Former Tamil policeman knifed to death in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 09:30 GMT]
Unidentified persons forcibly entering the house of a former Tamil policeman attached to Batticaloa police station Tuesday early morning dragged him away and knifed him to death at a place around 100 m from his house in Thaazhangkudaa in Batticaloa district, his relatives said.
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SL Minister participates in Jaffna Technical College event

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 09:12 GMT]
With Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election in a month’s time, Sri Lanka government ministers and its key officials continue to visit Jaffna in an effort to gather support to the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) candidates in Jaffna and Minister Piyasena Gamage was in Jaffna Monday to participate in an event at Jaffna Technical College (JTC) related to the governments ‘180 Day Programme’ under its much publicized ‘Spring of the North’ project, sources in Jaffna said.
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SLA launches search operation in Eastern Muslim villages

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 03:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police Sunday evening launched an extensive search operation in the Muslim villages in Ea’raavoor Pattu division in Batticaloa district for arms which had not been surrendered during the amnesty period that ended Sunday afternoon. Soon after the ceremonial surrender of some weapons by some militant armed Muslim groups at an event held Sunday in Kaaththaankudi Grand Mosque in the presence of the Eastern DIG Edison Gunatilake and Provincial Minister Mr. M. L. A. M. Hisbullah, hundreds of SLA soldiers backed by police personnel surrounded several Muslim villages in E’raavoor Pattu and conducted the search for hidden weapons.
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The onus is on the diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 00:22 GMT]
The military outcome of the crisis has emboldened a bunch of people to chant that ‘we told you so’ and now collaborate with thy oppressors. This group is not new to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo. "Ever since universal suffrage was introduced in the ethnically divided island in 1931, there was always a section willing to play stooges to the majority. Yet the struggle of the freedom seekers also remained alive. If the fighters are accused of not achieving any, so are the collaborators and the ‘we told you so’ groups," the commentator writes. "The onus of facing the situation now entirely rests on the Eezham Tamil diaspora, as it is the only entity that has the freedom of expression. Response to Karunanidhi has to come from the diaspora through reaffirming the Vaddukkoaddai resolution," he further writes.
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Plight of Tamils hidden behind Sri Lankan Diplomacy: Bruce Haigh

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 17:52 GMT]
Western countries must look beyond government to government relations with Sri Lanka in order to grasp the Tamil issue, said former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh in an address in Parliament. Highlighting three decades of reporting “skewed very much in favour of the Sri Lankan government” that has made it “possible all through the years to demonise the Tamils”, Haigh said commonwealth nations should have played a larger role in establishing permanent peace in Sri Lanka and needed to see beyond the post 9/11 spheres of politics to independently deal with the conflict.
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Time for diaspora to stand up for homeland Tamils: Father S.J. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 14:44 GMT]
Former Vicar General of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna, Rev. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, in an open appeal issued from Germany on Monday urged the diaspora Tamils to hasten to help the Tamils suffering in the island Sri Lanka. "Neither the Tamils who are suffering in silence have the strength to stand up or speak up for themselves nor the few Sinhalese are able to give their voice for the Tamils because these are quickly labelled as non-patriots, if not, traitors. The only people who can help them in some way or other are the Diaspora Tamils," he writes in his first part of the article. The second part will deal with the need to unite and organise the diaspora for further Struggle.
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Armed men rob elderly IDP in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 05:41 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving on a motor bicycle robbed several thousand rupees worth gold jewellery from an elderly Internally Displaced Person (IDP) who was released from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Vavuniyaa and staying with his relatives at Veappangku’lam in Vavuniyaa on the pretext of searching his house. The robbery took place Saturday evening when the elderly IDP came to stay with his relative, media reports said.
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SL Attorney General conducts workshop in Jaffna for trainees

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 05:28 GMT]
“Sri Lanka’s Attorney General (AG) stressing on building up confidence among residents of Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka’s legal and judicial systems sounds not only discordant but also ridiculous when he has conspicuously failed to comment on or discuss the fate of more than a hundred civilians languishing in Jaffna Prison and in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Special Rehabilitation Camps in the peninsula without being brought to trial,” one of the magistrates in Jaffna peninsula who attended the meeting held by Attorney General, Mohan Peiris, at Palaali SLA Head Quarters Sunday around 9:30 a.m, said.
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Southern fisherman encroach Northern seas

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 11:13 GMT]
Southern fishermen, with the help of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), have begun to encroach the seas of Jaffna peninsula using large number of trawlers to fish day and night, Fisheries Societies sources in Jaffna peninsula raised accusation. The Southern fishermen who are being afforded complete security arrangements by the SLN also visit the SLN camps along the coasts during day time in SLN boats, they further said.
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SLA soldier killed in confrontation with LTTE in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 09:53 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier was killed and two wounded in a clash that erupted at Kiraanku'lam in Batticaloa lagoon area in the early hours of Saturday, sources in Batticaloa said.
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State, unclaimed, lands in Jaffna to be acquired for investment projects

