Civilians’ gold recovered from Vanni should be returned to them – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 October 2010, 05:33 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka government’s claim that its troops collected vast amount of gold jewelry during its war on Vanni, Civil Monitoring Commission chief Mano Ganeshan told AFP that, “We don't know where the military found this gold, but what is clear is that it belongs to Tamil civilians." Chief government whip Dinesh Gunawardena told parliament Wednesday that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops had collected gold items worth more than four million USD during the final months of the decades-long civil war last year and that they had been handed over to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. “The rightful owners of the gold are Tamil civilians and they should get their property back,” Mano Ganeshan told AFP.
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TNA appeals people to be aware of betrayers in East

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 October 2010, 05:24 GMT]
“People should be aware of persons who betray the Tamils for petty concessions of Sinhala chauvinists,” Tamil National Alliance (TNA) key person in Ampaa’rai district, Chelliah Rasaiah, the Executive Director of Kaarainakar Pushpa Social Development Society said in a meeting held in Ampaa’rai by TNA to create political awareness among people, sources in Ampaa’rai said.
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Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription ‘missing’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 October 2010, 19:34 GMT]
The third century BCE potsherd inscription in Tamil language and in Tamil Brahmi script found at Tissamaharama in Hambantota district by German excavators is now missing in Sri Lanka’s Archaeology Department, informed sources said. The inscription found sometimes back was not included in the excavation reports of the Archaeology Department. Photo and decipherment of the inscription was brought out by Iravatam Mahadevan in The Hindu in June this year, followed by TamilNet. Meanwhile, accusing TamilNet for false publications, Dr. Susantha Goonatilleke in an article posted by transcurrents.com and published by Daily Mirror said that TamilNet had recently published inscriptions claimed to be from the South of Sri Lanka, which nobody in the Archaeology Department had seen.
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Confidential report on Devananda to Madras High Court

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 October 2010, 13:20 GMT]
A lower court in Chennai handed over a confidential report to the Madras High Court related to a 1994 order declaring Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda a “proclaimed offender” in connection with a murder case in Chennai in 1986, Press Trust of India reported Wednesday. Douglas Devananda had filed a petition in August seeking to set aside the lower court order declaring him as a proclaimed offender treating him as an absconding accused, it further said. Consequently Justice G. M. Akbar of Madras High Court had called for a report from the trial court on 22nd September 2010.
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SL Parliament extends state of Emergency

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 04:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Parliament Tuesday adopted the motion moved by its Prime Minister to extend the state of emergency for another month by ninety votes. 118 parliamentarians of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituent parties voted for the motion. The members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) voted against the motion. The main opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarians abstained from voting. State of emergency is being extended every month by the parliament since August 2005.
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Revoke ban on Liberation Tigers: Activists in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 17:26 GMT]
Political activists in Tamil Nadu organized a meeting Tuesday evening in Chennai Press Hall to collect signatures demanding Indian Government to revoke the ban on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, sources in Chennai said. Hundreds of persons including Lawyers, Law students and political party leaders and supporters joined in the campaign and set their signatures on the memorandum which was written on a 50 m long banner. The meeting was initiated and organized by Cinema director Pukalenthi Thangaraj.
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Batticaloa Court orders removal of ineligible occupants in Muslim colony

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 16:55 GMT]
Batticaloa District Court ordered the Secretary of Ma’nmunaipattu to immediately remove all who are not eligible reside in the Muslim Colony for tsunami victims established in 2004 in the lands of Tamils by M. L. A. M. Hisbulla when he was the Minister of Post and Telecommunication during former Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaranatunge with funds from Kuwait government. The owners of the land encroached for the Muslim colony had filed petition against the Muslim colonization scheme and M. L. A. M. Hisbulla who is a Deputy Minister in the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) now. Directed by the court, the Secretary of Ma’nmunaippattu, Ms. Pathmarajah had written to the ineligible occupants to vacate before 11 November.
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Identify murderers of Tamil journalist, RSF appeals to Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 11:33 GMT]
Expressing hope that the Government of Sri Lanka will launch an investigation to identify the murderers of Tamil journalist Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan, who was gunned down on 19th October 2000, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), cautioned that "[r]econciliation in Sri Lanka will require tough government initiatives to combat impunity in high-profile cases such as Nimalarajan’s murder, one of the most shocking killings of the past decade."
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SL Resettlement minister meets Sinahala families claiming resettlement in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 05:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka minister of Resettlement Affairs, Milroy Fernando, on a special directive of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Monday to meet the Sinhala people brought into Jaffna by Sri Lanka government claiming resettlement in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. The minister assured the Sinhala families now lodged in the old Jaffna Railway Station that their problems will be solved within the next three months. Meanwhile, some of the Sinhala families have been allowed to erect shelters in vacant lands adjoining some of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps in Jaffna town, the sources added.
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Amnesty urges Hague on independent probe into Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 05:23 GMT]
Amnesty International Monday urged British Foreign Secretary William Hague to demand an independent international investigation into alleged war crime abuses in Sri Lanka when he meets his Sri Lankan counterpart, Professor GL Peiris, in London Tuesday. Amnesty also said it has “huge reservations about the effectiveness” of both Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s Panel of Experts set up to look into the reports of war crimes.
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Mahinda Rajapaksa shuns North TNA parliamentarians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 05:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has failed to invited the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians of the North to a meeting related to ‘Development of North’ in Vavuniyaa Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Joseph Camp Tuesday, deliberately keeping away the elected representatives of the people from participating in the meeting, TNA parliamentarians of North accused. The participation of the elected representatives is crucial as issues of Sinhala colonization in the North, refusal to resettlement of uprooted Tamils in their own properties and similar matters are to be explored in Tuesday meeting, they said. Purposely shunning the democratically elected representatives from participating in decision making meetings by Sri Lanka government reveals how very much it discriminates the Tamils, TNA MPs said.
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SLA, police harass ex LTTE members in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 October 2010, 15:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police personnel collect details of persons who had been members of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and ex-combatants who had surrendered themselves and later released in Batticaloa district and use the information to check on them house by house subjecting them to harassment in the name of interrogation, P. Ariyanenthiran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian said. The families of LTTE war heroes are also harassed by the police and SLA soldiers, according to complaints made to him by the affected persons, the MP said.
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Mannaar Tamil village faces extinction due to illegal sand mining

