SL forces surround Fonseka's hotel

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 January 2010, 05:17 GMT]
Heavily armed Sri Lankan forces have surrounded Wednesday Cinnamon Lake hotel in Colombo, where opposition presidential candidate and former Sri Lanka Army General (retd) Sarath Fonseka was residing with opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe and JVP leader Somawanse Amarasinghe. Sarath Fonseka, who is trailing in the presidential contest against his former Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa was scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday morning, but journalists were not allowed to reach the hotel and were waiting at Sri Sittampalam Gardiner Mawatte. In the meantime, Sri Lankan military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara has alleged that Sarath Fonseka was harbouring SLA deserters inside the hotel. Military has also been deployed around media outlets in Colombo.
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Voter turnout 18 percent in Jaffna, 55 percent in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2010, 12:11 GMT]
While more than 70 percent all-island average turnout was reported in Colombo only 18 percent have voted in Jaffna, according to Jaffna Election Official S. Kuganathan. However, reports from Batticaloa said turnout was unusual this time, registering 55 percent.
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Genocide a national policy of Sri Lanka, says Tamil Nadu professor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 2010, 11:59 GMT]
Genocide is a national policy to State in Sri Lanka since independence, says Professor Dheeran in Tamil Nadu in an article sent to TamilNet, citing the various facets, stages and sequences of State-orchestrated genocide against Tamils in the island, denying land, suffrage, polity, economy, culture and ultimately free physical existence. Eezham Tamils have more reasons to claim independence than many other such cases. The twist of the national question by the International Community only resulted in removal of guarantee against genocide. It paved way for China’s entry. The new equations provide new opportunities for the recognition of Tamil Eelam. The diaspora, free and powerful enough, should be steadfast in the only goal of liberation. Referendum is an international way to achieve it and efforts of re-mandating Vaddukkoaddai Resolution follow that line, he writes.
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Court rejects CID application to search Wickremesinghe official residence

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 January 2010, 17:01 GMT]
Colombo Magistrate Ms Chandani Meegoda Monday rejected an application by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to issue a warrant to search the official residence of the leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Ranil Wickremesinghe. The CID cited reports of defamatory posters against SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa and weapons had been hidden inside the office residence of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe.
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Voting Mahinda or Fonseka is submission to Colombo-centric system

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 18:10 GMT]
Eezham Tamils need not bother much about the outcome of the presidential elections. Whether Mahinda or Fonseka matters the same, says a senior journalist in Jaffna. Only the war criminals, their international abetters and the geopolitical competitors have to worry about the elections and it is their problem. Tamils have to concentrate in organizing their own polity and in demonstrating it. But if they abstain from voting there are people waiting to stuff the boxes. If Tamils want to register opinion and see neither of the main candidates get 50 percent they should cast the first vote to a third person and of all the candidates the moral obligation of Tamils is to vote for Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne. Looking upon the Colombo-centric system is the curse of Tamils for ages and instead of destabilising it, any participatory politics amounts to only submission to the system, he further said.
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Commonwealth Union observers arrive in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 13:36 GMT]
A Commonwealth Expert Team (CET) with former Jamaican Foreign Minister K.D. Knight has arrived in Colombo to observe Sri Lanka’s presidential poll that is scheduled to be held on January 26.
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Chandrika Kumaratunga extends support to Fonseka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 January 2010, 13:29 GMT]
Chandrika Kumaratunga, former executive president of Sri Lanka is reported to have extended her support to General (retd) Sarath Fonseka Sunday in the forthcoming presidential poll when the latter met her at her ancestral home in Attanagalla, according to initial reports reaching media sources in Colombo. No further details regarding the meeting between Chandrika Kumaratunga and Fonseka surfaced. General Fonseka travelled to Horogolla Sunday morning to seek her support.
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Stiff sentences for pair convicted in New York arms deal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 January 2010, 12:51 GMT]
Eastern District Court of New York Friday sentenced two Sri Lankan Tamils, Sathajhan Sarachandran and Nadarasa Yogarasa, to 26 years and 14 years in prison respectively, in connection with their attempt to purchase weapons for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the U.S.A. Defendants were Caught in an FBI undercover sting operation attempting to purchase surface-to-air missiles, missile launchers, and hundreds of AK-47 automatic rifles, the press release said. Material support to to any organization designated as an FTO is illegal in the U.S.
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Asian observers arrive in Colombo to monitor presidential poll

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 January 2010, 11:33 GMT]
Forty members of the Asian Association of Election Authorities (AAEA) from thirteen countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea arrived in Colombo Friday to monitor presidential poll that is scheduled to be held on January 26.
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300,000 fake ballot papers in circulation, DIG warns

