Axe to fall on APRC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 04:35 GMT]
The All Party Representative Committee (APRC) set up in June, 2006 to work out proposals to solve ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka faces uncertain future after the Peace Secretariat (SCOPP) has been asked by the Presidential Secretariat to wind up its activities by the end of July. “APRC has been given one month notice to complete its deliberations and submit a final document,” SCOPP Director General Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe told the media Tuesday.
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IDPs living on Jaffna railway track area evicted

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 16:49 GMT]
Families of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living on Sri Lanka government railway properties since they were evicted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) twenty years ago from their residences in Valikaamam North, were forced to leave Tuesday to leave their temporary shelters in railway crossings, stations and officers’ quarters as the dead line to quit being 30 June, sources in Jaffna said. The government officials and SLA officers who were very keen to evict the families had not provided any alternate place for them to move in, the families complained.
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51 Moothoor IDP families return to Killiveddy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 12:48 GMT]
Two hundred and one members of fifty one Tamil families who were displaced from Moothoor east three years ago following a military operation launched on their traditional villages by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), and who stayed in temporary shelters located in Maavadivembu and Palachcholai in Batticaloa district, were brought to Killiveddy via Vaaharai Tuesday morning in seven buses of the government transport service with state security, sources said.
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Galle / Kaali

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 03:03 GMT]
The rocks
The rocky place
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Ploy of Buddhism in nullifying Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 01:53 GMT]
The North and East of the island of Sri Lanka should first be subjected to ‘archaeological’ investigation to prove the land’s Sinhala ownership, before its ‘resettlement’, is the demand of the National Front of Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka, reported Virakesari a few days ago. If archaeology has any say, the entire island having microlithic sites of prehistoric period has to be resettled by Veddas, and if enough Veddas are not found in the island they could still be found among their next of kin outside, ranging from the Austro-Asiatic tribes of the South Asian subcontinent to aborigines of Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Australia, commented an academic of ethnic studies in the island.
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SLA vehicle accidentally kills civilian in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 19:35 GMT]
A water bowser of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) knocked down and killed Monday a civilian riding bicycle along A9 road in Kaithadi in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. Number of accidents caused by SLA vehicles in Jaffna in the past had been considerably reduced due to directives issued by magistrate courts in Jaffna to SLA military police to control SLA vehicles using public roads.
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18 Muslim armed groups exist in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 15:53 GMT]
Eighteen Muslim armed groups are functioning in Kaaththankudi alone in Batticaloa district and the total number of persons in these groups is said to be about two hundred, according to a report compiled by a special police team handed over to the defense authorities.
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"Break the Silence" begins 1000 mile journey to Washington D.C.

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 12:07 GMT]
Three Tamil College students from Canada are on a 1000-mile walk from Chicago to Washington D.C. to "raise awareness with the general American population to what is happening in Sri Lanka,” Illinois Times reported. More than 50 people assembled on the steps of the Capitol Friday, wearing tan, gray and blue T-shirts that carried their message: Break the Silence in Sri Lanka, the paper added.
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US statement undermines tourism revival - SL Foreign Ministry

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 11:24 GMT]
United States travel advisory aimed at discouraging US citizens from visiting Sri Lanka was part of US strategy to undermine the country [Sri Lanka], according to Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry official, the pro-Government Island newspaper said. "[N]othing could be as bad as the US warning of potential for continued stability and possible terrorist attacks a month after the end of war," the paper said, and added, "though the armed forces maintained road blocks and carried out routine checks on vehicles entering the city and its suburbs, there was no likelihood of LTTE attacks," attributing the comments to a foreign ministry official.
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IFJ condemns reactivation of Sri Lankan Press Council Law

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 June 2009, 07:31 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has strongly condemned the Sri Lankan Government's decision to revive the Press Council that was established by an act of parliament in 1973. The Sri Lankan Press Council Act of 1973 contains stringent provisions, including the power to prosecute for contempt and sentence journalists to extended periods in prison and to prohibit the publication of certain kinds of content by the media. Reflecting on the move by Colombo, media activists in Colombo told TamilNet Saturday that the Sri Lanakan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, despite his claim that the Tamil war has ended, was continuing his war on journalists, aiming at creating a full fledged authoritarian ruling of the island.
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SLA provides security to Tamil dailies’ distributors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 June 2009, 04:56 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA), following the burning of all copies of three Tamil dailies intended for distribution in Jaffna district Thursday, allegedly by the armed group operating with the Sri Lanka military intelligence, provided escort by armed motorbike squad Friday morning to the newspaper distribution staff on motorcycles, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA deployed security guards for the offices of Valampuri and Yarl Thinakural Tamil dailies in Jaffna with effect from Friday though the editors of these dailies have rejected SLA security in the past, the sources added.
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UN Jaffna officials accused of misreporting in favour of GOSL, SLA