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 October 2010, 08:49 GMT]
Oalaiththoduvaay, a traditional Tamil village on the coast of Mannaar district faces extinction due to illegal sand mining by a group of Sinhala men from the southern province. A Sinhala man who had bought a piece of land in Oalaiththoduvaay has allowed illegal sand mining. Residents of the village said that if the transport of sand in large number of tippers is allowed the village will be facing sea erosion that could wipe out the village.
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Sinhalicisation of Jaffna disguised as resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 October 2010, 04:41 GMT]
Sinhala people from various parts of Sri Lanka brought into Jaffna peninsula by Sri Lanka government claiming resettlement has raised suspicion of Sinhalicisation in the name of resettlement among the residents of the peninsula, civil societies said in a message to local media Sunday. Sinhala and Muslim people who had resided in Jaffna peninsula before displacement are welcome to resettle providing they produce the legal documents for their properties in Jaffna peninsula, the message said. Attempting to encroach the lands near Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps in the peninsula to settle Sinhala families will only lead to ethnic confrontations, the message further said.
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Birth centenary of V. Navaratnam, pioneer of Tamil Eelam polity

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 October 2010, 05:35 GMT]
18 October 2010 is the birth centenary of V. Navaratnam, doyen of the Tamil Eelam cause and founder leader of Thamizhar Chuyaadchik Kazhakam (TCK) in the late 1960s. TamilNet interviewed him in July 2005 when he was 95 years old. He passed away on 22 December 2006. Eezham Tamils and Sinhalese could never live under one government, even a confederation will not work and separation is the only way, he asserted in his interview. When his party contested the 1970 election there was only a little support. He was criticized for dividing the vote bank of the Federal Party. But within a few years all the mainstream Tamil political parties fell in line with his polity. The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 was a copy of his party manifesto, said Mr. Navaratnam. His interview in voice is reproduced here.
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Amnesty to begin campaign on SLA execution of Trincomalee students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 October 2010, 18:41 GMT]
With the fifth anniversary of the massacre of five Tamil students in Trincomalee beach by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers approaching on January 2nd, Amnesty International (AI), the human rights watchdog has embarked on a postcard campaign "to use this case as an example of the ongoing lack of accountability in Sri Lanka," according to the U.S. Director of Amnesty Jim McDonald. AI researchers plan to use the campaign as the focus of a broader effort to highlight the need for an independent international investigations into Sri Lanka's war crimes.
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‘Sinhala Only’ imposed on name boards in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 October 2010, 08:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka government Road Development Authority (RDA) in Eastern Province using only Sinhala language in the name boards reveals the intention of Sri Lanka government to impose the ‘Sinhala Only’ Act again, Batticaloa residents said. The name board of the road to Vaakarai from Batticaloa is written only in Sinhala language and despite the request made by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa parliamentarian Pon. Selvarasa to RDA to include the names in Tamil and English languages in August in the Vaakarai Development Meeting, the name board remains with the Sinhala name only.
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Uprooted families due to SLA offensives in East denied assistance

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 October 2010, 06:48 GMT]
Vanthaa’rumoolai Village Development Society president, bearing witness before Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat in Batticaloa said that even basic facilities are denied to the families uprooted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives, now resettled. Ms. Subramaniam Vijayaladchumy, the president, told the LLRC that paddy fields and lands of Tamils in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat area are being encroached by Muslims and requested the LLRC to take action to stop the encroachment.
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US War Crimes Unit receives list of Sri Lanka's missing Tamil surrendees

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 21:32 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, submitted to the War Crimes unit of the U.S. Department of State, a list of persons known to have surrendered to the Government of Sri Lanka forces in the final stages of the war in the first five months of 2009 and who remain missing in custody as of October 2010. The list was compiled from witness statements and interview data collected by Tamil Diaspora groups in the UK.
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