SLA, police chase away Tamil families from their lands in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 12:15 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and policemen chased away hundreds of men and women uprooted from their housing scheme in Naavatkuzhi in Jaffna when they tried to erect sheds in their lands Thursday morning, sources in Jaffna said. These Tamil families had been living in this housing scheme since 1992 until they were uprooted in the SLA offensives. Meanwhile, the number of Sinhala families from South brought to this area Tuesday night has risen to 70 while more Sinhala families continue to arrive with building materials and action is taken to distribute them the unoccupied houses in 300 Housing Scheme in Naavatkuzhi, the sources added. The Tamil families fearing that their lands being encroached by the invading Sinhala families had tried to establish themselves in their lands Thursday morning.
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CID summons Jaffna Traders representatives to Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 05:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has summoned the representatives of Jaffna Traders Association (JTA) to Colombo to record their statements and the representatives who left to Colombo expressed fear that may have to face interrogation by CID in Colombo. Meanwhile, another leading Tamil businessman in Jaffna has been arrested by CID alleged of funding Liberation Tigers in the past, sources in Jaffna said. SLA is engaged in rounding up the prominent Tamil traders claiming that it has evidence of their involvement with LTTE found in the statements of the traders in their detention, the sources added. The real motive behind this move is to cripple the prominent Tamil traders in Jaffna to eliminate them competing with the Sinhala traders who continue to invade Jaffna since the opening of A9 land route, JTA circles said.
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Al Jazeera spotlights Sri Lanka's alleged War Crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 00:43 GMT]
Al Jazeera, the international news network headquartered in Qatar, published photographs Wednesday "showing graphic scenes, with dead bodies blindfolded, hands bound [and] shot through the head," that appear to provide further believable evidence of alleged massacre of Tamils during final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war. One of the photos shows a line of bodies, including what is believed to be the body of the son of Velupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the news network said.
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24th Anniversary of the massacre of 320 Tamils in Batticaloa remembered

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 16:32 GMT]
The massacre of 320 innocent Tamils of Pullumalai in Batticaloa district on 10.11.1986 by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sinhala thugs was remembered Wednesday by the people of Batticaloa district. The SLA soldiers and the Sinhala thugs who brutally massacred the 320 Tamils were not arrested during the United National Party (UNP) government then and the present United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) too has failed to take action on them or to pay compensation for the affected or find the disappeared persons, sources in Batticaloa said. Complaints made by the victims’ family members to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) recently in Chengkaladi Secretariat were not registered, the sources added.
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32 Sinhala families allowed to settled in Naavatkuzhi in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 13:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka government authorities hurriedly took 32 Sinhala families claiming resettlement in Jaffna Tuesday night to the housing scheme in Naavatkuzhi area where they were allowed to erect temporary dwellings in lands claimed as government property, sources Jaffna said. The Tamils who inhabit these areas since ancient times say the said lands belong to them. The Tamil families living in the housing scheme expressed fear that the Sinhala families may encroach into their houses in the future, as they are provided with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police protection.
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Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 05:09 GMT]
Sri Lanka parliament Tuesday adopted the motion tabled by the Prime Minister seeking the approval to extend the state of emergency for another month by a majority of one hundred and fourteen votes. One hundred and twenty-five members of parliament of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituent parties voted for the motions.
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Rights groups flay LLRC, say whitewashes War Crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 04:17 GMT]
International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the three premier human rights watchdogs, today slammed Sri Lanka’s reconciliation commission (LLRC) accusing the commission of failing to “meet basic international standards for independent and impartial inquiries,” and for "proceeding against a backdrop of government failure to address impunity and continuing human rights abuses.” The Rights groups further pointedly attacked the island's legal system saying, “Sri Lanka’s government and justice system cannot and will not uphold the rule of law and respect basic rights.”
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2 Sinhala men posing as policemen arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 11:51 GMT]
Two Sinhala men posing as policemen forcibly collected thousands of rupees from the Tamil villagers in Meesaalai West in Jaffna. The men were arrested and produced by police before Chaavakachcheari magistrate Manickavasagar Ganesharajah Monday. The two men have been placed in remand prison till 15 November.
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SL government accused of abandoning war-affected women

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 11:18 GMT]
The Organization for Freedom of Women, in a press meet held Sunday in ‘Tilak’ hotel in Jaffna, accused Sri Lanka government of deceiving the war-affected women without using the international funds meant for their welfare it gets, sources in Jaffna said. It further said that the information given by Sri Lanka government on persons disappeared or gone missing after arrest is not true and that no war-affected woman, whether Sinhala or Tamil, will believe it. The president of the above organization Ms. Imuthu Attiyalgala, National Organizer, Ms. Savitri Paulraj and Executive Committee member Ms. Thanusha de Silva and Ms. Krisnan were the persons representing the organization while Ms. Nirmalanathan Mary represented the war-affected women in North.
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Media denied access to meeting in Jaffna Public Library

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 06:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Minister Douglas Devananda, Jaffna Mayor Ms. Yogeswary Patkunam and the staff of Jaffna Public Library held a meeting Monday to consider the mode of admitting tourists to visit the library following the incident where unruly Sinhala tourists from South had stormed into the library on 24 October. Media persons were not allowed to cover the meeting but sent away. Douglas Devananda had been accusing local media to have fabricated the said incident adding that the Mayor of Jaffna and the President’s Task Force had categorically stated that no such incident had taken place, sources in Jaffna said. It was decided in the meeting to allow the tourists to visit the library in limited numbers, library employees said. Prof. Pon. Balasutharampillai, former Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University and advisor to Douglas Devananda, too attended the meeting.
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Saiva stone inscriptions in Easteren province destructed - EHAF

