Thean-thookki

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 January 2011, 00:14 GMT]
The place of Thean-thookki trees
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US legal effort to seek justice for son's killing - Dr Manoharan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 January 2011, 00:17 GMT]
In an interview with the BBC Tamil service, Dr Kasippillai Manoharan, father of Ragihar, one of the five students extra-judicially executed by Sri Lanka's military at the Trincomalee beach on January 2nd, 2006, said that Sri Lanka's judicial system is not capable and unwilling to provide justice and bring closure to his son's death, hence his initiating a civil suit in the U.S. He further told the BBC, five years have passed since his son's brutal killing, and he will use all judicial instruments now available to him outside Sri Lanka to bring his son's killers to justice. Dr Manoharan said he is convinced that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has information on the killers but the President is unwilling to allow prosecution of military officers. Both Mr and Mrs Manoharan are prominent physicians who earlier practiced in Trincomalee.
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Ambassador, an honest man sent to lie for Sri Lanka, responds Fein

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2011, 16:49 GMT]
Noting Sri Lanka's Ambassador's response to the law suit filed in US by three Tamil plaintiffs as initiated by LTTE-front organizations involved in "publicity stunts like this baseless law suits," Bruce Fein, the attorney for the plaintiffs said that the Ambassador Wickramasuriya was an honest man but was apparently instructed that if both the facts and the law demonstrated President Rajapaksa’s criminal culpability, then he should bugle “Tamil Tigers” to confuse the issue. Further, the group that sponsored the law suit cautioned the Ambassador and Colombo's Presidential spokesperson that libel is a serious offense in U.S. law and that any malicious labeling of legitimate US organizations as terrorist may have serious legal consequences.
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Kokkaddichchoalai massacre of 65 Tamil civilians remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2011, 12:13 GMT]
The twenty fourth annual remembrance of Kokkaddichchoalai massacre was held Friday in Batticaloa. The Sri Lanka Army, which is almost all Sinhalese, killed 65 Tamil civilians in a prawn farm located about 10 km off west of Batticaloa city on 28 January 1987. The SLA burnt down the farm and huts where Tamil laborers were staying.
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Rajapaksa sued in US Courts over war-crimes, plaintiffs seek $30m in damages

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 January 2011, 20:05 GMT]
Three Tamil plaintiffs whose relatives were killed in three different incidents, all considered to be war-crimes, filed a civil case in the District Court of District of Columbia against Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa Friday at around 4:00 p.m, the attorney for the plaintiffs and former Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the US, Mr Bruce Fein, said in a release sent to the media in the U.S. The legal action was sponsored by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group. The plaintiffs seek $30m as damages through six counts of violations of the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
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Solheim without ‘appetite’ envisages further involvement

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 January 2011, 12:19 GMT]
How could the Norwegian ‘peace’ broker Erik Solheim claim that he was not biased towards one party in the national conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, when he had approached the issue with a preconception that there had been no appetite in the world for separations, asked Stephen Pushparajah, a well-recognized Eezham Tamil in Norway, responding to Mr. Solheim’s reiteration Wednesday that there is “no international support for a separate Tamil state” and his envisagement on behalf of Norway to play a further “role as a dialogue partner both with the government and peoples of Sri Lanka, including exile communities.” It was this closed mind of the peace facilitators and the powers behind them that encouraged Rajapaksa to end the war with genocide and to continue the genocide even after the war, he further said.
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UPFA nominations for local elections rejected in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 January 2011, 11:42 GMT]
In a sudden turn of development in the run up to the local elections in North, the election department officials in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi have rejected the nominations filed by the UPFA, disqualifying the ruling UPFA and EPDP alliance from participating in the elections in Jaffna and Ki'linochchi that come under the Jaffna electoral district. The nominations were filed under a wrong name in Tamil as Aiykkiya Makka'l Chuthanthira Kooddamaippu (AMCK) instead of Aiykkiya Makka'l Chunthanthira Munna'ni (AMCM). The date for the elections has been set to March 17.
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Republic Day of India observed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 23:26 GMT]
The Indian Consulate in Jaffna observed Republic Day of India with a march by the security division of Indian Police inside the premises of Indian Consulate in Jaffna on Wednesday. V. Mahalingam, the Indian Consul-General in Jaffna, hoisted the Indian national flag and read out text of the speech by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Consulate situated near Kantharmadam Junction.
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TNPF boycotts local elections protesting militarisation of electoral politics

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 23:09 GMT]
Abductions, killings, militarisation of civil affairs and the Sri Lankan state involving its military arm into the electoral politics, have rendered democratic participation in local elections in the Tamil homeland meaningless, said Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) in a statement issued Wednesday announcing that the front had decided to avoid participation in the local elections.
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New Delhi’s insensitive defence approach triggers off trouble in Palk Strait

