Mahinda Rajapaksa’s effigy burnt in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 10:38 GMT]
Political parties including Naam Thamizhar Iyakkam, Viduthalai Chiruththaikal Kadchchi and supporters of the people of Tamil Eelam burnt the effigy of Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa in several places in Tamil Nadu Thursday protesting against Indian government for having invited Mahinda Rajapaksa as an Honoured Guest on the final day of the Commonwealth Games 2010 in New Delhi, sources in Chennai said. The protestors carried out their demonstration defying the ban on the demonstration imposed by Tamil Nadu police. Vaiko, the leader of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) vehemently condemned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi for having invited Mahinda Rajapaksa in the demonstration in Koavai.
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Sri Lankan police fail to protect harassed female ex-combatant

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 09:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka police in Veala’nai in the islets of Jaffna have ignored the complaints made by a former underage female member of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on attempts made by a gang of ten men on 09 October to abduct and sexually abuse her in her relative’s house in Veala’nai. IOM and UNICEF officials who had facilitated her release from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention camp and placed her in the custody of her relatives too have not taken steps to protect her from being intimidated by her tormentors even in Jaffna Teaching Hospital where she is admitted for treatment, the girl said. The family members who had given her refuge had been attacked by the gang and injured when they tried to protect the girl.
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EP Chief Minister abets appropriation of Tamils’ lands – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 07:30 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian P. Selvarasa accused the Chief Minister of Eastern Province, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias (Pillayan), for not taking any action against lands belonging to Tamils being encroached by Sinhala and Muslim people. Selvarasa, speaking as the chief guest in an event of the release of a CD titled ‘Gone with the Waves’ in Periya Kallaa’ru in Batticaloa district, raised the accusation. Repeated complaints made to the Chief Minister remain ignored as the colonization of Sinhala and Muslims in the lands of the Tamils continue unchecked, the MP said.
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Canada will urge SL to propose solution to ethnic issue

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 06:24 GMT]
Canada Deputy Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Mr. Tred Jacques, who is on a visit to Jaffna told the representatives of the Jaffna district Committee for Peace and Goodwill (CPG) that Canada will continue to urge Sri Lanka government to forward a solution to the ethnic issue when he met them at Jaffna Bishop House. Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, Bishop of Jaffna presided over the meeting with the visiting emissary, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Inter Religious Assembly for Peace (IRAP) from South consisting Buddhist priests inaugurated a branch of IRAP in Thiruma’rai Kalaamant’ram Hall in Jaffna Thursday in an event presided by Prof. Pon. Balasundarampillai, former Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University. More than a hundred Buddhist priests participated in the inauguration.
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HRW, ICG, Amnesty reject invite, slam LLRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 15:25 GMT]
Three leading international organizations will not accept an invitation to testify before a Sri Lankan government commission because it lacks the ability to advance accountability for war crimes, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and Amnesty International said in a joint letter to Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission that was released Thursday. The LLRC was set up by President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government, whose military campaign against the Liberation Tigers concluded in early 2009 with the massacre in systematic shelling of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. “"This Commission is nothing more than a cynical attempt by Sri Lanka to avoid a serious inquiry that would bring genuine accountability,” HRW’s Kenneth Roth said.
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Abducted Tamil jeweler released on payment of ransom, in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 09:45 GMT]
The unknown persons who had abducted the owner of a jewelry shop in Sea Street in Colombo Wednesday around 7:15 p.m on Green Street in Kotahena released him around midnight after his family members paid the demanded ransom of 50 million rupees, sources in Colombo said.
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Tamil man found dead in Kalmunai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 08:25 GMT]
Kalmunai police recovered Thursday morning the body of a Tamil man from the bank of a river in Cheanaikkudiyiruppu in Kalmunai police division in Batticaloa district.
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Complaints against SLA, paramilitary groups made to LLRC in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 06:00 GMT]
Majority of the complaints made to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Eastern Province are related to persons disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit personnel, and the paramilitary groups of Pillayan (Eastern Province Chief Minister) and Karuna (Sri Lanka Deputy Minister of Resettlement), sources in Batticaloa said. 490 complaints had been made to LLRC Monday in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat and six of them were confidential. Meanwhile, the families of disappeared persons in Batticaloa district accused that the LLRC has narrowed down its scope of action only to a selected number of years thus conveniently keeping out the genocide of Tamils in several villages of Batticaloa district in which hundreds of persons had been taken away by Sri Lanka armed forces and the paramilitary groups that operate with them.
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Police instructs Tamils in Colombo to register their presence

