3 Tamil youths arrested in Mathavaachchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 13:19 GMT]
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers took into custody three Tamil youths in the last three days at the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Mathavaachchi checkpoint, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The youths were arrested for not being able to provide a valid reason for their travel to Colombo, the sources said.
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Starvation, rape, killings, torture in Sri Lanka camps, Murphy tells Australia parliament

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 12:04 GMT]
Noting that "hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils displaced by the military offensive are living in camps in appalling conditions. Moreover, foreign media channels have reported horrifying evidence of the worst violations of human rights, including starvation, rape, killings and torture. International agencies are calling for full access to these camps in order to provide life-saving treatment and medical supplies and to allow free and independent media access," parliamentarian, John Murphy, appealed at the House of Representatives Thursday, "to all governments of the world who have respect for human rights, the rule of law and free speech to join together and call on the government of Sri Lanka to right the wrongs forthwith."
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Rivers of sewege cascade through tents in Menik farm - Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 01:55 GMT]
Cataloguing emerging stories of families destroyed by war and separated through internment in Sri Lanka's fortified camps, UK Guardian's Sunday story describes feeble attempts by the Government of Sri Lanka to resettle refugees criticized as "chaotic and underfunded." Malnutrition-related complications have resulted in increased deaths, the paper notes, and adds that doctors in Vavuniyaa have warned of "impending disaster if conditions do not improve." Humanitarian workers recently allowed in to Menik Farm had criticized "persistent water shortage," and described precarious health, inhumane conditions as "heavy rain sent rivers of sewage cascading through tents and tin sheds," the paper said.
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Unsuitable food for malnourished children in Vavuniyaa camps – Indian doctor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 September 2009, 11:13 GMT]
Malnourished children in the camps for the Internally Displaced (IDPs) from Vanni and held in the camps in Vavuniyaa are being provided with unsuitable food for consumption, which could make their condition deteriorate further, according to Dr. Bose, an Indian doctor providing medical assistance to the IDPs, sources in Colombo said.
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Executions: Sri Lanka refuting processed video, not original

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 September 2009, 09:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s technological refutation of the authenticity of a video of Army (SLA) soldiers executing unarmed Tamil men broadcast by Channel 4 in August is based on a processed video-file taken from the broadcaster’s website, rather than the original mobile phone footage, experts said. An analysis commissioned by US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) of the original video distributed by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) and Sri Lanka’s subsequent technological refutation says Colombo’s experts looked “at a second generation transcoded video to derive erroneous conclusions.”
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BBC: UN patience wears thin in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 12:59 GMT]
The United Nations says it cannot continue to indefinitely fund the sprawling, overcrowded and militarized camp in which Sri Lanka has interned hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Speaking to the BBC, the UN's Sri Lanka chief, Neil Buhne, said people should be allowed to leave the barbed wire-ringed Manik Farm camp. Mr Buhne also criticised Sri Lanka’s denial of access for the International Red Cross to 10,000 Tamils whom the government calls LTTE suspects. Meanwhile the UN says it is extremely concerned for two staff members arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in June, being amid reports they were mistreated during the early days of their detention.
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US bemoans Sri Lanka inaction on camps, reconciliation

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 09:02 GMT]
The United States this week criticised the Sri Lankan government’s continued internment of hundreds of thousands of Tamils and Colombo’s not taking steps towards a political reconciliation. “President Rajapaksa did meet on Monday with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, but in general there have been few other concrete steps to re-unite the country and begin to heal the wounds of a long war in such a way that all Sri Lankans feel they enjoy equal rights and opportunities,” US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake said Wednesday.
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2 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 08:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers took into custody two Tamil youths in a search conducted Thursday night in Kohuwala, a suburb of Colombo city, according to complaints made by the youths’ relatives to Deputy Minister, R. Rathakrishnan.
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Colombo pounces on its own diplomats

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 07:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s ambassador in Japan, Jayantha Palipane is the latest victim of Colombo’s 'panicked restructuring' of its foreign service, journalistic circles in Colombo said Friday. The recall of the ambassador may look as a response to an incident at the Narita airport involving the prime minister of Sri Lanka, but it is only a pretext, according to the sources. SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa was making use of career diplomats and academics to paint a deceptive picture of his government before and during the war. But now the government, either not trusting its own diplomats or considering them a spent force, replaces them with military and political appointments in the style of some totalitarian regimes, the sources further said.
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Colombo opts for bravado than complying with Human Rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 00:22 GMT]
Challenging the impending EU move to cancel 1 billion pounds trade concession to Sri Lanka, the islands former foreign secretary and newly appointed permanent representative to UN, Palitha Kohona , Thursday said, that it is a “cynical approach” of the EU. "We can handle [the loss]. Western countries should remember that economic power has shifted from the west to the east. New markets open up in the east. Our friends China, India, Japan, Korea, Iran … a whole range of countries [can help]," he said. UK refused ‘five years multiple entry visa’ to Kohona this week. Palitha Kohonoa was earlier named in media reports as one of the actors of the ‘failed rescue’ of LTTE officials that could be considered a matter for war crimes investigation.
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Palitha Kohona refused visa by Sri Lanka’s UK High Commission