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 January 2010, 11:31 GMT]
More than three hundred thousand fake ballot papers are in circulation in several parts of the country with three days left for the presidential election, scheduled to be held on January 26.
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Tamil female undergrad arrested in Peradeniya University, now held in Boosa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 January 2010, 02:56 GMT]
Rasiah Dwaraka, the Tamil female undergrad of the Arts Faculty of the Peradeniya University arrested by the CID officials while she was in the lecture hall attending class in November last year is found held in Boosa detention camp, according to Upul Premaratne, Convener of the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF). She was earlier a resident of Kilinochchi.
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Tamils of Switzerland, Germany, Holland vote on independence this weekend

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 January 2010, 04:04 GMT]
Eezham Tamil diaspora in Switzerland goes for referendum on independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam this Saturday and Sunday. A similar ballot will take place in Germany and Holland on Sunday. The democratic exercise on the eve of the presidential elections in Sri Lanka gains significance as it demonstrates the mainstream diaspora is unaffected by the highly publicised political prospects of the elections of ‘united Sri Lanka,’ Tamil observers in Europe said. The enthusiasm seen in the younger generation of the diaspora is particularly a challenge to politics of deviation harping on strengthening Colombo-centric system to find solutions to the crisis, they further said.
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Rajapaksa, Fonseka fail in articulating political proposals: Friday Forum

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 January 2010, 14:01 GMT]
Friday Forum, a Colombo-based gathering which includes religious dignitaries, senior academics and others on Wednesday expressed concern that the two main presidential candidates Mahinda Rajapaksa and General (retd) Sarath Fonseka have failed to address the crucial issue of peace. "The failure to address this issue of great historical and national importance does not bode well for the future of our country. We may be condemned to the scourge of community tensions and a divided society for many more years to come unless sincere and meaningful political guarantees are made at this moment," the statement signed by Jayantha Dhanapala said.
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Pre-election violence escalating, 800 incidents reported, 300 arrested

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 January 2010, 13:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police has taken around three-hundred persons into custody in connection with pre- election related violence. The number of incidents of violence and unlawful activities has risen to eight hundred till Thursday afternoon, police officials in Colombo said.
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SL state media turned into propaganda outlets for Rajapaksa: RSF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 January 2010, 13:49 GMT]
Reporters Without Borders, on Thursday said it had established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time on Sri Lankan state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN on 18 and 19 January was given over to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his supporters. “The TV propaganda is deafening and the figures we are releasing today are worthy of the Burmese or North Korean regimes," the press freedom organisation said. Control of the state media has become crucial to the election campaign. The Commissioner of Elections has issued several reminders about the rules requiring balanced coverage and tried to introduce a Competent Authority to monitor the TV stations, but the president’s office resisted. The Sri Lankan supreme court’s ruling has also been ignored, the RSF said.
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Colombo court releases 16 Tamil youths

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 18:15 GMT]
Sixteen Tamil youths were released Wednesday by the Colombo Additional Magistrate Mr. Mohamed Mackie on a no objection application made by Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police. The court ordered another eighteen Tamil youths to be sent for rehabilitation at Welikanda camp.
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14 member election monitoring team arrives in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 15:48 GMT]
A fourteen member international election monitoring delegation of the Asia Network for Free and Fair Elections (ANFFE) comprising observers from Japan, Thailand, Bangladesh and Burma arrived in Colombo Wednesday. The members of the delegation would be divided into seven teams, each team comprising two observers and will leave for the north and east and certain places in the south Thursday, Rohana Hettitarachchi with the People’s Action For Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said.
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Trinco executions added to Sri Lanka's war crimes record in Dublin

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 January 2010, 01:17 GMT]
An affidavit containing the personal testimony of Dr Manoharan, the father of Ragihar, one of the five high school students shot dead in execution style in Trincomalee beach nearly four years ago by members of Sri Lanka security forces, and two detailed reports of evidence collected on the killings by a Rights Group whose members are in self-exile due to threat to their lives, were submitted as record of evidence to the Dublin war-crimes tribunal hearing concluded on the 16th of this month, US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said Tuesday.
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694 election related complaints, 289 persons arrested

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 January 2010, 16:05 GMT]
Two hundred and eighty nine persons were arrested and the number of pre-election related violence and complaints has risen to six hundred and ninety four till Sunday night, according to Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mahinda Balasuriya. The IGP revealed these figures at a media briefing held Monday in Colombo.
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Two die in Vavuniyaa bus crash

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 January 2010, 13:46 GMT]
A private passenger bus bound for Colombo from Jaffna went off the road and crashed against a tree Sunday morning around 1.30 a.m. in Vavuniyaa. The driver of the bus and a passenger were killed on the spot and nine others including a woman were injured in the crash, according to sources in Vavuniyaa.
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