Terrorism was the problem: Krishna; no need of solution now: Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 August 2011, 15:02 GMT]
In a Suo Motu statement in the Indian parliament, Indian foreign minister SM Krishna viewed that Sri Lanka’s problem for three decades was ‘terrorism’. “Sri Lanka has borne the brunt of terrorism for nearly three-decades,” the minister said, adding that the highest priority for India now is welfare of the IDPs. Colombo’s assurances for building upon the 13th Amendment would meet the reconciliation, he contented. Meanwhile, speaking to Headlines Today this week, SL presidential sibling and defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said that there was no need to talk about solution any more as they had ended terrorism. Headlines Today will be airing the exclusive interview with Gotabhaya on coming Monday.
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Colombo transfers Admin functions of East Tamil areas to Sinhala districts

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 August 2011, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has been implementing a scheme to transfer administrative functions of Tamil districts in Eastern Province to the adjoining Sinhalese districts. As a first step the government has transferred the financial administration of Batticaloa District Coconut Development Board to Polonnaruwa located in the North Central Province. The government should immediately stop this transfer, said Mr.P. Selvarasa, Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian.
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Indian parliament hijacked to show solidarity with genocide and militarism

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 August 2011, 16:00 GMT]
The Congress-led Indian establishment that orchestrates a crime-filled Sri Lanka policy through advisors, bureaucrats and intelligence agents, on Tuesday hijacked its parliament to demonstrate its adamant solidarity with genocide and militarism in the island by inviting a delegation of the island’s parliament to a session of its parliament, at a time when the Tamil Nadu State Assembly has passed an overwhelming resolution to investigate the crimes of the regime in the island, political analysts in Chennai said. The protesting AIADMK, MDMK, CPI and CPI(M) of Tamil Nadu in the Indian parliament shouted “shame, shame”, when the speaker of the Indian parliament welcomed the guest-partners and the rest of the members followed thumping their desks.
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Indian PM rejects TN State assembly resolution for economic sanctions on SL

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 August 2011, 06:04 GMT]
Rejecting the resolution of the Tamil Nadu State assembly, Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday has said that India “cannot afford to restrict economic links with neighbouring Sri Lanka”, a move widely seen as giving a moral and diplomatic strength to the hawkish Rajapaksa government, which is under international pressure over wide-spread war crime allegations. According to the Delhi-based Hindustan Times report, the Indian Prime Minister has made his government’s policy with regard to Sri Lanka and to Eezham Tamils when he was met by the General Secreatry of Marumalarchi Dravida Munetra Kazhakam (MDMK) Vaiko on Tuesday.
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IFJ outraged by brutal attack on senior journalist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 August 2011, 05:02 GMT]
Uthayan newspaper's editorial policy in backing the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) appears to be the direct provocation for the near lethal attack on its senior news editor in Jaffna on July 29, International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a statement issued on Tuesday. "The IFJ is shocked at the viciousness of the attack on Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, which extends a long sequence of targeted attacks on Uthayan," the statement further said listing attacks on Uthayan in recent years.
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Media organisations in Colombo protest against attack on Tamil editor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 August 2011, 10:46 GMT]
Five Colombo-based media organizations held a protest campaign at Lipton Circus, Colombo, Tuesday afternoon, against the assault of Uthayan newspaper's News Editor Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan in Jaffna. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa talking to foreign journalists on Tuesday said the attack on Kuhanathan was an 'isolated' incident and a 'petty' crime. Since year 2000, six employees of Uthayan newspaper including two journalists, Raji Varman and S.S.R. Sugirtharajan, have been killed. But the Sri Lankan authorities have not arrested a single person to date in connection with the killings.
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Colombo deprives livelihood of 2500 Tamil, Muslim families in Kuchchave'li

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 August 2011, 01:44 GMT]
Nearly two thousand five hundred Tamil and Muslim families in Periya-karaichchi village in the Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat division in Trincomalee district have been deprived of the their permanent livelihood following the construction of a saltern by a southern based firm with the permission of the Colombo government. The project is named Raigam Saltern employing Sinhalese from South. “Nearly 2000 families of Tamils and Muslims who were doing prawn farming on this Periya-karaichchi land and another five hundred families who benefited from the subsidiary employment related to prawn farming have been pushed out and some outsiders from other districts have come started a saltern. This is extremely unfair,” said R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian in a letter to the Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Hundreds remember Black July in Australia

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 August 2011, 10:45 GMT]
Hundreds of Australian Tamils marched through Central Sydney this weekend to remember victims of Black July and urge support for an independent war crimes probe into the Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre. Police closed major roads on Saturday as Australians from all walks of life joined members of the Tamil community to commemorate the event.
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Attack on Uthayan editor portrays renewed attacks on Tamils: JDS

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 August 2011, 06:18 GMT]
Holding the political and military leadership of the Rajapaksa regime responsible for the recent pre-planned attack on the news editor of the Janffa-based Uthayan newspaper, the Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a media organisation of exiled group of Journalists from the island, has said that the attack has portrayed “the vicious nature of the renewed and accelerated violent attacks on democratic rights of Sri Lanka's Tamil people”.
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Stop treating Tamils as minority: Premachandran MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 July 2011, 20:37 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Sunday touched on an important conceptual issue related to the national question in the island that affects equality between Tamils and Sinhalese, when he criticized those who treat Tamils as a ‘minority’. “We will not allow the government or anyone else to treat the Tamils as a minority anymore. If the Sri Lankan government thinks the Sinhalese are the majority and the Tamils are the minority, then they are mistaken,” Mr. Premachandran told The Sunday Leader.
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Court prepares for judicial review as EU continues LTTE proscription