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 05:22 GMT]
Retired Major Gen. Sunil Tennakoon, former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander for Jaffna, said that action is being taken to acquire the lands belonging to the state and those unclaimed in Jaffna peninsula to be given to investors from foreign countries and the South, in a press meet held in Jaffna Secretariat Friday. Sunil Tennakoon, heading a team of officials of the ‘Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BISL), held the press meet along with the other members of the team.
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Moothoor HSZ displaced barred from resettling in own areas

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 00:44 GMT]
Lands in Kattaiparichchan village are being cleared to set up temporary structures to shelter displaced families from traditional Tamil villages of Kadatkaraichcheanai, Champoor, Koonitheivu and Soodaikuda in Moothoor east division which fall under the High Security Zone (HSZ) declared by the Government of Sri Lanka after the 2006 military operation.
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Animosity of Tamils will not help India’s maritime ambitions

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 16:46 GMT]
Dominating the Indian Ocean, the shores of which are shared by 47 countries, has been the long-cherished dream of India ever since its independence. As China entering into a competition, the Indian Ocean is fast emerging as the new hotspot of Sino-Indian rivalry, says an article appeared Wednesday in Pakistan Observer. India’s security concerns as well as its needs to assert as a world power may be justifiable, but it is making a grave blunder in earning the animosity of Tamils, which is not going to help in its maritime ambitions, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Britain maintains warning against travel to Sri Lanka’s North and East

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 12:31 GMT]
Updating its travel advisory Wednesday, Britain warned its nationals “against all travel to the north and east of Sri Lanka, and to Yala National Park and the areas around it.” The new advisory was issued with an update on new surveillance measures at Bandaranayake International Airport related to A (H1N1) Swine Flu.
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Sri Lanka turning Manik Farm camp into permanent ‘city’ - report

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 12:11 GMT]
Despite assuring the international community that most Tamils interned in militarized detention camps would be resettled by the end 2009, the Sri Lankan government is turning Manik Farm, the largest barbed-wire ringed site, into a permanent detention centre, The Times newspaper reported Friday. Tamil refugees are being used as forced labour, UN sources told the paper. Aid workers say the site was fast becoming Sri Lanka’s second biggest city after the capital, Colombo. Whilst Sri Lanka blames mines for preventing resettlement, foreign demining agencies say that they have been given access so far to only about 30 sq km of the former Vanni conflict zone.
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2 Tamil youths abducted in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2009, 09:42 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving in a jeep abducted Friday night a Tamil youth travelling in a three-wheeler while on the same day armed men in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) uniforms took away a Tamil youth from his house in Koapaave’li in Batticaloa saying that he was to be interrogated, according to complaints made by the youths’ relatives to Chengaladi Prethesa Chapai President, S. Jeevarangan.
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SLA opens Special Rehabilitation Camp in Kaithadi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 17:38 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna has placed youngsters over 14 years of age, suspected to have been trained to handle weapons by Liberation Tigers in Vanni, in its newly opened Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC) located in Kaithadi Saiva Children Home, sources in Jaffna said. Some young people who were held along with their families in Kaithadi Saiva Children Home, converted into an internment centre earlier, had been taken away by SLA to its Thellippazhai Special Rehabiltation Camp and no information about them is available, the sources said.
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A "rolling" genocide?

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 11:56 GMT]
"The continuing concentration of over 250,000 people in the camps both blocks the search for answers to these questions, and itself constitutes a most serious crime. If the doors are not opened quickly, this will raise questions of whether the government seriously intends a restoration of Tamil society in the conquered zone. This would indeed pose a question of genocide, in the sense of the deliberate destruction of a population group in its home territory," writes Dr. Martin Shaw, professor of International Relations at UK's University of Sussex, and a historical sociologist of war and global politics.
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3 Tamil civilians arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 09:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID) in Colombo took into custody Wednesday three Tamil civilians staying in a lodge located in Kotahena, sources in Colombo said. The arrested civilians are suspected to be escaped detainees from one of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, the sources added.
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Politicized courts, Compromised rights, says ICG on Sri Lanka Judiciary

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 05:28 GMT]
"Sri Lankan judiciary is not working in a fair and impartial way that secures justice and human rights for everyone regardless of ethnicity. This risks undermining the government’s recent military victory over the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). A durable national reconciliation process is only possible if human and constitutional rights are fully restored," warned a report released by the International Crisis Group (ICG) Tuesday.
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