Sunday Leader Editor first witness in ‘white flag’ case

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 October 2010, 15:22 GMT]
Ms. Fredica Janz, Editor of the Sunday Leader, is listed as the first witness in the case against Sarath Fonseka, former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), related to the ‘White Flag’ issue. Fonseka, in an interview to the Sunday Leader, had alleged that Sri Lanka Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse had ordered not to spare any Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres surrendering with white flags but to shoot all of them dead. The case is scheduled to be taken up for inquiry before a three-member bench of the Colombo High Court presided by Deepali Wijesundera Monday.
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Police security to Jaffna Tamil daily strengthened

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 October 2010, 08:07 GMT]
Following threats to a Tamil daily in Jaffna by Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) led by Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda the editors had sought extra protection from Jaffna police and security to the office of the daily has been strengthened, media sources in Jaffna said. The daily had published Sunday, news related to the illegal sand excavation by EPDP firm ‘Maheswary Funds’ highlighting the appeal by the residents of Vadamaraadchi East to Jaffna District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to stop the sand excavation destroying large areas in Kudaththanai and Ma’natkaadu. EPDP men arriving in two buses had gathered in front of the daily’s office to demonstrate against the daily and to attack its office, sources in Jaffna said. However, the situation was brought to normalcy following the talks held between the editors of the daily and some of the EPDP men.
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Dublin follow-up on Sri Lanka war crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 October 2010, 15:33 GMT]
School of Law and Government of Dublin City University together with Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka are holding two events this week as follow-up to the Dublin war crimes tribunal on Sri Lanka held in January this year. Dublin findings issued at the end of the hearings said, Sri Lanka Government is "guilty of War-Crimes" and "guilty of Crimes Against Humanity." The tribunal also concluded that the charge of Genocide requires further investigations. Eye witnesses included several escapees from the final week of Sri Lanka offensive in the Mullaitivu "No Fire Zone" where more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were allegedly slaughtered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) training heavy weapons on them.
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EPDP Thinamurasu published as daily paper in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 October 2010, 03:14 GMT]
Thinamurasu, the Eealam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) weekly that was published in Colombo and issued in Jaffna peninsula by EPDP leader and Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda was released in Jaffna Friday as a daily when he opened his press located in Chu’ndikkuzhi on Jaffna main road. It is alleged that Douglas Devananda had coerced the editors and workers of former ‘Namathu Eezhanaadu’ daily which had stopped publishing, into working in his newly opened press, local media sources said.
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Swaminathan, Aswer nominated to PAC

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 October 2010, 08:54 GMT]
Two national list parliamentarians, a Muslim and a Tamil, have been nominated respectively by Sri Lanka Prime Minister and the opposition leader to the five-member Parliamentary Advisory Council (PAC) that is to be established under the 18th amendment to the constitution. The Prime Minister D. M. Jayaretna nominated A. H. M. Aswer from the national list of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the opposition nominated D. M. Swaminathan from the national list of the main opposition United National Party (UNP).
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Kuruwita, Kurunægala

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 October 2010, 02:57 GMT]
The small hill
The small rocky hill
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One-person dominated TGTE decided by narrow margin

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 October 2010, 01:49 GMT]
The question of one-person dominated leadership or collective leadership was not at all taken for voting in the TGTE Constitutional Assembly meeting held in New York Thursday and Friday, TGTE members told TamilNet. The voting took place only on the question of whether there should be three regional deputies or not. 42 voted in favour of having deputies and 41 voted against it. However, there was another voting to decide whether the ‘prime minister’ as ‘supreme leader’ nominating the three deputies or whether they should be elected by the Assembly. In this voting, 46 favoured the ‘prime minister’ to nominate the deputies and 43 voted against it. At a third voting, on the question of ‘prime minister’ appointing 7 cabinet ministers, there was no stiff opposition as 43 voted in favour, 28 opposed and 10 from Europe abstained in protest.
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Police order Kalmunai Muslim youths to surrender weapons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 September 2010, 16:07 GMT]
Officer-in-Charge of the Kalmunai Police warned this week that legal action will be taken against Muslim youths who fail to surrender their weapons and continue to engage in unlawful activities. Kalmunai Police have asked the Muslim youths who underwent military training under the leadership of late Muslim leader M. H. M. Ashraff to surrender their arms to the mosques in Kalmunai immediately to avoid arrest, legal action and imprisonment. During the second Eelam War that began on 11.06.1990 the Government of Sri Lanka gave military training to Muslim youths under the leadership of late M. H. M. Ashraff, founder President of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and provided them with machine guns.
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22 US, UK cities hold Sri Lanka boycott campaign

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 September 2010, 01:45 GMT]
Sixteen US cities and six UK cities held boycott Sri Lanka rally Saturday between 10 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. local time campaigning against buying clothing made in Sri Lanka. The rally gained momentum in California as students from Stanford University joined the rally in front of the Gap and Victoria's Secret stores, to signify beginning of a student movement across the US, said one of the organizers. "As long as the opression of the Tamil people and the occupation of their land continue, we will carry on with our anti-apartheid style campaign against the 21st century apartheid regime in Sri Lanka," one of the Stanford students attending the rally said.
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Fasting Sinhala Buddhist monk admitted to Batticaloa hospital