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:12 GMT]
European Union (EU) Council, comprising the heads of state of the [twenty seven] EU member states, along with the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, has decided to further extend the proscription of the Liberation Tigers from September. Meanwhile, the same EU Council is mandated by EU law to respond in writing to the case (T-208/11-9) filed by Amsterdam-based Bohler Advocaten attorney, Victor Koppe, on behalf of the Liberation Tigers at the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice before the third week of September, legal sources closer to the EU case said.
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Court inquires into Writ Petition regarding disappeared Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 17:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal Wednesday directed the Sri Lanka Treasury Secretary and the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Ministry to appear in court on September 7 on a writ application filed by the father of a disappeared Tamil youth, as the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to pay compensation of 3 million rupees recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). The youth, Thevaraja Sarma, was reported missing in Trincomalee on 23 June 1990 after his arrest by the Sri Lanka Army.
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Attack on news editor exposes post-war state of media freedom: SLTMA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 13:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA), a Colombo based Tamil journalists association on Saturday condemned the attack on Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, the news editor of Uthayan Tamil Daily in Jaffna, and said that the attack reported within 6 days after the conclusion of the civic elections has cast severe doubts. The government of Sri Lanka claims that it has has brought media democracy and freedom of expression to Jaffna, but the journalists are continuously harassed and threatened, the media watchdog said.
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Colonization to engulf Thiriyaay as Colombo allocates 3000 acres for Buddhist vihare

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2011, 12:14 GMT]
Nearly three thousand acres in Thiriyaay, a traditional Tamil village, located about 42 km off north of Trincomalee town have been earmarked to be declared as sacred area for a Buddhist Vihare called Girihandu Seya. The Vihare caters exclusively for Sinhala Buddhists from the south of Sri Lanka.
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Colombo targeting Tamil civil service is more than revenge

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 18:02 GMT]
Orders have been issued by Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and by his sibling Basil Rajapaksa to colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri for immediate and full-swing replacement of Tamil civil service in the north. The act may superficially look as a revenge for the defeat in the civic elections, but it is actually aimed to make any political solution that will be ‘accounted’ to the outside world completely meaningless to Eezham Tamils, and is a part of a long-contemplated agenda of structural genocide, political observers said. Meanwhile, knowing what is happening and what will happen in demography, political representation, civil administration, militarisation and in all other respects, why should the TNA commit to seek solutions under a ‘united Sri Lanka’ just because the powers that abetted the genocide want it, ask non TNA Tamil nationalists.
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Unidentified persons erase Arab letters from street name boards

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 10:35 GMT]
A group of unidentified persons had erased the Arabic letters written along with Tamil, Sinhala and English languages on street name boards within the administrative limit of the Kaaththaankudi Urban Council in Batticaloa district. Residents have lodged a complaint with the SL Police in Kaaththaankudi, according civil society sources.
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CEB workers in North, East protest demanding salary arrears

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 July 2011, 20:15 GMT]
Ceylon Electricity Board workers in Trincomalee and Jaffna on Tuesday and Wednesday staged protests demanding immediate payment of salary arrears for 10 months. While the Sri Lankan government has been waging a propaganda inviting foreign countries to invest money in a “developing Sri Lanka”, the State is unable to pay salary arrears for more than 10 months, CEB workers in Jaffna said Wednesday. For the first time after several years, electricity board workers from North and South joined in the protest that took place in front of CEP office situated on KKS Road.
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Army witnesses recount final orgy of massacre, rape, torture, mutilation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 July 2011, 02:19 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officer has given Channel 4 an account of how, following orders from Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the commander of the 58 Division, Brigadier (now Major General) Shavendra Silva gathered his officers in the closing days of the war and ordered them to take no prisoners when capturing the remainder of the enclave in which thousands of Tamils civilians and fighters were surrounded. Brig. Silva received the same orders that Mr. Gotabaya issued to all regiments, the officer who was then serving under Brig. Silva told Channel 4. Meanwhile, another Sri Lankan soldier with the 58 Division has given an eyewitness account of an orgy of mass murder, rape, torture and mutilation in the final days in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians perished.
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No more faith in Colombo’s peace and reconciliation: Indian women

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 16:06 GMT]
Prominent women’s rights activists in India in a statement this week said that they had stopped believing in Colombo's periodic pledges to bring about reconciliation in the country, reports Indian Express. "We no longer believe the empty promises of the Sri Lankan government to bring peace and reconciliation, and strongly demand immediate action that will convince us of the seriousness of this intent," the statement of the rights activists said. Saying that women were among the worst hit in the dragging conflict in Sri Lanka that began in 1983, the activists faulted the Sri Lankan government for not acknowledging the range of rights violations committed by its armed forces, even two years after the Tamil Tigers were crushed and condemned the Indian government for its silence and participation.
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Norwegian Tamils remember Oslo-Utøya, Black July victims

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 08:32 GMT]
City of Oslo, the capital of Norway, was full of roses Monday and Tuesday. More than 200,000 people gathered Monday evening to express their sorrow and solidarity with the victims of the attacks by far-right Islamophobic killer, Anders Behring Breivik, who has claimed the lives of at least 76 people, most of them young, in a combined bomb attack on the government square in the heart of the city and a shooting rampage at the summer camp of the youth wing of the ruling Labour Party at Utøya Island, located northwest of Norway's capital. Two of five Norwegian Eezham Tamil youths, who survived the attack at the Utøya Island, took part in a memorial event Monday, jointly organised by three Tamil organisations. The memorial event also remembered the victims of Black July, the Sri Lankan state-sponsored pogrom against Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983.
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