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 05:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka police conducting a search in Narahenpitiya Flats in Colombo instructed the Tamil residents to register their presence anew with the police. They told the residents that application forms are available in all the police stations in Colombo and all Tamil residents should register the presence of all the persons living in their houses with their respective police stations. Though the war has ended Sri Lanka government imposes similar conditions only on Tamils every time the State of Emergency in extended in Parliament causing nervousness, fear and dissatisfaction among them, Tamils residents in Colombo said.
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Indian Secretary General leads Commonwealth away from human rights

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 00:13 GMT]
Another instance of key persons in international organisations sabotaging international norms of humanity came to light when The Guardian leaked last Friday a document of the Commonwealth Secretariat. This time it was the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, an Indian national heading the organisation telling his staff that it was not their job to speak out against the human rights abuses of the 54 member states. The Secretary General ignored calls from secretariat staff urging him to express concern at least, when abuses were committed in member states in recent years, The Guardian said, citing specific cases including the course of war in the island of Sri Lanka. "All those cases were all about the values the Commonwealth is supposed to stand for and we failed," according to a staff member.
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Kanatta

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 October 2010, 17:06 GMT]
The patch of little jungle in the elevated ground
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HRW discusses Sri Lanka war-crimes in Harvard event

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 October 2010, 12:53 GMT]
In a talk titled "Prosecuting War Crimes in Sri Lanka: “No Reconciliation without Justice” at the Harvard Law School earlier this week, James Ross, Legal and Policy Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), discussed options available for prosecuting war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the war in 2009 in seeking justice to the victims. The event well attended by students and several Boston area Tamils heard Ross describe how HRW exhausted all options to stop the mass killings during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka where more than 300,000 Tamil civilians were holed up along with Tamil Tiger units in a narrow stretch of beach front.
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Former LTTE spokesman Ilanthirayan’s wife bears witness before LLRC

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 October 2010, 06:13 GMT]
“I have not seen my husband after Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers took him away saying that he was to be given medical treatment and I do not know what had happened to him,” Vanitha Ilanthirayan, the wife of former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spokesman Ilanthirayan (Rasiah Sivaroopan), said bearing witness before the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) Saturday in Batticaloa District Government Secretariat. Meanwhile, Bobby, the wife of former LTTE Commander of Batticaloa district Piraba (Krishnapillai Pirabakaran), told the LLRC that she has no information of her husband who was taken away by SLA soldiers when they came along with the people to the SLA controlled Vadduvaakal area in Mullaiththeevu district when the war ended, sources in Baticaloa said.
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Tamil daily reporter attacked in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 October 2010, 05:22 GMT]
Unidentified men arriving on a motorcycle attacked the Addaa’laichcheanai reporter of Tamil national daily Virakesari Thursday noon on Addaa’laichcheanai Main Street in Akkaraipattu police division in Ampaa’rai district. The seriously injured reporter, S. M. Arooz, is admitted to Paalamunai hospital with severe chest pain, hospital sources said. The reporter said that he was attacked by supporters of a prominent political party which is a constituent of Sri Lanka government, according to his complaint to Akkaraipattu police.
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Sri Lanka has abandoned all efforts to solve ethnic issue – CPG