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 June 2009, 17:23 GMT]
Civil society sources in Jaffna raised accusations against United Nation (UN) Jaffna officials for releasing facts and statistics, related to the detainees held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps, provided by Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and SLA, instead of the true situation prevailing in the camps, to the outer world. For instance, the UN officials in their June 15 report said that only four detainees had died in the past six months in Jaffna camps where as many have died including a woman due to septicemia, in a meeting held in Jaffna town Thursday, participants in the meeting said.
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Jaffna GA seeks contesting parties' cooperation in JMC election

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 17:38 GMT]
”If the contestants in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election need security measures for their safety they can request the Jaffna Secretariat authorities and the requests, if deemed genuine, will be considered favourably in consultation with the Election Commissioner,” Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh, informed in the press meet held Thursday evening following the submission of nomination lists. “Our aim is to conduct the election in an independent and free atmosphere and we request the contesting parties to immediately notify of any election violence so that we could take necessary action,” the GA added.
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SLA shoots dead youth in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 13:29 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers shot and killed a youth in Yakkaalai, Vara'ni in Thenmaraadchi Wednesday in a cordon and search operation held in the area, residents of the area said. Kodikaamam police recovered the body of the youth and handed it over to Jaffna Teaching Hospital mortuary Wednesday night for identification, hospital sources said.
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Tamil woman journalist abducted, later released

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 12:11 GMT]
Tamil journalist, Ms Krishni Kandasamy, was abducted by unidentified persons in a white van Wednesday morning from Wattala in Colombo division, and was released later in the evening the same day in Kandy in the central province after being interrogated. She had been working for a leading Tamil daily published from Colombo, Virakesari, for 10 years, according to complaints lodged with the Wattala Police.
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Colombo’s concentration camps compared with Hitler’s in NZ parliament

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 08:36 GMT]
Urging New Zealand government to pay immediate attention to the horrific situation faced by the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, Keith Locke, New Zealand’s member of parliament, speaking Tuesday last week on the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, compared the concentration camps run by Colombo with that of Hitler. Blaming the international community for its failure, the MP urged the NZ government to demand full access to the camps, fair treatment to the combatants and non-combatants of the LTTE and release of people to get back to their homes. He also reminded not to forget attending the underlying cause of the conflict – the Tamil aspirations that arose from the time of independence, well before the Tamil Tigers were ever thought of.
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ICJ Vice Chairman urges governments of free people to protect Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 00:16 GMT]
“I call upon the Australian government to stand up and complain bitterly until something is done”, said Justice John Dowd, Vice President of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), stressing his point that it is “to not speak up but yell” in order to save the Tamils in the concentration camps. He was addressing a forum in Federal Parliament, Canberra, discussing Australia's role on human rights in Sri Lanka Wednesday last week. Sceptical of United Nations and questioning why Commonwealth is aloof, the jurist mooted an idea for governments such as Australia to hold hearings against those who violated the Genocide Convention, warning what is happening in the island is ethnic cleansing of an ancient people in their homeland.
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Sri Lanka’s hidden agenda in JMC election - Manickasothy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 17:48 GMT]
”Tamils struggle for their rights began at a time even when there were four train services a day from Jaffna to Colombo, hundreds of lorries and busses plying on the A9 road and a continuous electricity supply from Laxapahana was available to the people of the North; the claim to restore these by the government is but an obvious propaganda ploy to lure votes for the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA), in an effort to show the world that the Tamils are not opposed to a unified Sri Lanka but whole heartedly support it, by securing victory in Jaffna Municipality Council (JMC) election,” Abimanasingham Manickasothy, the principal candidate of the Independent group contesting JMC election, told the media in a press meet held Wednesday in Bastion Hotel in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said.
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25 Tamil detainees in A’pura prison request release

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 02:56 GMT]
Twenty five Tamil civilians detained in Anuradhapura prison for the last two years without any inquiry, some under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and some under the Emergency Regulations (ER), have requested President Mahinda Rajapakse that they should be released immediately.
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Task of legal war vested with diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 22:32 GMT]
When serious action is needed against Colombo and the Sri Lankan state in order to uphold human dignity and world civilisation, some world leaders pathetically believe in not penalising Colombo and in a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. The Eezham Tamils have seen enough of carrots always going to Colombo and stick always coming to them, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. "The legal system and procedural governments of the liberal democracies have enough space to indict these leaders and governments in their own countries to remind them of their crime and responsibilities. Unless humanitarian organizations and the Eezham Tamil diaspora take up this matter seriously, these leaders will not only go on conning but will also dare to abet Colombo’s agenda of structural genocide."
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