West decides to buttress Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 11:01 GMT]
After weeks of deliberations the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ultimately decided to release 2.5 billion dollar loan to Colombo on a 20-month stand-by basis. 133 million dollars will be made available immediately. The conditionality of the loan is due to be finalised on 24th July. Inside circles said that while the loan will relieve Colombo from acute financial crisis and pressure on external liquidity, it is going to be hooked with external obligations. But to what extent the external obligations are related to relief and political solutions to Tamils is not specified. Meanwhile insiders also said that the Indian Establishment was successful in convincing the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the ‘inevitable need’ of saving the regime in Colombo. "If the UN shields the war criminals, the IMF rewards them," Tamil circles responded to the IMF move.
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5 buses take passengers from Jaffna through A9 route

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 11:23 GMT]
Basil Rajapakse, the brother and advisor of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse, inaugurated the opening of A9 route to public use Wednesday around 10:30 a.m by waving a flag for the convoy of five buses that carried 210 passengers from Jaffna to Mathavachchi, heavily escorted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in an event held at Duraippa Stadium in Jaffna. Minister Douglas Devananda and the Governor of Northern Province, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri were present on the occasion, sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo should end the farce, free doctors - New York Times

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 17:43 GMT]
In a devastatingly incriminating article on Sri Lanka's conduct of war and the holding of 300,000 Tamil civilians in internment camps, New York Times in an op-ed piece Tuesday said, the doctors who "worked heroically to save lives and alert the world to the humanitarian disaster endured by civilians trapped in the fighting," should be freed. Also, noting that "[t]he army was indiscriminately launching artillery shells and air strikes into mixed areas of insurgents and innocents and the Tigers shot at people who tried to escape," the paper added, "Sri Lankan government now risks losing the peace with its approach toward ethnic Tamils displaced by the conflict. Colombo needs to alter course if the country is to begin overcoming years of animosity and avoid having old hatreds and current antipathy turn into the next Tamil rebellion."
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Vavuniyaa hospital security tightened

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 17:15 GMT]
The deployment of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers at Vavuniyaa general hospital has been suddenly stepped up from Monday. SLA soldiers and police personnel are seen in every nook and corner of the hospital monitoring movement of each individual, civil sources say. All the entry and exit points of the hospital have been placed under the strict surveillance of the Sri Lankan forces.
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Prayers held in Keerimalai for the souls of Vanni victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 15:42 GMT]
The Federation of Saiva organizations in Jaffna peninsula observed the annual Aadi Amaavaasai Day, the day on which children perform religious rituals to pacify the souls of their late fathers, in Keerimalai Nakuleasvaram temple in Jaffna peninsula Tuesday, in memory of all the people who lost their lives in the war on Vanni Tamils waged by the Sri Lanka government, sources in Jaffna said.
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Court directs SLA Vanni commander to admit IDP girl to hospital

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 09:16 GMT]
The Supreme Court Monday directed the Commander of the Sri Lanka armed Forces Headquarters, Vanni to take steps to admit the 13-year-old child Sopika Surendranathan immediately to Anuradhapura General Hospital for medical treatment. The Bench comprising Justices Shiranee A. Bandaranaike, Saleem Marsuf and Jagath Balapatebendi made this order, subsequent to the submissions made by the Counsel for Sopika who is presently housed in the IDP camp.
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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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Castes, religions and Eezham Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 23:34 GMT]
“Tamil nationalism needs to realise its potentialities and weaknesses in making it progressive, benevolent and an internationally recognised culture in the future world,” writes Opinion Columnist Ampalam. “The secular linguistic identity of Tamil nationalism, based on a classical language in which more than two millennia of human experience and discourses both spiritual and temporal are recorded, and its inclusiveness cum plurality are strong points in making criteria for nationalism and in contributing to the paradigm ‘culture and development’. But jingoism of religions, which soon will be used as cards by imperialisms regional as well as international, and castes cum hierarchies old as well as new, are the liabilities,” he further writes.
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Air of martial triumph unbefitting while controversy surrounds Tamil civilian deaths - NY Times

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 16:07 GMT]
Noting that "[t]he Tamil minority has suffered discrimination and violence at the hands of various Sinhalese-dominated governments through the decades. Tamils have sought, first peacefully, then violently, the right to a measure of self-rule in Tamil-dominated areas," the New York Times in a Sunday article said, "[m]any Sri Lankans see these soldiers as heroes, but given the controversy that remains over how many Tamil civilians were killed in the last weeks of the fighting, some people find the air of martial triumph unseemly."
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Free election in Jaffna improbable – Manickasothy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 04:31 GMT]
Abimanasingham Manickasothy, the chief candidate of the Independent Group II contesting Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, told TamilNet Saturday that with the paramilitary groups operating with the government blatantly breaching election regulations with the blessing of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the police by intimidating and issuing death threats voters will not be free to cast their votes to the candidates of their choice. Despite the promise of Jaffna district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) to remove all wall posters, paramilitaries, alleged to be allied with the government, paste election campaign posters of the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) during curfew hours in places where the SLA is present, flouting election regulations, Manickasothy added.
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Capturing Jaffna market, the sole intention of Southern Traders – JTU