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 October 2010, 06:08 GMT]
The Jaffna district Committee for Peace and Goodwill (CPG) said that Sri Lanka government has abandoned all its efforts to find a solution for the ethnic issue and that the Indian government maintains silence over the issue, when the Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Mr. Ashok K. Kantha met the CPG Thursday at the Bishop House in Jaffna. India has forgotten the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the 13th Amendment in the context of the defeat of Liberation Tigers, CPG further said. The Indian High Commissioner in response to the accusation said that India continues to urge Sri Lanka government to propose a solution for the ethnic issue that can give hope for the Tamils, sources in Jaffna said.
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Sinhala men continue to intimidate Tamil cultivators in Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 October 2010, 08:14 GMT]
Sinhala men continue to intimidate the Tamil cultivators in the Tamil villages located on the boundaries of the districts of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai in Eastern Province preventing them from cultivating their paddy fields, P. Selvarasa, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian said. The Tamil cultivators uprooted from their villages due to war had resettled in their places after a period of 25 years during which the Sinhala men from their neighboring villages had appropriated most of their paddy fields, he said. Recently, Sinhala men had attacked two Tamil cultivators and chased them away from their own properties, the MP further said. No action has been taken on this issue though the TNA parliamentarians of Batticaloa district has brought it to the notice of it to the Government Agent of Batticaloa, he said.
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Colombo takes control of historic Kanniyaa hot wells in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 October 2010, 06:08 GMT]
The Government Agent of Trincomalee Major General (retired) Ranjith de Silva Tuesday stopped the Trincomalee Town and Gravets Pradesya Saba (PS) from maintaining the historic Kanniyaa Hot Wells stating that it belongs to the Department of Archaeology. The Government Agent (GA) also directed his men to remove the name board put up by the Pradesya Saba stating that the ancient King Raava'nan founded the hot wells and constructed the Pi’l’laiyaar temple to conduct the 31st day ritual ('Anthiraddi' rites) to his deceased mother. The Hindus in this region conduct "Anthiraddi" rites in memory of their deceased kith and kin.
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SL government prioritizes tourism neglecting rehabilitation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 October 2010, 08:15 GMT]
While the people of Jaffna peninsula having lost their lives, properties, livelihoods and being uprooted due to war suffer without any assistance, Sri Lanka government is bent on turning Jaffna peninsula into a tourist place for the Sinhala people in the South, Non Government Organizations (NGOs) in Jaffna pointed out, in the context of the opening ceremony of a new road to the newly built tourist complex in Casuarina Beach in Kaarainakar in Jaffna, by key politicians and officials of Sri Lanka government, Wednesday. The funds allocated for the rehabilitation of war-affected people in the peninsula have been diverted to construct pleasure projects to please the Sinhala Buddhist people from the South by the Governor of Northern Province, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, they said. .
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SLA opens ‘luxury’ resort in occupied Tamil land

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 October 2010, 18:31 GMT]
A ‘tourist resort’ owned and managed by Sri Lanka Army was opened at Kaangkeasanthu’rai in the occupied ‘High Security Zone’ in the Jaffna Peninsula on Monday by Colombo’s Army commander Jagath Jayasuriya. The resort bears a Sinhala name ‘Thalsevana’. The HSZ there was created after evacuating several ancient villages of Tamils. On Sunday, the Army rejected all possibilities of resettling the displaced. The Army didn’t permit the re-opening of a Central College in the zone either. If a tourist resort could be opened there by the army, what is the meaning of continuing the area as HSZ, asked a person who is unable to even visit his house and land there. While Sri Lanka teaches new lessons to the world on genocide, there are some ‘responsible’ global bigwigs who advise Tamils not to call a spade, a spade, he further said.
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Colombo shuns Eastern province TNA parliamentarians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 October 2010, 17:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has failed to invite Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Eastern Province parliamentarians to the Eastern Provincial Development review meeting held Monday in the Naval Headquarters auditorium in Trincomalee presided by Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, P. Selvarasa, Batticaloa distirct TNA parliamentarian said. Shunning the representatives democratically elected by the people to participate in decision making meetings by Sri Lanka government reveals how very much it discriminates the Tamils, he added.
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