Fifth Anniversary of Trincomalee Students execution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 01:18 GMT]
As relatives of the five Trincomalee students, who were shot dead execution style by Sri Lanka soldiers on January 2nd 2006, prepare to remember the fifth anniversary and mourn the death of their children, Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan, the father of Ragihar, one of the students killed, appealed to international rights groups including the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate the crime and to provide justice to his lost son and his friends who were killed. Information, recently made public, from the US embassy in Colombo, which has highlighted that ruling Rajapakse family sanctioned extra-judicial killings in the NorthEast, adds further obligation to international human rights watchdogs to take steps to advocate independent international investigations into war crimes.
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Mobile phone saves 30 abductees in Vanni from being taken to South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 22:34 GMT]
A 20-year-old student, Gajeevan Puvanendran, who was being abducted by men in green uniform in a vehicle Saturday morning around 5:30 in Ki'linochchi, alerted his parents and relatives through SMS and phone conversation that he was being taken away on A9 highway towards South. Later, Mr. Gajeevan was saved with around 4 others in Vavuniyaa. The Sri Lankan Police has not revealed the details of the abductors or other abductees. Informed sources close to the police in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet that a squad operated by Sri Lankan military was taking away the abductees to South. However, latest information from Vavuniyaa from reliable sources said there were around 30 young boys and at least one of them was taken by an intelligence squad.
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2011 Legal Imperatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 17:54 GMT]
Vigorous advocacy of Tamils rights inside the halls of political power and in the streets of the West by the increasingly active expatriate Tamil youths portends a hopeful and optimistic future to Tamils battered by inaction of the international community and subjected to continued acts of cultural, physical genocide carried out with impunity by Colombo. As humanity steps into the dawn of the next decade, the emergence of organized youth groups trained in international law and sharing knowledge across State borders to advance the prospects of prosecuting alleged Sri Lanka's war-criminals and to bring justice to Tamils, stands as an important example of the political progress, grounded in the moral code of community responsibility, diaspora youths have made since the Mullaiththeevu massacre of May 2009.
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Killed Tamil youth of postal department was an environmentalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 00:30 GMT]
Ketheeswaran Thevarajah, who was working in a post office in Vadamaraadchi and was killed Friday night was an environmentalist, who was protesting to scooping of sand in Vadamaraadchi that was causing environmental damages. Sometimes back, he was dispatching photographs through Facebook, showing environmental damage caused by sand-scooping in his locality. A feedback on his contribution to environmental protection has been sent to TamilNet by a reader who is a relative of him and who has seen the news of his assassination. Media sources in Jaffna confirmed that Mr. Ketheeswaran has been actively engaged in the protests against sand excavation and was instrumental in the protests held in Kudaththanai. He has also provided in-depth reports to local media on the environmental damage inflicted on his village.
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US emergency food aid amid WFP fears for 2011

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2010, 19:07 GMT]
The United States this week provided the UN’s World Food Program operation in Sri Lanka with $5.5 million of emergency food aid, shortly after the organisation warned of serious shortages and halved the wheat flour and sugar in rations it distributes to displaced people. The food situation remained ‘fragile’, despite improving since march 2010, and the next four months are critical , the WFP was quoted by IRIN as warning. The WFP estimates that it needs some $27 million next year to continue to provide assistance to an estimated 371,000 Tamils displaced by the armed conflict from 2008 and has warned of a “pipeline break” looming in 2011.
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Why Sri Lanka keeps Tamil areas insecure and unstable - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 15:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka is actively using paramilitary groups in a campaign of terror in Tamil areas, alongside the military’s own harassment of business and civil society activity, to “actively deny the conditions – physical security and societal stability - necessary for a fully fledged post-conflict revival,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in an online comment Thursday. Sri Lanka is opposed to societal revival in the Tamil areas [because] with economic progress and the restoration of normalcy will undoubtedly come renewed Tamil demands for political rights, including greater freedom from Colombo's rule and stronger links with the "globalised" economy and community, the Tamil Guardian argues.
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UN panel can only testify before LLRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 12:47 GMT]
The UN panel set to advice the Secretary General Ban ki Moon on war crimes in Sri Lanka, can only testify before the LLRC set by the war crimes accused Rajapaksa government. "The U.N. panel will be given visas only to testify before the LLRC if they request, and not for any investigations [...] This is the government stance and there is no change in that. The U.N. has so far not requested visa in this regard," said the spokesman of Colombo, Keheliya Rambukwella, speaking to media in Colombo Thursday. However, informed circles said that the UN establishment, sharing mutual interests with Colombo, may make behind the scene arrangements for the UN panel to meet the LLRC outside the island to exchange notes and decide strategies.
