolidation of power, collaborated with New Delhi in ceding Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974. Had he challenged it in the Supreme Court, the India-Sri Lanka relations might have taken a different turn, the academic said in a paper he read last week.
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Pro-JVP Sinhala weekly recommences publication

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 14:25 GMT]
Pro-Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Sinhala language weekly “Lanka” appeared on the news stands Saturday in Colombo and several parts of the south after publication ceased earlier due to the arrest of the paper's editor and threat to the printing establishment. The newspaper office was sealed by the police after the presidential election, but later, due to lack of evidence, Gangodawila Magistrate revoked police action, legal sources in Colombo said.
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27 Saiva temples, monuments affected by planned road widening, ACHC complains

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 12:54 GMT]
All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC) expressed deep concern over Sri Lanka's planned widening of the Jaffna-Kankesanthurai high way from Jaffna town to KKS as the plan would lead to the destruction and desecration of twenty seven Saiva temples and several historical cultural monuments along both sides of the highway, sources in Jaffna said. Officials of ACHC have protested the planned road upgrade to Northern Provincial Governor G.A. Chandrasiri.
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Lecturer, wife seek anticipatory bail from courts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 02:07 GMT]
A lecturer and his wife Friday sought anticipatory bail from Colombo Magistrate from being arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lanka Police for supporting General (retd) Sarath Fonseka in the recently held presidential election, legal sources in Colombo said.
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Sri Lanka given 6 months to reverse EU GSP+ suspension

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 February 2010, 01:58 GMT]
Ambassadors of the nations of European Union, based on EU Commissions negative assessment of Sri Lanka's human rights record, have decided to suspend the preferential trade status known as GSP+ (Generalised System of Preferences Plus) to Sri Lanka. However, when the European finance ministers announce this decision at a meeting in Brussels on February 16, the announcement will trigger suspension only after 6 months from that date, providing "Colombo a fair opportunity to get the decision reversed," European media reported.
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