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 November 2010, 18:07 GMT]
East Hindu Associations’ Federation (EHAF) has brought to the urgent attention of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne who is also the Minister of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs, the schemed destruction of several centuries old stone inscriptions recovered from Saiva temples in the Eastern Province declared as archaeological sites. EHAF has urged the Prime Minister in a memorandum submitted to him when he visited Batticaloa district, to appoint a Tamil Hindu officer in the archaeological department to study the stone inscriptions in collaboration with the Department of Hindu Cultural Affairs and to establish a museum to store these stone inscriptions in safe custody.
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Muslim families to be resettled in Jaffna soon – Jaffna GA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 06:01 GMT]
“The Muslim families evacuated from Jaffna 20 year ago will be soon resettled in their own places,” Jaffna Government Agent (GA), Ms. Imelda Sukumar said in an event held in Jaffna Osmania College Saturday. The event was organized by more than ten Muslim organizations in Jaffna in memory of the evacuation in 1990, sources in Jaffna said. Imelda Sukumar saying in the event that Sri Lanka government is correct in asserting that there is no place in Sri Lanka for any race to claim exclusive rights to it, has raised controversy among the people of Jaffna. She had previously said that there were no High Security Zones in Jaffna peninsula but only areas which have not been de-mined, a statement contrary to the truth, the sources added.
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Treating Tamil Script from Tamil point of view

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 03:59 GMT]
Encoding an ‘Extended Tamil Script’ and encoding the Grantha script added with some Tamil characters in the Unicode Standard have become matters of controversy currently raging in Tamil Nadu. The very concept of having an ‘Extended Tamil Script’ only to present Sanskrit in Tamil is fundamentally flawed. Having the rare distinction as a classical as well as a globally living language, the Tamil need for an extended script to present other languages through its script is larger: Sister Dravidian languages such as the Brahui of Pakistan, related languages like ancient Sumer or Japanese and the languages the diaspora interacts from Latin America to Africa and Europe to Southeast Asia are some examples the ETS is expected to handle. India and Tamil Nadu alone shouldn’t decide a matter of universal Tamil interest, writes opinion columnist Akazhaan.
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Ki'n'niyaa resettled Muslims protest against police brutality

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 17:52 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil-speaking Muslims Friday held a demonstration after Jumma Prayers at Buhary junction in Ki'n'niyaa town against the destruction of huts and crops of more than thirty five resettled Muslim people in Ka'ndal-kaadu by the police. They carried placards condemning the brutality of the Police.
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No development in Jaffna worthy of mention – German delegation

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 05:44 GMT]
A delegation of German MPs led by Ms. Petra Ernstberger visited Jaffna accompanied by German Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Mr. Jens Ploetner and Mr. Guido Baumann, officer in charge of press affairs. Mr. Guido Bauman, at the end of the visit Thursday, told local press that the delegation saw no development worthy of mention in Jaffna. He added that the main intention of the delegation was to find out how the German tax payers’ money given as donation is being used in Jaffna peninsula. Mr. Holger Ortel, Mr. Jurgen Kilmke and Dr. Birgit Reinemund were the three German other parliamentarians besides Ms. Petra Ernstberger visiting Jaffna.
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Rajapaksa fears arrest in UK: Times of India

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 01:06 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's scheduled visit to UK has been called off by him fearing arrest in UK for his alleged war crimes under British law, the Times of India reported Friday. SL Foreign Minister G L Peiris was despatched to reconnoitre last month, the paper said, adding that certain Tamil organisations were planning to move court for Mr. Rajapaksa's arrest. Mahinda Rajapaksa is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Meanwhile, Eezham Tamil political activists allege that the war crimes in the island took place with the full blessings of the Indian Establishment.
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TamilNet wartime correspondent from Vanni reaches a free country

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 22:13 GMT]
Living incognito since May 2009, the TamilNet chief correspondent who reported from Vanni during the war, reached a free country this week. He was just 24 when he joined TamilNet. His knowledge in English was just basic. He was neither a member nor an associate of the LTTE. The free working space he had in Vanni was based only on an understanding about the political outlook of TamilNet towards the national cause of Eezham Tamils. But what he achieved goes into history of war journalism. He did a marvellous job on the ‘war without witnesses’, which major international media establishments couldn’t do or didn’t want to do. His safe passage to a free country was achieved by international civil society infrastructure. Many organisations, individuals and progressive Sinhalese helped him in his passage.
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Southern fishermen occupying Vadamaraadchi accused of sexual harassment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 06:20 GMT]
One of the fishermen of nearly 600 Sinhala and Muslim fishermen from South brought by Sri Lanka government with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to catch sea cucumber and conch shells in Vadamaraadchi East, was thrashed by local people when he tried to sexually harass a young woman, civil sources in the region said. Intervention by SLA soldiers to save the fisherman has triggered conflict between the people and the army and tension prevails in the area. The presence and activities of the southern fishermen, protected by SLA, is viewed by the civilians of the area as causing cultural deterioration including sexual abuse of women and children of the area. The fishermen brought in by the SLA were behaving as 'winners' from the South, also causing structural and psychological genocide, the sources further said.
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Colombo schemes Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 02:13 GMT]
Following the end of war in Vanni last year, the Colombo government has taken over three thousand acres private land in Eastern Province in seven Tamil Divisional Secretariat areas for the purpose of setting up new Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps, colonizing the traditional Tamil homeland with Sinhala people and for contracting the land to external actors for commercial exploitation, civil society circles in Batticaloa said. Some of the private lands taken over, rich with resources, are to be given on long term lease to entrepreneurs from South involving Chinese and Iranian assistance, the sources added.
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