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Sen’s case exposes India in the shoes of colonial Raj

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 12:40 GMT]
A sedition law of colonial oppression enacted in 1870 by British India, which was later used against Mahatma Gandhi and Tilak, has now been deployed against committed social worker Binayak Sen in sentencing him to life imprisonment. 22 Nobel laureates across the world have joined in condemning the Indian court decision, says a feature in Hindustan Times Wednesday. A lacuna in the struggle of Eezham Tamils in attracting attention of the alternative world is the lack of highlight to the kind of organised and committed grassroot social movement like that of the one Binayak Sen was engaged in. The diaspora that is capable of doing that is either disillusioned by the ‘development’ that opens avenues for the very powers that ditched them or has gone astray in dumping money on temples.
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Abductions escalate in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 02:44 GMT]
Six civilians have been reported missing in Jaffna peninsula in the last four weeks, civil society sources in Jaffna said. The latest victim, Thanarathnasabapathy Nirojan, 23, a resident of Oorkavaththu'rai (Kayts) in Jaffna failed to return after leaving home on November 29 to Vavuniyaa for business activities, according to a complaint lodged with the Jaffna Secretariat of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL).
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Tamil, Sinhala detainees clash in Vavuniyaa remand prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 02:15 GMT]
Two were injured in a clash that erupted between detainees in the Vavuniyaa remand prison Tuesday around 5:30 p.m. when Tamil detainees assaulted a Mannaar-based Christian priest and a long-time humanitarian worker, who was recently held in remand over alleged charges that he had sexually abused Tamil girls displaced due to the Vanni war. Altercation ensued as a group of Sinhala detainees rushed in defense of the priest and started assaulting their Tamil detainees with pointed weapons and blades. The alleged sexual abuse of under-aged girls are said to have taken in a Home for Destitutes run by the priest at Murungkan in Mannaar district, legal sources in Mannaar said.
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'Only China and Pakistan could prod New Delhi'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 00:58 GMT]
Paying tribute at the memorial for the IPKF that killed more than 6000 Eezham Tamils in the late 1980s, the visiting Defence Secretary of the New Delhi establishment offered training programme for 1400 personnel of the genocidal military of Sri Lanka in the Indian defence academies. Indian Express on Sunday reported that a key outcome of Russian president recently meeting New Delhi’s prime minister was India helping Colombo’s nuclear power generation, to counter Chinese power hold in South Asia. Meanwhile, the thrust of a recent article by India’s former envoy in UK, Kuldip Nayar implies that rather than the merit of the national question of Eezham Tamils attracting Indian attention, only the involvement of China and Pakistan may prod it to do something.
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Terror campaign in Jaffna: abducted youth tortured and beheaded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 21:27 GMT]
Mahendran Thiruvarudchelvam, known as Chelvam, abducted 9 days ago was tortured and beheaded as evidenced by his remains reaching Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Even though initial reports said that he had been abducted for a ransom of 8 million, his background and prevailing terror campaign in the SL-military-occupied Jaffna point to deeper motives behind his killing, human rights activists in Jaffna said. Mr. Chelvam, 28-year-old, and father of a child, was living in Vanni to the end of the war, spent some time in the internment camp and was released for resettlement. He returned to his native place Meesaalai North near Kanakan-pu'liyadi and started doing business as a vehicle dealer. The former residents of Vanni, whether they are in captivity or released, are viewed by the occupying military and paramilitary as objects for exploitation and then extermination.
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Abducted vehicle-dealer found dead in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 16:50 GMT]
A 28-year-old Tamil male from Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, who was abducted 9 days ago, was recovered dead from a lone area close to Kanakanpu’liyadi junction, Wednesday, initial reports from the area said. Two men, who had come to the residence of the victim, Mahendran Selvam, a vehicle dealer had took him with them last Monday evening. Thereafter, anonymous callers phoned the victim’s parents who were searching for him and demanded 8 million rupees to release Mr. Mahendran. The killing comes at a time when a terror campaign is let loose in the peninsula.
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Rajapakse fares worst in WikiLeaks damages, says Boston Globe

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 12:56 GMT]
Boston Globe in an editorial opinion piece Wednesday called for a "legitimate UN investigation of war crimes in Sri Lanka," after making the following observations: "[A]mbassador’s [Butenis's] candor illuminates a recurring contradiction between the moral imperatives of human rights and the cold logic of diplomacy. Videos and survivor accounts strongly suggest that hundreds, if not thousands, of Tamils were stripped naked, had their hands bound behind their backs, and were murdered during the final weeks of the government’s war against the Tigers. Yet for reasons of state, neighboring powers India and China show no interest in documenting and punishing such crimes.