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 September 2010, 15:05 GMT]
Venerable Ambitiya Sumanaratna Thera, chief priest of the Batticaloa Mangalaramaya Vihare and the Deputy Chief Sanganayake of Batticaloa-Ampaarai district was taken to Batticaloa Teaching Hospital Tuesday night for emergency treatment as his condition was reported critical on the third day of his fast unto death campaign, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Buddhist monk on fast-unto-death, demands colonisation of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 September 2010, 09:26 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk, Ven. Ampitya Sumanaratna Thero, has been on a fast-unto-death campaign demanding construction of Buddhist temples in the predominantly Tamil-speaking Batticaloa district with Saivites, Christians and Muslims. The monk, who has on the fast-unto-death campaign for 3 days also demands appointment of Sinhala officers to Batticaloa District Secretariat, Divisional offices and Courts. The extremist monk said he would end his campaign only when Basil Rajapaksa, the brother of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, promises action on the demands and extends in person an apology for 'defaming' him in front of two former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders.
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Uprooted Tamils trying to resettle driven out by Sinhala men in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 September 2010, 05:41 GMT]
With the withdrawal of the Special Task Force (STF) camp in Oo’ra’ni in Ampaa’rai district 30 August, the Tamil families uprooted in 1990 by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) which had begun to resettle in their own places have been driven away by Sinhala men, sources in Ampaa’rai said. The affected families blame the Chief Minister of Eastern Province, Sivanesathurai Chanthirakanthan alias Pillayan for allowing lands of Tamils being appropriated for Muslim and Sinhala families in the name of creating amity between ethnic communities in Eastern Province and ask as how he is going to stop the Sinhala men chasing them from their own places.
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SL government appropriates Tamils’ lands in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 September 2010, 05:48 GMT]
Aaraiyampathi Social Development Organization (ASDO) in Batticaloa district alleged Sri Lanka Deputy Minister M. L. A. M Hisbulla of converting lands of the Tamils in Kaangkeayanoadai village into a Muslim village in the name of ‘The Village of Peace’ with funds from Iranian government. The foundation stone has been laid for this purpose without the knowledge of the Local Government Body (LGB) of the area and it is said that Muslim families of Kaaththaankudi are to be settled in the village to be built, T. Mahendran, the Secretary of ASDO said.
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Tamil man killed in accident in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 September 2010, 04:34 GMT]
A Tamil man died Monday around 6:20 p.m when his motorbike collided against a lamp post on his way from Batticaloa to Kalmunai. He died on the spot, Batticaloa police said.
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Keeping TGTE transnational

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 September 2010, 00:25 GMT]
The TGTE should be true to the transnational spirit and need. It has to function independently and transnationally. Parallel secretariats in federal spirit, in feasible locations across the world, and members meeting in those different locations are important to its image and spirit. Another major issue the members of the TGTE may have to consider is guarding TGTE against one-person leadership or one-time democracy. The apex leadership being collective has some advantages in formative or transition situations. Contrary to the propaganda of oppressors and defeatism of pessimists, spirited people among ordinary folk and serious elite expect a lot from TGTE. But polity and leadership don’t come from the blues. They manifest only from the realities of the structure and capacity of a society.
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Batticaloa district ignored in post-war 'development'

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 September 2010, 11:38 GMT]
“Colombo Central authority is taking steps to issue water from Unnichchai Tank in Batticaloa district to Sinhala people disregarding appeal made on behalf of Tamil people to the authority concerned. Colombo government has begun suspending 'development' works in Paduvaankarai area and plans to allocate lands in the area to foreign companies and the resources entitled for Tamil people are being given to the Sinhala community. The Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) and its Governor are answerable and should bear responsibility for the injustice done to Tamil people in the area,” R. Thurairatnam, member of the EPC said.
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Moon, Rajapaksa nexus to restrict UN panel mandate on Sri Lanka war-crimes?

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 September 2010, 02:33 GMT]
The statement made by the United Nations spokes person and the news release from Sri Lanka's President office, after the meeting between the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New York Friday raised doubts if there is any collusion between the two officials to interfere with the mandate by the UN appointed war-crimes advisory panel, a report filed by Inner City Press strongly suggested. While, Ban ignored mentioning the "advisory panel," and clarified that he was updated on Sri Lanka's own Reconciliation commission, Sri Lanka's statement said: "UN panel is “in no way empowered to investigate charges against Sri Lanka.”
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Police, SLA search for buried weapons in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
Koappaay police, assisted by hundreds of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, engaged in a search operation Sunday in a pond in the surroundings of a Pi’l’laiyaar temple located in Ka'l'liyang-kaadu in Jaffna claiming that a cache of weapons was buried in the pond. Though the search with the use of water pumps to drain out the water continued until evening no weapons were recovered. The Officer-in Charge of Koappaay police station said that some sources had informed of the weapons buried in the pond. He said the search will continue Monday.
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India's reasons for banning LTTE false, fabricated: Vaiko tells Tribunal

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 September 2010, 14:55 GMT]
MDMK leader Vaiko on Friday appeared before New Delhi’s Tribunal set to hear petitions against the ban of the LTTE in India, to argue that he should be involved in the hearing and to plead that the ban extended by the Central Government on 14 May 2010 should not be confirmed by the Tribunal. The very first reason given by GOI for the ban that the Tamil Eelam objective of the LTTE includes Tamil Nadu, falls to the ground to pieces as the LTTE never wanted to annex an inch of land of Tamil Nadu, Vaiko said, adding that GOI’s reasons are totally fabricated with falsehood. The Tribunal judge Vikramjit Sen was specific in raising the question “Don’t they [the LTTE] want to annex Tamil Nadu or part of India with Tamil Eelam?”
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Colombo bans explosives to Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 September 2010, 08:45 GMT]
Amidst suspicions arising about circumstances leading to dynamite blast at Karadiyan-aa’ru police station that killed around 62 and injured more than a hundred, the Colombo government has banned explosives reaching Batticaloa district for blasting rocks for road construction, reports from Batticaloa said. Meanwhile, eyewitness accounts confirm that a big number of dead bodies were taken away by SL armed forces that reached the spot shortly after the blast. Colombo maintains that only 21 killed and around 70 injured.
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