SLA massacred civilians in bunkers - medical worker

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 08:57 GMT]
The advancing Sri Lanka Army massacred civilians by paving their bunkers with tanks, by throwing explosives inside the bunkers and by shooting the injured, says a medical worker who came out of Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal during the last days of the war, became incarcerated in a camp and now escaped the island. "Around a hundred thousand captured civilians herded to Mullaiththeevu were kept in rows within barbed wires, most of the time without water or food under the hot sun, and were bullied and ill treated with arrogance," he writes in a lengthy note that reached TamilNet this week. The note in Tamil was provided by the Norwegian Tamils Health Organisation (NTHO), urging TamilNet not to reveal the identity of the health worker for reasons of his security.
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Colombo evicts UNICEF official

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 13:34 GMT]
Chief of Communications for UNICEF in Sri Lanka, James Elder's visa to continue to remain in Sri Lanka was refused by Sri Lanka's Department of Immigration, BBC reported Sunday. Mr Elder, a spokesman for the UN children's agency regularly spoke to the media on the plight of children caught up in the conflict, but Sri Lanka spokesperson was quoted by BBC as saying "James Elder's visa has been cancelled over his propaganda in support of the Tigers."
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China to boost Sri Lanka’s coconut industry

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 08:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Plantations Industries Minister Mr. D. M. Jayaretna held discussions Friday with visiting officials of a China based company to boost coconut industry in the island and also to set up a plant to manufacture coconut shell charcoal, sources in Colombo said. Direct instructions were issued to this China based company from the Government of China to hold discussions with the Government of Sri Lanka, the sources added.
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Arrest Sri Lankan state racism to meet norms of International governance - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2009, 00:13 GMT]
A future peace in Sri Lanka rests on the international community being willing and able to contain and constrain the now rampant, but long-embedded, Sinhala chauvinism gripping the island, the Tamil Guardian said this week. “Racism, especially when entrenched thus [in the state], cannot be effaced by suasion and engagement, but by making it utterly impossible for it to hold sway,” the editorial said. “In short, as in the case of [past] racist regimes in other parts of the world, the international community must be prepared to isolate and exclude the Sri Lankan state until it is prepared to adhere, no matter how reluctantly, to international norms of governance.”
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7 govt. officers with their families released from Pulmoaddai camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 14:37 GMT]
Two more government officers who were working in Mullaiththeevu district during the war and later detained in Pulmoaddai internment camp in Trincomalee district were handed over to the Mullaiththeevu Government Agent Wednesday by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authority. They are Mrs. M. G. Vilvarajah, District Director of Planning in Mullaiththeevu and Mr. V. S. Theivendran, Mullaiththeevu Zonal Director of Education. Earlier, five staff officers, including Mr. K. Parthipan, Mullaitheivu Additional Government Agent, with their families, were released.
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Obama extolled Sri Lanka Journalist given prison term, says NYT

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 04:09 GMT]
Noting that J.S. Tissainayagam was picked by President Obama on World Press Freedom Day as a “symbol of oppression of the media,” the New York Times (NYT) Tuesday reported that this editor of a crusading magazine in SriLanka was sentenced by the island’s court for writing critical articles on the Sri Lanka government’s offensive against Tamils. The NYT, quoting two prominent staffers at the Colombo-based think-tank Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), said that the sentence was a very serious blow [to journalism], that the law under which the sentence was passed “ is so vague that practically any speech could be prosecuted,” and that it is unacceptable that the Court would give maximum sentence to a journalist for simply doing his job.
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Ban under fire, Sri Lanka performance said key failure – Washington Post

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 September 2009, 18:22 GMT]
Amidst controversy surrounding Ban Ki Moon’s visit to Norway, Washington Post, in a critical article, published Tuesday, critiquing Ban’s performance, said, “halfway through his first term, Ban is facing a leadership crisis as U.N. civil servants and diplomats here increasingly portray him as an ineffective administrator whose reluctance to hold outlaw leaders to account for bad behavior has undercut the United Nations' moral authority.” Faulting Ban’s approach to quiet diplomacy with “despots and dictators,” the paper pointed to the engagement with Sri Lanka as a major failure of Ban’s tenure, for “not pressing hard enough to hold Sri Lanka accountable for its actions,” and for dropping “U.N. push for an independent investigation into war crimes, leaving it to Sri Lanka to determine whether its military was responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in the final offensive.”
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Boy dies in mine explosion, 2 children injured, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 September 2009, 16:16 GMT]
A 12-year-old boy from Achchezhu in Jaffna died in an explosion Tuesday around 5:00 p.m when he tried to inspect a strange object found in a canal on the outer boundary of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit base in Achchezhu. Two siblings, a boy and girl who stood watching close to the boy who died were seriously injured when the object exploded, sources in Jaffna said. The injured are admitted to the Emergency Unit in Jaffna Teaching Hospital where the girl is in a critical condition, hospital sources said.
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CPJ honors Tissainayagam with Press Freedom Award

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 September 2009, 11:35 GMT]
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based media watchdog, announced Monday that it will honor imprisoned Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam with 2009 International Press Freedom Award. "We are announcing this award today to highlight the depth of outrage at this unjust sentence," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "Its harshness and the retroactive nature of the charges reflect vindictiveness and intolerance. We are calling today for Tissainayagam's release--an appeal we plan to repeat at our awards ceremony, when the world's leading journalists gather to demand press freedom for all of our colleagues," CPJ's press release said.
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Tissainayagam wins international award for ‘courageous and ethical journalism’