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 11:51 GMT]
The British High Commission in Colombo Wednesday refused visas to outgoing Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona and former Deputy Tourism Minister and ruling party parliamentarian Arjuna Ranatunge, according to Daily Mirror. Palitha Kohona and Arjuna Ranatunge had submitted their passports to the British High Commission for visa to London but to their surprise the passports were returned without any valid reason for turning down their visa applications, the paper said.
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No change in dire camp conditions - CAFOD

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 11:41 GMT]
As monsoon floods loom, CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development) has called on Sri Lanka’s government “to end the forced confinement” of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. “Nothing has changed over the last three months for the people that are living in the camps. They are overcrowded with poor sanitary conditions and inadequate health care,” CAFOD’s head of international programmes said this week. Another CAFOD official who visited one of the barbed-wire ringed militarised camps told the BBC this week that “a potential crisis could brew there if the rains come through and those camps are still as congested as they are [now].”
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Turbulent Sri Lanka opts for offshore tourism

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 10:54 GMT]
Some European investors and a Sri Lankan entrepreneur, relieved about the ‘end of war,’ are embarked upon building a 175 million dollar luxury tourist resort in the offshore tracts of the Dutch Bay in Katpiddi, media sources in Colombo reported Wednesday. The narrow stretch of land lying between the Dutch Bay and the Indian Ocean will have 60 chalets and 20 villas in the first phase, costing 1000-1500 dollars per night and will have 80 villas in the second phase to be sold to Arabs, Europeans and Sri Lankans as holiday or retirement homes. The Katpiddi region of the North Western Province was part of the Tamil homeland and even now is a territory of Tamil speaking people. Mr Neil de Silva, chairman of the project refused to say how much the investors paid for the land to the local people.
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Pakistan's naval academy annually trains 70 SLN sailors

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 05:44 GMT]
The Captain of Pakistan’s newly acquired Chinese built guided-missile frigate PNS Zulfiquar, which docked in at the Colombo Port earlier this week, told media that his country was training 70 SLN personnel on annual basis and that the SLN would acquire Pakistani built small frigates in the future.
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3 Tamil civilians missing, abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 04:59 GMT]
Three Tamil civilians have been reported missing since the last week of August from Wattala, Pettah and Moratuwa in separate incidents, according to complaints lodged by their relatives with the respective police stations and human rights groups in Colombo.
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JVP to vote against emergency extension

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 04:55 GMT]
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has decided to vote against the Emergency Regulations in Parliament as the government has used it to suppress the media, the trade unions and oppress opponents, Colombo media reports said quoting parliamentarian K. D. Lal Kantha, trade union leader of the party Wednesday.
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‘Saturn becomes state deity of Sri Lanka’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 September 2009, 04:48 GMT]
Reports reaching from Colombo indicate that the saturnine rulers of Sri Lanka, panicked at the transit of the planet Saturn said to be taking place this week, has geared up the state to undertake propitiatory measures. In this respect, the Malayala mandriks have become more powerful in Sri Lankan affairs than the prelates of the Buddhist chapters, commented journalist circles in Colombo.
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3 JVP journalists released on bail

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 September 2009, 06:13 GMT]
The three journalists working in “Lanka” news paper run by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) were released on cash and surety bail Tuesday by Morawaka Magistrate when they were produced in court. The police did not object to the release of Journalists Ravindra Pushpakumara, Shalika Wimalasena and Daya Neththasinghe who were arrested 1 August in Deniyaya and later transferred to Colombo and held in the custody of the TID under the Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
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Channel-4 broadcast of internment camp conditions irks Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 September 2009, 00:11 GMT]
Following the broadcast of shocking video footage showing Sri Lanka Government soldiers executing Tamils stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs, British Television Channel-4 Monday revealed a new film that showed Tamil "victims of Sri Lanka's war suffering poor conditions in UN-funded camps." The new footage, allegedly taken by a mobile phone, was sent to Channel-4 from the group War Without Witness, and was reportedly shot two weeks ago in Vavuniyaa, in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 300,000 Tamils are being interned in Sri Lanka military supervised camps. Sri Lanka's spokesperson, while insisting that United Nations is active inside there [the camps], responded that the malnutrition statistics reflect "Western standards," indeed malnutrition is present in other parts of Sri Lanka, and also that the situation was worse under the Liberation Tigers.
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Colombo micromanages aid, bullies aid deliverers, says Guardian

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 September 2009, 11:40 GMT]
Noting that while Sri Lanka with the economy undermined by "[h]igh military spending, collapsed tourism revenues, disrupted agriculture, [and] reduced trade," Sri Lanka is "dependent on outside aid in its efforts to deal with the human consequences of the war," the Guardian said Wednesday, adding, but "Colombo is still severely restricting access to the north, particularly to the area of the final battles, and to the camps where an estimated 280,000 people displaced by the fighting are detained." The paper said that "[i]t is time that the donor nations and the agencies formed a united front to resist this unreasonable and ungrateful attitude."
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