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Opposition mounts against India’s treatment of human rights activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 01:54 GMT]
Life imprisonment sentenced on human rights activist and medical practitioner Binayak Sen by Chhattishgarh court, on flimsy grounds of sedition that he was carrying messages for the Maoists, finds growing opposition from Indian media and intellectuals. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Tuesday boldly condemned the Indian court decision that the conviction on sedition charges was a "ridiculous" use of laws. Outraged and upset, Amartya Sen wanted his opinion that there was a deep miscarriage of justice, be known to the people as well as the court, PTI reported Tuesday. The Chhattisgarh court judgement was a "huge perversion of our system of justice, and particularly of the laws concerning sedition [...] the whole thing seems a ridiculous use of the laws of democratic India," Amartya Sen said. Meanwhile eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani came forward to argue the case in the Supreme Court.
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‘Sri Lankan forces planned education officer’s assassination in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 21:56 GMT]
Sri Lankan forces occupying Jaffna planned the assassination of the Deputy Director of Education for Valikaamam, Mr. Markandu Sivalingam, on Sunday night, media sources in Jaffna said. “We cannot keep quiet seeing such murders. If we do so, tomorrow even we will not remain. We have to mobilise ourselves very urgently,” said Rev. Fr. Jesudas, the principal of St. Hendry’s College, I’lavaalai, speaking at the funeral of Mr. Sivalingam at Maruthanaamadam, Tuesday. It was attended by large number of students, teachers, principals and the public. But neither SL military officials, nor the officials of the provincial administration attended the funeral. On the day of his assassination there was the ‘disaster management’ gala attended by SL prime minister forcing students to ‘sing’ Sinhala anthem.
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SLA Commander presides Education Department building opening ceremony

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 December 2010, 00:03 GMT]
Jaffna Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri ceremonially opened the new Education Department building in Kaarainagar Monday in the presence of EPDP member of parliament, Chandrakumar and other officials of the Education Department, sources in Jaffna said. The opening ceremony which was to be held earlier with Jaffna MP from the United National Party (UNP), Ms Vijayakala Maheswaran, as the Chief Guest, was abruptly cancelled earlier after the Jaffna Commander was informed that EPDP Minister in the ruling government, Douglas Devananda, was not invited to the earlier ceremony.
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Zonal Deputy Director of Education shot dead in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 December 2010, 09:03 GMT]
Armed men who arrived in a motorbike shot and killed 52-year-old Markandu Sivalingam, the deputy director of Education, Valikaamam Zone, Sunday night at his residence in Urumpiraay in Jaffna, sending shock waves across the education sector in Jaffna. The killing of a peaceful educationalist, who recently took up the post after serving at Koappaay Teachers Training College for a long time, has taken place when Sri Lankan military had maximum deployment in Jaffna as the SL Prime Minister was visiting the city on the occasion of a Tsunami remembrance event, forcing the Tamil students to sing Sri Lankan anthem in Sinhala. Mr. Sivalingam was shot at his chest around 10:30 p.m., Koappaay police said.
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'Disaster management' observed with Sinhala anthem in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 December 2010, 00:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa did not attend disaster management event (National Security Day), remembering Tsunami, took place this time in his colonial territory of Jaffna on 26th December. He was scheduled to preside over it according to earlier announcements. SL Prime Minister D.N. Jeyaratne substituted him and school students of Jaffna were ordered to ‘sing’ the SL anthem in Sinhala only for the occasion. The students clad in Tamil traditional dress, veaddi and chealai, said that they were never accustomed to sing the Sinhala anthem before, but were rigorously ‘trained’ in the last two days for it and were forced for the performance. The function, ignored by the public and participated mainly by officials, made SL minister Douglas Devananda to comment that public in future should be prepared for participation.
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Colombo's Archeology department intrudes into historic Hindu temple in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 December 2010, 19:12 GMT]
Colombo’s Archeology Department officials, who have been frequently intruding into several century old Hindu temple of Thaanthaamalai Sri Murukan in Batticaloa, 10 days ago warned the devotees and the members of the temple management while they were attending a pooja, not to enter the shrine in future for any reason. Thereafter they took management committee members to the Ampaa’rai police station. The temple, revered by Saivaites in the East as ‘Chinna Kathirkaamam’ and the land in the extent of 25 acres that comes under Paddippazhai DS division in Batticaloa district was declared in 13 March 1959 as Saiva Sacred Area according to the decree entered by the Court of Law, temple sources said.
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