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 August 2009, 19:56 GMT]
J. S. Tissainayagam, a Tamil reporter sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison, has been named the first winner of the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism. Tissainayagam was selected for the awrd, by the US branch of RSF and Global Media Forum (GMF), a company founded by Mackler to train journalists and non-profit organizations to use the media as a tool for social change. The Peter Mackler Award, named for a 30-year veteran of Agence France-Presse (AFP) who died last year, rewards journalists who fight courageously and ethically to report the news in countries where freedom of the press is either not guaranteed or not recognized.
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Lopsided sovereignty sentences Tissainayagam - journalist

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 August 2009, 19:50 GMT]
If Tissainayagam is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for 'inciting communal feelings' by editing, printing or distributing North Eastern Herald Monthly, what should be the punishment to Sarath Fonseka, who as commander of the armed forces publicly said Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese, mutilating the constitution and inciting genocide in the island, asks a senior journalist in Colombo. Unfortunately there are governments and diplomats who deceive humanity by projecting Sri Lanka as a ‘democratically elected government', besides multi national corporations, who don’t care freedom of people but grabbing opportunities in the island and there are also media such as The Hindu in India and a host of others in the international community praising Colombo on its ‘successes’ in ethnic totalitarianism, the journalist said.
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SC directs AG to expedite inquiry into Tamil detainees in prison

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 17:01 GMT]
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Friday directed the Attorney General to prepare an emergency plan to expedite the inquiry of the hundreds of Tamils now being detained in prisons without any inquiry under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations(ER) in consultation with the Justice Ministry Secretary. “It is unjust to keep them indefinitely in remand. As a result of this delay the number of fundamental rights violation petitions challenging the detention without inquiry is on the increase hampering the smooth functioning of the judiciary,” said Chief Justice Asoka de Silva.
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SLA blocks spouse from collecting Welikada victim's body

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 11:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials Saturday denied permission to Mrs Devendran Saro, the wife of a Welikada prisoner who died in questionable circumstances inside the maximum security prison in Boralle last week, to travel to Colombo to collect her husband's body, civil society sources in Jaffna said. The second Tamil prisoner who died under the same circumstances is yet to be identified.
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IDPs from the islets of Jaffna allowed to resettle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 06:20 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Veala’nai, Allaippiddi and Ma’nkumpaan in the islets of Jaffna displaced due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives in 2006 and presently staying in Jaffna town had to wait for a long time at Duraippah Stadium Thursday as Basil Rajapakse, Senior Advisor to the President, failed to turn up as scheduled to participate in the event of resettling the IDPs in their own villages, sources in Jaffna said. Local government officials later sent the IDPs to their villages in buses.
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Chauvinism and greed 'naked' in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 August 2009, 04:07 GMT]
It was frightening to see the combined effect of naked chauvinism of Sri Lanka and naked greed of powers, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo responding to the video clip displayed Tuesday. “Such a trend in the establishments is a challenge to every lay human being of the civilized world. While rising up to free people in the internment camps is a spontaneous response, what is of paramount importance is independent political organisation of Tamils in order to meet the challenge of the same forces that are now coercing or enticing them to drop righteous aspirations. Tamils are not asking for other’s land or for empires. They only ask for their own land and there is nothing to get scared or to feel ashamed of. As people of classical heritage, if Tamils fail, they fail not merely their cause but an entire human civilization,” he writes commenting on current Tamil affairs.
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British High Commissioner visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 17:24 GMT]
British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Dr. Peter Hayes, visited Jaffna Thursday on an invitation by Basil Rajapakse, Senior Advisor to the President and his brother, to visit the bridge being built at Changuppiddi-Kearatheevu causeway on A32 land route to Jaffna with British Government’s aid. After visiting the building site the High Commissioner participated in an event along with Basil Rajapakse, Minister Douglas Devananda and Northern Province Governor, G. A. Chandrasiri, where Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities officially handed over 1100 acres of paddy land in Thenmaraadchi back to the farmers for cultivation, sources in Jaffna said.
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Tamil civilian reported missing in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 August 2009, 10:31 GMT]
A Tamil civilian from Ukku’laangkulam in Vavuniyaa is reported missing since Tuesday after having left home on his motorbike to obtain a pass to travel to Jaffna from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Public Relation Office located in Vavuniyaa town, according to complaints lodged by his wife Sellamahal Gowrishankar to Human Rights Commission (HRC) Vavuniyaa office and the police.
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Thenmaraadchi farmers to be allowed to resume cultivation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 August 2009, 06:45 GMT]
An event, where the farmers of Thenmaraadchi who had been refused permission to cultivate their lands in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Thenmarraadchi for nearly ten years are to be allowed to resume cultivation Thursday, has been announced by Sri Lanka government. Meanwhile, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Allaippiddi who had fled their village due to SLA artillery attacks in August 2006 and now living in Jaffna town have been asked to be present at Duraippah Stadium Thursday to participate in an event where action will be taken to resettle them, according to another announcement. Basil Rajapakse, parliamentarian and Senior Advisor to the President, Northern Province Governor, G. A. Chandrasiri and Minister of Social Services, Douglas Devananda, will be present at both events, the announcements said.
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SLA war crimes eerily similar to Srebrenica Scorpions' terror, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 August 2009, 00:27 GMT]
Summary executions violate Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting Party, prohibiting in subsection I(d) "... the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court...." Violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes, said Professor Francis Boyle, after watching the video on the cold-blooded extra-judicial killings carried out by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, published by a German-based group 'Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS)' Tuesday.
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Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 20:34 GMT]
A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala. “From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership. The soldiers egging each other on, the insulting jokes and the laughter show that there is a consensus that these cold blooded killings should take place,” JDS further reported.
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