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 22:13 GMT]
New Delhi’s approach of safeguarding its defence interests by protecting a flawed state and regime in Sri Lanka is the root cause for recent escalation of trouble in either side of the Palk Strait, following defence agreements and secret protocols between Indian Defence Secretary and Colombo’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. New Delhi and Colombo, having strategic partnership in safeguarding establishments and in economic interests of corporations, were totally insensitive to the defence of the people living on either side of the Palk Strait, the historic shareholders of the waters. Instead of working for international recognition and justice to the national question of Eezham Tamils, New Delhi sitting on it and defending genocidal Colombo will invite further trouble in the coming days, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Angry public burns cut-outs, banners of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 07:52 GMT]
Angered by the politics and by an extravagant ritual, ‘Yaakam,’ by a Tamil Nadu chaamiyaar (Hindu religious person) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, at a time when genocide and floods cause desperation, the Eezham Tamil public in Ka’luvaagnchikkudi in Batticaloa on Saturday burnt his cut-out images and banners. He went back to India the following day. Last Thursday, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar honoured the ‘social service’ of the SL president’s son Namal Rajapaksa at a function in Colombo, jointly organized by his outfit to observe the 2600-year of the birth of Buddha. On Saturday, at the ‘Mahaa Rudra Yaakam’ ritual, he honoured the paramilitary politicians S. Chandrakanthan, chief minister for the East and SL deputy minister V. Muralitharan by placing shawls on them.
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Tutorial colleges burnt down in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 07:43 GMT]
A leading tutorial college, Universal Tution Centre located near Hindu Ladies College in Jaffna was burnt down by unknown persons on Saturday, the day when the SL colonial commander in Jaffna Maj. Gen Hathurusinghe anticipated further escalation of crimes and announced that the military will start policing the district. The destruction of the two buildings of the institution causes millions of rupees loss to the owners. TNA politician P. Ainkaranesan who now actively campaigns in the local bodies elections owned the institution earlier. Meanwhile, another leading tutorial college, Science Hall in the city was also burnt down a month ago.
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HRW: Sri Lanka stonewalls on wartime abuses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 05:37 GMT]
In a press release issued today with the 649-page World Report for 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that “Sri Lanka’s aggressive rejection of accountability for war crimes is an affront to the victims’ of the country’s long civil war,” and Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director warns that “[t]here is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka will return to a rights-respecting government any time in the near future. Until wartime abuses are prosecuted, minority grievances are addressed, and repression against the press and civil society ends, only the president and his family members in power have reason to feel secure in Sri Lanka.”
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White House protest calls for arrest of visiting Sri Lanka President

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 04:49 GMT]
Nearly one hundred Tamils in unfriendly weather conditions called upon the US President to investigate and arrest the visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse widely accused of committing war-crimes against Tamils during the end of Sri Lanka's war in May 2009. Protesters pointed out that US Ambassador in Colombo, Ambassador Butenis, has herself acknowledged possible complicity by the Rajapakse brothers of the said crimes. The protest took place at the Washington D.C. Lafayette park in front of the White House along the closed Pennsylvania avenue between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday. Another group of protesters assembled in front of the US State Department located at the C Street NW in Washington D.C.
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USA opens American Corner in Jaffna, welcomes writers festival in Galle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 01:22 GMT]
The US ambassador in Colombo Patricia A Butenis on Monday opened American Corner, a US outfit in Jaffna city, to function at the premises of a local NGO, Jaffna Social Action Centre. The Deputy High Commissioner of the Indian High Commission in Jaffna, SL colonial commander in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, the Sri Lanka Government Agent in Jaffna and the mayor participated the diplomatic event that follows the opening of the Deputy High Commission of India in last November. Meanwhile, on the same day the US embassy in Colombo has also welcomed the controversial ‘Literary Festival’ in Galle and has donated money to bring students and teachers to the meet.
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Teachers Union condemns one-day pay cut in East

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 23:50 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) has cut one-day pay of teachers in the province from their wages for January. The chairman of Ceylon Teachers' Union, Joseph Stalin, has condemned the act as political bankruptcy of the EPC that has bypassed the regulations for such wage cut. While the people of the other provinces and the larger international community have come forward to help the flood victims, the EPC has been engaged in cutting the wages of the victims themselves in the name of flood relief, the union said.
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Forced recruitment of traders by Colombo to contest elections in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Colombo’s terror campaign and abductions in Jaffna and Vanni now aim at forced recruitment of traders to contest local bodies elections under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLFP ticket, sources in Jaffna said. In recent days, many leaders of traders associations in Jaffna were abducted by SL Army officers coming to their houses and were taken to Colombo. They were not told why were they abducted and where were they being taken. They were later released in Colombo after forcefully getting signatures from them to contest elections in Jaffna and Vanni, under the SLFP. The traders said they didn’t want to contest but were afraid of their lives. Meanwhile, R. Ankajan, SLFP coordinator in Jaffna, is ‘recruiting’ university students to campaign in the elections.
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Riot in Anuradhapura jail, several prisoners feared killed

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 15:41 GMT]
One woman prisoner had been killed and several injured in a clash between jail guards and prisoners inside the Anuradhapura prison Monday evening following a fast by a group of prisoners demanding better facilities. But unconfirmed reports reached Colombo media that several more prisoners were feared killed when jail guards opened fire against rioting prisoners to bring the tense situation under control. Tamil sources said that the fate of Tamil detainees in the prison was not known as no one was allowed to enter the prison till Monday night.
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SL Election Department rejects applications of 86 political parties for registration

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:31 GMT]
Applications of eighty six political parties seeking registration from the Department of Elections have been rejected, according to the officials of the department. The rejected political parties included the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) led by Sarath Fonseka and the Tamil National Liberation Alliance led by M.K. Sivajilingam.
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People turn against paramilitary groups in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 18:22 GMT]
Batticaloa residents have shown their anger against Karuna, Pillayan paramilitary groups by organizing demonstrations against the factions of the groups, one led by a deputy minister of Rajapaksa-government Muralitharan (Karuna) and the other by Colombo-installed chief minister S. Chandrakanthan (Pillayan). On Tuesday, an spontaneous street-demonstration condemned attacks by Pillayan group on divisional secretary and village officer attached to Ma'nmunaippattu DS office.
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