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 16:31 GMT]
“The traders and ministers from the South invading Jaffna peninsula are only interested in capturing the market in Jaffna peninsula; their visits are not in anyway beneficial for the people here,” Jaffna Traders’ Union (JTU) sources said Friday participating in a meeting with the 45 members of the National Chamber of Commerce (NCC) visiting Jaffna to explore possibilities of market opportunities. JTU met the Minister of Industrial Development, Kumara Welgama, in a separate meeting Friday, also held in the JTU office on Maanipaay road in Jaffna, where JTU members requested the lorries of Jaffna traders to be allowed to transport goods through A9 road to Jaffna as their repeated requests to several government authorities had been ignored, JTU sources added.
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People in Jaffna live in fear – Suresh Premachandra

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 07:32 GMT]
“The people in Jaffna live in fear of the government armed forces and the paramilitary groups operating with them. They are scared to air their views or to openly participate in election related activities,” Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet in a special interview Friday in Jaffna. “Though government ministers invading Jaffna continue to offer promises to the people of Jaffna they cannot be deceived as they fully well know that the promises will not be kept because the government does not have the money to fulfill the promises,” he further said.
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Policy on Tamils haunts India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 05:20 GMT]
Setting the parameters based on 13 plus and ruling out federal, the Colombo – Chennai – New Delhi axis is learnt to be pressurising Tamil political circles to come out with a political formula, as early as possible, to hastily close the file on Tamil nationalism and to hide all skeletons under the cupboard. The haste in the Indian Establishment is said to be arising from the fear of China’s growing influence in the island resulted from India’s folly of not maintaining balance in the ethnic war. “Grasping geopolitics and aspirations of people, the Tamil political circles need to play the cards with dexterity,” said TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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ACF calls for international inquiry into Moothoor massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 03:55 GMT]
Action Contre la Faim (ACF), a Paris-based NGO, in a press release issued Friday said that the 17 of its staff members shot dead in execution style in Moothoor Sri Lanka in August 2006 is one of the "most serious crimes ever committed against an NGO," and accused Sri Lanka of failing to identify the people responsible for the killings after "[t]hree Years of obstructionism, smokescreens, and politicized proceedings." ACF called on the European Union to initiate an international inquiry into the "massacre."
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Police, SLA partial to UPFA in JMC election

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 04:39 GMT]
Political parties and Independent groups contesting the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) elections accused the police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) for being partial to United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) in the issue of campaign wall posters, sources in Jaffna said. Though the police authorities had banned all wall posters and had ordered the removal of the posters, the police and the SLA had only torn and tarred the posters of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (TAK) political parties, leaving the UPFA posters untouched, the sources added.
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Daughter, parents attacked in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 04:10 GMT]
A gang of masked armed men, during curfew hours, forcibly entered a house in Kokkuvil West in Jaffna and attacked a daughter and her parents with sharp bladed weapons Wednesday around 1:00 a.m, sources in Jaffna said. The armed men ran away when neighbours rushed to the house on hearing the shouts of the family. All three attacked persons, seriously injured, are admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit and are said to be in critical condition, the sources added.
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Imprisonment of aid workers violates international law: UN Staff Union

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2009, 20:15 GMT]
The Staff Union of the United Nations Secretariat (SUUNS) slammed the Sri Lankan Government for its illegal detainment of two aid workers and urged Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to demand for their release in a statement released Friday. Highlighting Sri Lankas responsibility “under international law to respect independence and work of UN Staff”, the statement labeled the “continuing detention and harassment” of UN staff as a violation of the “international instruments dealing with the privileges, immunities and independence of United Nations officials”.
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Campaign against free speech must end: CPJ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 23:17 GMT]
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, slammed the Sri Lankan Government for its anti media policies and accused the current administration of “continuing to silence its critics through harassment and threats” in a press release on Tuesday. Responding to the recent blocking of independent news websites in Sri Lanka and “smear campaigns” against various publications and individuals engineered to incite public outrage hatred, CPJ Asia program coordinator Bob Dietz urged the Governement to lift its censorship and cease its campaign against free speech.
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Percival was not an apostate - Prof. Hoole

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 22:54 GMT]
“The late Rev. Dr. Kingsley Muthiah (former President of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka) has told me of cowardly verbal claims that Percival turned apostate to undermine his efforts but this is the first time I have seen it being openly stated”, writes Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole responding to a statement appeared in a TamilNet feature that Percival deviated from evangelism and concentrated on education and accusing the article for adding another dimension to anti-Christian diatribes. Prof. Hoole says Jaffna Tamils have made an icon of Navalar as the translator of the Bible and as father of prose, but earliest Tamil prose may be traced to catechisms of the Roman Catholics.
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